Judith Lynn: A Story of the Sea

All this Judith remembered as she crept silently away through the darkness and turned toward the salty spray that the wind tossed in her face. That had been a phenomenally large school of mackerel – eighteen barrels for market in the distant city. Judith was not quite sure, but she thought the check that came back to father had been for a hundred and fifty dollars. Mackerel had been in great demand then. A hundred and fifty dollars! Judith stopped short and caught her breath.

“But my school was just a little one,” she thought, “and maybe people aren’t very mackerel hungry now.” Still, a hundred dollars – or even fifty – fifty dollars would go so far toward that doctor across the sea! Supposing she had lost fifty dollars! She hurried on through the black night, not knowing what she should do when she got to her destination, but eager to do something. The lantern she carried cast a small glimmer into the great dark.

Judith was not afraid – how long had it been since she was afraid of the dark? But a distant thrill shot through her when she saw another faint glimmer ahead of her. Then it seemed to divide into two glimmers – they blinked at her like evil eyes. They were straight ahead; she was going toward them! She must go toward them if she went to the old dory drawn up on the beach.

“And I’m goin!” Judy said defiantly. “Blink away, you old bad-y two-eyes! Wait till I get there and fix you!” It helped to laugh a little and nod defiance at the blinking eyes.

The salty spray increased to a gentle rain, buffeting her cheeks. The steady boom of the breakers was in her ears like the familiar voice of a friend. Judith tramped on resolutely.

The lights were two lanterns, sheltered from the wind, beside the old black dory. Judith came upon them and cried out in astonishment. For she had come upon something else – a boy, dressing fish as if his life depended on it!

“Jemmy Three!” she ejaculated shrilly.

The boy neither turned about nor stopped.

“Hullo! That you, Jude? Got a lantern? Take that knife there an’ go to work like chain lightnin’. I’ve filled two barrels – there isn’t any time to lose, now, I tell you! Steamer’s due at seven.”

“But – but – I don’t understand – ” faltered Judith.

“Well, you needn’t, till you get plenty o’ time. Understandin’ don’t dress no fish.” Jemmy Three, like Jem One, had missed his rightful share of schooling. “What we got to do now is dress fish.”

Judith went to work obediently, but the wonder went on in her mind. What did it all mean? How had Jemmy Three found out about the mackerel? Why was he down here in the dead of night dressing and packing them?

By and by the boy saw fit to explain in little jerks over his shoulder. Judith pieced them together into a strange, beautiful story that made her throat throb.

“Saw you had a load here – saw ’twas mackerel – knew they’d got to be ’tended to – ’tended to ’em,” Jemmy Three slung over his shoulder, as he worked.

“Suspicioned you’d struck a school, and gone home clean tuckered. Oh, but you’re a smart one, Jude! Couldn’t no other girl ’a’ done it, sir, this side o’ the Atlantic!”

He caught up the dressed fish and bent over a fresh barrel; his voice sounded muffled and hollow to Judith.

“Knew there weren’t no time to spare – nobody hereabouts to help out – went at it myself all flyin’, – been down here since seven o’clock.”

“Oh, Jemmy!” Judith trembled. The throb in her throat hurt her. “What time is it now?” she asked.

A grunt issued from the barrel depths. “Time! Ain’t any time now! I told you we’d got to fly!”

It was almost twelve. They worked on, for the most part silently, until daylight began to redden the east. One barrel after another was headed up by Jemmy Three’s tireless hands. Judith counted barrels mechanically as she toiled.

“Four!” she cried. Then, “Five!” “Six!”

“There’ll be a good eight – you see,” Jem Three said, rolling a new one into position. “You’ll get a good fifty dollars, Jude; see if you don’t! How’s that for one haul? Ain’t any other girl could ’a’ done it!”

“Oh, don’t!” sobbed Judith suddenly. She let a little silver fellow slip to the ground, half-dressed, and went over to Jemmy Three.

“Don’t say another word – don’t dress another fish – don’t move till I tell you!” she cried. “I cant’t stand it another minute! I – I thought you helped yourself to my lobsters – I thought I thought it. And you’ve been here all night working for me – ”

“Oh!” cried Jemmy Three softly. But he did not stop working.

“I thought that was why there were only three yesterday – I thought there’d have been fifty to-day,” ran on Judith. The new daylight lighted her ashamed face redly, like a blush.

“There wouldn’t ’a’ been but five – ” said Jemmy Three, then caught himself up in confusion. The blush was on his face now.

Judith’s cry rang out above the sea-talk. “Then you put some in!” she cried, “instead of helping yourself. You put some in my traps, Jemmy Three – that’s what you did! You put in twelve!”

“Guess there’s somethin’ the matter with your traps, Jude,” muttered the boy. “Guess they better be overhauled – guess a fellow’s gotter right to go shares, ain’t he?”

“Jemmy Three, I’m going to hug you!”

“Oh, oh – say, look out; I’m all scales!”

“I had scales on my eyes, but they’ve fallen off now,” laughed the girl tremulously. “It’s worse to have scales on your eyes than all over the rest o’ you. I can see things as plain as day now, and – and – you look perfectly beautiful!”

“Hold on – I’m dressin’ fish! The steamer’s due at seven – ”

“I don’t care if she’s due this minute, I’ve got to talk! If she was in plain sight – if I could see her smokestack – I should have to talk. I tell you I can see now, and you look splendid – splendid, and I look like a little black – blot. To think of my being up home asleep, and you working down here, dressing my fish – and me thinking those mean thoughts of you! It makes me so ashamed I cant’t hold my kn-knife.”

Judith was crying now in good earnest. She had sunk down on the sand, and her crouching figure with the red glow from the east upon it looked oddly childish and small. Jemmy Three saw it over his shoulder.

“Look a-here, Judy,” he said gently, dropping his own knife and going over to the rocking, sobbing figure. “You look a-here, I tell you! What you cryin’ for, with eight barrels o’ fish ’most packed an’ a good fifty dollars ’most in your pocket? You better laugh! Come on, get up, and let’s give a rouser! Three cheers for the only girl in the land o’ the free an’ the home o’ the brave that darst tackle a school o’ mack’rel alone! Hip, hip – ”

“Jemmy, Jemmy, don’t!”

“Hooray! Now let’s dress fish. You’re all right – don’t you worry about bein’ a blot, when I tell you you’re a reg’lar brick! I’m proud o’ you!”

It was the longest speech Jemmy Three had ever made, and the peroration surprised himself as much as it did Judith. He put up his hand and cleared something away from his eyes – it couldn’t have been scales, for he left the scales there.

At five mother came hurrying down to find Judith. The scale-strewn beach and the scale-strewn children, the barrels in orderly rows waiting to be rolled to the little landing-place of the steamer, the heap of clumsy wet netting – all told her the whole astonishing story. And what they did not tell, Judith supplemented eagerly.

“I declare! I declare!” gasped mother in mingled pride and pity, “you two poor things, putting in like this! You’ll be tired to death – you’ll be sick abed!”

“Guess we’ll weather it,” nodded Jemmy Three, working steadily. “But if you think we ain’t hungry enough to eat a pine shing – ”

“I’ll go right home and boil some coffee and eggs and bring ’em down, and then I’ll go to work, too,” cried mother energetically. “You poor starved things!”

After a salt toilet in the surf, they ate a hurried breakfast with keen relish. Judith had forgotten her aching joints and lame muscles, and Jemmy Three had forgotten his sleepless night. Victory lay just ahead of them, and who cared for muscles or sleep!

“This is the best bread ’n’ butter I ever ate,” said Judith between bites.

There proved to be the “good eight” barrels, when they were done, and they were done by six o’clock, or a very little after. By half-past six, the barrels had been rolled down the slope of the beach to the little wharf not far away. Then the tired two rested, and remembered muscles and sleep.

They dropped in the soft, moist sand and rubbed their aching arms.

“I’m proud o’ you, Jemmy!” Judith said shyly, and looked away over the water. Her repentance had come back and lay heavily on her heart. She longed unutterably to recall those evil thoughts – to have another chance out there beyond to summon Jemmy Three with the little shrill old signal. How she would send it shrilling forth now!

“Jemmy,” she said slowly, as they waited, “you know our signal, don’t you? The one we used to practice so much.”

For answer Jemmy Three pursed his lips and sent out a clear “carrying” cry.

“Well, I wish – don’t you know what I wish?”

“’Twas Christmas,” Jemmy said flippantly, but he knew. He dug his bare toes in the sand – a sign of embarrassment.

“I wish I’d called you out there at the school!” lamented Judith, “even if you couldn’t have heard. I wish – I wish – I wish I’d called! If I ever strike another school – Jemmy, I’d give you half o’ this one if I dared to. But I’m afraid to have Blossom wait – I don’t dare to!”

“O’ course not,” agreed Jem Three vaguely. He did not at all know what Judith meant. Girls had queer ways of beginnin’ things in the middle like that. No knowin’ what a girl was drivin’ at, half the time!

“Jemmy – say – ”

“What say? Ain’t that smoke out there?”

“No, it’s a cloud. Jemmy Three, I’m going to tell you something. I want to. I’m going to tell you what that money’s going to do – you’re listening, aren’t you?”

“With both ears – go ahead.”

“Well – oh, it’s going to be something so beautiful, Jemmy! I never knew till day before yesterday that you could do anything so beautiful – I mean that anybody could. I never dreamed it! But you can – somebody can! There’s a man can, Jemmy! All you need is money to take you across to him and – there’s the money!” waving her hand toward the rows of barrels. Her eyes were shining like twin stars. She had forgotten aches and lameness again.

“I told Uncle Jem,” she went on rapidly, while Jem Three gazed at her in puzzled wonder and thought more things about girls. “He told me to go down to the hotel and ask that other little girl’s mother, and I meant to go last night! But I went to sleep last night! So I’m going to-day – I’m going to ask her to tell me just exactly how to do it.”

“Do what?” inquired Jem Three quietly. That was the only way to do with girls – pull ’em up smart, like that!

“Mercy! Haven’t I told you?” cried Judith. “Well, then – Jemmy, if you were a little mite of a thing – a Blossom, say – and a fairy came to you and said, ‘Wish a wish, my dear; what would you rather have in all the world?’ what would you answer, Jemmy? Remember, if you were a little mite of a Blossom with a – with a – little broken stem.” Judith’s voice sank to a tender softness. She didn’t know she was “making poetry.”

The boy with his toes deep in the sand was visibly embarrassed. Whatever poetry lay soul-deep within him, there was none he could call to his lips.

“Wouldn’t you answer her, ‘Legs to walk with’?” went on the girl beside him softly. “You know you would, Jemmy! I would – everybody would. You’d say, ‘The beautifulest thing in the world would be to walk– dear fairy, I want to walk so much!’ And then supposing – are you supposing? – the fairy waved her wand over you and you —walked! Do you know what you’d say then? I know – you’d say, ‘See me! Judy, see me! Jemmy, everybody, see me!’”

Judith laughed to herself under her breath. The twin stars in her eyes shone even a little brighter.

“The fairy’s a great doctor – he’s across there, ’way, ’way out of sight. He’s going to wave his wand over Blossom. He waved it over another little broken girl, and she walked. I saw her. She said, ‘See me!’ – I heard her. That’s what the money is going to do, Jemmy.”

“Gee!” breathed Jemmy softly. It was his way of making poetry.

“And you see, I don’t dare to wait – I’m afraid something might happen to that doctor.”

“O’ course! – you go down there all flyin’ an’ see that woman, Jude.”

And that afternoon Judith went. It was to Mrs. Ben she went first; she felt acquainted with Mrs. Ben.

“Can I see – I’d like to see that mother whose little girl can walk,” Judith said eagerly.

“Land!” ejaculated Mrs. Ben.

“I mean,” explained Judith, smiling, “whose little girl was lame and a doctor made her walk by waving his wa – I mean by – by curing her. I heard her telling another mother. I’d like to see – do you suppose I could see that lady?”

“I guess I know who you mean – there ain’t been but one little girl here lately,” Mrs. Ben said. “But there ain’t any now. They’ve gone away.”

Chapter V

Judith went straight to Uncle Jem, sobbing all the way unconsciously; she was not conscious of anything but what Mrs. Ben had said.

“They’ve gone away! – they’ve gone away! – they’ve gone away!” It reiterated itself to her in dull monotony, keeping slow time with the throbbing pain of her disappointment.

Uncle Jem heard her coming – in some surprise, she came so fast. What was the child hurrying like that for? What had happened?

“I hear ye, child!” he called cheerily. The time-worn little pleasantry did him service as usual. “I’m layin’ low for ye!”

She crossed the outer threshold and the little box of a kitchen without slackening her excited pace, and appeared in the old man’s doorway, breathless and flushed.

“It’s too late!” she gasped, briefly. Then, because she needed comforting and Uncle Jem was her comforter of old, her head went down on the patchwork quilt that covered his twisted old frame, and she cried like a grief-struck little child.

“There, there, deary!” he crooned, his twisted fingers traveling across her hair, “jest you lay there an’ cry it all out – don’t ye hurry any. When ye get all done an’ good an’ ready, tell Uncle Jem what it’s all about. But take your time, little un – take your time.”

The child was worn out in every thread of the over-strained young body. The excitement and nervous rack of the last twenty-four hours was having sway now, and would not be put aside. And the keen disappointment that Mrs. Ben’s words had brought, added to all the rest, had proved too much even for Judith Lynn. She cried on, taking her time.

“There now! that’s right, storm’s clearin’!” said Uncle Jem, as at length the brown head lifted slowly. “Now we’ll pull out o’ harbor and get to work.” Which meant that now explanations were in order. Judith understood.

“They’ve gone away!” she said thickly. It takes time for throbbing throats to come back to their own. “It’s too late to find out. If I’d gone yesterday – ” She stopped hastily, on the verge of fresh tears.

“Go ahead, little un; weather’s a little too thick yet to see clear. Who’s gone away? What’s it too late for?” But even as he said it, Uncle Jem, too, understood. He went on without waiting, to give Judith more time.

“Hold on! – I can pull out o’ the fog myself. That mother o’ that little cured un – she’s the one that’s gone away, eh? You was too late to see her an’ ask your questions. I see. Well, now, I call that too bad. But ’tain’t worth another cry, deary.”

“Well, I won’t cry another one, so there!” cried Judith. “Only – only – ”

“I know – I know! We’ve got to slew off on another tack. You give Uncle Jem time to think, Judy. There’s a powerful lot o’ thinkin’-time handy when you lay here on your back for a livin’. Jest you run home an’ let your ma put you to bed. I’ve heard all about your goin’s-on, an’ I guess bed’s the best place for you! I’ll think it out while you’re restin’ up.”

But to unlettered people who rarely get in touch with what is going on in the thick of things, “thinking it out” is no easy matter. Their one frail little hold on the miracle that could make Blossom whole had snapped when the hotel mother and child went away. Where to turn next for information – what to do next – was a puzzle that would not unravel for any of them. In vain Uncle Jem wrestled with it, as he lay through long, patient hours. And Judith wrestled untiringly.

The mackerel-money came in due time, but the wondrous little blue check that came out of the official-looking envelope and lay outspread on Judith’s hard, brown palm had lost its power to give legs to little Blossom, and Judith gazed at it resentfully. What was the use of it now? A small part of it would get the little wheel-chair, but it was not a wheel-chair Judith longed for now. She put away the blue check safely, and took up the wrestling again. She would find the clue to the puzzle – she refused to give it up.

Then quite privately and uninvited, Jemmy Three began to think. No one had thought of asking his advice; thinking had never been Jemmy Three’s stronghold.

He went into his grandfather’s room one early morning arrayed in his best clothes. Not much in the way of a “best,” but Jemmy had “pieced out” as well as possible with scraps of his dead father’s best that had been packed away. He looked unduly big and plain and awkward in the unaccustomed finery, but the freckles across the deep brown background of his face spelled d-e-t-e-r-m-i-n-a-t-i-o-n. Uncle Jem spelled it out slowly. His astonished gaze wandered downward, then, from “best” to “best.”

“Well?” he interrogated, and waited.

“I’m goin’ to the city, gran’father,” the boy said. “I’ve gotter, on a – a – errand. I thought I’d tell you.”

“Good idea!” nodded the old head on the pillows. The old eyes twinkled kindly. “I suppose ye want me to go out to your traps, don’t ye? An’ do a little trawlin’ while I’m out? Jest speak the word!”

Uncle Jemmy said nothing about getting his own dinner, but the boy had thought of that.

“Judy’s comin’ in at noon,” he explained. “I’ve got everythin’ cooked up. An’ she’s goin’ to look at my traps when she goes out to hers. I’ll be back in the night, sometime; don’t you lay awake for me, now, gran’father!”

He went out, but presently appeared again, fumbling his best cap in palpable embarrassment.

“I wish – I don’t suppose – you wouldn’t mind wishin’ me good luck, gran’father, would you?” he stammered. “I’d kind of like to be wished good luck.”

“Come here where I can reach ye,” the old man said cheerily, putting out his hand. “Wish ye luck? I guess I will! Ye’re a good boy, Jemmy. I don’t know what your arrant is, an’ I don’t need to know, but here’s good luck on it!”

“I tell you what it is, if – if it succeeds,” Jem Three said, gripping the twisted old fingers warmly. “I kind of thought I’d rather not tell first off. But I can, of course.”

“Off with ye, boy! Ye distract me when I’m doin’ a bit of thinkin’ for a lady! When ye get good an’ ready, then will be time enough to do your tellin’. Queer if I couldn’t trust a Jem!”

The city was twenty miles inland from the little flag-station, and the flag-station was ten miles away from Jemmy Three. He trudged away with his precious boots over his shoulder, to be put on at the little station.

Once in the city, he went directly about his “arrant.” He chose a street set thick with dwelling-houses as like one another as peas in a pod are like. He tramped down one side of the street, up the other, till at last he came upon what he sought. A smart sign hung on that particular house, and Jem Three mounted the high steps and rang the door-bell.

“Is this a doctor’s house? There’s a sign that says – ”

“The doctor isn’t at home,” the smart maid said smartly. “Will you leave your address on the slate, or will you call again at office hours – two till six.”

“I’ll call somewheres else,” Jem Three said briefly.

He called at many doors in many rows of pea – of houses. It was sometime before he succeeded in his quest. When at length he found a doctor at home, he was closeted with him for a brief space and then drove away with him in a trim little gig to a great, many-windowed house where pale people were sunning themselves in wheel-chairs about the doors. Jem Three made a call at the many-windowed house.

It was with considerable curiosity that two people down by the sea awaited the boy’s return from his trip, but oddly enough it was neither Uncle Jem nor Judith that he sought out at first. It was Judith’s mother, at her work down-beach at the summer cottage. Jemmy Three went straight to her. He had got home earlier than he expected and mother had worked later, so they walked back together in the cool, clear evening, talking all the way.

“Don’t tell Judy,” the boy said the last thing, as they parted. “I mean, not it. It’ll be splendid to surprise her, Mis’ Lynn!”

“If we can, Jemmy,” the mother answered gently. “If it succeeds. The more I think of it the more it makes me tremble, Jemmy; but we’ll do our best and leave the part we cant’t do with the One who can do it.” The gentle voice trembled into silence. Mother could “make poetry,” too. Jemmy caught off his hat suddenly, and the very act was a little prayer.

“Judy, are you awake?”

Mother stood over the bed in her scant white nightgown. When Judith answered, she sat down beside her and felt for one of her calloused, oar-toughened little hands.

“Judy, would it be – be all right to use some of the mackerel-money? Mother’s got to go away for a little while – just a little while, Judy. Jemmy says he talked with a man in the city who would give me some work to do in his kitchen for a little while. But – why, I thought I’d take Blossom, Judy, and of course that would mean spending some money – ”

“Blossom!”

Judith sat straight up in bed, her eyes like glints of light in the darkness.

“Why, yes, dear; she’s never been away from the sea in her little life. You think of that, Judy! You’ve been away twice. Blossom never saw a steam-car nor a city, nor – nor heard a hand-organ! Jemmy says he heard three to-day. You think how pleased Blossom would be to hear a hand-organ!”

“Sh!” cautioned Judith, “don’t wake her, mother. If – she’s going, she mustn’t know beforehand.”

Blossom going away! Not Blossom! Not put one hand out, so, in the dark and feel her there beside you – little warm Blossom! Not dress her in the morning and carry her downstairs – you the chariot and she the fine lady! Not hurry home to her from the traps! Judith lay and thought about all that, after mother went away. She put out her hand on the empty side of the bed, where no Blossom was, and tried to get used to the emptiness. She said stern things to herself.

“You, Judy, are you selfish as that?” she said. “To go and begrudge your little Blossom a chance to go away and see things and hear things! Don’t you want her to hear a hand-organ? And perhaps see a monkey? When she’s never been anywhere, nor heard anything, nor seen anything! When mother’s going, anyway, and can take her as well as not – you Judy, you Judy, you Judy! Oh, I cant’t sleep with you, I’m so ashamed of you!”

They went at once, and Judith settled down to her loneliness as best she could, and bore it as bravely. They were to be gone a month – perhaps two – perhaps three. A month – two, maybe – three, maybe – without Blossom!

Uncle Jem and Jemmy Three helped out – how much they did help out! Then there were the rare, precious letters. Judith had never had letters from mother before in all her sixteen years. She was rather disappointed that there were no bits of ragged, printed ones from Blossom, but mother’s letters had Blossom-bulletins. Blossom sent her love, Blossom had heard two hand-organs – three hand-organs; Blossom said tell Judy she loved her, oh, my! Blossom was very patient and sweet.

“She’s always patient and sweet,” wondered Judy. Queer mother put that in!

“You little sweet, patient Blossom!” Judith’s heart cried tenderly, “when I get you in my arms again – ”

Would the time ever come? Why were days made so long? Twenty-four hours were too many – why weren’t they made with only twenty?