Water Read Free Page A

from her and she looked
    around and saw that it was night
    “The storm was over, and the sea was smooth, with stars above, and a glimmer of dawn out over
    the ocean. Charity lay along the sea-man’s back with her arms around his shoulders as he swam
    south and set her down at last in the shallows of a beach. Oyster Beach we call it now.
    “She waded ashore, but turned knee-deep in the water to thank him. He cut her short, putting the
    flat of his hand against his lips and making a fierce sideways gesture with his other hand—so—
    then pointed at her, still as angry-seeming as when she had first seen him. She put her palms
    crosswise over her mouth, sealing it shut, trying to say to him: Yes, I will keep silent. She had
    already known she must. She did not know if any of the People were left alive after the storm,
    but they were the only folk she knew, and who of them would believe her, and not think she was
    either mad or else talking profane wickedness? Then she bowed low before him, and when she
    looked up, he was gone.
    “She took off the slip she had worn in the sea and left it at the water’s edge, as though the tide
    had washed it there. Then she dressed herself in her own clothes, dank and mildewy though they
    were, and walked up the shore. Inland was all dense woods, so she walked along beside them,
    past Watch Point to Huxholme Bay, where three men met her, coming to look for clams at the
    low tide.
    “So. That is the story of Charity Goodrich. Tomorrow you shall tell it to me, leaving nothing out,
    so that I can be sure you know it to tell it truly to your own daughters when they are old enough
    to understand.”
    Probity sat by Mercy’s bed throughout the night she died, holding both her hands in his. They
    prayed together, and from time to time they spoke of other things, but in voices too soft for
    Pitiable, in her cot at the top of the ladder, to hear. In the end she slept, and when she came down
    before dawn to remake the fire, she found Probity still in his clothes, sitting by the fire with his
    head between his hands, and Mercy stretched out cold on her cot with her Bible on her chest. For
    two days Probity would not eat or dress or undress or go to bed. He let the Church Elders make
    the arrangements for the funeral, simply grunting assent to anything that was said to him, but for
    the ceremony itself he pulled himself together and shaved carefully and polished his belt and
    boots and dressed in his Sunday suit and stood erect and stern by the graveside with his hand
    upon Pitiable’s shoulder, and then waited with her at the churchyard gate to receive the
    condolences of the People.
    Mercy in her last hours must have spoken to him about their granddaughter, and told him to take
    comfort in her and give her comfort in return, and this he tried to do. He read the Bible with her
    in the evenings, and sometimes noticed if she seemed tired and told her to rest. And around
    Christmas, when all the children of the townspeople were given toys, he whittled a tiny horse and
    cart for her to set upon the mantelshelf. By day he worked as he always had to see that the two of
    them were warm and fed, fetching in the stacked logs for the stove, and bringing in more from
    the frozen woods to make next season’s stack, and digging turnips and other roots from the
    mounds where they were stored, and fetching out grain from the bins and salted meat from the
    barrels, and mending the tools he would need for next summer’s toil, while Pitiable cooked and
    stitched and cleaned as best she could, the way Mercy had shown her. She was young for such
    work, and he did not often scold her for her mistakes. So the neighbours, who at first had felt that
    in Christian duty they must keep an eye upon the pair, decided that all was well and left them
    alone.
    Spring came with the usual mud and mess, followed by the urgent seed-time when the ground
    dried to a fine soft tilth and had not yet begun to parch. It was then that