Charles Clark Munn

“ He paused a moment to look out seaward and along the broadening path of moonlight as if it led into a new life and a new world, while Mona watched his half-averted face. All this was a revelation to her of his inner self, his nature and impulses. She had thought tenderly of him before; now he seemed the embodiment of all that was good and true and manly—a hero she must fain worship.
"Life is a puzzle-board, dear," he said at last, as if that sparkling roadway had been followed into a better one; "we all strive for happiness in it and know not where or how it may be found. ”

“ And yet, insensibly, he was doing Mona Hutton the greatest wrong in his power—almost.
Some realizing sense of this came to him after that evening beside the old tide mill, when his words had caused a single tear to fall upon the hand that helped her to arise, and yet he could not tell what he had said that hurt her so.
There is, perhaps, nothing so fascinating in this wide world to a young man as the first signs of a sweet maid's budding love for him, and it must be stated, nothing is harder to turn away from, and Winn was no exception to young men in general. ”

“ But this excellent advice had scant effect on Winn, for his ambition had been chilled, his hopes seemed like to be thwarted, his mental sun in a cloud, and the barometer of his spirits at low tide. Then the honest people here who had trusted him implicitly and who could ill afford to lose became a burden to his mind. Honest himself in every impulse, to realize that in the near future he might be cursed as a rascal only added to his gloom. He dreaded to meet them lest they read the worriment in his face, and especially the patient and hard-working Mrs. Moore, who daily prepared his meals. ”

“ It may seem strange that the same practical sense of utility that governed her girlhood's impulses and led her to accept a ready-at-hand love, instead of waiting for an absent one, now shaped her desires toward her daughter. Romance had no place in Mrs. Hutton's nature, neither had love of music. In her calendar, also, one man was as good as another if he behaved himself as well, and a present lover for Mona, if he meant business and could provide a home, was far better than an absent one, even if the entire island cried his praises. ”

“ A wag bid ten cents, another a dollar. Then came a bid of fifty. And then Winn, who up to this time had been a silent spectator of the comedy, felt a sudden intuition that here and now was his chance. He thought of the island, still dear to his memory, of the men to whom his coming had been a godsend, of Jess Hutton who, at parting, had offered hand and heart, and of Mona and the little knot of flowers he had once kept fresh in a tiny spring that bubbled out of this same quarry.
And thinking thus, he bid one hundred dollars. ”

“ He could even feel the supple waist and warm handclasp of the willing maid who danced with him, and when the evening of simple but unalloyed delight was over, came the long walk home with that same farmer's daughter while the moonlight silvered the landscape and the rustling leaves in the maple lane, tinkling like tiny bells beneath their feet. Gone were all the hectic years of city life, the stab of Ethel Sherman, the distrust of Jack Nickerson, and the humiliation of the years with Weston & Hill. ”

“ Though she ate and slept at home, tripped alone to school, and to church each Sunday hand in hand with Uncle Jess, his store was her playhouse and his love her happiness until girlhood was reached. Often on summer days he left the store, utterly disregarding trade, and with her took long rambles over the island, hunting gulls' eggs and gathering shells, flowers, or berries. He built her a boat and taught her to row it in the little harbor, talked to her for hours of the great world and its people, of the planets and their motions, of right and wrong, of religion and God. ”

“ To Mona, reared beyond the world of wealth and social custom, the great city she was now in seemed a monster hive. An endless tangle of crowded streets, of pushing humanity, and towering buildings. The ceaseless din of street cars and rumbling teams, the people who elbowed her aside as they hurried on, the vehicles that halted not when she crosses a street, the grand ladies alighting from their carriages and sweeping by her as if she was without right ”

“ Its people are poor, but honest, kind, and truthful; their houses turkey coops, their customs ancient, their religion sincere, their livelihood gained by fishing, and the island a wild spruce-clad ledge of granite with bold sea-washed cliffs and an interior harbor that is a dream of peace, seldom rippled. There is an ancient beacon built by the Norsemen on a hill nine centuries ago, a ravine surpassingly grand with a cave called the Devil's Oven, and an old tide-mill at the head of their harbor, where a love-lorn girl once hanged herself. ”

“ You take right and wrong too seriously and are like an eagle caged with jackdaws. City men are such in the main, thinking more about the cut of their coats, the fit of their linen, and color of their ties than of aught else. You are as unlike them as when you came here a big boy with countryisms clinging to you and the scent of new mown hay perfuming your impulses; you were always out of place here, and the three months on that island has made you more so."
It was a truthful and yet somewhat flattering portrayal of Winn as he really did seem to her, but it only added to his discontent. ”

“ For weeks Winn lived an aimless life without occupation, which to him meant misery. He walked the streets to be jostled by people in a hurry, and wished that he also was. He looked into shop windows where dummies stood clad in beautiful garments, and wondered how Mona would look if robed in such. He met people hurrying home from their work at night and almost envied them. In his club he felt so ill at ease that games, conversation, and even the raillery of Jack Nickerson bored him. He had a pleasant home, where his aunt always thought of his comfort ”

“ Many times afterward Winn thought of that moment and always with regret.
A little longer Mona waited, and then, like an obedient child, drew her violin from its case.
Our moods are our masters, and be it untutored girl or world-wise man or woman, they shadow or brighten all expression. And though Mona played at his bidding one and another of the lively airs she knew, a minor chord of sadness ran through them all. ”

“ And be it said here that when a man feels that way toward a woman, love's silken cord has been knotted about his heart. When they reached the niche, at the head of the gorge, a surprise awaited Winn, for its floor was carpeted thick with freshly gathered ferns, and bunches of wild roses and clusters of red berries were thrust into each crevice.
"What good fairy has been here ahead of us?" exclaimed Winn as he looked at the charming nook. "Was it you, Mona?" ”

“ To refuse those who would buy more stock, he dare not, since it would awaken suspicion; to accept it was as bad, for it compromised him the deeper. For a long hour he tried to think a way for himself out of this fog, and the more he thought the more positive his suspicion grew, and then he returned to his abode. And there in Rock Lane and as if to increase his burden of responsibility, was Mona sitting in the porch of her humble home alone. ”

“ Once more he felt full of young courage with success and riches almost within his grasp. Then as the evening waned and Jess Hutton's fingers strayed to the old sweet love songs of Scotland and "Robin Adair" and "Annie Laurie" whispered the burden of their affection, the tender eyes of Mona and the wild rock-walled gorge where he had first heard her play the same songs touched his heart. With this memory, so sweet in a way, came a heartache. ”

“ Even now, in society of the best, bridge whist and whist for prizes, afternoon and evening, flourishes on all sides. Oh, it's gamble, my boy, go where you will; and you might as well take a hand in it and make money."
"But a bucket shop is disreputable," replied Winn, "or has that reputation, and on par with gambling dens in fact, though protected by law. It is worse than those in one way, for men who go in feel forced to put up margins to save themselves, and in the end go broke. Look at the embezzlements that crop out almost daily, and nine out of ten traceable to a bucket shop. ”

“ Put it away, Mona, and live your simple life here. To struggle out of your orbit is to court unhappiness. I was thrust out of mine by death and poverty," he added sadly, "when an awkward and green country boy, knowing absolutely nothing of city ways and manners, and placed among those who think all who come from the farms must be but half civilized and stupid. It is the shallow conceit of city-bred people always and the greatest mistake they make. My aunt sent me to a business college, and for a year my life there was a burden. ”

“ Moore just to the rear, watched Mona industriously and noticed that once when the young fisherman leaned over to whisper she edged away. All that day not once did Winn exchange a word with her except the "good morning" that was his early greeting, and when evening came he once more lit his cigar and strolled up Norse Hill to commune with himself, for the sight of that swaggering son of Neptune making himself agreeable to Mona was not pleasant. In this respect men are all alike, and whether they want a woman or not, a shadow of the old instinct that existed among the cave dwellers is latent. ”

“ Gossips, recalling how he and Letty, as grown-up school children, had played together along the sandy beach of the little harbor or by the old tide mill, then grinding its grist, asserted that Jess had been driven away by disappointment; but beyond surmise they could not go, for to no one did he impart one word of his reasons for leaving the island and the scenes of his boyhood.
Twenty years later, Letty Carver, who had become Mrs. Jethro Hutton, was left a widow with one child, a little girl named Mona, a small white cottage on Rock Lane, and, so far as any one knew, not much else. ”

“ And when Winn left the city, as once before, a new courage and new hopes tinged his horizon.
And first and foremost in them was the flowerlike face and soulful eyes of Mona.
The wisest of us, however, are but mere bats in this world, blindly flying hither and thither. At times one may, by sheer good luck, fly free; and then again we strike our heads against a wall.
Yet we think we are very wise.
And so, Winn Hardy, full of hope and love, found, when he reached the coast town where the steamer Rockhaven made landing, that her trips were but twice a week now and he had a full day to wait. ”

“ And worse than that; this honest old fellow Jess, out of good will to him had put five hundred in and persuaded others to invest also!
Suspicion is like sailing in a fog; we cannot tell where clear air ends and fog begins, only the first we know the air seems damp and chill, the sun obscured and danger near. And so with Winn, there on Rockhaven, with his vocation and paths in life all mapped out, these people looking toward him as a benefactor and ready to trust him with their money and the sun of success shining! ”

“ But he did not, and neither does many another blind fool who buys "gilt-edged" stock in gold mines, oil wells, and schemes of all sorts, know that his investment rests on as insecure and trifling a basis; for the world is full of sharpers who continually set traps for the unwary and always catch them, and, although their name is legion, their dupes are as the sands of the sea. ”

“ But the little bond of feeling was none the less entrancing; and when later Jess sailed away to the Banks on his first fishing trip, he carried a lock of Letty's jet-black hair as a token, and her sweet face was ever present in his thoughts. When he returned, browned but successful, her welcome seemed to grow in warmth; and after two or three voyages, and he could now afford a Sunday suit when he visited her, gossip whispered they were likely to make a match. ”

“ Winn smiled at her candor. "You don't know how to flirt, do you, Mona?" he asked pointedly, "you utter the truth always."
"Does flirting consist of deception?" she asked, looking earnestly at him.
"Yes," he answered, "and of the most adroit kind. It's the weapon that all world-wise women use to enslave men, and the more skilled they are at it, the more assured is their success."
"Do men ever deceive?" she queried, her fathomless eyes still on him.
"Yes, little girl," he answered, looking away and out over the ocean and resolving to be sincere, "men are the same as women in that respect ”

“ The women would say spiteful things about you, and scratch you every way they could, as is their nature; and the men would fill your ears with subtle flattery, and each one spread before you the most insidious net ever woven by mortal brain. No, little sister, be content where you are, and if you are lonely, go to the cave and listen to the whisper of the fairies. They will never stab you to the heart, as the worldly women will. ”

“ Winn was silent, conscious that beside him was a creature as tender as a flower and as innocent, with a will to do and dare, or strive to do, what few women would, and in her heart was an ambition that, like the bee in the flower, would rob her of all life's sweetness. ”

“ The ocean billows still beat unceasingly against Rockhaven's granite cliffs and toss the rockweed and kelpie aloft. The tide still ebbs and flows beneath the old mill, and the fishermen still mend their nets and sail away. Parson Bush is getting old and feeble, and his hair white as snow. He still utters fervent thanks, however, for the many blessings that have come to this far-off island, including the new church Jess and Winn were instrumental in building. The same old bell still hangs in its tower, and Sunday evenings always answers the one in Northaven. ”

“ Rockhaven has a history, and it is one filled with the pathos of poverty, from that day, long ago, when Captain Carver first sailed into its land-locked harbor to split, salt, and dry his sloop load of cod on the sunny slope of a granite ledge, until now, when two straggling villages of tiny houses, interspersed with racks for drying cod, a few untidy fishing smacks tied up at its small wharves, and a little steamboat that daily journeys back and forth to the main land, thirty miles distant, entitles it to be called inhabited. ”

“ I am inclined to think that there is no such thing as truth, honor, and sentiment except among old fogies and children."
"There isn't and there is," responded Ethel, philosophically; "no one is all bad, or at least but few are, while not many are all good. Only, in matters of the heart, a woman who has one is bound to suffer, unless she meets and weds a young god, and gods are scarce in this day and generation."
"But is she likely to be the happier by marrying for money and position?" queried Winn, pointedly. ”

“ When I left the old farm I was too young to understand people, but now that I do, I often long for the old associates of my boyhood, and if my business here becomes successful, I shall never go back to the city."
A look of gladness lit up the girl's face.
"I feel vexed over my business," continued Winn, longing to confide his troubles to Mona and looking down into the dark mussel-coated chasm left by the ebbing tide close by where they sat, "but I presume I shall come out all right." ”

“ It was a pleasant assurance, but the cloud on Winn's face remained. He had from the outset hoped to interest this old man, who he realized held the key of Rockhaven, as it were, and whose opinion of his mission there, and the merits of Rockhaven stock as an investment, would without doubt be accepted by others as final. His own belief in it was optimistic, and beyond that it meant to him a success in business and an avenue to prosperity that included all wealth meant to any one. So far in life he had been but a mere menial, a poorly paid drudge, a slave to so many hours a day. ”

“ When she told me, the tears almost came to my eyes; and while I bow to the noble impulse you displayed, it was foolish after all. It would have been wiser to have kept the money in your own hands and taken care of her. She may be led again to make ducks and drakes of her money by another Weston. The world is full of them."
"It didn't occur to me then," answered Winn. "I did it on a sudden impulse, and now I think you are right."
And be it said parenthetically that this worldly yet sincere assertion of Ethel Sherman elevated her greatly in Winn's estimation. ”

“ On the wharves and between most of the small brown houses back of them, are fish racks of various sizes, interspersed with tiny sheds built beside rocks, old battered boats, piles of rotting nets, broken lobster pots, and a medley of wrack of all sorts and kinds, beaten and bleached by the salty sea.
In summer, too, a white-winged yacht, trim and trig, with her brass rails, tiny cannon, and duck-clad crew, occasionally sails into the harbor and anchors, to send her complement of fashionable pleasure-seekers ashore. ”

“ Like one of the spruces that towered high above others on Rockhaven, like one of the granite cliffs bidding defiance to storm and wave, so did Jess Hutton tower above his fellow-men. Not from stature, though he stood full six feet, or that he was impressive in other ways—far from it. He was like a child among men in simplicity, in tenderness, in truth and kindly nature—a man among children in strict adherence to his conscience, to justice and right living. ”