Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1895-09-26
the only man in Seaport who was not a

had been too unsuccessful to encourage
him to put his fathers inheritance into
a vessel; instead, he bought sawmill,
and was growing richer every year.
Mary meyer had occasion to correct
Dicks grammar, nor reproach him for
breaking his promises; but when, after
her friendly scolding for his forgetful-
ness, Donald said, slyly, something to
the effect that Dick Wheeler. who never
forgot things, was probably the kind Of
pupil she had in her school, the kin
O. fellow that pleases you, Mary?" she
tossed her head, and said: "Nonsense!o
and this time with spice of earnest
ness that seemed to please Don very
much. Z
They had drifted around the break
water, and the dory lay with idle oars
rocking up and down. Up on the cliffs
was the low, weather-beaten house; its
faint whisp of smoke leaning with the
wind against the opal gray of the June
twilight. Perhaps the jibes of the men
at the wharf made Donald say, with
sudden usefulness:
'Well, Dick Wheeler's house is smart.
er, must say!"
"Oh, it's too Big" Mary objected,
carelessly: and Donald agreed, with
animation, and said, for his part, he
liked Dick.
After that they were silent, looking
out across the gray, breathing, lifting
expanse, at the fading crimson in the
west; and little later they turned
back. When they reached the foot of
the garden, and he helped Mary out,
Donald held her hand hard in his a
moment.
You'll mind what 1 said about
mother, won't you? And-and you
won't go back on me, Mary?"
She looked him straight in the eyes,
and her lip quivered. "Take care Of
yourself, Don," She faltered. But he
only laughed, because he was too happy
to answer her seriously.
BLESS you! I'm not sugar nor salt"
Then he told her he would come up
after supper, and they would go to
layer meeting.
''If you don't forget it," she told him,
sarcastically.
"Well, that's So" he acknowledged,
humbly enough, II must say, I'm good
at forgetting. But I'm coming, Just
the same"
CHAPTER II.
The day after the big three-master,
with Donald as mate, dropped down
the river, Mary drove down to Mrs.
| Hayes with her little cowslSin trunk
strapped into the back of the buggy.
III stay week" she told her IA
ther. But at the end of a week Don
aids mother was i'll. and somehow the
week heightened into month. And
then Mrs. Hayes said she felt the lone
| hness more than usual, and if Mary
acoutd stay?-"just week or two
longer" she pleaded. A week or two
meant a month or two; and after that,
well, Donald was coming home the
middle of December, so what was
the use of leaving his mother?
| "She's not fit to be alone" Mary told
her own mother. That was how it
happened that when the dark Decem-
Der days began to close in around the
little gray house, that chung so close to
the shore, Mary was on hand to fix the
glass at the west window of the kitchen,
so that the old mother might sweep the
horizon for sign Of the Samuel P.
Jones sails.
II don't expect him on time, child"
she would tell the girl, but by Christ
mas day sure" and then they would
smile at each other.
The months of waiting had not been
anxious ones; there had been no heavy
storms along the coast, and that
was somehow an assurance that there
had been no heavy storms anywhere
else. But Christmas day came and
went; and the old year slipped into the
new, and the Samuel P. Jones had not
come. Explanations and excuses null
tiplied; declarations that all was well
| grew more insistent; instances of delay
were repeated over and over; but it
was the first of February before news
came.
Wrecked off the Azores; it was feared
all hands were lost.
Feared" not known. That was
what Mrs. Hayes and Mary said to each
other. Everybody knew dozen in
stances of sailors picked up in open
boats; of desert islands; of drifting
RATS. No; the idea that Don was dead
could not be accepted; there are some
people one cannot associate with death;
it is not appropriate. So Don's mother
and sweetheart held on to hope.
Those awful, breathless DAYS of de-
spair, and refusing to despair, and then
despair again, were filled to Mary with
intense and immediate anxiety about
Donald's mother. Mrs. Hayes was very
frail at best, and it seemed as if this
must kill her; indeed, if Mary had not
kept on hoping for her, she must have
died. But little by little she came back
to life, and to the acceptance of the
fact that Don was dead; and then one
day, six months later, hope sprang
again into sudden vigor and certainty;
a sailor in Plymouth, who had known
him, was told by man who had just
come in in merchant Indiaman, that