CHAPTER III
THE TOWNCRIER HAS HIS SAY
THE old Huntingdon house with its gray gables and stone chimneys, stoodon the beach near the breakwater, just beyond the place where everythingseemed to come to an end. The house itself marked the end of the town.Back of it the dreary dunes stretched away toward the Atlantic, and infront the Cape ran out in a long, thin tongue of sand between the bayand the harbor, with a lighthouse on its farthest point. It gave one thefeeling of being at the very tip end of the world to look across and seethe water closing in on both sides. Even the road ended in front of thehouse in a broad loop in which machines could turn around.
In summer there was always a string of sightseers coming up to this endof the beach. They came to read the tablet erected on the spot known toGeorgina as "holy ground," because it marked the first landing of thePilgrims. Long before she could read, Mrs. Triplett taught her to lisppart of a poem which said:
"_Aye, call it holy ground, The thoil where firth they trod._"
She taught it to Georgina because she thought it was only fair to Justinthat his child should grow up to be as proud of her New England home asshe was of her Southern one. Barbara was always singing to her about "MyOld Kentucky Home," and "Going Back to Dixie," and when they playedtogether on the beach their favorite game was building GrandfatherShirley's house in the sand.
Day after day they built it up with shells and wet sand and pebbles,even to the stately gate posts topped by lanterns. Twigs of bayberry andwild beach plum made trees with which to border its avenues, and everydear delight of swing and arbor and garden pool beloved in Barbara'splay-days, was reproduced in miniature until Georgina loved them, too.She knew just where the bee-hives ought to be put, and the sun-dial, andthe hole in the fence where the little pigs squeezed through. There wasa story for everything. By the time she had outgrown her lisp she couldmake the whole fair structure by herself, without even a suggestion fromBarbara.
When she grew older the shore was her schoolroom also. She learned toread from letters traced in the sand, and to make them herself withshells and pebbles. She did her sums that way, too, after she hadlearned to count the sails in the harbor, the gulls feeding at ebb-tide,and the great granite blocks which formed the break-water.
Mrs. Triplett's time for lessons was when Georgina was following herabout the house. Such following taught her to move briskly, for Tippy,like time and tide, never waited, and it behooved one to be close at herheels if one would see what she put into a pan before she whisked itinto the oven. Also it was necessary to keep up with her as she movedswiftly from the cellar to the pantry if one would hear her thrillingtales of Indians and early settlers and brave forefathers of colonytimes.
There was a powder horn hanging over the dining room mantel, which hadbeen in the battle of Lexington, and Tippy expected Georgina to find thesame inspiration in it which she did, because the forefather who carriedit was an ancestor of each.
"The idea of a descendant of one of the Minute-men being afraid of_rats_!" she would say with a scornful rolling of her words which seemedto wither her listener with ridicule. "Or of an empty garret! _Tut!_"
When Georgina was no more than six, that disgusted "Tut!" would starther instantly down a dark cellar-way or up into the dreaded garret, evenwhen she could feel the goose-flesh rising all over her. Between theporringer, which obliged her to be a little lady, and the powder horn,which obliged her to be brave, even while she shivered, some timesGeorgina felt that she had almost too much to live up to. There weretimes when she was sorry that she had ancestors. She was proud to thinkthat one of them shared in the honors of the tall Pilgrim monumentoverlooking the town and harbor, but there were days when she would havetraded him gladly for an hour's play with two little Portuguese boys andtheir sister, who often wandered up to the dunes back of the house.
She had watched them often enough to know that their names were Manueland Joseph and Rosa. They were beautiful children, such as some of theold masters delighted to paint, but they fought and quarreled and--Tippysaid--used "shocking language." That is why Georgina was not allowed toplay with them, but she often stood at the back gate watching them,envying their good times together and hoping to hear a sample of theirshocking language.
One day when they strolled by dragging a young puppy in a rusty saucepanby a string tied to the handle, the temptation to join them overcameher. Inch by inch her hand moved up nearer the forbidden gate latch andshe was just slipping through when old Jeremy, hidden behind a hedgewhere he was weeding the borders, rose up like an all-seeing dragon androared at her, "Coom away, lass! Ye maun't do that!"
She had not known that he was anywhere around, and the voice comingsuddenly out of the unseen startled her so that her heart seemed to jumpup into her throat. It made her angry, too. Only the moment before shehad heard Rosa scream at Manuel, "You ain't my boss; shut your bigmouth!"
It was on the tip of her tongue to scream the same thing at old Jeremyand see what would happen. She felt, instinctively, that this wasshocking language. But she had not yet outgrown the lurking fear whichalways seized her in his presence that either her teeth or his might flyout if she wasn't careful, so she made no answer. But compelled to venther inward rebellion in some way, she turned her back on the hedge thatscreened him and shook the gate till the latch rattled.
Looking up she saw the tall Pilgrim monument towering over the town likea watchful giant. She had a feeling that it, too, was spying on her. Nomatter where she went, even away out in the harbor in a motor boat, itwas always stretching its long neck up to watch her. Shaking back hercurls, she looked up at it defiantly and made a face at it, just theugliest pucker of a face she could twist her little features into.
But it was only on rare occasions that Georgina felt the longing forplaymates of her own age. Usually she was busy with her lessons orhappily following her mother and Mrs. Triplett around the house, sharingall their occupations. In jelly-making time she had the scrapings of thekettle to fill her own little glass. When they sewed she sewed withthem, even when she was so small that she had to have the thread tied inthe needle's eye, and could do no more than pucker up a piece of softgoods into big wallops. But by the time she was nine years old she hadlearned to make such neat stitches that Barbara sent specimens of herneedlework back to Kentucky, and folded others away in a little trunk ofkeepsakes, to save for her until she should be grown.
Also by the time she was nine she could play quite creditably a numberof simple Etudes on the tinkly old piano which had lost some of itsivories. Her daily practicing was one of the few things about whichBarbara was strict. So much attention had been given to her owneducation in music that she found joy in keeping up her interest in it,and wanted to make it one of Georgina's chief sources of pleasure. Tothat end she mixed the stories of the great operas and composers withher fairy tales and folk lore, until the child knew them as intimatelyas she did her Hans Andersen and Uncle Remus.
They often acted stories together, too. Even Mrs. Triplett was draggedinto these, albeit unwillingly, for minor but necessary parts. Forinstance, in "Lord Ullin's Daughter," she could keep on with herknitting and at the same time do "the horsemen hard behind us ride," byclapping her heels on the hearth to sound like hoof-beats.
Acting came as naturally to Georgina as breathing. She could not repeatthe simplest message without unconsciously imitating the tone andgesture of the one who sent it. This dramatic instinct made a goodreader of her when she took her turn with Barbara in reading aloud. Theyused to take page about, sitting with their arms around each other onthe old claw-foot sofa, backed up against the library table.
At such performances the old Towncrier was often an interestedspectator. Barbara welcomed him when he first came because he seemed towant to talk about Justin as much as she desired to hear. Later shewelcomed him for his own sake, and grew to depend upon him for counseland encouragement. Most of all she appreciated his affectionate interestin Georgina. If he had been her own grandfather
he could not have takengreater pride in her little accomplishments. More than once he had tiedher thread in her needle for her when she was learning to sew, and itwas his unfailing praise of her awkward attempts which encouraged her tokeep on until her stitches were really praiseworthy.
He applauded her piano playing from her first stumbling attempt atscales to the last simple waltz she had just learned. He attended manyreadings, beginning with words of one syllable, on up to such books as"The Leatherstocking Tales." He came in one day, however, as they werefinishing a chapter in one of the Judge's favorite novels, and no soonerhad Georgina skipped out of the room on an errand than he began to takeher mother to task for allowing her to read anything of that sort.
"You'll make the lass old before her time!" he scolded. "A little scraplike her ought to be playing with other children instead of readingbooks so far over her head that she can only sort of tip-toe up tothem."
"But it's the stretching that makes her grow, Uncle Darcy," Barbaraanswered in an indulgent tone. He went on heedless of her interruption.
"And she tells me that she sometimes sits as much as an hour at a time,listening to you play on the piano, especially if it's 'sad music thatmakes you think of someone looking off to sea for a ship that nevercomes in, or of waves creeping up in a lonely place where the fog-belltolls.' Those were her very words, and she looked so mournful that itworried me. It isn't natural for a child of her age to sit with afar-away look in her eyes, as if she were seeing things that ain'tthere."
Barbara laughed.
"Nonsense, Uncle Darcy. As long as she keeps her rosy cheeks and is fullof life, a little dreaming can't hurt her. You should have seen herdoing the elfin dance this morning. She entered into the spirit of itlike a little whirlwind. And, besides, there are no children anywherenear that I can allow her to play with. I have only a few acquaintancesin the town, and they are too far from us to make visiting easy betweenthe children. But look at the time _I_ give to her. I play with her somuch that we're more like two chums than mother and child."
"Yes, but it would be better for both of you if you had more friendsoutside. Then Georgina wouldn't feel the sadness of 'someone looking offto sea for a ship that never comes in.' She feels your separation fromJustin and your watching for his letters and your making your whole lifejust a waiting time between his furloughs, more than you have any ideaof."
"But, Uncle Darcy!" exclaimed Barbara, "it would be just the same nomatter how many friends I had. They couldn't make me forget hisabsence."
"No, but they could get you interested in other things, and Georginawould feel the difference, and be happier because you would not seem tobe waiting and anxious. There's some rare, good people in this town, oldfriends of the family who tried to make you feel at home among them whenyou first came."
"I know," admitted Barbara, slowly, "but I was so young then, and sohomesick that strangers didn't interest me. Now Georgina is old enoughto be thoroughly companionable, and our music and sewing and householdduties fill our days."
It was a subject they had discussed before, without either convincingthe other, and the old man had always gone away at such times with afeeling of defeat. But this time as he took his leave, it was with thedetermination to take the matter in hand himself. He felt he owed it tothe Judge to do that much for his grandchild. The usual crowds of summerpeople would be coming soon. He had heard that Gray Inn was to bere-opened this summer. That meant there would probably be children atthis end of the beach. If Opportunity came that near to Georgina's doorhe knew several ways of inducing it to knock. So he went off smiling tohimself.