“Elizabeth Wutt?”
“She’ve declined.”
“’Tis not the Widow Tootle!”
“No; she’ve declined,” he answered, dismally. “But,” he added, with a sudden access of cheerfulness, “she come wonderful near it. ’Twas a close call for she! She ’lowed, Dannie, that an my beard had been red she might ha’ went an’ done it, takin’ chances with my wits. She might, says she, put up with a lack o’ wit; but a beard o’ proper color she must have for peace o’ mind. You sees, Dannie, Sam Tootle had a red beard, an’ the widow ’lowed she’d feel strange with a yellow one, bein’ accustomed t’ the other for twenty year. She’ve declined, ’tis true; but she come wonderful near t’ sayin the word. ’Twas quite encouragin’,” he added, then sighed.
“You keep on, Moses,” said I, to hearten him, “an’ you’ll manage it yet.”
“Mother,” he sighed, “used t’ ’low so.”
We were now come to a rise in the road, whence, looking back, I found the sky fast clouding up. ’Twas a wide view, falling between the black, jagged masses of Pretty Willie and the Lost Soul, cast in shadow––a reach of blood-red sea, with mounting clouds at the edge of the world, into which the swollen sun had 92 dropped, to set the wind-blown tatters in a flare of red and gold. ’Twas all a sullen black below, tinged with purple and inky blue; but high above the flame and glow of the rags of cloud there hung a mottled sky, each fleecy puff a touch of warmer color upon the pale green beyond. The last of our folk were bound in from the grounds, with the brown sails spread to a rising breeze, the fleet of tiny craft converging upon the lower-harbor tickle; presently the men would be out of the roughening sea, pulling up the harbor to the stage-heads, there to land and split the catch. Ay, a change of wind, a switch to the sou’east, with the threat of a gale with rain; ’twould blow before dark, no doubt, and ’twas now all dusky in the east, where the sky was cold and gray. Soon the lamps would be alight in the kitchens of our harbor, where the men folk, cleansed of the sweat of the sea, would sit warm and dry with their wives and rosy lads and maids, caring not a whit for the wind and rain without, since they had what they had within.
“I’m knowin’ no other maid at Tall Pine Harbor,” said I, “that’s fit t’ wed.”
“’Tis a maid o’ the name o’ Pearl,” he confided; “an’ I’m told she’s fair on looks.”
“Pearl what, Moses?”