LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1529, 11 January 1879, Page 3

LITERATURE.

ON SAND ISLAND. [j'BOM TUB “ATLANTIC MONTHLY.”] (Coni hived.) At noonday Nan grew very restless ; a vague feeling that something was wrong crept over her, holding every motive to life in check. The sea could not answer her question. The Menhaden had not gone out as usual; f r it she bad kept steadfast watch. In her desire to speak to some one of the fear that bound her, she left her home and toiled through the sand to the house on the eastern end of the island. She found no one at home except two of the younger children. Their father and mother had * gone to the main, ’ they said, ‘ before it got so rough the day before, and they two had been alone all night. ’ The children were so happy to see her, and were evidently so reluctant to stay alone, that Nan took them with her when she went hack. As she drew near, the boat that hod gone out at daybreak was sailing in towards the island. The inevitable had come. With words that could not be misunderstood, the rough fishermen told the woman that her husband was lost. Nan could not receive the meaning of this thing that had come to her. She put forth all the resistance of a strung nature against a fact that could not be proved. ‘Have you found the Silver Thistle?’ she cried. ‘ Till you have found that empty, I will not believe you.’ Poor soul! fche seemed to feel that these men were active in forcing sorrow upon her, a sorrow that she could only drink in slowly. Nan was like the earth when it has been drying many days under the strong light and heat of the sun, and a sharp rainfall descends with violence upon it. Her spirit shook off sorrow aa the parched earth shakos off the rain. ‘Well for her! Well for her that she will not believe all at once,’ sa d the fishermen, as they turned awayfiom the island and went landward. In a few days the place of the Silver Thistle was occupied by another boat, and at the end of September boats and men went southward, whither the fiah had gone. When Mrs Ware went to the mill-owner for money, she was told tint her husband had, the day before lie was lost, received all the money due to him Nan doubted the statement, because John had always told her every particular relating to his money affairs, running to her as gleefully as a hoy after a day of good luck on the sea, to tell her all about it. With her sorrow and her doubt of the truth of the mill owner’s statement, and her poverty, Nan still stayed iu the place that had b’ea her home. She was waiting for something to happen—for some proof that her husband was 1, at. For such indication she watched through all the bright October. With every tide that rose by day she walked up and down on the sands, gathering driftwood for her (ire but always looking for fragments of wreck from the further shore. Dick Dixon and his wife were kind to Nan in their way, but their way was for her to leave the house and go somewhere on the land; back to the cotton-mill, perhaps, where Nan had earned her bread before she came to her home. They urged this vehemently ; they warned her that it would be in winter, and was even already, unsafe to remain there alone. Nan listened to them with quiet patience, and thanked them, but remained ia her oneroomod house at night, haunting the shore by day, until November came. The flour in the barrel was getting low ; that with the fish she caught from the ledge of rock was the only food she had for Comfort and herself. it was g«owing cold. The winds cut fiercely at times, as poor Nan gathered driftwo d, fcanning with breathless interest each fragment; she was so certain that she should know if anything came iu from the Silver Thistle or the small boat. One day iu November Mrs Dixon appeared at Mrs Ware’s cottage just as the latter was at her dinner ; that dinner consisted of bread and salt fish. ‘Next week Thursday will be Thanksgiving,’said Mrs Dixon (after having spent at least half an hour in urging Nan to leave the island), ‘ and I should like to have you come over and spend it with us.’ Nan promised to go if the weather were clear. When the Thursday came, it wa,s clear with a high wind, after the usuql style of that day in November, and Nan went, Comfort following her, and shivering in the sharp blasts that sent the sands into the air. ‘ It’s wicked!’ said Nan, as the fisherman and his family were gathered about the dinner table. ‘ What is it that’s so wicked?’ asked Mr Pixon, as Mrs Ware stood hesitatingly beside her chair, after all were seated. ‘ For me to sit down, when it isn’t Tbanksgivsng with me. I’m not thankful! Tell me what I’ve got to be thankful for!’ ‘ For this dinner. Come ! I know you are hungry,’ said Mr Dixon. ‘ For this dinner I am thankful,’ said the poor woman. Nan did not tell them that she was living on the smallest allowance of bread, and had been for a week, that she might watch for some token from the sea as many days as She did not betray her hunger, although it was excessive, but she did eat with gratitude. She ate and rose up to go to her own place. In vain they urgtd her to stay over night. ‘ Something might wash up, and I not he there,’ said Nan. “ No! I must go.’ Comfort crept out to follow her home, but Nan, with a catch iu her breath, put her ba-k ; she shut the kitten iu and went onward. Tds woman had shared her bread with the kitten. Soon one or the other must go without food. Secretly, it was more for Comfort’s sake than her own that Naa had accepted the invitation to that dinner. Dick Dixon, following with his eyes the blc-gk figure toiling in the wind up the sands, said to Ilia wife, ‘ She’ll die of cold and starvation.’ And she said, in reply, ‘ You must go to-morrow, Diok, to the town, and see about it.’ ‘lt shall not be ray fault, if she stays there another week,’ ho promised, ‘for I will report the case to-morrow,’ While they talked, Nan was going further and further over the sands, until at last her figure crossed the height and went down out of sight on the other side. Nan was thinking as she went, She know as well as they could know that she must go away somewhere before the snow should fall and the breakers come in edged with ice. The wind was biting cold; the sun had put out from under the clouds a hard, yellow metallic face that gleamed coldly into hers as she drew near home. Suddenly h an threw out her arms from her shawl (she had walked with them tightly folded iu it); she lifted them up above her head, exclaiming, ‘ I will! 1 will bo thankful, 1 will keep Thanksgiving if only '!hou wilt send to me some sure thing to tell mo he is gone.’ Nan turned her eyes from the sky above to the ocean that, was spread out southward and westward as far as human sight could reach, ‘■old, awful, cruel sea! terrible sea i’ she cried, her full lij s trembling with emotion, and the chill quivering in the air. She went into her little lions?. It was more lonely than ever, t he missed Comfort with her accustomed furry rub against her fed,; but the Died to thank only of the warmth and food the kitten was certain to have in the other house. She made haste to light the lire, that she might go on her daily quest to the shore. The sun was sinking below the far-away sea line whoa Nan v, oat out. lurrying, as .'a-t as she could go, up the s 'nds and down again. She gathered much tit i:t and threw it hick, as she caught it up, where the ti l s would not svveepit out again, for she felt a c mmg storm iu the air, and knew that t-ho might need the wood sorely. Now and thou a bit of plank or broken spar was driven deep into the she

pulled many times before getting it free. Her lonely round was over at last, and it was time to go to yonder solitary dwelling. She bad ceased to watch ocean or shore. Neither the one nor the other gave answer to her faithful seeking; and yet she did so long, with all her heart, to keep Thanksgiving that night. When near homo she stooped to gather up an a mful w od to keep her little blaze in life awhile longer. When her arm was nearly filled, her hand, outstretched to reach another stick, touched something that was not wood, nor yet was it rock or earth. Presently she had drawn from under the sand a large piece of old sailcloth. She j dropped her store of firewood and dragged the portion she had found houseward to examine it more closely by the light of the fire. Was it by this that she should gain her Thanksgiving P At last the trophy was drawn in and the door shut against the wind, and the two candles (all she had) were lighted. To he continued.