Evening star., 1901-10-05

trfvality. local politics or the like. usually
to which an equally brief reply comes or
a series OF half-articulate growls intelligt-
bic only to the initiated. Those wonders
fui men who have seen so much. who know
so much. that one would think IL only nec-
essary TO ask a sympathetic question in or
DER TO set wide the food gates of memory,
SIMPLY cannot talk. They like to hear q
stranger talk. though: also to sit perfectly
sun and apparently Indifferent, weighing
every word he says and ready TO wither
.iih 90 up Win perfectly annihiating remark
III ne says anything which they know TO
be foolish or untrue. But they are not in
spring company. especially to one who 90
desperately hazarding remark after remark,
IN the nope OF hearing them talk. and who
Is being gradually frozen sttff by the cair,
retrospective stare OF those deep-set eyes
30 h came about that after a brief en-
uurance OF that silent gathering / bade
then 5000 night and turned back through
the brightly lit market place with the band
uolng It's utmost, and the finely dressed
throngs sauntering or lounging in the sweet
summer night air, and so into the deserted
sreets behind. Again imagination came
10 my AID, and L gazed up at the eyer-re-
curing turrets OF observation perched
eyrie-like upon the SUBMITS of so many
or the houses, built thus in order thar the
inmates might have a clear view over the
sea OF the coming and going of the shins
which bore all they held dear of father
son, prother or lover, or carried the whole
OF their fortunes between those sturdy ribs
of live oak. '
Pretty Ghosts, These
II needed no very active exercise or ,a,o,,
TO see those deserted minarets repeopled
with the ghosts of a century ago sweet
raced Puritan women, whose self-restraiut
gave no indication of the anxieties raging
peheath snowy wimple or lawn stomacher
How many of those tender hearts have
proken at last when. after months OF frlit-
less watching from the high tower the aw-
detouFlng sea had again claimed lis toll
ana TINS time the lot had fallen llpon them
no" many agonized prayers have aScended
from those little foursquare structuras
empty now forever since the reason of tbafr
being at all has fed. In days gone by the
report of homecoming ship. returning
from the other side of the world after wears
OF absence, filled the watch tower with
eager straining eyes. From the absence of
Geographic communication and the lincer-
talhty or movement inseparable from the
trade, ii might be one OF half-dozen ships:
ana this, of course. is added to the anxiety
of life.
And when night fell before the laborins
sPeck, just discernible in the offing had
won her way near enough to make some
temporary haven, when with the passing OF
DAY came, as 1t so often does i'm these lati-
tudes, the irresistible fury of a winter gale
the watchers tension of mind must have
often strained to the breaking point 1t is
most dlfhcult for us in these davs TO real
re Widl inoSe patient ones had to endure,
knowing. as they did To the remotest detail
all the dangers that We're set round about
their beloved.
The Women Remember.
These women of Nantucket. Martha's
Vineyard, Rhode Island and the neighbor-
hood knew what a hell of tormented waters
their maze-like vicinity became under the
stress of winters gale, knew how on the
finest night the intricacy OF the channels
and the vagaries of the currents to say
nothing of the impenetrable whiteness of
log, made navigation there one of the most
difficult Of all arts of practice.
Yet there were compensations. There al
ways are Safe anchored off the shallow
bar, the "camels'' (curious pontoon-like
structures used for lifting the ships into a
harbor too shallow for them) are secured
on either side. Then up anchor" pump
out the camels." The grand, weather. beat
en- vessel rises, gay with bunting fore and
aft, the quiet crowds, We'll schooled in the
art of self-repression. line the long wharves
(all deserted and forlorn today and an
other chapter in the history of Nantucket
is closed and has passed into Oblivion.