Uncle Terry A Story of the Maine Coast , livre ebook

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130 pages

English

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pubOne.info thank you for your continued support and wish to present you this new edition. A WAIF OF THE SEA It's goin' to be a nasty night, said Uncle Terry, coming in from the shed and dumping an armful of wood in the box behind the kitchen stove, an' the combers is just a-humpin' over White Hoss Ledge, an' the spray's flyin' half way up the lighthouse. The Lord-a-massy help any poor soul that goes ashore to-night, responded a portly, white-haired woman beside the stove, as a monster wave made the little dwelling tremble.

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Publié par	Pub One Info
Date de parution	23 octobre 2010
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9782819915454
Langue	English

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CHAPTER I
A WAIF OF THE SEA "It's goin' to be a nasty night,"said Uncle Terry, coming in from the shed and dumping an armful ofwood in the box behind the kitchen stove, "an' the combers is justa-humpin' over White Hoss Ledge, an' the spray's flyin' half way upthe lighthouse." "The Lord-a-massy help any poor soul that goesashore to-night," responded a portly, white-haired woman beside thestove, as a monster wave made the little dwelling tremble.
Uncle Terry took off his dripping sou'wester andcoat, and, hanging them over the wood box, went to the sink andbegan pumping a basin of water. "Better have some warm, Silas,"said the woman, taking the steaming kettle from the stove andfollowing him; "it's more comfortin'."
When he had washed, and combed his scanty gray locksand beard at a small mirror, he stood for a moment beside thestove. His weather-beaten face that evinced character, sopronounced were its features, wore a smile, and his deep-set grayeyes emitted a twinkle. "Supper 'most ready, Lissy?" he asked,eyeing a pot on the stove that gave out an appetizing odor. "I'mhungry 'nough to eat a mule with the harness on!" "'Twill be in aminit," was the reply. "Better go into t'other room where Telly'ssettin' the table."
Uncle Terry obeyed, and, finding a bright fireburning there, stood back to it, smiling affectionately at a younggirl busy beside the table. She had an oval face, a rather thin anddelicate nose, small sweet mouth, and eyes that were big, blue, andappealing. A wealth of light hair was coiled on the back of herhead, and her form was full and rounded. "It's blowing hardto-night, father, isn't it?" she observed. "I can feel the wavesshake the house." Then, not waiting for an answer, she stepped to acloset, and bringing a short gray coat and felt slippers, pushed anarm-chair to the fire, and placing the slippers beside it, held thecoat ready for him to put it on. "You might as well becomfortable," she added; "you haven't got to go out again, haveyou?"
The man seated himself, and drawing off his wetboots and putting on his slippers, opened his hands toward theblaze and observed: "You and Lissy's bound to cosset me, so bimebyI won't stir out 'cept the sun shines."
Silas Terry, or Uncle Terry, as everybody onSouthport Island called him, was, and for thirty years had been,the keeper of "The Cape" light, situated on the outermost point ofthe island. To this he added the daily duty of mail carrier to thehead of the island, eight miles distant, and there connecting witha small steamer plying between the Maine coast islands and a shoreport. He also, in common with other of the islanders, tilled alittle land and kept a few traps set for lobsters. He was anhonest, kind-hearted, and fairly well-read man, whose odd sayingsand quaint phrases were proverbial. With his wife, whom everybodycalled Aunt Lissy, and adopted daughter Telly, he lived in a neatwhite house close to the Cape light and, as he put it, "hislatch-string was allus out."
Uncle Terry had a history, and not the leastinteresting episode in it was the entrance into his life of thissame fair and blue-eyed girl. Perhaps his own graphic descriptionwill best tell the tale: "It was 'bout the last o' March, nigh ontoeighteen year ago, and durin' one o' the worst blows I everrec'clect since I kep' the light, that one mornin' I spied a vesselhard an' fast on White Hoss Ledge, 'bout half a mile off the pint.It had been snowin' some an' froze on the windows o' the light, somebbe she didn't see it 'fore she fetched up all standin'. The seaswas poundin' her like great guns, an' in her riggin' I could seethe poor devils half hid in snow an' ice. Thar wa'n't no hope for'em, for no dory could 'a' lived a moment in that awful gale, andthar wa'n't no lifeboat here. Lissy an' me made haste to build afire on the pint, to show the poor critturs we had feelin' for 'em,an' then we just stood an' waited an' watched for 'em to go down.It might 'a' been an hour, there's no tellin', when I saw a bigbundle tossin' light, an' comin' ashore. I ran over to the covewhere I keep my boats, and grabbed a piece o' rope an' boat hook,and made ready. The Lord must 'a' steered that bundle, for it keptworkin' along, headin' for a bit o' beach just by the pint. I had arope round my waist, an' Lissy held onto the end, an' when thebundle struck I made fast with the boat hook and the next combertumbled me end over, bundle an' all, up onto the sand. I grabbed atit, an' 'fore the next one come, had it high an' dry out o' theway. "It's allus been a puzzle to me just why I did it, for I waswet through an' most froze, an' what I'd pulled out looked like afeather bed tied round with a cord, but I out with my knife an' cutthe cords, an' thar in the middle o' two feather beds was a box,an' in the box a baby alive an' squallin'! "I didn't stop to takethe rope off my waist, but grabbed the box an' ran for the housewith Lissy after me. We had a fire in the stove, an' Lissy warmed ablanket and wrapped the poor thing up an' held it over the stovean' kissed it and took on just as wimmin will. When I see it wassafe I cut for the pint, thinkin' to wave my hat an' show 'em wehad saved the baby, but a squall o' snow had struck in an' when itlet up the vessel was gone. Thar was bits o' wreck cum ashore,pieces o' spars, a boat all stove in, an' the like, an' a woodenshoe. In the box the baby was in was two little blankets, an', tiedin a bit o' cloth, two rings an' a locket with two picters in it,an' a paper was pinned to the baby's clothes with furrin writin' onit. It said the baby's name was Etelka Peterson, an' 'To God Icommend my child,' an' signed, 'A despairin' mother.' From bits o'the wreck we learned the vessel was from Stockholm, an' named'Peterson.' "The paper was sech a heart-techin' appeal, an' as we'djust buried our only child, a six-year-old gal, we was glad toadopt this 'un an' bring her up. In due course o' time I made areport o' the wreck to the Lighthouse Board, an' that we had savedone life, a gal baby, an' give all the facts. Nothin' ever cameon't, though, an' we was glad thar didn't. We kep' the little gal,an' she wa'n't long in growin' into our feelin's, an' the older shegrowed, the more we thought o' her."
Of course the history of Uncle Terry's protegée wasknown to every resident of the island, and as she grew intogirlhood and attended school at the Cape – as the little village aquarter mile back of the point was called – until she matured intoa young lady, every one came to feel that, in a way, she belongedto the kindly lighthouse keeper and his wife Melissa.
To them she was all that a devoted daughter couldbe, and when school days were over she became Uncle Terry's almostconstant companion. On pleasant days she went with him to attendhis traps, and on his daily drive to the head of the island. Shewas welcome in every house and well beloved by all those simple,kindly people, who felt an unusual interest in her existence. Oftender heart and timid nature, her appealing eyes won the love ofyoung and old. On Sunday evenings she was always one of the smallcongregation that gathered to hold simple services in the littlechurch at the Cape – a square one-story building that never knewpaint or shutters.
Of beaux she hardly knew the meaning, and it must besaid the few young men who remained on the island after reachingthe age of courtship were neither in garb nor manners such as wouldattract a girl like Telly.
One special talent she was gifted with and that theability to draw and paint well. Even as a child at school she woulddraw pictures on a slate that were surprising, and when older, andshe obtained materials, she worked until she became, in a way,quite an artist. As Uncle Terry put it, "Makin' picters comesnat'rl to the gal."
She had never received even the first lessons inthat charming art, but for all that every room in the house haddozens of her efforts, large and small, hanging on the walls, andin the oddest frames. Some were of strips of thin board coveredwith little shells or dried moss, and others of rustic handiworkand mounted with fir cones.
There was but one shadow in her life and that thefact that no one of the relatives she imagined she must have infar-off Sweden ever made any effort to learn the fate of herparents, who she knew had gone down so near her home. The story ofher rescue with all its pitiful details was familiar to her and inher room were treasured all the odd bits of wreckage: the locketthat contained her parents' pictures; the two rings; the lastmessage of her mother; and even the wooden shoe that had floatedashore. How many times she had looked at those two pictured faces,one a reflection of her own, how many tears she had shed in secretover them, and how, year after year, she wondered if ever in herlife some relative would be known to her, no one, not even herfoster-parents, ever knew. Neither did they know how many times shehad tried to imagine the moment when her despairing mother, withdeath near, and with prayers and tears, had cast her adrift, hopingthat the one little life most dear to that mother might be saved.The fatal reef where those parents had gone down also held for hera weird fascination, and at times the voice of the ocean seemedlike the despairing cries of mortals. One picture, and it was herbest, was a view of the wreck, as near as Uncle Terry coulddescribe it, with human forms clinging to the ice-clad rigging andtempestuous seas leaping over them. The subject held an uncannyinfluence over her, and she had spent months on the picture. Butthis shadow of her life she kept carefully guarded from all.
CHAPTER II
UNCLE TERRY "I wa'n't consulted 'bout comin' intothis world," said Uncle Terry once, "an' I don't 'spect to be 'boutgoin' out. I was born on a wayback farm in Connecticut, where therocks was so thick we used ter round the sheep up once a week an'sharpen thar noses on the grin'stun, so't they could get 'em 'tweenthe stuns. I