uces covered all the north side of the island, so she always had
something to burn. She was very fond of workin' in the garden ashore,
and that first summer she began to till the little field out there, and
raised a nice parcel o' potatoes. She could fish, o' course, and there
was all her clams an' lobsters. You can always live well in any wild
place by the sea when you'd starve to death up country, except 'twas
berry time. Joanna had berries out there, blackberries at least,
and there was a few herbs in case she needed them. Mullein in great
quantities and a plant o' wormwood I remember seeing once when I
stayed there, long before she fled out to Shell-heap. Yes, I recall the
wormwood, which is always a planted herb, so there must have been folks
there before the Todds' day. A growin' bush makes the best gravestone;
I expect that wormwood always stood for somebody's solemn monument.
Catnip, too, is a very endurin' herb about an old place."

"But what I want to know is what she did for other things," interrupted
Mrs. Fosdick. "Almiry, what did she do for clothin' when she needed to
replenish, or risin' for her bread, or the piece-bag that no woman can
live long without?"

"Or company," suggested Mrs. Todd. "Joanna was one that loved her
friends. There must have been a terrible sight o' long winter evenin's
that first year."

"There was her hens," suggested Mrs. Fosdick, after reviewing the
melancholy situation. "She never wanted the sheep after that first
season. There wa'n't no proper pasture for sheep after the June grass
was past, and she ascertained the fact and couldn't bear to see them
suffer; but the chickens done well. I remember sailin' by one spring
afternoon, an' seein' the coops out front o' the house in the sun. How
long was it before you went out with the minister? You were the first
ones that ever really got ashore to see Joanna."

I had been reflecting upon a state of society which admitted such
personal freedom and a voluntary hermitage. There was something
mediaeval in the behavior of poor Joanna Todd under a disappointment of
the heart. The two women had drawn closer together, and were talking on,
quite unconscious of a listener.

"Poor Joanna!" said Mrs. Todd again, and sadly shook her head as if
there were things one could not speak about.

"I called her a great fool," declared Mrs. Fosdick, with spirit, "but I
pitied her then, and I pity her far more now. Some other minister would
have been