Uncle Terry: A Story of the Maine Coast

by Charles Clark Munn

"Wimmin are sich curis creeters they'd be sure to want to know what I'd cut out o' that page," he said to himself, "an' never rest till I told 'em."

When Aunt Lissy and Telly came home he was as composed as a rock and sat quietly puffing his pipe, with his feet on top of a chair and pointing towards the fire.

"Were you lonesome, father?" asked Telly, who usually led conversation in the Terry home. "We stopped at Bascom's, and you know he never stops talking."

"He's worse'n burdock burs ter git away from," answered Uncle Terry, "an' ye can't be perlite ter him unless ye want t' spend the rest o' yer life listenin'. His tongue allus seemed ter be hung in the middle an' wag both ways. I wasn't lonesome," he continued, rising and adding a few sticks to the fire, as the two women laid aside their wraps and drew chairs up; "I've read the paper purty well through an' had a spell o' livin' over by-gones," and then, turning to Telly and smiling, he added: "I got thinkin' o' the day ye came ashore, an' mother she got that excited she sot the box ye was in on the stove an' then put more wood in. It's a wonder she didn't put ye in the stove instead o' the wood!"

As this joke was not new to the listeners, no notice was taken of it, and the three lapsed into silence.

Outside the steady boom of the surf beating on the rocks came with monotonous regularity, and inside the clock ticked. For a long time Uncle Terry sat and smoked on in silence, resuming, perhaps, his by-gones, and then said: "By the way, Telly, what's become o' them trinkets o' yourn ye had on that day? It's been so long now, 'most twenty years, I 'bout forgot 'em. I s'pose ye hain't lost 'em, hev ye?"

"Why, no, father," she answered, a little surprised. "I hope not. They are all in the box in my bureau, and no one ever disturbs them."

"Ye wouldn't mind fetchin' 'em now, would ye, Telly?" he continued after drawing a long whiff of smoke and slowly emitting it in rings. "It's been so many years, an' since I got thinkin' 'bout it I'd like to take a look at 'em, jest to remind me o' that fortunate day ye came to us."

The girl arose, and going upstairs, returned with a small tin box shaped like a trunk, and drawing the table up in front of Uncle Terry, set the box down upon it. It is likely that its contents were so many links that bound the two together, for as he opened it she perched herself on the arm of his chair, and leaning against his shoulder, passed one arm caressingly around his neck and watched him take out the contents.

First came a soft, fleecy baby blanket, then two little garments, once whitest muslin but now yellow with age, and then another smaller one of flannel. Pinned to this were two tiny shoes of knitted wool. In the bottom of the box was a small wooden shoe, and though clumsy in comparison, yet evidently fashioned to fit a lady's foot. Tucked in this was a little box tied with faded ribbon, and in this were a locket and chain, two rings, and a scrap of paper. The writing on the paper, once hastily scrawled by a despairing mother's hand, had almost faded, and inside the locket were two faces, one a man's with strongly marked features, the other girlish with big eyes and hair in curls.