CHAPTER 25
THE WRITING OF THE BOOK
Owen Ford came over to the little house the next
morning in a state of great excitement. "Mrs. Blythe,
this is a wonderful book--absolutely wonderful. If I
could take it and use the material for a book I feel
certain I could make the novel of the year out of it.
Do you suppose Captain Jim would let me do it?"
"Let you! I'm sure he would be delighted," cried
Anne. "I admit that it was what was in my head when I
took you down last night. Captain Jim has always been
wishing he could get somebody to write his life-book
properly for him."
"Will you go down to the Point with me this evening,
Mrs. Blythe? I'll ask him about that life-book myself,
but I want you to tell him that you told me the story
of lost Margaret and ask him if he will let me use it
as a thread of romance with which to weave the stories
of the life-book into a harmonious whole."
Captain Jim was more excited than ever when Owen Ford
told him of his plan. At last his cherished dream was
to be realized and his "life-book" given to the world.
He was also pleased that the story of lost Margaret
should be woven into it.
"It will keep her name from being forgotten," he said
wistfully.
"That's why I want it put in."
"We'll collaborate," cried Owen delightedly. "You
will give the soul and I the body. Oh, we'll write a
famous book between us, Captain Jim. And we'll get
right to work."
"And to think my book is to be writ by the
schoolmaster's grandson!" exclaimed Captain Jim.
"Lad, your grandfather was my dearest friend. I
thought there was nobody like him. I see now why I had
to wait so long. It couldn't be writ till the right
man come. You BELONG here--you've got the soul of this
old north shore in you-- you're the only one who COULD
write it."
It was arranged that the tiny room off the living room
at the lighthouse should be given over to Owen for a
workshop. It was necessary that Captain Jim should be
near him as he wrote, for consultation upon many
matters of sea-faring and gulf lore of which Owen was
quite ignorant.
He began work on the book the very next morning, and
flung himself into it heart and soul. As for Captain
Jim, he was a happy man that summer. He looked upon
the little room where Owen worked as a sacred shrine.
Owen talked everything over with Captain Jim, but he
would not let him see the manuscript.
"You must wait until it is published," he said. "Then
you'll get it all at once in its best shape."
He delved into the treasures of the life-book and used
them freely. He dreamed and brooded over lost Margaret
until she became a vivid reality to him and lived in
his pages. As the book progressed it took possession
of him and he worked at it with feverish eagerness. He
let Anne and Leslie read the manuscript and criticise
it; and the concluding chapter of the book, which the
critics, later on, were pleased to call idyllic, was
modelled upon a suggestion of Leslie's.
Anne fairly hugged herself with delight over the
success of her idea.
"I knew when I looked at Owen Ford that he was the very
man for it," she told Gilbert. "Both humor and
passion were in his face, and that, together with the
art of expression, was just what was necessary for the
writing of such a book. As Mrs. Rachel would say, he
was predestined for the part."
Owen Ford wrote in the mornings. The afternoons were
generally spent in some merry outing with the Blythes.
Leslie often went, too, for Captain Jim took charge of
Dick frequently, in order to set her free. They went
boating on the harbor and up the three pretty rivers
that flowed into it; they had clambakes on the bar and
mussel-bakes on the rocks; they picked strawberries on
the sand-dunes; they went out cod-fishing with Captain
Jim; they shot plover in the shore fields and wild
ducks in the cove--at least, the men did. In the
evenings they rambled in the low-lying, daisied, shore
fields under a golden moon, or they sat in the living
room at the little house where often the coolness of
the sea breeze justified a driftwood fire, and talked
of the thousand and one things which happy, eager,
clever young people can find to talk about.
Ever since the day on which she had made her confession
to Anne Leslie had been a changed creature. There was
no trace of her old coldness and reserve, no shadow of
her old bitterness. The girlhood of which she had been
cheated seemed to come back to her with the ripeness of
womanhood; she expanded like a flower of flame and
perfume; no laugh was readier than hers, no wit
quicker, in the twilight circles of that enchanted
summer. When she could not be with them all felt that
some exquisite savor was lacking in their intercourse.
Her beauty was illumined by the awakened soul within,
as some rosy lamp might shine through a flawless vase
of alabaster. There were hours when Anne's eyes seemed
to ache with the splendor of her. As for Owen Ford,
the "Margaret" of his book, although she had the soft
brown hair and elfin face of the real girl who had
vanished so long ago, "pillowed where lost Atlantis
sleeps," had the personality of Leslie Moore, as it
was revealed to him in those halcyon days at Four Winds
Harbor.
All in all, it was a never-to-be-forgotten summer--one
of those summers which come seldom into any life, but
leave a rich heritage of beautiful memories in their
going--one of those summers which, in a fortunate
combination of delightful weather, delightful friends
and delightful doings, come as near to perfection as
anything can come in this world.
"Too good to last," Anne told herself with a little
sigh, on the September day when a certain nip in the
wind and a certain shade of intense blue on the gulf
water said that autumn was hard by.
That evening Owen Ford told them that he had finished
his book and that his vacation must come to an end.
"I have a good deal to do to it yet--revising and
pruning and so forth," he said, "but in the main it's
done. I wrote the last sentence this morning. If I
can find a publisher for it it will probably be out
next summer or fall."
Owen had not much doubt that he would find a publisher.
He knew that he had written a great book--a book that
would score a wonderful success--a book that would
LIVE. He knew that it would bring him both fame and
fortune; but when he had written the last line of it he
had bowed his head on the manuscript and so sat for a
long time. And his thoughts were not of the good work
he had done.
