The Camp Fire Girls on a Yacht

  CHAPTER XV

  TIM'S MOTHER AND DETAILS

  Mrs. Reynolds always insisted that she belonged on Nantucket Island,although she had been born and reared on the mainland.

  "It would take centuries of exile to get a Coffin to acknowledge anyother spot as home," she would say.

  She had inherited a beautiful old house on the main street ofNantucket Town and it had been almost a religion with her to keep thathouse as her grandmothers for generations had kept it. Not a moderntouch was allowed to profane the lovely simplicity of that islandhome. Her regret was that only the summers could be spent there. Shewould have enjoyed it the whole year round and she resented Mr.Reynolds' large law practice that compelled his presence in Boston.

  In Boston, Mrs. Reynolds was a fashionable, handsomely dressed woman,but the moment she entered her ancestral halls she changed her costlyattire for a gown of severe simplicity more in keeping with thepainted floors, rag rugs and cane-bottomed chairs found therein. Shemight have been her own great-grandmother in her sprigged muslin dresswith a hemstitched kerchief crossed over her loyal Coffin bosom. Theretinue of servants the Reynolds family found necessary in Boston toadminister to their wants were left on the mainland. Ruling in theirstead was one severe-looking person who claimed distant relationshipwith Mrs. Reynolds since they boasted the same great-great-grandmotherCousin Esther Sylvester was her name. She was the maid of all work,accomplishing with the utmost ease and precision the labor of cook,laundress, and housemaid, and at the same time never forgetting thatshe was of the same blood as the mistress. The fact that her cousin'sgrandfather had left the island and gone over on the mainland,amassing a fortune, made not a whit of difference to the independentEsther, whose grandfather had stayed where he was and, at least, keptwhat he had, which was a fourth share in a very likely whaling vesseland an extremely picturesque fisherman's cottage at Siasconset. Estherhad inherited this property and, like her grandfather, she had held onto it. She still owned a fourth share in the whaling vessel and thepicturesque cottage at 'Sconset. To be sure, the whaling vessel wasrotting at the Nantucket wharf, a mute reminder that the wheels of theworld no longer had to be greased with sperm oil. The cottage hadproved a much more valuable asset, as she rented it every summer forlarge sums to a great actress who delighted in its simplicity and theview one could get from its crooked little windows of the quaint oldvillage streets.

  Mrs. Reynolds and Cousin Esther had not only the samegreat-grandmothers but also the same insatiable curiosity about thesmall and seemingly unimportant details of everyday life. Perhaps itwas something that had been bred in the bones of the originalNantucket Islanders when, in old days, they had been cut off from theworld for months at a time and their own affairs and the affairs oftheir neighbors were of all importance because of the fact that theaffairs of the nation were stale long before they were brought totheir ears. The fact that Amanda Bartlett had broken her best Cantonchina teapot was a current event while the news that the men of Bostonhad thrown the tea into the bay at the famous Boston Tea Party wasdays old before they heard of it.

  The telegram telling of Tim's accident had thrown Mrs. Reynolds andCousin Esther Sylvester into a great state of excitement. Not onlywere they very uneasy about their darling boy but they did so want toknow how and when and where the accident had occurred. Who had rescuedhim? Which leg was broken, etc., etc., etc. Who were the mysteriouspersons who had sent the lengthy telegram, evidently not at allcounting the cost? How did they happen to be at Hurricane Island? Werethey white people? If so, why did they say their yacht was named sucha strange outlandish name, "Boojum!" Surely the telegraph operatormust have got it wrong. Perhaps they were Fiji Islanders and not whitepersons after all. At any rate, they had rescued the beloved Tim andwere bearing him home in the yacht with the exotic name and the ladieswere determined to be as nice to them as could be.

  "Cousin Esther, you had better make extra preparations and be readyfor guests," suggested Mrs. Reynolds. "You know how Mr. Reynolds loseshis head when he begins to invite."

  "Certainly, Cousin Lucia. I have baked three kinds of pies and have acold joint in the larder. I calculate there will be food enough forall the Boojummers likely to land," said Miss Sylvester with somestiffness of manner. She did not at all like suggestions from hercousin-mistress.

  Up the quiet, shady street of Nantucket Town came the Boojummers. Mr.Reynolds led the way with Mr. Wing. Then came the stretcher bearers,Breck and Jack, the grinning Tim borne lightly between them. Theothers flocked around the point of interest not certain they shouldnot have stayed away and let Tim have his home-coming without such acrowd, but when this had been suggested, Mr. Reynolds made so manyprotestations there was nothing to do but tag along.

  "Well, when you come right down to it," said Mabel, "I guess thereisn't anybody to leave out. Father must go to receive thanks for beingnear by with the 'Boojum.' Of course, Jack and Breck must go to carryTim; Frances must go because she found him, and Jane must go becauseshe helped carry him; Ellen must go to look after Jack, and--"

  "And you and Charlie must go along to do the head work," teased Jane.

  "Exactly! Charlie must look after the legal aspect of the case and Imust look after Charlie."

  "Here they come! Here they come!" cried Mrs. Reynolds, peeping throughthe living-room window.

  "Yes, and it's a good thing I baked three kinds of pies," assertedCousin Esther, grimly. "I'll be bound Mr. Reynolds has invited them todinner."

  "How pale my Tim looks! I'm afraid I'm going to cry, Cousin Esther,although I know how he hates for me to."

  "Don't do it, Cousin Lucia, don't do it! Remember Great-great-AuntPatience who never shed a tear even when they brought home her threeboys all drowned off Sankity. Here's the smelling-salts. Now bear up!"

  Tim was pale in spite of a summer's tan. The stretcher bearers were ascareful as possible, but every little jolt was painful to thefractured hip.

  "It hurts I know," whispered Frances.

  "Not much, but thank you for thinking about it, all the same." Tim hadbeen wondering if any of them realized how much it did hurt.

  "Just think how Jane and I bumped you and be thankful our skirts arewhere they are instead of stretched on oars and you swung in themiddle."

  "I wonder if Mother is going to weep over me. Poor Mother! It does hergood to cry, but Cousin Esther is so stern with her when she givesway. Of course I'm not crazy about being cried over, but I can standit for the good of the cause. I can stand anything better thanMother's suppressed expression. There she is! Yes, she has hersuppressed expression!"

  Mrs. Reynolds came slowly from the door. Her instinct was to fly toher son and throw herself on him, take his red head in her arms andweep, but, remembering Great-great-Aunt Patience, she held on toherself, knowing full well the stern Cousin Esther was looking at herfrom the small-paned window.

  The mother bent over her boy, giving him a restrained peck. But he puthis arms around her and drew her close.

  "Come on, old lady, and don't be so Coffinish. Give us what ourSouthern friends call a 'sho nuf' kiss."

  That was too much for poor Mrs. Reynolds. Not only did she give Tim a"sho nuf" kiss but added to it a genuine hug, while the tears fellfast. What did she care after all for old Great-great-Aunt Patienceand her strength of character that kept her from shedding tears evenif her three sons were drowned off Sankity?

  "That's something like!" declared Tim. "Now you won't have to get aheadache from restrained emotion. Never mind Cousin Esther. She willforget it by the time she makes enough pies for all of us."

  Tim then proceeded, with the help of his father, to introduce all theBoojummers to his mother. After the formal introduction, he began withthe utmost patience to give a detailed account of the accident to theeager ladies, Cousin Esther having joined them in the living roomwhere the stretcher bearers had deposited their burden on a long, lowcouch.

  "And this is the one who found me," indicating Frances.

  "Do tell!" from Mi
ss Esther.

  "Now tell me how you found him," from Mrs. Reynolds. "How you foundhim and what you were doing there and how you happened to look behindthe rock--everything! everything! Don't leave out a thing."

  Frances proceeded with the narrative. When she got to the place whereshe went after Jane, her insatiate hostess exclaimed:

  "And you tell me what you were doing and what you thought and what yousaid; please, Jane!"

  With a twinkle in her eye, Jane took up the tale which seemed like agame of consequences. The improvised stretcher made its appearance inthe story and the distracted mother looked eagerly about as thoughexpecting the stretcher to tell all it knew.

  "Now this is where the petticoats come in!" exclaimed Mr. Reynolds."What did I tell you?"

  "You made a stretcher out of the oars and your skirts? Remarkable!Wonderful! What kind of skirts?"

  "These we are wearing!" Frances and Jane sounded like a Greek chorus.

  "Those identical ones?"

  "The same!"

  Cousin Esther, who was standing next to Frances, picked up a piece ofher skirt between thumb and forefinger and examined it critically.

  "What they call khaki nowadays," she said sententiously. "It is reallya kind of lightweight sail cloth."

  "And the oars! What kind of oars? I do wish I might have seen theoars."

  "Here's one of them," grinned Tim. "I've been lying on it all the wayhere and mighty uncomfortable it was, but I felt I must produce it."He proceeded to roll over a bit and pull gingerly at a little red oarthat had been concealed up to that moment. "Here it is. Exhibit B! Nowproceed!"

  "No wonder you were making faces as we came long," scolded Frances."Why didn't you let me carry the oar? It wasn't very good for a brokenhip."

  "Excuse me, please," put in Breck. "But none of this is very good fora broken hip. I'm not much of a doctor, but I'm the only one you havehad as yet and I really must insist, Mrs. Reynolds, upon my patient'sbeing put to bed and a real surgeon being called in to pass on mywork."

  "Oh, thunder, Breck! Not before grub!" grumbled Tim.

  All of them laughed at this and Mrs. Reynolds cried a little more.

  "Now you are my own boy again," she laughed through her tears.

  "You remind me, Mother, of Tennyson's lines," quoted Mr. Reynolds:

  "Home they brought her warrior dead; She nor swooned, nor uttered cry. All her maidens, watching, said, 'She must weep or she will die.'"

  "It seems to more like Sawyer's parody on Tennyson," suggestedFrances:

  "Home they brought her sailor son, Grown a man across the sea, Tall and broad and black of beard, And hoarse of voice as man may be.

  Hand to shake and mouth to kiss, Both he offered e're he spoke; But she said, 'What man is this Comes to play a sorry joke?'

  Then they praised him, called him 'smart.' 'Tightest lad that ever stept.' But her son she did not know, And she neither smiled nor wept.

  Rose a nurse of ninety years, Set a pigeon-pie in sight; She saw him eat--''Tis he! 'Tis he!' She knew him by his appetite!"