A massive stone structure, deep-roofed with great chimneys at either end, it had been neglected for almost 100 years. But recently Miss Pomeroy had given in to years of pestering by the local Historical Society and had assumed the expense of having the Settler’s Cottage restored to the last candlestick and kettle. During the summers a caretaker, whom she engaged, received the trickle of visitors who roamed the old rooms, admiring trestle table, spinning wheel and little, bubbly windowpanes.
But now that the cottage was livable again, it became a source of irritation to Miss Pomeroy. One evening, as she and Mr. Paradee sat on his porch and rocked, she unburdened herself to him. They were the only two people on the cove without families, and they found that in having this in common they had much.
“It’s a mockery,” she said bitterly, “to keep that wonderful old house as a museum with visitors tiptoeing about, pointing and whispering. Somebody ought to live there.”
“You must have had handsome offers for it.”
“Offers!” she snorted. “From people who could afford anything, anywhere — who want a private museum to hold forth in. Something quaint,” she grimaced, “for a summer place. Well, they’ll not have it,” she went on grimly. “That old cottage was a home to my people when they built it, a place to live, because they weren’t just playing at living. They knew what mattered, and they went all the way.”
As they rocked in silence for a moment or two, Mr. Paradee wondered what those people of hers had been like — people who knew what mattered and went all the way. They don’t seem real any more, he thought sadly. They’re only a legend.
“As far as that goes—” she began again presently.
“As far as what goes?”
“Things that matter. It’s my opinion that people matter. And Historical Society or no, that’s still my house. And one of these days the Settler’s Cottage”—here she quoted from the society’s pamphlet—” ‘an authentic seventeenth-century dwelling, a chapter in the history of our great heritage,’ is going to get a taste of corned-beef hash and yelling children! Ha!”
“I wonder,” Mr. Paradee chuckled, “what the society will say?”
“Say? They’ll be speechless!” She became sober then and said, “It has to be; I’m not going to back down. The cottage has to go as the rest of the cove has gone: to young families with their lives to live. Of course, you were an exception.” Her penetration disconcerted Mr. Paradee when she added, “You looked to me like a man born away from home who had spent his life trying to get back. Well, all of you are home now. And after a while somebody will turn up — just as you and the others did — and the cottage will be waiting.”
Sensing an undercurrent in her words, Mr. Paradee asked shyly, “Did you ever want a family?”
She nodded thoughtfully. “Very much once. But after all, what is a family for? Something to give yourself to; something that matters, so that you can give. At night, when I see all your lights down on the point, I feel as if I almost had a family. One of these days I’ll look over at the woods and see smoke rising from the chimneys of the Settler’s Cottage.” After a reflective pause she added dryly, “I expect we’ll see a little smoke rising from the Historical Society too.”
“I’ve spent a lifetime,” Mr. Paradee said after they rocked for a moment in silence, “thinking I knew what mattered. To be home, just to be home.” He shook his head and said slowly, “But I’m not so sure — I’m not so sure there isn’t more to it than that.”
As time went on, Mr. Paradee’s sky flourished, his garden flowered and his picket fence sported a yearly coat of dazzling white; the path which led from the lane to his gate widened, as he and his friends and their children and dogs passed back and forth; his short-wave crackled with friendly voices from New Zealand, Scotland, Australia and Alaska — and with other voices, deep in the night, which at first he could not identify. He often said to himself, cautiously at first, but after a while with confidence, “I’m happy.”
But then one spring — as the winds of March roared over the cove — Mr. Paradee began to wake at night. He would lie in the dark, listening and wondering what it was that would not let him sleep. When for a moment the wind held its breath, he could hear the distant pounding of the surf and, now and then, the herald sound of an early flight of geese. These were the sounds he loved; they would no more wake him than the swinging pendulum of his clock on the mantel. It wouldn’t come to him until he was dropping off to sleep again; just for a moment he would know what had waked him: an unaccountable space within him, a curious emptiness.
In time it waked him often, and it frightened him, for it was too much like the old emptiness, the old ache he had lived with for so long back in the days when all that mattered to him was to be home. Well, he was home. Why did it keep coming back to him, like an echo?
Night after night the ghostly echo woke him and, when he could not go back to sleep, he would find himself sitting in a rocker beside his short-wave where he would listen and listen. When at last there was silence, he often would go out on the porch and look up into the night, not thinking, as he used to, how beautiful it was, but how vast and how cold.
Summer came and passed. In September all the visitors — house guests and a few boarders — went home, leaving a trail of footprints and sand castles along the beach.
Every year — after they had left and the caretaker from the Settler’s Cottage had locked up and gone for the winter — Pomeroy’s Cove celebrated the end of the season with a picnic on the ocean. They would all decide on a day, having first consulted Mr. Paradee on the likely behavior of his sky — who in turn consulted the Coast Guard weather report. With baskets of lunch they would cross the cove and walk over the dunes to the sea. They usually left about noon and returned at dusk.
Just before noon on the day of the picnic Mr. Paradee glanced out his window and saw a billow of clouds low in the east. They didn’t look like much, but nevertheless he snapped on the short-wave to wait for twelve sharp and the weather report.
Waiting, he checked the picnic basket and found that he had forgotten the salt. As he reached to open a cupboard to get the shaker, static from the radio receiver was interrupted by a high-pitched musical tone. Startled, Mr. Paradee went quickly and shut the door to the yard and hurried back to the radio. He adjusted the volume, turning it low, and listened with his ear close to the set. In a moment he heard a quiet, familiar voice.
“Paradee?”
He snapped on the transmitter and spoke barely above a whisper. “This is Paradee. Hello, out there!”
“Hello, Paradee. It’s good to hear your voice again.”
“How are you?” asked Mr. Paradee. “Everything all right? I haven’t heard from you folks in weeks. I was beginning to think you’d moved on.”
“No. We are still standing by. Our situation is very grave.”
“Oh?” Mr. Paradee was silent for a moment, his face clouded with concern. “But, see here. Didn’t you get in touch with Cook in New Zealand? What about MacIntyre in Scotland and Burns in Alaska?”
“We were in touch with them, Paradee. But we weren’t able to convince them. One can hardly blame them.”
“Oh, wouldn’t you know it!” Mr. Paradee snorted with impatience. “I suppose they thought it was some other ham trying to pull off the hoax of the century! Why, those fellows have miles of land, away off from anywhere. I know they could help you.”