Free High Tide at Noon by Elisabeth Ogilvie Page A

herself that fifteenth summer, all the glowing dreams of a career carved out magnificently by Joanna Bennett, free adult in her own right—all faded away before the realization that she wanted to be with her mother, that she could fill the place of a daughter now as never before.
    On her nineteenth birthday she stood in her little room, watching the purple winds of dusk come down across the cove, and thought back to the rebellious summer. She had come a long way since then, and there was still time enough before her in which to attain her heart’s desire. Every one had a heart’s desire, she knew. She couldn’t have put hers into words. But the breath and being of the Island pervaded it. I’ll know it when I see it, she thought, and meanwhile she could be patient. She was on the Island; the family was all together, except for the younger boys away at high school. And she was nineteen today.
    She looked down at her sheer, fine stockings, the new suede shoes, and at the little silver watch on her slim brown wrist, and smiled. Nineteen was a magic word; as yet she didn’t know why, but at intervals during the busy March day, she had thought, I’m nineteen! And it had sent a tingling warmth all through her.
    Downstairs the back door was flung open, and voices arose in the kitchen, deep and strong and merry, full of vitality and the hungry delight of coming into a bright warm kitchen and the smell of supper, and Donna’s smile. The men were back from hauling. It was time to run downstairs and get back to work, birthday or not.
    They were all talking at once in the kitchen, their dark faces stung with red, rimed with frozen spray and flying vapor, their heavy clothes giving off the cold breath of out-of-doors. They had been gone since morning, because it had been the first good hauling day in two weeks. Now, home in the warm lamplit kitchen with money in their pockets and supper on the way, they were boisterous as they kicked off rubber boots and washed up. Winnie made ecstatic sorties at their heels, getting in a lick or a nip where she could.
    Stephen put on his moccasins and went over to the dresser, where Donna was busy. Joanna heard his quiet voice, around his pipe. “Donna, where’d this bunch of wild hawks come from?”
    The spatula lowered over the birthday cake she was frosting. “I married a wild hawk.”
    Philip had come out of the turmoil around the sink. “But you tamed him, lady,” he said. “Tamed him proper, too.”
    â€œI wonder who’ll tame them.” Her blue-gray eyes rested serenely on Charles and Owen. “I don’t wonder about you, Philip. You were born with manners, and a way of thinking first. But those two . . . ”
    The first son and the third were wrestling now, hard and supple bodies driving one against the other, steel wrist against wrist, broad shoulder against shoulder. “Charles has something to keep him in line,” Donna said thoughtfully. “He’s got to remember who he’ll be some day. But Owen—”
    â€œHe’s the wildest of the lot,” Joanna put in. “Don’t shake your head at me, Mother. You know it as well as we all do.”
    Stephen dropped his hand on his tall girl’s shoulder. “Hello, birth­day child. Sure, we know about Owen. Wild, maybe, but all Bennett straight through. And Life’ll clip his wings.”
    â€œIf a woman doesn’t do it first.” Philip lifted a quizzical eyebrow. “Ever think what a flock of strange women well bring into the family?”
    â€œOften,” said his father.
    â€œI don’t worry,” Donna said. “But I think you boys will have to go off the Island for your wives—there’s not much choice here right now.”
    â€œWhy, Mother, what’s wrong with a nice little Dutch heifer like Thea Sorensen?”
    â€œGod help us!” said Donna piously, and they all laughed. Philip’s