The Pearl of Orr's Island: A Story of the Coast of MaineStowe, Harriet Beecher
General
The Pearl of Orr's Island: A Story of the Coast of Maine
Stowe, Harriet Beecher
Bildungsromans; Girls -- Fiction; Islands -- Fiction; Maine -- Fiction
A cheerful home she made, too, for his old age, adorning the house with
many little tasteful fancies unknown in her mother's days; reading the
Bible to him and singing Mara's favorite hymns, with a voice as sweet as
the spring blue-bird. The spirit of the departed friend seemed to hallow
the dwelling where these two worshiped her memory, in simple-hearted
love. Her paintings, framed in quaint woodland frames of moss and
pine-cones by Sally's own ingenuity, adorned the walls. Her books were
on the table, and among them many that she had given to Moses.
"I am going to be a wanderer for many years," he said in parting, "keep
these for me until I come back."
And so from time to time passed long letters between the two
friends,--each telling to the other the same story,--that they were
lonely, and that their hearts yearned for the communion of one who could
no longer be manifest to the senses. And each spoke to the other of a
world of hopes and memories buried with her, "Which," each so constantly
said, "no one could understand but you." Each, too, was firm in the
faith that buried love must have no earthly resurrection. Every letter
strenuously insisted that they should call each other brother and
sister, and under cover of those names the letters grew longer and more
frequent, and with every chance opportunity came presents from the
absent brother, which made the little old cottage quaintly suggestive
with smell of spice and sandal-wood.
But, as we said, this is a glorious July evening,--and you may discern
two figures picking their way over those low sunken rocks, yellowed with
seaweed, of which we have often spoken. They are Moses and Sally going
on an evening walk to that favorite grotto retreat, which has so often
been spoken of in the course of this history.
Moses has come home from long wanderings. It is four years since they
parted, and now they meet and have looked into each other's eyes, not as
of old, when they met in the first giddy flush of youth, but as fully
developed man and woman. Moses and Sally had just risen from the
tea-table, where she had presided with a thoughtful housewifery gravity,
just pleasantly dashed with quaint streaks of her old merry willfulness,
while the old Captain, warmed up like a rheumatic grasshopper in a fine
autumn day, chirruped feebly, and told some of his old stories, which
now he told every day, forgetting that they had ever been heard before.
Somehow all three had been very happy; the more so, from a shadowy sense
of some sympathizing presence which was rejoicing to see them together
again, and which, stealing soft-footed and noiseless everywhere, touched
and lighted up every old familiar object with sweet memories.
And so they had gone out together to walk; to walk towards the grotto
where Sally had caused a seat to be made, and where she declared she had
passed hours and hours, knitting, sewing, or reading.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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