The Books: Along the Shore – ‘Young Si’ (L.M. Montgomery)

Daily Book Excerpt: YA/Children’s books:

Along the Shore – ‘Young Si’ – by L.M. Montgomery

So this is the last story I will excerpt from this collection and then I’ll move on to yet another one of Lucy Maud’s books. Young Si is a simple little story that just works. No fireworks, no clunky plot … no florid language!! A young woman named Agnes (who, from Lucy Maud’s description – with her orange hair and violet eyes and creamy skin – is quite a looker) has gone to spend the summer at a boarding house near the sea. She is staying with a kindly family – who welcome her. There is a young daughter, Agnes – who is about 16 – who has a kind of girl-crush on Ethel and wants to show her around. Ethel is polite, sweet … and yet there is something sad about the look in her eyes. We don’t hear the story about why she is sad until halfway into the story. The first half of the story is from Agnes’ eyes, basically. Ethel arrives at the house. The Bentley family take her in … and start to tell her a bit about the town, and the characters who live there, etc. – and a man named Young Si comes up. Everyone seems fascinated by this person. Young Si suddenly appeared in their fishing village at some point last year – from out of nowhere – he stays by himself in a little fishing shack and works out on a boat. He quickly has gained the respect of all the fishermen for his brawn, his skill, and his cooperative nature – and yet there’s something aloof about him. If you ask him where he is from, or anything about his past, he clams up. And yet Mr. Bentley (the man Ethel is staying with) can’t hold back his admiration for this person’s character.

On that first day – Agnes takes Ethel down to the beach to see the sights, to see the fishermen coming in with their catches. It is during this first walk – that Ethel comes face to face with this Young Si … and … well … let’s just say he is NOT who he says he is.

Excerpt from Along the Shore – ‘Young Si’ – by L.M. Montgomery

When she came out they started off, and presently found themselves walking down a grassy deep-rutted lane that ran through mown hay fields, green with their rich aftergrowth, and sheets of pale ripening oats and golden-green wheat, until it lost itself in the rolling sand hills at the foot of the slope.

Beyond the sand hills stretched the shining expanse of the ocean, of the faint, bleached blue of hot August seas, and reaching out into a horizon laced with long trails of pinkish cloud. Numberless fishing boats dotted the shimmering reaches.

“That furthest-off boat is Young Si’s,” said Agnes. “He always goes to that particular spot.”

“Is he really all your father says?” asked Miss Lennox curiously.

“Indeed he is. He isn’t any more like the rest of the shore men than you are. He’s queer, of course. I don’t believe he’s happy. It seems to me he’s worrying over something, but I’m sure it is nothing wrong. Here we are,” she added, as they passed the sand hills and came out on the long, level beach.

To their left the shore curved around in a semi-circle of dazlling whiteness; at their right stood a small grey fish-house.

“That’s Young Si’s place,” said Agnes. “He lives there night and day. Wouldn’t it make anyone melancholy? No wonder he’s mysterious. I’m going to get his spyglass. He told me I might always use it.”

She pushed open the door and entered, followed by Ethel. The interior was rough but clean. It was a small room, lighted by one tiny window looking out on the water. In one corner a rough ladder led up to the loft above. The bare lathed walls were hung with fishing jackets, nets, mackerel lines and other shore appurtenances. A little stove bore a kettle and a frying pan. A low board table was strewn with dishes and the cold remnants of a hasty repast; benches were placed along the walls. A fat, bewhiskered kitten, looking as if it were cut out of black velvet, was dozing on the window sill.

“This is Young Si’s cat,” explained Agnes, patting the creature, which purred joyously and opened its sleepy green eyes. “It’s the only thing he cares for, I believe. Witch! Witch! How are you, Witch? Well, here’s the spyglass. Let’s go and have a look. Si’s catching mackerel,” announced Agnes a few minutes later, after she had scrutinized each boat in turn, “and he won’t be in for an hour yet. If you like, we have time for a walk up the shore.”

The sun slipped lower and lower in the creamy sky, leaving a trail of sparkles that ran across the water and lost itself in the west. Sea gulls soared and dipped, and tiny “sand peeps” flitted along the beach. Just as the red rim of the sun dipped in the purpling sea, the boats began to come in.

“Most of them will go around to the Point,” explained Agnes, with a contemptuous sweep of her hand towards a long headland running out before them. “They belong there and they’re a rough crowd. You don’t catch Young Si associating with the Pointeres. There, he’s getting up sail. We’ll just have time to get back before he comes in.”

They hurried back across the dampening sand as the sun disapeared, leaving a fiery spot behind him. The shore was no longer quiet and deserted. The little spot where the fishing house stood had suddenly started into life. Roughly clad boys were running hither and thither, carrying fish or water. The boats were hauled up on the skids. A couple of shaggy old tars, who had strolled over from the Point to hear about Young Si’s catch, were smoking their pipes at the corner of his shanty. A mellow afterlight was shining over sea and shore. The whole scene delighted Ethel’s artist eyes.

Agnes nudged her companion.

“There! If you want to see Young Si,” she whispered, pointing to the skids, where a busy figure was discernible in a large boat, “that’s him, with his back to us, in the cream-colored boat. He’s counting out mackerel. If you go over to that platform behind him, you’ll get a good look when he turns around. I’m going to coax a mackerel out of that stingy old Snuffy, if I can.”

She tripped off, and Ethel walked slowly over to the boats. The men stared at her in open-mouthed admiration as she passed them and walked out on the platform behind Young Si. There was no one near the two. The others were all assembled around Snuffy’ boat. Young Si was throwing out the mackerel with marvelous rapidity, but at the sound of a footstep behind him he turned and straightened up his tall form. They stood face to face.

“Miles!”

“Ethel!”

Young Si staggered back against the mast, letting two silvery bloaters slip through his hands overboard. His handsome sunburned face was very white.

Ethel Lennox turned abruptly and silently and walked swiftly across the sand. Agnes felt her arm touched and turned to see Ethel standing, pale and erect, beside her.

“Let us go home, ” said the latter unsteadily. “It is very damp here – I feel chilled.”

“Oh, dear!” exclaimed Agnes penitently. “I ought to have told you to bring a shawl. It is always damp on the shore after sunset. Here, Snuffy, give me my mackerel. Thank you. I’m ready now, Miss Lennox.”

They reached the lane before Agnes remembered to ask the question Ethel dreaded.

“Oh, did you see Young Si? And what do you think of him?”

Ethel turned her face away and answered with studied carelessness. “He seems to be quite a superior fishermen so far as I could see in the dim light. It was very dusky there, you know. Let us walk a little faster. My shoes are quite wet.”

When they reached home, Miss Lennox excused herself on the plea of weariness and went straight to her room.