White Bluffs spokesman. [volume] (White Bluffs, Wash.) 1907-1938, 1935-08-08
CHAPTER I


The wilder lived on the spit of sand
jutting out into Crocker's cove.
Just why she should have been sin
gled out by this significant sobriquet
was a subtle psychological problem.
There were other women in Belleport
and in Wilton, too who had lost hus-
bands. Nevertheless, despite the vari
GUS homes in which solitary women
reigned, none of their owners was des-
ignated by the appellation allotted to
Marcia Howe.
Moreover, there seemed in the name
the hamlet had elected to bestow upon
her ring of satisfaction, even of re-
joicing, rather than the note of con-
dolence commonly echoing in the term.
Persons rolled it on their tongues as
if Haunting it triumphantly on the
breeze.
Marcia ought never to have mar
ried Jason Howe" asserted Abbie
Brewster when one day she reminis-
Gently gossiped with her friend, Re-
becca Gill "She was head an Shout
ders above him. Whatever coaxed her
into it I never could understand. She
could have had her pick of half a
dozen husbands"
"She was nothin' but slip of a
thing when she married. Mebbe she
had the notion she could reform him.
Rebecca suggested
"Mebbe," agreed Abbie. "Still young
as she was, she might a. known she
couldn't. Ten years ago he was the
same, unsteady, drinkin' idler he
proved himself to be up to the last
minute of his life. He hadn't changed
hair. Such men seldom do, unless
! they set out to; an Jason Howe never
set out to do, or be, anything. He was
too selfish an lazy Well, he's gone
an Marcia's we'll rid of him. For
most three years now, she's been her
own mistress an the feelin' that she
is must be highly enjoyable"
"S'pose she'll always go on livin
there on that deserted strip of sand?"
speculated Rebeca. "Why, it's most an
island. In fact, it is an island at high
tide"
$50 tits. An zenas Henry says it's
getting to be more an more so every
minute" Abbie replied. "The tide
runs through that channel swift as a
race horse an each day it cuts wider
path 'twixt Marcia an the shore. Be-
fore long, she's goin to be as COM
pletely cut off from the mainland at
low water as at high
ut must be terrible lonely place."
II wouldn't want to live there"
shrugged the sociable Abbie "But
there's folks that don't seem to mind
solitude, an Marcia Howe's one of
EN- Mebbe, after the life she led with
Jason, she kinder relishes bein' alone.
Furthermore, dynamite couldn't blast
her out of that old Daniels homestead
Her father an her grandfather were
born there an the house is the apple
OF her eye. 1t is fine old place if
only it stood somewheres else. OF
course, when 1t was built the ocean
hadn't ct away the beach, an who'd
"a foreseen the tides would wash
round it It'll they'd whitfield it down
to little morn a sand bar, an as good
as detached 1t from the coast alto
gether?"
well, say what you will against
the sea an the sand, they did good
turn for Marcia all them years of her
married life. At least they helped her
keep track of Jason. Once she got him
on the Point with the tide rllnnin'
strong 'twixt him and the village she'd
paddock the skiff an there he'd be!
She had him safe an sound" Abbie
chuckled.
Eyes" acquiesced Rebecca. "But the
scheme worked both ways. Let Jason
walk over to town across the flats an
then let the tide rise an there he be,
too! Without a boat there was no
earthly way of getting home. He had
the best of excuses for loiterin' an
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