“Well, here’s thirty dollars then,” the priest said, handing her the bills.
“Oh, I don’t know what’s come over me,” Sarah sobbed. “Oh dear. Oh dear.” She threw the money into the garden. “I’ve never been so insulted in my life,” she sobbed, and went into the house.
Upstairs in the spare room Rosalie, like Mrs. Wapshot, was crying. Her bags were packed but Sarah found her lying face down on the bed and she sat beside her and put a hand tenderly on her back. “You poor child,” she said. “I’m afraid they’re not very nice.”
Then Rosalie raised her head and spoke, to Sarah’s astonishment, in anger. “Oh, I don’t think you should talk like that about people’s parents,” she said. “I mean they are my parents, after all, and I don’t think it’s very nice of you to say that you don’t like them. I mean I don’t think that’s very fair. After all they’ve done everything for me like sending me to Allendale and Europe and everybody says he’s going to be a bishop and …” She turned then and looked at Sarah tearfully and kissed her good-by on the cheek. Her mother was calling her name up the stairs. “Good-by, Mrs. Wapshot,” she said, “and please say good-by to Lulu and Mr. Wapshot for me. I’ve had a perfectly divine time....” Then to her mother she called, “I’m coming, I’m coming, I’m coming, I’m coming,” and she banged with her suitcases down the stairs.
Writer’s epistolary style (Leander wrote) formed in tradition of Lord Timothy Dexter, who put all punctuation marks, prepositions, adverbs, articles, etc., at end of communication and urged reader to distribute same as he saw fit. West Farm. Autumn day. 3 P.M. Nice sailing breeze from NW quarter. Golden light. Glittering riffle on water. Hornets on ceiling. An old house. Roofs of St. Botolphs in distance. Old river-bottom burg today. Family prominent there once. Name memorialized in many things in vicinity; lakes, roads, hills even. Wapshot Avenue now back street in honkytonk beach resort further south. Smell of hot dogs, popcorn, also salt air and grinding music from old merry-go-round calliope. Matchwood cottages for rent by day, week or season. Such a street named after forebear who rode spar in Java sea for three days, kicking at sharks with bare feet.
There’s nothing but the blood of shipmasters and schoolteachers in writers’ veins. All grand men! A true pork and beaner and something of a curiosity these days. Memories important or unimportant as the case may be but try in retrospect to make sense of what is done. Many skeletons in family closet. Dark secrets, mostly carnal. Cruelty, illicit love, candor, but no dirty linen. Decisions of taste involved. Voided bladder so many times; brushed teeth so many times; visited Chardon Street fancy house so many times. Who cares? Much modern fiction distasteful to writer because of above.
There may have been literature of New England port—factory town also—period of ’70’s and upwards, but if so I have never found same. Shipyards prospering in writer’s early youth. Oak chips three feet deep in yards at foot of River Street. Lumber moved by oxen. Noise of adzes, hammers, heard all summer. Heartening sounds. Noise of seams being calked heard in late August. Soon will come the winter cold. Launching in September. Ships once crewed with flower of native youth, crewed then with lascars, Kanakas and worse. Bad times in offing. Grandfather on deathbed cried: “Shipping is dead!” Prosperous master. Writer raised among souvenirs of salt-water riches. Velvet cushions on deep window seats; now bare. Long garden in rear of house once upon a time. Geometric flower pots. Paths at right angles. Low box hedge. Four inches high. Father’s fancy poultry. Fantails. Homers. Tumblers. No dung-heap stuff. Man to care for garden and birds in times gone by. Local character. Good man. Been to sea. Wonderful stories. Flying fish. Porpoises. Pearls. Sharks. Samoan girls. Beached six months in Samoa. Paradise. Never put his pants on once in six months. Let the pigeons out each afternoon. Each type separately. Tumblers interested writer most.
