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XV. On Shell-heap Island.
SOME time
after Mrs. Fosdick's visit was over and we had returned to our former
quietness, I was out sailing alone with Captain Bowden in his large boat. We
were taking the crooked northeasterly channel seaward, and were well out from
shore while it was still early in the afternoon. I found myself presently among
some unfamiliar islands, and suddenly remembered the story of poor Joanna.
There is something in the fact of a hermitage that cannot fail to touch the
imagination; the recluses are a sad kindred, but they are never commonplace.
Mrs. Todd had truly said that Joanna was like one of the saints in the desert;
the loneliness of sorrow will forever keep alive their sad succession. "Where
is Shell-heap Island?" I asked eagerly. "You see
Shell-heap now, layin' 'way out beyond Black Island there," answered the
captain, pointing with outstretched arm as he stood, and holding the rudder
with his knee. "I
should like very much to go there," said I, and the captain, without
comment, changed his course a little more to the eastward and let the reef out
of his mainsail. "I don't
know's we can make an easy landin' for ye," he remarked doubtfully.
"May get your feet wet; bad place to land. Trouble is I ought to have
brought a tag-boat; but they clutch on to the water so, an' I do love to sail
free. This gre't boat gets easy bothered with anything trailin'. 'Tain't breakin'
much on the meetin'-house ledges; guess I can fetch in to Shell-heap." "How
long is it since Miss Joanna Todd died?" I asked, partly by way of
explanation. "Twenty-two
years come September," answered the captain, after reflection. "She
died the same year as my oldest boy was born, an' the town house was burnt over
to the Port. I didn't know but you merely wanted to hunt for some o' them
Indian relics. Long's you want to see where Joanna lived — No, 'tain't breakin'
over the ledges; we'll manage to fetch across the shoals somehow, 'tis such a
distance to go 'way round, and tide's a-risin'," he ended hopefully, and
we sailed steadily on, the captain speechless with intent watching of a
difficult course, until the small island with its low whitish promontory lay in
full view before us under the bright afternoon sun. The month was
August, and I had seen the color of the islands change from the fresh green of
June to a sunburnt brown that made them look like stone, except where the dark
green of the spruces and fir balsam kept the tint that even winter storms might
deepen, but not fade. The few wind-bent trees on Shell-heap Island were mostly
dead and gray, but there were some low-growing bushes, and a stripe of light
green ran along just above the shore, which I knew to be wild morning-glories.
As we came close I could see the high stone walls of a small square field,
though there were no sheep left to assail it; and below, there was a little
harbor-like cove where Captain Bowden was boldly running the great boat in to
seek a landing-place. There was a crooked channel of deep water which led close
up against the shore. "There,
you hold fast for'ard there, an' wait for her to lift on the wave. You'll make
a good landin' if you're smart; right on the port-hand side!" the captain
called excitedly; and I, standing ready with high ambition, seized my chance
and leaped over to the grassy bank. "I'm
beat if I ain't aground after all!" mourned the captain despondently. But I could
reach the bowsprit, and he pushed with the boat-hook, while the wind veered
round a little as if on purpose and helped with the sail; so presently the boat
was free and began to drift out from shore. "Used to
call this p'int Joanna's wharf privilege, but 't has worn away in the weather
since her time. I thought one or two bumps wouldn't hurt us none, — paint's got
to be renewed, anyway, — but I never thought she'd tetch. I figured on shyin'
by," the captain apologized. "She's too gre't a boat to handle well
in here; but I used to sort of shy by in Joanna's day, an' cast a little
somethin' ashore — some apples or a couple o' pears if I had 'em — on the
grass, where she'd be sure to see." I stood
watching while Captain Bowden cleverly found his way back to deeper water.
"You needn't make no haste," he called to me; "I'll keep within
call. Joanna lays right up there in the far corner o' the field. There used to
be a path led to the place. I always knew her well. I was out here to the
funeral." I found the
path; it was touching to discover that this lonely spot was not without its
pilgrims. Later generations will know less and less of Joanna herself, but
there are paths trodden to the shrines of solitude the world over, — the world
cannot forget them, try as it may; the feet of the young find them out because
of curiosity and dim foreboding; while the old bring hearts full of
remembrance. This plain anchorite had been one of those whom sorrow made too
lonely to brave the sight of men, too timid to front the simple world she knew,
yet valiant enough to live alone with her poor insistent human nature and the
calms and passions of the sea and sky. The birds
were flying all about the field; they fluttered up out of the grass at my feet
as I walked along, so tame that I liked to think they kept some happy tradition
from summer to summer of the safety of nests and good fellowship of mankind.
Poor Joanna's house was gone except the stones of its foundations, and there
was little trace of her flower garden except a single faded sprig of
much-enduring French pinks, which a great bee and a yellow butterfly were
befriending together. I drank at the spring, and thought that now and then some
one would follow me from the busy, hard-worked, and simple-thoughted
countryside of the mainland, which lay dim and dreamlike in the August haze, as
Joanna must have watched it many a day. There was the world, and here was she
with eternity well begun. In the life of each of us, I said to myself, there is
a place remote and islanded, and given to endless regret or secret happiness;
we are each the uncompanioned hermit and recluse of an hour or a day; we
understand our fellows of the cell to whatever age of history they may belong. But as I stood alone on the island, in the sea-breeze, suddenly there came a sound of distant voices; gay voices and laughter from a pleasure-boat that was going seaward full of boys and girls. I knew, as if she had told me, that poor Joanna must have heard the like on many and many a summer afternoon, and must have welcomed the good cheer in spite of hopelessness and winter weather, and all the sorrow and disappointment in the world. |