Idyl of work / Lucy Larcom [electronic text]

III

NEXT morning's sun rose on a silent town.The swollen river noiselessly moved past The quiet mills,—less river now than lake. In the red dawn the drowsy girls awoke To the bell's usual clang, that summoned them From dreams to labor. At the stroke of five All laggards saw the gates against them swing. To-day, however, the great working-crowd Surged in and out awhile; free passage left For those who stayed to rub the steel-work bright, Or clean the dangerous wheels while they stood still.

Esther, alone, sought Ruth; and on the way Met Minta Summerfield, who seemed disturbed And strangely sobered. "Esther, some one's sick In the next house. I overheard the girls Talking about her; saying that she mopes,

And will not eat, nor tell them how she ails; That when she speaks, 't is all in grand book-talk, Learned as college-folks; they hinted, too, That she was some fine lady in disgrace, Come here to hide from sight. "O, girls can be So cruel to one another! I am vexed That I am one, sometimes! Do, Esther, do Go and look after her, or I shall rush At those girls like a whirlwind." Esther smiled; With a brief whisper smoothed out Minta's frown, And disappeared. Poor Ruth! There was no need Of many words. To Esther's pleasant voice, She yielded, like a child, and let herself Be dressed, and led to Esther's room, and laid On Esther's bed, who sat beside her there, With kind pretence of book and sewing-work, Her two companions taking holiday In a long ramble up the river-side.

Ruth lightly dozed. Esther, intent to keep The slumberer undisturbed, let drop her work, And yielded herself partly to her book

(Poems of Wordsworth, Eleanor's New-Year's gift), And partly to the south-wind's tenderness, While memory led her back beside the sea, Where she had played with many little ones In childhood, on a sunny homestead-slope, The deep, eternal murmur of the waves Upbearing on its monotone the song Of bluebird, wren, and robin, blending all In a wild, sweet entanglement, Home-dreams, As in all womanly souls, made undertone To her life's music. But her hopes and plans And fancies were a garden builded in Behind great walls of duty. Her true work She sought the clew of, here 'mid endless threads Shaped from crude cotton into useful cloth.

Not always to be here among the looms,— Scarcely a girl she knew expected that; Means to one end their labor was,— to put Gold nest-eggs in the bank, or to redeem A mortgaged homestead, or to pay the way Through classic years at some academy; More commonly to lay a dowry by For future housekeeping. But Esther's thought

Was none of these; unshaped and vague it lay,— A hope to spend herself for worthy ends. Aliens were in her childhood's home. No past Could be revived for her, and all her heart Went forth into the Future's harvest-field, A Ruth who never of a Boaz dreamed. Whatever work came, whoso crossed her path, Lonely as this pale stranger, wheresoe'er She saw herself a need, there should be home, Business, and family. She raised her eyes, As her soul said Amen to this resolve, And saw Ruth languidly peruse her face Through mists of thought; who murmured, "Read aloud."

A smile from Esther answered. She began Where her eyes fell. Laodamia's tale It chanced to be, with its heroic thoughts Climbing sharp crags of sorrow to high faith. Ruth listened, musing, till she heard the words, "Learn by a mortal yearning to ascend, Seeking a higher object." Then she sobbed. "It is too hard, too hard! Read something else; A song, a ballad, anything!" "Dear child,

The time will come for this too," Esther said; "But now your nerves are strained, and you are ill; Of that I was too thoughtless." And she took Another volume from the hanging shelf, The three girls' library. The one she chose Was a strange medley-book of prose and rhyme Cut from odd magazines, or pages dim Of yellow journals, long since out of print; And pasted in against the faded ink Of an old log-book, relic of the sea, And mostly filled with legends of the shore That Esther loved, her home-shore of Cape Ann, "Here is a doggerel tale of witchcraft-time Some one has reeled off since they laid the rails From Boston eastward. Ruth, you need not try To hear it; let it croon you off to sleep."

PEGGY BLIGH'S VOYAGE.

You may ride in an hour or two, if you will, From Halibut Point to Beacon Hill, With the sea beside you all the way, Through pleasant places that skirt the Bay;

By Gloucester Harbor and Beverly Beach, Salem's old steeples, Nahant's long reach, Blue-bordered Swampscott, and Chelsea's wide Marshes, laid bare to the drenching tide, With a glimpse of Saugus spire in the west, And Malden hills in their dreamy rest.

All this you watch idly, and more by far, From the cushioned seat of a railway-car. But in days of witchcraft it was not so; City-bound travellers had to go Horseback over a blind, rough road, Or as part of a jolting wagon-load Of garden produce and household goods, Crossing the fords, half lost in the woods, By the fear of redskins haunted all day, And the roar of lions, some histories say.

If ever for Boston a craft set sail, Few to secure a passage would fail, Who had errands to do in the three-hilled town: And they might return ere the sun went down. So, one breezy midsummer dawn, Skipper Nash, of the schooner Fawn,

Sails away with a crowded deck. One of his passengers cranes her neck Out of her scarlet cloak,—an eyeLike a smouldering coal had Peggy Bligh,— And looks at her townsmen, looks at the sea, At the crew and the skipper; what can it be That hinders their flinging her bold glance back? Many a wife hath an eye as black, And a cloak as scarlet. Ay, but she— Nobody covets her company! Nobody meets that strange look of hers But a nameless terror within him stirs, His heart-strings flutter, his nerves they twitch,— 'T is an evil eye,—it will blight and bewitch.

Afraid to be silent, afraid to speak, The crew and the skipper, with half-oaths weak, Looked up dismayed when aboard she came, And the voyagers whispered around her name, And gazed askance, as apart she stood, Eying them under her scarlet hood.

A fair wind wafted them down the Bay; By noon at the Boston wharves they lay.

"We shall sail at three!" the skipper cried; Save Peggy, all were aware that he lied, For along the deck had been passed a word Which only speaker and listener heard, — How he meant to give the old crone the slip By an hour or so, on the homeward trip.

Errands all finished, and anchor weighed, Out of the harbor her way she made, — The schooner Fawn. But who hastens down To the water-side, with a shout and frown, Angrily stamps with her high-heeled shoe, Audibly curses the skipper and crew, Flutters her cloak and flames with her eye? — Who but the witch-woman, old Peg Bligh?

"We'll give her the go-by!" says Skipper Nash,And laughs at his schooner's scurry and dash; But here and there one muttered, "He's rash!" "As good right has Peggy," said one or two, "To a homeward passage as I or you; For what has the poor old beldam done That any man could lay finger on, Worse than living alone in a tumble-down hut, And speaking her mind when she chose to? But—"

The speaker stopped, to follow the stare Of his listeners up through the windy air. A monstrous gull bore down on the blast; Once it poised on the schooner's mast; Once it flapped in the skipper's face; Scarcely it veered for a moment's space From the prow's white track in the seething brine; Its sharp eye gleamed with a steel-cold shine, And one of the sailors averred that he saw A red strip dangle from beak and claw; And all the voyagers shrank with fear To see that wild creature a-swoop so near.

As they hove in sight of Salem town A fog came up, and the breeze went down. They could almost hear the farm-folk speak, And smell the magnolias at Jeffrey's Creek. Abreast of the Half-way Rock once more, With the Misery Islands just off shore, The gull gave a shriek, and flew out of sight, And—there they lay in the fog all night.

They dared not stir until morn was red, And the sky showed a blue streak overhead; Then glad on the clear wave sped the Fawn

Homeward again through a breezy dawn. And the skipper shouted, "The vessel arrives In season for breakfast with your wives!"

But some one else had arrived before. Who is that, by the hut on the shore, Milking her cow with indifferent mien, As if no schooner were yet to be seen! By the side glance out of her small black eye, It must be—surely it is—Peg Bligh!

How she got there no mortal could tell, But crew and passengers knew right well That she had not set foot upon deck or hull, "Nor the mast?" About that you may ask the gull.

Well, the story goes on to say That Skipper Nash always rued the day When he left old Peg on the wharf behind, With her shrill cry drifting along the wind. For he lost his schooner, his children died, And his wife; and his cattle and sheep beside; And his old age found him alone, forlorn, Wishing, no doubt, he had never been born.

What Peggy Bligh had to do with his case It is hard to see, in our time and place. How things might have struck us, we do not know, Had we lived here two hundred years ago, When the thoughts of men took a weirder shape Than any mist that hangs round the Cape. But this moral's a good one for all to mind: His own heart is the curse of a man unkind.

Ruth listened drowsily, as she way bid; In gentle, wave-like trance she sank and rose, Gazing on wall and ceiling, as if there But by a dream's permission. For the room Showed legibly its inmates' daily life. Isabel's couch, a sofa-bedstead, worn And faded, stood against the whitewashed wall, The birds-of-paradise upon its chintz Dim-plumaged; and—perhaps by accident— A red shawl, flung across the sofa's arm, Concealed its shabbiness. Above it hung A colored wood-cut, of an arch-faced girl Crossing a brook, barefooted, with a smirk Of half-coquettish fear. Near Esther's bed Raphael's Madonna from an oval gazed,

The Virgin with her Child alone, engraved In some old German town, a relic left From Eleanor's home. The bookshelf swung between Two simple prints,—the "Cotter's Saturday Night" And the "Last Supper," dear to Esther's heart, Though scarce true to Da Vinci. On the shelves Maria Edgeworth's "Helen" leaned against Thomas à Kempis. Bunyan's "Holy War" And "Pilgrim's Progress" stood up stiff between "Locke on the Understanding" and the Songs Of Robert Burns. The "Voices of the Night," "Bridal of Pennacook," "Paradise Lost," With Irving's "Sketch-Book," "Ivanhoe," Watts's Hymns, Mingled in democratic neighborhood. Upon a small, white-napkined table lay Three Bibles, by themselves,—one almost new, The others showing usage. Little need To say the unworn one was Isabel's, Who boasted it her only property That was not worse for wear. Ruth roused her thoughts As Esther ceased, saying,—"Poor old Peggy Bligh! Is it a woman's fault not to be young?

To be left lonely? Men have held it so. They blame us for misfortunes more than sins, In their half-civilized instinct. "But the sea! Would I could rest myself on its unrest, Drown in its vast complaint my little moan! I never saw the sea." "Nor mountains I," Said Esther; "tell me of them." "Of myself I'll tell you first; it is your due to know Something about me. Widowed now of him Whose love of books I have inherited, My mother keeps his farm at Holderness; Dear village, in whose ancient church I learned The Creed and Ten Commandments! "Boys and books Our house is full of; little else indeed. One baby sister blossoms like a rose Among her thorny brothers, all grown rough With farm-work, and yet all with scholar-tastes. Rich relatives I have. More doors than one Would open to me, if I would but be Adopted lady-daughter; but I choose A way more independent, and am here."

Then, silent for a moment, she sighed out, "O, life is hard and cold! and God himself Is hid in heaven. And I—why was I born?"

Then Esther softly asked, "Is not God near In every kind thought of a human heart? Look on your pillow, Ruth!" Turning her head, With eyes tear-softened, the pale girl beheld A knot of delicate flowers,—anemones, Woven of wind and snow, and faintly flushed As a babe's cheek; and violets blue, that breathed A sweetness not of earth; and pale gold bells Of uvularia; and a tuft or two Of downy-stemmed rock-saxifrage, that brings New England sea-crags their first hint of May; And liverleaf, its satin-folded cups Transparent, tinged with amethyst and rose. All faintly colored, as our spring flowers are, With fine, cool, elemental tints,—the light Of pink and amber sunsets upon snow.

"How lovely! Were they dropped from heaven?" asked Ruth; For in her spasm of grief she heard no sound

Of Eleanor's light footfall, fading out Soft as it entered. 'T was as if a breeze Brought in the blossoms. "I am sure God writes In earthly hieroglyphics," Esther said, "Some of his plainest gospels. Love alone, Pure love, could paint in colors such as these. Believe it! He cares more for your soul's health Than any plant's." Ruth's whispered prayer rose: "Thou Who lovest thy children, if a drop of dew, A sunbeam yet can reach me, bid me live!"

Then, Esther kissed her brow. She, lying there, Gazed on the flowers as if they talked with her. Esther spoke not, for Heaven was in the room, And through the fragrant silence seemed to glide Light footsteps of invisible comforters.