CHAPTER IX
“CAN I sell you a ticket for the box sociable, Mr. Whitman?” Sister Abby’s lack lustre eyes shone with something akin to excitement as she reached into the pocket of her apron and extended a bit of cardboard.
“A box sociable, Miss Abby? I don’t believe I know what you mean; but you can sell me a ticket to anything you’ll recommend.”
The afternoon was fair, the sun shone on the sparkling expanse of the lake below the bluffs, the summer wind was fresh and sweet, the morning’s work on the novel had gone well: Caleb Whitman, on his way out of the Captain’s gate, listened to Miss Abby’s plea with good-humored tolerance.
“The money’s for a new carpet for the minister’s study,” Abby explained further. “The tickets are ten cents each. If you draw a good box, you’ll not think they’re dear.”
Whitman produced a dime with cheerful alacrity. “But, Miss Abby,” he asked, “I don’t know yet what I’m in for. Why do I draw a box and what do I do with it when I get it?”
Sister Abby stared at him. “Don’t you know what a box sociable is, and you living in New York City?”
“No,” the young man confessed with becoming humility, “they have almost everything in New York, to be sure, but I don’t believe I ever went to a box sociable.”
“Well, they’re grand,” Sister Abby sighed in pleasant retrospection. “We give one every year on somebody’s lawn. There’s long tables under the trees, and lanterns strung everywhere. I can’t tell you how pretty it looks. Then every girl and woman in the village brings a box with supper put up for two.”
“I see.”
“Sam Tupman gets the boxes all together and auctions them off. Some boxes fetches as much as a dollar.”
“Is it possible?”
“Yes, the boys gets excited and bids kind of reckless. When everybody has got a box, they open them up and find the cards of the ladies who have put up the lunches. Then each man finds his partner, and her and him eats supper together.”
“Well, that’s very interesting. I should think, however, the custom of bidding in the dark, as one might say, would bring all sorts of queer people together.”
“Well, you might say it does,” admitted Sister Abby; “but when a body is eating, he don’t care much who his company happens to be. Then there’s ways of getting around it, too. Nearly every girl ties up her box in some special way and gives the secret to somebody particular.”
“Ah, I see, that makes a difference.”
“The girls ties their boxes with ribbons, and we old folks mostly ties ours with twine. One year I got kind of tired of string, and I tied up my box with blue ribbon. Well, young Sammy Brown bid for it and run the price up to seventy-five cents. When he opened the box and found my name, he looked real disappointed; but he got over it when he tasted my crullers. You think you’d like to come, don’t you?”
“I wouldn’t miss it for a good deal.” Whitman’s hand stole to the latch of the gate. The day was fair and time was fleeting.
“Going anywhere particular?”
“Well,” Whitman hesitated, “I had thought of going out to the old burying ground—to see the head stones. The Captain said some of them were quite historic.”
“Yes, summer folks seem to care for them.” Sister Abby’s manner had changed from expectancy to mild disappointment.
“Can I do anything for you, Miss Abby?”
“No, nothing particular. I kind of hoped that you’d stop at the post office and see if the lanterns had come.”
“Surely, I will.”
“If they have, you might just drop in at the minister’s—the sociable is to be there—and offer to help him string them up. He’s kind of sawed off, the minister is, and he can’t reach anything but the low boughs on the trees.”
“Surely, I’ll offer to string them up for him,” Whitman promised. Then in order to keep the afternoon free for possible adventure, he added: “Late in the afternoon will do, I presume?”
“Sure, if you’ve your mind set on seeing the monuments.”
“I should like to see them,” Whitman stoutly averred. “You see my vacation is drawing to an end, and every moment of it seems precious.” He smiled back at the drab figure of Sister Abby. “I won’t forget the lanterns,” he promised, and he started down the road, his mind drifting from Sister Abby and her affairs to the possibility of meeting Nancy on the road.
If Radding had followed instructions, the letter for Nancy, alias Henry Luffkin (the pseudonym always made Whitman smile) must lie in the post office box by this time. He was determined not to lose the pleasure of seeing Nancy’s joy.
He did not know why he found all that concerned Nancy Rose so engrossing. He only knew that her first letter had diverted and amused him; that each letter that followed had quickened his interest; and that since he had met her face to face, his interest had deepened into absorption.
He had made up his mind to find her before the close of this long bright day; and he recalled, one by one, the clues to her possible haunts which the Captain had let fall. It was not patriotic interest, but the Captain’s hint that Nancy was often to be found there, that led him to the ancient burying ground.
It lay close to the Lowell place, on the other side of the wagon road that ran from Deep Harbor past the rear of the mansion. The young man could already discern the arch of the wooden gate which shut the sleeping soldiers from the world. And then he saw what made his pulses leap. A woman turned the Lowell stile, crossed the road and disappeared among the trees in the graveyard. It was Nancy, he concluded; and quickening his steps, he entered the silent acres and looked about him. At the far end of the quiet spot, he could see a woman’s form bending over some flower beds.
He strolled cautiously in that direction, saying to himself that he must not startle Nancy. In the hope that she would turn and see him before he was forced to break in upon her solitude, he paused before an old wooden monument, swaying uncertainly on its base, and tried to decipher the inscription. Suddenly, when he had gotten no further than, “Killed in battle on these shores in 1813,” a voice behind him asked: “Are you interested in the historic past of our little town?”
With a start, Caleb Whitman turned from the battered inscription and faced—Aunt Roxana. He knew her instantly by her erect carriage, her wide skirt of stiff silk, her white stockings—she carried her dress high to avoid the grass stains.
Caleb Whitman raised his hat and smiled down into Aunt Roxana’s face as fearlessly as he smiled at Sister Abby and all the village world. “I am indeed,” he said. “I was only wishing that I might find some one to give me accurate information.”
The lady hesitated. Whitman had rightly guessed that her vulnerable point was Deep Harbor’s past. She unbent enough to say: “This monument was erected over the graves of gallant men who died in defense of these shores,” and she repeated the inscription, even supplying the obliterated words of the scriptural line.
“My own people were all soldiers,” she vouchsafed, “and did their part by giving their life blood to save this nation.”
The summer visitor had an inspiration. “Then you must be one of the Lowell family,” he said. “I’ve promised myself to see your stones. But of course if I am intruding—”
A flush of pleasure mingled with pride swept over the good lady’s austere countenance.
“You are quite welcome to view them,” she said. “I am glad that I happen to be here to assist you in your studies. The contemplation of the last resting places of patriots must ever be an inspiration to youth.”
“Yes, indeed,” the pilgrim murmured, as the lady led the way through the long grass to a line of time-worn head stones, with inscriptions faint and illegible.
“This,” she said, “was my great uncle, who died in service. This, my grandfather. This a more distant kinsman, who died of wounds,” and so on and on she read the names, giving the man by her side, in many a touching anecdote, the history of the past, when Deep Harbor had been glowing with life and high enterprise.
“You have had many soldiers in your family,” Whitman said, his eyes searching the road for some glimpse of Nancy.
The lady’s head tossed high. “Yes,” she said proudly, “we have done our part.” She sighed. “As a child I could not forgive myself for being born a girl.”
“I see.” Whitman was quick to catch her meaning. “You would have liked to have been a general.”
“Or an admiral,” she said gravely. “Our men fought by sea as well as by land.”
She led the way toward the gate, and Whitman followed meekly in her train. There was something in the stately lady’s devotion to the past that touched his imagination. For her sake, he could almost have wished that Nancy might have been of the sex out of which generals and admirals are made.
And then, at that very moment, Nancy tripped across the road and entered the gate, a little poke bonnet shading her eyes, a funny pair of old fashioned mits, that displayed her pink finger tips, drawn over her hands and arms.
“Aunt,” she called; and then, seeing Whitman, she stopped short, the color sweeping her face to the rim of the poke hat.
Miss Roxana ignored the girl’s surprise. As if it had been an every-day occurrence for her to stroll through the graveyard with a good-looking young man in flannels, she said with her unbroken dignity: “This young man is interested in Deep Harbor’s past. I have been reading and explaining the inscriptions.”
Her manner said as plainly as words, “The interview is over.” And Whitman, surmising that there was nothing to be gained by lingering, lifted his hat and wandered a step or two in another direction, making a feint of further study of the old head stones.
“You are going to the village?” he heard Aunt Roxana question Nancy.
“Yes.”
“Have you the list of commodities to be purchased?”
“I think so.”
“Read it.” Aunt Roxana might have been one of the sleeping generals of her line, issuing military commands.
“‘Three pounds of sugar,’” Nancy obediently began; “‘pound of coffee, pound of tea—’”
“Half a pound,” corrected Aunt Roxana.
“‘Go to library. Get copy of Bunyan’s “Holy War.”’” Nancy looked up. “That’s all.”
“The ribbon,” Aunt Roxana prompted.
“Oh, yes, the ribbon. What color did you tell the minister it would be this year?” The girl’s tone was listless.
“Seal brown. I thought it a decorous shade, that would not attract unseemly attention.”
“I hate seal brown,” said Nancy wilfully. “Why can’t I have a bright color, cherry red?”
“Seal brown,” repeated Aunt Roxana, unmoved. “A yard and a half ought to be a great sufficiency.”
At this point Whitman gave up the hope that Aunt Roxana would go her way. With a slight bow, therefore, he passed the two ladies, and slowly returned to the village, hoping that Nancy would soon overtake him.
“A passing traveller,” he heard Aunt Roxana explain to her niece, as he made his retreat, “commendably interested in his country’s history.”