Annie Hamilton Donnell

“ Jem Three, scuffing barefoot through the sandy soil, met this radiant dream-maiden with the exalted mien. Jem Three was not of exalted mien, and he never dreamed. He was brown up to the red rim of his hair, and big and homely. But the freckles in line across the brownness of his face spelled h-o-n-e-s-t-y. At least, they always had before to Judith Lynn and all the world. To-night Judith was to read them differently.
“Hullo, Jude!”
It is hard to come out of a beautiful dream, plump upon a prosaic boy who says, “Hullo!” It is apt to jolt one. It jolted Judith. ”

“ A splendid doctor, with a heart big enough to hold all the little crippled children in the universe, would make her walk. And so—this is the end of the story—we took her across the sea to him. Look at her now! Where is she? Oh, there! Marie! Marie! Come here to mother!”
Judith slipped away. She was never quite definite how she got there, but she found herself presently in the old black dory that was drawn up on the beach. It was the best place to think, and Judith wanted to think. ”

“ To Judith, who stood for fisher-folk, it would mean serious loss. When the lobster season was a good one, more than one little comfort and luxury found its way into more than one humble fisher-home. And Blossom—Blossom would suffer if the lobster-traps were empty. For Judith and her mother had agreed to set apart enough of the lobster-money to get Blossom a wheel-chair. Judith had seen one once on a trip to the nearest town, and ever since she had dreamed about a little wheel-chair with Blossom in it. To wheel up and down the smooth, hard sand, with Blossom laughing and crying, “See me!” ”

“ She remembered father’s and the boys’ last school of fish—how she had hurried down to the shore and watched the dory come creeping heavily in, how the boys had cheered, as they came, how father had let her help at the dressing, and mother had brought down hot coffee for them all and then “fallen to,” herself and worked like a man. How they all had worked to get the barrels packed full of the shining layers in time for the steamer next morning!
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. ”

“ 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! ”

“ 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. ”

“ Isn’t that a splendid lot?”
“Not as splendid as fifty,” answered Judy, assured now that there had been as many as that.
“Seventeen from fifty is thirty—thirty-two,” whispered the Evil Thing in her ear. Evil things cannot be expected to be good in arithmetic or anything else. “So he helped himself to thirty-two, did he! Nice haul! Thirty-two big fellows will bring him in—”
“Don’t!” groaned Judith.
“I don’t wonder you say ‘don’t!’ Thirty-two nice big fellows would have brought you in a pretty little sum. You could have put it away in a stocking in your bureau drawer, for the Blossom-fund.” ”

“ 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.” ”

“ There were but three Lynns in the small home upshore. Two years ago there had been six, but father and the boys, one day, had gone out of sight beyond the bay and had never come into sight again. It is the sad way with those “who go down to the sea in ships.”
Judith was the only man left to ’tend the traps and fish in the safer waters of the bay. At fourteen one is young to begin toil like that. Even at sixteen one is not old. But Judith’s heart was as strong as her pair of brown, boy-muscled arms. ”

“ I’d be pleased to see Blossom. Is she about my tallness?”
Judith’s face had undergone one of its swift changes. It had grown defensive and a little fierce. She should not see Blossom!—this other child who could walk away over the sand to meet Elises, whoever Elises were. She should not see Blossom! Blossom should not see her!
“But, maybe—prob’ly she’s a baby—”
“No, she’s six. She’d be about as tall as you are, if she was straightened—I mean if she could stand up beside o’ you. I guess you better go to that woman in the cap or she’ll scold, won’t she?”
“Goodness, yes! Elise always scolds. ”

“ Don’t le’s pretend any more, Judy. There’s days it’s easy to an’ there’s days it’s hard to—it’s a hard-to day, I guess, to-day. Those days you can’t pretend get out and walk very well.”
“Pretend I’m an elephant!” laughed Judy, though the laugh trembled in her throat. “That’s an easy-to-pretend! And you’re an—Oh, an Arab, driving me! You must talk Arabese, Blossom!”
Blossom was gay again when they got to the dory, and Judith dropped her into the bow, out of her own weary arms. ”

“ Judy should see she could sit still and talk like anybody.
“Where?” asked Judith absently. She did not take the trouble to follow the little pointing finger with her eyes.
“There—why don’t you look? It’s all pretty an’ ripply an’ kind of queer. Doesn’t look like plain water ’xactly. Look, Judy—why don’t you?”
“I am looking now—Oh, Oh, wait! It looks like—Blossom, I believe it’s a school! That’s the way the water always loo—Blossom, Blossom, do you hear me, it’s a school! A school of mackerel—a school, I tell you!” ”

“ Judith was not experienced in the dressing of many fish at a time and the packing of them in barrels for market. At sixteen, how can one be—and one a girl? But she knew in a rather indefinite way the importance of having it done promptly. ”

“ I’m layin’ low fur ye!” the cheerful voice called, as Judith entered the little cabin.
“Is Jem Three here?” demanded Judith.
“Here?—Jemmy Three! I guess you’re failin’ in your mind, honey.”
“Well, I’m glad he isn’t. I don’t want anybody but you—Uncle Jem, how can I get Blossom across the sea?” Judith’s eager face followed up this rather astonishing speech. Uncle Jem turned to meet them both.
“Wal, there’s the old dory—or ye mought swim,” he answered gravely. He was used to Judy’s speeches.
“Because there’s a great man over there that makes lame little children walk—he can make Blossom. ”

“ Never mind the lobsters. Just you set there in that chair and eat some o’ my tarts! You look clean tuckered out.”
“Not clean tuckered,” laughed Judith rather tremulously. It was good to be pushed about like that by big, kind hands. And how good the tarts were! She sank into the chair with a grateful sigh.
“I don’t suppose you can be expected to bring lobsters when there ain’t any in the traps! All is, the folks ’ll have to eat tarts!” Mrs. Ben’s folks were the people who lounged about in gay summer clothes. Judith could see them out of the window as she ate her tarts. ”

“ That was another of her odd little whimsies.
“Good-by, sad dream—good-by, glad dream,” she said. “You will never go ashore. You will always stay out here in the sea where I drop you—unless I decide to dream you over again some day. If I do, good-by till then.” For Judith never dreamed her day-dreams on land. They were a part of the sea and the sea-sky and the old black dory.
She must make her trip to the Hotel with her poor little haul of lobsters, for she had promised all she got to Mrs. Ben. ”

“ I would not let them talk to me. ‘Some children are so late in walking,’ I said. ‘Her legs are such little ones!’ I would catch her up from the floor and hug her fiercely. ‘They sha’n’t hurry you, my darling. ”