Everything was so different from the Connecticut verdure and underbrush. Instead of the thick, lush growth which came from richly watered black loam1, here one found sand cherries and little dwarf2 willows3 and beeches4 springing up from the sand. Tall sword grass waved almost like Cousin Roxy's striped ribbon grass in the home garden, and wild sunflowers showed like golden glow here and there.
The beach was level and rockless, different entirely5 from the Eastern Atlantic shores, but the sand was beautifully white and fine, and there were great weather-beaten, wave-washed boulders6 lying half buried in the sand, also trunks of trees, their roots uprearing grotesquely7 like strange heads of animals. Kit8 thought whimsically how the Dean might have added them with profit to his prehistoric10 collection. There was no glimpse or hint of the town to be seen down here. Not even a boat house, only one long pier11. About a mile and a half from shore was a lightship, and farther out a white steamer showed in perfect outline against the blueness of the morning sky.
Kit followed Sandy's lead, hardly realizing the distance she was covering, until he suddenly disappeared behind a nosing headland. When she rounded it, she saw a cottage built close under the shelter of the bluff12. The sand drifted like snow half-way up to its windows. It had been painted red once, but now its old clapboards were the color of sorrel, and weather-beaten and wave-washed like the boulders. There were fish nets drying on tall staples13 driven in behind a couple of overturned rowboats, and at that first glimpse it seemed to her as if there were children everywhere. Four stalwart boys from fourteen to eighteen worked over the nets, mending them; around the back door there were four or five more, and sitting in the sunlight in a low rocking-chair was an old woman as picturesque15 as some ancient sibyl.
Sandy seemed to greet them as old acquaintances, so Kit called good-morning in good old Yankee fashion. The boys eyed her, somewhat askance, and all of the children scurried16 like a flock of startled chickens as she came up the boardwalk to the kitchen door, but the old grandmother kept serenely17 on paring potatoes, calm-eyed and unembarrassed.
"How do you do?" said Kit, smilingly. "I'm Dean Peabody's grandniece. I just came west yesterday, and Sandy brought me here this morning. I didn't know where he was going, but he seemed to know the way."
The old woman's brown eyes followed the movement of the dog.
"He ver' fine, that dog," she said, deliberately18. "He come ver' often. I know him since he is un petit chien, ver' small pup—so beeg." She measured with her hand from the ground.
"Do you know the Dean?" Kit asked, sitting down on the doorstep beside her. "He lives up in the big house on the bluff, where the pine and maples19 are."
"I not go up that bluff in forty-eight year."
Kit's eyes widened with quick interest. Just then a girl a little older than herself came out of the kitchen door. Two long braids of straight brown hair hung over her shoulders, and her dress was slouchy and gypsy-like. She looked at Kit with quiet, steady scrutiny22, and then questioningly over at the boys. But Kit herself relieved the tension.
"Hello," she said. "I think you've got an awfully23 nice place down here. I like it because it looks old like our houses back home. All the other places I've seen since I came west have looked so newly painted."
"This isn't new," the girl told her slowly. "This place belonged to my grandfather's father, Louis Beaubien. There were Indians around here then. Most of them 'Jibways."
Jean used to say that the instant Kit's curiosity was aroused, she was just exactly like a squirrel after nuts, and here was an entirely new field of romance and adventure to be uncovered. She fairly sniffed24 the air. The wonderful old grandmother, basking25 in the sun with memories of the past like a Mother Time. The strong, tanned boys working at the nets, the flock of dark-skinned youngsters, and the girl, Marcelle, whom she was to know so well before her stay in Delphi was over.
She hurried back, eager to ask questions about the Beaubiens, and found herself late for breakfast the very first morning she was there. The Dean's face was a study as she entered, and Miss Daphne's fingers fluttered somewhat nervously26 over the coffee urn14, and fragile cups. Kit was out of breath, and so full of excitement that she did not even notice the air was chill.
"I've had a perfectly27 wonderful time," she began. "No coffee, Aunt Daphne, please. Mother doesn't allow me to have any. It's all Sandy's fault. I just wanted to run down the bluff to the shore, and he led me way round that headland to the funniest old house, half-sunken in the sand, and I got acquainted with the old grandmother and Marcelle. The boys and the little youngsters seemed half-scared to death at the sight of me, and so I didn't bother to get acquainted with them yet."
The Dean looked up at her over his glasses with a quizzical expression, and Miss Daphne fairly caught her breath.
"The Beaubiens on the shore, my dear?" she asked. "Those half-breed French Canadians?"
"Well, I didn't know just what they were," answered Kit, cheerfully, "but I think they're awfully interesting. Don't you think that they look like the Breton fisher people in some of the old French paintings? That girl looked just exactly like the youngest one crossing the sands at low tide at St. Malo. We have the painting at home, and I love it. And there was another girl about thirteen that I saw staring at me from the kitchen, and she looked just like 'The Song of the Lark28' girl where she's crossing the fields at dawn."
"The Beaubiens have not a very good reputation, my dear," the Dean coughed slightly behind his hand as he spoke29. "The present generation may be law-abiding, but even within my memory, the Beaubiens had a little habit of smuggling30."
"Very easily. There were schooners32 that used to make the run down from the Canadian shore around the Straits carrying contraband33 goods in war time. Besides, there is the Indian strain in them, and they are squatters. There have been several lawsuits34 against them, and they have persisted in staying there on the shore when the property owners on the bluff distinctly purchased riparian rights."
"But, brother, the Beaubiens won all their suits, didn't they?" asked Miss Daphne, pleasantly. "I'm sure the older boys are very industrious35, and I think the girl Marcelle is strikingly attractive. You're not really forbidding Kit to go down there, I'm sure."
The Dean said something that was lost in a murmur36, for he had been one of the property owners vanquished37 in the lawsuits by the Beaubiens. After breakfast Kit went up-stairs with Miss Daphne into her own little sitting-room38. This looked towards the street, out over the maple20 and pine-shaded lawn. Also, you could command a very fair view of the college. This was built of gray stone like a Norman castle, with square towers, and was overgrown with woodbine just beginning to show a tinge39 of crimson40.
"It seems awfully queer, Aunt Daphne," Kit said as she leaned out of the window, "to think that I am going there into the 'prep' class. Rex said on the way up here——"
She leaned suddenly farther out and waved.
"Hello, Rex, are you coming over?"
Rex glanced up at the radiant face as he came along the hedge-bordered drive between his home and the Dean's and waved back in neighborly fashion.
"I'm going up to the campus now," he said. "Ask Miss Daphne if she'd let you be in the library club. There's a meeting this morning."
"Could I, Aunt Daphne? Please say yes. I haven't joined anything in ages," Kit begged. "I don't care whether it's a library club or an Indian powwow. I am just dying to be in something out here, where I'll meet every one and get acquainted. If you don't need me this morning——" She hesitated, but some of her enthusiasm had caught Miss Daphne, and she immediately succumbed41 to the whim9 of the moment.
"Why, I think, my dear, that I'll go with you. The Dean has taken up so much of my time that I've rather lost my interest and activity in affairs. You go down with Rex, and I'll join you presently."
The Dean's desk stood in a wide square bay window which overlooked the driveway. He had settled down to his morning's portion of labor42 and was blocking out a curriculum of study for Kit, when he happened to glance up, and beheld43 the trio passing happily out through the gates. Certainly they did not realize, nor did he at that moment, that already the leaven44 of youth was at work in the old shadowy house behind the sentinel pines.
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1
loam
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| n.沃土 | |
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dwarf
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| n.矮子，侏儒，矮小的动植物；vt.使…矮小 | |
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willows
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| n.柳树( willow的名词复数 )；柳木 | |
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beeches
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| n.山毛榉( beech的名词复数 )；山毛榉木材 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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boulders
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| n.卵石( boulder的名词复数 )；巨砾；（受水或天气侵蚀而成的）巨石；漂砾 | |
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grotesquely
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| adv. 奇异地,荒诞地 | |
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kit
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| n.用具包，成套工具；随身携带物 | |
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whim
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| n.一时的兴致，突然的念头；奇想，幻想 | |
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prehistoric
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| adj.（有记载的）历史以前的，史前的，古老的 | |
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pier
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| n.码头；桥墩，桥柱；[建]窗间壁，支柱 | |
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12
bluff
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| v.虚张声势，用假象骗人；n.虚张声势，欺骗 | |
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13
staples
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| n.（某国的）主要产品( staple的名词复数 )；钉书钉；U 形钉；主要部份v.用钉书钉钉住( staple的第三人称单数 ) | |
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14
urn
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| n.（有座脚的）瓮；坟墓；骨灰瓮 | |
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15
picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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scurried
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| v.急匆匆地走( scurry的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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serenely
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| adv.安详地，宁静地，平静地 | |
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deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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maples
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| 槭树，枫树( maple的名词复数 )； 槭木 | |
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maple
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| n.槭树，枫树，槭木 | |
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placidly
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| adv.平稳地，平静地 | |
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scrutiny
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| n.详细检查，仔细观察 | |
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awfully
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| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
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sniffed
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| v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的过去式和过去分词 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说 | |
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25
basking
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| v.晒太阳，取暖( bask的现在分词 )；对…感到乐趣；因他人的功绩而出名；仰仗…的余泽 | |
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nervously
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| adv.神情激动地，不安地 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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lark
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| n.云雀，百灵鸟；n.嬉戏，玩笑；vi.嬉戏 | |
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29
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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30
smuggling
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| n.走私 | |
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31
smuggle
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| vt.私运；vi.走私 | |
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32
schooners
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| n.（有两个以上桅杆的）纵帆船( schooner的名词复数 ) | |
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contraband
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| n.违禁品，走私品 | |
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lawsuits
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| n.诉讼( lawsuit的名词复数 ) | |
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35
industrious
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| adj.勤劳的，刻苦的，奋发的 | |
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murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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vanquished
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| v.征服( vanquish的过去式和过去分词 )；战胜；克服；抑制 | |
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38
sitting-room
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| n.（BrE）客厅，起居室 | |
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39
tinge
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| vt.(较淡)着色于，染色；使带有…气息；n.淡淡色彩，些微的气息 | |
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40
crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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41
succumbed
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| 不再抵抗（诱惑、疾病、攻击等）( succumb的过去式和过去分词 )； 屈从； 被压垮； 死 | |
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42
labor
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| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
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43
beheld
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| v.看，注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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44
leaven
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| v.使发酵；n.酵母；影响 | |
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