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Read Ebook: Shifting Sands by Bassett Sara Ware
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Ebook has 2672 lines and 59196 words, and 54 pages
"Guess we're goin' to have rain," he ventured.
"I wouldn't wonder," rejoined Lemuel Gill.
Humming to prove he was entirely at his ease, Zenas Henry ambled to the window and looked out.
"Where you been settin'?" demanded Abbie.
"Settin'? Oh, Lemmy an' me took sort of a little jaunt along the shore. Grand day to be abroad. I never saw a finer. The sea's blue as a corn-flower, an' the waves are rollin' in, an' rollin' in, an'--"
"They generally are," Abbie interrupted dryly. "Just where'd you particularly notice 'em?"
Lemuel Gill stepped into the breach.
"'Twas this way," began he. "Zenas Henry an' me thought we'd take a bit of a meander. We'd been to the postoffice an' was standin' in the doorway when we spied Charlie Eldridge goin' by with a fish-pole--"
"Charlie Eldridge--the bank cashier?" Rebecca echoed. "But he ain't no fisherman. What on earth was he doin' with a fish-pole?"
"That's what we wondered," said Lemuel.
"Charlie Eldridge with a fish-pole," repeated Abbie. "Mercy! Where do you s'pose he was goin'?"
"I never in all my life knew of Charlie Eldridge goin' a-fishin'," Rebecca rejoined. "Not that he ain't got a perfect right to fish if he wants to outside bankin' hours. But--"
"But Charlie fishin'!" interrupted Abbie, cutting her friend short. "Why, he'd no more dirty his lily-white hands puttin' a squirmin' worm on a fish-hook than he'd cut off his head. In fact, I don't believe he'd know how. You didn't, likely, see where he went."
"Wal--er--yes. We did."
Zenas Henry wheeled about.
Clearing his throat, he darted a glance at Lemuel.
"Havin' completed the business that took us to the store--" he began.
"Havin', in short, asked for the mail an' found there warn't none," laughed Abbie, mischievously.
Zenas Henry ignored the comment.
"We walked along in Charlie's wake," he continued.
"Followed him?"
"Wal--somethin' of the sort. You might, I s'pose, call it follerin'," Zenas Henry admitted shamefacedly. "Anyhow, Lemmy an' me trudged along behind him at what we considered a suitable distance."
"Where'd he go?" Rebecca urged, her face alight with curiosity.
"Wal, Charlie swung along, kinder whistlin' to himself, an' ketchin' his pole in the trees and brushes 'til he come to the fork of the road. Then he made for the shore."
"So he was really goin' fishin'," mused Abbie, a suggestion of disappointment in her voice.
"He certainly was. Oh, Charlie was goin' fishin' right 'nough. He was aimed for deep water," grinned Zenas Henry.
"He wouldn't ketch no fish in Wilton Harbor," sniffed Rebecca contemptuously. "Wouldn't you think he'd 'a' known that?"
"He warn't," observed Zenas Henry mildly, "figgerin' to. In fact, 'twarn't to Wilton Harbor he was goin'."
With a simultaneous start, both women looked up.
"No-siree. Bank cashier or not, Charlie warn't that much of a numskull. He was primed to fish in more propitious waters."
"Zenas Henry, do stop beatin' round the bush an' say what you have to say. If you're goin' to tell us where Charlie Eldridge went, out with it. If not, stop talkin' about it," burst out his wife sharply.
"Ain't I tellin' you fast as I can? Why get so het up? If you must know an' can't wait another minute, Charlie went fishin' in Crocker's Cove."
"Crocker's Cove!" cried two feminine voices.
Zenas Henry's only reply was a deliberate nod.
"Crocker's Cove?" gasped Abbie.
"Crocker's Cove?" echoed Rebecca.
"Crocker's Cove," nodded Zenas Henry.
"Mercy on us! Why--! Why, he--he must 'a' been goin'"--began Abbie.
"I'd no notion he was tendin' up to her," Abbie said.
"Wal, he warn't 'xactly tendin' up to her--least-way, not today. Not what you could really call tendin' up," contradicted Zenas Henry, a twinkle in his eye. "Rather, I'd say 'twas t'other way round. Wouldn't you, Lemmy? Wouldn't you say that instead 'twas she who tended up to him?"
Sagaciously, Lemuel bowed.
The tapping of Abbie's foot precipitated the remainder of the story.
"You see," drawled on Zenas Henry, "no sooner had Charlie got into the boat an' pulled out into the channel than he had the usual beginner's luck an' hooked a stragglin' bluefish--one of the pert kind that ain't fer bein' hauled in. Law! You'd oughter seen that critter pull! He 'most had Charlie out of the boat.
"I shouted to him to hang on an' so did Lemmy. We couldn't help it. The idiot had no more notion what to do than the man in the moon.
"My soul!" exploded Abbie Brewster. "My soul an' body!"
"Later on," continued Zenas Henry, "Charlie overtook us. He'd stowed away his fish-pole somewheres. Leastway, he didn't have it with him. When Lemmy an' me asked him where his fish was, he looked blacker'n thunder an' snapped out: 'Hang the fish!'
"Seein' he warn't in no mood for neighborly conversation, we left him an' come along home."
In the meantime, Marcia Howe, the heroine of this escapade, comfortably ensconced in her island homestead, paid scant heed to the fact that she and her affairs were continually on the tongues of the outlying community.
She was not ignorant of it for, although too modest to think herself of any great concern to others, her intuitive sixth sense made her well aware her goings and comings were watched. This knowledge, however, far from nettling her, as it might have done had she been a woman blessed with less sense of humor, afforded her infinite amusement. She liked people and because of her habit of looking for the best in them she usually found it. Their spying, she realized, came from motives of interest. She had never known it to be put to malicious use. Hence, she never let it annoy her.
She loved her home; valued her kindly, if inquisitive, neighbors at their true worth; and met the world with a smile singularly free from hardness or cynicism.
Bitter though her experience had been, it had neither taken from, nor, miraculously, had it dimmed her faith in her particular star. On the contrary there still glowed in her grey eyes that sparkle of anticipation one sees in the eyes of one who stands a-tiptoe on the threshold of adventure. Apparently she had in her nature an unquenchable spirit of hope that nothing could destroy. No doubt youth had aided her to retain this vision for she was still young and the highway of life, alluring in rosy mists, beckoned her along its mysterious path with persuasive hand. Who could tell what its hidden vistas might contain?
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