James Oppenheim

“ A perfection of peace and content lay on the place.
At the post-office, beside the bridge that connected the river-parted halves of the town, the car stopped. I went at once to the bridge-rail to glimpse the racing tide which the Atlantic was sending inland, to get the delicious sea smell and to drink deep of the Maine weather. And then I realized the perfection of the day—the sky, blue, with nothing in it but the sun; the shining air; the town shaded and asleep; the three-masted schooner just being moored at the dock; the music of the tide against the bridge. ”

“ He shook his head.
"It's life, and at eighty-three you get your hindsight on trouble. It's not bad in the backward view. There's her house."
Small, quaint, weather-beaten, a little sweet growth behind an old-fashioned garden red and white and purple with rosebuds, magnolia, and wistaria, and in the distance the apple-orchard she had mentioned, and it was still white with blossoms. It seemed impossible that we could bring tragedy into this white peace and silent loveliness. ”

“ Clemm spoke with loving anger.
"It's a wonder the young fool wasn't killed."
"Gosh," said the Old Man, "the sea never killed a Dougherty."
And they looked in at the door, and the doctor and I peered over their shoulders. The boy was whispering to his mother, and she was sobbing openly. The release blinded me suddenly, and shamedly I wiped my face.
That evening, while William slept peacefully, I went down to the little dining-sitting-room. The wind had risen, and it seemed as if the spirit of the Atlantic went roaring from pine to pine, buffeting the house with strong musical blows. ”

“ I, too, seemed old; felt the old age that parents feel when the younger generation has left them, when they are needed no longer by the new manhood and womanhood, when they begin to be pushed back to the past. ”

“ Clemm was a hardy, stocky, dark-skinned fellow, passionate but quiet, with black mustache and sparse hair over his hawk-like face; but the Old Man was a marvel, a six-footer, absolutely straight, flesh like leather, a grizzled, stubby beard, a shock of gray hair, and the bleared, acute eyes of a bald-headed eagle. ”

“ Suddenly I understood William, felt as if the blood in us was the same, and knew how terribly he was drawn. Surely youth still has its quest, its never-found Grails to seek, and rover that I was I knew how much a man would leave for the strange Voice that calls, how much I myself had left, and still would leave. ”

“ I asked.
"You see," he said, huskily, "the boy's got a fishing-launch, and he followed yon schooner in, and here at the bridge the tide's treacherous. The old hulk swung and knocked the launch under. Bert Taylor fished him out. He'd orter have more sense," he muttered, "but I've always noticed the lad hanging about schooners. You can lay stakes that his mother hates the sea."
The doctor was ready then, the boy's head bandaged, hiding the eyes. I lifted the dripping youth easily—he was very slim—and climbed into the automobile. ”

“ I was diligently fighting off those lingering stingers, the Maine mosquitoes, and the Old Man delighted me by holding forth his knotty arm, which was black with the humming insects.
"Don't bite me!" he chuckled. "They know who's their friend. Stella hates 'em, and they bite her—Clemm, too." He leaned and whispered, "But William—he's the same as me!"
William's mother had much of the Old Man's hardihood. She was often up at five, bustling through her work with surprising swiftness ”

“ Clemm was begging him for mercy with her eyes. She whispered:
"Pa, he sha'n't go. If the other children had lived, all right. But William sha'n't go."
"The same blood's in you, Stella," he answered, slowly. "It's a wonder you can't understand. It's good for young men. ”

“ It was to William—no doubt of that.
"We've all been seafarers—all except my father." His voice lowered: "But I'm like the Old Man. Did you ever see a coral reef?"
Later he burst out: "The women-folk are always holding a man back. But there's been a lot of sailors in spite of them."
And he told me then that the schooner that had nearly killed him was bound for Central America.
At the end of the afternoon a letter came. Mrs. Clemm handed it in and withdrew. ”