“What a heap of stories you must know,” I said to him.
“Stories?” he repeated looking at me with his old, bright eyes. “Every ship could tell as many stories as would make an Arabian Nights. If I started in, miss, telling the stories I know, I should never be done till the day of my death.”
“I do wish I lived near here,” I couldn’t help saying; “then I could come over and listen when you were not busy. That is, if you would be willing to tell some of your stories to me.”
“It would put life into my old age,” he said earnestly. “Now, miss, I’m something of a reader in my way. There is a library near that I get my books from, for thripence a day. Not bad, is it? Even a poor man can afford that, miss. But when I read the tales, I think to myself: ‘Why don’t some of you writing fellows come around here and ask the old man a few questions? He could tell you tales of the salt seas that would make men’s hair bristle.’”
Miss Sheepshanks seemed to think this was terribly strong language for me to hear, and she tried to hasten me away, but I wouldn’t go till I had told him the story of Samuel Bings and had a wonderful story from him in return. I noted it all down in my diary, and you shall read that, too. We went to the Gallery after that, and saw some beautiful pictures, but I am such a silly that my mind kept going back to that old man and the stories he could tell, and when we came out I insisted on going by his place again, and we could see him inside his little office, making his own tea. So the next day, without telling anyone, I sent him a pound of tea in a queer Chinese cannister, just saying it was from the girl who liked stories.
Well, well, I shan’t see him again. They hedge me around in every way. A maid or a chaperon must be with me every minute. How I wish I were free to go about and get acquainted with people! They—I mean Aunt Lorena and all the powers of propriety—seem to think that if I did I would have some awful mishap. But do you know, Carin, I don’t think that would be the case. I feel as if right at my hand there may be someone I ought to be knowing and who ought to be knowing me.
That reminds me of what I so long dreamed of doing down in Lee. Not only was I going to take charge of the Industries and help the mountain people as they never were helped before, but I was going to have a home which should be open to every passer-by. Before it was to be a spring of water—I know the very spring—where people could stop for a cold drink, and beside the spring would be seats where they could rest. Not far down the road there would be a trough for horses and another for dogs; and in my cupboard would always be something for whomever was hungry. It would not matter how poor or soiled or strange any passer-by might be, he or she should come in and sit beside my hearth and have of my best. Even very wicked people could come in. And men on the chain gang, mending the road—how I would like to take them out a fine dinner and let them know I believed in them. Perhaps they would let me eat with them, and then maybe I could find out what they were really thinking.
Carin, that is what I want more than anything, I believe, to know what other people are really thinking. I can’t tell you how it interests, nay, absorbs me!
But in the sort of life that I lead now, no one speaks out and says what he thinks. We are endlessly polite. We all say the same thing. We all do the same things. At times, it is true, I see someone looking at me with the eyes of true friendship, but we are parted by the people about us, and we do not really become acquainted. So I am very lonely, in spite of all that is interesting and beautiful about me, and I wish you and I and Annie Laurie were sitting together up in your little studio-room, with the world far from us, and just we three opening our hearts to each other.
I have been out to-day selecting some presents for friends back at home, and I enjoyed that very much. Do you know, I couldn’t resist getting something for those two lonely women, the Wixons, up on Hebron mountain—the ones whose soup I ate uninvited. If ever I get back to Lee, I shall ride up and get acquainted with those women. Isn’t it curious how people draw you and draw you, even people you have never met, but know only by report? As for those you do know, they can draw you half around the world. Yes, out of the millions and millions of human beings on this old globe, there will be but two or three, perhaps, who are verily your own, and those you must have.