CHAPTER I
GEORGINA BEGINS HER MEMOIRS
UP the crooked street which curves for three miles around the harborcomes the sound of the Towncrier's bell. It seems strange that he shouldhappen along this morning, just as I've seated myself by this garretwindow to begin the story of my life, for it was the sound of his bellfive years ago which first put it into my head to write it. And yet, itisn't so strange after all, when one remembers the part the dear old manhas had in my past. "Uncle Darcy," as I've always called him, has beenmixed up with most of its important happenings.
That day, when I first thought of writing my memoirs, was in Springhouse-cleaning time, and I had been up here all morning, watching themdrag out old heirlooms from the chests and cubby-holes under therafters. Each one had a history. From one of the gable windows I couldlook down on the beach at the very spot where the Pilgrims first landed,and away over on the tongue of sand, which ends the Cape, I could seethe place where they say the old Norse Viking, Thorwald, was buried ninehundred years ago.
From this window where I am sitting, I looked down as I do now, on thenarrow street with the harbor full of sails on one side and the gardensof the Portuguese fishermen spread out along the other, like blocks in agay patchwork quilt. I remember as I stood looking out I heard UncleDarcy's bell far down the street. He was crying a fish auction. Andsuddenly the queer feeling came over me that I was living in astory-book town, and that I was a part of it all, and some day I mustwrite that story of it and me.
I did not begin it then, being only ten years old at that time and notstrong on spelling. It would have kept me continually hunting throughthe dictionary, or else asking Tippy how to spell things, and that wouldhave led to her knowing all. Her curiosity about my affairs is almostunbelievable.
But there is no reason why I should not begin it now. "The Life andLetters of Georgina Huntingdon" ought to make interesting reading someof these days when I am famous, as I have a right to expect, me beingthe granddaughter of such a great Kentucky editor as Colonel ClaytonShirley. To write is in my blood, although on the Huntingdon side it'sonly dry law books.
I am going to jot down all sorts of innermost things in this blank bookwhich will not be in the printed volume, because I might pass awaybefore it is published, and if any one else had to undertake it he coulddo it more understandingly if he knew my secret ambitions and my opinionof life and people. But I shall bracket all such private remarks withred ink, and put a warning on the fly-leaf like the one on Shakespeare'stomb: "Cursed be he who moves these bones."
He would have been dug up a thousand times, probably, if it had not beenfor that, so I shall protect the thoughts buried here between these redbrackets in the same way.
"Cursed be he who prints this part From the inmost sanctum of my heart."
Up to this time there has been little in my life important enough to putinto a record, so it is just as well that I waited. But now that thisawful war is going on over in Europe, all sorts of thrilling things maybegin to happen to us any minute. Father says there's no telling howsoon our country may be fighting, too. He thinks it's shameful wehaven't been doing our part all along. As he is a naval surgeon and hasbeen in the service so many years, he will be among the first to bedrawn into the thick of danger and adventure.
I am old enough now to understand what that will mean to us all, for Iam fifteen years and eleven months, and could easily pass for much olderif Barby would only let me put my hair up. Barby is the dearest motherthat ever lived, and I wouldn't for worlds appear to be criticizing her,but she _is_ a bit old-fashioned in some of her ideas about bringing upchildren. I believe she and Tippy would like to keep me the rest of mymortal life, "standing with reluctant feet where the brook and rivermeet," regardless of the fact that I am all ready to wade in and fullyable to do so.
I asked Tippy why nobody ever quotes that verse farther along in thepoem, which exactly expresses my sentiments:
"Then why pause with indecision, When bright angels in thy vision Beckon thee to fields Elysian?"
It stumped her to think of an answer for a moment, and she made anexcuse of putting the cat out, in order to give herself more time. Butwhen she came back all she had found to say was that I needn't thinkbeing grown up was any field Elysian. I was eating my white bread now,and if a girl only knew all that lay ahead of her she'd let well enoughalone. She'd wait for trouble to come to her instead of running to meetit.
Somehow I don't believe Tippy ever had any bright angels beckoning her,else she couldn't be so pessimistic about my growing up. I can't thinkof her as ever being anything but an elderly widow with her hair twistedinto a peanut on the back of her head. And yet she had a lover once, anda wedding day, or she couldn't be Mrs. Maria Triplett now. But it'simpossible to think of her as being gay fifteen and dancing down thestairs to meet the morning with a song. One feels that she met it with abroom, saying:
"Shall birds and bees and ants be wise While I my moments waste? O let me with the morning rise And to my duties haste."
She's said that to me probably as much as five hundred times. I shallbracket this part about her just as soon as I can get a bottle of redink. But how I'm going to account to her for having red ink in mypossession is more than I know.
That's the worst about being the only child in a family. They're all sofond of you and so interested in your sayings and doings, that theywatch every movement of your mind and body. You're like a clock in aglass case with your works open to the gaze of the older people. It'sall very well during the first years for them to keep tab on yourdevelopment, but the trouble is most relatives never seem to know whenyou're developed, and have reached the point where a little privacy isyour _right_. It's maddening to have to give a reason every time youturn around.
All the lives of noted people which I have read begin with the person'sbirthplace and who his parents were, and his early acts which showed hegave promise of being a genius. So I'll pause right here for a briefoutline of such things.
My name is Georgina Huntingdon. A name to be proud of--so Tippy hasalways impressed on me--and one hard to live up to. She used to show itto me on the silver christening cup that came down to me from thegreat-great-aunt for whom I am named. She'd take the tip of my finger inhers and solemnly trace the slim-looped letters around the rim, till Icame to feel that it was a silver name, and that I must keep it shiningby growing up unusually smart and good. That I owed it to the cup or thegreat-aunt or the Pilgrim monument or _something_, to act so as to addlustre to the name.
Tippy is a distant cousin on father's side. She has lived with us eversince Barby brought me up here from Kentucky, where I was born. Father,being a naval surgeon, was off in foreign ports most of the time, andBarby, being such a young and inexperienced mother, needed hercompanionship. Barby is lots younger than father. It was hard for her atfirst, coming away with just me, from that jolly big family down Southwho adored her, to this old Cape Cod homestead that had been boarded upso long.
Lonely and gray, it stands at the end of town, up by the breakwater,facing the very spot on the beach where the Pilgrims landed. One of themwas an ancestor of mine, so the big monument overlooking the harbor andthe tip of the Cape was put up partly in his honor.
Really, several pages might well be devoted to my ancestors, for one wasa minute-man whose name is in the history I studied at school. Hispowder-horn hangs over the dining-room mantel, and Tippy used to shameme with it when I was afraid of rats or the dark cellarway. If I wereasked to name three things which have influenced me most in arousing myambition to overcome my faults and to do something big and really worthwhile in the world, I'd name my christening cup, that Pilgrim monumentand the old powder-horn.
With such a heritage it is unthinkable that I should settle down to anordinary career. Something inside of me tells me that I am destined tomake my name an honored household word in many climes. I've considereddoing this in several ways.
It might be well to mention he
re that my earliest passion was for thestage. That will explain why quotations came so trippingly from mytongue at times. I learned yards and yards of poems and Shakespeare'splays for declamation, and I'm always given one of the leading parts inthe amateur theatricals at the High School or the Town Hall. My looksmay have something to do with that, however. As it might seem conceitedfor me to describe myself as my mirror shows me, I'll just paste somenewspaper clippings on this page describing different plays I've beenin. Several of them speak of my dark eyes and glowing complexion, alsomy "wealth of nut-brown curls," and my graceful dancing.
But in my Sophomore year at High School I began to feel that literaturemight be my forte, even more than acting. R. B. (which initials willstand for "red brackets" until I get the ink). The reason for thatfeeling is that my themes in English were always marked so high thatthe class nicknamed me "Abou ben Ahdem."
Last summer I began a novel called "Divided," which the girls were crazyabout. It was suggested by Jean Ingelow's poem by that name and isawfully sad. Really, it kept me so depressed that I found I wasn't halfenjoying my vacation. I simply lived the heroine's part myself.
Now that I am a Senior, it seems to me that Journalism offers a greaterfield than fiction. We had a debate last term which convinced me of it.George Woodson had the affirmative, and I didn't mind being beatenbecause he used grandfather for one of his arguments, and said so manynice things about his editorials being epoch-making and his inspiredphrases moulding public opinion, and being caught up as slogans by allparties, leading on to victory. He spoke, too, of them being quoted notonly by _Punch_ and the London _Times_, but by papers in France andAustralia.
R. B. (I am fully determined either to write the leading novel of thecentury, or to own and edit a newspaper which shall be a world-power.)
The seashore was my first schoolroom. Barby taught me to write in thesand and to spell words with shells and pebbles. I learned Arithmetic byadding and subtracting such things as the sails in the harbor and thegulls feeding at ebb-tide. On stormy days when we were home-bound, Icounted the times the fog-bell tolled, or in the early dark counted howoften Wood End lighthouse blinked its red eye at me.
But I must get on with my story. If I am to have room in this book forall the big happenings of life, which I feel sure lie ahead of me, Icannot devote too much space to early memories, no matter how cherished.Probably in the final revision all the scenes I have lived through willbe crowded into one act or chapter. I may start it in this fashion:
_Time_
First fifteen years of life just ended.
_Place_
An ancient fishing town between the sand-dunes and the sea, where artists flock every summer to paint, its chief attraction for them seeming to be its old streets and wharves, the Cape Cod people whom they call "quaint" and the Portuguese fisher-folk.
_Principal characters besides myself and family, already described._
DANIEL DARCY
The old Towncrier, whom I call "Uncle Darcy" and love as dearly as if he were really kin to me.
AUNT ELSPETH
His wife. They are my ideal Darby and Joan.
CAPTAIN KIDD
A darling Irish terrier, half mine and half Richard's.
RICHARD MORELAND
Who comes every summer to stay with his cousin, Mr. James Milford, in the bungalow with the Green Stairs. He has been like an own brother to me since the days when we first played pirate together, when he was "Dare-devil Dick, the Dread Destroyer," and I was "Gory George, the Menace of the Main." Barby took him under her wing then because his own mother was dead and they've been devoted to each other ever since.
This summer Richard came alone, because his father, who always spendshis vacations with him, did not come back from his Paris studio asusual. He is in the trenches now, fighting with the Allies. His friendsshake their heads when they speak of him, and say what a pity such abrilliantly gifted fellow should run the risk of being killed or maimed.It would be such a terrible waste. He could serve his age better withhis brush than a bayonet.
But when Richard talks of him his face lights up as if he fairlyworships him for being such a hero as to sacrifice his art for the causeand go in just as a private. He has said to me a dozen times, "That iswhy the Allies will win this war, Georgina, because men like _Dad_ areputting it through. They are fighting with their souls as well as theirbodies."
That's all Richard talks about now. He's perfectly wild to go himself.Though he's only seventeen and a half, he is six feet tall and so stronghe could take a man's place. He says if they'd so much as give him achance to drive an ambulance he'd be satisfied, but his father won'tconsent.
He's running his Cousin James' car this summer instead of the regularchauffeur, and keeping it in repair. Mr. Milford pays him a smallsalary, and (nobody knows it but me) Richard is saving every cent. Hesays if he can once get across the water he'll find some way to do hispart. In the meantime he's digging away at his French, and Uncle Darcy'sson Dan is teaching him wireless. He's so busy some days I scarcely seehim. It's so different from the way it was last summer when he was atour house from morning till night.
The same jolly crowds are back this summer at the Gray Inn and theNelson cottage, and Laura Nelson's midshipman cousin from Annapolis ishere for a week. I shall not name and describe them now, but simplygroup them as minor characters.
Laura says, however, that she feels sure that the midshipman is destinedto be anything but a minor character in my life. She prophecies he willbe leading man in a very short while. That is so silly in Laura,although, of course, she couldn't know just how silly, because I'venever explained to her that I am dedicated to a Career.
I have not said positively that I shall never marry, and sometimes Ithink I might be happier to have a home and about four beautiful andinteresting children; that is, if it could be managed withoutinterfering with my one great ambition in life. But positively, thatmust come first, _no matter what the cost_. Only thus can I reach thehigh goal I have set for myself and write mine as "one of the few, theimmortal names that were not born to die."