The S. W. F. Club by Caroline E. Jacobs

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"Not that I know of."

"I ain't," Patience remarked.

"Well," Jane said, "it ain't prayer-meeting
night, and it ain't young peoples' night and it
ain't choir practice night, so I thought maybe
you'd like me to take my turn at showing you
something. Not all the club--like's not they
wouldn't care for it, but if you think they
would, why, you can show it to them sometime."

"Just we three then?" Pauline asked.
"Hilary and I can go."

"So can I--if you tell mother you want me
to," Patience put in.

"Is it far?" her sister questioned Jane.

"A good two miles--we'd best walk--we
can rest after we get there. Maybe, if you
like, you'd better ask Tom and Josie. Your
ma'll be better satisfied if he goes along, I
reckon. I'll come for you at about half-past
seven."

"All right, thank you ever so much," Pauline
said, and went to tell Hilary, closely
pursued by Patience. However, Mrs. Shaw
vetoed Pauline's proposition that Patience
should make one of the party.

"Not every time, my dear," she explained.

Promptly at half-past seven Jane
appeared. "All ready?" she said, as the four
young people came to meet her. "You don't
want to go expecting anything out of the
common. Like's not, you've all seen it a heap
of times, but maybe not to take particular
notice of it."

She led the way through the garden to the
lane running past her cottage, where Tobias
sat in solitary dignity on the doorstep, down
the lane to where it merged in to what was
nothing more than a field path.

"Are we going to the lake?" Hilary asked.

Jane nodded.

"But not out on the water," Josie said.
"You're taking us too far below the pier for that."

Jane smiled quietly. "It'll be on the water--what
you're going to see," she was getting
a good deal of pleasure out of her small
mystery, and when they reached the low shore,
fringed with the tall sea-grass, she took her
party a few steps along it to where an old log
lay a little back from the water. "I reckon
we'll have to wait a bit," she said, "but it'll
be 'long directly."

They sat down in a row, the young people
rather mystified. Apparently the broad
expanse of almost motionless water was quite
deserted. There was a light breeze blowing
and the soft swishing of the tiny waves against
the bank was the only sound to break the
stillness; the sky above the long irregular range
of mountains on the New York side, still wore
its sunset colors, the lake below sending hack
a faint reflection of them.

But presently these faded until only the
afterglow was left, to merge in turn into the
soft summer twilight, through which the stars
began to glimpse, one by one.

The little group had been mostly silent,
each busy with his or her thoughts; so far as
the young people were concerned, happy
thoughts enough; for if the closing of each
day brought their summer nearer to its
ending, the fall would bring with it new
experiences, an entering of new scenes.

"There!" Sextoness Jane broke the silence,
pointing up the lake, to where a tiny point of
red showed like a low-hung star through the
gathering darkness. Moment by moment,
other lights came into view, silently, steadily,
until it seemed like some long, gliding
sea-serpent, creeping down towards them through
the night.

"A tow!" Josie cried under her breath.

They had all seen it, times without number,
before. The long line of canal boats being
towed down the lake to the canal below; the
red lanterns at either end of each boat
showing as they came. But to-night, infected
perhaps, by the pride, the evident delight, in
Jane's voice, the old familiar sight held them
with the new interest the past months had
brought to bear upon so many old, familiar things.

"It is--wonderful," Pauline said at last.
"It might be a scene from--fairyland, almost."

"Me--I love to see them come stealing long
like that through the dark," Jane said slowly
and a little hesitatingly. It was odd to be
telling confidences to anyone except Tobias.
"I don't know where they come from, nor
where they're a-going to. Many's the night
I walk over here just on the chance of seeing
one. Mostly, this time of year, you're pretty
likely to catch one. When I was younger, I
used to sit and fancy myself going aboard on
one of them and setting off for strange parts.
I wasn't looking to settle down here in Winton
all my days; but I reckon, maybe, it's just's
well--anyhow, when I got the freedom to
travel, I'd got out of the notion of it--and
perhaps, there's no telling, I might have been
terribly disappointed. And there ain't any
hindrance 'gainst my setting off--in my own
mind--every time I sits here and watches a
tow go down the lake. I've seen a heap of
big churches in my travels--it's mostly easier
'magining about them--churches are pretty
much alike I reckon, though I ain't seen many, I'll admit."

No one answered for a moment, but Jane,
used to Tobias for a listener, did not mind.
Then in the darkness, Hilary laid a hand
softly over the work-worn ones clasped on
Jane's lap. It was hard to imagine Jane
young and full of youthful fancies and
longings; yet years ago there had been a Jane--not
Sextoness Jane then--who had found
Winton dull and dreary and had longed to get
away. But for her, there had been no one to
wave the magic wand, that should transform
the little Vermont village into a place filled
with new and unexplored charms. Never in
all Jane's many summers, had she known one
like this summer of theirs; and for them--the
wonder was by no means over--the years
ahead were bright with untold possibilities.
Hilary sighed for very happiness, wondering
if she were the same girl who had rocked
listlessly in the hammock that June morning,
protesting that she didn't care for "half-way" things.

"Tired?" Pauline asked.

"I was thinking," her sister answered.

"Well, the tow's gone." Jane got up to go.

"I'm ever so glad we came, thank you so
much, Jane," Pauline said heartily.

"I wonder what'll have happened by the
time we all see our next tow go down," Josie
said, as they started towards home.

"We may see a good many more than one
before the general exodus," her brother answered.

"But we won't have time to come watch for
them. Oh, Paul, just think, only a little
while now--"

Tom slipped into step with Hilary, a little
behind the others. "I never supposed the old
soul had it in her," he said, glancing to where
Jane trudged heavily on ahead. "Still, I
suppose she was young--once; though I've never
thought of her being so before."

"Yes," Hilary said. "I wonder,--maybe,
she's been better off, after all, right, here at
home. She wouldn't have got to be
Sextoness Jane anywhere else, probably."

Tom glanced at her quickly. "Is there a
hidden meaning--subject to be carefully avoided?"

Hilary laughed. "As you like."

"So you and Paul are off on your travels, too?"

"Yes, though I can hardly believe it yet."

"And just as glad to go as any of us."

"Oh, but we're coming back--after we've
been taught all manner of necessary things."

"Edna'll be the only one of you girls left
behind; it's rough on her."

"It certainly is; we'll all have to write her
heaps of letters."

"Much time there'll be for letter-writing,
outside of the home ones," Tom said.

"Speaking of time," Josie turned towards
them, "we're going to be busier than any bee
ever dreamed of being, before or since Dr. Watts."

They certainly were busy days that
followed. So many of the young folks were
going off that fall that a good many of the
meetings of "The S. W. F. Club" resolved
themselves into sewing-bees, for the girl members only.

"If we'd known how jolly they were, we'd
have tried them before," Bell declared one
morning, dropping down on the rug Pauline
had spread under the trees at one end of the
parsonage lawn.

Patience, pulling bastings with a business-like
air, nodded her curly head wisely. "Miranda says,
folks mostly get 'round to enjoying
their blessings 'bout the time they come to lose them."

"Has the all-important question been
settled yet, Paul?" Edna asked, looking up from
her work. She might not be going away to
school, but even so, that did not debar one
from new fall clothes at home.

"They're coming to Vergennes with me,"
Bell said. "Then we can all come home
together Friday nights."

"They're coming to Boston with me," Josie
corrected, "then we'll be back together for
Thanksgiving."

Shirley, meekly taking her first sewing
lessons under Pauline's instructions, and frankly
declaring that she didn't at all like them,
dropped the hem she was turning. "They're
coming to New York with me; and in the
between-times we'll have such fun that they'll
never want to come home."

Pauline laughed. "It looks as though
Hilary and I would have a busy winter
between you all. It is a comfort to know where
we are going."

"Remember!" she warned, when later the
party broke up. "Four o'clock Friday afternoon! Sharp!"

"Are we going out in a blaze of glory?"
Bell questioned.

"You might tell us where we are going,
now, Paul," Josie urged.

Pauline shook her head. "You wait until
Friday, like good little girls. Mind, you all
bring wraps; it'll be chilly coming home."

Pauline's turn was to be the final wind-up
of the club's regular outings. No one outside
the home folks, excepting Tom, had been
taken into her confidence--it had been
necessary to press him into service. And when, on
Friday afternoon, the young people gathered
at the parsonage, all but those named were
still in the dark.

Besides the regular members, Mrs. Shaw,
Mr. Dayre, Mr. Allen, Harry Oram and Patience
were there; the minister and Dr. Brice
had promised to join the party later if possible.

As a rule, the club picnics were cooperative
affairs; but to-day the members, by special
request, arrived empty-handed. Mr. Paul
Shaw, learning that Pauline's turn was yet to
come, had insisted on having a share in it.

"I am greatly interested in this club," he
had explained. "I like results, and I think,"
he glanced at Hilary's bright happy face,
"that the 'S. W. F. Club' has achieved at least
one very good result."

And on the morning before the eventful
Friday, a hamper had arrived from New
York, the watching of the unpacking of which
had again transformed Patience, for the time,
from an interrogation to an exclamation point.

"It's a beautiful hamper," she explained to
Towser. "It truly is--because father says,
it's the inner, not the outer, self that makes
for real beauty, or ugliness; and it certainly
was the inside of that hamper that counted.
I wish you were going, Towser. See here,
suppose you follow on kind of quietly
to-morrow afternoon--don't show up too soon, and
I guess I can manage it."

Which piece of advice Towser must have
understood. At any rate, he acted upon it to
the best of his ability, following the party at a
discreet distance through the garden and down
the road towards the lake; and only when the
halt at the pier came, did he venture near, the
most insinuating of dogs.

And so successfully did Patience manage
it, that when the last boat-load pushed off
from shore, Towser sat erect on the narrow
bow seat, blandly surveying his fellow
voyagers. "He does so love picnics," Patience
explained to Mr. Dayre, "and this is
the last particular one for the season. I kind
of thought he'd go along and I slipped in a
little paper of bones."

From the boat ahead came the chorus.
"We're out on the wide ocean sailing."

"Not much!" Bob declared. "I wish we
were--the water's quiet as a mill-pond this afternoon."

For the great lake, appreciating perhaps
the importance of the occasion, had of its many
moods chosen to wear this afternoon its
sweetest, most beguiling one, and lay, a broad
stretch of sparkling, rippling water, between
its curving shores.

Beyond, the range of mountains rose dark
and somber against the cloud-flecked sky,
their tops softened by the light haze that told
of coming autumn.

And presently, from boat to boat, went the
call, "We're going to Port Edward! Why
didn't we guess?"

"But that's not _in_ Winton," Edna protested.

"Of it, if not in it," Jack Ward assured them.

"Do you reckon you can show us anything
new about that old fort, Paul Shaw?" Tracy
demanded. "Why, I could go all over it
blindfolded."

"Not to show the new--to unfold the old,"
Pauline told him.

"That sounds like a quotation."

"It is--in substance," Pauline looked across
her shoulder to where Mr. Allen sat,
imparting information to Harry Oram.

"So that's why you asked the old fellow,"
Tracy said. "Was that kind?"

They were rounding the slender point on
which the tall, white lighthouse stood, and
entering the little cove where visitors to the fort
usually beached their boats.

A few rods farther inland, rose the tall,
grass-covered, circular embankment,
surrounding the crumbling, gray walls, the outer
shells of the old barracks.

At the entrance to the enclosure, Tom
suddenly stepped ahead, barring the way. "No
passing within this fort without the
counter-sign," he declared. "Martial law, this afternoon."

It was Bell who discovered it. "'It's a
habit to be happy,'" she suggested, and Tom
drew back for her to enter. But one by one,
he exacted the password from each.

Inside, within the shade of those old, gray
walls, a camp-fire had been built and
camp-kettle swung, hammocks had been hung under
the trees and when cushions were scattered
here and there the one-time fort bore anything
but a martial air.

But something of the spirit of the past must
have been in the air that afternoon, or perhaps,
the spirit of the coming changes; for this
picnic--though by no means lacking in charm--was
not as gay and filled with light-hearted
chaff as usual. There was more talking in
quiet groups, or really serious searching for
some trace of those long-ago days of storm and stress.

With the coming of evening, the fire was
lighted and the cloth laid within range of its
flickering shadows. The night breeze had
sprung up and from outside the sloping
embankment they caught the sound of the waves
breaking on the beach. True to their
promise, the minister and Dr. Brice appeared at
the time appointed and were eagerly welcomed
by the young people.

Supper was a long, delightful affair that
night, with much talk of the days when the
fort had been devoted to far other purposes
than the present; and the young people,
listening to the tales Mr. Allen told in his quiet yet
strangely vivid way, seemed to hear the slow
creeping on of the boats outside and to be
listening in the pauses of the wind for the
approach of the enemy.

"I'll take it back, Paul," Tracy told her, as
they were repacking the baskets. "Even the
old fort has developed new interests."

"And next summer the 'S. W. F. Club' will
continue its good work," Jack said.

Going back, Pauline found herself sitting
in the stern of one of the boats, beside her
father. The club members were singing the
club song. But Pauline's thoughts had
suddenly gone back to that wet May afternoon.

She could see the dreary, rain-swept garden,
hear the beating of the drops on the
window-panes. How long ago and remote it all
seemed; how far from the hopeless discontent,
the vague longings, the real anxiety of that
time, she and Hilary had traveled. She
looked up impulsively. "There's one thing,"
she said, "we've had one summer that I shall
always feel would be worth reliving. And
we're going to have more of them."

"I am glad to hear that," Mr. Shaw said.

Pauline looked about her--the lanterns at
the ends of the boats threw dancing lights out
across the water, no longer quiet; overhead,
the sky was bright with stars. "Everything
is so beautiful," the girl said slowly. "One
seems to feel it more--every day."

"'The hearing ear, and the seeing eye, the
Lord hath made even both of them,'" her
father quoted gravely.

Pauline drew a quick breath. "The
hearing ear and the seeing eye"--it was a good
thought to take with them--out into the new
life, among the new scenes. One would need
them everywhere--out in the world, as well as
in Winton. And then, from the boat just
ahead, sounded Patience's clear
treble,--"'There's a Good Time Coming.'"

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