Truly she remembered what 'Satan finds for idle
hands to do,' and kept all her charges busy, and consequently happy.
All honor to her memory! She was a wise and faithful servant. There is
still an affectionate remembrance of her among the present
inhabitants, whose mothers she helped out of their degradation into a
better life."
If it was not in Celia Thaxter's nature to teach in this direct way
herself, she did not fail to appreciate and to stimulate excellence of
every kind in others. Appledore was too far away in winter from the
village at Star Island for any regular or frequent communication
between them. Even so late as in the month of May she records watching
a little fleet beating up for shelter under the lee of Appledore to
ride out a storm. "They were in continual peril.... It was not
pleasant to watch them as the early twilight shut down over the vast
weltering desolation of the sea, to see the slender masts waving
helplessly from one side to another.... Some of the men had wives and
children watching them from lighted windows at Star. What a fearful
night for them! They could not tell from hour to hour, through the
thick darkness, if yet the cables held; they could not see till
daybreak whether the sea had swallowed up their treasures. I wonder
the wives were not white haired when the sun rose and showed them
those little specks yet rolling in the breakers!" How clearly these
scenes were photographed on the sensitive plate of her mind! She never
forgot nor really lost sight of her island people.
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