JU THE STORY OF SARAH The STORY of SARAH BY M. LOUISE FORSSLUND (M. LOUISE FOSTER) B RENTANO'S U N I O N S ^U A R E M. C M. Publishers N E W YORK fcf I. COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY BKENTANO'S All rights reserved Press of J. J. Little & Co. Astor Place, New York " To you who have believed in me." 212S992 Contents CHAPTER PAOB I. VONSTRADAM THE LITTLE HOLLAND ... 3 II. "FADHER'S" FAMILY 11 III. THE MONEYLENDER'S EARS 29 IV. SARAH JARVIS 41 V. BEN AND SADIE 48 VI. CROSS PURPOSES 57 VII. AN OLD MAN 68 VIII. AT BRUMLEY HALL 74 IX. A FLIRTATION 92 X. THE WOMAN AT THE BRIDGE 107 XI. REVEREND DAN 112 XII. CONCERNING A Kiss . . . . . . 119 XIII. BEN'S SADIE . . .'.''. ... 124 XIV. THE NIGHT . . . . / 'i, . . . 128 XV. AT DAYBREAK . . .' . '. .-'' . 135 XVI. SUNDAY MORNING IN SHOREVILLE . '.. ' . .: ; 140 XVII. THE SAIL V 15 XVIII. WAITING 161 XIX. THE FINAL TEST 170 XX. A LIAR'S TONGUE .179 XXI. THE MONEYLENDER TAKES A CAT-NAP . . . 190 XXII. SHOOT! 195 vii Contents CHAPTER PACK XXIII. SLIGHTLY SUSPICIOUS 200 XXIV. THE SHIPWEECK 206 XXV. IN THE MESSROOM 223 XXVI. THE SUBSTITUTE 229 XXVII. THE BLEAK HILL CREW 237 XXVIII. In DOLLY'S SEWING-ROOM 246 XXIX. THE HECTOR REPEATS THE GOSSIP OF SHORE- VILLE 256 XXX. CAPTAIN MAPES CALLS 264 XXXI. BILLY DOWNS'S PATROL 272 XXXII. THE LUNCHEON 281 XXXIII. THE BOY AND THE BOAT 292 XXXIV. BEN AND CAPTAIN MAPES . . . .297 XXXV. IN WHICH SADIE REMEMBERS .... 301 XXXVI. THE GARDEN FENCE 314 XXXVII. "BEHOLD, I AM IN PRISON AND CANNOT COME FORTH" 829 XXXVIII. ONE OF " BRUMLEY'S TRAMPS " ... 340 XXXIX. " JUST BEN" 348 XL. A GLOOMY OUTLOOK 856 XLI. ON THE OYSTER BED 366 XLII. THE MOTHER OP DEVINE 379 XLIII. THE SERMON 392 XLIV. " WHEN THE DEVIL WAS SICK" (?) . .406 XLV. CAP'N LEM, MATCHMAKER .... 414 XL VI. A FAMILY PARTY , 429 viii THE STORY OF SARAH THE STORY OF SARAH CHAPTER I VONSTRADAM THE LlTTLE HOLLAND THE stretch of roadway between the brook that bounds Shoreville on the east and the brook that bounds Shore- ville on the west is not so long, nor has it so many turns, that it should take you from one manner of thought to another, from one mode of living to another, through a village distinctly American to a hamlet that seems to have been smuggled from some port in Hol- land. Nor, when following this road, will you become aware of any change until after you have passed the little west brook, where it coaxes its way in babbling curiosity from the quiet under low-bending, overhang- ing boughs to the noise of the wide, unshaded thorough- fare, and then, frightened by its own boldness, purls off to the protection of the woods again, but gets caught in a maze of bushy meadows and dodges hither and thither in the very capriciousness of timidity. Here, at the brook, if you are a child that knows the way, you will be apt to pause, and, seeking the two middle boards of the unpretentious bridge, spread your small legs apart, and declare with the manner of one who encompasses the universe: 3 The Story of Sarah " Here I stand in two places at once Shore ville and Vonstradam! " Then, if you (the child upon the bridge) are an Amer- ican boy, you will point your scornful, stubby little finger up the brave little hill that marks the entrance to Vonstradam, and which would never be called a hill anywhere else save in the equally flat country of Hol- land, and you will sneer, as well as a little boy can sneer: " That's Dutchtownl " And tauntingly call: "Dutchy! Dutchy! Dutchy ! ! " after the square little boys stolidly trudging home from school up the hill. " Hy, Dutchy! Don't forget to ask your mother for a piece of bread-an'-lard-an'-mer-?ass-es when you get home! " It makes no difference if you are secretly afraid that the after-school void in your own stomach may never be completely filled: no difference in worldly circum- stances will ever make up in your mind for the difference in birth will make you jeer less contemptuously at the members of a community whose favorite butter is lard, and sugar, molasses. But your little Dutch schoolfellows are as exclusive in their way as you are in yours, and at the top of the hill, they will dance a sober little dance of derision and delight, inform you Shoreville lads that you "can't lick them"; then face about again, and with their dinner pails (Dutch boys always carry dinner pails) swinging from their hard young fists, disappear under the row of willows that lines the walk. On, under the willows they will go, past the general store and post-office, then, glancing neither to right nor left, cross the main street and enter a narrow lane. Here, there is a thicket of willows that bends first one 4 V o n s t r a da m way and then another until suddenly it breaks off to leave you (if you have followed the Dutch boys) on the borders of a transplanted Holland. Across the road, which is path and road in one, as well as the children's playground, wide fields of grass slope down to wooded meadows the meadows of the brook and out of the distance a half-dozen roofs of Shoreville are peeping, seeming like the housetops of another, far-off country. There is an air of modest independence, of sedate freshness, of scrupulous cleanliness, of thrift, of just-so- ness here that is lacking in Shoreville. The lane is so winding that you can see a long way down the row of houses on your side of the road and as far as the row that usurps the fields of the other side ; and every house, nay, every building, even to the cow shed looks as if it had been painted but yesterday in its own decided color a Dutch blue with red trimmings and a red roof; yellow, the shade of Wilhelmina's palace, with a crim- son crown; white, with blue blinds and a red roof; possibly pink and still the red top ; or red from peak to foundation. Even the fact that the houses are scrubbed on the outside once a week as faithfully as on the inside once a day, can not fully account for the glistening freshness of their coats. No. Paint is the one luxury of the Vonstradam Dutchman; so highly does he hold it in regard that the local expression for thrift and prosperity has come to be, "keeping things painted up"; and so openly does he declare this his strong weakness, that the Shoreville storekeepers regu- larly advertise in the Vonstradam column of the Shore- ville Herald, "Bargains in Paint." Extending way down the lane, continued from door- 5 The Story of Sarah yard to door-yard, there is a thick, wide, close-cropped hedge, which is broken twice regularly in front of each place once by a small wooden picket gate and once by a large wooden picket gate, painted to match the house beyond, and with never a picket or the smallest part of a picket or even a nail missing. The garden paths on the other side are swept as often as a leaf or twig falls upon them; the gardens hoed as often as a regard for their welfare permits; and the wood-piles, of which you catch occasional glimpses, have geometrical proportions, which in some mysterious manner they always maintain. Of trees there are many, but all are chosen after careful consideration of their fruit-bearing possibilities; and all are stunted, gnarled, wide-spreading, as if pressed down into the sandy soil by the weight of our winter storms. Grape arbors, yielding both shade and fruit, besides the product known as home-made wine, are seen in every yard, no matter how small the yard, and many yards have two or three wide arbors. Flag poles seem to grow in extravagant, if patriotic, profusion out of the corners of the gardens, but a closer inspection of these over the hedges will show that they are the discarded masts of boats. By this time you have come to the new line of hedges and houses on the other side of the street and a break in the line on your side, where one building opens with direct hospitality on the sidewalk. This is the church white, low and square, similar in shape to one of the old Dutch dames, with its open, lace- work steeple looking like a quaint and ancient headdress. In this steeple there rests a bell which never rests on Sundays; and three times on the Sabbath day, you may see a 6 V o n s tr a da m straggling line of black-bonneted old women and rough- bearded old men enter the one wide door under the steeple of this little Holland church. Only old men and old women, because the young ones faithlessly worship in Shoreville, where the congregation does less chanting and the preacher is not one of the congregation. If you go on down the lane from the church, peering over the green hedges and the picket gates at straight- cut, shrub-bordered paths; at innumerable flower boxes; at radiant flower beds or the ghosts of radiant flower beds; at window gardens blooming most brightly in the dead of winter you will find that garden hedges, like all other things, have an end. By this time you will have passed and been courteously greeted by girls at work in the yards, women cleaning shutters and clapboards, and many sturdy young chil- dren at play in the road; and now it may occur to you to question those stolid youngsters that are piloting their sloops through the dangerous channel of a mud puddle. They will tell you (if you prove yourself a man of pa- tience and enough of a lawyer to have a taste for cross examination) that: "Nobody in Vonstradam farms; nobody works in stores; nobody preaches or lies; everybody goes oyster- ing in the oyster season, and out of it, everybody clams." This hardly gained piece of information may account for that bit of true Holland scenery which now lies before you the low, flat fields and meadows overlook- ing the wide waters of the Bay and sweeping down to the side of a canal -like creek; the low group of rude, red buildings at the edge of the beach, with trees reaching over the tops of their pointed roofs, mounds of bleached white 7 The Story of Sarah shells rising high against their sides; and, to complete this Dutch picture, the windmill that calmly surveys the whole scene. Take that clearly marked, but crooked path across the lot and you will find that the reed-bordered canal is your old friend, the brook, making up for the aimless wanderings of its earlier ways by a wondrous activity toward the end of its course. For, if it is at the close of the afternoon, you will find both banks of the canal lined and double-lined with catboat after catboat and sloop after sloop, so close together that you could not get up or down the stream in a sharpie; and here the way of the canal is so crooked and bent that the very land has the appearance of being covered with a growth of bare masts and naked rigging. The canal is very deep and is always kept free and clear, not depending, as the Shoreville harbors do, upon the grudging, uncertain will of the Government, but pro- tected and watched by the water-wise Dutchmen them- selves, who have built breakwaters out in the Bay, after the manner of the dykes that stand between Holland and the sea breakwaters that will resist wind and weather, destroying waves, and shifting sands, as long as there is a Dutchman left in Vonstradam. This passion for the sea is in every one of them, from the highest to the lowest from the little child that sails boats in his mother's washtub to the old man who dies because life is not life when one is too old to go oyster- ing and it is as natural to them as their frugality, their uprightness, their sobriety. At home, they wrest their country from the waters; and here, they struggle on the water for their homes. At home, necessity forces them to toil; here, first necessity, then ambition; and always a love for toil. 8 Vo n s tr ada m They are proud, these Dutch, and sufficient unto themselves. They send their children to the Shoreville school (until they are old enough to cull oysters) because a separate school in Vonstradam would mean a longer time at learning English and a higher school tax. But the older people hold aloof : when the men wish to drink something stronger than the product of their own vines, they go to Shoreville, but they are not a thirsty race ; when the women need calico for dresses, sun-bonnets, handkerchiefs, or patchwork, they do not go to Shore- ville. They send the young girls. These girls are faithful to their own lads, and their own lads are faithful to them as a rule; and woe to the mis- taken young creature that transgresses ! " Live and marry and die in Vonstradam," is the unwritten law of the community. It is strange, then, that, clinging so closely together, holding so sternly aloof from men of other nations, as the majority of them do, any of them should become Americanized; yet many are subject to this transformation. You notice it in the younger people never in the older. They forget to use the mother tongue would for- get it completely if the New Testament in Dutch were not the favorite book in every house the whole length of the lane ; they pretend ignorance of the shape of a wooden shoe (after they have passed the spanking age); they dress on Sundays alas for the Shoreville maids ! in super-Shoreville style, and saunter down to the larger town for religious instruction and instruction that may not be religious. You notice it in gradual changes of sentiment: they fall in love not once, but twice, three times! before they marry. It is a disgraceful American custom : love and marriage used to be synony- 9 The Story of Sarah mous terms in Vonstradam. And, worse than this, they refuse to believe that woman was made for the scrubbing-brush and to rock the cradle, and for naught beside; and man for the oyster tongs to work, to slave, to save and drudge, and nothing more. Occasionally there is even greater rebellion than this among them: a swain departs from the authorized manner of wooing; scorns his parents' advice; passes the trim Dutch maidens by with his eyes blinded by love for a maid of another nation in short, follows his wilful young heart to Shoreville. And of a verity he fol- lows it; and, once following, is not likely to return; for he would not think of bringing an American wife to raise the dust of dissension in that quiet, orderly little Holland hamlet. He is a fool : let him suffer as a fool so say his wise and solemn judges. 10 c c Fa h d e r ' / " Fa m i ly CHAPTER II "FAHDER'S" FAMILY THERE is, next door to the little white church with green shutters, a little white house with red shutters which differs in no marked way from its neighbors, having the same indispensable garden with its flower beds and flower boxes, its flagpole and its wide grape arbor; yet to one that knows the place, it does differ in a very great measure. Look again, this time a little more closely, and you will see wonder of wonders! that the neat paint is peeling off the boards in places, that the flag pole is decaying where it stands, that the snow- ball shrubs on either side of the blue front door with the pink panels are as high as the peaked roof of the little porch, that the grape vines are thick, heavy, and much twisted and gnarled. Now, having observed all these marks of old age, you will readily believe that this is the parent house, the mother grape arbor, the first flag pole, the original of all these trim gardens; for you are standing before the home of " Fahder," as old Bernard t Benstra is lovingly called throughout, and even beyond, the hamlet of Benstra or Vonstradam. Old Mr. Benstra was the first to place a wooden-shod foot in Shoreville ; and that was long, long years ago, when he was young and his wrinkled little wife was young and oh, so pretty ! and when none of their ten children had been born to them. Now, the youngest of 11 The Story of Sarah those children, " Baby Bernard t," stood over six feet in his stockings and voted for the first time at the last presi- dential election. Now, the old man's back had stiffened over the oyster tongs so that he could no longer do com- bat with the sea. An American would have taken to the chimney corner, but that is not the way with the Dutch; literally, they either do or die, and old Bernardt Benstra felt far too young to die. Instead, he made a demand that West Shoreville have a Post Office, and when that request was about to be granted, applied for the position of mail-carrier between the new Post Office and the Shoreville railroad station ; thus, in true Dutch style, benefiting himself while doing good to his neighbors. So it came about that, instead of bending over the oyster tongs, and handling the tiller, he straightened his broad shoulders, slung a mail bag over them by means of a stout stick and twice tramped three miles a day to and from Shoreville. On that route, he saw the whole world and met men of all minds; he grew broader in his views, although no less rigid in his morals; he learned to tolerate the follies of the world and to pity the frailties. He had time to think and time to observe and to compare: in a very short while he came to the conclusion that as all men are not so fortunate as to be born Dutchmen, they should not be judged as Dutchmen. You might have seen him any day at certain hours marching along the road, smiling, courteous ever a gentleman despite the patched patches on the broad knees of his trousers. He would talk to you on any sub- ject, and, moreover, listen while you talked on any: the modesty with which he stated his own views was pleas- ing; the deference with which he heard yours was 12 "Fahder's" Family charming. But if you talked to him, you had to walk with him; he would no more loiter by the way than he would steal a stamp or read a postal ; he would not have failed to meet his train for the little Wilhelmina herself, and, at the other end of the route, there waited another and an older queen. Straight from the station to the Post Office he would go, and from the Post Office to the little white house with red shutters; enter at the kitchen door, and tell all that he had seen and heard to the wrinkled old lady, who smiled and nodded and kept her strong opinions safe in her strong bosom. She had long ago learned many things that Fahder was learning but now ; for, before age caught up to her, she, too, had gone out in the world even as far as Shoreville, where little children had looked upon her as little children look upon storks in her own country, and where she is still tenderly re- membered by many gentle mothers as the " Little Lady- nurse." On American soil, this worthy Dutch couple had raised nine worthy Dutch sons, all of whom, at the prescribed age, had married good useful wives of Dutch origin and, later on, had given the old people a wondrously large number of grandchildren. But, alas that so hon- orable a tale cannot be told of the tenth son, Ben Ben- stra ! For what did this lad do but join that ever-in- creasing number of witless ones who woo in Shoreville! Had he been a fool from his birth, his unhappy mother could have endured this folly; but even in the cradle he had been sober and wise and big and brave to all appearances, a thorough Dutchman. He did not fail to show at the proper age that proper mania for the water and even for soap and water; he was quietly, mar- 13 The Story of Sarah vellously obedient and sweet tempered from the time he uttered his first laugh (nobody ever heard his first cry, except his mother) ; he proved his strength and courage by beating, single-fisted, a rooster with canni- balistic designs on a chicken bone that Ben was gnawing, when Ben was no bigger than that big rooster himself. So, you see, Ben bid fair to grow up into a proper Dutchman; but, as old Mrs. Benstra told her husband, "You can't tell nothing about children until they are men." Little did either of the old people know, or would they have believed, at how early an age Ben's disloyalty to his own began just after he had doffed his mother's cut-down dresses to don his father's cut-over breeches and was sent for the first time to Shoreville school. There he learned, before ever he had time to learn the alphabet, that pulling two particular braids of bright gold hair tied with blue rib- bons would produce a squeal not a prosaic, resentful Dutch squeal, but an American squeal humorous, soft, laughing, delicious! Now Ben had a musical ear and innate good taste; therefore, he kept on pulling that American hair tied with blue ribbons and neglected to touch those inharmonious Dutch locks interbraided with pink string. And this was the first of the disloyalty : traitorous actions that have undermined nations have had beginnings as small. v Years afterward, when the meeting place was in a Shoreville church, instead of the Shoreville school, Ben had not gained wisdom in the managing of maidens and neither had he lost his admiration for a certain head of hair, although that hair had changed and deepened in color, being no longer a decided gold, but somewhat brown and somewhat red in fact, no mere Dutch- 14 cc Fahd er '/ " Fa mi ly man could be expected to name its tint. Now Ben glanced askance at it, laughed to show he had no real affection for it, and slyly teased those girls that had once twined pink string through their larded braid. But that marvellous American hair, aided by a pair of eyes that might have drawn a man anywhere, drew Ben to Shoreville; and the soul shining fearlessly through the eyes, held Ben's heart in Shoreville. Presently it became known in the Little Holland that Ben had no wish to choose a round-faced, strong- stemmed flower from this neat and tidy garden of girls nothing but a useless Shoreville rose, pretty leaves, thorny branches, would suit him. How they found it out Ben could not tell, for he had certainly tried his best to hide it; but known it was, and a consequent contempt due to, and received by, Ben Benstra not that he cared; the stolid Dutchman never cares for anything once he is sure that he is right. So he was able to turn a distant Dutch ear to the offensive Dutch taunts, and, being too honest to deny the accusations, too prudent to affirm them, joked modestly, laughed bashfully, and continued to go to church in Shoreville. Then came a shock that roused the little community, turning all of its sympathies back to Ben ; for the Amer- ican rose (it was said) had scorned to be plucked by the hard and honest Dutch hand and had chosen, instead, an American hand a hand quite as hard and not so honest, neither pure nor sweet nor clean foolish little rose ! Now it was that the lad refused to hear the taunts; now it was that he came from behind his screen of laughter and jokes, speaking openly, bravely, and nobly: Every rose has the right to choose upon whose breast it shall be worn. This was the un-Dutchlike sentiment 15 that Ben, the youngest son of Fahder, expressed to the consternation of every unmarried man in Vonstradam. Then Ben settled quietly down to his old ways teased the same as ever, laughed almost the same, and, bound by a custom of both villages as well as by his own sense of honor, no longer looked on the rose or went within the spell of its fragrance. But even when the rose had been transplanted to other soil, Ben kept away from Shore- vine the garden of many memories and one lost rose. At this time, old Bernardt Benstra showed some pa- tience with Ben, but the little wife showed none ; in her mind the folly of wooing in Shoreville might be forgiven, but the disgrace of not winning could not be endured. Why did Ben, in courting this Shoreville maiden, depart from the straightforward customs of Vonstradam ? How, unless he told her so, was she to know he wished to marry her ? What was the reason that he had not taken her for those three Sunday afternoon walks that the lovers of Vonstradam take, with the breadth of the walk between them the first Sunday, and unbroken silence; hand in hand the next Sunday, and unbroken silence ; arm in arm the third and last Sunday, and with the silence unbroken save for the words, " Will you be my bride ? " from his lips; and " Yes " from hers. If this foolish American girl had said, "No," then Ben could have consoled himself with the thought that he had done his best. The poor, backward lad had covered the wound in his honest, tender heart for two long months so success- fully that none but the sympathetic father and the knowing mother could be sure that it was there, when something happened that gave sincerity to his smile, life to his laughter. 16 "Fahder's* Family That something had happened, wise Mrs. Benstra knew one winter's night by the change of time in Ben's footsteps when he passed her door on his way to bed knew it the next morning by the merry sound of his whistle as he worked about the kitchen, making the fire before she was up and ready to begin her long day's work. For it was Saturday the busy baking day of Vonstradam, when every true Dutch housewife wears herself out in preparation for a long, true Sabbath day of rest ; when the little Dutch boys watch for the butcher's wagon, listen for his jolly sounding bell, and smell visions of hot " boutcher's meat " for that night's supper and cold " boutcher's meat " for the next day's dinner. " Boutcher's meat," always beef and usually a certain cheap cut, is so called to distinguish it from the less luxurious and more customary meat the family pig. It was not yet daylight and the shadows lay thick in the Benstra kitchen, except where the beams of a small lamp spread themselves over the table and ventured only a little way beyond. But had you been there, even in the dim light, you must have noticed the deep blue of the rough, boarded walls; the row of red geraniums that grew out of a row of bright tin cans on the ledges of the small, square windows; the thick, fat, well-worn Bible beside them ; the slim blue rafters that stretched across the room, hung with bunches of dried corn, the husks spread wide from each ear, and strings of dried apples and shrunken red peppers. Ben had to bob his head every time he passed under these rustling evidences of thrift. But there is the little mistress of the kitchen opening her bedroom door, and as she is courtesy itself, you must no longer stare at her workroom. For a moment she 2 17 The Story of Sarah stood on the threshold, peering through her heavily rimmed glasses at Ben, who was carefully combing his hair before a round little mirror in which he could not have seen more than one half of his face at any time, and in which, now, in the poor light, he could not have seen where his forehead ended and his hair began. The Little Lady, with her head placed on one side like a bird's, thought of the change of time in Ben's footsteps, thought of the merrily whistled tune, which even now was linger- ing on his lips. "Hello, Little Mudher ! " said he, and, seizing his slouch hat, placed it hurriedly over his newly-combed locks. She waited only to get a good look at his whole- some, shining face, and then she soundly rated him in very bad Dutch for looking so happy when their neigh- bor's son, Coss Quake, was "laid up with the rheu- matiz." Ben showed proper penitence by saying that he was sorry, but spoiled the good effect of his words by laughing slyly to himself; whereupon the old lady sent him out for a pail of water and began to vigorously stir the pancake batter in the fat, brown stone pitcher. It was for this same Coss Quake that Ben was going as a substitute to the Life Saving Station at Cedar Cove. Mrs. Benstra knew that the Station at Cedar Cove was only four miles from the one at Bleak Hill, where Sarah Jarvis, the rose that had pricked so deeply into Ben's heart and the traditions of Vonstradam, was living with her father; but the old lady could not conceive why that simple fact should have taken the strained, pained look out of Ben's face. Vonstradam itself was only five miles from Bleak Hill, and, five miles by water, in her mind, was not half so far as four miles through the heavy beach sand. 18 "Fahde r ' /" Family By the time Ben returned from the well, Mr. Benstra, the elder, had entered the kitchen and was occupied before the family toilet table, which in this family, was the kitchen sink. He, too, having been prompted by a whispered word from his wife, took note of the change in Ben's frank countenance, and, while she smiled and listened, Fahder talked seriously to the lad about the week he was about to spend away from his good Dutch home in the company of worldly Americans. Ben heard it all with unruffled good humor, while he obeyed his mother's outspoken command to make his own coffee. She, like every other good housewife in Vonstradam, had coffee at nine o'clock in the morning, coffee for dinner, coffee at four o'clock in the afternoon, and coffee for supper, reserving the luxury of a good, strong cup of tea for breakfast; and if Ben wanted to begin the day with coffee, he had to make it himself. So he did; and each morning the shining tin coffee pot took its place on the back of the stove with the polished copper tea pot, and there they both sat all day long, seeming as much a part of the stove as the stove a part of the kitchen. When the coffee had boiled up just once, no more; the tea drawn; and the first griddleful of "boekweit" cakes were baking, the two men drew their chairs up to the uncovered, white-scrubbed table; both lifted their hats, and Mrs. Benstra, pancake turner in hand, one watchful eye on the griddle, bowed her head over the stove while Fahder asked a blessing. Then back went Fahder's fur cap over his bushy gray locks, and Ben's old brown slouch hat over his rumpled brown head ; for a head covering of some sort is just as necessary to a Vonstradam Dutchman's peace of mind in the daytime as a nightcap to the quiet slumbers of a Dutch woman 19 The Story of Sarah at night. Moreover, Ben had worn that same hat in almost all his waking hours from the time when his head was so small that the hat covered the upper half of his ears; while Fahder's fur cap had been seen in company with his head and his gold-hoop earrings every winter's day since Mrs. Benstra fashioned it out of the skins of two large squirrels that Fahder had shot in the meadow woods. "Bennie," said Mr. Benstra in Dutch as he poured his tea from his cup into his saucer, " if you go to Bleak Hill, you ask that Captain Lem Jarvis when he's going to pay me that one dollar and seventy cents he owes me." The lad, elbows on table, saucerf ul of coffee before his lips, choked over his reply; for he was enough of an American not to regard seriously the thought of dun- ning a not impossible father-in-law. " He's owed it for ten years," said he in English. " It's outlawed and you can't get it." Then Mr. Benstra looked grave, and inwardly re- proached himself for ever having trusted that Captain Jarvis. Here the little wife, who did not know what " outlawed " meant, said in her own tongue, " I guess Bennie won't have time to tell Her father what he owes his." (No member of the Benstra family ever called Sarah Jarvis anything but "Her" and " She.") " Ain't that so, Bennie ? " The old lady said this with her usual gentle smile, but it made Ben give a little laugh of embarrassment and bend further over his plate. For a while there was silence, except for the clink of steel knives and forks; and then Mrs. Benstra, having cooked a pile of cakes a foot high, filled her tea cup and joined the two at the table. 20 c c Fa h d e r ' / ' ' Fa m i I y 11 Now, don't you forget to say your prayers at church time to-morrow," she warned her son; and he, think- ing of the church he had attended before the hopeless days came, where he had been conscious of but two wor- shippers she who worshipped God and he who wor- shipped God in her answered emphatically. " You bet I won't forget ! " " Maybe Captain Woodhull will let you off in the afternoon," suggested Fahder. "It's the Keverend Dan's Sunday at Bleak Hill." " There ! You go then ! " exclaimed the lad's mother delightedly, for she and the Eeverend Daniel Leggett were fast friends; and, as Ben would surely go to see " Her " anyway, it would be well to make the journey also a religious pilgrimage. " Yes yes," assented Ben happily. " I wish Coss Quake hadn't gone and got the rheu- matiz," said Mr. Benstra. " I don't much like you going to the Beach. It's a lazy life them life-savers lead doing nothing but walk up and down the sand. You might a good deal better stick to the oyster beds; but I suppose to oblige an old neighbor, you got to go." His little wife demanded if he " wasn't ashamed to talk like that when Bennie had to go. But," she added, " that Coss Quake deserves to be sick anyway for work- ing in company with a lot of rough Americans instead of oystering like an honest Dutchman." After that she told Ben to be careful not to catch cold patrolling the Beach of nights, and the lad rose from the table, put on his overcoat, patted his mother's soft cheek, and with many a happy "Good-by," went out of the door. " She'll get him yet," said Mrs. Benstra, but without severity; and the old gentleman gave a slow nod that 21 The Story of Sarah meant, " No girl can resist our Ben," and each at the same moment leaned over to blow out the light, for now the dawn was creeping through the flowers that screened the windows. Then Fahder set his chair against the wall, took his long pipe from the shelf behind the stove, and sat down at the window for his morning smoke. Mr. Beustra's accustomed seat at home was a visible proof that the spirit of trade any but the oyster trade will never live in Vonstradam. It was a red plush barber's chair the only thing saved from the wreck of the only "tonsorial parlor" that Vonstradam had ever known and it had been washed into Fahder's kitchen by a curious wave of circumstance. He alone, of all the Dutchmen, out of pure kindness of heart, had turned his cheek to the enemy and entrusted himself to the arms of that chair when it was supposed to be serv- ing its legitimate use. He thought his reward very great overwhelming in fact when, one morning after the wreck of the " tonsorial parlor " had been reported, he found the barber's chair high and dry on his front stoop. At first he used the embarrassing gift out of instinc- tive courtesy to the man that gave it, but in time he grew so fond of that gorgeous chair that he would have thought his home life incomplete without it. This morning, he leaned back against the worn head rest, smoking contentedly, with one patched knee crossed over the other, one gray flannel shirt sleeve resting on the red plush arm. He could see the village street over the tops of the geraniums, and every one that passed by. Now and then a child would trudge along, going on some errand before school time; but most of the passers- 22 cc Fa h d e r ' /" Fa m i I y by were big baymen, swinging along with trousers tucked in the tops of high, thick boots; soft, dark hats pushed back from rugged faces (only the very young and foolish Dutchmen have adopted the fashionable yachting caps of the Shoreville baymen); immense dinner pails in their hands. Presently, the old man, watching this straggling procession which he himself once led, spoke : " There's those two Shoreville boys coming down the street. Peter Vespoor said they struck a new scallop bed yesterday. There; they stopped to talk to Belchie she's waiting at the gate for the boutcher." The Little Lady went to the window to look over Fahders shoulder; and at that moment the two men passed on, leaving Belchie, whose baptismal name was Isabel, and who was a granddaughter of the Benstras, staring after them with open mouth. This attitude of the girl's provoked her grandmother into saying that she knew " Belchie would go and get married pretty soon," and, wondering what would become of Vonstra- dam when not only the lads but also the lasses proved unfaithful to their own, went back to her work. A few moments later there was a heavy step on the porch, and then the door was thrown open (no one in Little Holland has time to waste at knocking) and one of the American lads entered. Both were surprised to see him, but greeted him heartily, the old man taking out his pipe to motion with it toward a chair, while the little wife dusted off the seat of that chair with her apron. " Oh, I haven't got time to set down," said the vis- itor, pulling a newspaper out of his pocket. " I bought this air Shoreville Herald up street last night; and 23 The Story of Sarah Mom, she said as mebbe you might want to see yer name in the paper. I jest seen Bell and she 'lowed as 'twas a lie." " Ya ya," assented Mrs. Benstra, who had no faith in American newspapers. " Vhadt vas it ? " asked her husband with greater tol- erance and caution, as he watched Paul Ketcham labor- iously searching for a certain paragraph under the Vonstradam news. The Shoreville Herald was a budget of village gossip issued every Friday; its editor, a man that would have done well to study Dutch prudence and American com- mon sense; his belief in everything that was told him bespoke a trusting spirit, but resulted in one of the most remarkable sheets ever printed in the County. Whatever he heard went pell mell into the paper, and a week later an apology usually went limping after. Fortunately for him, the people of Long Island will stand a good deal before they will fight, and at last accounts he was still without a scar. Paul mumbled something about Dinkie Van Popering having a new organ the organ was as old as truth itself, but then there was an organ, and that was as near the truth as any one expected the Shoreville Herald to get and then he held the paper out to Fahder. "There ! Jest look ahere ! " he said, pointing to a certain paragraph. " Vhadt you dink ? Me can no read de Eenglish." "You read him, please," said the old lady with a smile; whereupon Paul, in loud, important tones, began to stumble through the following piece of news : " It is rumored that old Mr. Beruardt Benstra, who has been such a familiar figure on the road for years, 24 "Fahder's" Family has decided, because of his advanced age and an occa- sional touch of rheumatism in his shoulders, to give up his mail route." Here Paul looked up from the paper to see the little wife standing directly before him in an attitude of strained attention, not unmixed with defi- ance; the old man leaning forward in his chair, almost dazed with wonder and incredulity. The reader contin- ued, his voice now low and thrilling with suppressed excitement: " We shall miss ' Fahder/ as he passes the office every day, and his primitive mode of carrying the mail is far more rural and pleasing to the eye than the sight of our own mail carrier in the form of Silas Corwin's lean horses. But old institutions must get out of the way when progress is marching on; and when the latter gen- tleman assumes the responsibility of taking the mail to and from Vonstradam next week, we can only say, ' It is well/ " The reading ended, there was a full moment of silence, broken only by the loud ticking of the clock. Poor Paul lost every sensation save that of discomfort, for even his slow eyes could see " Tragedy " written on both the old faces. Then the little woman spoke, using the only English ejaculation that she knew and firing it out like a rapid succession of shots: "Oh my oh my oh my oh my ! " This verbal expression of dismay and surprise so re- lieved Paul that he seated himself on the edge of the table, being a lad with good American manners, and tried to understand the quick, broken speech of the old couple, for they had both begun to talk excitedly. They stopped as quickly as they had begun, however, and the Little Lady turned to her guest with a tremulous smile 25 The Story of Sarah of apology; while the old man, throwing off his look of distress, declared, " Dhot man vhadt makes dhot babper petter little bit nodt lie so much." Mrs. Benstra gave a smiling " Ya ya," which meant that now the first surprise was over, she bore the mis- taken editor no grudge. " But look ahere," said the lad. " Don't you go and be too sure as it's a lie. I was up street las' night an' I see that air Si Corwin an' I ast him if 'twas so, an' he said he didn't know nothink about it, an' went an' sneaked off. An' you look ahere, Fahder, you want to look out fer that air stage driver he's a skin fer fair. He cheated my father onct out of a job of cartin' oys- ters, an' he's alayin' fer your job, too." " Oh my oh my oh my oh my ! " exclaimed the old lady, looking from one to the other. "Si Corween," began Mr. Benstra, "efery day I see him mit de station andt all de dime he say to me, he say, * Fahder, dondt it vas doo padt for you do vork so hardt ? ' Den somedime he say, ' You vas an oldt man, Fahder, andt de years dey be abetting along mit you; it vas doo padt for you do valk so far efery day.' But I always dell him I dondt vas dhot oldt do rest yet ya ya ! " The old man was letting his pipe grow cold, and Paul afterward declared that his hand trembled upon the stem. "That's Si's way underhanded," declared the lad, getting off the table and approaching the door. " You jest go and ast to both them air Post Offices. He's been adoin' some dirty work, I bet you ! " " I dhought he vas a goodt poy," muttered the old man, who would judge none without a hearing. " Dhot 26 "Fahder's" Family babper man, maype he haf to lie apout soweding." But there was a great deal of doubt and trouble on Fahder's face. " Well, I got to go along or Hen an' me won't ketch no scallops to-day." " Dank you, Paul, and dank your mamma for send ting you," called Mr. Benstra after the lad, and his wife smiled bravely and echoed the words. " You jest look out fer that air Si Corwin," admon- ished the American, and slammed the door. For a moment after they were left alone, the old man sat perfectly still, while his troubled little wife, watch- ing him with sympathetic eyes and trembling lips, said not a word. Then the clock, striking the hour, broke the silence. At the sound, the mail carrier started up and his wife pointed her stiff forefinger at the solemn face of the timepiece, which seemed to mark the time only for the two painted boats sailing on the glass door beneath. Mrs. Benstra was too moved to speak, for the impossible had happened her husband was five minutes behind his usual time of starting. However, her inac- tion did not last a moment; she helped him into his thick coat, tied a knitted muffler around his neck, thrust his mittens into his hand, and gently pushed him out of the door. Brave Little Lady ! She was again smiling as she declared that it would be "all right; " but the smile died away when he had turned his back and was hurrying under the grape arbor toward the gate. Sud- denly she remembered that he had not taken his cane, hurried to get it from its accustomed corner, and hur- ried out of doors bare headed, save for the black silk cap she always wore, no outer covering on her square, plump shoulders. At the gate she caught up to Fahder 27 The Story of Sarah and placed the slick in his hand; the distressed old p?- :ler:ii: :,vk ::~c 10 :-:^ '-is :hsr:k^ a^d then. w:::> ont a word, iiMfrnmil up the aiioai. For a while she stood ImrH^ after him, not a doubt in her mind hat that he would make up the lost fire minutes. Then, as hi turned toward the house, she was roused from her lfcja|Mii hj a call from the street. She looted hack to see thac a man driving hj on a wagon load of oyster barrels had addressed her. " HuDo," he said, staring cuionsty. "lander agoin' to give np the niaU fastness, eh?" She did not know the man, hat was sore from his manners as well aa his face that he had no Dutch Mood in him. "Oh my, no !'* she answered, with the sweetest of smiles and the most courteous of bows. " Wall, Si Ctorwin said as he wms." The wrinkled face clouded over as Mrs. ThMba ez- " Ok my oh my oh my oh my ! " made the man that drove the slowly md his imuwmfint made the old lady remember that she had no small shawl OTBT her head and no large shawl orer her shoulders. Turning JgwaflT- *' aliilnl nn TUTI tnwird HIT hrninn short mack calico dress skirt ftying up, shoving beneath h, a qufltrf plaJd petticoat, m bit of red flannel, and eren * partial riew of a pair of hand-kmt purple stockings. He Wlw carted ojsten for a Irving stared hack and laughed loudly; f or he wac only an ill-brad young man from Tke - I f* *- M?-LbUi . - _ nnn- .iitHH- JUM^ TT ^liimwiTg- mvt -H ITVII T*:;!^ T~lii "5~ic _-A---> . .1 J! H.-. ~ '~ - ~ A "H miTIITT "HU : ~ V: '. ~~ ~~lltl-'"~ ' IE ~*H& fnTH^ T ffl r nfnF* . iis TTBF 1 "^nn 7 Jb HnnH. *nTT ftiininnz- jmt TTHT Hri IH Tfimr.. irvwffny_ The Story of Sarah not uncheerful room, with blazing pink walls arid an ever glowing stove where he would sit for hours at a time, curled up in a great armchair before an enormous, old-fashioned, black walnut desk, whose every pigeon- hole was crammed full of papers. The door between this room and the kitchen was usually open, and often when he sat thus he made greater use of his ears than of his pen, for his wife was a great gossip, and her kitchen a rendezvous for gossips. She was a kindly woman in some ways, this wife of his, and he loved her almost as dearly as he loved to quarrel with her; and although she was large, ungainly, unkempt, and untidy, she shared one virtue with him the truly admirable virtue of standing up for one's friends through thick and thin. People that were not their friends had reason to say equally hard things of both the Moneylender and his wife; and certainly the guest of the evening, who was earning her way by help- ing to wash up the dishes after the frugal tea, was jus- tified in her desire to throw Mrs. Hedges in the " wash biler an' bile her up an' down along with all the other dirty old duds in the room." Mrs. Abraham Thurber was justly proud of her own neat appearance, for she had come over from Bleak Hill dressed as nicely as her common sense would permit her to dress for a five-mile sail in Abe's old clam-boat. "Wall, wall," Mrs. Hedges was saying, "yer don't mean ter tell me that this here is the fust time yer come off this winter, Ann- Abe." (Two Thurber brothers had married Anns, so to pre- vent confusion each wife had tacked her husband's name to her own, that being permitted in Shoreville.) "That's the gospel truth," answered Mrs. Abraham 30 The Moneylender* / Ears Thurber. " An' I'm scart ter death now fer fear somethink'll happen ter them air younguns on the Beach ; but Sadie'll sorter keep an eye on 'em when Abe tells her as I'm gone. I wa'n't agwine ter distarb her myself when I see as her an' Ben Benstra was asparkin V " Lorgens-ter-massy ! Why, he hain't nawthink but a Dutchman ! " (In the other room, the Moneylender, growling at the tendency of his right ear toward deafness, moved to a seat nearer the door and went on intently reading his evening paper.) "Yes yes," Mrs. Thurber assented in gossipy glee. " Nawthink but a Dutchman, an' Sade some stuck up, too ! Wall, Abe he come in this forenoon all abilin' when I was on my ban's an' knees ascrubbin' the kitchen floor an' he says, says he : " ' Ef yer agwine ter Shoreville with me git ready darn quick,' says he. "Abe was kinder put out, Abe was; his las' three months' pay is run over 'leven days now the Gov'ment's so plagued scart fer fear the men'll up an' throw up the job. I tell yer what ! It don't improve yer tem- per none ter live over ter the Beach. An' fust one young- un an' then 'nother sick, off an' on, the hull livin' winter; an' the Doctor achargin' a fortune ter take a little five-mile sail; but we was lucky ter git him any- how. Wall, as I was asayin', I jes' dropped everythink an' run over ter Sade Jarvis's, athinkin' as I'd ask her ter sorter look after the younguns ef things was so I couldn't git hum ter-night. But, law sakes! I stepped on the stoop and thar in the winder sot Sadie aleanin' back alookin' like a dyin' calf more'n anythink else, an' thar, right alongside her, was that air Dutch Ben 31 The Story of Sarah Benstra; an' he had a cup of coffee in his han's an' he was aholdin' it in front of her mouth. An' she begun ter laugh (Lord, how long sence I seen her laugh, poor youngun !) an' he put his han' on her head an' made her drink that air coffee jes' like she was a baby. An' her ! She jes' drunk an' giggled like she'd choke ter death or bust or somethink; an' Ben, he jes' stood an' looked at her as if he thought he might enjiy awatchin' her set an' swill coffee till Doomsday. Wall, I thought of them days when Abe Thurber come asparkin' me, an' I jes' turned roun' an' went back on tip-toe an' tol' Abe that I guess the younguns could look after themselves till he got back, when he could go and tell Sadie." Here, from sheer force of necessity, Ann- Abe paused for breath, and Mrs. Hedges, who had been watching for this intermission, hastened out upon the stoop with her dish-pan and flung the dirty water on the ground. Then she hurried back, slammed the door, threw the pan in the sink, flounced down in a chair before the stove, tossed off her loose slippers and put her feet in the open oven. " Now, mebbe yer don't believe it," she said, shiver- ing audibly, " but it's turned off real cold, an' I shouldn't be surprised if the bay froze over ter-night." " Law sakes alive ! " ejaculated Mrs. Thurber, run- ning to open the door and sniff at the air. When she turned back, her face was clouded with anxiety. " It is cold," she admitted as she seated herself in the one rock- ing-chair that the room boasted. " Now, who'd athunk it this mornin' when I started out? What on earth'll we all do ef the Bay is frizzed over ter-morrer an' I can't git back?" 32 The M oney len de r '/ Ears " An' it's the Reveren' Dan's Sunday at Bleak Hill, too, hain't it?" remarked Mrs. Hedges. Suddenly Ann- Abe began to chuckle, hiding the fact that she had but one tooth in her upper jaw with one hard-working, half -closed hand, and wagging her inqui- sitive nose from side to side. "That'd serve that air pesky Devine Strong right," she explained, in response to Mrs. Hedges' glance of inquiry. " Gosh all hemlock ! Won't it beat all ef he couldn't git over ter the Station ter-morrow ! " " Lorgens-ter-massy ! " ejaculated Mrs. Hedges, let- ting the bare spot in her stocking touch the stove in her excitement. " Yer don't mean ter tell me that that air ol' widower's amakin' up ter Sadie agin ? " "Makin' up agin!" repeated the other contemptu- ously. " Why, he hain't never stopped amakin' up. Lor' bless me, I could kill the man for apesterin' her as he done all winter long; an' her ahatin' him worse'n pizen. Why, she fairly wintered in the lookout; won- der she didn't ketch her death acol', fer 'tain't nothink but a barn as cold as Greenlan' ! An' she'd set thar' an' watch fer Devine's sail, an' when she see it acomin', she'd run like Satan an' hide. Many a time I've stowed her away an' then swore up an' down as I didn't know where she was; an' mebbe yer don't believe it, but as many times as he's been thar', he hadn't seen her but onct onct, mind yer ! An' then, bein' as I was with her, he didn't git no satisfaction. I tell yer what ! Ef she didn't hoi' on me tight an' shake like she'd drop ter pieces 1 " "An' what'd they say ter each other?" demanded Mrs. Hedges, grudging Ann-Abe the rest she had been obliged to take. 3 33 The Story of Sarah ("Yes yes. What'd they say to each other?" the Moneylender asked inaudibly of his newspaper.) Ann-Abe rocked back and forth a moment longer and then answered : " Why, they didn't do nawthink but jes' sass each other back an' forth. He ast her as how she liked alivin' on the Beach, an' she said as she didn't like nawthink better, an' 'spected ter live thar' all the rest of her life. Oh, she was jes' as pert an' sassy as she could be, an' she toP him plump out that ef he come thar ter see her he better wait till he was ast. Yes, sir; that's what she tol' him, an* his eyes aglowin' red as a couple of live coals. But he laughed an' said, as imp'tent as could he, that he 'spected an invite pretty soon. That air Sadie was as cool as a cowcumber; but I could feel her atremblin' like she'd drop ter pieces. An' she tol' him that ef he 'spected an invite from her, she guessed he'd git tired of awaitin'. But I had my suspections all along that she had a sort o' leanin' toward him; an' she did ! " Here Mrs. Thurber paused to give greater effect to her climax: " An' she's agwine ter marry him ter-morrow." There was a sound like a smothered ejaculation from the other room ; and Mrs. Hedges exclaimed : "Wall, I'll be flabbergasted! Gals do beat all fer ashiftin' 'round like weather cocks. Thought yer said as yer left her an' Ben Benstra asparkin' ? " " Wall, I did, I tell yer; an' I never see Sadie look so pretty an' soft like, neither ; though she was alaughin' fit ter bust her biler. That's what got the best o' me ter think I left her amakin' a fool of that poor Dutch boy an' Devine hain't been nigh her in a week an' I was with her then an' hern all they said an', ef yer please, 34 The Moneylender's Ears when we was acomin' across, we met Devine, an' Cap'n Lem's boat was alongside o' hisn. An' them air men both hollered Sadie's father an' Devine both on 'em, they hollered : " ' You're acomin' back fer the wed din', hain't yer, Ann-Abe ? ' " Wall, yer could have knocked me overboard with a feather; but I got my breath an' I made Abe tack an' we come on 'em agin an' I hollered to that air Devine Strong : '"Be Sadie Jarvis agwine ter take up with an ol' pirate like you ? ' says I. An' says Devine, says he: " ' That's what ! ' Imp'tent hain't no name fer it. He was agrinnin' like a full moon an' that air father o' hern looked tickled out'n his skin; but I was ahoppin', I was, fer I knowed Sadie didn't want him no more'n I did, so I yawped out: " 'You're a liar fer fair, Devine Strong.' An' agin he laughed like an idjit, but Cap'n Lem looked as ef he'd atook my head off ef it hadn't been fer the water between. An' so I jes' put two and two tergether an' made up my mind that ter-morrer bein' Reveren' Dan's Sunday, they'd jes' git him an' Devine over thar' ter- gether an' marry her off hanV (Some absurdity in the newspaper made the Money- lender give one of his rare chuckles, then bend down and read more intently.) " Them two pirates hain't agittin' no favors out'n the Reveren' Dan," declared the Moneylender's wife, coming to the defence of another friend of hers. " Law sakes, the Reveren' Dan hain't nawthink but a pirate himself." " Do you s'pose that Sadie likes that air Ben Ben- 35 The Story of Sarah stra?" asked Mrs. Hedges, going back to the more interesting subject. " Do I spose she likes him," exclaimed Mrs. Thurber. "Why she knocked that air long-legged Peter Jones clean over 'cause he kissed her onct." Mrs. Hedges laughed gleefully. " Yes, sir," went on Ann- Abe, " she was acoming up from the landin' one day acarryin' her father's gun, an' Long-Legged Pete, who'd had proof time an' agin that Sadie Jarvis is about as standoffish as a porkipine, didn't have no more wit than ter up an' kiss her. An' she up with the gun as quick as a wink an' knocked him clean over; then went on up the Cedar Road as ef he wa'n't nawthink but a fly. Pete's anussin' that lame shoulder o' hisn yit." Mrs. Thurber's hand went on duty over her mouth again, but it came down presently as she said : " Devine laughed like he'd fraction his throat when I tol' him. An' wa'n't I some mad cause I toP him then! So I says " " Of course," interrupted Mrs. Hedges, meditating over the tip of her warm toe, " when a girl what knocks one feller down fer akissin' her takes ter aspoon- in' with another, there's somethink in it." The man in the other room had read his newspaper through, and now came shambling out into the kitchen one shoulder much higher than the other, both badly bent, his eyes seeking the floor; curses were what weighed down his shoulders, people said, and the pos- sibility of finding a lost penny kept his eyes on the ground. Did these people know ? "I'm agoin' up street, Belle," he said in his low, surly tones, without looking at his wife. " Ef Devine 36 The M o n ey le n de r ' / Ears Strong comes aroun', you kin tell him that I been awaitin' fer him two hours, an' he kin set down an' wait fer me till I git good an' ready ter come." "Be Devine Strong acomin' here to-night?" de- manded the wife authoritatively, looking at Mr. Hedges over her shoulder, knowing full well that she was not to deliver one word of the discourteous message. "I jes' tol' you so, didn't I?" growled the Money- lender, turning back into the office. Mrs. Hedges jumped up and followed him, closing the door without apology upon her guest, who immediately sped to the keyhole for revenge. " Yer can't fool me, Hime Hedges," began Mrs. Hedges, placing herself, arms akimbo, between the Moneylender and the door; " that air Devine's acomin' here ter borrow money, like enough ter turn aroun' an' lend it ter Cap'n Lem Jarvis. Or else he's afraid yer'll take the sloop. Yer know yer own it an' him too body an' soul." The Moneylender, sulky and silent, scowled at the floor. " Ann- Abe " began his wife. "Ann- Abe's an old glab-throat," he interrupted angrily. "She hain't no sech thing! Why, I hain't never hern her say a word about nobody ! " " You must be deafe, then, fer she's been atalkin' like a house afire all the evenin'." Mrs. Hedges dismissed the subject and appealed to him somewhat piteously: "Hain't you got no feelin', Hime? Don't you 'member Sadie Jarvis, an' how good she was ter our Jinnie the winter Jinnie died ? " 37 The Story of Sarah At this he glanced up, his eyes showing surprising fire and brute-like pain; for she had touched upon that one wound which the making of money and the passing of years had failed to heal for the Moneylender. "I hain't aforgittin' nothink," he replied, huskily. " An' ef Sadie Jarvis is sot on amarryin' Devine Strong, I hain't agoin' ter hurt Devine Strong for no money." " Lorgens-ter-massy ! " cried the woman. " Hain't you got wit enough ter see, Hime, that Sadie jes' hates that th're ol' widower, an' that air heartless father o' hern is jes' amakin' her marry him ter git her off'n his hands? Why, her an' Ben Benstra " " Oh, shet up ! " he growled, contemptuously shoving her aside and going to the door. " You women folks jest let your minds run away with yer. I happen to know what I'm atalkin' about, an' ef that air Ann- Abe seen a Dutch boy asparkin' Sadie Jarvis, / seen some- think that passed between Sadie Jarvis and somebody else." With a gesture that forbade another word, he turned the knob and went out of doors. "That's always the way," thought Mrs. Hedges; "as sure as I pull one way, Hime goes lickety split the other. Oh, gosh, I wish I'd hed sense enough ter kept etill." "I'd jes' like ter see anybody manage Hime," she confided to her neglected guest, when she had resumed her occupation of toasting her feet in the stove oven. " He's the most sot in his way of anybody I ever see niasy ter death ! There hain't no doin' nawthink with him but jes' akeepin' still, an' I never was the kind ter keep still, /have to speak my mind right out." Mrs. Thurber nodded in sympathy and silently 38 The Moneylender* s Ears thanked the Lord that "Abe was Abe and not Hime Hedges" at the same moment when Mrs. Hedges con- soled herself with the thought that her husband was a "King to Abe Thurber, anyway." "Nobody never could work 'roun' Hime," continued the wife of the Moneylender, " but my little Jinnie. Ef you hed seen her coax the eyes right out'n his head ! An' Sadie was as like her as two peas. Why, Hime, he would set by the hour alistenin' ter them two children aprattlin' about what they was agwine ter do when they got growed up. Thar wa'n't nawthink he wouldn't adone fer them. I 'spect ef Jinnie was alivin' now she'd ahad a pinnaner an' everythink. He even let 'em hev a Christmas tree onct went out with them each aholdin' his hand an' cut it in the Eectory woods an' he's dretful sot agin sech tomfoolery as a gineral thing. An' Sadie she went an' put a box of t'ilet soap on it fer Hime, an' I tol' Hime what them two girls was up ter, an' he went an' went right up street an' bought a bottle of Sweet-by-and-by cologne an' put it on the tree fer Sade." Mrs. Hedges paused to sniff at the recollection, and Mrs. Thurber, who had heard the story of the soap before, put her hand over her mouth and " done her best," as she told Sadie afterward, "ter keep from bustin'." " Hime's got that box of soap yit," asserted the wife of the Moneylender triumphantly. " Yes, yes; I thought likely he might," rejoined Mrs. Thurber from behind her hand. " 'Bout how long 'go was that ? " " Eight years; it was the same winter Jinnie died an' Reveren' Dan's wife died, an' both them two gals was 39 The Story of Sarah jes' turned thirteen an' as pretty as picters. Thar'll never be another Christmas like that." The lonely mother took up a piece of her wrapper and furtively wiped her eyes. Mrs. Thurber blinked hard. In the silence that followed they were both startled by a loud knock at the office door. " Thar's Devine now," exclaimed Mrs. Hedges, slip- ping on her slovenly shoes. Then she added, with a broad grin: " We'll have time to git a whack at him before Hime gits back.'* "That's what we will!" joyfully assented Mrs. Thurber. 40 Sarah J arv i / CHAPTER IV SAEAH JAEVIS SAEAH JAEVIS'S mother, a truant member of the good old Mapes family of Wading Hollow, died when Sarah was three days old. It took the father a full hour to persuade himself that she was indeed dead that God had dared to take his wife away from him; then, without a word, he had taken up the sleeping baby, gone with it into another room, and locked the door. An hour passed, and it was as still in that room as in the room where the wife and mother lay; some one, anxious about the baby, knocked, but received no answer. An- other hour passed, and some one knocked again and called, but still received the same answer silence. Then there were awed whispers about the door, then louder calls, then frightened demands and threats; but still the answer was a silence as deep as that in the room where the wife and mother lay. At the end of the sixth hour the Sector's wife came. A sweet and lovely woman was the Rector's wife, and a very wise and sympathetic one. She called softly through the closed door, and presently there was the sound of feet dragging slowly across the room, of the key turning in the lock, and then the door was opened just far enough to admit Mrs. Leggett, and closed again. What she said or how she managed none ever knew save she and Captain Jarvis; but the Rector's wife came 41 The Story of Sarah out of the room with the baby in her arms, and in her arms she carried the child to her own home. For thir- teen years Sarah stayed at the Eectory (not eating the bread of charity, for her father would not allow that), and then the Sector's wife died and the Sector's own daughter was sent to the convent where her mother had been educated, and Captain Jarvis took Sarah home to such a home for a girl who had been brought up in refined surroundings by one of the sweetest, most under- standing women that ever breathed ! He carried her across the Bay and gave her a little two-room cottage on Eaccoon Beach, within stone's throw of the Life Saving Station of Bleak Hill. He was Keeper of the Station; his work was there; he liked the place, and he did not see why she should not like it. It was in the dead of winter of a cold and bitter winter and at best Kaccoon Beach is bleak and dreary in winter time scarcely more than a long, long chain of dunes that heave up like the petrified billows of a tumultuous sea of sand between the waters of the Great South Bay and the illimitable expanse of the ocean. All along the beach, at distances of perhaps four miles, there are Life-Saving stations, the first to the west stand- ing in the shadow of Raccoon Beach Light; but the fact that there are some human habitations on the beach seems to make it even more dreary and lonely. There was no woman at Bleak Hill that winter not even Mrs. Thurber; and so Sadie's lot fell among seven rude, rough, and, to her, half-savage, men, including her father. Captain Lena Jarvis did not understand his daughter, and his daughter did not understand him; they had 42 Sarah Jarvis seen but little of each other before this, and when they had met the Hector's wife had usually been present as interpreter. When Sadie lived at the Eectory he had been very proud of her beauty, her grace, and her clev- erness; after she came to Eaccoon Beach she suddenly shot into the awkward age, developed a fierce temper, and often used her cleverness to his discomfiture. Seen but occasionally, she had loved his picturesqueness, his blue coat and his brass buttons, his proud bearing, his rudely handsome face and figure. She thought his calling a noble one ; she was grateful that he had not let her eat the bread of charity; and when he had refused to let her be adopted by a certain lady, because neither he nor chick nor child of his should be beholden to " big-bugs," her heart had gone out to him in spite of the fact that life with that lady would have been far preferable to life on the Beach. She had not been at Bleak Hill two days before she had heard him swear at her, had seen him drunk, and discovered that he did not do his duty nor possess her strong sense of right and honor. She had so much innate refinement and he so much ingrained coarseness that almost every action and every word of his jarred upon her, and, without mean- ing to or without the knowledge that he did so, he hurt her; but often, with deliberate intent, he teased and tormented his daughter for no reason in the world save that he took the greatest delight in seeing the child possessed by the demon of her temper; and then he would call her a scratch-cat and a Tartar she who, even when chided, had never been chided harshly. She fought and prayed, and prayed and fought again that she might not hate him, her own father; she struggled all alone against ill-health, which was something new to 43 The Story of Sarah her, against irritability, which was also new to her, against sullenness and mental misery. And all the while she never complained to any one. "When the Rev- erend Dan came over once a month, he found her very quiet and reticent, but even more willing to sit upon his knee and put her arms around his neck than she had been in the old, sweet days at the Eectory. Somehow that winter passed; spring came, with the yellow creeper like perpetual sunlight on the dunes, white violets in the marshes and blue ones in the woods. The coarse brown grass grew green with life again; birds built their nests in the sturdy holly and stunted cedars. Then, the first of June and the going of all the crew save one Billy Downs, who loved her like a daughter and taught her many things beside the fact that a very kindly heart may beat beneath a rough exterior taught her how to row and sail; how to shoot, although she steadily refused to kill ; taught her concerning the wind and weather, the signals and the service taught her all that he knew, and, in return, she taught him how to read and write. Her father was away the greater part of the time, and the summer passed quickly. September found her, triumphant after a struggle with her father, living in Shoreville in two rooms in the house where her mother had died, and going to school. Winters passed at school and summers on the Beach until Sadie was eighteen; then another winter at school as pupil teacher, and Sadie was nineteen a little mar- vel of loveliness, of grace and dignity and refinement, bearing that "undefinable charm, the lady-look," self-re- specting, self-supporting ; when, to the amazement and mystification of all who knew her, she began to "keep company," as the village phrase goes, with Devine 44 Sarah Jar vis Strong, a boon companion of her father's, and a man as fit to mate with her as a swine with a princess. Against all remonstrances of the Hector's, of Mrs. Brumley, Sadie's motherly "big-bug" friend, of all who loved her, except Captain Jar vis, the affair went on intermittently for more than a year. Then Devine coolly announced that Sadie and he were to be married. The girl denied it to his face, and immediately went over to Bleak Hill to nurse her father through an attack of pneumonia the first sickness that he had ever had. As long as she was able to keep him in bed and to hide the fact that she had refused point blank to marry Devine Strong, Captain Lem was the most docile patient that ever came under the care of a woman; but as soon as he found out that he was not going to die, the saint turned back into a devil. He dinged Devine Strong's name in her ears all day; he flew into fits of rage every time she spoke of returning to Shore ville; he got out of bed and committed such acts of imprudence as would have killed any ordinary man. Sadie conceived that it was her duty to stay at Bleak Hill and watch over him ; and for this and other reasons she gave up her school and stayed, but with the distinct understanding that the next time Captain Jarvis said "Devine Strong" she would get on board a boat and sail for Shoreville. The winter had been exceptionally bleak and bitter on a par with that first one that Sadie had spent at Bleak Hill but in the midst of the winter there came one single day that was like a lull in the midst of a battle, sunshine in the thick of a storm one of those rare, warm winter days that is like a token left by the fair autumn, or a message sent by the distant spring. 45 The Story of Sarah It was the day on which Ben Benstra started for Bleak Hill. The surf lay low, softly complaining; the sun came up cloudlessly and threw a broad path of shimmering gold across the waters, to be lost in the slow confusion of the breakers. The bay grew into a fair-weather blue beneath the fair-weather sky. There was just enough wind to fill the sails of Ben's sloop and to fan his hope and to cure the fever of his impatience, and to enable him to make the five miles that lay between the home of his childhood and the home of his heart before he had thought out half that he wanted to say to Sarah. He anchored off the landing, rowed himself in, and marched boldly up the rude wagon trail through the stunted cedar wood to the little settlement of Bleak Hill. The little settlement of Bleak Hill, with its red- shingled Station and its two small gray cottages, sits in a broad clearing from which dunes rise high on three sides and the cedar wood slopes slowly down to the shore of the bay on the fourth. Across the clearing, just opposite the cedar wood, is another road a natural one cut straight through the dunes to the surf shore. There is a legend that accounts for this clearing in the heart of the dunes and for that natural road to the surf shore a legend of a furious night when the surf raged high, when sea horses, riding fast and furious, came snorting over the bluff, galloping into and through the sands, on into the heart of the beach a story of a wild attack upon the dunes, a stampede and a retreat. Billy Downs had told that story to the child Sadie years ago, one night when the surf was pounding and boom- ing, the wind galloping fast and furious; and she, with scarcely less good faith, had told it to Ben. 46 Sarah J a r