The Bird in the Box

by Mary M. Mears

But he did not broach the subject at once; instead he said tentatively as the two breasted the high wind which was all alive with the tang of the sea, and in which the girl's garments rattled like the rigging of a ship, "It's good of you to get her another pork pie; why do you do it?"

"Because," Rachel answered with spirit, "people once in a while ought to have what they want—if it's only pork pie."

André regarded her beautiful face with dull curiosity. "Then you're not doing it because you're sorry for her?" he asked.

"No," she answered shortly; "principle."

But the abstract had no meaning for André; he always thought in straight lines and his thoughts were convertible into actions. Now he took up the matter which had brought him to her.

"Mother thinks you and I could set up shop together," he said. "She thinks I can paint what are called 'souvenirs'; you know I paint very well, and you could take charge of the candy and fruit. She thinks we might get quite a little trade from the hotel people all about here, if we opened a shop in that unused barn of Shattuck's."

The proposition appealed to Rachel mightily. Now that the schooldays were past she found herself much too frequently in the presence of Nora Gage and quarrels were constant. If the young girl had had her way she would have bundled the so-called housekeeper out of the door and have done the work herself, but old David was fastidious in the matter of her hands and cherished the idea of one day seeing her a "lady." André's plan seemed to offer scope for her energy, she hailed it joyfully. A week later the youthful shop keepers were established in their odd quarters.

The situation of the unused barn was magnificent. It stood on the top of a high turfy hill which overlooked both the ocean and the bay. On going around it a narrow path, almost hidden by the tall grass, was discovered, and this path led directly to that bit of the bay shore where were the figure-head and the wreck. The door of the barn commanded the road. There was something in the bleakness of the situation that took hold on the fancy. The barn had long been an object of popular interest. It was toned by the weather to the beautiful grey of a dove's wing. It leaned lightly to one side. Its two front windows were like empty eye-sockets. As one approached it, climbing around the crumbling foundation of what years before had been a house, he imagined it the retreat of birds of prey.

The only steeds housed here were the horses of the wind, in the pauses of the storms that swept the Point. The barn was supposed to be haunted. Therefore the scene that greeted the first curious visitors, struck pleasantly on their sight.

A bit of sail-cloth bearing the inscription: Souvenirs And Confectionery appeared over one window, and a little trail of smoke issued from the other. Just inside the door was Rachel. She stood behind an improvised counter of new boards on which was ranged a file of golden oranges. Oranges and girl, how they lit the gloom! When not engaged in waiting on a customer, and her duties in this direction were of the lightest, Rachel made a pretence of sewing, though oftener than not the sewing was abandoned for a book. The range of her reading at this time was remarkable. Like her father, she read everything that came her way with a kind of tragic eagerness. Frequently closing the book and leaning her elbows on the counter, she would gaze straight ahead, while the questioning look deepened in her eyes. In the background where a ray of light fell André painted the lighthouse in garish colours on the bosom of a heaven-tinted shell.