The young ship builder by Sophie Swett is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. CHAPTER VII
A LITTLE JOURNEY INTO THE WORLD
Day was growing faintly visible through the window-pane, before I went to sleep, and then I had a troubled dream, none the less unpleasant, as is the way of dreams, because it was nonsensical. Uncle Horace’s new pair of calico colts were harnessed to the Dingo, the great brig that had been lost at sea, and Dave was attempting to drive this unique team over the rough ice of the river—as rough as it had been the day before, when it had broken Dr. Yorke’s skate. The Dingo’s cargo consisted of pots of dainty butter, stamped with clover and wild roses; a kind of sublimated sage cheese, sure to make the fortunes of Groundnut Hill Farm, and glasses of such jelly as never before were seen, with B. D., for Bathsheba Dill stamped upon every glass. And I knew, vaguely, that in all the great cities the fences and walls and lamp-posts were covered with placards advertising the products of Groundnut Hill Farm! “Bathsheba Dill’s Jelly! Buy no other!” I read and was proud.
Suddenly I became aware that Dave was driving upon thin ice. The colts had changed into Alf Reeder’s race-horse, with fire streaming from his nostrils, and no one could stop him, not even Alice Yorke, although she appeared, skating along, and clutched at the reins. The ship, steed and driver, disappeared suddenly in the black waters of the river, and over the place where they had gone down Rob’s signal lantern swung weirdly, making a noise like the bell buoy down in the bay.
Now, of course that was only what Loveday calls “a mince-pie dream,” but yet it haunted me, and its depressing influence would not be shaken off.
Dave came home in the middle of the forenoon. We had earlier in the morning stopped Dr. Yorke as he drove by, and learned that Rob had had a distressing attack of asthma, but not worse and not more dangerous than he had had many times before. He was growing more and more dependent upon Dave. The doctor said that such suffering as his was very weakening to the nervous system.
I hoped that Dave would get some sleep, but I heard him moving about in his room, and I went in to ask him about the shut-down at the shipyard, and how many men had been affected by it. In the midst of my practical plans for strangling the wolf at our own door, I was still anxious for the business honor of the family, and mindful of grandfather’s steadfast determination never to turn off any men in the middle of winter.
Dave was drawing, rapidly, on a great sheet of cardboard. He said, “Come in,” absently, and went on with his work. It seemed to be the model of a ship, very roughly drawn.
“Wait a minute, Bathsheba, I’m busy,” he said impatiently, in answer to my reproaches that he was not sleeping and to my flood of questions about Rob and about the shipyard. “There! that’s more as the thing ought to be! I tell you it riles a fellow to drive nails into such a clumsy craft as Cyrus has got down there on the stocks! It’s no wonder that there’s no money in such shipbuilding as that! Now, can’t even you, Bathsheba, see the difference between that thing and this!”
He held the great cardboard up before my eyes, and watched me, wistfully, while I wrinkled up my brows, and stared at it stupidly. It must have conveyed to my mind very little impression of what it was really intended to be, for I remember that it only served to remind me, irresistibly, of Miss Raycroft as the old woman with the broomstick, and I said, hastily, in a tone of reproof:
“O Dave, I wouldn’t waste my time in that way! They have architects who know more than you, a thousand times, and you will only annoy Cyrus if you say the models he uses are not right!”
“Annoy Cyrus!” echoed Dave, disdainfully. “What do you suppose Cyrus knows about the models of the ships? He leaves that, as you say, to the architects. He thinks as you do, that they know everything.”
A cold chill of discouragement settled upon me. Instead of trying to master the details of the business, as I had of late allowed myself to hope that he would, he was thinking only of drawing again! It was vain to hope that one of the “aliens” would have a practical mind! Butter and cheese must save the day for the house of Partridge, if it were to be saved at all! But I did say, grimly, as I turned away:
“I think it would be better to stick to the hammer than to fritter your time away with that sort of thing.”
“The hammer is likely to stick to me, it’s a way they have when you once get hold of them,” said Dave, lightly. “But shall I have no amusements because wielding the hammer is my work? Because we make famous sage cheese shall there be no tidies with roses and ribbons sprawling over all the furniture?”
The rest of the family didn’t appreciate my fancy-work, the boys especially, and Dave thought this a very keen thrust.
“To beautify the home is a very different thing from squandering one’s time in perfectly useless drawing,” I said loftily. “If you even painted pictures like Estelle. I think she may paint one that will do to hang over the spare room mantel and look prettier there than my bouquet of crystallized grasses.”
I felt that it was truly noble of me to say this, for I had been much hurt by the lack of appreciation shown my crystallized grasses, dyed every color of the rainbow, and then dipped in alum.
Dave groaned and threw a sofa pillow at me; but I walked out with dignity—and my heavy heart. I felt that it was useless to question Dave further about the state of things at the shipyard. He understood too little about the business, and had too little interest in it for his opinion to be of any value.
Butter and cheese and preserves must save the day! “Get you a combernation,” Hiram Nute was always saying, “but don’t get anything but what folks really want.” I was thankful that I had not been led away by any frivolities of art. I had my own high opinion of the artistic excellence of my tidies and my crystallized grasses, but I had no idea that they would sell. Clearly, I was more sensible than the others.
Ah, me! frankness is painful, for who is there who can frankly write out the past and not write himself down a fool?
It was Saturday, a school holiday, and Octavia was in her room hard at work, I knew, on “Evelyn Marchmont.” Now on that day I had but little faith in “Evelyn Marchmont.” I felt that it would be a very great thing if Octavia could write a book. No one in Palmyra had ever written a book! When the Centennial exercises of the church were printed in book form and the poem that Emmeline Luce had written for the occasion appeared in large type and with her name in full, we felt that all Palmyra was honored by having a poet in its midst, and we looked curiously at Emmeline to see how she bore her garland of fame. Before it had withered, I knew that many original poems were sent from Palmyra to the local papers, and even to more ambitious publications. But it is probable that they all shared the fate of Octavia’s stories; they all came back like fledglings to the nest; for none of them ever appeared in print, and Palmyra had never given another poet to the world. Emmeline married and went West to live, and when her husband died, a few years after her marriage, we heard of her as taking boarders to support herself.
But although Fame’s little day was over for Emmeline, and there had been no evident results of it in Palmyra, yet I was sure that Octavia’s literary efforts dated from that time. She was more persevering than the other aspirants for literary success had been; whether this argued greater literary talent or not, I could not judge, “Evelyn Marchmont” was the “fine, consummate flower” of effort, whether it might be that of genius or not.
But on that day I could not think hopefully of “Evelyn Marchmont.” Emmeline’s boarders lay heavily on my mind. Practical necessities do so sadly change one’s sense of values in this world. And I felt myself to be the only one in the family who had a really practical mind. Butter and board! those were things that people really wanted, I reasoned, a la Hiram Nute.
So when Octavia called me I went reluctantly to the reading of “Evelyn Marchmont.” Octavia did not think me a competent critic; one’s limitations seldom fail to be recognized by one’s brothers and sisters; but she had a longing for sympathy, and wished some practical ideas on the subject as well.
“Perhaps you represent the average reading public, Bathsheba dear,” she said, candidly. “Not over-cultivated, you don’t mind my saying that, do you? when you have such a beautiful domesticity and are so capable and helpful.”
But I did wince. I had a feeling that the writers of books and painters of pictures thought scornfully of my “beautiful domesticity.” And who wishes to be called not over-cultivated in these days? So I was not in the best of humors for the reading of Octavia’s novel, and yet I became enthusiastic before she reached the end. It seemed to me very clever and interesting, and, moreover, the scene was laid in very fashionable society. I couldn’t understand how Octavia could know so much about it, and her knowledge filled me with admiration.
Octavia had been to Gobang once for a visit, in the winter, and Gobang was the gay and fashionable city of our county; and she had been to Bar Harbor—and every one knows how fashionable that is—with Uncle Horace and Rob. But they stayed only a few days, for the air did not agree with Rob, as it had been hoped that it would.
Now, when a girl has made only such little journeys as these from Palmyra into the world, one does not really expect her to write a society story, but that was what Octavia had done, and as I listened I felt like pinching myself to be sure that I was Bathsheba Dill of Groundnut Hill Farm, with a sister who taught a kindergarten! It occurred to me that if the little old woman on the king’s highway had had a sister of whom she was forced to cry,
“O lank a mercy on me!
This surely can’t be she,”
it would have greatly complicated the puzzle to her. Yet, perhaps, there comes to most of us a time when some unexpected development in our nearest and dearest makes us doubt whether we have ever really understood them.
The love story was only a thread that ran through the book, but I thought it was beautiful. And that, too, was a wonder to me, for Octavia had never been a girl to have lovers—unless one counted Joel Farnham, who used to sing tenor to her alto in the church choir, but who had gone out West to practice law with his brother, and so far as I knew had never written to her.
“How—how did you know how?” I stammered, with tears in my eyes, and all my heart’s delight in my face. I knew it was there, because I saw it reflected in Octavia’s, and it made her almost pretty. Octavia was plain; she had the Partridge nose—that was like Lady Macbeth’s spot that would not out, in our family, and she had a sallow face, dark and thin, and with blue eyes that did not seem to belong to her. But at that moment, with the flush of delight on her face, Octavia was almost pretty. And it pleased me that she should really care for my appreciation, although she had called me the average public, and said I wasn’t cultivated.
“Bathsheba, do you really think that people will read it?” she asked, with a little catch in her voice.
“Read it! I should think so!” I cried. “Why, it’s better than almost anything in the Palmyra public library!”
“Oh—oh, Bathsheba! think of Thackeray and George Eliot!” Octavia responded deprecatingly. But still I could see that my extreme praise was not disagreeable to her.
And at that moment my practical mind seemed to suddenly turn visionary, and I beheld Octavia’s name at the very top of Fame’s deathless roll, and I counted it all joy to make butter and cheese and preserves to support her glorious career.
“Then, Bathsheba, if people will read the book it will sell!” said Octavia, firmly. And I gasped for breath. Of course it would sell! Octavia would be rich. My domestic efforts would be unnecessary, so far as she was concerned. A great author would have no need of the proceeds of the homely products of Groundnut Hill Farm. I am glad to be able to say for myself that in that moment I was too full of joy and pride to have any abashed or shut-out feeling. To be the sister of a great author would be quite enough for me!
“Bathsheba, in the April vacation I am going to Boston to find a publisher!” said Octavia, with resolution.
“I have been thinking,” said I, “that it might be worth the while for me to go. I am sure that I could make better arrangements for the June butter than I can make by letter.”
It seemed an incongruous association—the butter and the book—but Octavia was glad to have me go with her, and she said heartily that she should think I could make almost any arrangement for the butter, I had made Groundnut Hill Farm so famous. At least the prospective famous author was not ashamed of the butter, and that was a comfort.
“Then we can say, without making any explanations, that I am going to the city with you,” said Octavia, “and until it is accepted, no one need know anything about ‘Evelyn Marchmont.’”
Octavia had grown more sensitive with each one of those returned stories. No one was in her confidence now but me.
“The surprise will make its success all the pleasanter for them—if it does succeed,” continued Octavia, excusing herself; for we are a family who confide in each other.
“Isn’t even Estelle to know?” I inquired, a little wistfully, for it seemed to me that there might be a sympathy between the two devotees of art.
“Oh, the child wouldn’t understand,” Octavia replied, rather impatiently. “It’s of no use to try to pretend, Bathsheba, that she and Dave are quite like ourselves.”
Aliens! It was a long time since Octavia had used the word, but it was easy to see that she still had the feeling that it expressed. I think Octavia was the one of us who had felt Dave’s disgrace the most keenly.
“I think we’d better not say anything about going until just before we start,” continued Octavia, anxiously. “I dread questions.” It was evident that Octavia had grown almost morbidly sensitive, now that the “cold fit” that comes to writers when the work is done, was upon her.
But it happened that when the vacation week came, Estelle was away before us. Alice Yorke had invited her to visit with her, a married sister living in a town not far from Boston. And the others seemed strangely little impressed with the momentous fact that we were going to the city. Cyrus was too much occupied with the depressing condition of business affairs to notice what girls were doing. Cyrus had old-fashioned ideas, and girls’ employments were chiefly “recreations” to his mind. When I explained that I was going to try to make better arrangements for the dairy products and the preserves, and that Octavia was going with me, he said, absently, that it would be “a nice little trip for us.” And then his brow darkened with care. Cyrus would have liked to make life all nice little trips for his womankind. He felt—without thinking much about the matter—that they were made to have womanly pursuits, and to take life lightly.
But the discharged men had not been taken on again at the shipyard; the outlook was doubtful, and I knew that Cyrus doubted himself, and was tempted to doubt God’s providence.
When we have made sacrifices for what we feel to be the right, we are apt to look to Providence for immediate results in lines of our own choosing. I thought that “God’s providence is mine inheritance” might be a good motto to hang up in the shipyard counting-room just now. But one could not tell how Cyrus would take such an attention.
Dave drew a long, long breath when I told him that we were going.
“I’m glad that you’re going to have a little glimpse of the world,” he said. And I realized, for the first time, how the grinding, uncongenial work at the yard was telling upon him. There was such a longing in his voice! He had grown thin, and there was a sharp little pucker between his finely-penciled brows. But he had sat up a good many nights with Rob, which was an additional strain to that of the unaccustomed labor.
“The way of the transgressor is hard,” said Octavia, when I expressed my pity for Dave; but I saw that her eyes as they followed him were full of tears.
We set off hopefully, even after that, for we were young, and I had already tasted the intoxicating joy of success, especially with my quince jelly. And I meditated a new departure, as the train bore us swiftly along the border of our beautiful river already growing green and perfumed with spring. It was almost sacrilege to think of it, with Octavia beside me, her face flushed and her eyes dreamy with the consciousness of “Evelyn Marchmont” in her bag. For it was sausages that I meant to add to the gilt-edged and paying products of Groundnut Hill Farm!
“Evelyn Marchmont” would not win glory and gold at once; I knew that with all my Palmyran ignorance. And I was quite sure, although I dared not ask—Estelle was so fierce in her sisterly faith—that Dave’s dreadful debt had not yet been paid. Some one must be practical. So all along, in the sweet April weather, with the authoress palpitating with her high hopes and dreams beside me, I reckoned the probable profits of Groundnut Hill Farm sausages, so many pounds per year!
As we alighted from the train, in the great, roaring, bustling Boston station, two young girls coming out of the car in front caught my eye. The well-poised head, with waving, yellow locks, was surely familiar. And had any one but Miss Jobyns of Palmyra trimmed that sailor hat? Beside the yellow head and familiar sailor hat was—yes, surely it was Alice Yorke’s satiny black braids. The two girls disappeared in the throng before I could reach them.
“Oh, no, it couldn’t be they,” said Octavia, easily. “Wrenton is more than thirty miles from Boston, and Estelle didn’t say anything about coming here.”
Now, Octavia is near-sighted, but I am not, and her hopes for “Evelyn Marchmont” were evidently more absorbing than my humbler ones. She gave herself no further concern about the yellow head and the black one, while I followed with my eyes through the crowd every girl who bore the least resemblance to those two, and could not rid myself of the impression that Estelle was in the city, nor of the wonder why she had come.
I thought I had seen a portfolio under yellow-head’s arm, but I did not mention that to Octavia. I scarcely knew why I did not, for it might have gone far toward inducing her to share my opinion that the young woman was our sister, Estelle. I suppose I hesitated to share with her my vague suspicion that Estelle had come to the city to sell her pictures. It was a pitifully hopeless undertaking, I was sure, and yet I shrunk from hearing Octavia’s frankly-expressed scorn. Octavia thought that my crystallized grasses were a more desirable ornament for the guest chamber mantel than any picture that Estelle could paint.
We went to a boarding-house where Parson Grover stayed when he came to the city in Anniversary week. It would be quite safe and proper for us, he said, and in any case we had too little money to think of hotels.
We arrived late in the afternoon, and Octavia proposed that we should spend the whole of the next day in taking a survey of the battle-field, so to speak, and in composing our minds. Now, for my part, I felt all fit for the fray, but I recognized the fact that Octavia had a right to greater sensitiveness about the child of her brain than I had about my domestic commodities, although I will say that in my opinion there are other children of one’s brain than works of literature or art.
But, of course, it is natural that I should wish to think so, and all that is neither here nor there. What concerns this story is the fact that we prowled about the city all the next day, finding out all that we could about the different publishing houses, and trying to decide which one was the worthiest to introduce “Evelyn Marchmont” to the world, and the most likely to do it successfully. As Octavia said, it was just as well to begin in that way, and then if we were finally forced to let any publisher take it who would, why, then, we could make up our minds to that.
She was not interested in the fine grocery stores and markets, or even in The Delicatessen Shop, where I purposed to offer my wares, but she was very patient.
She said, very often, that we might have to try and try. Did I remember how the Bronte sisters had tried and tried? She had been reminded of them ever since we started. I could not remember that the Bronte sisters had had a “combernation,” but, of course, I didn’t say so. I only muttered that I shouldn’t wonder if the world had changed considerably since their day, and perhaps things were even harder now.
Octavia scarcely listened to me—she was never much in the habit of listening to me—she was saying just then, as we came out of the book-store that appertained to the great publishing house, which she had finally decided should have the first chance to bring out “Evelyn Marchmont,” that she hoped she was not indulging a wholly selfish ambition. Didn’t I think that “Evelyn Marchmont” was a moral and helpful story?
“Well,” I said, reflectively, “you have certainly punished the bad people and rewarded the good.”
But Octavia looked at me doubtfully.
“You see, I don’t know people like Evelyn or the rest,” I added, doubtfully, “and so they don’t seem real to me.”
“Yes, that must be why they don’t seem real to you,” said Octavia, slowly. “But I wanted to write a story that should seem real to every one.”
I had stupidly put a new doubt into her mind about her book; but something happened just then to drive all thoughts of the book out of our heads.
A gaunt female figure crossed the street in front of us, crossed on a run, with true country caution, although no vehicle bore down upon her, and a policeman stood ready to escort her. Could one mistake the crisp black curls and the high cheek-bones? If so, the gait with its queer little hitch was unmistakable! So was the ancient cashmere shawl and the perennial purple roses in the black velvet bonnet.
“Loveday!” gasped even near-sighted Octavia.
Loveday, who had not been beyond the Port for twenty years! I was actually numb with bewilderment, and when Octavia attempted to run across the street in pursuit of her, the policeman stopped her; a throng of vehicles was coming now, and we must wait. I saw the purple roses nodding above the heads of the crowd, as the tall, angular figure strode onward.
Was the whole household of Groundnut Hill Farm turning its steps surreptitiously toward the great metropolis? I wondered should we meet Cyrus or Dave around the next corner?
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