CHAPTER VI
SUNSET LANE
When Tillie Higgins saw Joe the baker's cart pass her house she ran toher gate.
"He must be going to Eph Calkins or to Achsy Green's. Now I wonder--"Joe rarely penetrated Sunset Lane with his goods; Tillie Higgins andold Mrs. Calkins did their own baking and Achsa Green's pies werelegend.
Old Mrs. Calkins, too, had seen the baker's rickety cart approachingthrough the deep sand. At once she "happened" to be out tying up heryellow rambler.
"Got a letter for Achsy Green," the baker called to her, leaning out ofhis cart.
"You don't say! Not bad news, I hope?"
"Dunno. It's a letter. Thought I'd bring it to her. Gettap, General.Pretty nice weather we're havin'. Dry, though."
"Tell Achsy I'll drop over soon's my bakin's done."
Tillie Higgins' shadow fell across the yellow roses. Tillie was alittle breathless; she had hurried over to catch what the baker wassaying.
"A letter? For Achsy Green? You don't say. Not bad news I hope," sheechoed.
"Joe dunno. Cal'late that's why he came all this way with it. He'llfind out what's in that letter if he can. Then the hul town'll know. Itold him to tell Achsy I'd drop over soon's my pies are out of theoven. Better set down a spell and go along with me."
But Tillie Higgins, with regret in her voice, explained that she hadbread in her own oven. "If it's news send Martie over with it. Hopeit's nothing bothersome. Achsy Green has 'nough as 'tis."
This Sunset Lane was the farthest byway of the northernmost habitationof Cape Cod. Only a ridge of sandy dunes at its back door kept it fromtumbling into the blue Atlantic. Provincetown folk called it "up p'intway" and "t'other end." The more fanciful name had been given to it bya young Portuguese who had essayed to convert that corner ofProvincetown into a summer colony. He had only succeeded, after longeffort, in selling the Carpenter house nearest Commercial Street, thenhad abandoned his enterprise to open a combination garage and one-armlunch room on Commercial Street.
Sunset Lane led nowhere, unless one counted the dunes; it was only wideenough for a cart to pass between the hedging rows of crowding wildflowers and the guardian willows; it was deep in sand. The rising tideof commercialism that was destroying the eighteenth-century dignity ofthe little town turned before it reached it. Few went there unless ondefinite purpose bound, excepting the artists who came singly and ingroups to paint an old gray gable against an overtowering hill of sandor a scrap of blue sky between crumbling chimney pots and peaked roofsor old Mrs. Calkins' hollyhocks that flanked the narrow byway likegaudy soldiers. Some sketched Jeremiah Higgins' octagonal house, moreof an oddity than a thing of grace yet ornamented with hand-wroughtcornices and dignified by a figurehead from the prow of a ship longsince split into driftwood; others went on to the end of the lane tocatch upon their canvases the grace of Achsa's Green's oldgray-shingled cottage with its low roof and white pilastered doorway.
With the changing years Achsa Green had become as quaint as hersurroundings. Bent, and small, her face seared to the brown of awithered leaf from the hot suns and biting winds, her hands knottedwith labor, her sparse hair twisted into a knob at the exact center ofthe back of her head, she was not lovely to look upon, yet from hereyes gleamed a spirit that knew no wear of age, that took its knocksupstanding, that suffered when others suffered but that spread ahealing philosophy of God's wisdom. For Achsa's acceptance of God'swisdom faltered only when she thought of Lavender.
Lavender was her brother Asabel's only child. His mother had died aweek after his birth, his father five months before. Achsa had takenthe babe into her arms and had promised to "do" for him. And she had,with a fierce yearning, a compassion that hurt to her very soul. ForLavender was not like other children; his poor little body was sadlycrippled. Achsa had at first refused to believe but that he might "growstraight," then as the years convinced her that this could never be sheconsecrated herself to the single task of keeping him fed and clothedand happy and "out o' mischief." She clung staunchly to the hope that,if she prayed hard enough by night and believed by day that her boy was"straight," sometime Lavender _would_ be straight and all their littleworld--the Cape--would know.
There was nothing unusual in Dugald Allan of Rahway, N. J., findingSunset Lane, for he was a fledgling artist and came there like otherartists, but certainly a destiny that was kind toward old Achsa hadsomething to do in the skirmish that ensued between Poker, Allan'sbrindle bull-pup, and Nip and Tuck, Achsa Green's two black cats. Tuck,caught sunning herself in the middle of the lane, had recognized a foein Poker and had defended her stronghold; Poker, resenting herexclusiveness, had offered battle. Nip, never far from his sister, hadpromptly thrown himself into the fray. There had resulted a whirl ofsand like a miniature cyclone from which young Allan rescued Poker justin time to save his brindle hide. Nip, unvanquished, had retreated tothe very doorway that Allan had come to paint; Tuck fled to the shelterof a bed of tall sweet william.
"Dear! Dear!" cried Achsa Green in the open doorway. "Oh, my cats--"
"Nobody hurt. I'm sorry," laughed young Allan. "I mean--Poker's sorry.I don't understand his rudeness. He never fights anyone smaller thanhimself. I've brought him up to a high sporting code. He must havemisunderstood your cat's attitude. He apologizes, humbly."
Assured that her pets were unharmed the little old woman in the doorwayhad laughed gleefully. "Tuck's sort o' suspicious o' strange folks, butI cal'late she didn't take a good look at _you_! She must a looked atyour dog first!"
"I thank you for the compliment. You see, we came quite peaceably topaint your doorway. You're Miss Green, aren't you? I'm sure that's thedoor they told me about. And if your defiant animal will stand likethat long enough for me to sketch it--I'd consider myself in luck--"
"I cal'late he will--if your dog's 'round. Nip ain't 'fraid of nothin''slong as his own door's at his back. Don't know as anyone's wanted todraw his picture before. He'll be all set up for sure!"
Whipping out his pad Dugald Allan, with rapid strokes, had sketched thedoor and the cat--and Achsa Green. Later the picture he painted fromthe sketch hung in a Paris exhibition. When he showed the drawing toAchsa Green she had beamed with pleasure. "Why, that's as like Nip asthough it war a twin." Nip, scenting the friendly atmosphere, hadrelaxed, stretched, yawned, waved a plumy tail toward poor Poker,watching fearfully from behind his master, and had stalked, disdainful,over to the sweet william to reassure the more timid Tuck.
Of course Achsa Green had wanted to show the "picture" to Lavender andDugald Allan, eager to see the inside of the old house, had followedher into the low-ceilinged kitchen. And that had been ten years ago andeach succeeding spring since had brought Dugald Allan back to SunsetLane.
Achsa Green knew him only as "a nice appearin' boy--not so much onlooks," with a kindly manner toward Lavender and an appreciation of themerits of Nip and Tuck. And inasmuch as Nip and Tuck made friendlyadvances to Poker and Lavender would do things for Dugald Allan that hewould not do for anyone else, she finally consented to "let" her gableroom to the young stranger and to board him as well. In settling thematter of board young Allan had had to deal with a pride as hard as thegranite of the breakwall he could glimpse from the one window of hisroom; it had been only after he convinced Aunt Achsa that he couldnever feel like "one of the folks" until he contributed something tothe upkeep of the family, that he had persuaded her to accept the sumof money which he considered barely repaid her trouble but which AuntAchsa deemed a fortune.
Wisely young Allan paid the "board money" at the bank. He had come toknow Aunt Achsa's failings, how sometimes she stowed her scant earningsaway and forgot its hiding place; how at other times she gave them tosomeone needier than herself. Many a one of her generation had told himthat she was without "sense" where business was concerned. It waseveryone's wonder how she'd managed to feed two mouths, not countingthe cats, with Lavender not earning so much as his salt. And gradually,as
the summers passed, Allan took upon his shoulders otherresponsibilities; planning safe pastimes for Lavender; marketing, afterwhich the kitchen cupboards groaned with food; persuading Aunt Achsa tolet her rugs go and putter in her flowers while the summer lasted.
With the Cape standards of wealth it would not have made any differenceto Achsa Green, anyway, or to anyone else, if they had known that the"nice-appearin' boy" in the old flannels was the only son of RoderickAllan, President of the Allan Iron Works of Newark, New Jersey. Nothalf so much difference as the old flannels made to Dugald's mother.The inclination on the part of their boy to be "queer," for under thathead they put all his predilections that differed from theirambitions--distressed his parents very much. The boy had "everything"and he didn't care a rap about "anything"; they looked upon his spellsof dreamy preoccupation as "loafing." His father had an executiveoffice in the iron works waiting for him when he finished college, ajob at which any red-blooded young fellow would jump, and Dugald talkedof painting. His mother had grieved that he would take no part in thesocial whirl that made up her existence, that he laughed at the creedof her "set," scouted the class commandments by which she lived. Whenhe expressed the intention of going on a tramp over Cape Cod she hadencouraged the whim. She had believed that the discomforts of such anexpedition would cure him of his "notions." She had motored toProvincetown two summers before and she thought it a forlorn place; thehotels were impossible, the streets dusty and crowded, everythingsmelled fishy and one was always elbowing great foreign creatures indirty oilskins and rubber boots.
Like many a mother she had been too busy living down to her rapidlyaccruing wealth to know the man her boy had grown to be. All herupbringing notwithstanding he was a simple soul with a sympatheticunderstanding of his fellow mortals; a quiet humor and a keenperception of beauty that abhorred the false or superficial, a brainthat stifled in crowded places. He much preferred knocking elbows withmen of homely labor to the crowded and law-breaking parties he came toCape Cod to escape; he found among the fisherfolk, the old graywharves, the sandy dunes, everlastingly swept with the clean breath ofthe Atlantic, a peace of mind and an inspiration he had never knownelsewhere. The longing in his heart to paint that had been scarcelymore than an urge, took definite and splendid shape. Someone else hadthe executive job in his father's manufacturing plant.
That he grew to know that Aunt Achsa needed him and looked forward tohis coming strengthened the bond that brought him back to Sunset Laneeach spring. No one had ever needed him before and it was aman-satisfying sensation. And in Aunt Achsa's affection for him therewas a depth which he divined but only vaguely understood. In his hardysix feet four the compassionate mother-woman was seeing her poorLavender, big and strong and "straight." To her Dugald was whatLavender "wasn't"; in her way she put him and Lavender together andmade a satisfying whole. Sometimes she wondered if Dugald might not bethe answer to her prayers!
It had been to young Allan that Aunt Achsa had carried the letter thatthe baker brought so unexpectedly to the door. Joe had lingered on thedoorstep, but had not been rewarded by any hint of its contents. Achsacould not remember when she had had a letter before. She fingered theenvelope apprehensively. Yet it could scarcely be bad news of any sort,for there was just herself and Lavender and he was only down in theflats. No one would write anything about _him_.
"Read it--my eyes ain't certain with folk's writing," she had beggedDugald Allan, in a shaky voice. Thereupon he had read aloud Sidney'sletter.
"I never!" "I swan!" "Why, that's Annie Green's girl--Annie wasJon'than's daughter--I rec'lect her when she wasn't much bigger than apint of cider." Achsa Green fluttered with excitement like a quiveringbrown leaf caught in a sudden stir of wind. "And the little thing saysshe knows all about me. Heard her folks tell. Well, well, I wouldn't 'asaid there was a God's soul knew about Achsa Green outside this harbor!The little pretty. And her ma's dead--died when she was a baby, poorlittle mite. Sidney--that's not a Cape name. Like as not they got itfrom the other side. Well, Uncle Jon'than allas was diff'runt--he wasfor books and learnin' and was a peaked sort, as I rec'lect him--He wasconsid'rable younger than Pa!"
During Achsa's excited soliloquy Dugald Allan had an opportunity toreread the letter. He smiled broadly over the reading. But his smilechanged to a quick frown as he observed the signature. For a briefsecond he pondered over it, then by a shake of his head seemed todismiss some thought.
"What are you going to tell her?" he asked Achsa Green. "Will you lether come on?"
Achsa Green started. She had not thought of the real business of theletter. "Why, I don't know. It's a poor place for a young girl--"
"Don't talk like that, Aunt Achsa. Haven't I told you this is the onlycorner of the earth where God's air is sweet--and untainted?"
Achsa Green could only understand what her Mr. Dugald meant by theexpression of his eyes. Now, they encouraged her. "I might fix up thedownstairs bedroom. It ain't been used except to store things sinceLavender was born in there and his ma was taken out in a box, but Idon't know but that I could fix it up suit'ble; a young girl ain't sofinicky as grownups. If you won't mind havin' a young piece 'round--"uncertainly.
It was _not_ exactly to Dugald Allan's liking to have a "young piece"around. He had planned some difficult and steady work for the summer.And he had an unreasonable aversion to fifteen-year-olds, at least thekind like his young cousin and her friends, which was the only kind hereally knew. But he was touched by Aunt Achsa's delight in finding"flesh-and-blood" kin; he did not like to dampen her pleasure. He couldwork somewhere else, in one of the corners of the breakwall or amongthe dunes. He smilingly assured her that a "young piece" around wouldadd tremendously to his summer.
"I dunno if I can write her a nice enough letter, my hand shakes so,and I ain't much of a head at spelling. Pa never set anything by bookshimself and Asabel's and my schoolin' sort o' depended on theelements." Dugald Allan sensed that Achsa did not want this littleunknown cousin, miles away, to know of her lack of "schoolin'."
"Bless you, I'll write and I'll write just as though it came from you."
"Don't know as there's a scrap of writin' paper in this house."
"My best is none too good," promised young Allan promptly, delightingin the growing pleasure in the wrinkled face.
But one more doubt assailed Achsa Green. Lavender.
"D'you think I ought to tell first hand--about Lavender?"
Early in his acquaintance with Aunt Achsa and Sunset Lane Dugald hadcome to know how it hurt Aunt Achsa to speak of Lavender as "beingdifferent." At first, with courteous consideration he had avoided thetruth--then as the summers passed he himself had grown fond enough ofthe boy to forget the crooked body.
He hesitated a moment before he answered, then he spoke gently:
"No, Aunt Achsa. That is not necessary. And anyway--it's only the outershell of him that is different, his soul is fine and straight andmanly."
At this Achsa's eyes caressed him; he put so easily into words what shetried so bravely to remember.
And thus it had come about that Dugald Allan wrote on his beststationery (which he kept for his letters to his mother) to SidneyEllis Romley, as though, per promise, it was Cousin Achsa, herself. Hehad had to write several letters before one quite suited both him andAchsa. The letter despatched, to his surprise he shared with Aunt Achsaconsiderable interest in its outcome. It would certainly knock thesummer flat, but Aunt Achsa's delighted anticipation was rare.
He helped her to prepare the "spare" room off the parlor and to removeanything that might remind its young occupant of that tragic passing ofLavender's mother "by box." He abetted her safeguarding the variousmementoes of the days when the _Betsy King_ sailed into the harbor fromforeign shores.
"No sense leavin' things 'round waitin' to be knocked off long's theylived through them cats. You can't tell what fifteen's goin' to be!"
"No--" groaned Allan inwardly, "You certainly can not."
In the last hours before Sidney's expected ar
rival he agreed to meether. Though that was Lavender's duty he knew, as well as Achsa, thatshe could not depend upon Lavender. "If he took it into his head to godown to Rockman's wharf why, he'd go--cousin or no cousin comin'," AuntAchsa had worried; and then Dugald had come to the rescue, evenpromising to go so far as to hire Hiram Foss's hack--none of the towntaxis would go through the sand of Sunset Lane!