By The Sea / 1887

by Heman White Chaplin

It was from Porto Cabello that that message came,—yellow fever—a short sickness—a burial in a stranger's grave. George Pelham's wife had been for two or three years of less than her usual strength. It was not long after that news came,—came so suddenly, with no warning,—that she began to fade away; and after ten months she died.

I remember seeing her a week or two before her death. Her bed had been set up in her little parlor for the convenience of those who were attending upon her. She lay on her back, bolstered up. The paleness of her face was intensified by her coal-black hair, lying back heavy on the pillow. Her hands were thin and transparent, and I remember well the straining look in her eyes as she talked with me about the boy whom she was going to leave.

She was living, as I have said, close by her father. It was natural that in the last few days of her illness the child should be taken to her father's house, and when she died and the funeral was over, it was there that he returned.

Picture now to yourself a boy toward nine years old, symmetrically made, firm and hard. His head is round, his features are good, his hair is fine and lies down close. He is clothed in a neat print jacket, with a collar and a little handkerchief at the neck, and a pair of short trousers buttoned on to the jacket. He is barefoot. He is tanned but not burnt. His complexion is of a rich dark brown. He is always fresh and clean. But the great charm about him is the expression of infinite fun and mirth that is always upon his face. Never for a moment while he is awake is his face still. Always the same, yet always shifting, with a thousand varying shades of roguish joy. Quick, bright, full of boyish repartee, full of shouts and laughter. And the same incessant life which plays upon his face shows itself in every movement of his limbs. Never for a moment is he still unless he has some work upon his hands. He has his little routine of tasks, regularly assigned, which he goes through with the most amusing good-humor and attention. It is his duty to see that the skiffs are not jammed under the wharf on the rising tide; to sweep out the “Annie” when she comes in, and to set her cabin to rights; to set away the dishes after meals, and to feed the chickens. Aside from a few such tasks, his time in summer is his own. The rest of the year he goes to the “primary,” and serves to keep the whole room in a state of mirth. He has the happy gift that to put every one in high spirits he has only to be present. Such an incessant flow of life you rarely see. His manners are good, and he comes honestly by them.

There is an amusing union in him of the baby and the man. While the children of his age at the summer hotel walk about for the most part with their nurses, he is turned loose upon the shore, and has been, from his cradle. He can dive and swim and paddle and float and “go steamboat.” He can row a boat that is not too heavy, and up to the limit of his strength he can steer a sail-boat with substantial skill. He knows the currents, the tides, and the shoals about his shore, and the nearer landmarks. He knows that to find the threadlike entrance to the bay you bring the flag-staff over Cart-wright's barn. He has vague theories of his own as to the annual shifting of the channel. He knows where to take the city children to look for tinkle-shells and mussels. He knows what winds bring in the scallops from their beds. He knows where to dig for clams, and where to tread for quahaugs without disturbing the oysters. He has a good deal of fragmentary lore of the sea.

Every morning you will hear his cry, a sort of yodel, or bird-call, peculiar to him, with which he bursts forth upon the world. Then you will hear, perhaps, loud peals of laughter at something that has excited his sense of the absurd,—contagious laughter, full of innocent fun.

Then he will appear, perhaps, with his wooden dinner-bucket,—he is going off with his grandfather for the day,—and will yodel to the old man as a signal to make haste. Then you will hear him consulting with some one upon the weather.

All this time he will be going; through various evolutions, swinging in the hammock, sitting on the fence, opening his bucket to show you what he has to eat, closing the bucket and sitting down upon the cover, or turning somersaults upon the grass. Then he will encamp under an apple-tree to wait until his grandfather appears, enlivening the time by a score of minute excursions after hens and cats. Then he will go into the house again, and rock while the old man finishes his coffee, sure of a greeting, confident in a sense of entire good-fellowship, until the meal is finished, and James Parsons is ready to take his coat and a red-bladed oar, and set out. Then the boy is like a setter off for a walk,—all sorts of whimsical expressions in his face, of absolute delight; every form of extravagance in his bearing. The only trouble is, one has to laugh too much; but with all this, something so manly, so companionable.

He is no little of a philosopher in his way. He has been a great deal with older people, and has caught the habit of discussion of affairs, or rather, perhaps, of unconsciously reflecting forth discussions which he has heard. He has an infinite curiosity upon all matters of human life. He likes, within limits, to discuss character.

In the boat his chief delights are to talk, to eat cookies, and to steer. When it is not blowing too hard for him to stand at the tiller, he will steer for an hour together, watching with the most constant care the trembling of the leach.