“Oh, Blossom, Blossom!” he said, and when he spoke her name it sounded as if he spoke the name of one dead.
After a little the worst sting passed away. He refused to believe long that Blossom would be ashamed of him; he knew she would not. Three years could not so alter her loyal nature — no, nor ten times three years. But she would be changed — she would have grown away from him in those three busy, brilliant years. His companionship could no longer satisfy her. How simple and childish he had been to expect it! She would be sweet and kind — Blossom could never be anything else. She would not show open discontent or dissatisfaction; she would not be like Lauretta Bradley; but it would be there, and he would divine it, and it would break his heart. Mrs. Blewett was right. When he had given Blossom up he should not have made a half-hearted thing of his sacrifice — he should not have bound her to come back to him.
He walked about in his little garden until late at night, under the stars, with the sea crooning and calling to him down the slope. When he finally went to bed he did not sleep, but lay until morning with tear-wet eyes and despair in his heart. All the forenoon he went about his usual daily work absently. Frequently he fell into long reveries, standing motionless wherever he happened to be, and looking dully before him. Only once did he show any animation. When he saw Mrs. Blewett coming up the lane he darted into the house, locked the door, and listened to her knocking in grim silence. After she had gone he went out, and found a plate of fresh doughnuts, covered with a napkin, placed on the bench at the door. Mrs. Blewett meant to indicate thus that she bore him no malice for her curt dismissal the day before; possibly her conscience gave her some twinges also. But her doughnuts could not minister to the mind she had diseased. Old Man Shaw took them up; carried them to the pig-pen, and fed them to the pigs. It was the first spiteful thing he had done in his life, and he felt a most immoral satisfaction in it.
In mid-afternoon he went out to the garden, finding the new loneliness of the little house unbearable. The old bench was warm in the sunshine. Old Man Shaw sat down with a long sigh, and dropped his white head wearily on his breast. He had decided what he must do. He would tell Blossom that she might go back to her aunt and never mind about him — he would do very well by himself and he did not blame her in the least.
He was still sitting broodingly there when a girl came up the lane. She was tall and straight, and walked with a kind of uplift in her motion, as if it would be rather easier to fly than not. She was dark, with a rich dusky sort of darkness, suggestive of the bloom on purple plums, or the glow of deep red apples among bronze leaves. Her big brown eyes lingered on everything in sight, and little gurgles of sound now and again came through her parted lips, as if inarticulate joy were thus expressing itself.
At the garden gate she saw the bent figure on the old bench, and the next minute she was flying along the rose walk.
“Daddy!” she called, “daddy!”
Old Man Shaw stood up in hasty bewilderment; then a pair of girlish arms were about his neck, and a pair of warm red lips were on his; girlish eyes, full of love, were looking up into his, and a never-forgotten voice, tingling with laughter and tears blended into one delicious chord, was crying,
“Oh, daddy, is it really you? Oh, I can’t tell you how good it is to see you again!”
Old Man Shaw held her tightly in a silence of amazement and joy too deep for wonder. Why, this was his Blossom — the very Blossom who had gone away three years ago! A little taller, a little more womanly, but his own dear Blossom, and no stranger. There was a new heaven and a new earth for him in the realization.
“Oh, Baby Blossom!” he murmured, “Little Baby Blossom!”
Sara rubbed her cheek against the faded coat sleeve.
“Daddy darling, this moment makes up for everything, doesn’t it?”
“But — but — where did you come from?” he asked, his senses beginning to struggle out of their bewilderment of surprise. “I didn’t expect you till tomorrow. You didn’t have to walk from the station, did you? And your old daddy not there to welcome you!”
Sara laughed, swung herself back by the tips of her fingers and danced around him in the childish fashion of long ago.
“I found I could make an earlier connection with the C.P.A. yesterday and get to the Island last night. I was in such a fever to get home that I jumped at the chance. Of course I walked from the station — it’s only two miles and every step was a benediction. My trunks are over there. We’ll go after them tomorrow, daddy, but just now I want to go straight to every one of the dear old nooks and spots at once.”
“You must get something to eat first,” he urged fondly. “And there ain’t much in the house, I’m afraid. I was going to bake tomorrow morning. But I guess I can forage you out something, darling.”
He was sorely repenting having given Mrs. Blewett’s doughnuts to the pigs, but Sara brushed all such considerations aside with a wave of her hand.
“I don’t want anything to eat just now. By and by we’ll have a snack; just as we used to get up for ourselves whenever we felt hungry. Don’t you remember how scandalized White Sands folks used to be at our irregular hours? I’m hungry; but it’s soul hunger, for a glimpse of all the dear old rooms and places. Come — there are four hours yet before sunset, and I want to cram into them all I’ve missed out of these three years. Let us begin right here with the garden. Oh, daddy, by what witchcraft have you coaxed that sulky rosebush into bloom?”
“No witchcraft at all — it just bloomed because you were coming home, baby,” said her father.
They had a glorious afternoon of it, those two children. They explored the garden and then the house. Sara danced through every room, and then up to her own, holding fast to her father’s hand.
“Oh, it’s lovely to see my little room again, daddy. I’m sure all my old hopes and dreams are waiting here for me.”
She ran to the window and threw it open, leaning out.
“Daddy, there’s no view in the world so beautiful as that curve of sea between the headlands. I’ve looked at magnificent scenery — and then I’d shut my eyes and conjure up that picture. Oh, listen to the wind keening in the trees! How I’ve longed for that music!”
He took her to the orchard and followed out his crafty plan of surprise perfectly. She rewarded him by doing exactly what he had dreamed of her doing, clapping her hands and crying out:
“Oh, daddy! Why, daddy!”
They finished up with the shore, and then at sunset they came back and sat down on the old garden bench. Before them a sea of splendour, burning like a great jewel, stretched to the gateways of the west. The long headlands on either side were darkly purple, and the sun left behind him a vast, cloudless arc of fiery daffodil and elusive rose. Back over the orchard in a cool, green sky glimmered a crystal planet, and the night poured over them a clear wine of dew from her airy chalice. The spruces were rejoicing in the wind, and even the battered firs were singing of the sea. Old memories trooped into their hearts like shining spirits.
“Baby Blossom,” said Old Man Shaw falteringly, “are you quite sure you’ll be contented here? Out there” — with a vague sweep of his hand towards horizons that shut out a world far removed from White Sands—”there’s pleasure and excitement and all that. Won’t you miss it? Won’t you get tired of your old father and White Sands?”
Sara
