第25章

But after the first year or two Joanna was more and more forgotten as an every-day charge.Folks lived very simple in those days, you know," she continued, as Mrs.Fosdick's knitting was taking much thought at the moment."I expect there was always plenty of driftwood thrown up, and a poor failin' patch of spruces covered all the north side of the island, so she always had something to burn.She was very fond of workin' in the garden ashore, and that first summer she began to till the little field out there, and raised a nice parcel o' potatoes.She could fish, o' course, and there was all her clams an' lobsters.You can always live well in any wild place by the sea when you'd starve to death up country, except 'twas berry time.Joanna had berries out there, blackberries at least, and there was a few herbs in case she needed them.Mullein in great quantities and a plant o' wormwood Iremember seeing once when I stayed there, long before she fled out to Shell-heap.Yes, I recall the wormwood, which is always a planted herb, so there must have been folks there before the Todds'

day.A growin' bush makes the best gravestone; I expect that wormwood always stood for somebody's solemn monument.Catnip, too, is a very endurin' herb about an old place.""But what I want to know is what she did for other things,"interrupted Mrs.Fosdick."Almiry, what did she do for clothin'

when she needed to replenish, or risin' for her bread, or the piece-bag that no woman can live long without?""Or company," suggested Mrs.Todd."Joanna was one that loved her friends.There must have been a terrible sight o' long winter evenin's that first year.""There was her hens," suggested Mrs.Fosdick, after reviewing the melancholy situation."She never wanted the sheep after that first season.There wa'n't no proper pasture for sheep after the June grass was past, and she ascertained the fact and couldn't bear to see them suffer; but the chickens done well.I remember sailin' by one spring afternoon, an' seein' the coops out front o'

the house in the sun.How long was it before you went out with the minister? You were the first ones that ever really got ashore to see Joanna."I had been reflecting upon a state of society which admitted such personal freedom and a voluntary hermitage.There was something mediaeval in the behavior of poor Joanna Todd under a disappointment of the heart.The two women had drawn closer together, and were talking on, quite unconscious of a listener.

"Poor Joanna!" said Mrs.Todd again, and sadly shook her head as if there were things one could not speak about.

"I called her a great fool," declared Mrs.Fosdick, with spirit, "but I pitied her then, and I pity her far more now.Some other minister would have been a great help to her,--one that preached self-forgetfulness and doin' for others to cure our own ills; but Parson Dimmick was a vague person, well meanin', but very numb in his feelin's.I don't suppose at that troubled time Joanna could think of any way to mend her troubles except to run off and hide.""Mother used to say she didn't see how Joanna lived without having nobody to do for, getting her own meals and tending her own poor self day in an' day out," said Mrs.Todd sorrowfully.

"There was the hens," repeated Mrs.Fosdick kindly."I expect she soon came to makin' folks o' them.No, I never went to work to blame Joanna, as some did.She was full o' feeling, and her troubles hurt her more than she could bear.I see it all now as Icouldn't when I was young."