“I will try it.”
Charlie modelled, and was successful. He returned home in June, and was married. He found that the trees which he had girdled in the fall had leaved; but the leaves were most of them small and withering. He had drawn a cordon, many rods in width, all around the buildings, and especially round the little peninsula, in the midst of which towered the great elm, sparing a handsome tree every now and then, so that after the girdled trees had fallen down, and been removed, they might be out of the reach of fires.
Charlie had been married but a few weeks when the young pair made their appearance at Elm Island.
“Mother,” said Charlie, “do you remember one night, when I first bought my place, I came home from there, you asked me what was the matter, and I put you off?”
“Yes; I saw you’d been crying, and that was what made me ask you.”
“I had been thinking about old times, and my mother. I wanted then, and I want now, as I have got settled on my place, to go to St. John, and get her body, and have her buried under an elm there is there. It is a lovely spot: it was almost the first thing that came into my mind when I saw the place, and that was what I had been crying about. When she died, I followed her to the grave in rags, no one to go with me but the Irish woman of whom we hired the room: she was a good-hearted woman, poor herself, but did what she could for us. Many a crust has she given me; and if she is living, I’ll let her know I haven’t forgotten it. Mother, now that I have a home of my own, I can’t rest any longer to have her lie in that miserable corner, among the worst of creatures, the place all grown up with bushes. I want to bring her here.”
“I am sure I would, Charlie.”
“Do you think father would go with me?”
“Go! to be sure he would. The Perseverance is out fishing now, but she will be in soon; she is only hired for one trip. I tell you what you do, Charlie: after haying, bring Mary over here, and leave her; you and Ben take the schooner, and go. When you get back, we’ll all of us attend the funeral, have the minister preach a sermon, and everything done as it should be; but two is not enough: there ought to be three.”
“We can run into Portland, and get John. I would rather have him go with us than anybody else.”