The Country of the Pointed Firs - Sarah Orne Jewett (top 10 novels to read .txt) 📗

or no cost⁠—she was a very reasonable woman, an’ ’twas the place where she done all but her extra shopping. It kind o’ chilled me up when she spoke so satisfied.”

“You don’t go out fishing after Christmas?” I asked, as we came back to the bright kitchen.

“No; I take stiddy to my knitting after January sets in,” said the old seafarer. “ ’Tain’t worth while, fish make off into deeper water an’ you can’t stand no such perishin’ for the sake o’ what you get. I leave out a few traps in sheltered coves an’ do a little lobsterin’ on fair days. The young fellows braves it out, some on ’em; but, for me, I lay in my winter’s yarn an’ set here where ’tis warm, an’ knit an’ take my comfort. Mother learnt me once when I was a lad; she was a beautiful knitter herself. I was laid up with a bad knee, an’ she said ’twould take up my time an’ help her; we was a large family. They’ll buy all the folks can do down here to Addicks’ store. They say our Dunnet stockin’s is gettin’ to be celebrated up to Boston⁠—good quality o’ wool an’ even knittin’ or somethin’. I’ve always been called a pretty hand to do nettin’, but seines is master cheap to what they used to be when they was all hand worked. I change off to nettin’ long towards spring, and I piece up my trawls and lines and get my fishin’ stuff to rights. Lobster pots they require attention, but I make ’em up in spring weather when it’s warm there in the barn. No; I ain’t one o’ them that likes to set an’ do nothin’.”

“You see the rugs, poor dear did them; she wa’n’t very partial to knittin’,” old Elijah went on, after he had counted his stitches. “Our rugs is beginnin’ to show wear, but I can’t master none o’ them womanish tricks. My sister, she tinkers ’em up. She said last time she was here that she guessed they’d last my time.”

“The old ones are always the prettiest,” I said.

“You ain’t referrin’ to the braided ones now?” answered Mr. Tilley. “You see ours is braided for the most part, an’ their good looks is all in the beginnin’. Poor dear used to say they made an easier floor. I go shufflin’ round the house same’s if ’twas a bo’t, and I always used to be stubbin’ up the corners o’ the hooked kind. Her an’ me was always havin’ our jokes together same’s a boy an’ girl. Outsiders never’d know nothin’ about it to see us. She had nice manners with all, but to me there was nobody so entertainin’. She’d take off anybody’s natural talk winter evenin’s when we set here alone, so you’d think ’twas them a-speakin’. There, there!”

I saw that he had dropped a stitch again, and was snarling the blue yarn round his clumsy fingers. He handled it and threw it off at arm’s length as if it were a cod line; and frowned impatiently, but I saw a tear shining on his cheek.

I said that I must be going, it was growing late, and asked if I might come again, and if he would take me out to the fishing grounds someday.

“Yes, come any time you want to,” said my host, “ ’tain’t so pleasant as when poor dear was here. Oh, I didn’t want to lose her an’ she didn’t want to go, but it had to be. Such things ain’t for us to say; there’s no yes an’ no to it.”

“You find Almiry Todd one o’ the best o’ women?” said Mr. Tilley as we parted. He was standing in the doorway and I had started off down the narrow green field. “No, there ain’t a better hearted woman in the State o’ Maine. I’ve known her from a girl. She’s had the best o’ mothers. You tell her I’m liable to fetch her up a couple or three nice good mackerel early tomorrow,” he said. “Now don’t let it slip your mind. Poor dear, she always thought a sight o’ Almiry, and she used to remind me there was nobody to fish for her; but I don’t rec’lect it as I ought to. I see you drop a line yourself very handy now an’ then.”

We laughed together like the best of friends, and I spoke again about the fishing grounds, and confessed that I had no fancy for a southerly breeze and a ground swell.

“Nor me neither,” said the old fisherman. “Nobody likes ’em, say what they may. Poor dear was disobliged by the mere sight of a bo’t. Almiry’s got the best o’ mothers, I expect you know; Mis’ Blackett out to Green Island; and we was always plannin’ to go out when summer come; but there, I couldn’t pick no day’s weather that seemed to suit her just right. I never set out to worry her neither, ’twa’n’t no kind o’ use; she was so pleasant we couldn’t have no fret nor trouble. ’Twas never ‘you dear an’ you darlin’ afore folks, an’ ‘you divil’ behind the door!”

As I looked back from the lower end of the field I saw him still standing, a lonely figure in the doorway. “Poor dear,” I repeated to myself half aloud; “I wonder where she is and what she knows of the little world she left. I wonder what she has been doing these eight years!”

I gave the message about the mackerel to Mrs. Todd.

“Been visitin’ with ’Lijah?” she asked with interest. “I expect you had kind of a dull session; he ain’t the talkin’ kind; dwellin’ so much long o’ fish seems to make ’em lose the gift o’ speech.” But when I told her that Mr. Tilley had been talking to me that day, she interrupted me quickly.

“Then ’twas all about his wife, an’ he can’t say nothin’ too pleasant neither. She was modest with strangers, but there ain’t one o’ her old friends