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<h2>THE</h2>
<h1>PEARL OF ORR'S ISLAND</h1>
<h3>A Story of the Coast of Maine</h3>
<h3>BY</h3>
<h2>HARRIET BEECHER STOWE<br/><br/></h2>
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<h2><SPAN name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></SPAN>CHAPTER I</h2>
<h3>NAOMI</h3>
<p><span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_1" id="Page_1"></SPAN></span>On the road to the Kennebec, below the town of Bath, in the State of Maine, might have been seen, on a certain
autumnal afternoon, a one-horse wagon, in which two persons
were sitting. One was an old man, with the peculiarly
hard but expressive physiognomy which characterizes the
seafaring population of the New England shores. A clear
blue eye, evidently practiced in habits of keen observation,
white hair, bronzed, weather-beaten cheeks, and a face
deeply lined with the furrows of shrewd thought and anxious
care, were points of the portrait that made themselves
felt at a glance.</p>
<p>By his side sat a young woman of two-and-twenty, of a
marked and peculiar personal appearance. Her hair was
black, and smoothly parted on a broad forehead, to which
a pair of penciled dark eyebrows gave a striking and definite
outline. Beneath, lay a pair of large black eyes, remarkable
for tremulous expression of melancholy and timidity.
The cheek was white and bloodless as a snowberry, though
with the clear and perfect oval of good health; the mouth
was delicately formed, with a certain sad quiet in its lines,
which indicated a habitually repressed and sensitive nature.</p>
<p>The dress of this young person, as often happens in New
England, was, in refinement and even elegance, a marked<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_2" id="Page_2"></SPAN></span>
contrast to that of her male companion and to the humble
vehicle in which she rode. There was not only the most
fastidious neatness, but a delicacy in the choice of colors,
an indication of elegant tastes in the whole arrangement,
and the quietest suggestion in the world of an acquaintance
with the usages of fashion, which struck one oddly
in those wild and dreary surroundings. On the whole, she
impressed one like those fragile wild-flowers which in April
cast their fluttering shadows from the mossy crevices of
the old New England granite,—an existence in which
colorless delicacy is united to a sort of elastic hardihood
of life, fit for the rocky soil and harsh winds it is born to
encounter.</p>
<p>The scenery of the road along which the two were riding
was wild and bare. Only savins and mulleins, with their
dark pyramids or white spires of velvet leaves, diversified
the sandy wayside; but out at sea was a wide sweep of
blue, reaching far to the open ocean, which lay rolling,
tossing, and breaking into white caps of foam in the
bright sunshine. For two or three days a northeast storm
had been raging, and the sea was in all the commotion
which such a general upturning creates.</p>
<p>The two travelers reached a point of elevated land,
where they paused a moment, and the man drew up the
jogging, stiff-jointed old farm-horse, and raised himself
upon his feet to look out at the prospect.</p>
<p>There might be seen in the distance the blue Kennebec
sweeping out toward the ocean through its picturesque
rocky shores, docked with cedars and other dusky evergreens,
which were illuminated by the orange and flame-colored
trees of Indian summer. Here and there scarlet
creepers swung long trailing garlands over the faces of the
dark rock, and fringes of goldenrod above swayed with
the brisk blowing wind that was driving the blue waters
seaward, in face of the up-coming ocean tide,—a conflict<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_3" id="Page_3"></SPAN></span>
which caused them to rise in great foam-crested waves.
There are two channels into this river from the open sea,
navigable for ships which are coming in to the city of
Bath; one is broad and shallow, the other narrow and
deep, and these are divided by a steep ledge of rocks.</p>
<p>Where the spectators of this scene were sitting, they
could see in the distance a ship borne with tremendous
force by the rising tide into the mouth of the river, and
encountering a northwest wind which had succeeded the
gale, as northwest winds often do on this coast. The
ship, from what might be observed in the distance, seemed
struggling to make the wider channel, but was constantly
driven off by the baffling force of the wind.</p>
<p>"There she is, Naomi," said the old fisherman, eagerly,
to his companion, "coming right in." The young woman
was one of the sort that never start, and never exclaim,
but with all deeper emotions grow still. The color slowly
mounted into her cheek, her lips parted, and her eyes
dilated with a wide, bright expression; her breathing came
in thick gasps, but she said nothing.</p>
<p>The old fisherman stood up in the wagon, his coarse,
butternut-colored coat-flaps fluttering and snapping in the
breeze, while his interest seemed to be so intense in the
efforts of the ship that he made involuntary and eager
movements as if to direct her course. A moment passed,
and his keen, practiced eye discovered a change in her
movements, for he cried out involuntarily,—</p>
<p>"<i>Don't</i> take the narrow channel to-day!" and a moment
after, "O Lord! O Lord! have mercy,—there they
go! Look! look! look!"</p>
<p>And, in fact, the ship rose on a great wave clear out of
the water, and the next second seemed to leap with a desperate
plunge into the narrow passage; for a moment there
was a shivering of the masts and the rigging, and she went
down and was gone.<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_4" id="Page_4"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>"They're split to pieces!" cried the fisherman. "Oh,
my poor girl—my poor girl—they're gone! O Lord,
have mercy!"</p>
<p>The woman lifted up no voice, but, as one who has been
shot through the heart falls with no cry, she fell back,—a
mist rose up over her great mournful eyes,—she had
fainted.</p>
<p>The story of this wreck of a home-bound ship just entering
the harbor is yet told in many a family on this
coast. A few hours after, the unfortunate crew were
washed ashore in all the joyous holiday rig in which they
had attired themselves that morning to go to their sisters,
wives, and mothers.</p>
<p>This is the first scene in our story.</p>
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