by Rachel Field
She could not say more than this for some days to come, not indeed till Joel’s leg was beginning to mend and they were all breathing more easily again. Aunt Hepsa and one of the men came over each day with food and soothing herbs to quiet the sick man’s pain, and it was to them and Dolly that she finally confided the story of her Christmas Eve meeting with the Indian. She confessed this timidly, though no one raised a word of blame against her. Their praise was very sweet, even if she still continued to feel that they must be talking of another girl when they spoke proudly of what she had done.
“What beats me,” Aunt Hepsa asked her more than once, “is how you come to think o’ such a thing as that Maypole?”
But Marguerite could not tell her. She did not know herself.
“It just came into my mind,” she could only answer lamely.
She did not tell them that she mourned the loss of her red cloth. She could not help remembering how smooth and rich it had been, and how she planned to cut and sew it. But perhaps Hepsa Jordan guessed this, for one day she brought over the half-made patchwork quilt and put all the pieces into Marguerite’s lap.
“There,” she said in answer to the girl’s questioning look, “I want you should have it for your own.”
“But—but not the ‘Delectable Mountains’?” Marguerite touched the jagged blues and buffs with an awed forefinger.
“It’s yours, to finish an’ keep,” the old woman insisted. “You always did fancy that pattern right from the first, an’ I don’t know who’s earned a better right to it. There, now, don’t you say a word,” she added at the girl’s bewildered thanks. “When it’s all pieced I’ll help you quilt it, an’ then you’ll have one thing ready against the time you marry.”
Dolly and the children came out on the doorstep to see and admire the deep blue patches fitting so neatly into the buff ones. Marguerite’s hands trembled with eagerness to take the first stitches in it.
“I should like to make a ballad about it,” she said as she bent over the squares, “like ‘Calico Bush.’”
“Maybe you will, child,” Aunt Hepsa nodded, “an’ maybe you’ll be in one yourself someday. I wouldn’t wonder but what after we’re all dead an’ gone folks’ll sail by here an’ look over to that point an’ ask how it come to be called The Maypole.’ Yes,” she told them, “Seth’s written it in so on his chart, an’ I guess that’s how it’ll be called.”
They sat for a long time in the sun, busy with work and talk. Nearby the children moved about. They were making a little garden in the yard, setting out some slips from Sunday Island under the old woman’s direction. Now and again Dolly Sargent came from the sick man’s room to stand a moment in the doorway.
“Joel’s frettin’ over his crops again,” she said. “He’s fearful Ira won’t get back in time to tend ’em, but I tell him long’s I can see the young ones all safe an’ in sight—”
She broke off as her eyes went past the busy children to Debby’s little mound at the edge of the clearing. Marguerite and Hepsa Jordan followed her look and knew what she must be thinking.
“What the earth covers we must forget,” the old woman told her, her words fitting themselves to the click of her knitting needles in such a way that they went deep into the girl’s mind, till she found herself inwardly repeating them—“What the earth covers we must forget.”
“Yes, I guess that’s how it has to be,” sighed Dolly, and she moved heavily back into the house.
It was almost June again when the Fortunate Star hove in sight, her sails square and shining as she made for the Channel between the outer islands. Marguerite was at work in the cornfield when Jacob ran to her with the news, and she set down the hoe and sped with him to join the rest. They gathered on the point in an eager little group, from which one or another would break away to bring news of the ship’s progress to Joel Sargent, who still lay bound to his bed.
“How long since she sailed away, Maggie?” the children kept asking her.
“Five weeks an’ three days tomorrow,” she told them when she had counted over the marks on the doorpost.
Now she was heading in, keeping to the seaward side of Sunday Island the better to clear the ledges. They could see her topsails like square-cut clouds, moving behind the tallest trees, and it seemed she would never come to anchor off their eastern point.
“I declare it lifts the heart right up in me to see her,” said Dolly. “Seems like I couldn’t ‘a’ waited another day.”
None of them thought of food, though it was long past noon before the boats were lowered and the men rowed in.
“There they are,” shouted Jacob, “I can see Uncle Ira an’ Caleb in the first boat!”
A queer shyness overcame Marguerite as she watched them land. She hung back from the rest, conscious of her old dress and bare feet. It was different now that they had been to such far ports as Portsmouth, Salem and Boston. Besides, she could see that Caleb was inches taller than he had been. He wore a man’s coat, and his breeches were tucked into rough boots such as the others had. He carried himself like a man, too, and swung a heavy pack easily across his shoulders.
“Hey, Maggie,” he called out as he spied her, and his voice was deep for all that his hair and freckles were unchanged.
They talked so late that night that Jacob and Patty fell fast asleep with their hands clutching the wooden top and jumping jack one of the sailors had made for them. There were presents for everyone—cloth and needles for Dolly; a china mug for each of the twins, and for Marguerite a box with a bird painted on the lid.
“I was all for gettin’ Maggie some yarn or calico,” Ira explained when it was brought out, “but Caleb was sure she’d fancy this better.”
Caleb flushed darkly at this reference.
“Looked like ’twas some kind of a foreign popinjay,” was all he would say, but he took pains to show her that a glass bead had been cunningly set in the wood to represent the bird’s eye.
“It is beautiful,” she told him, “and I shall take care to keep it indoors where the real birds will not grow jealous of its more handsome feathers.”
She could not bear to put it away for the night or to shut out the sight of the well-stocked shelves and cupboard. It had been a good voyage, and Ira was sure that when he had the crops harvested in the fall, the Captain would take him on another, which would mean he could start saving toward the house he planned to build for Abby on his land. He was bringing her a coral pin, which Dolly considered a shameless piece of extravagance. Long after Marguerite and the children were under their covers she heard the voices talking on and on around Joel’s bed, and she guessed from fragments that came to her through the open door that Dolly was enlarging on what the children had told of the Indian raid. She fell asleep at last, but not till she had heard Ira and Caleb climb to their old place in the loft overhead. It comforted her to hear the wood creak under their feet once more.
The Fortunate Star was to stay off their point for another day while the crew rested and carried fresh water aboard. The children were up at sunrise in their eagerness to make sure it was still there. Marguerite slipped out with them in the early light. The water was a quiet stretch of silver on which the vessel loomed dark and ghostly, with all its canvas reefed and each line and mast black against the brightness. It seemed strange to see it there, resting so easily and at home off their point, and to know that before another night no trace would be left to show that it had ever been there.
Once more there was plenty of meal and molasses for breakfast and fresh fish that Caleb had been out early to catch. Soon afterward the Channel began to be dotted with boats, for besides those on Sunday Island neighbors to the east and southwest had seen the vessel while she was still far out at sea and had rowed over to visit her. Timothy Welles had brought Abby along in his sloop; the Stanleys were all packed tight into their old dory, and Seth and Ethan Jordan were aboard the Fortunate Star early, bargaining with the master and mate for fresh supplies of food and such mercha
ndise as she carried from Boston. Ira and Caleb had promised to take the children aboard, and Marguerite would have gone with them but that Joel Sargent called to her from his bed.
“I want a word with you, Maggie,” he said, and the seriousness of his manner filled her with alarm as she went in to stand before him.
Joel Sargent was not given to many words, least of all to her, and she had been too busy looking after the children and working about the house to exchange many with him since his accident. He was beginning to look more like himself, she thought, as he lay there under the Rising Sun quilt, but his face was still gaunt and his eyes deeply sunken. It seemed strange to the girl to see his great, knotted hands stretched idle on the covers instead of grasping ax or plow.
“How old have you got to be now, Maggie?” he asked her.
“Thirteen,” she told him, “I will be fourteen by next November.”
“Yes,” he said, “I took you at twelve an’ you’re bound-out to me for six years till you’re eighteen. You recollect how ’twas agreed back in Marblehead?”
She nodded wonderingly, and waited for him to continue.
“You’ve been a good girl, Maggie,” he told her, “an’ a brave one. I ain’t said much, but I know grit when I see it, an’ you’ve got more’n your share.” She flushed with pleasure, and after a slight pause he went on. “I’ve talked it over with Dolly an’ Ira. We want to do the right thing by you, an’ it seems only fair to let you go to your folks when the chance comes.”
“But I have none,” Marguerite replied. “They are dead.”
“I know,” he explained. “’Twas your own people I meant. You see, it’s this way. The Fortunate Star is headin’ for the Saint Lawrence an’ Quebec. There’s fightin’ up that way between us an’ the French an’ Indians, but they’ll let her through because she’s fetchin’ supplies. Now the master’ll take you along too.”
“To Quebec?”
“Yes. It’s in French hands, an’ there’s a convent where they’d look out for you. I guess likely they’d ship you back to France if you wanted. Anyhow, you’d be with your own kind again.”
“You mean that you are freeing me from those papers they drew up when you took me to work for you?”
“Yes, you’ve earned your freedom. I’ll have the mate write it out so there’ll be no mistakin’ that. She sails with the tide, so you’ve got an hour or so to make yourself ready.”
“Oh, but you are good! You are kind!” Impulsively Marguerite caught up his hand from the bed and pressed it to her lips with a half-forgotten French gesture. “I will not forget it, but—but I must think first.”
“Very well,” he told her, “only don’t take too long about it, an’ remember it’s a chance that ain’t likely to come again.”
Her head was buzzing like a hive of bees as she went out of the house. It had all come about so quickly, and now she must make up her mind before the tide reached the line of brown kelp and driftwood along the pebble beach. Already the water was halfway there, and the outermost rocks of Old Horse Ledges were covered. As she stepped over the doorsill Pumpkin rose and pressed close to her, his muzzle laid to her hand, his nose moist against her fingers. Some sticks and bits of burr were caught in his fur, and she bent to pick them out.
“Poor fellow,” she said, “you were glad of your good breakfast, eh?”
He followed her over to the point, and they sat down together on the ground where bunchberry blossoms were beginning to show star-shaped white petals. By late July these would have turned to bright scarlet berries. The children would gather them and make wreaths and chains to wear as she had taught them, but she would not be there to see. It gave her a queer pang to think of this, and of their crops, and of the first apples on the little trees being gathered without her. Beside her, half-buried in leaves and flowers, the old Maypole lay as it had fallen the day the Indians had come. She could still see it with the fluttering strips of cloth. She could still feel the beating of her own heart as she forced herself to dance around it with the children.
Feeling inside her dress for Grand’mère’s gold ring, she drew it out and held it tightly between her two hands as if the touch of it must help her. Grand’mère would like her to go back to France; to be among French people once more. Of that she felt certain. She knew it would pain her to hear her granddaughter answer to a name like Maggie. Even more would it pain her to know that Marguerite had not set foot inside a church for more than a twelvemonth, and that it was as long again since her fingers had told rosary beads.
“One cannot remember when there is so much to be done,” she found herself saying as if in answer.
But if she returned to the Convent it would all come back to her—her prayers and her devotions, along with her skill with needle and thread. Joel Sargent had spoken of a convent in Quebec. Now that she thought of it she remembered to have heard mention of such a one by the Sisters in Le Havre. The most pious Mother Superior and Sisters had been sent to establish the faith in New France. They had carried their precious relics and bells across the sea with them. It was said that all was as devout and well ordered there as if the stones of the walls were not freshly hewn from the solid rock and under the shadow of wild forests at the edge of the wilderness. It would be good to be with the Sisters again; to move quietly, contentedly through the hours to the ringing of a chapel bell. Yes, she would like that, and yet—
The shouts of the children in the cove below broke into her thoughts. She sighed and turned her head away as if she would not let them batter so on the doors of her mind.
Over on Sunday Island a wisp of smoke rose from the Jordan chimney, and she knew Aunt Hepsa must be busy over her fire. She had only to shut her eyes to picture that pleasant kitchen and the old woman bending over her pots or loom or quilting frame. Even the Sisters in the convent in Le Havre were not so wise and kind as Aunt Hepsa. How could she go away, with the blue and buff quilt unfinished and all the summer’s wool to be spun and woven? If she went now she would not see the laurel grow pink in the upper pasture, nor hear again the ballad of “Calico Bush.”
The children were waving and calling to her from the water. Their shrill voices came clearly on the air as Ira and Caleb rowed them back to shore. Pumpkin rose and barked a response. She, too, rose involuntarily. They would be hungry, and most likely Caleb would have fish for her to cook. She turned to go back over the rough ground to the house, her bare feet knowing the hollow and rooty places so that she had no need to look down as she went.
They were hoisting the sales of the Fortunate Star. She could see some of the men climbing aloft and others on deck and rowing between it and the cove. Already it seemed straining against the anchor chains that held it fast. As she thought of it moving out of the Channel and herself on board, she felt suddenly chill and lonely. It was as if she had died and all the life of this place of which she had been part was going on without her.
“Maggie,” the children were running up the steep bank to meet her, “Caleb says you’re goin’ away, but you wouldn’t, would you?”
Jacob was the first to reach her, the scar on his forehead showing more white and jagged because his face was so red and breathless.
“You ain’t goin’ away on the vessel?” he panted, catching at her hand. “Say you ain’t!”
“No,” she heard herself telling him quietly, “I shall stay right here and cook your dinner.”
It was late afternoon before the Fortunate Star got clear of the ledges and nearer islands. They watched her from the point till her sails were no more than a bright speck in the northeast.
“She’s headin’ round by those French hills you fancy so, Maggie,” Ira pointed out. “Sure you ain’t sorry you’re not aboard her?”
Marguerite shook her head with a faint smile.
“Ma says you’re foolish not to take the chance when you had it,” Susan told her, pressing close, “but she’s glad you didn’t, an’ I am too.”
“So am I!” echoed Becky. “A
in’t you glad, too, Caleb?”
“Well, maybe I am an’ maybe I ain’t!” he told them, wrinkling his face up in the impish grin Marguerite had once so dreaded. “But anyhow she’s got more sense ’n the lot o’ you put together!”
“Now it’s out o’ sight!” cried Jacob, running toward the house with the news.
Marguerite lingered on the point after the rest had gone. The air was spicy with salt and fresh bay leaves. Soon the sun would be going down behind the islands, but just in these few moments before it disappeared the line of Mount Desert hills stood out very deep and blue—almost as blue, she thought, as the “Delectable Mountains” on her quilt pattern.
BOOKS BY RACHEL FIELD
HITTY: HER FIRST HUNDRED YEARS
HEPATICA HAWKS
PRAYER FOR A CHILD
POEMS
CALICO BUSH
