The Great Expedition

MRS. TODD never by any chance gave warning over night of her great projects and adventures by sea and land. She first came to an understanding with the primal forces of nature, and never trusted to any preliminary promise of good weather, but examined the day for herself in its infancy. Then, if the stars were propitious, and the wind blew from a quarter of good inheritance whence no surprises of sea-turns or southwest sultriness might be feared, long before I was fairly awake I used to hear a rustle and knocking like a great mouse in the walls, and an impatient tread on the steep garret stairs that led to Mrs. Todd’s chief place of storage. She went and came as if she had already started on her expedition with utmost haste and kept returning for something that was forgotten. When I appeared in quest of my breakfast, she would be absent-minded and sparing of speech, as if I had displeased her, and she was now, by main force of principle, holding herself back from altercation and strife of tongues.

These signs of a change became familiar to me in the course of time, and Mrs. Todd hardly noticed some plain proofs of divination one August morning when I said, without preface, that I had just seen the Beggs’ best chaise go by, and that we should have to take the grocery. Mrs. Todd was alert in a moment.

“There! I might have known!” she exclaimed. “It ’s the 15th of August, when he goes and gets his money. He heired an annuity from an uncle o’ his on his mother’s side. I understood the uncle said none o’ Sam Begg’s wife’s folks should make free with it, so after Sam ’s gone it ’ll all be past an’ spent, like last summer. That ’s what Sam prospers on now, if you can call it prosperin’. Yes, I might have known. ’T is the 15th o’ August with him, an’ he gener’ly stops to dinner with a cousin’s widow on the way home. Feb’uary n’ August is the times. Takes him ’bout all day to go an’ come.”

I heard this explanation with interest. The tone of Mrs. Todd’s voice was complaining at the last.

“I like the grocery just as well as the chaise,” I hastened to say, referring to a long-bodied high wagon with a canopy-top, like an attenuated four-posted bedstead on wheels, in which we sometimes journeyed. “We can put things in behind—roots and flowers and raspberries, or anything you are going after—much better than if we had the chaise.”

Mrs. Todd looked stony and unwilling. “I counted upon the chaise,” she said, turning her back to me, and roughly pushing back all the quiet tumblers on the cupboard shelf as if they had been impertinent. “Yes, I desired the chaise for once. I ain’t goin’ berryin’ nor to fetch home no more wilted vegetation this year. Season ’s about past, except for a poor few o’ late things,” she added in a milder tone. “I ’m goin’ up country. No, I ain’t intendin’ to go berryin’. I ’ve been plottin’ for it the past fortnight and hopin’ for a good day.”

“Would you like to have me go too?” I asked frankly, but not without a humble fear that I might have mistaken the purpose of this latest plan.

“Oh certain, dear!” answered my friend affectionately. “Oh no, I never thought o’ any one else for comp’ny, if it ’s convenient for you, long ’s poor mother ain’t come. I ain’t nothin’ like so handy with a conveyance as I be with a good bo’t. Comes o’ my early bringing-up. I expect we ’ve got to make that great high wagon do. The tires want settin’ and ’t is all loose-jointed, so I can hear it shackle the other side o’ the ridge. We ’ll put the basket in front. I ain’t goin’ to have it bouncin’ an’ twirlin’ all the way. Why, I ’ve been makin’ some nice hearts and rounds to carry.”

These were signs of high festivity, and my interest deepened moment by moment.

“I ’ll go down to the Beggs’ and get the horse just as soon as I finish my breakfast,” said I. “Then we can start whenever you are ready.”

Mrs. Todd looked cloudy again. “I don’t know but you look nice enough to go just as you be,” she suggested doubtfully. “No, you would n’t want to wear that pretty blue dress o’ yourn ’way up country. ’T aint dusty now, but it may be comin’ home. No, I expect you ’d rather not wear that and the other hat.”

“Oh yes. I should n’t think of wearing these clothes,” said I, with sudden illumination. “Why, if we ’re going up country and are likely to see some of your friends, I ’ll put on my blue dress, and you must wear your watch; I am not going at all if you mean to wear the big hat.”

“Now you ’re behavin’ pretty,” responded Mrs. Todd, with a gay toss of her head and a cheerful smile, as she came across the room, bringing a saucerful of wild raspberries, a pretty piece of salvage from supper-time. “I was cast down when I see you come to breakfast. I did n’t think ’t was just what you ’d select to wear to the reunion, where you ’re goin’ to meet everybody.”

“What reunion do you mean?” I asked, not without amazement. “Not the Bowden Family’s? I thought that was going to take place in September.”

“To-day ’s the day. They sent word the middle o’ the week. I thought you might have heard of it. Yes, they changed the day. I been thinkin’ we ’d talk it over, but you never can tell beforehand how it ’s goin’ to be, and ’t ain’t worth while to wear a day all out before it comes.” Mrs. Todd gave no place to the pleasures of anticipation, but she spoke like the oracle that she was. “I wish mother was here to go,” she continued sadly. “I did look for her last night, and I could n’t keep back the tears when the dark really fell and she wa’n’t here, she does so enjoy a great occasion. If William had a mite o’ snap an’ ambition, he ’d take the lead at such a time. Mother likes variety, and there ain’t but a few nice opportunities ’round here, an’ them she has to miss ’less she contrives to get ashore to me. I do re’lly hate to go to the reunion without mother, an’ ’t is a beautiful day; everybody ’ll be asking where she is. Once she ’d have got here anyway. Poor mother ’s beginnin’ to feel her age.”

“Why, there ’s your mother now!” I exclaimed with joy, I was so glad to see the dear old soul again. “I hear her voice at the gate.” But Mrs. Todd was out of the door before me.

There, sure enough, stood Mrs. Blackett, who must have left Green Island before daylight. She had climbed the steep road from the water-side so eagerly that she was out of breath, and was standing by the garden fence to rest. She held an old-fashioned brown wicker cap-basket in her hand, as if visiting were a thing of every day, and looked up at us as pleased and triumphant as a child.

“Oh, what a poor, plain garden! Hardly a flower in it except your bush o’ balm!” she said. “But you do keep your garden neat, Almiry. Are you both well, an’ goin’ up country with me?” She came a step or two closer to meet us, with quaint politeness and quite as delightful as if she were at home. She dropped a quick little curtsey before Mrs. Todd.

“There, mother, what a girl you be! I am so pleased! I was just bewailin’ you,” said the daughter, with unwonted feeling. “I was just bewailin’ you, I was so disappointed, an’ I kep’ myself awake a good piece o’ the night scoldin’ poor William. I watched for the boat till I was ready to shed tears yisterday, and when ’t was comin’ dark I kep’ making errands out to the gate an’ down the road to see if you wa’n’t in the doldrums somewhere down the bay.”

“There was a head wind, as you know,” said Mrs. Blackett, giving me the cap-basket, and holding my hand affectionately as we walked up the clean-swept path to the door. “I was partly ready to come, but dear William said I should be all tired out and might get cold, havin’ to beat all the way in. So we give it up, and set down and spent the evenin’ together. It was a little rough and windy outside, and I guess ’t was better judgment; we went to bed very early and made a good start just at daylight. It ’s been a lovely mornin’ on the water. William thought he ’d better fetch across beyond Bird Rocks, rowin’ the greater part o’ the way; then we sailed from there right over to the Landin’, makin’ only one tack. William ’ll be in again for me to-morrow, so I can come back here an’ rest me over night, an’ go to meetin’ to-morrow, and have a nice, good visit.”

“She was just havin’ her breakfast,” said Mrs. Todd, who had listened eagerly to the long explanation without a word of disapproval, while her face shone more and more with joy. “You just sit right down an’ have a cup of tea and rest you while we make our preparations. Oh, I am so gratified to think you ’ve come! Yes, she was just havin’ her breakfast, and we were speakin’ of you. Where ’s William?”

“He went right back; he said he expected some schooners in about noon after bait, but he ’ll come an’ have his dinner with us to-morrow, unless it rains; then next day. I laid his best things out all ready,” explained Mrs. Blackett, a little anxiously. “This wind will serve him nice all the way home. Yes, I will take a cup of tea, dear,—a cup of tea is always good; and then I ’ll rest a minute and be all ready to start.”

“I do feel condemned for havin’ such hard thoughts o’ William,” openly confessed Mrs. Todd. She stood before us so large and serious that we both laughed and could not find it in our hearts to convict so rueful a culprit. “He shall have a good dinner to-morrow, if it can be got, and I shall be real glad to see William,” the confession ended handsomely, while Mrs. Blackett smiled approval and made haste to praise the tea. Then I hurried away to make sure of the grocery wagon. Whatever might be the good of the reunion, I was going to have the pleasure and delight of a day in Mrs. Blackett’s company, not to speak of Mrs. Todd’s.

The early morning breeze was still blowing, and the warm, sunshiny air was of some ethereal northern sort, with a cool freshness as if it came over new-fallen snow. The world was filled with a fragrance of fir-balsam and the faintest flavor of seaweed from the ledges, bare and brown at low tide in the little harbor. It was so still and so early that the village was but half awake. I could hear no voices but those of the birds, small and great,—the constant song sparrows, the clink of a yellow-hammer over in the woods, and the far conversation of some deliberate crows. I saw William Blackett’s escaping sail already far from land, and Captain Littlepage was sitting behind his closed window as I passed by, watching for some one who never came. I tried to speak to him, but he did not see me. There was a patient look on the old man’s face, as if the world were a great mistake and he had nobody with whom to speak his own language or find companionship.

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