“After something for you,” he answered, putting in her hand a handsome work-basket.
“Has thee so much money that thee must waste it on me, Osgood?”
But she was pleased with the gift. They rode home amicably. Peter, as a favor, allowed Osgood to drive, while he imparted to Maria sundry bits of information gained at the meeting.
“Mackerel” went in and out at Osgood’s ears without gaining his attention, till he caught at something Peter said about the Bonita. He listened. Three vessels were about to sail from the town on a mackerel voyage, and the Bonita was one of them. He comprehended that Peter owned half the Bonita, and a plan struck him. He inquired into the subject, and obtained its history. That evening he proposed going on a mackerel voyage, which proposal so fired Peter that he declared he had a mind to go too; but Maria quenched his enthusiasm by going over the programme of work that must be done at home. She made no opposition to Osgood’s going, but set before him in plain terms the hardships of such a voyage. He was not to be deterred, and Peter gave his consent, promising him a small share of the profits.
Osgood wrote to his Aunt Formica that night, assuring her that he already felt much better, and that he was about to enter into a new business, of which she should hear more. He also wrote Lily Tree a minute, lengthy epistle. He described his situation with Peter and Maria; told her how much board he paid—two dollars and fifty cents a week—and how well he had learned to do chores. He fed the pigs every day; he wished that she could see how well they thrived on the diet lately introduced by Peter and himself—a dry mash of boiled potatoes and meal, with an occasional horseshoe thrown in as a relish. Would she, he wondered, have enjoyed the day that he, Maria, and Peter made soft soap? He mentioned his intended voyage, and asked her if she liked sailors. Could he have the hope, he continued, of her sympathy in his future enterprises, which perhaps would differ from those she had thought of for him? He avowed a change in himself. Would it affect her?
He sealed his letters, and began pacing his little room. Writing home had brought his old life near him again; the distance it had come to reach him seemed enormous.
“It was only a few days ago,” he thought, “and yet I am so different!”
He rolled up his paper window-curtain and softly raised the window. The moon made the landscape look more vast and desolate than it was in the light of day. Under the horizon it revealed a strip of sea which shone as if it were the portal of another world whose light was reflected thereon. Osgood felt that he was an imprisoned soul this side of it. The light gave him an intimation of immortality. “Where is Lily’s soul?” he asked. “Has she any dream beyond the life she is in?”
When Lily received Osgood’s note she was angry; so was Mrs. Formica when she received hers. An intuition that Osgood repented his rashness touched Lily’s pride, and preserved her silence. When the second letter came, she thought he had the intention of experimenting with her; a test, she concluded, was unendurable, not to be submitted to. Should she test him, and proclaim the engagement she meditated? it would be a relief to do something. She could not reach him with a letter, for he had gone on a mackerel voyage beyond the limits of the post-office. She decided differently according to the light she had. Unlike Osgood, she was chained to the place she was in. She was alone, too; her mother was occupied with neuralgia, and her father was out of town half his time, on mysterious agencies which referred to canals. The newspaper reporters at Albany were well acquainted with Mr. Tree’s name while they were putting into short-hand the doings of the Legislature. Mrs. Formica had no suspicion that Lily was the cause of Osgood’s disappearance; she would not have regretted his absence so much on these grounds, for a match with Lily was not desirable.
Within a month Lily’s engagement to Mr. Barclay Dodge was announced. He was a young man of fortune, whose father owed his rise in the world to corn starch, and who had made himself known by spending large sums of money on pictures, landscapes mostly, which had been indorsed by the public in exhibitions.