<h2><SPAN name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></SPAN>CHAPTER XI</h2>
<h3>LITTLE ADVENTURERS</h3>
<p><span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_99" id="Page_99"></SPAN></span>The little boy who had been added to the family of
Zephaniah Pennel and his wife soon became a source of
grave solicitude to that mild and long-suffering woman.
For, as the reader may have seen, he was a resolute, self-willed
little elf, and whatever his former life may have
been, it was quite evident that these traits had been developed
without any restraint.</p>
<p>Mrs. Pennel, whose whole domestic experience had consisted
in rearing one very sensitive and timid daughter,
who needed for her development only an extreme of tenderness,
and whose conscientiousness was a law unto herself,
stood utterly confounded before the turbulent little
spirit to which her loving-kindness had opened so ready an
asylum, and she soon discovered that it is one thing to take
a human being to bring up, and another to know what to
do with it after it is taken.</p>
<p>The child had the instinctive awe of Zephaniah which his
manly nature and habits of command were fitted to inspire,
so that morning and evening, when he was at home, he
was demure enough; but while the good man was away all
day, and sometimes on fishing excursions which often lasted
a week, there was a chronic state of domestic warfare—a
succession of skirmishes, pitched battles, long treaties, with
divers articles of capitulation, ending, as treaties are apt to
do, in open rupture on the first convenient opportunity.</p>
<p>Mrs. Pennel sometimes reflected with herself mournfully,
and with many self-disparaging sighs, what was the<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_100" id="Page_100"></SPAN></span>
reason that young master somehow contrived to keep her
far more in awe of him than he was of her. Was she not
evidently, as yet at least, bigger and stronger than he, able
to hold his rebellious little hands, to lift and carry him,
and to shut him up, if so she willed, in a dark closet, and
even to administer to him that discipline of the birch which
Mrs. Kittridge often and forcibly recommended as the great
secret of her family prosperity? Was it not her duty, as
everybody told her, to break his will while he was young?—a
duty which hung like a millstone round the peaceable
creature's neck, and weighed her down with a distressing
sense of responsibility.</p>
<p>Now, Mrs. Pennel was one of the people to whom self-sacrifice
is constitutionally so much a nature, that self-denial
for her must have consisted in standing up for her
own rights, or having her own way when it crossed the
will and pleasure of any one around her. All she wanted
of a child, or in fact of any human creature, was something
to love and serve. We leave it entirely to theologians to
reconcile such facts with the theory of total depravity; but
it is a fact that there are a considerable number of women
of this class. Their life would flow on very naturally if
it might consist only in giving, never in withholding—only
in praise, never in blame—only in acquiescence, never
in conflict; and the chief comfort of such women in religion
is that it gives them at last an object for love without
criticism, and for whom the utmost degree of self-abandonment
is not idolatry, but worship.</p>
<p>Mrs. Pennel would gladly have placed herself and all she
possessed at the disposition of the children; they might
have broken her china, dug in the garden with her silver
spoons, made turf alleys in her best room, drummed on her
mahogany tea-table, filled her muslin drawer with their
choicest shells and seaweed; only Mrs. Pennel knew that
such kindness was no kindness, and that in the dreadful<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_101" id="Page_101"></SPAN></span>
word responsibility, familiar to every New England mother's
ear, there lay an awful summons to deny and to conflict
where she could so much easier have conceded.</p>
<p>She saw that the tyrant little will would reign without
mercy, if it reigned at all; and ever present with her was
the uneasy sense that it was her duty to bring this erratic
little comet within the laws of a well-ordered solar system,—a
task to which she felt about as competent as to make
a new ring for Saturn. Then, too, there was a secret feeling,
if the truth must be told, of what Mrs. Kittridge
would think about it; for duty is never more formidable
than when she gets on the cap and gown of a neighbor;
and Mrs. Kittridge, with her resolute voice and declamatory
family government, had always been a secret source of
uneasiness to poor Mrs. Pennel, who was one of those sensitive
souls who can feel for a mile or more the sphere of
a stronger neighbor. During all the years that they had
lived side by side, there had been this shadowy, unconfessed
feeling on the part of poor Mrs. Pennel, that Mrs.
Kittridge thought her deficient in her favorite virtue of
"resolution," as, in fact, in her inmost soul she knew she
was;—but who wants to have one's weak places looked
into by the sharp eyes of a neighbor who is strong precisely
where we are weak? The trouble that one neighbor may
give to another, simply by living within a mile of one, is
incredible; but until this new accession to her family, Mrs.
Pennel had always been able to comfort herself with the
idea that the child under her particular training was as
well-behaved as any of those of her more demonstrative
friend. But now, all this consolation had been put to
flight; she could not meet Mrs. Kittridge without most
humiliating recollections.</p>
<p>On Sundays, when those sharp black eyes gleamed upon
her through the rails of the neighboring pew, her very soul
shrank within her, as she recollected all the compromises<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_102" id="Page_102"></SPAN></span>
and defeats of the week before. It seemed to her that
Mrs. Kittridge saw it all,—how she had ingloriously
bought peace with gingerbread, instead of maintaining it
by rightful authority,—how young master had sat up
till nine o'clock on divers occasions, and even kept little
Mara up for his lordly pleasure.</p>
<p>How she trembled at every movement of the child in
the pew, dreading some patent and open impropriety which
should bring scandal on her government! This was the
more to be feared, as the first effort to initiate the youthful
neophyte in the decorums of the sanctuary had proved anything
but a success,—insomuch that Zephaniah Pennel
had been obliged to carry him out from the church; therefore,
poor Mrs. Pennel was thankful every Sunday when
she got her little charge home without any distinct scandal
and breach of the peace.</p>
<p>But, after all, he was such a handsome and engaging
little wretch, attracting all eyes wherever he went, and so
full of saucy drolleries, that it seemed to Mrs. Pennel that
everything and everybody conspired to help her spoil him.
There are two classes of human beings in this world: one
class seem made to give love, and the other to take it.
Now Mrs. Pennel and Mara belonged to the first class, and
little Master Moses to the latter.</p>
<p>It was, perhaps, of service to the little girl to give to
her delicate, shrinking, highly nervous organization the
constant support of a companion so courageous, so richly
blooded, and highly vitalized as the boy seemed to be.
There was a fervid, tropical richness in his air that gave
one a sense of warmth in looking at him, and made his
Oriental name seem in good-keeping. He seemed an exotic
that might have waked up under fervid Egyptian suns, and
been found cradled among the lotus blossoms of old Nile;
and the fair golden-haired girl seemed to be gladdened by
his companionship, as if he supplied an element of vital<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_103" id="Page_103"></SPAN></span>
warmth to her being. She seemed to incline toward him
as naturally as a needle to a magnet.</p>
<p>The child's quickness of ear and the facility with which
he picked up English were marvelous to observe. Evidently,
he had been somewhat accustomed to the sound of
it before, for there dropped out of his vocabulary, after he
began to speak, phrases which would seem to betoken a
longer familiarity with its idioms than could be equally
accounted for by his present experience. Though the English
evidently was not his native language, there had yet
apparently been some effort to teach it to him, although
the terror and confusion of the shipwreck seemed at first
to have washed every former impression from his mind.</p>
<p>But whenever any attempt was made to draw him to
speak of the past, of his mother, or of where he came from,
his brow lowered gloomily, and he assumed that kind of
moody, impenetrable gravity, which children at times will
so strangely put on, and which baffle all attempts to look
within them. Zephaniah Pennel used to call it putting
up his dead-lights. Perhaps it was the dreadful association
of agony and terror connected with the shipwreck, that
thus confused and darkened the mirror of his mind the
moment it was turned backward; but it was thought wisest
by his new friends to avoid that class of subjects altogether—indeed,
it was their wish that he might forget the past
entirely, and remember them as his only parents.</p>
<p>Miss Roxy and Miss Ruey came duly, as appointed, to
initiate the young pilgrim into the habiliments of a Yankee
boy, endeavoring, at the same time, to drop into his mind
such seeds of moral wisdom as might make the internal
economy in time correspond to the exterior. But Miss
Roxy declared that "of all the children that ever she see,
he beat all for finding out new mischief,—the moment
you'd make him understand he mustn't do one thing, he
was right at another."<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_104" id="Page_104"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>One of his exploits, however, had very nearly been the
means of cutting short the materials of our story in the
outset.</p>
<p>It was a warm, sunny afternoon, and the three women,
being busy together with their stitching, had tied a sun-bonnet
on little Mara, and turned the two loose upon the
beach to pick up shells. All was serene, and quiet, and
retired, and no possible danger could be apprehended. So
up and down they trotted, till the spirit of adventure which
ever burned in the breast of little Moses caught sight of a
small canoe which had been moored just under the shadow
of a cedar-covered rock. Forthwith he persuaded his little
neighbor to go into it, and for a while they made themselves
very gay, rocking it from side to side.</p>
<p>The tide was going out, and each retreating wave washed
the boat up and down, till it came into the boy's curly
head how beautiful it would be to sail out as he had seen
men do,—and so, with much puffing and earnest tugging
of his little brown hands, the boat at last was loosed from
her moorings and pushed out on the tide, when both children
laughed gayly to find themselves swinging and balancing
on the amber surface, and watching the rings and
sparkles of sunshine and the white pebbles below. Little
Moses was glorious,—his adventures had begun,—and
with a fairy-princess in his boat, he was going to stretch
away to some of the islands of dreamland. He persuaded
Mara to give him her pink sun-bonnet, which he placed
for a pennon on a stick at the end of the boat, while he
made a vehement dashing with another, first on one side of
the boat and then on the other,—spattering the water in
diamond showers, to the infinite amusement of the little
maiden.</p>
<p>Meanwhile the tide waves danced them out and still
outward, and as they went farther and farther from shore,
the more glorious felt the boy. He had got Mara all to<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_105" id="Page_105"></SPAN></span>
himself, and was going away with her from all grown people,
who wouldn't let children do as they pleased,—who
made them sit still in prayer-time, and took them to meeting,
and kept so many things which they must not touch,
or open, or play with. Two white sea-gulls came flying
toward the children, and they stretched their little arms in
welcome, nothing doubting but these fair creatures were
coming at once to take passage with them for fairy-land.
But the birds only dived and shifted and veered, turning
their silvery sides toward the sun, and careering in circles
round the children. A brisk little breeze, that came hurrying
down from the land, seemed disposed to favor their
unsubstantial enterprise,—for your winds, being a fanciful,
uncertain tribe of people, are always for falling in with
anything that is contrary to common sense. So the wind
trolled them merrily along, nothing doubting that there
might be time, if they hurried, to land their boat on the
shore of some of the low-banked red clouds that lay in the
sunset, where they could pick up shells,—blue and pink
and purple,—enough to make them rich for life. The
children were all excitement at the rapidity with which
their little bark danced and rocked, as it floated outward
to the broad, open ocean; at the blue, freshening waves, at
the silver-glancing gulls, at the floating, white-winged ships,
and at vague expectations of going rapidly somewhere,
to something more beautiful still. And what is the happiness
of the brightest hours of grown people more than this?</p>
<p>"Roxy," said Aunt Ruey innocently, "seems to me I
haven't heard nothin' o' them children lately. They're
so still, I'm 'fraid there's some mischief."</p>
<p>"Well, Ruey, you jist go and give a look at 'em," said
Miss Roxy. "I declare, that boy! I never know what
he will do next; but there didn't seem to be nothin' to
get into out there but the sea, and the beach is so shelving,
a body can't well fall into that."<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_106" id="Page_106"></SPAN></span></p>
<p>Alas! good Miss Roxy, the children are at this moment
tilting up and down on the waves, half a mile out to sea,
as airily happy as the sea-gulls; and little Moses now
thinks, with glorious scorn, of you and your press-board,
as of grim shadows of restraint and bondage that shall
never darken his free life more.</p>
<p>Both Miss Roxy and Mrs. Pennel were, however, startled
into a paroxysm of alarm when poor Miss Ruey came
screaming, as she entered the door,—</p>
<p>"As sure as you're alive, them chil'en are off in the
boat,—they're out to sea, sure as I'm alive! What
shall we do? The boat'll upset, and the sharks'll get 'em."</p>
<p>Miss Roxy ran to the window, and saw dancing and
courtesying on the blue waves the little pinnace, with its
fanciful pink pennon fluttered gayly by the indiscreet and
flattering wind.</p>
<p>Poor Mrs. Pennel ran to the shore, and stretched her
arms wildly, as if she would have followed them across the
treacherous blue floor that heaved and sparkled between
them.</p>
<p>"Oh, Mara, Mara! Oh, my poor little girl! Oh, poor
children!"</p>
<p>"Well, if ever I see such a young un as that," soliloquized
Miss Roxy from the chamber-window; "there they
be, dancin' and giggitin' about; they'll have the boat upset
in a minit, and the sharks are waitin' for 'em, no
doubt. <i>I</i> b'lieve that ar young un's helped by the Evil
One,—not a boat round, else I'd push off after 'em.
Well, I don't see but we must trust in the Lord,—there
don't seem to be much else to trust to," said the spinster,
as she drew her head in grimly.</p>
<p>To say the truth, there was some reason for the terror of
these most fearful suggestions; for not far from the place
where the children embarked was Zephaniah's fish-drying
ground, and multitudes of sharks came up with every rising<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_107" id="Page_107"></SPAN></span>
tide, allured by the offal that was here constantly thrown
into the sea. Two of these prowlers, outward-bound from
their quest, were even now assiduously attending the little
boat, and the children derived no small amusement from
watching their motions in the pellucid water,—the boy
occasionally almost upsetting the boat by valorous plunges
at them with his stick. It was the most exhilarating and
piquant entertainment he had found for many a day; and
little Mara laughed in chorus at every lunge that he made.</p>
<p>What would have been the end of it all, it is difficult to
say, had not some mortal power interfered before they had
sailed finally away into the sunset. But it so happened, on
this very afternoon, Rev. Mr. Sewell was out in a boat, busy
in the very apostolic employment of catching fish, and looking
up from one of the contemplative pauses which his
occupation induced, he rubbed his eyes at the apparition
which presented itself. A tiny little shell of a boat came
drifting toward him, in which was a black-eyed boy, with
cheeks like a pomegranate and lustrous tendrils of silky
dark hair, and a little golden-haired girl, white as a water-lily,
and looking ethereal enough to have risen out of the
sea-foam. Both were in the very sparkle and effervescence
of that fanciful glee which bubbles up from the golden,
untried fountains of early childhood. Mr. Sewell, at a
glance, comprehended the whole, and at once overhauling
the tiny craft, he broke the spell of fairy-land, and constrained
the little people to return to the confines, dull and
dreary, of real and actual life.</p>
<p>Neither of them had known a doubt or a fear in that
joyous trance of forbidden pleasure which shadowed with
so many fears the wiser and more far-seeing heads and
hearts of the grown people; nor was there enough language
yet in common between the two classes to make the little
ones comprehend the risk they had run. Perhaps so do
our elder brothers, in our Father's house, look anxiously<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_108" id="Page_108"></SPAN></span>
out when we are sailing gayly over life's sea,—over unknown
depths,—amid threatening monsters,—but want
words to tell us why what seems so bright is so dangerous.</p>
<p>Duty herself could not have worn a more rigid aspect
than Miss Roxy, as she stood on the beach, press-board in
hand; for she had forgotten to lay it down in the eagerness
of her anxiety. She essayed to lay hold of the little hand
of Moses to pull him from the boat, but he drew back,
and, looking at her with a world of defiance in his great
eyes, jumped magnanimously upon the beach. The spirit
of Sir Francis Drake and of Christopher Columbus was
swelling in his little body, and was he to be brought under
by a dry-visaged woman with a press-board? In fact,
nothing is more ludicrous about the escapades of children
than the utter insensibility they feel to the dangers they
have run, and the light esteem in which they hold the
deep tragedy they create.</p>
<p>That night, when Zephaniah, in his evening exercise,
poured forth most fervent thanksgivings for the deliverance,
while Mrs. Pennel was sobbing in her handkerchief,
Miss Roxy was much scandalized by seeing the young cause
of all the disturbance sitting upon his heels, regarding the
emotion of the kneeling party with his wide bright eyes,
without a wink of compunction.</p>
<p>"Well, for her part," she said, "she hoped Cap'n Pennel
would be blessed in takin' that ar boy; but she was
sure she didn't see much that looked like it now."</p>
<hr style='width: 45%;' />
<p>The Rev. Mr. Sewell fished no more that day, for the
draught from fairy-land with which he had filled his boat
brought up many thoughts into his mind, which he pondered
anxiously.</p>
<p>"Strange ways of God," he thought, "that should send
to my door this child, and should wash upon the beach the
only sign by which he could be identified. To what end<span class='pagenum'><SPAN name="Page_109" id="Page_109"></SPAN></span>
or purpose? Hath the Lord a will in this matter, and
what is it?"</p>
<p>So he thought as he slowly rowed homeward, and so did
his thoughts work upon him that half way across the bay
to Harpswell he slackened his oar without knowing it, and
the boat lay drifting on the purple and gold-tinted mirror,
like a speck between two eternities. Under such circumstances,
even heads that have worn the clerical wig for
years at times get a little dizzy and dreamy. Perhaps it
was because of the impression made upon him by the sudden
apparition of those great dark eyes and sable curls, that
he now thought of the boy that he had found floating that
afternoon, looking as if some tropical flower had been
washed landward by a monsoon; and as the boat rocked
and tilted, and the minister gazed dreamily downward into
the wavering rings of purple, orange, and gold which spread
out and out from it, gradually it seemed to him that a face
much like the child's formed itself in the waters; but it
was the face of a girl, young and radiantly beautiful, yet
with those same eyes and curls,—he saw her distinctly,
with her thousand rings of silky hair, bound with strings
of pearls and clasped with strange gems, and she raised one
arm imploringly to him, and on the wrist he saw the bracelet
embroidered with seed pearls, and the letters D.M.
"Ah, Dolores," he said, "well wert thou called so. Poor
Dolores! I cannot help thee."</p>
<p>"What am I dreaming of?" said the Rev. Mr. Sewell.
"It is my Thursday evening lecture on Justification, and
Emily has got tea ready, and here I am catching cold out
on the bay."</p>
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