I .
The Return THERE WAS SOMETHING about the coast town of Dunnet which made it seem more attractive than other maritime villages of eastern Maine .
Perhaps it was the simple fact of acquaintance with that neighborhood which made it so attaching , and gave such interest to the rocky shore and dark woods , and the few houses which seemed to be securely wedged and tree-nailed in among the ledges by the Landing .
These houses made the most of their seaward view , and there was a gayety and determined floweriness in their bits of garden ground ; the small-paned high windows in the peaks of their steep gables were like knowing eyes that watched the harbor and the far sea-line beyond , or looked northward all along the shore and its background of spruces and balsam firs .
When one really knows a village like this and its surroundings , it is like becoming acquainted with a single person .
The process of falling in love at first sight is as final as it is swift in such a case , but the growth of true friendship may be a lifelong affair .
After a first brief visit made two or three summers before in the course of a yachting cruise , a lover of Dunnet Landing returned to find the unchanged shores of the pointed firs , the same quaintness of the village with its elaborate conventionalities ; all that mixture of remoteness , and childish certainty of being the centre of civilization of which her affectionate dreams had told .
One evening in June , a single passenger landed upon the steamboat wharf .
The tide was high , there was a fine crowd of spectators , and the younger portion of the company followed her with subdued excitement up the narrow street of the salt-aired , white-clapboarded little town .
II .
Mrs. Todd LATER , THERE WAS only one fault to find with this choice of a summer lodging-place , and that was its complete lack of seclusion .
At first the tiny house of Mrs. Almira Todd , which stood with its end to the street , appeared to be retired and sheltered enough from the busy world , behind its bushy bit of a green garden , in which all the blooming things , two or three gay hollyhocks and some London-pride , were pushed back against the gray-shingled wall .
It was a queer little garden and puzzling to a stranger , the few flowers being put at a disadvantage by so much greenery ; but the discovery was soon made that Mrs. Todd was an ardent lover of herbs , both wild and tame , and the sea-breezes blew into the low end-window of the house laden with not only sweet-brier and sweet-mary , but balm and sage and borage and mint , wormwood and southernwood .
If Mrs. Todd had occasion to step into the far corner of her herb plot , she trod heavily upon thyme , and made its fragrant presence known with all the rest .
Being a very large person , her full skirts brushed and bent almost every slender stalk that her feet missed .
You could always tell when she was stepping about there , even when you were half awake in the morning , and learned to know , in the course of a few weeks ’ experience , in exactly which corner of the garden she might be .
At one side of this herb plot were other growths of a rustic pharmacopoeia , great treasures and rarities among the commoner herbs .
There were some strange and pungent odors that roused a dim sense and remembrance of something in the forgotten past .
Some of these might once have belonged to sacred and mystic rites , and have had some occult knowledge handed with them down the centuries ; but now they pertained only to humble compounds brewed at intervals with molasses or vinegar or spirits in a small caldron on Mrs. Todd ’s kitchen stove .
They were dispensed to suffering neighbors , who usually came at night as if by stealth , bringing their own ancient-looking vials to be filled .
One nostrum was called the Indian remedy , and its price was but fifteen cents ; the whispered directions could be heard as customers passed the windows .
With most remedies the purchaser was allowed to depart unadmonished from the kitchen , Mrs. Todd being a wise saver of steps ; but with certain vials she gave cautions , standing in the doorway , and there were other doses which had to be accompanied on their healing way as far as the gate , while she muttered long chapters of directions , and kept up an air of secrecy and importance to the last .
It may not have been only the common aids of humanity with which she tried to cope ; it seemed sometimes as if love and hate and jealousy and adverse winds at sea might also find their proper remedies among the curious wild-looking plants in Mrs. Todd ’s garden .
The village doctor and this learned herbalist were upon the best of terms .
The good man may have counted upon the unfavorable effect of certain potions which he should find his opportunity in counteracting ; at any rate , he now and then stopped and exchanged greetings with Mrs. Todd over the picket fence .
The conversation became at once professional after the briefest preliminaries , and he would stand twirling a sweet-scented sprig in his fingers , and make suggestive jokes , perhaps about her faith in a too persistent course of thoroughwort elixir , in which my landlady professed such firm belief as sometimes to endanger the life and usefulness of worthy neighbors .
To arrive at this quietest of seaside villages late in June , when the busy herb-gathering season was just beginning , was also to arrive in the early prime of Mrs. Todd ’s activity in the brewing of old-fashioned spruce beer .
This cooling and refreshing drink had been brought to wonderful perfection through a long series of experiments ; it had won immense local fame , and the supplies for its manufacture were always giving out and having to be replenished .
For various reasons , the seclusion and uninterrupted days which had been looked forward to proved to be very rare in this otherwise delightful corner of the world .
My hostess and I had made our shrewd business agreement on the basis of a simple cold luncheon at noon , and liberal restitution in the matter of hot suppers , to provide for which the lodger might sometimes be seen hurrying down the road , late in the day , with cunner line in hand .
It was soon found that this arrangement made large allowance for Mrs. Todd ’s slow herb-gathering progresses through woods and pastures .
The spruce-beer customers were pretty steady in hot weather , and there were many demands for different soothing syrups and elixirs with which the unwise curiosity of my early residence had made me acquainted .
Knowing Mrs. Todd to be a widow , who had little beside this slender business and the income from one hungry lodger to maintain her , one ’s energies and even interest were quickly bestowed , until it became a matter of course that she should go afield every pleasant day , and that the lodger should answer all peremptory knocks at the side door .
In taking an occasional wisdom-giving stroll in Mrs. Todd ’s company , and in acting as business partner during her frequent absences , I found the July days fly fast , and it was not until I felt myself confronted with too great pride and pleasure in the display , one night , of two dollars and twenty-seven cents which I had taken in during the day , that I remembered a long piece of writing , sadly belated now , which I was bound to do .
To have been patted kindly on the shoulder and called “ darlin ’ , ” to have been offered a surprise of early mushrooms for supper , to have had all the glory of making two dollars and twenty-seven cents in a single day , and then to renounce it all and withdraw from these pleasant successes , needed much resolution .
Literary employments are so vexed with uncertainties at best , and it was not until the voice of conscience sounded louder in my ears than the sea on the nearest pebble beach that I said unkind words of withdrawal to Mrs. Todd .
She only became more wistfully affectionate than ever in her expressions , and looked as disappointed as I expected when I frankly told her that I could no longer enjoy the pleasure of what we called “ seein ’ folks . ”
I felt that I was cruel to a whole neighborhood in curtailing her liberty in this most important season for harvesting the different wild herbs that were so much counted upon to ease their winter ails .
“ Well , dear , ” she said sorrowfully , “ I ’ve took great advantage o ’ your bein ’ here .
I ai n’t had such a season for years , but I have never had nobody I could so trust .
All you lack is a few qualities , but with time you ’d gain judgment an ’ experience , an ’ be very able in the business .
I ’d stand right here an ’ say it to anybody . ”
Mrs. Todd and I were not separated or estranged by the change in our business relations ; on the contrary , a deeper intimacy seemed to begin .
I do not know what herb of the night it was that used sometimes to send out a penetrating odor late in the evening , after the dew had fallen , and the moon was high , and the cool air came up from the sea .
Then Mrs. Todd would feel that she must talk to somebody , and I was only too glad to listen .
We both fell under the spell , and she either stood outside the window , or made an errand to my sitting-room , and told , it might be very commonplace news of the day , or , as happened one misty summer night , all that lay deepest in her heart .
It was in this way that I came to know that she had loved one who was far above her .
“ No , dear , him I speak of could never think of me , ” she said .
“ When we was young together his mother did n’t favor the match , an ’ done everything she could to part us ; and folks thought we both married well , but ’ t wa ’n’ t what either one of us wanted most ; an ’ now we ’re left alone again , an ’ might have had each other all the time .
He was above bein ’ a seafarin ’ man , an ’ prospered more than most ; he come of a high family , an ’ my lot was plain an ’ hard-workin ’ .
I ai n’t seen him for some years ; he ’s forgot our youthful feelin ’s , I expect , but a woman ’s heart is different ; them feelin ’s comes back when you think you ’ve done with ‘ em , as sure as spring comes with the year .
An ’ I ’ve always had ways of hearin ’ about him . ”
She stood in the centre of a braided rug , and its rings of black and gray seemed to circle about her feet in the dim light .
Her height and massiveness in the low room gave her the look of a huge sibyl , while the strange fragrance of the mysterious herb blew in from the little garden .