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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Cape Cod Stories, by Joseph C. Lincoln
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Cape Cod Stories
+       The Old Home House
+
+Author: Joseph C. Lincoln
+
+Release Date: June 6, 2006 [EBook #5195]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAPE COD STORIES ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Don Lainson
+
+
+
+
+
+CAPE COD STORIES
+
+Also Published Under The Title Of "The Old Home House"
+
+
+By Joseph C. Lincoln
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+TWO PAIRS OF SHOES
+
+THE COUNT AND THE MANAGER
+
+THE SOUTH SHORE WEATHER BUREAU
+
+THE DOG STAR
+
+THE MARE AND THE MOTOR
+
+THE MARK ON THE DOOR
+
+THE LOVE OF LOBELIA 'ANKINS
+
+THE MEANNESS OF ROSY
+
+THE ANTIQUERS
+
+HIS NATIVE HEATH
+
+"JONESY"
+
+
+
+
+THE "OLD HOME HOUSE"
+
+
+
+
+TWO PAIRS OF SHOES
+
+
+I don't exactly know why Cap'n Jonadab and me went to the post-office
+that night; we wa'n't expecting any mail, that's sartin. I guess likely
+we done it for the reason the feller that tumbled overboard went to the
+bottom--'twas the handiest place TO go.
+
+Anyway we was there, and I was propping up the stove with my feet and
+holding down a chair with the rest of me, when Jonadab heaves alongside
+flying distress signals. He had an envelope in his starboard mitten,
+and, coming to anchor with a flop in the next chair, sets shifting the
+thing from one hand to the other as if it 'twas red hot.
+
+I watched this performance for a spell, waiting for him to say
+something, but he didn't, so I hailed, kind of sarcastic, and says:
+"What you doing--playing solitaire? Which hand's ahead?"
+
+He kind of woke up then, and passes the envelope over to me.
+
+"Barzilla," he says, "what in time do you s'pose that is?"
+
+'Twas a queer looking envelope, more'n the average length fore and aft,
+but kind of scant in the beam. There was a puddle of red sealing wax on
+the back of it with a "D" in the middle, and up in one corner was a kind
+of picture thing in colors, with some printing in a foreign language
+underneath it. I b'lieve 'twas what they call a "coat-of-arms," but it
+looked more like a patchwork comforter than it did like any coat ever
+_I_ see. The envelope was addressed to "Captain Jonadab Wixon, Orham,
+Mass."
+
+I took my turn at twisting the thing around, and then I hands it back to
+Jonadab.
+
+"I pass," I says. "Where'd you get it?"
+
+"'Twas in my box," says he. "Must have come in to-night's mail."
+
+I didn't know the mail was sorted, but when he says that I got up and
+went over and unlocked my box, just to show that I hadn't forgot how,
+and I swan to man if there wa'n't another envelope, just like Jonadab's,
+except that 'twas addressed to "Barzilla Wingate."
+
+"Humph!" says I, coming back to the stove; "you ain't the only one
+that's heard from the Prince of Wales. Look here!"
+
+He was the most surprised man, but one, on the Cape: I was the one. We
+couldn't make head nor tail of the business, and set there comparing the
+envelopes, and wondering who on earth had sent 'em. Pretty soon "Ily"
+Tucker heads over towards our moorings, and says he:
+
+"What's troubling the ancient mariners?" he says.
+
+"Barzilla and me's got a couple of letters," says Cap'n Jonadab; "and we
+was wondering who they was from."
+
+Tucker leaned away down--he's always suffering from a rush of funniness
+to the face--and he whispers, awful solemn: "For heaven's sake, whatever
+you do, don't open 'em. You might find out." Then he threw off his
+main-hatch and "haw-hawed" like a loon.
+
+To tell you the truth, we hadn't thought of opening 'em--not yet--so
+that was kind of one on us, as you might say. But Jonadab ain't so slow
+but he can catch up with a hearse if the horses stop to drink, and he
+comes back quick.
+
+"Ily," he says, looking troubled, "you ought to sew reef-points on your
+mouth. 'Tain't safe to open the whole of it on a windy night like this.
+First thing you know you'll carry away the top of your head."
+
+Well, we felt consider'ble better after that--having held our own on
+the tack, so to speak--and we walked out of the post-office and up to my
+room in the Travellers' Rest, where we could be alone. Then we opened up
+the envelopes, both at the same time. Inside of each of 'em was another
+envelope, slick and smooth as a mack'rel's back, and inside of THAT was
+a letter, printed, but looking like the kind of writing that used to
+be in the copybook at school. It said that Ebenezer Dillaway begged the
+honor of our presence at the marriage of his daughter, Belle, to Peter
+Theodosius Brown, at Dillamead House, Cashmere-on-the-Hudson, February
+three, nineteen hundred and so forth.
+
+We were surprised, of course, and pleased in one way, but in another we
+wa'n't real tickled to death. You see, 'twas a good while sence Jonadab
+and me had been to a wedding, and we know there'd be mostly young folks
+there and a good many big-bugs, we presumed likely, and 'twas going to
+cost consider'ble to get rigged--not to mention the price of passage,
+and one thing a' 'nother. But Ebenezer had took the trouble to write
+us, and so we felt 'twas our duty not to disappoint him, and especially
+Peter, who had done so much for us, managing the Old Home House.
+
+The Old Home House was our summer hotel at Wellmouth Port. How me and
+Jonadab come to be in the summer boarding trade is another story and
+it's too long to tell now. We never would have been in it, anyway, I
+cal'late, if it hadn't been for Peter. He made a howling success of our
+first season and likewise helped himself along by getting engaged to the
+star boarder, rich old Dillaway's daughter--Ebenezer Dillaway, of the
+Consolidated Cash Stores.
+
+Well, we see 'twas our duty to go, so we went. I had a new Sunday
+cutaway and light pants to go with it, so I figgered that I was pretty
+well found, but Cap'n Jonadab had to pry himself loose from considerable
+money, and every cent hurt as if 'twas nailed on. Then he had chilblains
+that winter, and all the way over in the Fall River boat he was fuming
+about them chilblains, and adding up on a piece of paper how much cash
+he'd spent.
+
+We struck Cashmere-on-the-Hudson about three o'clock on the afternoon of
+the day of the wedding. 'Twas a little country kind of a town, smaller
+by a good deal than Orham, and so we cal'lated that perhaps after all,
+the affair wouldn't be so everlasting tony. But when we hove in sight of
+Dillamead--Ebenezer's place--we shortened sail and pretty nigh drew
+out of the race. 'Twas up on a high bank over the river, and the
+house itself was bigger than four Old Homes spliced together. It had a
+fair-sized township around it in the shape of land, with a high
+stone wall for trimming on the edges. There was trees, and places for
+flower-beds in summer, and the land knows what. We see right off
+that this was the real Cashmere-on-the-Hudson; the village folks were
+stranded on the flats--old Dillaway filled the whole ship channel.
+
+"Well," I says to Jonadab, "it looks to me as if we was getting out of
+soundings. What do you say to coming about and making a quick run for
+Orham again?"
+
+But he wouldn't hear of it. "S'pose I've spent all that money on duds
+for nothing?" he says. "No, sir, by thunder! I ain't scared of Peter
+Brown, nor her that's going to be his wife; and I ain't scared of
+Ebenezer neither; no matter if he does live in the Manufacturers'
+Building, with two or three thousand fathom of front fence," he says.
+
+Some years ago Jonadab got reckless and went on a cut-rate excursion to
+the World's Fair out in Chicago, and ever sence then he's been comparing
+things with the "Manufacturers' Building" or the "Palace of Agriculture"
+or "Streets of Cairo," or some other outlandish place.
+
+"All right," says I. "Darn the torpedoes! Keep her as she is! You can
+fire when ready, Gridley!"
+
+So we sot sail for what we jedged was Ebenezer's front-gate, and just
+as we made it, a man comes whistling round the bend in the path, and
+I'm blessed if 'twa'n't Peter T. Brown. He was rigged to kill, as usual,
+only more so.
+
+"Hello, Peter!" I says. "Here we be."
+
+If ever a feller was surprised, Brown was that feller. He looked like
+he'd struck a rock where there was deep water on the chart.
+
+"Well, I'll be ----" he begun, and then stopped. "What in the ----" he
+commenced again, and again his breath died out. Fin'lly he says: "Is
+this you, or had I better quit and try another pipe?"
+
+We told him 'twas us, and it seemed to me that he wa'n't nigh so tickled
+as he'd ought to have been. When he found we'd come to the wedding,
+'count of Ebenezer sending us word, he didn't say nothing for a minute
+or so.
+
+"Of course, we HAD to come," says Jonadab. "We felt 'twouldn't be right
+to disapp'int Mr. Dillaway."
+
+Peter kind of twisted his mouth. "That's so," he says. "It'll be worth
+more'n a box of diamonds to him. Do him more good than joining a 'don't
+worry club.' Well, come on up to the house and ease his mind."
+
+So we done it, and Ebenezer acted even more surprised than Peter.
+
+I can't tell you anything about that house, nor the fixings in it;
+it beat me a mile--that house did. We had a room somewheres up on
+the hurricane deck, with brass bunks and plush carpets and crocheted
+curtains and electric lights. I swan there was looking glasses in every
+corner--big ones, man's size. I remember Cap'n Jonadab hollering to me
+that night when he was getting ready to turn in:
+
+"For the land's sake, Barzilla!" says he, "turn out them lights, will
+you? I ain't over'n' above bashful, but them looking glasses make me
+feel's if I was undressing along with all hands and the cook."
+
+The house was full of comp'ny, and more kept coming all the time.
+Swells! don't talk! We felt 'bout as much at home as a cow in a dory,
+but we was there 'cause Ebenezer had asked us to be there, so we kept on
+the course and didn't signal for help. Travelling through the rooms down
+stairs where the folks was, was a good deal like dodging icebergs up on
+the Banks, but one or two noticed us enough to dip the colors, and one
+was real sociable. He was a kind of slow-spoken city-feller, dressed as
+if his clothes was poured over him hot and then left to cool. His
+last name had a splice in the middle of it--'twas Catesby-Stuart.
+Everybody--that is, most everybody--called him "Phil."
+
+Well, sir, Phil cottoned to Jonadab and me right away. He'd get us, one
+on each wing, and go through that house asking questions. He pumped me
+and Jonadab dry about how we come to be there, and told us more yarns
+than a few 'bout Dillaway, and how rich he was. I remember he said that
+he only wished he had the keys to the cellar so he could show us the
+money-bins. Said Ebenezer was so just--well, rotten with money, as you
+might say, that he kept it in bins down cellar, same as poor folks
+kept coal--gold in one bin, silver half-dollars in another, quarters in
+another, and so on. When he needed any, he'd say to a servant: "James,
+fetch me up a hod of change." This was only one of the fish yarns he
+told. They sounded kind of scaly to Jonadab and me, but if we hinted at
+such a thing, he'd pull himself together and say: "Fact, I assure you,"
+in a way to freeze your vitals. He seemed like such a good feller that
+we didn't mind his telling a few big ones; we'd known good fellers afore
+that liked to lie--gunners and such like, they were mostly.
+
+Somehow or 'nother Phil got Cap'n Jonadab talking "boat," and when
+Jonadab talks "boat" there ain't no stopping him. He's the smartest
+feller in a cat-boat that ever handled a tiller, and he's won more races
+than any man on the Cape, I cal'late. Phil asked him and me if we'd ever
+sailed on an ice-boat, and, when we said we hadn't he asks if we won't
+take a sail with him on the river next morning. We didn't want to
+put him to so much trouble on our account, but he said: "Not at all.
+Pleasure'll be all mine, I assure you." Well, 'twas his for a spell--but
+never mind that now.
+
+He introduced us to quite a lot of the comp'ny--men mostly. He'd see a
+school of 'em in a corner, or under a palm tree or somewheres, and steer
+us over in that direction and make us known to all hands. Then he begin
+to show us off, so to speak, get Jonadab telling 'bout the boats he'd
+sailed, or something like it--and them fellers would laugh and holler,
+but Phil's face wouldn't shake out a reef: he looked solemn as a fun'ral
+all the time. Jonadab and me begun to think we was making a great hit.
+Well, we was, but not the way we thought. I remember one of the gang
+gets Phil to one side after a talk like this and whispers to him,
+laughing like fun. Phil says to him: "My dear boy, I've been to
+thousands of these things"--waving his flipper scornful around the
+premises--"and upon honor they've all been alike. Now that I've
+discovered something positively original, let me enjoy myself. The
+entertainment by the Heavenly Twins is only begun."
+
+I didn't know what he meant then; I do now.
+
+The marrying was done about eight o'clock and done with all the
+trimmings. All hands manned the yards in the best parlor, and Peter and
+Belle was hitched. Then they went away in a swell turnout--not like the
+derelict hacks we'd seen stranded by the Cashmere depot--and Jonadab
+pretty nigh took the driver's larboard ear off with a shoe Phil gave him
+to heave after 'em.
+
+After the wedding the folks was sitting under the palms and bushes that
+was growing in tubs all over the house, and the stewards--there was
+enough of 'em to man a four-master--was carting 'round punch and frozen
+victuals. Everybody was togged up till Jonadab and me, in our new
+cutaways, felt like a couple of moulting blackbirds at a blue-jay
+camp-meeting. Ebenezer was so busy, flying 'round like a pullet with
+its head off, that he'd hardly spoke to us sence we landed, but Phil
+scarcely ever left us, so we wa'n't lonesome. Pretty soon he comes back
+from a beat into the next room, and he says:
+
+"There's a lady here that's just dying to know you gentlemen. Her name's
+Granby. Tell her all about the Cape; she'll like it. And, by the way,
+my dear feller," he whispers to Jonadab "if you want to please
+her--er--mightily, congratulate her upon her boy's success in the
+laundry business. You understand," he says, winking; "only son and
+self-made man, don't you know."
+
+Mrs. Granby was roosting all by herself on a sofy in the parlor. She was
+fleshy, but terrible stiff and proud, and when she moved the diamonds on
+her shook till her head and neck looked like one of them "set pieces" at
+the Fourth of July fireworks. She was deef, too, and used an ear-trumpet
+pretty nigh as big as a steamer's ventilator.
+
+Maybe she was "dying to know us," but she didn't have a fit trying to
+show it. Me and Jonadab felt we'd ought to be sociable, and so we set,
+one on each side of her on the sofy, and bellered: "How d'ye do?" and
+"Fine day, ain't it?" into that ear-trumpet. She didn't say much, but
+she'd couple on the trumpet and turn to whichever one of us had hailed,
+heeling over to that side as if her ballast had shifted. She acted to me
+kind of uneasy, but everybody that come into that parlor--and they kept
+piling in all the time--looked more'n middling joyful. They kept pretty
+quiet, too, so that every yell we let out echoed, as you might say, all
+'round. I begun to git shaky at the knees, as if I was preaching to a
+big congregation.
+
+After a spell, Jonadab not being able to think of anything more to say,
+and remembering Phil's orders, leans over and whoops into the trumpet.
+
+"I'm real glad your son done so well with his laundry," he says.
+
+Well, sir, Phil had give us to understand that them congratulations
+would make a hit, and they done it. The women 'round the room turned red
+and some of 'em covered their mouths with their handkerchiefs. The
+men looked glad and set up and took notice. Ebenezer wa'n't in the
+room--which was a mercy--but your old mess-mate, Catesby-Stuart, looked
+solemn as ever and never turned a hair.
+
+But as for old lady Granby--whew! She got redder'n she was afore,
+which was a miracle, pretty nigh. She couldn't speak for a minute--just
+cackled like a hen. Then she busts out with: "How dare you!" and
+flounces out of that room like a hurricane. And it was still as could
+be for a minute, and then two or three of the girls begun to squeal and
+giggle behind their handkerchiefs.
+
+Jonadab and me went away, too. We didn't flounce any to speak of. I
+guess a "sneak" would come nearer to telling how we quit. I see the
+cap'n heading for the stairs and I fell into his wake. Nobody said
+good-night, and we didn't wait to give 'em a chance.
+
+'Course we knew we'd put our foot in it somewheres, but we didn't see
+just how. Even then we wa'n't really onto Phil's game. You see, when a
+green city chap comes to the Old Home House--and the land knows there's
+freaks enough do come--we always try to make things pleasant for him,
+and the last thing we'd think of was making him a show afore folks.
+So we couldn't b'lieve even now 'twas done a-purpose. But we was
+suspicious, a little.
+
+"Barzilla," says Jonadab, getting ready to turn in, "'tain't possible
+that that feller with the sprained last name is having fun with us, is
+it?"
+
+"Jonadab," says I, "I've been wondering that myself."
+
+And we wondered for an hour, and finally decided to wait a while and
+say nothing till we could ask Ebenezer. And the next morning one of the
+stewards comes up to our room with some coffee and grub, and says
+that Mr. Catesby-Stuart requested the pleasure of our comp'ny on a
+afore-breakfast ice-boat sail, and would meet us at the pier in half
+an hour. They didn't have breakfast at Ebenezer's till pretty close to
+dinner time, eleven o'clock, so we had time enough for quite a trip.
+
+Phil and the ice-boat met us on time. I s'pose it 'twas style, but, if I
+hadn't known I'd have swore he'd run short of duds and had dressed up in
+the bed-clothes. I felt of his coat when he wa'n't noticing, and if it
+wa'n't made out of a blanket then I never slept under one. And it
+made me think of my granddad to see what he had on his head--a reg'lar
+nightcap, tassel and all. Phil said he was sorry we turned in so early
+the night afore. Said he'd planned to entertain us all the evening. We
+didn't hurrah much at this--being suspicious, as I said--and he changed
+the subject to ice-boats.
+
+That ice-boat was a bird. I cal'lated to know a boat when I sighted one,
+but a flat-iron on skates was something bran-new. I didn't think much of
+it, and I could see that Jonadab didn't neither.
+
+But in about three shakes of a lamb's tail I was ready to take it all
+back and say I never said it. I done enough praying in the next half
+hour to square up for every Friday night meeting I'd missed sence I was
+a boy. Phil got sail onto her, and we moved out kind of slow.
+
+"Now, then," says he, "we'll take a little jaunt up the river. 'Course
+this isn't like one of your Cape Cod cats, but still--"
+
+And then I dug my finger nails into the deck and commenced: "Now I lay
+me." Talk about going! 'Twas "F-s-s-s-t!" and we was a mile from home.
+"Bu-z-z-z!" and we was just getting ready to climb a bank; but 'fore she
+nosed the shore Phil would put the helm over and we'd whirl round like
+a windmill, with me and Jonadab biting the planking, and hanging on for
+dear life, and my heart, that had been up in my mouth knocking the
+soles of my boots off. And Cap'n Catesby-Stuart would grin, and
+drawl: "'Course, this ain't like a Orham cat-boat, but she does fairly
+well--er--fairly. Now, for instance, how does this strike you?"
+
+It struck us--I don't think any got away. I expected every minute to
+land in the hereafter, and it got so that the prospect looked kind of
+inviting, if only to get somewheres where 'twas warm. That February wind
+went in at the top of my stiff hat and whizzed out through the legs of
+my thin Sunday pants till I felt for all the world like the ventilating
+pipe on an ice-chest. I could see why Phil was wearing the bed-clothes;
+what I was suffering for just then was a feather mattress on each side
+of me.
+
+Well, me and Jonadab was "it" for quite a spell. Phil had all the fun,
+and I guess he enjoyed it. If he'd stopped right then, when the fishing
+was good, I cal'late he'd have fetched port with a full hold; but no,
+he had to rub it in, so to speak, and that's where he slopped over. You
+know how 'tis when you're eating mince-pie--it's the "one more slice"
+that fetches the nightmare. Phil stopped to get that slice.
+
+He kept whizzing up and down that river till Jonadab and me kind of got
+over our variousness. We could manage to get along without spreading out
+like porous plasters, and could set up for a minute or so on a stretch.
+And twa'n't necessary for us to hold a special religious service every
+time the flat-iron come about. Altogether, we was in that condition
+where the doctor might have held out some hopes.
+
+And, in spite of the cold, we was noticing how Phil was sailing that
+three-cornered sneak-box--noticing and criticising; at least, I was, and
+Cap'n Jonadab, being, as I've said, the best skipper of small craft
+from Provincetown to Cohasset Narrows, must have had some ideas on the
+subject. Your old chum, Catesby-Stuart, thought he was mast-high
+so fur's sailing was concerned, anybody could see that, but he had
+something to larn. He wasn't beginning to get out all there was in that
+ice-boat. And just then along comes another feller in the same kind of
+hooker and gives us a hail. There was two other chaps on the boat with
+him.
+
+"Hello, Phil!" he yells, rounding his flat-iron into the wind abreast of
+ours and bobbing his night-cap. "I hoped you might be out. Are you game
+for a race?"
+
+"Archie," answers our skipper, solemn as a setting hen, "permit me to
+introduce to you Cap'n Jonadab Wixon and Admiral Barzilla Wingate, of
+Orham, on the Cape."
+
+I wasn't expecting to fly an admiral's pennant quite so quick, but I
+managed to shake out through my teeth--they was chattering like a box
+of dice--that I was glad to know the feller. Jonadab, he rattled loose
+something similar.
+
+"The Cap'n and the Admiral," says Phil, "having sailed the raging
+main for lo! these many years, are now favoring me with their advice
+concerning the navigation of ice-yachts. Archie, if you're willing to
+enter against such a handicap of brains and barnacles, I'll race you on
+a beat up to the point yonder, then on the ten mile run afore the wind
+to the buoy opposite the Club, and back to the cove by Dillaway's. And
+we'll make it a case of wine. Is it a go?"
+
+Archie, he laughed and said it was, and, all at once, the race was on.
+
+Now, Phil had lied when he said we was "favoring" him with advice,
+'cause we hadn't said a word; but that beat up to the point wa'n't half
+over afore Jonadab and me was dying to tell him a few things. He handled
+that boat like a lobster. Archie gained on every tack and come about for
+the run a full minute afore us.
+
+And on that run afore the wind 'twas worse than ever. The way Phil
+see-sawed that piece of pie back and forth over the river was a sin and
+shame. He could have slacked off his mainsail and headed dead for the
+buoy, but no, he jiggled around like an old woman crossing the road
+ahead of a funeral.
+
+Cap'n Jonadab was on edge. Racing was where he lived, as you might say,
+and he fidgeted like he was setting on a pin-cushion. By and by he snaps
+out:
+
+"Keep her off! Keep her off afore the wind! Can't you see where you're
+going?"
+
+Phil looked at him as if he was a graven image, and all the answer he
+made was; "Be calm, Barnacles, be calm!"
+
+But pretty soon I couldn't stand it no longer, and I busts out with:
+"Keep her off, Mr. What's-your name! For the Lord's sake, keep her off!
+He'll beat the life out of you!"
+
+And all the good that done was for me to get a stare that was colder
+than the wind, if such a thing's possible.
+
+But Jonadab got fidgetyer every minute, and when we come out into
+the broadest part of the river, within a little ways of the buoy, he
+couldn't stand it no longer.
+
+"You're spilling half the wind!" he yells. "Pint' her for the buoy or
+else you'll be licked to death! Jibe her so's she gits it full. Jibe
+her, you lubber! Don't you know how? Here! let me show you!"
+
+And the next thing I knew he fetched a hop like a frog, shoved Phil out
+of the way, grabbed the tiller, and jammed it over.
+
+She jibed--oh, yes, she jibed! If anybody says she didn't you send 'em
+to me. I give you my word that that flat-iron jibed twice--once for
+practice, I jedge, and then for business. She commenced by twisting and
+squirming like an eel. I jest had sense enough to clamp my mittens
+onto the little brass rail by the stern and hold on; then she jibed the
+second time. She stood up on two legs, the boom come over with a slat
+that pretty nigh took the mast with it, and the whole shebang whirled
+around as if it had forgot something. I have a foggy kind of remembrance
+of locking my mitten clamps fast onto that rail while the rest of me
+streamed out in the air like a burgee. Next thing I knew we was scooting
+back towards Dillaway's, with the sail catching every ounce that was
+blowing. Jonadab was braced across the tiller, and there, behind us, was
+the Honorable Philip Catesby-Stuart, flat on his back, with his blanket
+legs looking like a pair of compasses, and skimming in whirligigs over
+the slick ice towards Albany. HE hadn't had nothing to hold onto, you
+understand. Well, if I hadn't seen it, I wouldn't have b'lieved that a
+human being could spin so long or travel so fast on his back. His legs
+made a kind of smoky circle in the air over him, and he'd got such a
+start I thought he'd NEVER STOP a-going. He come to a place where some
+snow had melted in the sun and there was a pond, as you might say,
+on the ice, and he went through that, heaving spray like one of them
+circular lawn sprinklers the summer folks have. He'd have been as pretty
+as a fountain, if we'd had time to stop and look at him.
+
+"For the land sakes, heave to!" I yelled, soon's I could get my breath.
+"You've spilled the skipper!"
+
+"Skipper be durned!" howls Jonadab, squeezing the tiller and keeping on
+the course; "We'll come back for him by and by. It's our business to win
+this race."
+
+And, by ginger! we DID win it. The way Jonadab coaxed that cocked hat on
+runners over the ice was pretty--yes, sir, pretty! He nipped her close
+enough to the wind'ard, and he took advantage of every single chance.
+He always COULD sail; I'll say that for him. We walked up on Archie like
+he'd set down to rest, and passed him afore he was within a half mile of
+home. We run up abreast of Dillaway's, putting on all the fancy frills
+of a liner coming into port, and there was Ebenezer and a whole crowd of
+wedding company down by the landing.
+
+"Gosh!" says Jonadab, tugging at his whiskers: "'Twas Cape Cod against
+New York that time, and you can't beat the Cape when it comes to getting
+over water, not even if the water's froze. Hey, Barzilla?"
+
+Ebenezer came hopping over the ice towards us. He looked some surprised.
+
+"Where's Phil?" he says.
+
+Now, I'd clean forgot Phil and I guess Jonadab had, by the way he
+colored up.
+
+"Phil?" says he. "Phil? Oh, yes! We left him up the road a piece. Maybe
+we'd better go after him now."
+
+But old Dillaway had something to say.
+
+"Cap'n," he says, looking round to make sure none of the comp'ny was
+follering him out to the ice-boat. "I've wanted to speak to you afore,
+but I haven't had the chance. You mustn't b'lieve too much of what Mr.
+Catesby-Stuart says, nor you mustn't always do just what he suggests.
+You see," he says, "he's a dreadful practical joker."
+
+"Yes," says Jonadab, beginning to look sick. I didn't say nothing, but I
+guess I looked the same way.
+
+"Yes," said Ebenezer, kind of uneasy like; "Now, in that matter of Mrs.
+Granby. I s'pose Phil put you up to asking her about her son's laundry.
+Yes? Well, I thought so. You see, the fact is, her boy is a broker down
+in Wall Street, and he's been caught making some of what they call 'wash
+sales' of stock. It's against the rules of the Exchange to do that, and
+the papers have been full of the row. You can see," says Dillaway, "how
+the laundry question kind of stirred the old lady up. But, Lord! it must
+have been funny," and he commenced to grin.
+
+I looked at Jonadab, and he looked at me. I thought of Marm Granby, and
+her being "dying to know us," and I thought of the lies about the "hod
+of change" and all the rest, and I give you my word _I_ didn't grin, not
+enough to show my wisdom teeth, anyhow. A crack in the ice an inch wide
+would have held me, with room to spare; I know that.
+
+"Hum!" grunts Jonadab, kind of dry and bitter, as if he'd been taking
+wormwood tea; "_I_ see. He's been having a good time making durn fools
+out of us."
+
+"Well," says Ebenezer, "not exactly that, p'raps, but--"
+
+And then along comes Archie and his crowd in the other ice-boat.
+
+"Hi!" he yells. "Who sailed that boat of yours? He knew his business all
+right. I never saw anything better. Phil--why, where IS Phil?"
+
+I answered him. "Phil got out when we jibed," I says.
+
+"Was THAT Phil?" he hollers, and then the three of 'em just roared.
+
+"Oh, by Jove, you know!" says Archie, "that's the funniest thing I ever
+saw. And on Phil, too! He'll never hear the last of it at the club--hey,
+boys?" And then they just bellered and laughed again.
+
+When they'd gone, Jonadab turned to Ebenezer and he says: "That taking
+us out on this boat was another case of having fun with the countrymen.
+Hey?"
+
+"I guess so," says Dillaway. "I b'lieve he told one of the guests that
+he was going to put Cape Cod on ice this morning."
+
+I looked away up the river where a little black speck was just getting
+to shore. And I thought of how chilly the wind was out there, and how
+that ice-water must have felt, and what a long ways 'twas from home.
+And then I smiled, slow and wide; there was a barge load of joy in every
+half inch of that smile.
+
+"It's a cold day when Phil loses a chance for a joke," says Ebenezer.
+
+"'Tain't exactly what you'd call summery just now," I says. And we
+hauled down sail, run the ice-boat up to the wharf, and went up to our
+room to pack our extension cases for the next train.
+
+"You see," says Jonadab, putting in his other shirt, "it's easy enough
+to get the best of Cape folks on wash sales and lying, but when it comes
+to boats that's a different pair of shoes."
+
+"I guess Phil'll agree with you," I says.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE COUNT AND THE MANAGER
+
+
+The way we got into the hotel business in the first place come around
+like this: Me and Cap'n Jonadab went down to Wellmouth Port one day
+'long in March to look at some property he'd had left him. Jonadab's
+Aunt Sophrony had moved kind of sudden from that village to Beulah
+Land--they're a good ways apart, too--and Cap'n Jonadab had come in for
+the old farm, he being the only near relative.
+
+When you go to Wellmouth Port you get off the cars at Wellmouth Center
+and then take Labe Bearse's barge and ride four miles; and then, if the
+horse don't take a notion to lay down in the road and go to sleep, or a
+wheel don't come off or some other surprise party ain't sprung on you,
+you come to a place where there's a Baptist chapel that needs painting,
+and a little two-for-a-cent store that needs trade, and two or three
+houses that need building over, and any Lord's quantity of scrub pines
+and beach grass and sand. Then you take Labe's word for it that you've
+got to Wellmouth Port and get out of the barge and try to remember
+you're a church member.
+
+Well, Aunt Sophrony's house was a mile or more from the place where the
+barge stopped, and Jonadab and me, we hoofed it up there. We bought some
+cheese and crackers and canned things at the store, 'cause we expected
+to stay overnight in the house, and knew there wasn't no other way of
+getting provender.
+
+We got there after a spell and set down on the big piazza with our souls
+full of gratitude and our boots full of sand. Great, big, old-fashioned
+house with fourteen big bedrooms in it, big barn, sheds, and one thing
+or 'nother, and perched right on top of a hill with five or six acres
+of ground 'round it. And how the March wind did whoop in off the sea and
+howl and screech lonesomeness through the pine trees! You take it in
+the middle of the night, with the shutters rattling and the old joists
+a-creaking and Jonadab snoring like a chap sawing hollow logs, and if
+it wan't joy then my name ain't Barzilla Wingate. I don't wonder Aunt
+Sophrony died. I'd have died 'long afore she did if I knew I was checked
+plumb through to perdition. There'd be some company where I was going,
+anyhow.
+
+The next morning after ballasting up with the truck we'd bought at the
+store--the feller 'most keeled over when he found we was going to pay
+cash for it--we went out on the piazza again, and looked at the breakers
+and the pine trees and the sand, and held our hats on with both hands.
+
+"Jonadab," says I, "what'll you take for your heirloom?"
+
+"Well," he says, "Barzilla, the way I feel now, I think I'd take a
+return ticket to Orham and be afraid of being took up for swindling at
+that."
+
+Neither of us says nothing more for a spell, and, first thing you know,
+we heard a carriage rattling somewhere up the road. I was shipwrecked
+once and spent two days in a boat looking for a sail. When I heard that
+rattling I felt just the way I done when I sighted the ship that picked
+us up.
+
+"Judas!" says Jonadab, "there's somebody COMING!"
+
+We jumped out of our chairs and put for the corner of the house. There
+WAS somebody coming--a feller in a buggy, and he hitched his horse to
+the front fence and come whistling up the walk.
+
+He was a tall chap, with a smooth face, kind of sharp and knowing, and
+with a stiff hat set just a little on one side. His clothes was new and
+about a week ahead of up-to-date, his shoes shined till they lit up the
+lower half of his legs, and his pants was creased so's you could mow
+with 'em. Cool and slick! Say! in the middle of that deadliness and
+compared to Jonadab and me, he looked like a bird of Paradise in a coop
+of moulting pullets.
+
+"Cap'n Wixon?" he says to me, sticking out a gloved flipper.
+
+"Not guilty," says I. "There's the skipper. My name's Wingate."
+
+"Glad to have the pleasure, Mr. Wingate," he says. "Cap'n Wixon, yours
+truly."
+
+We shook hands, and he took each of us by the arm and piloted us back
+to the piazza, like a tug with a couple of coal barges. He pulled up a
+chair, crossed his legs on the rail, reached into the for'ard hatch of
+his coat and brought out a cigar case.
+
+"Smoke up," he says. We done it--I holding my hat to shut off the wind,
+while Jonadab used up two cards of matches getting the first light. When
+we got the cigars to going finally, the feller says:
+
+"My name's Brown--Peter T. Brown. I read about your falling heir to this
+estate, Cap'n Wixon, in a New Bedford paper. I happened to be in New
+Bedford then, representing the John B. Wilkins Unparalleled All Star
+Uncle Tom's Cabin and Ten Nights in a Bar-room Company. It isn't my
+reg'lar line, the show bus'ness, but it produced the necessary 'ham and'
+every day and the excelsior sleep inviter every night, so--but never
+mind that. Soon as I read the paper I came right down to look at the
+property. Having rubbered, back I go to Orham to see you. Your handsome
+and talented daughter says you are over here. That'll be about all--here
+I am. Now, then, listen to this."
+
+He went under his hatches again, rousted out a sheet of paper, unfolded
+it and read something like this--I know it by heart:
+
+"The great sea leaps and splashes before you as it leaped and splashed
+in the old boyhood days. The sea wind sings to you as it sang of old.
+The old dreams come back to you, the dreams you dreamed as you slumbered
+upon the cornhusk mattress in the clean, sweet little chamber of the old
+home. Forgotten are the cares of business, the scramble for money, the
+ruthless hunt for fame. Here are perfect rest and perfect peace.
+
+"Now what place would you say I was describing?" says the feller.
+
+"Heaven," says Jonadab, looking up, reverent like.
+
+You never see a body more disgusted than Brown.
+
+"Get out!" he snaps. "Do I look like the advance agent of Glory? Listen
+to this one."
+
+He unfurls another sheet of paper, and goes off on a tack about like
+this:
+
+"The old home! You who sit in your luxurious apartments, attended
+by your liveried servants, eating the costly dishes that bring you
+dyspepsia and kindred evils, what would you give to go back once more
+to the simple, cleanly living of the old house in the country? The old
+home, where the nights were cool and refreshing, the sleep deep and
+sound; where the huckleberry pies that mother fashioned were swimming in
+fragrant juice, where the shells of the clams for the chowder were snow
+white and the chowder itself a triumph; where there were no voices but
+those of the wind and sea; no--"
+
+"Don't!" busts out Jonadab. "Don't! I can't stand it!"
+
+He was mopping his eyes with his red bandanner. I was consider'ble shook
+up myself. The dear land knows we was more used to huckleberry pies and
+clam chowder than we was to liveried servants and costly dishes, but
+there was something in the way that feller read off that slush that just
+worked the pump handle. A hog would have cried; I know _I_ couldn't help
+it. As for Peter T. Brown, he fairly crowed.
+
+"It gets you!" he says. "I knew it would. And it'll get a heap of
+others, too. Well, we can't send 'em back to the old home, but we can
+trot the old home to them, or a mighty good imitation of it. Here it is;
+right here!"
+
+And he waves his hand up toward Aunt Sophrony's cast-off palace.
+
+Cap'n Jonadab set up straight and sputtered like a firecracker. A man
+hates to be fooled.
+
+"Old home!" he snorts. "Old county jail, you mean!"
+
+And then that Brown feller took his feet down off the rail, hitched his
+chair right in front of Jonadab and me and commenced to talk. And HOW
+he did talk! Say, he could talk a Hyannis fisherman into a missionary.
+I wish I could remember all he said; 'twould make a book as big as a
+dictionary, but 'twould be worth the trouble of writing it down. 'Fore
+he got through he talked a thousand dollars out of Cap'n Jonadab, and it
+takes a pretty hefty lecture to squeeze a quarter out of HIM. To make a
+long yarn short, this was his plan:
+
+He proposed to turn Aunt Sophrony's wind plantation into a hotel for
+summer boarders. And it wan't going to be any worn-out, regulation kind
+of a summer hotel neither.
+
+"Confound it, man!" he says, "they're sick of hot and cold water,
+elevators, bell wires with a nigger on the end, and all that. There's a
+raft of old codgers that call themselves 'self-made men'--meanin'
+that the Creator won't own 'em, and they take the responsibility
+themselves--that are always wishing they could go somewheres like the
+shacks where they lived when they were kids. They're always talking
+about it, and wishing they could go to the old home and rest. Rest! Why,
+say, there's as much rest to this place as there is sand, and there's
+enough of that to scour all the knives in creation."
+
+"But 'twill cost so like the dickens to furnish it," I says.
+
+"Furnish it!" says he. "Why, that's just it! It won't cost nothing to
+furnish it--nothing to speak of. I went through the house day before
+yesterday--crawled in the kitchen window--oh! it's all right, you can
+count the spoons--and there's eight of those bedrooms furnished just
+right, corded bedsteads, painted bureaus with glass knobs, 'God Bless
+Our Home' and Uncle Jeremiah's coffin plate on the wall, rag mats on
+the floor, and all the rest. All she needs is a little more of the same
+stuff, that I can buy 'round here for next to nothing--I used to buy for
+an auction room--and a little paint and fixings, and there she is. All
+I want from you folks is a little money--I'll chuck in two hundred and
+fifty myself--and you two can be proprietors and treasurers if you want
+to. But active manager and publicity man--that's yours cheerily, Peter
+Theodosius Brown!" And he slapped his plaid vest.
+
+Well, he talked all the forenoon and all the way to Orham on the train
+and most of that night. And when he heaved anchor, Jonadab had agreed
+to put up a thousand and I was in for five hundred and Peter contributed
+two hundred and fifty and experience and nerve. And the "Old Home House"
+was off the ways.
+
+And by the first of May 'twas open and ready for business, too. You
+never see such a driver as that feller Brown was. He had a new wide
+piazza built all 'round the main buildings, painted everything up fine,
+hired the three best women cooks in Wellmouth--and there's some good
+cooks on Cape Cod, too--and a half dozen chamber girls and waiters.
+He had some trouble getting corded beds and old bureaus for the empty
+rooms, but he got 'em finally. He bought the last bed of Beriah Burgess,
+up at East Harniss, and had quite a dicker getting it.
+
+"He thought he ought to get five dollars for it," says Brown, telling
+Jonadab and me about it. "Said he hated to part with it because his
+grandmother died in it. I told him I couldn't see any good reason why I
+should pay more for a bed just because it had killed his grandmother,
+so we split up and called it three dollars. 'Twas too much money, but we
+had to have it."
+
+And the advertisements! They was sent everywheres. Lots of 'em was what
+Peter called "reading notices," and them he mostly got for nothing, for
+he could talk an editor foolish same as he could anybody else. By the
+middle of April most of our money was gone, but every room in the house
+was let and we had applications coming by the pailful.
+
+And the folks that come had money, too--they had to have to pay Brown's
+rates. I always felt like a robber or a Standard Oil director every time
+I looked at the books. The most of 'em was rich folks--self-made men,
+just like Peter prophesied--and they brought their wives and daughters
+and slept on cornhusks and eat chowder and said 'twas great and just
+like old times. And they got the rest we advertised; we didn't cheat
+'em on REST. By ten o'clock pretty nigh all hands was abed, and 'twas so
+still all you could hear was the breakers or the wind, or p'raps a groan
+coming from a window where some boarder had turned over in his sleep and
+a corncob in the mattress had raked him crossways.
+
+There was one old chap that we'll call Dillaway--Ebenezer Dillaway.
+That wan't his name; his real one's too well known to tell. He runs the
+"Dillaway Combination Stores" that are all over the country. In them
+stores you can buy anything and buy it cheap--cheapness is Ebenezer's
+stronghold and job lots is his sheet anchor. He'll sell you a mowing
+machine and the grass seed to grow the hay to cut with it. He'll sell
+you a suit of clothes for two dollars and a quarter, and for ten cents
+more he'll sell you glue enough to stick it together again after you've
+worn it out in the rain. He'll sell you anything, and he's got cash
+enough to sink a ship.
+
+He come to the "Old Home House" with his daughter, and he took to the
+place right away. Said 'twas for all the world like where he used to
+live when he was a boy. He liked the grub and he liked the cornhusks
+and he liked Brown. Brown had a way of stealing a thing and yet paying
+enough for it to square the law--that hit Ebenezer where he lived.
+
+His daughter liked Brown, too, and 'twas easy enough to see that
+Brown liked her. She was a mighty pretty girl, the kind Peter called a
+"queen," and the active manager took to her like a cat to a fish.
+They was together more'n half the time, gitting up sailing parties, or
+playing croquet, or setting up on the "Lover's Nest," which was a
+kind of slab summer-house Brown had rigged up on the bluff where Aunt
+Sophrony's pig-pens used to be in the old days.
+
+Me and Jonadab see how things was going, and we'd look at one another
+and wink and shake our heads when the pair'd go by together. But all
+that was afore the count come aboard.
+
+We got our first letter from the count about the third of June. The
+writing was all over the plate like a biled dinner, and the English
+looked like it had been shook up in a bag, but it was signed with a nine
+fathom, toggle-jinted name that would give a pollparrot the lockjaw, and
+had the word "Count" on the bow of it.
+
+You never see a feller happier than Peter T. Brown.
+
+"Can he have rooms?" says Peter. "CAN he? Well, I should rise to
+elocute! He can have the best there is if yours truly has to bunk in the
+coop with the gladsome Plymouth Rock. That's what! He says he's a count
+and he'll be advertised as a count from this place to where rolls the
+Oregon."
+
+And he was, too. The papers was full of how Count What's-his-Name was
+hanging out at the "Old Home House," and we got more letters from rich
+old women and pork-pickling money bags than you could shake a stick at.
+If you want to catch the free and equal nabob of a glorious republic,
+bait up with a little nobility and you'll have your salt wet in no time.
+We had to rig up rooms in the carriage house, and me and Jonadab slept
+in the haymow.
+
+The count himself hove in sight on June fifteenth. He was a little,
+smoked Italian man with a pair of legs that would have been carried away
+in a gale, and a black mustache with waxed ends that you'd think would
+punch holes in the pillow case. His talk was like his writing, only
+worse, but from the time his big trunk with the foreign labels was
+carried upstairs, he was skipper and all hands of the "Old Home House."
+
+And the funny part of it was that old man Dillaway was as much gone on
+him as the rest. For a self-made American article he was the worst gone
+on this machine-made importation that ever you see. I s'pose when you've
+got more money than you can spend for straight goods you nat'rally go in
+for buying curiosities; I can't see no other reason.
+
+Anyway, from the minute the count come over the side it was "Good-by,
+Peter." The foreigner was first oar with the old man and general consort
+for the daughter. Whenever there was a sailing trip on or a spell of
+roosting in the Lover's Nest, Ebenezer would see that the count looked
+out for the "queen," while Brown stayed on the piazza and talked
+bargains with papa. It worried Peter--you could see that. He'd set in
+the barn with Jonadab and me, thinking, thinking, and all at once he'd
+bust out:
+
+"Bless that Dago's heart! I haven't chummed in with the degenerate
+aristocracy much in my time, but somewhere or other I've seen that chap
+before. Now where--where--where?"
+
+For the first two weeks the count paid his board like a major; then
+he let it slide. Jonadab and me was a little worried, but he was
+advertising us like fun, his photographs--snap shots by Peter--was
+getting into the papers, so we judged he was a good investment. But
+Peter got bluer and bluer.
+
+One night we was in the setting room--me and Jonadab and the count and
+Ebenezer. The "queen" and the rest of the boarders was abed.
+
+The count was spinning a pigeon English yarn of how he'd fought a duel
+with rapiers. When he'd finished, old Dillaway pounded his knee and sung
+out:
+
+"That's bus'ness! That's the way to fix 'em! No lawsuits, no argument,
+no delays. Just take 'em out and punch holes in 'em. Did you hear that,
+Brown?"
+
+"Yes, I heard it," says Peter, kind of absent-minded like. "Fighting
+with razors, wan't it?"
+
+Now there wan't nothing to that--'twas just some of Brown's sarcastic
+spite getting the best of him--but I give you my word that the count
+turned yellow under his brown skin, kind of like mud rising from the
+bottom of a pond.
+
+"What-a you say?" he says, bending for'ards.
+
+"Mr. Brown was mistaken, that's all," says Dillaway; "he meant rapiers."
+
+"But why-a razors--why-a razors?" says the count.
+
+Now I was watching Brown's face, and all at once I see it light up
+like you'd turned a searchlight on it. He settled back in his chair and
+fetched a long breath as if he was satisfied. Then he grinned and begged
+pardon and talked a blue streak for the rest of the evening.
+
+Next day he was the happiest thing in sight, and when Miss Dillaway and
+the count went Lover's Nesting he didn't seem to care a bit. All of
+a sudden he told Jonadab and me that he was going up to Boston that
+evening on bus'ness and wouldn't be back for a day or so. He wouldn't
+tell what the bus'ness was, either, but just whistled and laughed and
+sung, "Good-by, Susannah; don't you grieve for me," till train time.
+
+He was back again three nights afterward, and he come right out to the
+barn without going nigh the house. He had another feller with him, a
+kind of shabby dressed Italian man with curly hair.
+
+"Fellers," he says to me and Jonadab, "this is my friend, Mr. Macaroni;
+he's going to engineer the barber shop for a while."
+
+Well, we'd just let our other barber go, so we didn't think anything of
+this, but when he said that his friend Spaghetti was going to stay in
+the barn for a day or so, and that we needn't mention that he was there,
+we thought that was funny.
+
+But Peter done a lot of funny things the next day. One of 'em was to set
+a feller painting a side of the house by the count's window, that didn't
+need painting at all. And when the feller quit for the night, Brown told
+him to leave the ladder where 'twas.
+
+That evening the same crowd was together in the setting room. Peter was
+as lively as a cricket, talking, talking, all the time. By and by he
+says:
+
+"Oh, say, I want you to see the new barber. He can shave anything from
+a note to a porkypine. Come in here, Chianti!" he says, opening the door
+and calling out. "I want you."
+
+And in come the new Italian man, smiling and bowing and looking "meek
+and lowly, sick and sore," as the song says.
+
+Well, we laughed at Brown's talk and asked the Italian all kinds of fool
+questions and nobody noticed that the count wan't saying nothing. Pretty
+soon he gets up and says he guesses he'll go to his room, 'cause he
+feels sort of sick.
+
+And I tell you he looked sick. He was yellower than he was the other
+night, and he walked like he hadn't got his sea legs on. Old Dillaway
+was terrible sorry and kept asking if there wan't something he could do,
+but the count put him off and went out.
+
+"Now that's too bad!" says Brown. "Spaghetti, you needn't wait any
+longer."
+
+So the other Italian went out, too.
+
+And then Peter T. Brown turned loose and talked the way he done when
+me and Jonadab first met him. He just spread himself. He told of this
+bargain that he'd made and that sharp trade he had turned, while we set
+there and listened and laughed like a parsel of fools. And every time
+that Ebenezer'd get up to go to bed, Peter'd trot out a new yarn and
+he'd have to stop to listen to that. And it got to be eleven o'clock and
+then twelve and then one.
+
+It was just about quarter past one and we was laughing our heads off at
+one of Brown's jokes, when out under the back window there was a jingle
+and a thump and a kind of groaning and wiggling noise.
+
+"What on earth is that?" says Dillaway.
+
+"I shouldn't be surprised," says Peter, cool as a mack'rel on ice, "if
+that was his royal highness, the count."
+
+He took up the lamp and we all hurried outdoors and 'round the corner.
+And there, sure enough, was the count, sprawling on the ground with his
+leather satchel alongside of him, and his foot fast in a big steel trap
+that was hitched by a chain to the lower round of the ladder. He rared
+up on his hands when he see us and started to say something about an
+outrage.
+
+"Oh, that's all right, your majesty," says Brown. "Hi, Chianti, come
+here a minute! Here's your old college chum, the count, been and put his
+foot in it."
+
+When the new barber showed up the count never made another move, just
+wilted like a morning-glory after sunrise. But you never see a worse
+upset man than Ebenezer Dillaway.
+
+"But what does this mean?" says he, kind of wild like. "Why don't you
+take that thing off his foot?"
+
+"Oh," says Peter, "he's been elongating my pedal extremity for the last
+month or so; I don't see why I should kick if he pulls his own for a
+while. You see," he says, "it's this way:
+
+"Ever since his grace condescended to lend the glory of his countenance
+to this humble roof," he says, "it's stuck in my mind that I'd seen the
+said countenance somewhere before. The other night when our conversation
+was trifling with the razor subject and the Grand Lama here"--that's the
+name he called the count--"was throwing in details about his carving his
+friends, it flashed across me where I'd seen it. About a couple of years
+ago I was selling the guileless rural druggists contiguous to Scranton,
+Pennsylvania, the tasty and happy combination called 'Dr. Bulger's
+Electric Liver Cure,' the same being a sort of electric light for shady
+livers, so to speak. I made my headquarters at Scranton, and, while
+there, my hair was shortened and my chin smoothed in a neat but gaudy
+barber shop, presided over by my friend Spaghetti here, and my equally
+valued friend the count."
+
+"So," says Peter, smiling and cool as ever, "when it all came back
+to me, as the song says, I journeyed to Scranton accompanied by a
+photograph of his lordship. I was lucky enough to find Macaroni in the
+same old shop. He knew the count's classic profile at once. It seems his
+majesty had hit up the lottery a short time previous for a few hundred
+and had given up barbering. I suppose he'd read in the papers that the
+imitation count line was stylish and profitable and so he tried it on.
+It may be," says Brown, offhand, "that he thought he might marry some
+rich girl. There's some fool fathers, judging by the papers, that are
+willing to sell their daughters for the proper kind of tag on a package
+like him."
+
+Old man Dillaway kind of made a face, as if he'd ate something that
+tasted bad, but he didn't speak.
+
+"And so," says Peter, "Spaghetti and I came to the Old Home together,
+he to shave for twelve per, and I to set traps, etcetera. That's a good
+trap," he says, nodding, "I bought it in Boston. I had the teeth filed
+down, but the man that sold it said 'twould hold a horse. I left the
+ladder by his grace's window, thinking he might find it handy after he'd
+seen his friend of other days, particularly as the back door was locked.
+
+"And now," goes on Brown, short and sharp, "let's talk business. Count,"
+he says, "you are set back on the books about sixty odd for old home
+comforts. We'll cut off half of that and charge it to advertising. You
+draw well, as the man said about the pipe. But the other thirty you'll
+have to work out. You used to shave like a bird. I'll give you twelve
+dollars a week to chip in with Macaroni here and barber the boarders."
+
+But Dillaway looked anxious.
+
+"Look here, Brown," he says, "I wouldn't do that. I'll pay his board
+bill and his traveling expenses if he clears out this minute. It seems
+tough to set him shaving after he's been such a big gun around here."
+
+I could see right off that the arrangement suited Brown first rate and
+was exactly what he'd been working for, but he pretended not to care
+much for it.
+
+"Oh! I don't know," he says. "I'd rather be a sterling barber than a
+plated count. But anything to oblige you, Mr. Dillaway."
+
+So the next day there was a nobleman missing at the "Old Home House,"
+and all we had to remember him by was a trunk full of bricks. And Peter
+T. Brown and the "queen" was roosting in the Lover's Nest; and the new
+Italian was busy in the barber shop. He could shave, too. He shaved me
+without a pull, and my face ain't no plush sofy, neither.
+
+And before the season was over the engagement was announced. Old
+Dillaway took it pretty well, considering. He liked Peter, and his
+having no money to speak of didn't count, because Ebenezer had enough
+for all hands. The old man said he'd been hoping for a son-in-law
+sharp enough to run the "Consolidated Stores" after he was gone, and it
+looked, he said, as if he'd found him.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE SOUTH SHORE WEATHER BUREAU
+
+
+"But," says Cap'n Jonadab and me together, jest as if we was "reading in
+concert" same as the youngsters do in school, "but," we says, "will it
+work? Will anybody pay for it?"
+
+"Work?" says Peter T., with his fingers in the arm-holes of the
+double-breasted danger-signal that he called a vest, and with his cigar
+tilted up till you'd think 'twould set his hat-brim afire. "Work?" says
+he. "Well, maybe 'twouldn't work if the ordinary brand of canned
+lobster was running it, but with ME to jerk the lever and sound the loud
+timbrel--why, say! it's like stealing money from a blind cripple that's
+hard of hearing."
+
+"Yes, I know," says Cap'n Jonadab. "But this ain't like starting the Old
+Home House. That was opening up a brand-new kind of hotel that nobody
+ever heard of before. This is peddling weather prophecies when there's
+the Gov'ment Weather Bureau running opposition--not to mention the Old
+Farmer's Almanac, and I don't know how many more," he says.
+
+Brown took his patent leathers down off the rail of the piazza, give the
+ashes of his cigar a flip--he knocked 'em into my hat that was on the
+floor side of his chair, but he was too excited to mind--and he says:
+
+"Confound it, man!" he says. "You can throw more cold water than a
+fire-engine. Old Farmer's Almanac! This isn't any 'About this time
+look out for snow' business. And it ain't any Washington cold slaw like
+'Weather for New England and Rocky Mountains, Tuesday to Friday; cold to
+warm; well done on the edges with a rare streak in the middle, preceded
+or followed by rain, snow, or clearing. Wind, north to south, varying
+east and west.' No siree! this is TO-DAY'S weather for Cape Cod, served
+right off the griddle on a hot plate, and cooked by the chef at that.
+You don't realize what a regular dime-museum wonder that feller is," he
+says.
+
+Well, I suppose we didn't. You see, Jonadab and me, like the rest of the
+folks around Wellmouth, had come to take Beriah Crocker and his weather
+notions as the regular thing, like baked beans on a Saturday night.
+Beriah, he--
+
+But there! I've been sailing stern first. Let's get her headed right, if
+we ever expect to turn the first mark. You see, 'twas this way:
+
+'Twas in the early part of May follering the year that the "Old Home
+House" was opened. We'd had the place all painted up, decks holy-stoned,
+bunks overhauled, and one thing or 'nother, and the "Old Home" was all
+taut and shipshape, ready for the crew--boarders, I mean. Passages was
+booked all through the summer and it looked as if our second season
+would be better'n our first.
+
+Then the Dillaway girl--she was christened Lobelia, like her mother,
+but she'd painted it out and cruised under the name of Belle since the
+family got rich--she thought 'twould be nice to have what she called a
+"spring house-party" for her particular friends 'fore the regular season
+opened. So Peter--he being engaged at the time and consequent in that
+condition where he'd have put on horns and "mooed" if she'd give the
+order--he thought 'twould be nice, too, and for a week it was "all hands
+on deck!" getting ready for the "house-party."
+
+Two days afore the thing was to go off the ways Brown gets a letter from
+Belle, and in it says she's invited a whole lot of folks from Chicago
+and New York and Boston and the land knows where, and that they've never
+been to the Cape and she wants to show 'em what a "quaint" place it
+is. "Can't you get," says she, "two or three delightful, queer, old
+'longshore characters to be at work 'round the hotel? It'll give such a
+touch of local color," she says.
+
+So out comes Peter with the letter.
+
+"Barzilla," he says to me, "I want some characters. Know anybody that's
+a character?"
+
+"Well," says I, "there's Nate Slocum over to Orham. He'd steal anything
+that wa'n't spiked down. He's about the toughest character I can think
+of, offhand, this way."
+
+"Oh, thunder!" says Brown. "I don't want a crook; that wouldn't be any
+novelty to THIS crowd," he says. "What I'm after is an odd stick;
+a feller with pigeons in his loft. Not a lunatic, but jest a queer
+genius--little queerer than you and the Cap'n here."
+
+After a while we got his drift, and I happened to think of Beriah and
+his chum, Eben Cobb. They lived in a little shanty over to Skakit P'int
+and got their living lobstering, and so on. Both of 'em had saved a few
+thousand dollars, but you couldn't get a cent of it without giving 'em
+ether, and they'd rather live like Portugees than white men any day,
+unless they was paid to change. Beriah's pet idee was foretelling what
+the weather was going to be. And he could do it, too, better'n anybody
+I ever see. He'd smell a storm further'n a cat can smell fish, and he
+hardly ever made a mistake. Prided himself on it, you understand, like a
+boy does on his first long pants. His prophecies was his idols, so's
+to speak, and you couldn't have hired him to foretell what he knew was
+wrong, not for no money.
+
+Peter said Beriah and Eben was just the sort of "cards" he was looking
+for and drove right over to see 'em. He hooked 'em, too. I knew he
+would; he could talk a Come-Outer into believing that a Unitarian wasn't
+booked for Tophet, if he set out to.
+
+So the special train from Boston brought the "house-party" down, and our
+two-seated buggy brought Beriah and Eben over. They didn't have anything
+to do but to look "picturesque" and say "I snum!" and "I swan to man!"
+and they could do that to the skipper's taste. The city folks thought
+they was "just too dear and odd for anything," and made 'em bigger fools
+than ever, which wa'n't necessary.
+
+The second day of the "party" was to be a sailing trip clear down to the
+life-saving station on Setuckit Beach. It certainly looked as if 'twas
+going to storm, and the Gov'ment predictions said it was, but Beriah
+said "No," and stuck out that 'twould clear up by and by. Peter wanted
+to know what I thought about their starting, and I told him that 'twas
+my experience that where weather was concerned Beriah was a good, safe
+anchorage. So they sailed away, and, sure enough, it cleared up fine.
+And the next day the Gov'ment fellers said "clear" and Beriah said
+"rain," and she poured a flood. And, after three or four of such
+experiences, Beriah was all hunky with the "house-party," and they
+looked at him as a sort of wonderful freak, like a two-headed calf or
+the "snake child," or some such outrage.
+
+So, when the party was over, 'round comes Peter, busting with a new
+notion. What he cal'lated to do was to start a weather prophesying
+bureau all on his own hook, with Beriah for prophet, and him for manager
+and general advertiser, and Jonadab and me to help put up the money
+to get her going. He argued that summer folks from Scituate to
+Provincetown, on both sides of the Cape, would pay good prices for the
+real thing in weather predictions. The Gov'ment bureau, so he said,
+covered too much ground, but Beriah was local and hit her right on the
+head. His idee was to send Beriah's predictions by telegraph to agents
+in every Cape town each morning, and the agents was to hand 'em to
+susscribers. First week a free trial; after that, so much per prophecy.
+
+And it worked--oh, land, yes! it worked. Peter's letters and circulars
+would satisfy anybody that black was white, and the free trial was a
+sure bait. I don't know why 'tis, but if you offered the smallpox free,
+there'd be a barrel of victims waiting in line to come down with it.
+Brown rigged up a little shanty on the bluff in front of the "Old Home,"
+and filled it full of barometers and thermometers and chronometers and
+charts, and put Beriah and Eben inside to look wise and make b'lieve do
+something. That was the office of "The South Shore Weather Bureau," and
+'twas sort of sacred and holy, and 'twould kill you to see the boarders
+tip-toeing up and peeking in the winder to watch them two old coots
+squinting through a telescope at the sky or scribbling rubbish on paper.
+And Beriah was right 'most every time. I don't know why--my notion
+is that he was born that way, same as some folks are born lightning
+calculators--but I'll never forget the first time Peter asked him how he
+done it.
+
+"Wall," drawls Beriah, "now to-day looks fine and clear, don't it? But
+last night my left elbow had rheumatiz in it, and this morning my bones
+ache, and my right toe-j'int is sore, so I know we'll have an easterly
+wind and rain this evening. If it had been my left toe now, why--"
+
+Peter held up both hands.
+
+"That'll do," he says. "I ain't asking any more questions. ONLY, if the
+boarders or outsiders ask you how you work it, you cut out the bones
+and toe business and talk science and temperature to beat the cars.
+Understand, do you? It's science or no eight-fifty in the pay envelope.
+Left toe-joint!" And he goes off grinning.
+
+We had to have Eben, though he wasn't wuth a green hand's wages as a
+prophet. But him and Beriah stuck by each other like two flies in the
+glue-pot, and you couldn't hire one without t'other. Peter said
+'twas all right--two prophets looked better'n one, anyhow; and, as
+subscriptions kept up pretty well, and the Bureau paid a fair profit,
+Jonadab and me didn't kick.
+
+In July, Mrs. Freeman--she had charge of the upper decks in the "Old
+Home" and was rated head chambermaid--up and quit, and being as we
+couldn't get another capable Cape Codder just then, Peter fetched down
+a woman from New York; one that a friend of old Dillaway's recommended.
+She was able seaman so far's the work was concerned, but she'd been
+good-looking once and couldn't forget it, and she was one of them
+clippers that ain't happy unless they've got a man in tow. You know the
+kind: pretty nigh old enough to be a coal-barge, but all rigged up with
+bunting and frills like a yacht.
+
+Her name was Kelly, Emma Kelly, and she was a widow--whether from choice
+or act of Providence I don't know. The other women servants was all down
+on her, of course, 'cause she had city ways and a style of wearing
+her togs that made their Sunday gowns and bonnets look like distress
+signals. But they couldn't deny that she was a driver so far's her work
+was concerned. She'd whoop through the hotel like a no'theaster and have
+everything done, and done well, by two o'clock in the afternoon. Then
+she'd be ready to dress up and go on parade to astonish the natives.
+
+Men--except the boarders, of course--was scarce around Wellmouth Port.
+First the Kelly lady begun to flag Cap'n Jonadab and me, but we sheered
+off and took to the offing. Jonadab, being a widower, had had his
+experience, and I never had the marrying disease and wasn't hankering
+to catch it. So Emma had to look for other victims, and the prophet-shop
+looked to her like the most likely feeding-ground.
+
+And, would you b'lieve it, them two old critters, Beriah and Eben,
+gobbled the bait like sculpins. If she'd been a woman like the kind they
+was used to--the Cape kind, I mean--I don't s'pose they'd have paid any
+attention to her; but she was diff'rent from anything they'd ever run
+up against, and the first thing you know, she had 'em both poke-hooked.
+'Twas all in fun on her part first along, I cal'late, but pretty soon
+some idiot let out that both of 'em was wuth money, and then the race
+was on in earnest.
+
+She'd drop in at the weather-factory 'long in the afternoon and pretend
+to be terrible interested in the goings on there.
+
+"I don't see how you two gentlemen CAN tell whether it's going to rain
+or not. I think you are the most WONDERFUL men! Do tell me, Mr. Crocker,
+will it be good weather to-morrer? I wanted to take a little walk up to
+the village about four o'clock if it was."
+
+And then Beriah'd swell out like a puffing pig and put on airs and look
+out of the winder, and crow:
+
+"Yes'm, I jedge that we'll have a southerly breeze in the morning
+with some fog, but nothing to last, nothing to last. The afternoon, I
+cal'late, 'll be fair. I--I--that is to say, I was figgering on goin' to
+the village myself to-morrer."
+
+Then Emma would pump up a blush, and smile, and purr that she was SO
+glad, 'cause then she'd have comp'ny. And Eben would glower at Beriah
+and Beriah'd grin sort of superior-like, and the mutual barometer, so's
+to speak, would fall about a foot during the next hour. The brotherly
+business between the two prophets was coming to an end fast, and all on
+account of Mrs. Kelly.
+
+She played 'em even for almost a month; didn't show no preference
+one way or the other. First 'twas Eben that seemed to be eating up to
+wind'ard, and then Beriah'd catch a puff and gain for a spell. Cap'n
+Jonadab and me was uneasy, for we was afraid the Weather Bureau would
+suffer 'fore the thing was done with; but Peter was away, and we didn't
+like to interfere till he come home.
+
+And then, all at once, Emma seemed to make up her mind, and 'twas all
+Eben from that time on. The fact is, the widder had learned, somehow or
+'nother, that he had the most money of the two. Beriah didn't give up;
+he stuck to it like a good one, but he was falling behind and he knew
+it. As for Eben, he couldn't help showing a little joyful pity, so's to
+speak, for his partner, and the atmosphere in that rain lab'ratory got
+so frigid that I didn't know but we'd have to put up a stove. The two
+wizards was hardly on speaking terms.
+
+The last of August come and the "Old Home House" was going to close up
+on the day after Labor Day. Peter was down again, and so was Ebenezer
+and Belle, and there was to be high jinks to celebrate the season's
+wind-up. There was to be a grand excursion and clambake at Setuckit
+Beach and all hands was going--four catboats full.
+
+Of course, the weather must be good or it's no joy job taking females to
+Setuckit in a catboat. The night before the big day, Peter came out to
+the Weather Bureau and Jonadab and me dropped in likewise. Beriah was
+there all alone; Eben was out walking with Emma.
+
+"Well, Jeremiah," says Brown, chipper as a mack'rel gull on a spar-buoy,
+"what's the outlook for to-morrer? The Gov'ment sharp says there's a big
+storm on the way up from Florida. Is he right, or only an 'also ran,' as
+usual?"
+
+"Wall," says Beriah, goin' to the door, "I don't know, Mr. Brown. It
+don't look just right; I swan it don't! I can tell you better in the
+morning. I hope 'twill be fair, too, 'cause I was cal'lating to get
+a day off and borrer your horse and buggy and go over to the Ostable
+camp-meeting. It's the big day over there," he says.
+
+Now, I knew of course, that he meant he was going to take the widder
+with him, but Peter spoke up and says he:
+
+"Sorry, Beriah, but you're too late. Eben asked me for the horse and
+buggy this morning. I told him he could have the open buggy; the other
+one's being repaired, and I wouldn't lend the new surrey to the Grand
+Panjandrum himself. Eben's going to take the fair Emma for a ride," he
+says. "Beriah, I'm afraid our beloved Cobb is, in the innocence of his
+youth, being roped in by the sophisticated damsel in the shoo-fly hat,"
+says he.
+
+Me and Jonadab hadn't had time to tell Peter how matters stood betwixt
+the prophets, or most likely he wouldn't have said that. It hit Beriah
+like a snowslide off a barn roof. I found out afterwards that the widder
+had more'n half promised to go with HIM. He slumped down in his chair
+as if his mainmast was carried away, and he didn't even rise to blow
+for the rest of the time we was in the shanty. Just set there, looking
+fishy-eyed at the floor.
+
+Next morning I met Eben prancing around in his Sunday clothes and with a
+necktie on that would make a rainbow look like a mourning badge.
+
+"Hello!" says I. "You seem to be pretty chipper. You ain't going to
+start for that fifteen-mile ride through the woods to Ostable, be you?
+Looks to me as if 'twas going to rain."
+
+"The predictions for this day," says he, "is cloudy in the forenoon, but
+clearing later on. Wind, sou'east, changing to south and sou'west."
+
+"Did Beriah send that out?" says I, looking doubtful, for if ever it
+looked like dirty weather, I thought it did right then.
+
+"ME and Beriah sent it out," he says, jealous-like. But I knew 'twas
+Beriah's forecast or he wouldn't have been so sure of it.
+
+Pretty soon out comes Peter, looking dubious at the sky.
+
+"If it was anybody else but Beriah," he says, "I'd say this mornings
+prophecy ought to be sent to Puck. Where is the seventh son of the
+seventh son--the only original American seer?"
+
+He wasn't in the weather-shanty, and we finally found him on one of the
+seats 'way up on the edge of the bluff. He didn't look 'round when we
+come up, but just stared at the water.
+
+"Hey, Elijah!" says Brown. He was always calling Beriah "Elijah" or
+"Isaiah" or "Jeremiah" or some other prophet name out of Scripture.
+"Does this go?" And he held out the telegraph-blank with the morning's
+prediction on it.
+
+Beriah looked around just for a second. He looked to me sort of sick
+and pale--that is, as pale as his sun-burned rhinoceros hide would ever
+turn.
+
+"The forecast for to-day," says he, looking at the water again, "is
+cloudy in the forenoon, but clearing later on. Wind sou'east, changing
+to south and sou'west."
+
+"Right you are!" says Peter, joyful. "We start for Setuckit, then. And
+here's where the South Shore Weather Bureau hands another swift jolt to
+your Uncle Sam."
+
+So, after breakfast, the catboats loaded up, the girls giggling and
+screaming, and the men boarders dressed in what they hoped was sea-togs.
+They sailed away 'round the lighthouse and headed up the shore, and the
+wind was sou'east sure and sartin, but the "clearing" part wasn't in
+sight yet.
+
+Beriah didn't watch 'em go. He stayed in the shanty. But by and by, when
+Eben drove the buggy out of the barn and Emma come skipping down the
+piazza steps, I see him peeking out of the little winder.
+
+The Kelly critter had all sail sot and colors flying. Her dress was some
+sort of mosquito netting with wall-paper posies on it, and there was
+more ribbons flapping than there is reef-p'ints on a mainsail. And
+her hat! Great guns! It looked like one of them pictures you see in a
+flower-seed catalogue.
+
+"Oh!" she squeals, when she sees the buggy. "Oh! Mr. Cobb. Ain't you
+afraid to go in that open carriage? It looks to me like rain."
+
+But Eben waved his flipper, scornful. "My forecast this morning," says
+he, "is cloudy now, but clearing by and by. You trust to me, Mis' Kelly.
+Weather's my business."
+
+"Of COURSE I trust you, Mr. Cobb," she says, "Of course I trust you, but
+I should hate to spile my gown, that's all."
+
+They drove out of the yard, fine as fiddlers, and I watched 'em go. When
+I turned around, there was Beriah watching 'em too, and he was smiling
+for the first time that morning. But it was one of them kind of smiles
+that makes you wish he'd cry.
+
+At ha'f-past ten it begun to sprinkle; at eleven 'twas raining hard; at
+noon 'twas a pouring, roaring, sou'easter, and looked good for the next
+twelve hours at least.
+
+"Good Lord! Beriah," says Cap'n Jonadab, running into the Weather
+Bureau, "you've missed stays THIS time, for sure. Has your
+prophecy-works got indigestion?" he says.
+
+But Beriah wasn't there. The shanty was closed, and we found out
+afterwards that he spent that whole day in the store down at the Port.
+
+By two o'clock 'twas so bad that I put on my ileskins and went over to
+Wellmouth and telephoned to the Setuckit Beach life-saving station
+to find out if the clambakers had got there right side up. They'd got
+there; fact is, they was in the station then, and the language Peter
+hove through that telephone was enough to melt the wires. 'Twas all in
+the shape of compliments to the prophet, and I heard Central tell him
+she'd report it to the head office. Brown said 'twas blowing so they'd
+have to come back by the inside channel, and that meant landing 'way up
+Harniss way, and hiring teams to come to the Port with from there.
+
+'Twas nearly eight when they drove into the yard and come slopping
+up the steps. And SUCH a passel of drownded rats you never see. The
+women-folks made for their rooms, but the men hopped around the parlor,
+shedding puddles with every hop, and hollering for us to trot out the
+head of the Weather Bureau.
+
+"Bring him to me," orders Peter, stopping to pick his pants loose from
+his legs; "I yearn to caress him."
+
+And what old Dillaway said was worse'n that.
+
+But Beriah didn't come to be caressed. 'Twas quarter past nine when we
+heard wheels in the yard.
+
+"By mighty!" yells Cap'n Jonadab; "it's the camp-meeting pilgrims. I
+forgot them. Here's a show."
+
+He jumped to open the door, but it opened afore he got there and Beriah
+come in. He didn't pay no attention to the welcome he got from the gang,
+but just stood on the sill, pale, but grinning the grin that a terrier
+dog has on just as you're going to let the rat out of the trap.
+
+Somebody outside says: "Whoa, consarn you!" Then there was a thump and a
+sloshy stamping on the steps, and in comes Eben and the widder.
+
+I had one of them long-haired, foreign cats once that a British skipper
+gave me. 'Twas a yeller and black one and it fell overboard. When we
+fished it out it looked just like the Kelly woman done then. Everybody
+but Beriah just screeched--we couldn't help it. But the prophet didn't
+laugh; he only kept on grinning.
+
+Emma looked once round the room, and her eyes, as well as you could see
+'em through the snarl of dripping hair and hat-trimming, fairly snapped.
+Then she went up the stairs three steps at a time.
+
+Eben didn't say a word. He just stood there and leaked. Leaked and
+smiled. Yes, sir! his face, over the mess that had been that rainbow
+necktie, had the funniest look of idiotic joy on it that ever _I_ see.
+In a minute everybody else shut up. We didn't know what to make of it.
+
+'Twas Beriah that spoke first.
+
+"He! he! he!" he chuckled. "He! he! he! Wasn't it kind of wet coming
+through the woods, Mr. Cobb? What does Mrs. Kelly think of the day her
+beau picked out to go to camp-meeting in?"
+
+Then Eben came out of his trance.
+
+"Beriah," says he, holding out a dripping flipper, "shake!"
+
+But Beriah didn't shake. Just stood still.
+
+"I've got a s'prise for you, shipmate," goes on Eben. "Who did you say
+that lady was?"
+
+Beriah didn't answer. I begun to think that some of the wet had soaked
+through the assistant prophet's skull and had give him water on the
+brain.
+
+"You called her Mis' Kelly, didn't you?" gurgled Eben. "Wall, that
+ain't her name. Her and me stopped at the Baptist parsonage over to East
+Harniss when we was on the way home and got married. She's Mis' Cobb
+now," he says.
+
+Well, the queerest part of it was that 'twas the bad weather was really
+what brought things to a head so sudden. Eben hadn't spunked up anywhere
+nigh enough courage to propose, but they stopped at Ostable so long,
+waiting for the rain to let up, that 'twas after dark when they was half
+way home. Then Emma--oh, she was a slick one!--said that her reputation
+would be ruined, out that way with a man that wa'n't her husband. If
+they was married now, she said--and even a dummy could take THAT hint.
+
+I found Beriah at the weather-shanty about an hour afterwards with his
+head on his arms. He looked up when I come in.
+
+"Mr. Wingate," he says, "I'm a fool, but for the land's sake don't think
+I'm SUCH a fool as not to know that this here storm was bound to strike
+to-day. I lied," he says; "I lied about the weather for the first time
+in my life; lied right up and down so as to get her mad with him. My
+repertation's gone forever. There's a feller in the Bible that sold
+his--his birthday, I think 'twas--for a mess of porridge. I'm him;
+only," and he groaned awful, "they've cheated me out of the porridge."
+
+But you ought to have read the letters Peter got next day from
+subscribers that had trusted to the prophecy and had gone on picnics
+and such like. The South Shore Weather Bureau went out of business right
+then.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE DOG STAR
+
+
+It commenced the day after we took old man Stumpton out codfishing. Me
+and Cap'n Jonadab both told Peter T. Brown that cod wa'n't biting much
+at that season, but he said cod be jiggered.
+
+"What's troubling me just now is landing suckers," he says.
+
+So the four of us got into the Patience M.--she's Jonadab's catboat--and
+sot sail for the Crab Ledge. And we hadn't more'n got our lines over the
+side than we struck into a school of dogfish. Now, if you know anything
+about fishing you know that when the dogfish strike on it's "good-by,
+cod!" So when Stumpton hauled a big fat one over the rail I could tell
+that Jonadab was ready to swear. But do you think it disturbed your old
+friend, Peter Brown? No, sir! He never winked an eye.
+
+"By Jove!" he sings out, staring at that dogfish as if 'twas a gold
+dollar. "By Jove!" says he, "that's the finest specimen of a Labrador
+mack'rel ever I see. Bait up, Stump, and go at 'em again."
+
+So Stumpton, having lived in Montana ever sence he was five years old,
+and not having sighted salt water in all that time, he don't know but
+what there IS such critters as "Labrador mack'rel," and he goes at 'em,
+hammer and tongs. When we come ashore we had eighteen dogfish, four
+sculpin and a skate, and Stumpton was the happiest loon in Ostable
+County. It was all we could do to keep him from cooking one of them
+"mack'rel" with his own hands. If Jonadab hadn't steered him out of the
+way while I sneaked down to the Port and bought a bass, we'd have had to
+eat dogfish--we would, as sure as I'm a foot high.
+
+Stumpton and his daughter, Maudina, was at the Old Home House.
+'Twas late in September, and the boarders had cleared out. Old
+Dillaway--Peter's father-in-law--had decoyed the pair on from Montana
+because him and some Wall Street sharks were figgering on buying some
+copper country out that way that Stumpton owned. Then Dillaway was took
+sick, and Peter, who was just back from his wedding tower, brought the
+Montana victims down to the Cape with the excuse to give 'em a good time
+alongshore, but really to keep 'em safe and out of the way till Ebenezer
+got well enough to finish robbing 'em. Belle--Peter's wife--stayed
+behind to look after papa.
+
+Stumpton was a great tall man, narrer in the beam, and with a figgerhead
+like a henhawk. He enjoyed himself here at the Cape. He fished, and
+loafed, and shot at a mark. He sartinly could shoot. The only thing he
+was wishing for was something alive to shoot at, and Brown had promised
+to take him out duck shooting. 'Twas too early for ducks, but that
+didn't worry Peter any; he'd a-had ducks to shoot at if he bought all
+the poultry in the township.
+
+Maudina was like her name, pretty, but sort of soft and mushy. She had
+big blue eyes and a baby face, and her principal cargo was poetry. She
+had a deckload of it, and she'd heave it overboard every time the wind
+changed. She was forever ordering the ocean to "roll on," but she didn't
+mean it; I had her out sailing once when the bay was a little mite
+rugged, and I know. She was just out of a convent school, and you could
+see she wasn't used to most things--including men.
+
+The first week slipped along, and everything was serene. Bulletins from
+Ebenezer more encouraging every day, and no squalls in sight. But 'twas
+almost too slick. I was afraid the calm was a weather breeder, and sure
+enough, the hurricane struck us the day after that fishing trip.
+
+Peter had gone driving with Maudina and her dad, and me and Cap'n
+Jonadab was smoking on the front piazza. I was pulling at a pipe, but
+the cap'n had the home end of one of Stumpton's cigars harpooned on the
+little blade of his jackknife, and was busy pumping the last drop of
+comfort out of it. I never see a man who wanted to get his money's wuth
+more'n Jonadab, I give you my word, I expected to see him swaller that
+cigar remnant every minute.
+
+And all to once he gives a gurgle in his throat.
+
+"Take a drink of water," says I, scared like.
+
+"Well, by time!" says he, pointing.
+
+A feller had just turned the corner of the house and was heading up in
+our direction. He was a thin, lengthy craft, with more'n the average
+amount of wrists sticking out of his sleeves, and with long black hair
+trimmed aft behind his ears and curling on the back of his neck. He
+had high cheek bones and kind of sunk-in black eyes, and altogether he
+looked like "Dr. Macgoozleum, the Celebrated Blackfoot Medicine Man."
+If he'd hollered: "Sagwa Bitters, only one dollar a bottle!" I wouldn't
+have been surprised.
+
+But his clothes--don't say a word! His coat was long and buttoned up
+tight, so's you couldn't tell whether he had a vest on or not--though
+'twas a safe bet he hadn't--and it and his pants was made of the loudest
+kind of black-and-white checks. No nice quiet pepper-and-salt, you
+understand, but the checkerboard kind, the oilcloth kind, the kind that
+looks like the marble floor in the Boston post-office. They was pretty
+tolerable seedy, and so was his hat. Oh, he was a last year's bird's
+nest NOW, but when them clothes was fresh--whew! the northern lights and
+a rainbow mixed wouldn't have been more'n a cloudy day 'longside of him.
+
+He run up to the piazza like a clipper coming into port, and he sweeps
+off that rusty hat and hails us grand and easy.
+
+"Good-morning, gentlemen," says he.
+
+"We don't want none," says Jonadab, decided.
+
+The feller looked surprised. "I beg your pardon," says he. "You don't
+want any--what?"
+
+"We don't want any 'Life of King Solomon' nor 'The World's Big
+Classifyers.' And we don't want to buy any patent paint, nor sewing
+machines, nor clothes washers, nor climbing evergreen roses, nor
+rheumatiz salve. And we don't want our pictures painted, neither."
+
+Jonadab was getting excited. Nothing riles him wuss than a peddler,
+unless it's a woman selling tickets to a church fair. The feller swelled
+up until I thought the top button on that thunderstorm coat would drag
+anchor, sure.
+
+"You are mistaken," says he. "I have called to see Mr. Peter Brown; he
+is--er--a relative of mine."
+
+Well, you could have blown me and Jonadab over with a cat's-paw. We went
+on our beam ends, so's to speak. A relation of Peter T.'s; why, if he'd
+been twice the panorama he was we'd have let him in when he said that.
+Loud clothes, we figgered, must run in the family. We remembered how
+Peter was dressed the first time we met him.
+
+"You don't say!" says I. "Come right up and set down, Mr.--Mr.--"
+
+"Montague," says the feller. "Booth Montague. Permit me to present my
+card."
+
+He drove into the hatches of his checkerboards and rummaged around, but
+he didn't find nothing but holes, I jedge, because he looked dreadful
+put out, and begged our pardons five or six times.
+
+"Dear me!" says he. "This is embarassing. I've forgot my cardcase."
+
+We told him never mind the card; any of Peter's folks was more'n
+welcome. So he come up the steps and set down in a piazza chair like
+King Edward perching on his throne. Then he hove out some remarks about
+its being a nice morning, all in a condescending sort of way, as if
+he usually attended to the weather himself, but had been sort of busy
+lately, and had handed the job over to one of the crew. We told him all
+about Peter, and Belle, and Ebenezer, and about Stumpton and Maudina.
+He was a good deal interested, and asked consider'ble many questions.
+Pretty soon we heard a carriage rattling up the road.
+
+"Hello!" says I. "I guess that's Peter and the rest coming now."
+
+Mr. Montague got off his throne kind of sudden.
+
+"Ahem!" says he. "Is there a room here where I may--er--receive Mr.
+Brown in a less public manner? It will be rather a--er--surprise for
+him, and--"
+
+Well, there was a good deal of sense in that. I know 'twould surprise
+ME to have such an image as he was sprung on me without any notice. We
+steered him into the gents' parlor, and shut the door. In a minute the
+horse and wagon come into the yard. Maudina said she'd had a "heavenly"
+drive, and unloaded some poetry concerning the music of billows and pine
+trees, and such. She and her father went up to their rooms, and when the
+decks was clear Jonadab and me tackled Peter T.
+
+"Peter," says Jonadab, "we've got a surprise for you. One of your
+relations has come."
+
+Brown, he did look surprised, but he didn't act as he was any too
+joyful.
+
+"Relation of MINE?" says he. "Come off! What's his name?"
+
+We told him Montague, Booth Montague. He laughed.
+
+"Wake up and turn over," he says. "They never had anything like that in
+my family. Booth Montague! Sure 'twa'n't Algernon Cough-drops?"
+
+We said no, 'twas Booth Montague, and that he was waiting in the gents'
+parlor. So he laughed again, and said somethin' about sending for Laura
+Lean Jibbey, and then we started.
+
+The checkerboard feller was standing up when we opened the door. "Hello,
+Petey!" says he, cool as a cucumber, and sticking out a foot and a half
+of wrist with a hand at the end of it.
+
+Now, it takes considerable to upset Peter Theodosius Brown. Up to
+that time and hour I'd have bet on him against anything short of an
+earthquake. But Booth Montague done it--knocked him plumb out of water.
+Peter actually turned white.
+
+"Great--" he began, and then stopped and swallered. "HANK!" he says, and
+set down in a chair.
+
+"The same," says Montague, waving the starboard extension of the
+checkerboard. "Petey, it does me good to set my eyes on you. Especially
+now, when you're the real thing."
+
+Brown never answered for a minute. Then he canted over to port and
+reached down into his pocket. "Well," says he, "how much?"
+
+But Hank, or Booth, or Montague--whatever his name was--he waved his
+flipper disdainful. "Nun-nun-nun-no, Petey, my son," he says, smiling.
+"It ain't 'how much?' this time. When I heard how you'd rung the bell
+the first shot out the box and was rolling in coin, I said to myself:
+'Here's where the prod comes back to his own.' I've come to live with
+you, Petey, and you pay the freight."
+
+Peter jumped out of the chair. "LIVE with me!" he says. "You Friday
+evening amateur night! It's back to 'Ten Nights in a Barroom' for
+yours!" he says.
+
+"Oh, no, it ain't!" says Hank, cheerful. "It'll be back to Popper
+Dillaway and Belle. When I tell 'em I'm your little cousin Henry and how
+you and me worked the territories together--why--well, I guess there'll
+be gladness round the dear home nest; hey?"
+
+Peter didn't say nothing. Then he fetched a long breath and motioned
+with his head to Cap'n Jonadab and me. We see we weren't invited to the
+family reunion, so we went out and shut the door. But we did pity Peter;
+I snum if we didn't!
+
+It was most an hour afore Brown come out of that room. When he did he
+took Jonadab and me by the arm and led us out back of the barn.
+
+"Fellers," he says, sad and mournful, "that--that plaster cast in a
+crazy-quilt," he says, referring to Montague, "is a cousin of mine.
+That's the living truth," says he, "and the only excuse I can make is
+that 'tain't my fault. He's my cousin, all right, and his name's Hank
+Schmults, but the sooner you box that fact up in your forgetory, the
+smoother 'twill be for yours drearily, Peter T. Brown. He's to be Mr.
+Booth Montague, the celebrated English poet, so long's he hangs out at
+the Old Home; and he's to hang out here until--well, until I can dope
+out a way to get rid of him."
+
+We didn't say nothing for a minute--just thought. Then Jonadab says,
+kind of puzzled: "What makes you call him a poet?" he says.
+
+Peter answered pretty snappy: "'Cause there's only two or three jobs
+that a long-haired image like him could hold down," he says. "I'd call
+him a musician if he could play 'Bedelia' on a jews'-harp; but he
+can't, so's he's got to be a poet."
+
+And a poet he was for the next week or so. Peter drove down to Wellmouth
+that night and bought some respectable black clothes, and the follering
+morning, when the celebrated Booth Montague come sailing into the dining
+room, with his curls brushed back from his forehead, and his new cutaway
+on, and his wrists covered up with clean cuffs, blessed if he didn't
+look distinguished--at least, that's the only word I can think of that
+fills the bill. And he talked beautiful language, not like the slang he
+hove at Brown and us in the gents' parlor.
+
+Peter done the honors, introducing him to us and the Stumptons as
+a friend who'd come from England unexpected, and Hank he bowed and
+scraped, and looked absent-minded and crazy-like a poet ought to. Oh, he
+done well at it! You could see that 'twas just pie for him.
+
+And 'twas pie for Maudina, too. Being, as I said, kind of green
+concerning men folks, and likewise taking to poetry like a cat to fish,
+she just fairly gushed over this fraud. She'd reel off a couple of
+fathom of verses from fellers named Spencer or Waller, or such like, and
+he'd never turn a hair, but back he'd come and say they was good, but he
+preferred Confucius, or Methuselah, or somebody so antique that she nor
+nobody else ever heard of 'em. Oh, he run a safe course, and he had HER
+in tow afore they turned the first mark.
+
+Jonadab and me got worried. We see how things was going, and we didn't
+like it. Stumpton was having too good a time to notice, going after
+"Labrador mack'rel" and so on, and Peter T. was too busy steering
+the cruises to pay any attention. But one afternoon I come by the
+summerhouse unexpected, and there sat Booth Montague and Maudina, him
+with a clove hitch round her waist, and she looking up into his eyes
+like they were peekholes in the fence 'round paradise. That was enough.
+It just simply COULDN'T go any further, so that night me and Jonadab had
+a confab up in my room.
+
+"Barzilla," says the cap'n, "if we tell Peter that that relation of
+his is figgering to marry Maudina Stumpton for her money, and that he's
+more'n likely to elope with her, 'twill pretty nigh kill Pete, won't it?
+No, sir; it's up to you and me. We've got to figger out some way to get
+rid of the critter ourselves."
+
+"It's a wonder to me," I says, "that Peter puts up with him. Why don't
+he order him to clear out, and tell Belle if he wants to? She can't
+blame Peter 'cause his uncle was father to an outrage like that."
+
+Jonadab looks at me scornful. "Can't, hey?" he says. "And her high-toned
+and chumming in with the bigbugs? It's easy to see you never was
+married," says he.
+
+Well, I never was, so I shut up.
+
+We set there and thought and thought, and by and by I commenced to sight
+an idee in the offing. 'Twas hull down at first, but pretty soon I got
+it into speaking distance, and then I broke it gentle to Jonadab. He
+grabbed at it like the "Labrador mack'rel" grabbed Stumpton's hook. We
+set up and planned until pretty nigh three o'clock, and all the next
+day we put in our spare time loading provisions and water aboard the
+Patience M. We put grub enough aboard to last a month.
+
+Just at daylight the morning after that we knocked at the door of
+Montague's bedroom. When he woke up enough to open the door--it took
+some time, 'cause eating and sleeping was his mainstay--we told him that
+we was planning an early morning fishing trip, and if he wanted to go
+with the folks he must come down to the landing quick. He promised to
+hurry, and I stayed by the door to see that he didn't get away. In about
+ten minutes we had him in the skiff rowing off to the Patience M.
+
+"Where's the rest of the crowd?" says he, when he stepped aboard.
+
+"They'll be along when we're ready for 'em," says I. "You go below
+there, will you, and stow away the coats and things."
+
+So he crawled into the cabin, and I helped Jonadab get up sail. We
+intended towing the skiff, so I made her fast astern. In half a shake we
+was under way and headed out of the cove. When that British poet stuck
+his nose out of the companion we was abreast the p'int.
+
+"Hi!" says he, scrambling into the cockpit. "What's this mean?"
+
+I was steering and feeling toler'ble happy over the way things had
+worked out.
+
+"Nice sailing breeze, ain't it?" says I, smiling.
+
+"Where's Mau-Miss Stumpton?" he says, wild like.
+
+"She's abed, I cal'late," says I, "getting her beauty sleep. Why don't
+YOU turn in? Or are you pretty enough now?"
+
+He looked first at me and then at Jonadab, and his face turned a little
+yellower than usual.
+
+"What kind of a game is this?" he asks, brisk. "Where are you going?"
+
+'Twas Jonadab that answered. "We're bound," says he, "for the Bermudas.
+It's a lovely place to spend the winter, they tell me," he says.
+
+That poet never made no remarks. He jumped to the stern and caught hold
+of the skiff's painter. I shoved him out of the way and picked up the
+boat hook. Jonadab rolled up his shirt sleeves and laid hands on the
+centerboard stick.
+
+"I wouldn't, if I was you," says the cap'n.
+
+Jonadab weighs pretty close to two hundred, and most of it's gristle.
+I'm not quite so much, fur's tonnage goes, but I ain't exactly a canary
+bird. Montague seemed to size things up in a jiffy. He looked at us,
+then at the sail, and then at the shore out over the stern.
+
+"Done!" says he. "Done! And by a couple of 'farmers'!"
+
+And down he sets on the thwart.
+
+Well, we sailed all that day and all that night. 'Course we didn't
+really intend to make the Bermudas. What we intended to do was to cruise
+around alongshore for a couple of weeks, long enough for the Stumptons
+to get back to Dillaway's, settle the copper business and break for
+Montana. Then we was going home again and turn Brown's relation over to
+him to take care of. We knew Peter'd have some plan thought out by that
+time. We'd left a note telling him what we'd done, and saying that we
+trusted to him to explain matters to Maudina and her dad. We knew that
+explaining was Peter's main holt.
+
+The poet was pretty chipper for a spell. He set on the thwart and
+bragged about what he'd do when he got back to "Petey" again. He said we
+couldn't git rid of him so easy. Then he spun yarns about what him and
+Brown did when they was out West together. They was interesting yarns,
+but we could see why Peter wa'n't anxious to introduce Cousin Henry to
+Belle. Then the Patience M. got out where 'twas pretty rugged, and she
+rolled consider'ble and after that we didn't hear much more from friend
+Booth--he was too busy to talk.
+
+That night me and Jonadab took watch and watch. In the morning it
+thickened up and looked squally. I got kind of worried. By nine o'clock
+there was every sign of a no'theaster, and we see we'd have to put in
+somewheres and ride it out. So we headed for a place we'll call Baytown,
+though that wa'n't the name of it. It's a queer, old-fashioned town, and
+it's on an island; maybe you can guess it from that.
+
+Well, we run into the harbor and let go anchor. Jonadab crawled into
+the cabin to get some terbacker, and I was for'ard coiling the throat
+halyard. All at once I heard oars rattling, and I turned my head; what I
+see made me let out a yell like a siren whistle.
+
+There was that everlasting poet in the skiff--you remember we'd
+been towing it astern--and he was jest cutting the painter with his
+jackknife. Next minute he'd picked up the oars and was heading for the
+wharf, doubling up and stretching out like a frog swimming, and with his
+curls streaming in the wind like a rooster's tail in a hurricane. He
+had a long start 'fore Jonadab and me woke up enough to think of chasing
+him.
+
+But we woke up fin'lly, and the way we flew round that catboat was a
+caution. I laid into them halyards, and I had the mainsail up to the
+peak afore Jonadab got the anchor clear of the bottom. Then I jumped to
+the tiller, and the Patience M. took after that skiff like a pup after
+a tomcat. We run alongside the wharf just as Booth Hank climbed over the
+stringpiece.
+
+"Get after him, Barzilla!" hollers Cap'n Jonadab. "I'll make her fast."
+
+Well, I hadn't took more'n three steps when I see 'twas goin' to be a
+long chase. Montague unfurled them thin legs of his and got over the
+ground something wonderful. All you could see was a pile of dust and
+coat tails flapping.
+
+Up on the wharf we went and round the corner into a straggly kind of
+road with old-fashioned houses on both sides of it. Nobody in the
+yards, nobody at the windows; quiet as could be, except that off ahead,
+somewheres, there was music playing.
+
+That road was a quarter of a mile long, but we galloped through it so
+fast that the scenery was nothing but a blur. Booth was gaining all the
+time, but I stuck to it like a good one. We took a short cut through a
+yard, piled over a fence and come out into another road, and up at the
+head of it was a crowd of folks--men and women and children and dogs.
+
+"Stop thief!" I hollers, and 'way astern I heard Jonadab bellering:
+"Stop thief!"
+
+Montague dives headfirst for the crowd. He fell over a baby carriage,
+and I gained a tack 'fore he got up. He wa'n't more'n ten yards ahead
+when I come busting through, upsetting children and old women, and
+landed in what I guess was the main street of the place and right
+abreast of a parade that was marching down the middle of it.
+
+First there was the band, four fellers tooting and banging like fo'mast
+hands on a fishing smack in a fog. Then there was a big darky toting a
+banner with "Jenkins' Unparalleled Double Uncle Tom's Cabin Company, No.
+2," on it in big letters. Behind him was a boy leading two great, savage
+looking dogs--bloodhounds, I found out afterwards--by chains. Then come
+a pony cart with Little Eva and Eliza's child in it; Eva was all gold
+hair and beautifulness. And astern of her was Marks the Lawyer, on his
+donkey. There was lots more behind him, but these was all I had time to
+see just then.
+
+Now, there was but one way for Booth Hank to get acrost that street, and
+that was to bust through the procession. And, as luck would have it, the
+place he picked out to cross was just ahead of the bloodhounds. And the
+first thing I knew, them dogs stretched out their noses and took a long
+sniff, and then bust out howling like all possessed. The boy, he tried
+to hold 'em, but 'twas no go. They yanked the chains out of his hands
+and took after that poet as if he owed 'em something. And every one of
+the four million other dogs that was in the crowd on the sidewalks fell
+into line, and such howling and yapping and scampering and screaming you
+never heard.
+
+Well, 'twas a mixed-up mess. That was the end of the parade. Next minute
+I was racing across country with the whole town and the Uncle Tommers
+astern of me, and a string of dogs stretched out ahead fur's you could
+see. 'Way up in the lead was Booth Montague and the bloodhounds, and
+away aft I could hear Jonadab yelling: "Stop thief!"
+
+'Twas lively while it lasted, but it didn't last long. There was a
+little hill at the end of the field, and where the poet dove over
+'tother side of it the bloodhounds all but had him. Afore I got to the
+top of the rise I heard the awfullest powwow going on in the holler, and
+thinks I: "THEY'RE EATING HIM ALIVE!"
+
+But they wan't. When I hove in sight Montague was setting up on the
+ground at the foot of the sand bank he'd fell into, and the two hounds
+was rolling over him, lapping his face and going on as if he was their
+grandpa jest home from sea with his wages in his pocket. And round them,
+in a double ring, was all the town dogs, crazy mad, and barking and
+snarling, but scared to go any closer.
+
+In a minute more the folks begun to arrive; boys first, then girls and
+men, and then the women. Marks came trotting up, pounding the donkey
+with his umbrella.
+
+"Here, Lion! Here, Tige!" he yells. "Quit it! Let him alone!" Then he
+looks at Montague, and his jaw kind of drops.
+
+"Why--why, HANK!" he says.
+
+A tall, lean critter, in a black tail coat and a yaller vest and
+lavender pants, comes puffing up. He was the manager, we found out
+afterward.
+
+"Have they bit him?" says he. Then he done just the same as Marks;
+his mouth opened and his eyes stuck out. "HANK SCHMULTS, by the living
+jingo!" says he.
+
+Booth Montague looks at the two of 'em kind of sick and lonesome.
+"Hello, Barney! How are you, Sullivan?" he says.
+
+I thought 'twas about time for me to get prominent. I stepped up, and
+was just going to say something when somebody cuts in ahead of me.
+
+"Hum!" says a voice, a woman's voice, and tolerable crisp and vinegary.
+"Hum! it's you, is it? I've been looking for YOU!"
+
+'Twas Little Eva in the pony cart. Her lovely posy hat was hanging on
+the back of her neck, her gold hair had slipped back so's you could see
+the black under it, and her beautiful red cheeks was kind of streaky.
+She looked some older and likewise mad.
+
+"Hum!" says she, getting out of the cart. "It's you, is it, Hank
+Schmults? Well, p'r'aps you'll tell me where you've been for the last
+two weeks? What do you mean by running away and leaving your--"
+
+Montague interrupted her. "Hold on, Maggie, hold on!" he begs. "DON'T
+make a row here. It's all a mistake; I'll explain it to you all right.
+Now, please--"
+
+"Explain!" hollers Eva, kind of curling up her fingers and moving toward
+him. "Explain, will you? Why, you miserable, low-down--"
+
+But the manager took hold of her arm. He'd been looking at the crowd,
+and I cal'late he saw that here was the chance for the best kind of an
+advertisement. He whispered in her ear. Next thing I knew she clasped
+her hands together, let out a scream and runs up and grabs the
+celebrated British poet round the neck.
+
+"Booth!" says she. "My husband! Saved! Saved!"
+
+And she went all to pieces and cried all over his necktie. And then
+Marks trots up the child, and that young one hollers: "Papa! papa!" and
+tackles Hank around the legs. And I'm blessed if Montague don't slap his
+hand to his forehead, and toss back his curls, and look up at the sky,
+and sing out: "My wife and babe! Restored to me after all these years!
+The heavens be thanked!"
+
+Well, 'twas a sacred sort of time. The town folks tiptoed away, the men
+looking solemn but glad, and the women swabbing their deadlights and
+saying how affecting 'twas, and so on. Oh, you could see that show would
+do business THAT night, if it never did afore.
+
+The manager got after Jonadab and me later on, and did his best to pump
+us, but he didn't find out much. He told us that Montague belonged to
+the Uncle Tom's Cabin Company, and that he'd disappeared a fortni't or
+so afore, when they were playing at Hyannis. Eva was his wife, and the
+child was their little boy. The bloodhounds knew him, and that's why
+they chased him so.
+
+"What was you two yelling 'Stop thief!' after him for?" says he. "Has he
+stole anything?"
+
+We says "No."
+
+"Then what did you want to get him for?" he says.
+
+"We didn't," says Jonadab. "We wanted to get rid of him. We don't want
+to see him no more."
+
+You could tell that the manager was puzzled, but he laughed.
+
+"All right," says he. "If I know anything about Maggie--that's Mrs.
+Schmults--he won't get loose ag'in."
+
+We only saw Montague to talk to but once that day. Then he peeked out
+from under the winder shade at the hotel and asked us if we'd told
+anybody where he'd been. When he found we hadn't, he was thankful.
+
+"You tell Petey," says he, "that he's won the whole pot, kitty and all.
+I don't think I'll visit him again, nor Belle, neither."
+
+"I wouldn't," says I. "They might write to Maudina that you was a
+married man. And old Stumpton's been praying for something alive to
+shoot at," I says.
+
+The manager gave Jonadab and me a couple of tickets, and we went to the
+show that night. And when we saw Booth Hank Montague parading about the
+stage and defying the slave hunters, and telling 'em he was a free man,
+standing on the Lord's free soil, and so on, we realized 'twould have
+been a crime to let him do anything else.
+
+"As an imitation poet," says Jonadab, "he was a kind of mildewed
+article, but as a play actor--well, there may be some that can beat him,
+but _I_ never see 'em!"
+
+
+
+
+
+THE MARE AND THE MOTOR
+
+
+Them Todds had got on my nerves. 'Twas Peter's ad that brought 'em down.
+You see, 'twas 'long toward the end of the season at the Old Home, and
+Brown had been advertising in the New York and Boston papers to "bag
+the leftovers," as he called it. Besides the reg'lar hogwash about the
+"breath of old ocean" and the "simple, cleanly living of the bygone
+days we dream about," there was some new froth concerning hunting and
+fishing. You'd think the wild geese roosted on the flagpole nights, and
+the bluefish clogged up the bay so's you could walk on their back fins
+without wetting your feet--that is, if you wore rubbers and trod light.
+
+"There!" says Peter T., waving the advertisement and crowing gladsome;
+"they'll take to that like your temp'rance aunt to brandy cough-drops.
+We'll have to put up barbed wire to keep 'em off."
+
+"Humph!" grunts Cap'n Jonadab. "Anybody but a born fool'll know there
+ain't any shooting down here this time of year."
+
+Peter looked at him sorrowful. "Pop," says he, "did you ever hear that
+Solomon answered a summer hotel ad? This ain't a Chautauqua, this is
+the Old Home House, and its motto is: 'There's a new victim born every
+minute, and there's twenty-four hours in a day.' You set back and count
+the clock ticks."
+
+Well, that's 'bout all we had to do. We got boarders enough from that
+ridiculous advertisement to fill every spare room we had, including
+Jonadab's and mine. Me and the cap'n had to bunk in the barn loft; but
+there was some satisfaction in that--it give us an excuse to get away
+from the "sports" in the smoking room.
+
+The Todds was part of the haul. He was a little, dried-up man, single,
+and a minister. Nigh's I could find out, he'd given up preaching by the
+request of the doctor and his last congregation. He had a notion that he
+was a mighty hunter afore the Lord, like Nimrod in the Bible, and he'd
+come to the Old Home to bag a few gross of geese and ducks.
+
+His sister was an old maid, and slim, neither of which failings was from
+choice, I cal'late. She wore eye-glasses and a veil to "preserve her
+complexion," and her idee seemed to be that native Cape Codders lived in
+trees and ate cocoanuts. She called 'em "barbarians, utter barbarians."
+Whenever she piped "James" her brother had to drop everything and report
+on deck. She was skipper of the Todd craft.
+
+Them Todds was what Peter T. called "the limit, and a chip or two over."
+The other would-be gunners and fishermen were satisfied to slam shot
+after sandpeeps, or hook a stray sculpin or a hake. But t'wa'n't so
+with brother James Todd and sister Clarissa. "Ducks" it was in the
+advertising, and nothing BUT ducks they wanted. Clarissa, she commenced
+to hint middling p'inted concerning fraud.
+
+Finally we lost patience, and Peter T., he said they'd got to be quieted
+somehow, or he'd do some shooting on his own hook; said too much Toddy
+was going to his head. Then I suggested taking 'em down the
+beach somewheres on the chance of seeing a stray coot or loon or
+something--ANYTHING that could be shot at. Jonadab and Peter agreed
+'twas a good plan, and we matched to see who'd be guide. And I got
+stuck, of course; my luck again.
+
+So the next morning we started, me and the Reverend James and Clarissa
+in the Greased Lightning, Peter's new motor launch. First part of the
+trip that Todd man done nothing but ask questions about the launch; I
+had to show him how to start it and steer it, and the land knows what
+all. Clarissa set around doing the heavy contemptuous and turning up her
+nose at creation generally. It must have its drawbacks, this roosting so
+fur above the common flock; seems to me I'd be thinking all the time of
+the bump that was due me if I got shoved off the perch.
+
+Well, by and by Lonesome Huckleberries' shanty hove in sight, and I
+was glad to see it, although I had to answer a million questions about
+Lonesome and his history.
+
+I told the Todds that, so fur as nationality was concerned he was a
+little of everything, like a picked-up dinner; principally Eyetalian and
+Portugee, I cal'late, with a streak of Gay Head Injun. His real name's
+long enough to touch bottom in the ship channel at high tide, so folks
+got to calling him "Huckleberries" because he peddles them kind of fruit
+in summer. Then he mopes around so with nary a smile on his face, that
+it seemed right to tack on the "Lonesome." So "Lonesome Huckleberries"
+he's been for ten years. He lives in the patchwork shanty on the beach
+down there, he is deaf and dumb, drives a liver-colored, balky mare that
+no one but himself and his daughter Becky can handle, and he has a love
+for bad rum and a temper that's landed him in the Wellmouth lock-up more
+than once or twice. He's one of the best gunners alongshore and at
+this time he owned a flock of live decoys that he'd refused as high as
+fifteen dollars apiece for. I told all this and a lot more.
+
+When we struck the beach, Clarissa, she took her paint box and umbrella
+and mosquito 'intment, and the rest of her cargo, and went off by
+herself to "sketch." She was great on "sketching," and the way she'd use
+up good paint and spile nice clean paper was a sinful waste. Afore she
+went, she give me three fathom of sailing orders concerning taking care
+of "James." You'd think he was about four year old; made me feel like a
+hired nurse.
+
+James and me went perusing up and down that beach in the blazing sun
+looking for something to shoot. We went 'way beyond Lonesome's shanty,
+but there wa'n't nobody to home. Lonesome himself, it turned out
+afterward, was up to the village with his horse and wagon, and his
+daughter Becky was over in the wood on the mainland berrying. Todd was
+a cheerful talker, but limited. His favorite remark was: "Oh, I say, my
+deah man." That's what he kept calling me, "my deah man." Now, my name
+ain't exactly a Claude de Montmorency for prettiness, but "Barzilla" 'll
+fetch ME alongside a good deal quicker'n "my deah man," I'll tell you
+that.
+
+We frogged it up and down all the forenoon, but didn't git a shot at
+nothing but one stray "squawk" that had come over from the Cedar Swamp.
+I told James 'twas a canvasback, and he blazed away at it, but missed it
+by three fathom, as might have been expected.
+
+Finally, my game leg--rheumatiz, you understand--begun to give out. So
+I flops down in the shade of a sand bank to rest, and the reverend goes
+poking off by himself.
+
+I cal'late I must have fell asleep, for when I looked at my watch it was
+close to one o'clock, and time for us to be getting back to port. I
+got up and stretched and took an observation, but further'n Clarissa's
+umbrella on the skyline, I didn't see anything stirring. Brother James
+wa'n't visible, but I jedged he was within hailing distance. You can't
+see very fur on that point, there's too many sand hills and hummocks.
+
+I started over toward the Greased Lightning. I'd gone only a little
+ways, and was down in a gully between two big hummocks, when "Bang!
+bang!" goes both barrels of a shotgun, and that Todd critter busts out
+hollering like all possessed.
+
+"Hooray!" he squeals, in that squeaky voice of his. "Hooray! I've got
+'em! I've got 'em!"
+
+Thinks I, "What in the nation does the lunatic cal'late he's shot?" And
+I left my own gun laying where 'twas and piled up over the edge of that
+sand bank like a cat over a fence. And then I see a sight.
+
+There was James, hopping up and down in the beach grass, squealing like
+a Guinea hen with a sore throat, and waving his gun with one wing--arm,
+I mean--and there in front of him, in the foam at the edge of the surf,
+was two ducks as dead as Nebuchadnezzar--two of Lonesome Huckleberries'
+best decoy ducks--ducks he'd tamed and trained, and thought more of
+than anything else in this world--except rum, maybe--and the rest of
+the flock was digging up the beach for home as if they'd been telegraped
+for, and squawking "Fire!" and "Murder!"
+
+Well, my mind was in a kind of various state, as you might say, for a
+minute. 'Course, I'd known about Lonesome's owning them decoys--told
+Todd about 'em, too--but I hadn't seen 'em nowhere alongshore, and I
+sort of cal'lated they was locked up in Lonesome's hen house, that being
+his usual way when he went to town. I s'pose likely they'd been feeding
+among the beach grass somewheres out of sight, but I don't know for
+sartin to this day. And I didn't stop to reason it out then, neither. As
+Scriptur' or George Washin'ton or somebody says, "'twas a condition, not
+a theory," I was afoul of.
+
+"I've got 'em!" hollers Todd, grinning till I thought he'd swaller his
+own ears. "I shot 'em all myself!"
+
+"You everlasting--" I begun, but I didn't get any further. There was a
+rattling noise behind me, and I turned, to see Lonesome Huckleberries
+himself, setting on the seat of his old truck wagon and glaring over the
+hammer head of that balky mare of his straight at brother Todd and the
+dead decoys.
+
+For a minute there was a kind of tableau, like them they have at church
+fairs--all four of us, including the mare, keeping still, like we was
+frozen. But 'twas only for a minute. Then it turned into the liveliest
+moving picture that ever _I_ see. Lonesome couldn't swear--being a
+dummy--but if ever a man got profane with his eyes, he did right then.
+Next thing I knew he tossed both hands into the air, clawed two handfuls
+out of the atmosphere, reached down into the cart, grabbed a pitch-fork
+and piled out of that wagon and after Todd. There was murder coming and
+I could see it.
+
+"Run, you loon!" I hollers, desperate.
+
+James didn't wait for any advice. He didn't know what he'd done, I
+cal'late, but he jedged 'twas his move. He dropped his gun and put down
+the shore like a wild man, with Lonesome after him. I tried to foller,
+but my rheumatiz was too big a handicap; all I could do was yell.
+
+You never'd have picked out Todd for a sprinter--not to look at him, you
+wouldn't--but if he didn't beat the record for his class just then I'll
+eat my sou'wester. He fairly flew, but Lonesome split tacks with him
+every time, and kept to wind'ard, into the bargain. When they went out
+of sight amongst the sand hills 'twas anybody's race.
+
+I was scart. I knew what Lonesome's temper was, 'specially when it had
+been iled with some Wellmouth Port no-license liquor. He'd been took up
+once for half killing some boys that tormented him, and I figgered if
+he got within pitchfork distance of the Todd critter he'd make him the
+leakiest divine that ever picked a text. I commenced to hobble back
+after my gun. It looked bad to me.
+
+But I'd forgot sister Clarissa. 'Fore I'd limped fur I heard her calling
+to me.
+
+"Mr. Wingate," says she, "get in here at once."
+
+There she was, setting on the seat of Lonesome's wagon, holdin' the
+reins and as cool as a white frost in October.
+
+"Get in at once," says she. I jedged 'twas good advice, and took it.
+
+"Proceed," says she to the mare. "Git dap!" says I, and we started. When
+we rounded the sand hill we see the race in the distance. Lonesome had
+gained a p'int or two, and Todd wa'n't more'n four pitchforks in the
+lead.
+
+"Make for the launch!" I whooped, between my hands.
+
+The parson heard me and come about and broke for the shore. The Greased
+Lightning had swung out about the length of her anchor rope, and the
+water wa'n't deep. Todd splashed in to his waist and climbed aboard. He
+cut the roding just as Lonesome reached tide mark. James, he sees it's a
+close call, and he shins back to the engine, reaching it exactly at the
+time when the gent with the pitchfork laid hands on the rail. Then the
+parson throws over the switch--I'd shown him how, you remember--and
+gives the starting wheel a full turn.
+
+Well, you know the Greased Lightning? She don't linger to say farewell,
+not any to speak of, she don't. And this time she jumped like the cat
+that lit on the hot stove. Lonesome, being balanced with his knees on
+the rail, pitches headfust into the cockpit. Todd, jumping out of his
+way, falls overboard backward. Next thing anybody knew, the launch was
+scooting for blue water like a streak of what she was named for, and the
+hunting chaplain was churning up foam like a mill wheel.
+
+I yelled more orders than second mate on a coaster. Todd bubbled and
+bellered. Lonesome hung on to the rail of the cockpit and let his hair
+stand up to grow. Nobody was cool but Clarissa, and she was an iceberg.
+She had her good p'ints, that old maid did, drat her!
+
+"James," she calls, "get out of that water this minute and come here!
+This instant, mind!"
+
+James minded. He paddled ashore and hopped, dripping like a dishcloth,
+alongside the truck wagon.
+
+"Get in!" orders Skipper Clarissa. He done it. "Now," says the lady,
+passing the reins over to me, "drive us home, Mr. Wingate, before that
+intoxicated lunatic can catch us."
+
+It seemed about the only thing to do. I knew 'twas no use explaining
+to Lonesome for an hour or more yet, even if you can talk finger signs,
+which part of my college training has been neglected. 'Twas murder he
+wanted at the present time. I had some sort of a foggy notion that I'd
+drive along, pick up the guns and then get the Todds over to the
+hotel, afterward coming back to get the launch and pay damages to
+Huckleberries. I cal'lated he'd be more reasonable by that time.
+
+But the mare had made other arrangements. When I slapped her with the
+end of the reins she took the bit in her teeth and commenced to gallop.
+I hollered "Whoa!" and "Heave to!" and "Belay!" and everything else I
+could think of, but she never took in a reef. We bumped over hummocks
+and ridges, and every time we done it we spilled something out of
+that wagon. First 'twas a lot of huckleberry pails, then a basket of
+groceries and such, then a tin pan with some potatoes in it, then a jug
+done up in a blanket. We was heaving cargo overboard like a leaky ship
+in a typhoon. Out of the tail of my eye I see Lonesome, well out to sea,
+heading the Greased Lightning for the beach.
+
+Clarissa put in the time soothing James, who had a serious case of the
+scart-to-deaths, and calling me an "utter barbarian" for driving so
+fast. Lucky for all hands, she had to hold on tight to keep from being
+jounced out, 'long with the rest of movables, so she couldn't take
+the reins. As for me, I wa'n't paying much attention to her--'twas the
+Cut-Through that was disturbing MY mind.
+
+When you drive down to Lonesome P'int you have to ford the
+"Cut-Through." It's a strip of water between the bay and the ocean, and
+'tain't very wide nor deep at low tide. But the tide was coming in now,
+and, more'n that, the mare wa'n't headed for the ford. She was cuttin'
+cross-lots on her own hook, and wouldn't answer the helm.
+
+We struck that Cut-Through about a hundred yards east of the ford, and
+in two shakes we was hub deep in salt water. 'Fore the Todds could
+do anything but holler the wagon was afloat and the mare was all but
+swimming. But she kept right on. Bless her, you COULDN'T stop her!
+
+We crossed the first channel and come out on a flat where 'twasn't
+more'n two foot deep then. I commenced to feel better. There was another
+channel ahead of us, but I figured we'd navigate that same as we had the
+first one. And then the most outrageous thing happened.
+
+If you'll b'lieve it, that pesky mare balked and wouldn't stir another
+step.
+
+And there we was! I punched and kicked and hollered, but all that
+stubborn horse would do was lay her ears back flat, and snarl up her
+lip, and look round at us, much as to say: "Now, then, you land sharks,
+I've got you between wind and water!" And I swan to man if it didn't
+look as if she had!
+
+"Drive on!" says Clarissa, pretty average vinegary. "Haven't you made
+trouble enough for us already, you dreadful man? Drive on!"
+
+Hadn't _I_ made trouble enough! What do you think of that?
+
+"You want to drown us!" says Miss Todd, continuing her chatty remarks.
+"I see it all! It's a plot between you and that murderer. I give you
+warning; if we reach the hotel, my brother and I will commence suit for
+damages."
+
+My temper's fairly long-suffering, but 'twas raveling some by this time.
+
+"Commence suit!" I says. "I don't care WHAT you commence, if you'll
+commence to keep quiet now!" And then I give her a few p'ints as to what
+her brother had done, heaving in some personal flatteries every once in
+a while for good measure.
+
+I'd about got to thirdly when James give a screech and p'inted. And,
+if there wa'n't Lonesome in the launch, headed right for us, and coming
+a-b'iling! He'd run her along abreast of the beach and turned in at the
+upper end of the Cut-Through.
+
+You never in your life heard such a row as there was in that wagon.
+Clarissa and me yelling to Lonesome to keep off--forgitting that he
+was stone deef and dumb--and James vowing that he was going to be
+slaughtered in cold blood. And the Greased Lightning p'inted just so
+she'd split that cart amidships, and coming--well, you know how she can
+go.
+
+She never budged until she was within ten foot of the flat, and then she
+sheered off and went past in a wide curve, with Lonesome steering with
+one hand and shaking his pitchfork at Todd with t'other. And SUCH faces
+as he made-up! They'd have got him hung in any court in the world.
+
+He run up the Cut-Through a little ways, and then come about, and back
+he comes again, never slacking speed a mite, and running close to the
+shoal as he could shave, and all the time going through the bloodiest
+kind of pantomimes. And past he goes, to wheel 'round and commence all
+over again.
+
+Thinks I, "Why don't he ease up and lay us aboard? He's got all the
+weapons there is. Is he scart?"
+
+And then it come to me--the reason why. HE DIDN'T KNOW HOW TO STOP HER.
+He could steer first rate, being used to sailboats, but an electric auto
+launch was a new ideal for him, and he didn't understand her works. And
+he dastn't run her aground at the speed she was making; 'twould have
+finished her and, more'n likely, him, too.
+
+I don't s'pose there ever was another mess just like it afore or sence.
+Here was us, stranded with a horse we couldn't make go, being chased by
+a feller who was run away with in a boat he couldn't stop!
+
+Just as I'd about give up hope, I heard somebody calling from the beach
+behind us. I turned, and there was Becky Huckleberries, Lonesome's
+daughter. She had the dead decoys by the legs in one hand.
+
+"Hi!" says she.
+
+"Hi!" says I. "How do you get this giraffe of yours under way?"
+
+She held up the decoys.
+
+"Who kill-a dem ducks?" says she.
+
+I p'inted to the reverend. "He did," says I. And then I cal'late I must
+have had one of them things they call an inspiration. "And he's willing
+to pay for 'em," I says.
+
+"Pay thirty-five dolla?" says she.
+
+"You bet!" says I.
+
+But I'd forgot Clarissa. She rose up in that waterlogged cart like a
+Statue of Liberty. "Never!" says she. "We will never submit to such
+extortion. We'll drown first!"
+
+Becky heard her. She didn't look disapp'inted nor nothing. Just turned
+and begun to walk up the beach. "ALL right," says she; "GOO'-by."
+
+The Todds stood it for a jiffy. Then James give in. "I'll pay it!" he
+hollers. "I'll pay it!"
+
+Even then Becky didn't smile. She just come about again and walked back
+to the shore. Then she took up that tin pan and one of the potaters we'd
+jounced out of the cart.
+
+"Hi, Rosa!" she hollers. That mare turned her head and looked. And, for
+the first time sence she hove anchor on that flat, the critter unfurled
+her ears and histed 'em to the masthead.
+
+"Hi, Rosa!" says Becky again, and begun to pound the pan with the
+potater. And I give you my word that that mare started up, turned the
+wagon around nice as could be, and begun to swim ashore. When we got
+where the critter's legs touched bottom, Becky remarks: "Whoa!"
+
+"Here!" I yells, "what did you do that for?"
+
+"Pay thirty-five dolla NOW," says she. She was bus'ness, that girl.
+
+Todd got his wallet from under hatches and counted out the thirty-five,
+keeping one eye on Lonesome, who was swooping up and down in the launch
+looking as if he wanted to cut in, but dasn't. I tied the bills to
+my jack-knife, to give 'em weight, and tossed the whole thing ashore.
+Becky, she counted the cash and stowed it away in her apron pocket.
+
+"ALL right," says she. "Hi, Rosa!" The potater and pan performance begun
+again, and Rosa picked up her hoofs and dragged us to dry land. And it
+sartinly felt good to the feet.
+
+"Say," I says, "Becky, it's none of my affairs, as I know of, but is
+that the way you usually start that horse of yours?"
+
+She said it was. And Rosa ate the potater.
+
+Becky asked me how to stop the launch, and I told her. She made a lot
+of finger signs to Lonesome, and inside of five minutes the Greased
+Lightning was anchored in front of us. Old man Huckleberries was still
+hankering to interview Todd with the pitchfork, but Becky settled that
+all right. She jumped in front of him, and her eyes snapped and her feet
+stamped and her fingers flew. And 'twould have done you good to see her
+dad shrivel up and get humble. I always had thought that a woman wasn't
+much good as a boss of the roost unless she could use her tongue, but
+Becky showed me my mistake. Well, it's live and l'arn.
+
+Then Miss Huckleberries turned to us and smiled.
+
+"ALL right," says she; "GOO'-by."
+
+Them Todds took the train for the city next morning. I drove 'em to the
+depot. James was kind of glum, but Clarissa talked for two. Her opinion
+of the Cape and Capers, 'specially me, was decided. The final blast was
+just as she was climbing the car steps.
+
+"Of all the barbarians," says she; "utter, uncouth, murdering barbarians
+in--"
+
+She stopped, thinking for a word, I s'pose. I didn't feel that I could
+improve on Becky Huckleberries conversation much, so I says:
+
+"ALL right! GOO'-by!"
+
+
+
+
+
+THE MARK ON THE DOOR
+
+
+One nice moonlight evening me and Cap'n Jonadab and Peter T., having,
+for a wonder, a little time to ourselves and free from boarders, was
+setting on the starboard end of the piazza, smoking, when who should
+heave in sight but Cap'n Eri Hedge and Obed Nickerson. They'd come
+over from Orham that day on some fish business and had drove down to
+Wellmouth Port on purpose to put up at the Old Home for the night and
+shake hands with me and Jonadab. We was mighty glad to see 'em, now I
+tell you.
+
+They'd had supper up at the fish man's at the Centre, so after Peter T.
+had gone in and fetched out a handful of cigars, we settled back for a
+good talk. They wanted to know how business was and we told 'em. After
+a spell somebody mentioned the Todds and I spun my yarn about the balky
+mare and the Greased Lightning. It tickled 'em most to death, especially
+Obed.
+
+"Ho, ho!" says he. "That's funny, ain't it. Them power boats are great
+things, ain't they. I had an experience in one--or, rather, in two--a
+spell ago when I was living over to West Bayport. My doings was with
+gasoline though, not electricity. 'Twas something of an experience.
+Maybe you'd like to hear it."
+
+"'Way I come to be over there on the bay side of the Cape was like this.
+West Bayport, where my shanty and the big Davidson summer place and the
+Saunders' house was, used to be called Punkhassett--which is Injun for
+'The last place the Almighty made'--and if you've read the circulars of
+the land company that's booming Punkhassett this year, you'll remember
+that the principal attraction of them diggings is the 'magnificent water
+privileges.' 'Twas the water privileges that had hooked me. Clams was
+thick on the flats at low tide, and fish was middling plenty in the bay.
+I had two weirs set; one a deep-water weir, a half mile beyond the bar,
+and t'other just inside of it that I could drive out to at low water. A
+two-mile drive 'twas, too; the tide goes out a long ways over there. I
+had a powerboat--seven and a half power gasoline--that I kept anchored
+back of my nighest-in weir in deep water, and a little skiff on shore to
+row off to her in.
+
+"The yarn begins one morning when I went down to the shore after clams.
+I'd noticed the signs then. They was stuck up right acrost the path: 'No
+trespassing on these premises,' and 'All persons are forbidden crossing
+this property, under penalty of the law.' But land! I'd used that
+short-cut ever sence I'd been in Bayport--which was more'n a year--and
+old man Davidson and me was good friends, so I cal'lated the signs was
+intended for boys, and hove ahead without paying much attention to 'em.
+'Course I knew that the old man--and, what was more important, the
+old lady--had gone abroad and that the son was expected down, but that
+didn't come to me at the time, neither.
+
+"I was heading for home about eight, with two big dreeners full of
+clams, and had just climbed the bluff and swung over the fence into the
+path, when somebody remarks: 'Here, you!' I jumped and turned round, and
+there, beating across the field in my direction, was an exhibit which,
+it turned out later, was ticketed with the name of Alpheus Vandergraff
+Parker Davidson--'Allie' for short.
+
+"And Allie was a good deal of an exhibit, in his way. His togs were cut
+to fit his spars, and he carried 'em well--no wrinkles at the peak or
+sag along the boom. His figurehead was more'n average regular, and his
+hair was combed real nice--the part in the middle of it looked like it
+had been laid out with a plumb-line. Also, he had on white shoes and
+glory hallelujah stockings. Altogether, he was alone with the price of
+admission, and what some folks, I s'pose, would have called a handsome
+enough young feller. But I didn't like his eyes; they looked kind of
+tired, as if they'd seen 'bout all there was to see of some kinds of
+life. Twenty-four year old eyes hadn't ought to look that way.
+
+"But I wasn't interested in eyes jest then. All I could look at was
+teeth. There they was, a lovely set of 'em, in the mouth of the ugliest
+specimen of a bow-legged bulldog that ever tried to hang itself at the
+end of a chain. Allie was holding t'other end of the chain with both
+hands, and they were full, at that. The dog stood up on his hind legs
+and pawed the air with his front ones, and his tongue hung out and
+dripped. You could see he was yearning, just dying, to taste of a
+middle-aged longshoreman by the name of Obed Nickerson. I stared at
+the dog, and he stared at me. I don't know which of us was the most
+interested.
+
+"'Here, you!' says Allie again. 'What are you crossing this field for?'
+
+"I heard him, but I was too busy counting teeth to pay much attention.
+'You ought to feed that dog,' I says, absent-minded like. 'He's hungry.'
+
+"'Humph!' says he. 'Well, maybe he'll be fed in a minute. Did you see
+those signs?'
+
+"'Yes,' says I; 'I saw 'em. They're real neat and pretty.'
+
+"'Pretty!' He fairly choked, he was so mad. 'Why, you cheeky,
+long-legged jay,' he says, 'I'll--What are you crossing this field for?'
+
+"'So's to get to t'other side of it, I guess,' says I. I was riling up a
+bit myself. You see, when a feller's been mate of a schooner, like I've
+been in my day, it don't come easy to be called names. It looked for a
+minute as if Allie was going to have a fit, but he choked it down.
+
+"'Look here!' he says. 'I know who you are. Just because the gov'ner
+has been soft enough to let you countrymen walk all over him, it don't
+foller that I'm going to be. I'm boss here for this summer. My name's--'
+He told me his name, and how his dad had turned the place over to him
+for the season, and a lot more. 'I put those signs up,' he says, 'to
+keep just such fellers as you are off my property. They mean that you
+ain't to cross the field. Understand?'
+
+"I understood. I was mad clean through, but I'm law-abiding, generally
+speaking. 'All right,' I says, picking up my dreeners and starting for
+the farther fence; 'I won't cross it again.'
+
+"'You won't cross it now,' says he. 'Go back where you come from.'
+
+"That was a grain too much. I told him a few things. He didn't wait for
+the benediction. 'Take him, Prince!' he says, dropping the chain.
+
+"Prince was willing. He fetched a kind of combination hurrah and growl
+and let out for me full-tilt. I don't feed good fresh clams to dogs as
+a usual thing, but that mouth HAD to be filled. I waited till he was
+almost on me, and then I let drive with one of the dreeners. Prince and
+a couple of pecks of clams went up in the air like a busted bomb-shell,
+and I broke for the fence I'd started for. I hung on to the other
+dreener, though, just out of principle.
+
+"But I had to let go of it, after all. The dog come out of the collision
+looking like a plate of scrambled eggs, and took after me harder'n ever,
+shedding shells and clam juice something scandalous. When he was right
+at my heels I turned and fired the second dreener. And, by Judas, I
+missed him!
+
+"Well, principle's all right, but there's times when even the best of
+us has to hedge. I simply couldn't reach the farther fence, so I made
+a quick jibe and put for the one behind me. And I couldn't make that,
+either. Prince was taking mouthfuls of my overalls for appetizers. There
+was a little pine-tree in the lot, and I give one jump and landed in the
+middle of it. I went up the rest of the way like I'd forgot something,
+and then I clung onto the top of that tree and panted and swung round
+in circles, while the dog hopped up and down on his hind legs and fairly
+sobbed with disapp'intment.
+
+"Allie was rolling on the grass. 'Oh, DEAR me!' says he, between spasms.
+'That was the funniest thing I ever saw.'
+
+"I'd seen lots funnier things myself, but 'twa'n't worth while to argue.
+Besides, I was busy hanging onto that tree. 'Twas an awful little pine
+and the bendiest one I ever climbed. Allie rolled around a while longer,
+and then he gets up and comes over.
+
+"'Well, Reuben,' says he, lookin' up at me on the roost, 'you're a good
+deal handsomer up there than you are on the ground. I guess I'll let you
+stay there for a while as a lesson to you. Watch him, Prince.' And off
+he walks.
+
+"'You everlasting clothes-pole,' I yells after him, 'if it wa'n't for
+that dog of yours I'd--'
+
+"He turns around kind of lazy and says he: 'Oh, you've got no kick
+coming,' he says. 'I allow you to--er--ornament my tree, and 'tain't
+every hayseed I'd let do that.'
+
+"And away he goes; and for an hour that had no less'n sixty thousand
+minutes in it I clung to that tree like a green apple, with Prince
+setting open-mouthed underneath waiting for me to get ripe and drop.
+
+"Just as I was figgering that I was growing fast to the limb, I heard
+somebody calling my name. I unglued my eyes from the dog and looked up,
+and there, looking over the fence that I'd tried so hard to reach, was
+Barbara Saunders, Cap'n Eben Saunders' girl, who lived in the house next
+door to mine.
+
+"Barbara was always a pretty girl, and that morning she looked prettier
+than ever, with her black hair blowing every which way and her black
+eyes snapping full of laugh. Barbara Saunders in a white shirt-waist
+and an old, mended skirt could give ten lengths in a beauty race to any
+craft in silks and satins that ever _I_ see, and beat 'em hull down at
+that.
+
+"'Why, Mr. Nickerson!' she calls. 'What are you doing up in that tree?'
+
+"That was kind of a puzzler to answer offhand, and I don't know what I'd
+have said if friend Allie hadn't hove in sight just then and saved me
+the trouble. He come strolling out of the woods with a cigarette in his
+mouth, and when he saw Barbara he stopped short and looked and looked
+at her. And for a minute she looked at him, and the red come up in her
+cheeks like a sunrise.
+
+"'Beg pardon, I'm sure,' says Allie, tossing away the cigarette. 'May I
+ask if that--er--deep-sea gentleman in my tree is a friend of yours?'
+
+"Barbara kind of laughed and dropped her eyes, and said why, yes, I was.
+
+"'By Jove! he's luckier than I thought,' says Allie, never taking his
+eyes from her face. 'And what do they call him, please, when they want
+him to answer?' That's what he asked, though, mind you, he'd said he
+knew who I was when he first saw me.
+
+"'It's Mr. Nickerson,' says Barbara. 'He lives in that house there. The
+one this side of ours.'
+
+"'Oh, a neighbor! That's different. Awfully sorry, I'm sure. Prince,
+come here. Er--Nickerson, for the lady's sake we'll call it off. You
+may--er--vacate the perch.'
+
+"I waited till he'd got a clove-hitch onto Prince. He had to give him
+one or two welts over the head 'fore he could do it; the dog acted like
+he'd been cheated. Then I pried myself loose from that blessed limb
+and shinned down to solid ground. My! but I was b'iling inside.
+'Taint pleasant to be made a show afore folks, but 'twas the feller's
+condescending what-excuse-you-got-for-living manners that riled me most.
+
+"I picked up what was left of the dreeners and walked over to the fence.
+That field was just sowed, as you might say, with clams. If they ever
+sprouted 'twould make a tip-top codfish pasture.
+
+"'You see,' says Allie, talking to Barbara; 'the gov'nor told me he'd
+been plagued with trespassers, so I thought I'd give 'em a lesson. But
+neighbors, when they're scarce as ours are, ought to be friends. Don't
+you think so, Miss--? Er--Nickerson,' says he, 'introduce me to our
+other neighbor.'
+
+"So I had to do it, though I didn't want to. He turned loose some soft
+soap about not realizing afore what a beautiful place the Cape was. I
+thought 'twas time to go.
+
+"'But Miss Saunders hasn't answered my question yet,' says Allie. 'Don't
+YOU think neighbors ought to be friends, Miss Saunders?'
+
+"Barbara blushed and laughed and said she guessed they had. Then she
+walked away. I started to follow, but Allie stopped me.
+
+"'Look here, Nickerson,' says he. 'I let you off this time, but don't
+try it again; do you hear?'
+
+"'I hear,' says I. 'You and that hyena of yours have had all the fun
+this morning. Some day, maybe, the boot'll be on t'other leg.'
+
+"Barbara was waiting for me. We walked on together without speaking for
+a minute. Then I says, to myself like: 'So that's old man Davidson's
+son, is it? Well, he's the prize peach in the crate, he is!'
+
+"Barbara was thinking, too. 'He's very nice looking, isn't he?' says
+she. 'Twas what you'd expect a girl to say, but I hated to hear her say
+it. I went home and marked a big chalk-mark on the inside of my shanty
+door, signifying that I had a debt so pay some time or other.
+
+"So that's how I got acquainted with Allie V. P. Davidson. And, what's
+full as important, that's how he got acquainted with Barbara Saunders.
+
+"Shutting an innocent canary-bird up in the same room with a healthy cat
+is a more or less risky proposition for the bird. Same way, if you take
+a pretty country girl who's been to sea with her dad most of the time
+and tied to the apron-strings of a deef old aunt in a house three
+miles from nowhere--you take that girl, I say, and then fetch along,
+as next-door neighbor, a good-looking young shark like Allie, with a
+hogshead of money and a blame sight too much experience, and that's a
+risky proposition for the girl.
+
+"Allie played his cards well; he'd set into a good many similar games
+afore, I judge. He begun by doing little favors for Phoebe Ann--she was
+the deef aunt I mentioned--and 'twa'n't long afore he was as solid
+with the old lady as a kedge-anchor. He had a way of dropping into
+the Saunders house for a drink of water or a slab of 'that delicious
+apple-pie,' and with every drop he got better acquainted with Barbara.
+Cap'n Eben was on a v'yage to Buenos Ayres and wouldn't be home till
+fall, 'twa'n't likely.
+
+"I didn't see a great deal of what was going on, being too busy with my
+fishweirs and clamming to notice. Allie and me wa'n't exactly David and
+Jonathan, owing, I judge, to our informal introduction to each other.
+But I used to see him scooting 'round in his launch--twenty-five foot,
+she was, with a little mahogany cabin and the land knows what--and
+the servants at the big house told me yarns about his owning a big
+steam-yacht, with a sailing-master and crew, which was cruising round
+Newport somewheres.
+
+"But, busy as I was, I see enough to make me worried. There was a good
+deal of whispering over the Saunders back gate after supper, and once,
+when I come up over the bluff from the shore sudden, they was sitting
+together on a rock and he had his arm round her waist. I dropped a hint
+to Phoebe Ann, but she shut me up quicker'n a snap-hinge match-box.
+Allie had charmed 'auntie' all right. And so it drifted along till
+September.
+
+"One Monday evening about the middle of the month I went over to Phoebe
+Ann's to borrow some matches. Barbara wasn't in--gone out to lock up
+the hens, or some such fool excuse. But Phoebe was busting full of joy.
+Cap'n Eben had arrived in New York a good deal sooner'n was expected and
+would be home on Thursday morning.
+
+"'He's going from Boston to Provincetown on the steamer, Wednesday,'
+says Phoebe. 'He's got some business over there. Then he's coming home
+from Provincetown on the early train. Ain't that splendid?'
+
+"I thought 'twas splendid for more reasons than one, and I went out
+feeling good. But as I come round the corner of the house there was
+somebody by the back gate, and I heard a girl's voice sayin': 'Oh, no,
+no! I can't! I can't!'
+
+"If I hadn't trod on a stick maybe I'd have heard more, but the racket
+broke up the party. Barbara come hurrying past me into the house, and
+by the light from the back door, I see her face. 'Twas white as a
+clam-shell, and she looked frightened to death.
+
+"Thinks I: 'That's funny! It's a providence Eben's coming home so soon.'
+
+"And the next day I saw her again, and she was just as white and
+wouldn't look me in the eye. Wednesday, though, I felt better, for the
+servants on the Davidson place told me that Allie had gone to Boston on
+the morning train to be gone for good, and that they was going to shut
+up the house and haul up the launch in a day or so.
+
+"Early that afternoon, as I was coming from my shanty to the bluff on
+my way to the shore after dinner, I noticed a steam-yacht at anchor two
+mile or so off the bar. She must have come there sence I got in, and I
+wondered whose she was. Then I see a dingey with three men aboard rowing
+in, and I walked down the beach to meet 'em.
+
+"Sometimes I think there is such things as what old Parson Danvers used
+to call 'dispensations.' This was one of 'em. There was a feller in
+a uniform cap steering the dingey, and, b'lieve it or not, I'll be
+everlastingly keelhauled if he didn't turn out to be Ben Henry, who was
+second mate with me on the old Seafoam. He was surprised enough to see
+me, and glad, too, but he looked sort of worried.
+
+"'Well, Ben,' says I, after we had shook hands, 'well, Ben,' I says, 'my
+shanty ain't exactly the United States Hotel for gilt paint and bill of
+fare, but I HAVE got eight or ten gallons of home-made cherry rum and
+some terbacker and an extry pipe. You fall into my wake.'
+
+"'I'd like to, Obed,' he says; 'I'd like to almighty well, but I've got
+to go up to the store, if there is such a thing in this metropolus, and
+buy some stuff that I forgot to get in Newport. You see, we got orders
+to sail in a tearing hurry, and--'
+
+"'Send one of them fo'mast hands to the store,' says I. 'You got to come
+with me.'
+
+"He hemmed and hawed a while, but he was dry, and I shook the cherry-rum
+jug at him, figuratively speaking, so finally he give in.
+
+"'You buy so and so,' says he to his men, passing 'em a ten-dollar
+bill. 'And mind, you don't know nothing. If anybody asks, remember that
+yacht's the Mermaid--M-U-R-M-A-D-E,' he says, 'and she belongs to Mr.
+Jones, of Mobile, Georgia.'
+
+"So the men went away, and me and Ben headed for my shanty, where we
+moored abreast of each other at the table, with a jug between us for a
+buoy, so's to speak. We talked old times and spun yarns, and the tide
+went out in the jug consider'ble sight faster than 'twas ebbing on the
+flats. After a spell I asked him about the man that owned the yacht.
+
+"'Who? Oh--er--Brown?' he says. 'Why, he's--'
+
+"'Brown?' says I. 'Thought you said 'twas Jones?'
+
+"Well, that kind of upset him, and he took some cherry-rum to grease his
+memory. Then I asked more questions and he tried to answer 'em, and got
+worse tangled than ever. Finally I had to laugh.
+
+"'Look here, Ben,' says I. 'You can't fetch port on that tack. The
+truth's ten mile astern of you. Who does own that yacht, anyway?'
+
+"He looked at me mighty solemn--cherry-rum solemn. 'Obed,' he says,
+'you're a good feller. Don't you give me away, now, or I'll lose my
+berth. The man that owns that yacht's named Davidson, and he's got a
+summer place right in this town.'
+
+"'Davidson!' says I. 'DAVIDSON? Not young Allie Davidson?'
+
+"'That's him,' says he. 'And he's the blankety blankest meanest low-down
+cub on earth. There! I feel some better. Give me another drink to take
+the taste of him out of my mouth.'
+
+"'But young Davidson's gone to Boston,' I says. 'Went this morning.'
+
+"'That be hanged!' says Ben. 'All I know is that I got a despatch from
+him at Newport on Monday afternoon, telling me to have the yacht abreast
+this town at twelve o'clock to-night, 'cause he was coming off to her
+then in his launch with a friend. Friend!' And he laughed and winked his
+starboard eye.
+
+"I didn't say much, being too busy thinking, but Ben went on telling
+about other cruises with 'friends.' Oh, a steam-yacht can be a
+first-class imitation of hell if the right imp owns her. Henry got
+speaking of one time down along the Maine coast.
+
+"'But,' says I, referring to what he was telling, 'if she was such a
+nice girl and come from such nice folks, how--'
+
+"'How do I know?' says he. 'Promises to marry and such kind of lies, I
+s'pose. And the plain fact is that he's really engaged to marry a swell
+girl in Newport.'
+
+"He told me her name and a lot more about her. I tried to remember the
+most of it, but my head was whirling--and not from cherry rum,
+either. All I could think was: 'Obed, it's up to you! You've got to do
+something.'
+
+"I was mighty glad when the sailors hailed from the shore and Ben had to
+go. He 'most cried when he said good-by, and went away stepping high and
+bringing his heels down hard. I watched the dingey row off--the tide
+was out, so there was barely water for her to get clear--and then I went
+back home to think. And I thought all the afternoon.
+
+"Two and two made four, anyway I could add it up, but 'twas all
+suspicion and no real proof, that was the dickens of it. I couldn't
+speak to Phoebe Ann; she wouldn't b'lieve me if I did. I couldn't
+telegraph Cap'n Eben at Provincetown to come home that night; I'd have
+to tell him the whole thing and I knew his temper, so, for Barbara's
+sake, 'twouldn't do. I couldn't be at the shore to stop the launch
+leaving. What right had I to stop another man's launch, even--
+
+"No, 'twas up to me, and I thought and thought till after supper-time.
+And then I had a plan--a risky chance, but a chance, just the same. I
+went up to the store and bought four feet of medium-size rubber hose and
+some rubber tape, same as they sell to bicycle fellers in the summer.
+'Twas almost dark when I got back in sight of my shanty, and instead of
+going to it I jumped that board fence that me and Prince had negotiated
+for, hustled along the path past the notice boards, and went down the
+bluff on t'other side of Davidson's p'int. And there in the deep hole
+by the end of the little pier, out of sight of the house on shore, was
+Allie's launch. By what little light there was left I could see the
+brass rails shining.
+
+"But I didn't stop to admire 'em. I give one look around. Nobody was
+in sight. Then I ran down the pier and jumped aboard. Almost the first
+thing I put my hand on was what I was looking for--the bilge-pump. 'Twas
+a small affair, that you could lug around in one hand, but mighty handy
+for keeping a boat of that kind dry.
+
+"I fitted one end of my hose to the lower end of that pump and wrapped
+rubber tape around the j'int till she sucked when I tried her over the
+side. Then I turned on the cocks in the gasoline pipes fore and aft, and
+noticed that the carbureter feed cup was chock full. Then I was ready
+for business.
+
+"I went for'ard, climbing over the little low cabin that was just big
+enough for a man to crawl into, till I reached the brass cap in the deck
+over the gasoline-tank. Then I unscrewed the cap, run my hose down into
+the tank, and commenced to pump good fourteen-cents-a-gallon gasoline
+overboard to beat the cars. 'Twas a thirty-gallon tank, and full up. I
+begun to think I'd never get her empty, but I did, finally. I pumped
+her dry. Then I screwed the cap on again and went home, taking Allie's
+bilge-pump with me, for I couldn't stop to unship the hose. The tide was
+coming in fast.
+
+"At nine o'clock that night I was in my skiff, rowing off to where my
+power-boat laid in deep water back of the bar. When I reached her I made
+the skiff fast astern, lit a lantern, which I put in a locker under a
+thwart, and set still in the pitch-dark, smoking and waiting.
+
+"'Twas a long, wearisome wait. There was a no'thwest wind coming up, and
+the waves were running pretty choppy on the bar. All I could think of
+was that gasoline. Was there enough in the pipes and the feed cup on
+that launch to carry her out to where I was? Or was there too much, and
+would she make the yacht, after all?
+
+"It got to be eleven o'clock. Tide was full at twelve. I was a pretty
+good candidate for the crazy house by this time. I'd listened till my
+ear-drums felt slack, like they needed reefing. And then at last I heard
+her coming--CHUFF-chuff! CHUFF-chuff! CHUFF-chuff!
+
+"And HOW she did come! She walked up abreast of me, went past me, a
+hundred yards or so off. Thinks I: 'It's all up. He's going to make it.'
+
+"And then, all at once, the 'chuff-chuff-ing' stopped. Started up
+and stopped again. I gave a hurrah, in my mind, pulled the skiff up
+alongside and jumped into her, taking the lantern with me, under my
+coat. Then I set the light between my feet, picked up the oars and
+started rowing.
+
+"I rowed quiet as I could, but he heard me 'fore I got to him. I heard
+a scrambling noise off ahead, and then a shaky voice hollers: 'Hello!
+who's that?'
+
+"'It's me,' says I, rowing harder'n ever. 'Who are you? What's the row?'
+
+"There was more scrambling and a slam, like a door shutting. In another
+two minutes I was alongside the launch and held up my lantern. Allie was
+there, fussing with his engine. And he was all alone.
+
+"Alone he was, I say, fur's a body could see, but he was mighty shaky
+and frightened. Also, 'side of him, on the cushions, was a girl's
+jacket, and I thought I'd seen that jacket afore.
+
+"'Hello!' says I. 'Is that you, Mr. Davidson? Thought you'd gone to
+Boston?'
+
+"'Changed my mind,' he says. 'Got any gasoline?'
+
+"'What you doing off here this time of night?' I says.
+
+"'Going out to my--' He stopped. I s'pose the truth choked him. 'I was
+going to Provincetown,' he went on. 'Got any gasoline?'
+
+"'What in the nation you starting to Provincetown in the middle of the
+night for?' I asks, innocent as could be.
+
+"'Oh, thunder! I had business there, that's all. GOT ANY GASOLINE?'
+
+"I made my skiff's painter fast to a cleat on the launch and climbed
+aboard. 'Gasoline?' says I. 'Gasoline? Why, yes; I've got some gasoline
+over on my power-boat out yonder. Has yours give out? I should
+think you'd filled your tank 'fore you left home on such a trip as
+Provincetown. Maybe the pipe's plugged or something. Have you looked?'
+And I caught hold of the handle of the cabin-door.
+
+"He jumped and grabbed me by the arm. ''Tain't plugged,' he yells,
+sharp. 'The tank's empty, I tell you.'
+
+"He kept pulling me away from the cabin, but I hung onto the handle.
+
+"'You can't be too sure,' I says. 'This door's locked. Give me the key.'
+
+"'I--I left the key at home,' he says. 'Don't waste time. Go over to
+your boat and fetch me some gasoline. I'll pay you well for it.'
+
+"Then I was sartin of what I suspicioned. The cabin was locked, but
+not with the key. THAT was in the keyhole. The door was bolted ON THE
+INSIDE.
+
+"'All right,' says I. 'I'll sell you the gasoline, but you'll have to
+go with me in the skiff to get it. Get your anchor over or this craft'll
+drift to Eastham. Hurry up.'
+
+"He didn't like the idee of leaving the launch, but I wouldn't hear of
+anything else. While he was heaving the anchor I commenced to talk to
+him.
+
+"'I didn't know but what you'd started for foreign parts to meet that
+Newport girl you're going to marry,' I says, and I spoke good and loud.
+
+"He jumped so I thought he'd fall overboard.
+
+"'What's that?' he shouts.
+
+"'Why, that girl you're engaged to,' says I. 'Miss--' and I yelled her
+name, and how she'd gone abroad with his folks, and all.
+
+"'Shut up!' he whispers, waving his hands, frantic. 'Don't stop to lie.
+Hurry up!'
+
+"''Tain't a lie. Oh, I know about it!' I hollers, as if he was deef. I
+meant to be heard--by him and anybody else that might be interested.
+I give a whole lot more partic'lars, too. He fairly shoved me into the
+skiff, after a spell.
+
+"'Now,' he says, so mad he could hardly speak, 'stop your lying and row,
+will you!'
+
+"I was willing to row then. I cal'lated I'd done some missionary work
+by this time. Allie's guns was spiked, if I knew Barbara Saunders. I
+p'inted the skiff the way she'd ought to go and laid to the oars.
+
+"My plan had been to get him aboard the skiff and row
+somewheres--ashore, if I could. But 'twas otherwise laid out for me. The
+wind was blowing pretty fresh, and the skiff was down by the stern, so's
+the waves kept knocking her nose round. 'Twas dark'n a pocket, too. I
+couldn't tell where I WAS going.
+
+"Allie got more fidgety every minute. 'Ain't we 'most there?' he asks.
+And then he gives a screech. 'What's that ahead?'
+
+"I turned to see, and as I done it the skiff's bow slid up on something.
+I give an awful yank at the port oar; she slewed and tilted; a wave
+caught her underneath, and the next thing I knew me and Allie and the
+skiff was under water, bound for the bottom. We'd run acrost one of the
+guy-ropes of my fish-weir.
+
+"This wa'n't in the program. I hit sand with a bump and pawed up for
+air. When I got my head out I see a water-wheel doing business close
+along-side of me. It was Allie.
+
+"'Help!' he howls. 'Help! I'm drowning!'
+
+"I got him by the collar, took one stroke and bumped against the
+weir-nets. You know what a fish-weir's like, don't you, Mr. Brown?--a
+kind of pound, made of nets hung on ropes between poles.
+
+"'Help!' yells Allie, clawing the nets. 'I can't swim in rough water!'
+
+"You might have known he couldn't. It looked sort of dubious for a
+jiffy. Then I had an idee. I dragged him to the nighest weir-pole.
+'Climb!' I hollers in his ear. 'Climb that pole.'
+
+"He done it, somehow, digging his toes into the net and going up like a
+cat up a tree. When he got to the top he hung acrost the rope and shook.
+
+"'Hang on there!' says I. 'I'm going after the boat.' And I struck out.
+He yelled to me not to leave him, but the weir had give me my bearings,
+and I was bound for my power-boat. 'Twas a tough swim, but I made it,
+and climbed aboard, not feeling any too happy. Losing a good skiff was
+more'n I'd figgered on.
+
+"Soon's I got some breath I hauled anchor, started up my engine and
+headed back for the weir. I run along-side of it, keeping a good lookout
+for guy-ropes, and when I got abreast of that particular pole I looked
+for Allie. He was setting on the rope, a-straddle of the pole, and
+hanging onto the top of it like it owed him money. He looked a good deal
+more comfortable than I was when he and Prince had treed me. And the
+remembrance of that time come back to me, and one of them things they
+call inspiration come with it. He was four feet above water, 'twas full
+tide then, and if he set still he was safe as a church.
+
+"So instead of running in after him, I slowed 'way down and backed off.
+
+"'Come here!' he yells. 'Come here, you fool, and take me aboard.'
+
+"'Oh, I don't know,' says I. 'You're safe there, and, even if the
+yacht folks don't come hunting for you by and by--which I cal'late they
+will--the tide'll be low enough in five hours or so, so's you can walk
+ashore.'
+
+"'What--what do you mean?' he says. 'Ain't you goin' to take me off?'
+
+"'I was,' says I, 'but I've changed my plans. And, Mr. Allie
+Vander-what's-your-name Davidson, there's other things--low-down, mean
+things--planned for this night that ain't going to come off, either.
+Understand that, do you?'
+
+"He understood, I guess. He didn't answer at all. Only gurgled, like
+he'd swallered something the wrong way.
+
+"Then the beautiful tit for tat of the whole business come to me, and I
+couldn't help rubbing it in a little. 'As a sartin acquaintance of mine
+once said to me,' I says, 'you look a good deal handsomer up there than
+you do in a boat.'
+
+"'You--you--etcetery and so forth, continued in our next!' says he, or
+words to that effect.
+
+"'That's all right,' says I, putting on the power. 'You've got no kick
+coming. I allow you to--er--ornament my weir-pole, and 'tain't every
+dude I'd let do that.'
+
+"And I went away and, as the Fifth Reader used to say, 'let him alone in
+his glory.'
+
+"I went back to the launch, pulled up her anchor and took her in tow. I
+towed her in to her pier, made her fast and then left her for a while.
+When I come back the little cabin-door was open and the girl's jacket
+was gone.
+
+"Then I walked up the path to the Saunders house and it done me good to
+see a light in Barbara's window. I set on the steps of that house until
+morning keeping watch. And in the morning the yacht was gone and the
+weir-pole was vacant, and Cap'n Eben Saunders come on the first train.
+
+"So's that's all there is of it. Allie hasn't come back to Bayport
+sence, and the last I heard he'd married that Newport girl; she has my
+sympathy, if that's any comfort to her.
+
+"And Barbara? Well, for a long time she'd turn white every time I met
+her. But, of course, I kept my mouth shut, and she went to sea next
+v'yage with her dad. And now I hear she's engaged to a nice feller up to
+Boston.
+
+"Oh, yes--one thing more. When I got back to my shanty that morning I
+wiped the chalkmark off the door. I kind of figgered that I'd paid that
+debt, with back interest added."
+
+
+
+
+
+THE LOVE OF LOBELIA 'ANKINS
+
+
+Obed's yarn being done, and friend Davidson done too, and brown at that,
+Peter T. passed around another relay of cigars and we lit up. 'Twas
+Cap'n Eri that spoke first.
+
+"Love's a queer disease, anyway," says he. "Ain't it, now? 'Twould
+puzzle you and me to figger out what that Saunders girl see to like in
+the Davidson critter. It must be a dreadful responsible thing to be so
+fascinating. I never felt that responsibleness but once--except when I
+got married, of course--and that was a good many years ago, when I was
+going to sea on long v'yages, and was cruising around the East Indies,
+in the latitude of our new troubles, the Philippines.
+
+"I put in about three months on one of them little coral islands off
+that way once. Hottest corner in the Lord's creation, I cal'late, and
+the laziest and sleepiest hole ever I struck. All a feller feels like
+doing in them islands is just to lay on his back under a palm tree all
+day and eat custard-apples, and such truck.
+
+"Way I come to be there was like this: I was fo'mast hand on a Boston
+hooker bound to Singapore after rice. The skipper's name was Perkins,
+Malachi C. Perkins, and he was the meanest man that ever wore a
+sou'-wester. I've had the pleasure of telling him so sence--'twas in
+Surinam 'long in '72. Well, anyhow, Perkins fed us on spiled salt junk
+and wormy hard-tack all the way out, and if a feller dast to hint that
+the same wa'n't precisely what you'd call Parker House fare, why the
+skipper would knock him down with a marline-spike and the first mate
+would kick him up and down the deck. 'Twan't a pretty performance to
+look at, but it beat the world for taking the craving for fancy cooking
+out of a man.
+
+"Well, when I got to Singapore I was nothing but skin and bone, and
+considerable of the skin had been knocked off by the marline-spike and
+the mate's boots. I'd shipped for the v'yage out and back, but the first
+night in port I slipped over the side, swum ashore, and never set eyes
+on old Perkins again till that time in Surinam, years afterward.
+
+"I knocked round them Singapore docks for much as a month, hoping to
+get a berth on some other ship, but 'twan't no go. I fell in with a
+Britisher named Hammond, 'Ammond, he called it, and as he was on the
+same hunt that I was, we kept each other comp'ny. We done odd jobs now
+'n' again, and slept in sailors' lodging houses when we had the price,
+and under bridges or on hemp bales when we hadn't. I was too proud to
+write home for money, and Hammond didn't have no home to write to, I
+cal'late.
+
+"But luck 'll turn if you give it time enough. One night Hammond come
+hurrying round to my sleeping-room--that is to say, my hemp bale--and
+gives me a shake, and says he:
+
+"'Turn out, you mud 'ead, I've got you a berth.'
+
+"'Aw, go west!' says I, and turned over to go to sleep again. But he
+pulled me off the bale by the leg, and that woke me up so I sensed what
+he was saying. Seems he'd found a feller that wanted to ship a couple of
+fo'mast hands on a little trading schooner for a trip over to the Java
+Sea.
+
+"Well, to make a long story short, we shipped with this feller, whose
+name was Lazarus. I cal'late if the Lazarus in Scriptur' had been up to
+as many tricks and had come as nigh being a thief as our Lazarus was,
+he wouldn't have been so poor. Ourn was a shrewd rascal and nothing more
+nor less than a pearl poacher. He didn't tell us that till after we sot
+sail, but we was so desperate I don't know as 'twould have made much
+diff'rence if he had.
+
+"We cruised round for a spell, sort of prospecting, and then we landed
+at a little one-horse coral island, where there wa'n't no inhabitants,
+but where we was pretty dead sartin there was pearl oyster banks in
+the lagoon. There was five of us on the schooner, a Dutchman named
+Rhinelander, a Coolie cook and Lazarus and Hammond and me. We put up a
+slab shanty on shore and went to work pearl fishing, keeping one eye out
+for Dutch gunboats, and always having a sago palm ready to split open
+so's, if we got caught, we could say we was after sago.
+
+"Well, we done fairly good at the pearl fishing; got together quite a
+likely mess of pearls, and, as 'twas part of the agreement that the crew
+had a certain share in the stake, why, Hammond and me was figgering
+that we was going to make enough to more'n pay us for our long spell of
+starving at Singapore. Lazarus was feeling purty middling chipper, the
+cook was feeding us high, and everything looked lovely.
+
+"Rhinelander and the Coolie and the skipper used to sleep aboard the
+boat, but Hammond and me liked to sleep ashore in the shanty. For one
+thing, the bunks on the schooner wa'n't none too clean, and the Coolie
+snored so that he'd shake the whole cabin, and start me dreaming
+about cyclones, and cannons firing, and lions roaring, and all kind of
+foolishness. I always did hate a snorer.
+
+"One morning me and Hammond come out of the shanty, and, lo and behold
+you! there wa'n't no schooner to be seen. That everlasting Lazarus had
+put up a job on us, and had sneaked off in the night with the cook and
+the Dutchman, and took our share of the pearls with him. I s'pose he'd
+cal'lated to do it from the very first. Anyway, there we was, marooned
+on that little two-for-a-cent island.
+
+"The first day we didn't do much but cuss Lazarus up hill and down dale.
+Hammond was the best at that kind of business ever I see. He invented
+more'n four hundred new kind of names for the gang on the schooner, and
+every one of 'em was brimstone-blue. We had fish lines in the shanty,
+and there was plenty of water on the island, so we knew we wouldn't
+starve to death nor die of thirst, anyhow.
+
+"I've mentioned that 'twas hot in them parts? Well, that island was the
+hottest of 'em all. Whew! Don't talk! And, more'n that, the weather was
+the kind that makes you feel it's a barrel of work to live. First day
+we fished and slept. Next day we fished less and slept more. Third day
+'twas too everlasting hot even to sleep, so we set round in the shade
+and fought flies and jawed each other. Main trouble was who was goin' to
+git the meals. Land, how we did miss that Coolie cook!
+
+"'W'y don't yer get to work and cook something fit to heat?' says
+Hammond. ''Ere I broke my bloomin' back 'auling in the fish, and you
+doing nothing but 'anging around and letting 'em dry hup in the 'eat.
+Get to work and cook. Blimed if I ain't sick of these 'ere custard
+apples!'
+
+"'Go and cook yourself,' says I. 'I didn't sign articles to be cook for
+no Johnny Bull!'
+
+"Well, we jawed back and forth for an hour, maybe more. Two or three
+times we got up to have it out, but 'twas too hot to fight, so we set
+down again. Fin'lly we eat some supper, custard apples and water, and
+turned in.
+
+"But 'twas too hot to sleep much, and I got up about three o'clock in
+the morning and went out and set down on the beach in the moonlight.
+Pretty soon out comes Hammond and sets down alongside and begins to give
+the weather a general overhauling, callin' it everything he could lay
+tongue to. Pretty soon he breaks off in the middle of a nine-j'inted
+swear word and sings out:
+
+"'Am I goin' crazy, or is that a schooner?'
+
+"I looked out into the moonlight, and there, sure enough, was a
+schooner, about a mile off the island, and coming dead on. First-off
+we thought 'twas Lazarus coming back, but pretty soon we see 'twas a
+considerable smaller boat than his.
+
+"We forgot all about how hot it was and hustled out on the reef right at
+the mouth of the lagoon. I had a coat on a stick, and I waved it for a
+signal, and Hammond set to work building a bonfire. He got a noble one
+blazing and then him and me stood and watched the schooner.
+
+"She was acting dreadful queer. First she'd go ahead on one tack and
+then give a heave over and come about with a bang, sails flapping and
+everything of a shake; then she'd give another slat and go off another
+way; but mainly she kept right on toward the island.
+
+"'W'at's the matter aboard there?' says Hammond. 'Is hall 'ands drunk?'
+
+"'She's abandoned,' says I. 'That's what's the matter. There ain't
+NOBODY aboard of her.'
+
+"Then we both says, 'Salvage!' and shook hands.
+
+"The schooner came nearer and nearer. It begun to look as if she'd smash
+against the rocks in front of us, but she didn't. When she got opposite
+the mouth of the lagoon she heeled over on a new tack and sailed in
+between the rocks as pretty as anything ever you see. Then she run
+aground on the beach just about a quarter of a mile from the shanty.
+
+"'Twas early morning when we climbed aboard of her. I thought Lazarus'
+schooner was dirty, but this one was nothing BUT dirt. Dirty sails, all
+patches, dirty deck, dirty everything.
+
+"'Won't get much salvage on this bally tub,' says Hammond; 'she's one of
+them nigger fish boats, that's w'at she is.'
+
+"I was kind of skittish about going below, 'fraid there might be some
+dead folks, but Hammond went. In a minute or so up he comes, looking
+scary.
+
+"'There's something mighty queer down there,' says he: 'kind of w'eezing
+like a puffing pig.'
+
+"'Wheezing your grandmother!' says I, but I went and listened at the
+hatch. 'Twas a funny noise I heard, but I knew what it was in a minute;
+I'd heard too much of it lately to forget it, right away.
+
+"'It's snoring,' says I; 'somebody snoring.'
+
+"''Eavens!' says Hammond, 'you don't s'pose it's that 'ere Coolie come
+back?'
+
+"'No, no!' says I. 'Where's your common sense? The cook snored bass;
+this critter's snoring suppraner, and mighty poor suppraner at that.'
+
+"'Well,' says he, ''ere goes to wake 'im hup!' And he commenced to
+holler, 'Ahoy!' and 'Belay, there!' down the hatch.
+
+"First thing we heard was a kind of thump like somebody jumping out er
+bed. Then footsteps, running like; then up the hatchway comes a sight I
+shan't forget if I live to be a hundred.
+
+"'Twas a woman, middling old, with a yeller face all wrinkles, and a
+chin and nose like Punch. She was dressed in a gaudy old calico gown,
+and had earrings in her ears. She give one look round at the schooner
+and the island. Then she see us and let out a whoop like a steam
+whistle.
+
+"'Mulligatawny Sacremento merlasess!' she yells. 'Course that wa'n't
+what she said, but that's what it sounded like. Then, 'fore Hammond
+could stop her, she run for him and give him a rousing big hug. He was
+the most surprised man ever you see, stood there like a wooden image. I
+commenced to laff, but the next minute the woman come for me and hugged
+me, too.
+
+"''Fectionate old gal,' says Hammond, grinning.
+
+"The critter in the calirco gown was going through the craziest
+pantomime ever was; p'intin' off to sea and then down to deck and then
+up to the sails. I didn't catch on for a minute, but Hammond did. Says
+he:
+
+"'Showing us w'ere this 'ere palatial yacht come from. 'Ad a rough
+passage, it looks like!'
+
+"Then the old gal commenced to get excited. She p'inted over the side
+and made motions like rowing. Then she p'inted down the hatch and shut
+her eyes and purtended to snore. After that she rowed again, all the
+time getting madder and madder, with her little black eyes a-snapping
+like fire coals and stomping her feet and shaking her fists. Fin'lly she
+finished up with a regular howl, you might say, of rage.
+
+"'The crew took to the boat and left 'er asleep below,' says Hammond.
+''Oly scissors: they're in for a lively time if old Nutcrackers 'ere
+ever catches 'em, 'ey?'
+
+"Well, we went over the schooner and examined everything, but there
+wa'n't nothing of any value nowheres. 'Twas a reg'lar nigger fishing
+boat, with dirt and cockroaches by the pailful. At last we went ashore
+agin and up to the shanty, taking the old woman with us. After eating
+some more of them tiresome custard apples for breakfast, Hammond and me
+went down to look over the schooner agin. We found she'd started a plank
+running aground on the beach, and that 'twould take us a week to get her
+afloat and watertight.
+
+"While we was doing this the woman come down and went aboard. Pretty
+soon we see her going back to the shanty with her arms full of bundles
+and truck. We didn't think anything of it then, but when we got home
+at noon, there was the best dinner ever you see all ready for us. Fried
+fish, and some kind of beans cooked up with peppers, and tea--real store
+tea--and a lot more things. Land, how we did eat! We kept smacking our
+lips and rubbing our vests to show we was enjoying everything, and the
+old gal kept bobbing her head and grinning like one of them dummies you
+wind up with a key.
+
+"'Well,' says Hammond, 'we've got a cook at last. Ain't we,
+old--old--Blimed if we've got a name for 'er yet! Here!' says he,
+pointing to me. 'Looky here, missis! 'Edge! 'Edge! that's 'im! 'Ammond!
+'Ammond! that's me. Now, 'oo are YOU?'
+
+"She rattled off a name that had more double j'ints in it than an eel.
+
+"'Lordy!' says I; 'we never can larn that rigamarole. I tell you! She
+looks for all the world like old A'nt Lobelia Fosdick at home down on
+Cape Cod. Let's call her that.'
+
+"'She looks to me like the mother of a oysterman I used to know in
+Liverpool. 'Is name was 'Ankins. Let's split the difference and call 'er
+Lobelia 'Ankins.'
+
+"So we done it.
+
+"Well, Hammond and me pounded and patched away at the schooner for the
+next three or four days, taking plenty of time off to sleep in, 'count
+of the heat, but getting along fairly well.
+
+"Lobelia 'Ankins cooked and washed dishes for us. She done some noble
+cooking, 'specially as we wa'n't partic'lar, but we could see she had a
+temper to beat the Old Scratch. If anything got burned, or if the kittle
+upset, she'd howl and stomp and scatter things worse than a cyclone.
+
+"I reckon 'twas about the third day that I noticed she was getting sweet
+on Hammond. She was giving him the best of all the vittles, and used
+to set at the table and look at him, softer'n and sweeter'n a bucket of
+molasses. Used to walk 'longside of him, too, and look up in his face
+and smile. I could see that he noticed it and that it was worrying him a
+heap. One day he says to me:
+
+"''Edge,' says he, 'I b'lieve that 'ere chromo of a Lobelia 'Ankins is
+getting soft on me.'
+
+"''Course she is,' says I; 'I see that a long spell ago.'
+
+"'But what'll I DO?' says he. 'A woman like 'er is a desp'rate
+character. If we hever git hashore she might be for lugging me to the
+church and marrying me by main force.'
+
+"'Then you'll have to marry her, for all I see,' says I. 'You shouldn't
+be so fascinating.'
+
+"That made him mad and he went off jawing to himself.
+
+"The next day we got the schooner patched up and off the shoal and
+'longside Lazarus' old landing wharf by the shanty. There was a little
+more tinkering to be done 'fore she was ready for sea, and we cal'lated
+to do it that afternoon.
+
+"After dinner Hammond went down to the spring after some water and
+Lobelia 'Ankins went along with him. I laid down in the shade for a
+snooze, but I hadn't much more than settled myself comfortably when
+I heard a yell and somebody running. I jumped up just in time to see
+Hammond come busting through the bushes, lickety smash, with Lobelia
+after him, yelling like an Injun. Hammond wa'n't yelling; he was saving
+his breath for running.
+
+"They wa'n't in sight more'n a minute, but went smashing and crashing
+through the woods into the distance. 'Twas too hot to run after 'em, so
+I waited a spell and then loafed off in a roundabout direction toward
+where I see 'em go. After I'd walked pretty nigh a mile I heard Hammond
+whistle. I looked, but didn't see him nowheres. Then he whistled again,
+and I see his head sticking out of the top of a palm tree.
+
+"'Is she gone?' says he.
+
+"'Yes, long ago,' says I. 'Come down.'
+
+"It took some coaxing to git him down, but he come after a spell, and he
+was the scaredest man ever I see. I asked him what the matter was.
+
+"''Edge,' says he, 'I'm a lost man. That 'ere 'orrible 'Ankins houtrage
+is either going to marry me or kill me. 'Edge,' he says, awful solemn,
+'she tried to kiss me! S'elp me, she did!'
+
+"Well, I set back and laughed. 'Is that why you run away?' I says.
+
+"'No,' says he. 'When I wouldn't let 'er she hups with a rock as big as
+my 'ead and goes for me. There was murder in 'er eyes, 'Edge; I see it.'
+
+"Then I laughed more than ever and told him to come back to the shanty,
+but he wouldn't. He swore he'd never come back again while Lobelia
+'Ankins was there.
+
+"'That's it,' says he, 'larf at a feller critter's sufferings. I honly
+wish she'd try to kiss you once, that's all!'
+
+"Well, I couldn't make him budge, so I decided to go back and get the
+lay of the land. Lobelia was busy inside the shanty when I got there
+and looking black as a thundercloud, so I judged 'twa'n't best to say
+nothing to her, and I went down and finished the job on the schooner. At
+night, when I come in to suppers she met me at the door. She had a big
+stick in her hand and looked savage. I was a little nervous.
+
+"'Now, Lobelia 'Ankins,' says I, 'put down that and be sociable, there's
+a good girl.'
+
+"'Course I knew she couldn't understand me, but I was whistling to keep
+my courage up, as the saying is.
+
+"''Ammond!' says she, p'inting toward the woods.
+
+"'Yes,' says I, 'Hammond's taking a walk for his health.'
+
+"''Ammond!' says she, louder, and shaking the stick.
+
+"'Now, Lobelia,' says I, smiling smooth as butter, 'do put down that
+club!'
+
+"''AMMOND!' she fairly hollers. Then she went through the most
+blood-curdling pantomime ever was, I reckon. First she comes up to me
+and taps me on the chest and says, ''Edge.' Then she goes creeping round
+the room on tiptoe, p'inting out of the winder all the time as much as
+to say she was pertending to walk through the woods. Then she p'ints to
+one of the stumps we used for chairs and screeches 'AMMOND!' and fetches
+the stump an awful bang with the club. Then she comes over to me and
+kinder snuggles up and smiles, and says, ''Edge,' and tried to put the
+club in my hand.
+
+"My topnot riz up on my head. 'Good Lord!' thinks I, 'she's making love
+to me so's to get me to take that club and go and thump Hammond with
+it!'
+
+"I was scared stiff, but Lobelia was between me and the door, so I kept
+smiling and backing away.
+
+"'Now, Lobelia,' says I, 'don't be--'
+
+"''Ammond!' says she.
+
+"'Now, Miss 'Ankins, d-o-n't be hasty, I--'
+
+"''AMMOND!
+
+"Well, I backed faster and faster, and she follered me right up till at
+last I begun to run. Round and round the place we went, me scart for my
+life and she fairly frothing with rage. Finally I bust through the door
+and put for the woods at a rate that beat Hammond's going all holler.
+I never stopped till I got close to the palm tree. Then I whistled and
+Hammond answered.
+
+"When I told him about the rumpus, he set and laughed like an idiot.
+
+"''Ow d'you like Miss 'Ankin's love-making?' he says.
+
+"'You'll like it less'n I do,' I says, 'if she gets up here with that
+club!'
+
+"That kind of sobered him down again, and we got to planning. After a
+spell, we decided that our only chance was to sneak down to the schooner
+in the dark and put to sea, leaving Lobelia alone in her glory.
+
+"Well, we waited till twelve o'clock or so and then we crept down to the
+beach, tiptoeing past the shanty for fear of waking Lobelia. We got on
+the schooner all right, hauled up anchor, h'isted sail and stood out of
+the lagoon with a fair wind. When we was fairly to sea we shook hands.
+
+"'Lawd!' says Hammond, drawing a long breath, 'I never was so 'appy in
+my life. This 'ere lady-killing business ain't in my line.'
+
+"He felt so good that he set by the wheel and sung, 'Good-by, sweet'art,
+good-by,' for an hour or more.
+
+"In the morning we was in sight of another small island, and, out on a
+p'int, was a passel of folks jumping up and down and waving a signal.
+
+"'Well, if there ain't more castaways!' says I.
+
+"'Don't go near 'em!' says Hammond. 'Might come there was more Lobelias
+among 'em.'
+
+"But pretty quick we see the crowd all pile into a boat and come rowing
+off to us. They was all men, and their signal was a red flannel shirt on
+a pole.
+
+"We put about for 'em and picked 'em up, letting their boat tow behind
+the schooner. There was five of 'em, a ragged and dirty lot of Malays
+and half-breeds. When they first climbed aboard, I see 'em looking
+the schooner over mighty sharp, and in a minute they was all jabbering
+together in native lingo.
+
+"'What's the matter with 'em?' says Hammond.
+
+"A chap with scraggy black whiskers and a sort of worried look on his
+face, stepped for'ard and made a bow. He looked like a cross between a
+Spaniard and a Malay, and I guess that's what he was.
+
+"'Senors,' says he, palavering and scraping, 'boat! my boat!'
+
+"'W'at's 'e giving us?' says Hammond.
+
+"'Boat! This boat! My boat, senors,' says the feller. All to once I
+understood him.
+
+"'Hammond,' I says, 'I swan to man if I don't believe we've picked up
+the real crew of this craft!'
+
+"'Si, senor; boat, my boat! Crew! Crew!' says Whiskers, waving his hands
+toward the rest of his gang.
+
+"'Hall right, skipper,' says Hammond; 'glad to see yer back haboard.
+Make yerselves well at 'ome. 'Ow d' yer lose er in the first place?'
+
+"The feller didn't seem to understand much of this, but he looked more
+worried than ever. The crew looked frightened, and jabbered.
+
+"'Ooman, senors,' says Whiskers, in half a whisper. 'Ooman, she here?'
+
+"'Hammond,' says I, 'what's a ooman?' The feller seemed to be thinkin'
+a minute; then he began to make signs. He pulled his nose down till it
+most touched his chin. Then he put his hands to his ears and made loops
+of his fingers to show earrings. Then he took off his coat and wrapped
+it round his knees like make-b'lieve skirts. Hammond and me looked at
+each other.
+
+"''Edge,' says Hammond, ''e wants to know w'at's become of Lobelia
+'Ankins.'
+
+"'No, senor,' says I to the feller; 'ooman no here. Ooman there!' And I
+p'inted in the direction of our island.
+
+"Well, sir, you oughter have seen that Malay gang's faces light up! They
+all bust out a grinning and laffing, and Whiskers fairly hugged me and
+then Hammond. Then he made one of the Malays take the wheel instead of
+me, and sent another one into the fo'castle after something.
+
+"But I was curious, and I says, p'inting toward Lobelia's island:
+
+"'Ooman your wife?'
+
+"'No, no, no,' says he, shaking his head like it would come off, 'ooman
+no wife. Wife there,' and he p'inted about directly opposite from my
+way. 'Ooman,' he goes on, 'she no wife, she--'
+
+"Just here the Malay come up from the fo'castle, grinning like a chessy
+cat and hugging a fat jug of this here palm wine that natives make. I
+don't know where he got it from--I thought Hammond and me had rummaged
+that fo'castle pretty well--but, anyhow, there it was.
+
+"Whiskers passed the jug to me and I handed it over to Hammond. He stood
+up to make a speech.
+
+"'Feller citizens,' says he, 'I rise to drink a toast. 'Ere's to the
+beautchous Lobelia 'Ankins, and may she long hornament the lovely island
+where she now--'
+
+"The Malay at the wheel behind us gave an awful screech. We all turned
+sudden, and there, standing on the companion ladder, with her head and
+shoulders out of the hatch, was Lobelia 'Ankins, as large as life and
+twice as natural.
+
+"Hammond dropped the jug and it smashed into finders. We all stood
+stock-still for a minute, like folks in a tableau. The half-breed
+skipper stood next to me, and I snum if you couldn't see him shrivel up
+like one of them things they call a sensitive plant.
+
+"The tableau lasted while a feller might count five; then things
+happened. Hammond and me dodged around the deckhouse; the Malays broke
+and run, one up the main rigging, two down the fo'castle hatch and one
+out on the jib-boom. But the poor skipper wa'n't satisfied with any of
+them places; he started for the lee rail, and Lobelia 'Ankins started
+after him.
+
+"She caught him as he was going to jump overboard and yanked him back
+like he was a bag of meal. She shook him, she boxed his ears, she pulled
+his hair, and all the time he was begging and pleading and she was
+screeching and jabbering at the top of her lungs. Hammond pulled me by
+the sleeve.
+
+"'It'll be our turn next,' says he; 'get into the boat! Quick!'
+
+"The little boat that the crew had come in was towing behind the
+schooner. We slid over the stern and dropped into it. Hammond cut the
+towline and we laid to the oars. Long as we was in the hearing of the
+schooner the powwow and rumpus kept up, but just as we was landing on
+the little island that the Malays had left, she come about on the port
+tack and stood off to sea.
+
+"'Lobelia's running things again,' says Hammond.
+
+"Three days after this we was took off by a Dutch gunboat. Most of
+the time on the island we spent debating how Lobelia come to be on the
+schooner. Finally we decided that she must have gone aboard to sleep
+that night, suspecting that we'd try to run away in the schooner just as
+we had tried to. We talked about Whiskers and his crew and guessed about
+how they came to abandon their boat in the first place. One thing we was
+sartin sure of, and that was that they'd left Lobelia aboard on purpose.
+We knew mighty well that's what we'd a-done.
+
+"What puzzled us most was what relation Lobelia was to the skipper. She
+wa'n't his wife, 'cause he'd said so, and she didn't look enough like
+him to be his mother or sister. But as we was being took off in the
+Dutchman's yawl, Hammond thumps the thwart with his fist and says he:
+
+"'I've got it!' he says; 'she's 'is mother-in-law!'
+
+"''Course she is!' says I. 'We might have known it!'"
+
+
+
+
+
+THE MEANNESS OF ROSY
+
+
+Cap'n Jonadab said that the South Seas and them islands was full of
+queer happenings, anyhow. Said that Eri's yarn reminded him of one that
+Jule Sparrow used to tell. There was a Cockney in that yarn, too, and
+a South Sea woman and a schooner. But in other respects the stories was
+different.
+
+"You all know Wash Sparrow, here in Wellmouth," says the Cap'n. "He's
+the laziest man in town. It runs in his family. His dad was just the
+same. The old man died of creeping paralysis, which was just the disease
+he'd pick out TO die of, and even then he took six years to do it in.
+Washy's brother Jule, Julius Caesar Sparrow, he was as no-account and
+lazy as the rest. When he was around this neighborhood he put in his
+time swapping sea lies for heat from the post-office stove, and the only
+thing that would get him livened up at all was the mention of a feller
+named 'Rosy' that he knew while he was seafaring, way off on t'other
+side of the world. Jule used to say that 'twas this Rosy that made him
+lose faith in human nature.
+
+"The first time ever Julius and Rosy met was one afternoon just as the
+Emily--that was the little fore-and-aft South Sea trading schooner Jule
+was in--was casting off from the ramshackle landing at Hello Island.
+Where's Hello Island? Well, I'll tell you. When you get home you take
+your boy's geography book and find the map of the world. About amidships
+of the sou'western quarter of it you'll see a place where the Pacific
+Ocean is all broke out with the measles. Yes; well, one of them measle
+spots is Hello Island.
+
+"'Course that ain't the real name of it. The real one is spelt with four
+o's, three a's, five i's, and a peck measure of h's and x's hove in
+to fill up. It looks like a plate of hash and that's the way it's
+pronounced. Maybe you might sing it if 'twas set to music, but no white
+man ever said the whole of it. Them that tried always broke down on
+the second fathom or so and said 'Oh, the hereafter!' or words to that
+effect. 'Course the missionaries see that wouldn't do, so they twisted
+it stern first and it's been Hello Island to most folks ever since.
+
+"Why Jule was at Hello Island is too long a yarn. Biled down it amounts
+to a voyage on a bark out of Seattle, and a first mate like yours, Eri,
+who was a kind of Christian Science chap and cured sick sailors by the
+laying on of hands--likewise feet and belaying pins and ax handles and
+such. And, according to Jule's tell, he DID cure 'em, too. After he'd
+jumped up and down on your digestion a few times you forgot all about
+the disease you started in with and only remembered the complications.
+Him and Julius had their final argument one night when the bark was
+passing abreast one of the Navigator Islands, close in. Jule hove a
+marlinespike at the mate's head and jumped overboard. He swum ashore
+to the beach and, inside of a week, he'd shipped aboard the Emily. And
+'twas aboard the Emily, and at Hello Island, as I said afore, that he
+met Rosy.
+
+"George Simmons--a cockney Britisher he was, and skipper--was standing
+at the schooner's wheel, swearing at the two Kanaka sailors who were
+histing the jib. Julius, who was mate, was roosting on the lee rail
+amid-ships, helping him swear. And old Teunis Van Doozen, a Dutchman
+from Java or thereabouts, who was cook, was setting on a stool by the
+galley door ready to heave in a word whenever 'twas necessary. The
+Kanakas was doing the work. That was the usual division of labor aboard
+the Emily.
+
+"Well, just then there comes a yell from the bushes along the shore.
+Then another yell and a most tremendous cracking and smashing. Then out
+of them bushes comes tearing a little man with spectacles and a black
+enamel-cloth carpetbag, heaving sand like a steam-shovel and seemingly
+trying his best to fly. And astern of him comes more yells and a big,
+husky Kanaka woman, about eight foot high and three foot in the beam,
+with her hands stretched out and her fingers crooked.
+
+"Julius used to swear that that beach was all of twenty yards wide and
+that the little man only lit three times from bush to wharf. And he
+didn't stop there. He fired the carpetbag at the schooner's stern and
+then spread out his wings and flew after it. His fingers just hooked
+over the rail and he managed to haul himself aboard. Then he curled up
+on the deck and breathed short but spirited. The Kanaka woman danced to
+the stringpiece and whistled distress signals.
+
+"Cap'n George Simmons looked down at the wrecked flying machine and
+grunted.
+
+"'Umph!' says he. 'You don't look like a man the girls would run after.
+Lady your wife?'
+
+"The little feller bobbed his specs up and down.
+
+"'So?' says George. ''Ow can I bear to leave thee, 'ey? Well, ain't
+you ashamed of yourself to be running off and leaving a nice, 'andsome,
+able-bodied wife that like? Look at 'er now, over there on 'er knees a
+praying for you to come back.'
+
+"There was a little p'int making out from the beach close by the edge of
+the channel and the woman was out on the end of it, down on all fours.
+Her husband raised up and looked over the rail.
+
+"'She ain't praying,' he pants, ducking down again quick. 'She's
+a-picking up stones.'
+
+"And so she was. Julius said he thought sure she'd cave in the Emily's
+ribs afore she got through with her broadsides. The rocks flew like
+hail. Everybody got their share, but Cap'n George got a big one in the
+middle of the back. That took his breath so all the way he could express
+his feelings was to reach out and give his new passenger half a dozen
+kicks. But just as soon as he could he spoke, all right enough.
+
+"'You mis'rable four-eyed shrimp!' he says. ''Twould serve you right if
+I 'ove to and made you swim back to 'er. Blow me if I don't believe I
+will!'
+
+"'Aw, don't, Cap'n; PLEASE don't!' begs the feller. 'I'll be awful
+grateful to you if you won't. And I'll make it right with you, too. I've
+got a good thing in that bag of mine. Yes, sir! A beautiful good thing.'
+
+"'Oh, well,' says the skipper, bracing up and smiling sweet as he could
+for the ache in his back. 'I'll 'elp you out. You trust your Uncle
+George. Not on account of what you're going to give me, you understand,'
+says he. 'It would be a pity if THAT was the reason for 'elpin' a feller
+creat--Sparrow, if you touch that bag I'll break your blooming 'ead.
+'Ere! you 'and it to me. I'll take care of it for the gentleman.'
+
+"All the rest of that day the Cap'n couldn't do enough for the
+passenger. Give him a big dinner that took Teunis two hours to cook, and
+let him use his own pet pipe with the last of Jule's tobacco in it, and
+all that. And that evening in the cabin, Rosy told his story. Seems he
+come from Bombay originally, where he was born an innocent and trained
+to be a photographer. This was in the days when these hand cameras
+wa'n't so common as they be now, and Rosy--his full name was Clarence
+Rosebury, and he looked it--had a fine one. Also he had some plates and
+photograph paper and a jug of 'developer' and bottles of stuff to make
+more, wrapped up in an old overcoat and packed away in the carpetbag. He
+had landed in the Fijis first-off and had drifted over to Hello Island,
+taking pictures of places and natives and so on, intending to use 'em in
+a course of lectures he was going to deliver when he got back home. He
+boarded with the Kanaka lady at Hello till his money give out, and
+then he married her to save board. He wouldn't talk about his married
+life--just shivered instead.
+
+"'But w'at about this good thing you was mentioning, Mr. Rosebury?' asks
+Cap'n George, polite, but staring hard at the bag. Jule and the cook was
+in the cabin likewise. The skipper would have liked to keep 'em out, but
+they being two to one, he couldn't.
+
+"'That's it,' answers Rosy, cheerful.
+
+"'W'at's it?'
+
+"'Why, the things in the grip; the photograph things. You see,' says
+Rosy, getting excited, his innocent, dreamy eyes a-shining behind his
+specs and the ridge of red hair around his bald spot waving like a hedge
+of sunflowers; 'you see,' he says, 'my experience has convinced me that
+there's a fortune right in these islands for a photographer who'll take
+pictures of the natives. They're all dying to have their photographs
+took. Why, when I was in Hello Island I could have took dozens, only
+they didn't have the money to pay for 'em and I couldn't wait till they
+got some. But you've got a schooner. You could sail around from one
+island to another, me taking pictures and you getting copra and--and
+pearls and things from the natives in trade for 'em. And we'd leave a
+standing order for more plates to be delivered steady from the steamer
+at Suva or somewheres, and--'
+
+"''Old on!' Cap'n George had been getting redder and redder in the face
+while Rosy was talking, and now he fairly biled over, like a teakettle.
+''Old on!' he roars. 'Do I understand that THIS is the good thing
+you was going to let me in on? Me to cruise you around from Dan to
+Beersheby, feeding you, and giving you tobacco to smoke--'
+
+"''Twas my tobacco,' breaks in Julius.
+
+"'Shut up! Cruising you around, and you living on the fat of--of
+the--the water, and me trusting to get my pay out of tintypes of
+Kanakas! Was that it? Was it?'
+
+"'Why--why, yes,' answers Rosy. 'But, cap'n, you don't understand--'
+
+"'Then,' says George, standing up and rolling up his pajama sleeves,
+'there's going to be justifiable 'omicide committed right now.'
+
+"Jule said that if it hadn't been that the skipper's sore back got to
+hurting him he don't know when him and the cook would have had their
+turn at Rosy. 'Course they wanted a turn on account of the tobacco
+and the dinner, not to mention the stone bruises. When all hands was
+through, that photographer was a spiled negative.
+
+"And that was only the beginning. They ain't much fun abusing Kanakas
+because they don't talk back, but first along Rosy would try to talk
+back, and that give 'em a chance. Julius had learned a lot of things
+from that mate on the bark, and he tried 'em all on that tintype man.
+And afterward they invented more. They made him work his passage, and
+every mean and dirty job there was to do, he had to do it. They took
+his clothes away from him, and, while they lasted, the skipper had three
+shirts at once, which hadn't happened afore since he served his term in
+the Sydney jail. And he was such a COMFORT to 'em. Whenever the dinner
+wa'n't cooked right, instead of blaming Teunis, they took it out of
+Rosy. By the time they made their first port they wouldn't have parted
+with him for no money, and they locked him up in the fo'castle and kept
+him there. And when one of the two Kanaka boys run away they shipped
+Rosy in his place by unanimous vote. And so it went for six months, the
+Emily trading and stealing all around the South Seas.
+
+"One day the schooner was off in an out-of-the way part of the
+ocean, and the skipper come up from down below, bringing one of the
+photographing bottles from the carpetbag.
+
+"'See 'ere,' says he to Rosy, who was swabbing decks just to keep him
+out of mischief, 'w'at kind of a developer stuff is this? It has a
+mighty familiar smell.'
+
+"'That ain't developer, sir,' answers Rosy, meek as usual. 'That's
+alcohol. I use it--'
+
+"'Alcohol!' says George. 'Do you mean to tell me that you've 'ad alcohol
+aboard all this time and never said a word to one of us? If that ain't
+just like you! Of all the ungrateful beasts as ever I--'
+
+"When him and the other two got through convincing Rosy that he
+was ungrateful, they took that bottle into the cabin and begun
+experimenting. Julius had lived a few months in Maine, which is a
+prohibition State, and so he knew how to make alcohol 'splits'--one-half
+wet fire and the rest water. They 'split' for five days. Then the
+alcohol was all out and the Emily was all in, being stove up on a coral
+reef two mile off shore of a little island that nobody'd ever seen
+afore.
+
+"They got into the boat--the four white men and the Kanaka--histed the
+sail, and headed for the beach. They landed all right and was welcomed
+by a reception committee of fifteen husky cannibals with spears, dressed
+mainly in bone necklaces and sunshine. The committee was glad to see
+'em, and showed it, particular to Teunis, who was fat. Rosy, being
+principally framework by this time, wa'n't nigh so popular; but he
+didn't seem to care.
+
+"The darkies tied 'em up good and proper and then held a committee
+meeting, arguing, so Julius cal'lated, whether to serve 'em plain or
+with greens. While the rest was making up the bill of fare, a few set
+to work unpacking the bags and things, Rosy's satchel among 'em. Pretty
+soon there was an awful jabbering.
+
+"'They've settled it,' says George, doleful. 'Well, there's enough of
+Teunis to last 'em for one meal, if they ain't 'ogs. You're a tough old
+bird, cooky; maybe you'll give 'em dyspepsy, so they won't care for the
+rest of us. That's a ray of 'ope, ain't it?'
+
+"But the cook didn't seem to get much hope out of it. He was busy
+telling the skipper what he thought of him when the natives come up.
+They was wildly excited, and two or three of 'em was waving square
+pieces of cardboard in their hands.
+
+"And here's where the Emily's gang had a streak of luck. The Kanaka
+sailor couldn't talk much English, but it seems that his granddad, or
+some of his ancestors, must have belonged to the same breed of cats as
+these islanders, for he could manage to understand a little of their
+lingo.
+
+"'Picture!' says he, crazy-like with joy. 'Picture, cappy; picture!'
+
+"When Rosy was new on board the schooner, afore George and the rest had
+played with him till he was an old story, one of their games was to have
+him take their photographs. He'd taken the cap'n's picture, and Julius's
+and Van Doozen's. The pictures was a Rogues' Gallery that would have got
+'em hung on suspicion anywhere in civilization, but these darkies
+wa'n't particular. Anyhow they must have been good likenesses, for the
+committee see the resemblance right off.
+
+"'They t'ink witchcraft,' says the Kanaka. 'Want to know how make.'
+
+"'Lord!' says George. 'You tell 'em we're witches from Witch Center.
+Tell 'em we make them kind of things with our eyes shut, and if they eat
+us we'll send our tintypes to 'aunt 'em into their graves. Tell 'em that
+quick.'
+
+"Well, I guess the Kanaka obeyed orders, for the islanders was all shook
+up. They jabbered and hurrahed like a parrot-house for ten minutes or
+so. Then they untied the feet of their Sunday dinners, got 'em into
+line, and marched 'em off across country, prodding 'em with their
+spears, either to see which was the tenderest or to make 'em step
+livelier, I don't know which.
+
+"Julius said that was the most nervous walk ever he took. Said afore
+'twas done he was so leaky with spear holes that he cast a shadder like
+a skimmer. Just afore sunset they come to the other side of the island,
+where there was a good sized native village, with houses made of grass
+and cane, and a big temple-like in the middle, decorated fancy and
+cheerful with skulls and spareribs. Jule said there was places where
+the decorations needed repairs, and he figgered he was just in time to
+finish 'em. But he didn't take no pride in it; none of his folks cared
+for art.
+
+"The population was there to meet 'em, and even the children looked
+hungry. Anybody could see that having company drop in for dinner was
+right to their taste. There was a great chair arrangement in front of
+the temple, and on it was the fattest, ugliest, old liver-colored
+woman that Julius ever see. She was rigged up regardless, with a tooth
+necklace and similar jewelry; and it turned out that she was the queen
+of the bunch. Most of them island tribes have chiefs, but this district
+was strong for woman suffrage.
+
+"Well, the visitors had made a hit, but Rosy's photographs made a
+bigger one. The queen and the head men of the village pawed over 'em and
+compared 'em with the originals and powwowed like a sewing circle. Then
+they called up the Kanaka sailor, and he preached witchcraft and hoodoos
+to beat the cars, lying as only a feller that knows the plates are
+warming for him on the back of the stove can lie. Finally the queen
+wanted to know if the 'long pigs' could make a witch picture of HER.
+
+"'Tell 'er yes,' yells George, when the question was translated to him.
+'Tell 'er we're picture-makers by special app'intment to the Queen and
+the Prince of Wales. Tell 'er we'll make 'er look like the sweetest old
+chocolate drop in the taffy-shop. Only be sure and say we must 'ave a
+day or so to work the spells and put on the kibosh.'
+
+"So 'twas settled, and dinner was put off for that night, anyhow. And
+the next day being sunny, Rosy took the queen's picture. 'Twas an awful
+strain on the camera, but it stood it fine; and the photographs he
+printed up that afternoon was the most horrible collection of mince-pie
+dreams that ever a sane man run afoul of. Rosy used one of the grass
+huts for a dark room; and while he was developing them plates, they
+could hear him screaming from sheer fright at being shut up alone with
+'em in the dark.
+
+"But her majesty thought they was lovely, and set and grinned proud at
+'em for hours at a stretch. And the wizards was untied and fed up and
+given the best house in town to live in. And Cap'n George and Julius and
+the cook got to feeling so cheerful and happy that they begun to kick
+Rosy again, just out of habit. And so it went on for three days.
+
+"Then comes the Kanaka interpreter--grinning kind of foolish.
+
+"'Cappy,' says he, 'queen, she likes you. She likes you much lot.'
+
+"'Well,' says the skipper, modest, 'she'd ought to. She don't see a man
+like me every day. She ain't the first woman,' he says.
+
+"'She like all you gentlemen,' says the Kanaka. 'She say she want witch
+husband. One of you got marry her."
+
+"'HEY?' yells all hands, setting up.
+
+"'Yes, sir. She no care which one, but one white man must marry her
+to-morrow. Else we all go chop plenty quick.'
+
+"'Chop' is Kanaka English for 'eat.' There wa'n't no need for the boy to
+explain.
+
+"Then there was times. They come pretty nigh to a fight, because Teunis
+and Jule argued that the skipper, being such a ladies' man, was the
+natural-born choice. Just as things was the warmest; Cap'n George had an
+idea.
+
+"'ROSY!' says he.
+
+"'Hey?' says the others. Then, 'Rosy? Why, of course, Rosy's the man.'
+
+"But Rosy wa'n't agreeable. Julius said he never see such a stubborn
+mule in his life. They tried every reasonable way they could to convince
+him, pounding him on the head and the like of that, but 'twas no go.
+
+"'I got a wife already,' he says, whimpering. 'And, besides, cap'n,
+there wouldn't be such a contrast in looks between you and her as there
+would with me.'
+
+"He meant so far as size went, but George took it the other way, and
+there was more trouble. Finally Julius come to the rescue.
+
+"'I tell you,' says he. 'We'll be square and draw straws!'
+
+"'W'at?' hollers George. 'Well, I guess not!'
+
+"'And I'll hold the straws,' says Jule, winking on the side.
+
+"So they drew straws, and, strange as it may seem, Rosy got stuck. He
+cried all night, and though the others tried to comfort him, telling him
+what a lucky man he was to marry a queen, he wouldn't cheer up a mite.
+
+"And next day the wedding took place in the temple in front of a wood
+idol with three rows of teeth, and as ugly almost as the bride, which
+was saying a good deal. And when 'twas over, the three shipmates come
+and congratulated the groom, wishing him luck and a happy honeymoon and
+such. Oh, they had a bully time, and they was still laughing over it
+that night after supper, when down comes a file of big darkies with
+spears, the Kanaka interpreter leading 'em.
+
+"'Cappy,' says he. 'The king say you no stay in this house no more. He
+say too good for you. Say, bimeby, when the place been clean up, maybe
+he use it himself. You got to go.'
+
+"'Who says this?' roars Cap'n George, ugly as could be.
+
+"'The king, he say it.'
+
+"'The queen, you mean. There ain't no king.'
+
+"'Yes, sir. King AND queen now. Mr. Rosy he king. All tribe proud to
+have witch king.'
+
+"The three looked at each other.
+
+"'Do you mean to say,' says the skipper, choking so he could hardly
+speak, 'that we've got to take orders from 'IM?'
+
+"'Yes, sir. King say you no mind, we make.'
+
+"Well, sir, the language them three used must have been something awful,
+judging by Jule's tell. But when they vowed they wouldn't move, the
+spears got busy and out they had to get and into the meanest, dirtiest
+little hut in the village, one without hardly any sides and great holes
+in the roof. And there they stayed all night in a pouring rain, the kind
+of rains you get in them islands.
+
+"'Twa'n't a nice night. They tried huddling together to keep dry, but
+'twa'n't a success because there was always a row about who should be in
+the middle. Then they kept passing personal remarks to one another.
+
+"'If the skipper hadn't been so gay and uppish about choosing Rosy,'
+says Julius, 'there wouldn't have been no trouble. I do hate a smart
+Aleck.'
+
+"'Who said draw straws?' sputters George, mad clean through. 'And who
+'eld 'em? 'Ey? Who did?'
+
+"'Well,' says Teunis, '_I_ didn't do it. You can't blame me.'
+
+"'No. You set there like a bump on a log and let me and the mate put our
+feet in it. You old fat 'ead! I--'
+
+"They pitched into the cook until he got mad and hit the skipper. Then
+there was a fight that lasted till they was all scratched up and tired
+out. The only thing they could agree on was that Rosy was what the
+skipper called a 'viper' that they'd nourished in their bosoms.
+
+"Next morning 'twas worse than ever. Down comes the Kanaka with his
+spear gang and routs 'em out and sets 'em to gathering breadfruit all
+day in the hot sun. And at night 'twas back to the leaky hut again.
+
+"And that wa'n't nothing to what come later. The lives that King Rosy
+led them three was something awful. 'Twas dig in and work day in and day
+out. Teunis had to get his majesty's meals, and nothing was ever cooked
+right; and then the royal army got after the steward with spear handles.
+Cap'n George had to clean up the palace every day, and Rosy and the
+queen--who was dead gone on her witch husband, and let him do anything
+he wanted to--stood over him and found fault and punched him with sharp
+sticks to see him jump. And Julius had to fetch and carry and wait, and
+get on his knees whenever he spoke to the king, and he helped up again
+with a kick, like as not.
+
+"Rosy took back all his own clothes that they'd stole, and then he took
+theirs for good measure. He made 'em marry the three ugliest old women
+on the island--his own bride excepted--and when they undertook to use a
+club or anything, he had THEM licked instead. He wore 'em down to skin
+and bone. Jule said you wouldn't believe a mortal man could treat his
+feller creatures so low down and mean. And the meanest part of it was
+that he always called 'em the names that they used to call him aboard
+ship. Sometimes he invented new ones, but not often, because 'twa'n't
+necessary.
+
+"For a good six months this went on--just the same length of time that
+Rosy was aboard the Emily. Then, one morning early, Julius looks out
+of one of the holes in the roof of his house and, off on the horizon,
+heading in, he sees a small steamer, a pleasure yacht 'twas. He lets out
+a yell that woke up the village, and races head first for the Emily's
+boat that had been rowed around from the other side of the island, and
+laid there with her oars and sail still in her. And behind him comes Van
+Doozen and Cap'n George.
+
+"Into the boat they piled, while the islanders were getting their eyes
+open and gaping at the steamer. There wa'n't no time to get up sail, so
+they grabbed for the oars. She stuck on the sand just a minute; and, in
+that minute, down from the palace comes King Rosy, running the way he
+run from his first wife over at Hello. He leaped over the stern, picked
+up the other oar, and off they put across the lagoon. The rudder was in
+its place and so was the tiller, but they couldn't use 'em then.
+
+"They had a good start, but afore they'd got very far the natives had
+waked up and were after 'em in canoes.
+
+"''Ere!' screams Cap'n George. 'This won't do! They'll catch us sure.
+Get sail on to 'er lively! Somebody take that tiller.'
+
+"Rosy, being nearest, took the tiller and the others got up the sail.
+Then 'twas nip and tuck with the canoes for the opening of the barrier
+reef at the other side of the lagoon. But they made it first, and, just
+as they did, out from behind the cliff comes the big steam-yacht, all
+white and shining, with sailors in uniform on her decks, and awnings
+flapping, and four mighty pretty women leaning over the side. All of the
+Emily gang set up a whoop of joy, and 'twas answered from the yacht.
+
+"'Saved!' hollers Cap'n George. 'Saved, by thunder! And now,' says he,
+knocking his fists together, 'NOW to get square with that four-eyed
+thief in the stern! Come on, boys!'
+
+"Him and Julius and Teunis made a flying leap aft to get at Rosy. But
+Rosy see 'em coming, jammed the tiller over, the boom swung across and
+swept the three overboard pretty as you please.
+
+"There was a scream from the yacht. Rosy give one glance at the women.
+Then he tossed his arms over his head.
+
+"'Courage, comrades!' he shouts. 'I'll save you or die with you!'
+
+"And overboard he dives, 'kersplash!'
+
+"Julius said him and the skipper could have swum all right if Rosy had
+give 'em the chance, but he didn't. He knew a trick worth two of that.
+He grabbed 'em round the necks and kept hauling 'em under and splashing
+and kicking like a water-mill. All hands was pretty well used up when
+they was pulled aboard the yacht.
+
+"'Oh, you brave man!' says one of the women, stooping over Rosy, who was
+sprawled on the deck with his eyes shut, 'Oh, you HERO!'
+
+"'Are they living?' asks Rosy, faint-like and opening one eye. 'Good!
+Now I can die content.'
+
+"'Living!' yells George, soon's he could get the salt water out of his
+mouth. 'Living! By the 'oly Peter! Let me at 'im! I'll show 'im whether
+I'm living or not!'
+
+"'What ails you, you villain?' says the feller that owned the yacht,
+a great big Englishman, Lord Somebody-or-other. 'The man saved your
+lives.'
+
+"'He knocked us overboard!' yells Julius.
+
+"'Yes, and he done it a-purpose!' sputters Van Doozen, well as he could
+for being so waterlogged.
+
+"'Let's kill him!' says all three.
+
+"'Did it on purpose!' says the lord, scornful. 'Likely he'd throw you
+over and then risk his life to save you. Here!' says he to the mate.
+'Take those ungrateful rascals below. Give 'em dry clothes and then set
+'em to work--hard work; understand? As for this poor, brave chap, take
+him to the cabin. I hope he'll pull through,' says he.
+
+"And all the rest of the voyage, which was to Melbourne, Julius and his
+two chums had to slave and work like common sailors, while Rosy, the
+hero invalid, was living on beef tea and jelly and champagne, and being
+petted and fanned by the lord's wife and the other women. And 'twas
+worse toward the end, when he pretended to be feeling better, and could
+set in a steamer-chair on deck and grin and make sarcastic remarks under
+his breath to George and the other two when they was holystoning or
+scrubbing in the heat.
+
+"At Melbourne they hung around the wharf, waiting to lick him, till the
+lord had 'em took up for vagrants. When they got out of the lockup they
+found Rosy had gone. And his lordship had given him money and clothes,
+and I don't know what all.
+
+"Julius said that Rosy's meanness sickened him of the sea. Said 'twas
+time to retire when such reptiles was afloat. So he come home and
+married the scrub-woman at the Bay View House. He lived with her till
+she lost her job. I don't know where he is now."
+
+            *       *       *       *       *
+
+'Twas purty quiet for a few minutes after Jonadab had unloaded this
+yarn. Everybody was busy trying to swaller his share of the statements
+in it, I cal'late. Peter T. looked at the Cap'n, admiring but
+reproachful.
+
+"Wixon," says he. "I didn't know 'twas in you. Why didn't you tell me?"
+
+"Oh," says Jonadab, "I ain't responsible. 'Twas Jule Sparrow that told
+it to me."
+
+"Humph!" says Peter. "I wish you knew his address. I'd like to hire him
+to write the Old Home ads. I thought MY invention was A 1, but I'm in
+the kindergarten. Well, let's go to bed before somebody tries to win the
+prize from Sparrow."
+
+'Twas after eleven by then, so, as his advice looked good, we follered
+it.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE ANTIQUERS
+
+
+We've all got a crazy streak in us somewheres, I cal'late, only the
+streaks don't all break out in the same place, which is a mercy, when
+you come to think of it. One feller starts tooting a fish horn and
+making announcements that he's the Angel Gabriel. Another poor sufferer
+shows his first symptom by having his wife's relations come and live
+with him. One ends in the asylum and t'other in the poorhouse; that's
+the main difference in them cases. Jim Jones fiddles with perpetual
+motion and Sam Smith develops a sure plan for busting Wall Street and
+getting rich sudden. I take summer boarders maybe, and you collect
+postage stamps. Oh, we're all looney, more or less, every one of us.
+
+Speaking of collecting reminds me of the "Antiquers"--that's what Peter
+T. Brown called 'em. They put up at the Old Home House--summer before
+last; and at a crank show they'd have tied for the blue ribbon. There
+was the Dowager and the Duchess and "My Daughter" and "Irene dear."
+Likewise there was Thompson and Small, but they, being nothing but
+husbands and fathers, didn't count for much first along, except when
+board was due or "antiques" had to be settled for.
+
+The Dowager fetched port first. She hove alongside the Old Home one
+morning early in July, and she had "My Daughter" in tow. The names, as
+entered on the shipping list, was Mrs. Milo Patrick Thompson and Miss
+Barbara Millicent Thompson, but Peter T. Brown he had 'em re-entered as
+"The Dowager" and "My Daughter" almost as soon as they dropped anchor.
+Thompson himself come poking up to the dock on the following Saturday
+night; Peter didn't christen him, except to chuck out something about
+Milo's being an "also ran."
+
+The Dowager was skipper of the Thompson craft, with "My
+daughter"--that's what her ma always called her--as first mate, and Milo
+as general roustabout and purser.
+
+'Twould have done you good to see the fleet run into the breakfast room
+of a morning, with the Dowager leading, under full sail, Barbara close
+up to her starboard quarter, and Milo tailing out a couple of lengths
+astern. The other boarders looked like quahaug dories abreast of the
+Marblehead Yacht Club. Oh, the Thompsons won every cup until the Smalls
+arrived on a Monday; then 'twas a dead heat.
+
+Mamma Small was built on the lines of old lady Thompson, only more so,
+and her daughter flew pretty nigh as many pennants as Barbara. Peter
+T. had 'em labeled the "Duchess" and "Irene dear" in a jiffy. He didn't
+nickname Small any more'n he had Thompson, and for the same reasons. Me
+and Cap'n Jonadab called Small "Eddie" behind his back, 'count of his
+wife's hailing him as "Edwin."
+
+Well, the Dowager and the Duchess sized each other up, and, recognizing
+I jedge, that they was sister ships, set signals and agreed to cruise in
+company and watch out for pirates--meaning young men without money who
+might want to talk to their daughters. In a week the four women was
+thicker than hasty-pudding and had thrones on the piazza where they
+could patronize everybody short of the Creator, and criticize the other
+boarders. Milo and Eddie got friendly too, and found a harbor behind the
+barn where they could smoke and swap sympathy.
+
+'Twas fair weather for pretty near a fortni't, and then she thickened
+up. The special brand of craziness in Wellmouth that season was
+collecting "antiques," the same being busted chairs and invalid bureaus
+and sofys that your great grandmarm got ashamed of and sent to the
+sickbay a thousand year ago. Oh, yes, and dishes! If there was one thing
+that would drive a city woman to counting her fingers and cutting paper
+dolls, 'twas a nicked blue plate with a Chinese picture on it. And the
+homelier the plate the higher the price. Why there was as many as six
+families that got enough money for the rubbage in their garrets to
+furnish their houses all over with brand new things--real shiny,
+hand-painted stuff, not haircloth ruins with music box springs, nor
+platters that you had to put a pan under for fear of losing cargo.
+
+I don't know who fetched the disease to the Old Home House. All I'm
+sartain of is that 'twan't long afore all hands was in that condition
+where the doctor'd have passed 'em on to the parson. First along it
+seemed as if the Thompson-Small syndicate had been vaccinated--they
+didn't develop a symptom. But one noon the Dowager sails into the
+dining-room and unfurls a brown paper bundle.
+
+"I've captured a prize, my dear," says she to the Duchess. "A veritable
+prize. Just look!"
+
+And she dives under the brown paper hatches and resurrects a pink plate,
+suffering from yaller jaundice, with the picture of a pink boy, wearing
+curls and a monkey-jacket, holding hands with a pink girl with pointed
+feet.
+
+"Ain't it perfectly lovely?" says she, waving the outrage in front of
+the Duchess. "A ginuwine Hall nappy! And in SUCH condition!"
+
+"Why," says the Duchess, "I didn't know you were interested in
+antiques."
+
+"I dote on 'em," comes back the Dowager, and "my daughter" owned up that
+she "adored" 'em.
+
+"If you knew," continues Mrs. Thompson, "how I've planned and contrived
+to get this treasure. I've schemed--My! my! My daughter says she's
+actually ashamed of me. Oh, no! I can't tell even you where I got it.
+All's fair in love and collecting, you know, and there are more gems
+where this came from."
+
+She laughed and "my daughter" laughed, and the Duchess and "Irene dear"
+laughed, too, and said the plate was "SO quaint," and all that, but
+you could fairly hear 'em turn green with jealousy. It didn't need a
+spyglass to see that they wouldn't ride easy at their own moorings till
+THEY'D landed a treasure or two--probably two.
+
+And sure enough, in a couple of days they bore down on the Thompsons,
+all sail set and colors flying. They had a pair of plates that for
+ugliness and price knocked the "ginuwine Hall nappy" higher 'n the main
+truck. And the way they crowed and bragged about their "finds" wa'n't
+fit to put in the log. The Dowager and "my daughter" left that dinner
+table trembling all over.
+
+Well, you can see how a v'yage would end that commenced that way.
+The Dowager and Barbara would scour the neighborhood and capture more
+prizes, and the Duchess and her tribe would get busy and go 'em one
+better. That's one sure p'int about the collecting business--it'll stir
+up a fight quicker'n anything I know of, except maybe a good looking
+bachelor minister. The female Thompsons and Smalls was "my dear-in'"
+each other more'n ever, but there was a chill setting in round them
+piazza thrones, and some of the sarcastic remarks that was casually hove
+out by the bosom friends was pretty nigh sharp enough to shave with. As
+for Milo and Eddie, they still smoked together behind the barn, but the
+atmosphere on the quarter-deck was affecting the fo'castle and there
+wa'n't quite so many "old mans" and "dear boys" as there used to was.
+There was a general white frost coming, and you didn't need an Old
+Farmer's Almanac to prove it.
+
+The spell of weather developed sudden. One evening me and Cap'n Jonadab
+and Peter T. was having a confab by the steps of the billiard-room,
+when Milo beats up from around the corner. He was smiling as a basket of
+chips.
+
+"Hello!" hails Peter T. cordial. "You look as if you'd had money left
+you. Any one else remembered in the will?" he says.
+
+Milo laughed all over. "Well, well," says he, "I AM feeling pretty good.
+Made a ten-strike with Mrs. T. this afternoon for sure.
+
+"That so?" says Peter. "What's up? Hooked a prince?"
+
+A friend of "my daughter's" over at Newport had got engaged to a
+mandarin or a count or something 'nother, and the Dowager had been
+preaching kind of eloquent concerning the shortness of the nobility crop
+round Wellmouth.
+
+"No," says Milo, laughing again. "Nothing like that. But I have got hold
+of that antique davenport she's been dying to capture."
+
+One of the boarders at the hotel over to Harniss had been out antiquing
+a week or so afore and had bagged a contraption which answered to the
+name of a "ginuwine Sheriton davenport." The dowager heard of it, and
+ever since she'd been remarking that some people had husbands who cared
+enough for their wives to find things that pleased 'em. She wished she
+was lucky enough to have that kind of a man; but no, SHE had to depend
+on herself, and etcetery and so forth. Maybe you've heard sermons
+similar.
+
+So we was glad for Milo and said so. Likewise we wanted to know where he
+found the davenport.
+
+"Why, up here in the woods," says Milo, "at the house of a queer old
+stick, name of Rogers. I forget his front name--'twas longer'n the
+davenport."
+
+"Not Adoniram Rogers?" says Cap'n Jonadab, wondering.
+
+"That's him," says Thompson.
+
+Now, I knew Adoniram Rogers. His house was old enough, Lord knows; but
+that a feller with a nose for a bargain like his should have hung on
+to a salable piece of dunnage so long as this seemed 'most too tough to
+believe.
+
+"Well, I swan to man!" says I. "Adoniram Rogers! Have you seen the--the
+davenport thing?"
+
+"Sure I've seen it!" says Milo. "I ain't much of a jedge, and of course
+I couldn't question Rogers too much for fear he'd stick on the price.
+But it's an old davenport, and it's got Sheriton lines and I've got the
+refusal of it till to-morrow, when Mrs. T's going up to inspect."
+
+"Told Small yet?" asked Peter T., winking on the side to me and Jonadab.
+
+Milo looked scared. "Goodness! No," says he. "And don't you tell him
+neither. His wife's davenport hunting too."
+
+"You say you've got the refusal of it?" says I. "Well, I know Adoniram
+Rogers, and if _I_ was dickering with him I'd buy the thing first and
+get the refusal of it afterwards. You hear ME?"
+
+"Is that so?" repeats Milo. "Slippery, is he? I'll take my wife up there
+first thing in the morning."
+
+He walked off looking worried, and his tops'ls hadn't much more'n sunk
+in the offing afore who should walk out of the billiard room behind us
+but Eddie Small.
+
+"Brown," says he to Peter T., "I want you to have a horse and buggy
+harnessed up for me right off. Mrs. Small and I are going for a little
+drive to--to--over to Orham," he says.
+
+'Twas a mean, black night for a drive as fur as Orham and Peter looked
+surprised. He started to say something, then swallered it down, and told
+Eddie he'd see to the harnessing. When Small was out of sight, I says:
+
+"You don't cal'late he heard what Milo was telling, do you, Peter?" says
+I.
+
+Peter T. shook his head and winked, first at Jonadab and then at me.
+
+And the next day there was the dickens to pay because Eddie and the
+Duchess had driven up to Rogers' the night afore and had bought the
+davenport, refusal and all, for twenty dollars more'n Milo offered for
+it.
+
+Adoniram brought it down that forenoon and all hands and the cook was on
+the hurricane deck to man the yards. 'Twas a wonder them boarders didn't
+turn out the band and fire salutes. Such ohs and ahs! 'Twan't nothing
+but a ratty old cripple of a sofy, with one leg carried away and most
+of the canvas in ribbons, but four men lugged it up the steps and the
+careful way they handled it made you think the Old Home House was a
+receiving tomb and they was laying in the dear departed.
+
+'Twas set down on the piazza and then the friends had a chance to
+view the remains. The Duchess and "Irene dear" gurgled and gushed and
+received congratulations. Eddie stood around and tried to look modest
+as was possible under the circumstances. The Dowager sailed over, tilted
+her nose up to the foretop, remarked "Humph"' through it and come about
+and stood at the other end of the porch. "My daughter" follers in her
+wake, observes "Humph!" likewise and makes for blue water. Milo comes
+over and looks at Eddie.
+
+"Well?" says Small. "What do you think of it?"
+
+"Never mind what I think of IT," answers Thompson, through his teeth.
+"Shall I tell you what I think of YOU?"
+
+I thought for a minute that hostilities was going to begin, but they
+didn't. The women was the real battleships in that fleet, the men wa'n't
+nothing but transports. Milo and Eddie just glared at each other and
+sheered off, and the "ginuwine Sheriton" was lugged into the sepulchre,
+meaning the trunk-room aloft in the hotel.
+
+And after that the cold around the thrones was so fierce we had to move
+the thermometer, and we had to give the families separate tables in the
+dining-room so's the milk wouldn't freeze. You see the pitcher set right
+between 'em, and--Oh! I didn't expect you'd believe it.
+
+The "antiquing" went on harder than ever. Every time the Thompsons
+landed a relic, they'd bring it out on the veranda or in to dinner and
+gloat over it loud and pointed, while the Smalls would pipe all hands
+to unload sarcasm. And the same vicy vercy when 'twas t'other way about.
+'Twas interesting and instructive to listen to and amused the populace
+on rainy days, so Peter T. said.
+
+Adoniram Rogers had been mighty scurce 'round the Old Home sense the
+davenport deal. But one morning he showed up unexpected. A boarder had
+dug up an antique somewheres in the shape of a derelict plate, and
+was displaying it proud on the piazza. The Thompsons was there and the
+Smalls and a whole lot more. All of a sudden Rogers walks up the steps
+and reaches over and makes fast to the plate.
+
+"Look out!" hollers the prize-winner, frantic. "You'll drop it!"
+
+Adoniram grunted. "Huh!" says he. "'Tain't nothing but a blue dish. I've
+got a whole closet full of them."
+
+"WHAT?" yells everybody. And then: "Will you sell 'em?"
+
+"Sell 'em?" says Rogers, looking round surprised. "Why, I never see
+nothing I wouldn't sell if I got money enough for it."
+
+Then for the next few minutes there was what old Parson Danvers used to
+call a study in human nature. All hands started for that poor, helpless
+plate owner as if they was going to swoop down on him like a passel of
+gulls on a dead horse-mack'rel. Then they come to themselves and stopped
+and looked at each other, kind of shamefaced but suspicious. The Duchess
+and her crowd glared at the Dowager tribe and got the glares back with
+compound interest. Everybody wanted to get Adoniram one side and talk
+with him, and everybody else was determined they shouldn't. Wherever he
+moved the "Antiquers" moved with him. Milo watched from the side lines.
+Rogers got scared.
+
+"Look here," says he, staring sort of wild-like at the boarders. "What
+ails you folks? Are you crazy?"
+
+Well, he might have made a good deal worse guess than that. I don't know
+how 'twould have ended if Peter T. Brown, cool and sassy as ever, hadn't
+come on deck just then and took command.
+
+"See here, Rogers," he says, "let's understand this thing. Have you got
+a set of dishes like that?"
+
+Adoniram looked at him. "Will I get jailed if I say yes?" he answers.
+
+"Maybe you will if you don't," says Peter. "Now, then, ladies and
+gentlemen, this is something we're all interested in, and I think
+everybody ought to have a fair show. I jedge from the defendant's
+testimony that he HAS got a set of the dishes, and I also jedge, from
+my experience and three years' dealings with him, that he's too
+public-spirited to keep 'em, provided he's paid four times what they're
+worth. Now my idea is this; Rogers will bring those dishes down here
+tomorrer and we'll put 'em on exhibition in the hotel parlor. Next day
+we'll have an auction and sell 'em to the highest cash bidder. And,
+provided there's no objection, I'll sacrifice my reputation and be
+auctioneer."
+
+So 'twas agreed to have the auction.
+
+Next day Adoniram heaves alongside with the dishes in a truck wagon, and
+they was strung out on the tables in the parlor. And such a pawing
+over and gabbling you never heard. I'd been suspicious, myself, knowing
+Rogers, but there was the set from platters to sassers, and blue enough
+and ugly enough to be as antique as Mrs. Methusalem's jet earrings. The
+"Antiquers" handled 'em and admired 'em and p'inted to the three holes
+in the back of each dish--the same being proof of age--and got more
+covetous every minute. But the joy was limited. As one feller said,
+"I'd like 'em mighty well, but what chance'll we have bidding against
+green-back syndicates like that?" referring to the Dowager and the
+Duchess.
+
+Milo and Eddie was the most worried of all, because each of 'em had been
+commissioned by their commanding officers not to let t'other family win.
+
+That auction was the biggest thing that ever happened at the Old Home.
+We had it on the lawn out back of the billiard room and folks came
+from Harniss and Orham and the land knows where. The sheds and barn was
+filled with carriages and we served thirty-two extra dinners at a dollar
+a feed. The dishes was piled on a table and Peter T. done his auctioneer
+preaching from a kind of pulpit made out of two cracker boxes and a tea
+chest.
+
+But there wa'n't any real bidding except from the Smalls and Thompsons.
+A few of the boarders and some of the out-of-towners took a shy long at
+first, but their bids was only ground bait. Milo and Eddie, backed by
+the Dowager and the Duchess, done the real fishing.
+
+The price went up and up. Peter T. whooped and pounded and all but shed
+tears. If he'd been burying a competition hotel keeper he couldn't have
+hove more soul into his work. 'Twas, "Fifty! Do I hear sixty? Sixty do
+I hear? Fifty dollars! THINK of it? Why, friends, this ain't a church
+pound party. Look at them dishes! LOOK at 'em! Why, the pin feathers on
+those blue dicky birds in the corners are worth more'n that for mattress
+stuffing. Do I hear sixty? Sixty I'm bid. Who says seventy?"
+
+Milo said it, and Eddie was back at him afore he could shake the reefs
+out of the last syllable. She went up to a hundred, then to one hundred
+and twenty-five, and with every raise Adoniram Roger's smile lengthened
+out. After the one-twenty-five mark the tide rose slower. Milo'd raise
+it a dollar and Eddie'd jump him fifty cents.
+
+And just then two things happened. One was that a servant girl come
+running from the Old Home House to tell the Duchess and "Irene dear"
+that some swell friends of theirs from the hotel at Harniss had driven
+over to call and was waiting for 'em in the parlor. The female Smalls
+went in, though they wa'n't joyful over it. They give Eddie his sailing
+orders afore they went, too.
+
+The other thing that happened was Bill Saltmarsh's arriving in port.
+Bill is an "antiquer" for revenue only. He runs an antique store over
+at Ostable and the prices he charges are enough to convict him without
+hearing the evidence. I knew he'd come.
+
+Saltmarsh busts through the crowd and makes for the pulpit. He nods to
+Peter T. and picks up one of the plates. He looks at it first ruther
+casual; then more and more careful, turning it over and taking up
+another.
+
+"Hold on a minute, Brown," says he. "Are THESE the dishes you're
+selling?"
+
+"Sure thing," comes back Peter. "Think we're serving free lunch? No,
+sir! Those are the genuine articles, Mr. Saltmarsh, and you're cheating
+the widders and orphans if you don't put in a bid quick. One thirty-two
+fifty, I'm bid. Now, Saltmarsh!"
+
+But Bill only laughed. Then he picks up another plate, looks at it, and
+laughs again.
+
+"Good day, Brown," says he. "Sorry I can't stop." And off he puts
+towards his horse and buggy.
+
+Eddie Small was watching him. Milo, being on the other side of the
+pulpit, hadn't noticed so partic'lar.
+
+"Who's that?" asks Eddie, suspicious. "Does he know antiques?"
+
+I remarked that if Bill didn't, then nobody did.
+
+"Look here, Saltmarsh!" says Small, catching Bill by the arm as
+he shoved through the crowd. "What's the matter with those
+dishes--anything?"
+
+Bill turned and looked at him. "Why, no," he says, slow. "They're all
+right--of their kind." And off he put again.
+
+But Eddie wa'n't satisfied. He turns to me. "By George!" he says. "What
+is it? Does he think they're fakes?"
+
+I didn't know, so I shook my head. Small fidgetted, looked at Peter, and
+then run after Saltmarsh. Milo had just raised the bid.
+
+"One hundred and thirty-three" hollers Peter, fetching the tea chest a
+belt. "One thirty-four do I hear? Make it one thirty-three fifty. Fifty
+cents do I hear? Come, come! this is highway robbery, gentlemen. Mr.
+Small--where are you?"
+
+But Eddie was talking to Saltmarsh. In a minute back he comes, looking
+more worried than ever. Peter T. bawled and pounded and beckoned at him
+with the mallet, but he only fidgetted--didn't know what to do.
+
+"One thirty-three!" bellers Peter. "One thirty-three! Oh, how can I look
+my grandmother's picture in the face after this? One thirty-three--once!
+One thirty-three--twice! Third and last call! One--thirty--"
+
+Then Eddie begun to raise his hand, but 'twas too late.
+
+"One thirty-three and SOLD! To Mr. Milo Thompson for one hundred and
+thirty-three dollars!"
+
+And just then come a shriek from the piazza; the Duchess and "Irene
+dear" had come out of the parlor.
+
+Well! Talk about crowing! The way that Thompson crowd rubbed it in on
+the Smalls was enough to make you leave the dinner table. They had the
+servants take in them dishes, piece by piece, and every single article,
+down to the last butter plate, was steered straight by the Small crowd.
+
+As for poor Eddie, when he come up to explain why he hadn't kept on
+bidding, his wife put him out like he was a tin lamp.
+
+"Don't SPEAK to me!" says she. "Don't you DARE speak to me."
+
+He didn't dare. He just run up a storm sail and beat for harbor back of
+the barn. And from the piazza Milo cackled vainglorious.
+
+Me and Cap'n Jonadab and Peter T. felt so sorry for Eddie, knowing what
+he had coming to him from the Duchess, that we went out to see him. He
+was setting on a wrecked hencoop, looking heart-broke but puzzled.
+
+"'Twas that Saltmarsh made me lose my nerve," he says. "I thought when
+he wouldn't bid there was something wrong with the dishes. And there WAS
+something wrong, too. Now what was it?"
+
+"Maybe the price was too high," says I.
+
+"No, 'twa'n't that. I b'lieve yet he thought they were imitations. Oh,
+if they only were!"
+
+And then, lo and behold you, around the corner comes Adoniram Rogers.
+I'd have bet large that whatever conscience Adoniram was born with had
+dried up and blown away years ago. But no; he'd resurrected a remnant.
+
+"Mr. Small," stammered Mr. Rogers, "I'm sorry you feel bad about not
+buying them dishes. I--I thought I'd ought to tell you--that is to say,
+I--Well, if you want another set, I cal'late I can get it for you--that
+is, if you won't tell nobody."
+
+"ANOTHER set?" hollers Eddie, wide-eyed. "Anoth--Do you mean to say
+you've got MORE?"
+
+"Why, I ain't exactly got 'em now, but my nephew John keeps a furniture
+store in South Boston, and he has lots of sets like that. I bought that
+one off him."
+
+Peter T. Brown jumps to his feet.
+
+"Why, you outrageous robber!" he hollers. "Didn't you say those dishes
+were old?"
+
+"I never said nothing, except that they were like the plate that feller
+had on the piazza. And they was, too. YOU folks said they was old, and I
+thought you'd ought to know, so--"
+
+Eddie Small threw up both hands. "Fakes!" he hollers. "Fakes! AND
+THOMPSON PAID ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-THREE DOLLARS FOR 'EM! Boys,
+there's times when life's worth living. Have a drink."
+
+We went into the billard-room and took something; that is, Peter and
+Eddie took that kind of something. Me and Jonadab took cigars.
+
+"Fellers," said Eddie, "drink hearty. I'm going in to tell my wife. Fake
+dishes! And I beat Thompson on the davenport."
+
+He went away bubbling like a biling spring. After he was gone Rogers
+looked thoughtful.
+
+"That's funny, too, ain't it?" he says.
+
+"What's funny?" we asked.
+
+"Why, about that sofy he calls a davenport. You see, I bought that off
+John, too," says Adoniram.
+
+
+
+
+
+HIS NATIVE HEATH
+
+
+I never could quite understand why the folks at Wellmouth made me
+selectman. I s'pose likely 'twas on account of Jonadab and me and Peter
+Brown making such a go of the Old Home House and turning Wellmouth Port
+from a sand fleas' paradise into a hospital where city folks could
+have their bank accounts amputated and not suffer more'n was necessary.
+Anyway, I was elected unanimous at town meeting, and Peter was mighty
+anxious for me to take the job.
+
+"Barzilla," says Peter, "I jedge that a selectman is a sort of dwarf
+alderman. Now, I've had friends who've been aldermen, and they say
+it's a sure thing, like shaking with your own dice. If you're straight,
+there's the honor and the advertisement; if you're crooked, there's the
+graft. Either way the house wins. Go in, and glory be with you."
+
+So I finally agreed to serve, and the very first meeting I went to,
+the question of Asaph Blueworthy and the poorhouse comes up. Zoeth
+Tiddit--he was town clerk--he puts it this way:
+
+"Gentlemen," he says, "we have here the usual application from Asaph
+Blueworthy for aid from the town. I don't know's there's much use for
+me to read it--it's tolerable familiar. 'Suffering from lumbago and
+rheumatiz'--um, yes. 'Out of work'--um, just so. 'Respectfully begs that
+the board will'--etcetery and so forth. Well, gentlemen, what's your
+pleasure?"
+
+Darius Gott, he speaks first, and dry and drawling as ever. "Out of
+work, hey?" says Darius. "Mr. Chairman, I should like to ask if anybody
+here remembers the time when Ase was IN work?"
+
+Nobody did, and Cap'n Benijah Poundberry--he was chairman at that
+time--he fetches the table a welt with his starboard fist and comes out
+emphatic.
+
+"Feller members," says he, "I don't know how the rest of you feel, but
+it's my opinion that this board has done too much for that lazy loafer
+already. Long's his sister, Thankful, lived, we couldn't say nothing, of
+course. If she wanted to slave and work so's her brother could live
+in idleness and sloth, why, that was her business. There ain't any law
+against a body's making a fool of herself, more's the pity. But she's
+been dead a year, and he's done nothing since but live on those that'll
+trust him, and ask help from the town. He ain't sick--except sick of
+work. Now, it's my idea that, long's he's bound to be a pauper, he
+might's well be treated as a pauper. Let's send him to the poorhouse."
+
+"But," says I, "he owns his place down there by the shore, don't he?"
+
+All hands laughed--that is, all but Cap'n Benijah. "Own nothing," says
+the cap'n. "The whole rat trap, from the keel to maintruck, ain't worth
+more'n three hundred dollars, and I loaned Thankful four hundred on
+it years ago, and the mortgage fell due last September. Not a cent of
+principal, interest, nor rent have I got since. Whether he goes to the
+poorhouse or not, he goes out of that house of mine to-morrer. A man
+can smite me on one cheek and maybe I'll turn t'other, but when, after
+I HAVE turned it, he finds fault 'cause my face hurts his hand, then I
+rise up and quit; you hear ME!"
+
+Nobody could help hearing him, unless they was deefer than the feller
+that fell out of the balloon and couldn't hear himself strike, so all
+hands agreed that sending Asaph Blueworthy to the poorhouse would be a
+good thing. 'Twould be a lesson to Ase, and would give the poorhouse one
+more excuse for being on earth. Wellmouth's a fairly prosperous town,
+and the paupers had died, one after the other, and no new ones had come,
+until all there was left in the poorhouse was old Betsy Mullen, who was
+down with creeping palsy, and Deborah Badger, who'd been keeper ever
+since her husband died.
+
+The poorhouse property was valuable, too, specially for a summer
+cottage, being out on the end of Robbin's Point, away from the town, and
+having a fine view right across the bay. Zoeth Tiddit was a committee
+of one with power from the town to sell the place, but he hadn't found
+a customer yet. And if he did sell it, what to do with Debby was more
+or less of a question. She'd kept poorhouse for years, and had no other
+home nor no relations to go to. Everybody liked her, too--that is,
+everybody but Cap'n Benijah. He was down on her 'cause she was a
+Spiritualist and believed in fortune tellers and such. The cap'n, bein'
+a deacon of the Come-Outer persuasion, was naturally down on folks who
+wasn't broad-minded enough to see that his partic'lar crack in the roof
+was the only way to crawl through to glory.
+
+Well, we voted to send Asaph to the poorhouse, and then I was appointed
+a delegate to see him and tell him he'd got to go. I wasn't enthusiastic
+over the job, but everybody said I was exactly the feller for the place.
+
+"To tell you the truth," drawls Darius, "you, being a stranger, are the
+only one that Ase couldn't talk over. He's got a tongue that's buttered
+on both sides and runs on ball bearings. If I should see him he'd work
+on my sympathies till I'd lend him the last two-cent piece in my baby's
+bank."
+
+So, as there wa'n't no way out of it, I drove down to Asaph's that
+afternoon. He lived off on a side road by the shore, in a little,
+run-down shanty that was as no account as he was. When I moored my horse
+to the "heavenly-wood" tree by what was left of the fence, I would have
+bet my sou'wester that I caught a glimpse of Brother Blueworthy, peeking
+round the corner of the house. But when I turned that corner there was
+nobody in sight, although the bu'sted wash-bench, with a cranberry crate
+propping up its lame end, was shaking a little, as if some one had set
+on it recent.
+
+I knocked on the door, but nobody answered. After knocking three or
+four times, I tried kicking, and the second kick raised, from somewheres
+inside, a groan that was as lonesome a sound as ever I heard. No human
+noise in my experience come within a mile of it for dead, downright
+misery--unless, maybe, it's Cap'n Jonadab trying to sing in meeting
+Sundays.
+
+"Who's that?" wails Ase from 'tother side of the door. "Did anybody
+knock?"
+
+"Knock!" says I. "I all but kicked your everlasting derelict out of
+water. It's me, Wingate--one of the selectmen. Tumble up, there! I want
+to talk to you."
+
+Blueworthy didn't exactly tumble, so's to speak, but the door opened,
+and he comes shuffling and groaning into sight. His face was twisted up
+and he had one hand spread-fingered on the small of his back.
+
+"Dear, dear!" says he. "I'm dreadful sorry to have kept you waiting, Mr.
+Wingate. I've been wrastling with this turrible lumbago, and I'm 'fraid
+it's affecting my hearing. I'll tell you--"
+
+"Yes--well, you needn't mind," I says; "'cordin' to common tell, you
+was born with that same kind of lumbago, and it's been getting no better
+fast ever since. Jest drag your sufferings out onto this bench and come
+to anchor. I've got considerable to say, and I'm in a hurry."
+
+Well, he grunted, and groaned, and scuffled along. When he'd got planted
+on the bench he didn't let up any--kept on with the misery.
+
+"Look here," says I, losing patience, "when you get through with the
+Job business I'll heave ahead and talk. Don't let me interrupt the
+lamentations on no account. Finished? All right. Now, you listen to me."
+
+And then I told him just how matters stood. His house was to be seized
+on the mortgage, and he was to move to the poorhouse next day. You never
+see a man more surprised or worse cut up. Him to the poorhouse? HIM--one
+of the oldest families on the Cape? You'd think he was the Grand
+Panjandrum. Well, the dignity didn't work, so he commenced on the
+lumbago; and that didn't work, neither. But do you think he give up the
+ship? Not much; he commenced to explain why he hadn't been able to earn
+a living and the reasons why he'd ought to have another chance. Talk!
+Well, if I hadn't been warned he'd have landed ME, all right. I never
+heard a better sermon nor one with more long words in it.
+
+I actually pitied him. It seemed a shame that a feller who could argue
+like that should have to go to the poorhouse; he'd ought to run a summer
+hotel--when the boarders kicked 'cause there was yeller-eyed beans in
+the coffee he would be the one to explain that they was lucky to get
+beans like that without paying extra for 'em. Thinks I, "I'm an idiot,
+but I'll make him one more offer."
+
+So I says: "See here, Mr. Blueworthy, I could use another man in the
+stable at the Old Home House. If you want the job you can have it. ONLY,
+you'll have to work, and work hard."
+
+Well, sir, would you believe it?--his face fell like a cook-book cake.
+That kind of chance wa'n't what he was looking for. He shuffled and
+hitched around, and finally he says: "I'll--Ill consider your offer," he
+says.
+
+That was too many for me. "Well, I'll be yardarmed!" says I, and went
+off and left him "considering." I don't know what his considerations
+amounted to. All I know is that next day they took him to the poorhouse.
+
+And from now on this yarn has got to be more or less hearsay. I'll have
+to put this and that together, like the woman that made the mince meat.
+Some of the facts I got from a cousin of Deborah Badger's, some of them
+I wormed out of Asaph himself one time when he'd had a jug come down
+from the city and was feeling toler'ble philanthropic and conversationy.
+But I guess they're straight enough.
+
+Seems that, while I was down notifying Blueworthy, Cap'n Poundberry
+had gone over to the poorhouse to tell the Widow Badger about her new
+boarder. The widow was glad to hear the news.
+
+"He'll be somebody to talk to, at any rate," says she. "Poor old Betsy
+Mullen ain't exactly what you'd call company for a sociable body. But
+I'll mind what you say, Cap'n Benijah. It takes more than a slick tongue
+to come it over me. I'll make that lazy man work or know the reason
+why."
+
+So when Asaph arrived--per truck wagon--at three o'clock the next
+afternoon, Mrs. Badger was ready for him. She didn't wait to shake hands
+or say: "Glad to see you." No, sir! The minute he landed she sent him
+out by the barn with orders to chop a couple of cords of oak slabs that
+was piled there. He groaned and commenced to develop lumbago symptoms,
+but she cured 'em in a hurry by remarking that her doctor's book said
+vig'rous exercise was the best physic, for that kind of disease, and
+so he must chop hard. She waited till she heard the ax "chunk" once or
+twice, and then she went into the house, figgering that she'd gained the
+first lap, anyhow.
+
+But in an hour or so it come over her all of a sudden that 'twas awful
+quiet out by the woodpile. She hurried to the back door, and there was
+Ase, setting on the ground in the shade, his eyes shut and his back
+against the chopping block, and one poor lonesome slab in front of him
+with a couple of splinters knocked off it. That was his afternoon's
+work.
+
+Maybe you think the widow wa'n't mad. She tip-toed out to the wood-pile,
+grabbed her new boarder by the coat collar and shook him till his head
+played "Johnny Comes Marching Home" against the chopping block.
+
+"You lazy thing, you!" says she, with her eyes snapping. "Wake up and
+tell me what you mean by sleeping when I told you to work."
+
+"Sleep?" stutters Asaph, kind of reaching out with his mind for a
+life-preserver. "I--I wa'n't asleep."
+
+Well, I don't think he had really meant to sleep. I guess he just set
+down to think of a good brand new excuse for not working, and kind of
+drowsed off.
+
+"You wa'n't hey?" says Deborah. "Then 'twas the best imitation ever _I_
+see. What WAS you doing, if 'tain't too personal a question?"
+
+"I--I guess I must have fainted. I'm subject to such spells. You see,
+ma'am, I ain't been well for--"
+
+"Yes, I know. I understand all about that. Now, you march your boots
+into that house, where I can keep an eye on you, and help me get supper.
+To-morrer morning you'll get up at five o'clock and chop wood till
+breakfast time. If I think you've chopped enough, maybe you'll get the
+breakfast. If I don't think so you'll keep on chopping. Now, march!"
+
+Blueworthy, he marched, but 'twa'n't as joyful a parade as an Odd
+Fellers' picnic. He could see he'd made a miscue--a clean miss, and
+the white ball in the pocket. He knew, too, that a lot depended on his
+making a good impression the first thing, and instead of that he'd gone
+and "foozled his approach," as that city feller said last summer when
+he ran the catboat plump into the end of the pier. Deborah, she went out
+into the kitchen, but she ordered Ase to stay in the dining room and set
+the table; told him to get the dishes out of the closet.
+
+All the time he was doing it he kept thinking about the mistake he'd
+made, and wondering if there wa'n't some way to square up and get solid
+with the widow. Asaph was a good deal of a philosopher, and his motto
+was--so he told me afterward, that time I spoke of when he'd been
+investigating the jug--his motto was: "Every hard shell has a soft spot
+somewheres, and after you find it, it's easy." If he could only find
+out something that Deborah Badger was particular interested in, then
+he believed he could make a ten-strike. And, all at once, down in the
+corner of the closet, he see a big pile of papers and magazines. The one
+on top was the Banner of Light, and underneath that was the Mysterious
+Magazine.
+
+Then he remembered, all of a sudden, the town talk about Debby's
+believing in mediums and spooks and fortune tellers and such. And he
+commenced to set up and take notice.
+
+At the supper table he was as mum as a rundown clock; just set in his
+chair and looked at Mrs. Badger. She got nervous and fidgety after a
+spell, and fin'lly bu'sts out with: "What are you staring at me like
+that for?"
+
+Ase kind of jumped and looked surprised. "Staring?" says he. "Was I
+staring?"
+
+"I should think you was! Is my hair coming down, or what is it?"
+
+He didn't answer for a minute, but he looked over her head and then
+away acrost the room, as if he was watching something that moved. "Your
+husband was a short, kind of fleshy man, as I remember, wa'n't he?" says
+he, absent-minded like.
+
+"Course he was. But what in the world--"
+
+"'Twa'n't him, then. I thought not."
+
+"HIM? My husband? What DO you mean?"
+
+And then Asaph begun to put on the fine touches. He leaned acrost the
+table and says he, in a sort of mysterious whisper: "Mrs. Badger," says
+he, "do you ever see things? Not common things, but strange--shadders
+like?"
+
+"Mercy me!" says the widow. "No. Do YOU?"
+
+"Sometimes seems's if I did. Jest now, as I set here looking at you, it
+seemed as if I saw a man come up and put his hand on your shoulder."
+
+Well, you can imagine Debby. She jumped out of her chair and whirled
+around like a kitten in a fit. "Good land!" she hollers. "Where? What?
+Who was it?"
+
+"I don't know who 'twas. His face was covered up; but it kind of come to
+me--a communication, as you might say--that some day that man was going
+to marry you."
+
+"Land of love! Marry ME? You're crazy! I'm scart to death."
+
+Ase shook his head, more mysterious than ever. "I don't know," says he.
+"Maybe I am crazy. But I see that same man this afternoon, when I was in
+that trance, and--"
+
+"Trance! Do you mean to tell me you was in a TRANCE out there by the
+wood-pile? Are you a MEDIUM?"
+
+Well, Ase, he wouldn't admit that he was a medium exactly, but he give
+her to understand that there wa'n't many mediums in this country that
+could do business 'longside of him when he was really working. 'Course
+he made believe he didn't want to talk about such things, and, likewise
+of course, that made Debby all the more anxious TO talk about 'em.
+She found out that her new boarder was subject to trances and had
+second-sight and could draw horoscopes, and I don't know what all.
+Particular she wanted to know more about that "man" that was going to
+marry her, but Asaph wouldn't say much about him.
+
+"All I can say is," says Ase, "that he didn't appear to me like a
+common man. He was sort of familiar looking, and yet there was something
+distinguished about him, something uncommon, as you might say. But this
+much comes to me strong: He's a man any woman would be proud to get, and
+some time he's coming to offer you a good home. You won't have to keep
+poorhouse all your days."
+
+So the widow went up to her room with what you might call a case of
+delightful horrors. She was too scart to sleep and frightened to stay
+awake. She kept two lamps burning all night.
+
+As for Asaph, he waited till 'twas still, and then he crept downstairs
+to the closet, got an armful of Banners of Light and Mysterious
+Magazines, and went back to his room to study up. Next morning there was
+nothing said about wood chopping--Ase was busy making preparations to
+draw Debby's horoscope.
+
+You can see how things went after that. Blueworthy was star boarder
+at that poorhouse. Mrs Badger was too much interested in spooks and
+fortunes to think of asking him to work, and if she did hint at such a
+thing, he'd have another "trance" and see that "man," and 'twas all off.
+And we poor fools of selectmen was congratulating ourselves that Ase
+Blueworthy was doing something toward earning his keep at last. And
+then--'long in July 'twas--Betsy Mullen died.
+
+One evening, just after the Fourth, Deborah and Asaph was in the dining
+room, figgering out fortunes with a pack of cards, when there comes a
+knock at the door. The widow answered it, and there was an old chap,
+dressed in a blue suit, and a stunning pretty girl in what these summer
+women make believe is a sea-going rig. And both of 'em was sopping wet
+through, and as miserable as two hens in a rain barrel.
+
+It turned out that the man's name was Lamont, with a colonel's pennant
+and a million-dollar mark on the foretop of it, and the girl was his
+daughter Mabel. They'd been paying six dollars a day each for sea air
+and clam soup over to the Wattagonsett House, in Harniss, and either
+the soup or the air had affected the colonel's head till he imagined he
+could sail a boat all by his ownty-donty. Well, he'd sailed one acrost
+the bay and got becalmed, and then the tide took him in amongst the
+shoals at the mouth of Wellmouth Crick, and there, owing to a mixup of
+tide, shoals, dark, and an overdose of foolishness, the boat had upset
+and foundered and the Lamonts had waded half a mile or so to shore.
+Once on dry land, they'd headed up the bluff for the only port in sight,
+which was the poorhouse--although they didn't know it.
+
+The widow and Asaph made 'em as comfortable as they could; rigged 'em
+up in dry clothes which had belonged to departed paupers, and got 'em
+something to eat. The Lamonts was what they called "enchanted" with the
+whole establishment.
+
+"This," says the colonel, with his mouth full of brown bread, "is
+delightful, really delightful. The New England hospitality that we read
+about. So free from ostentation and conventionality."
+
+When you stop to think of it, you'd scurcely expect to run acrost much
+ostentation at the poorhouse, but, of course, the colonel didn't know,
+and he praised everything so like Sam Hill, that the widow was ashamed
+to break the news to him. And Ase kept quiet, too, you can be sure of
+that. As for Mabel, she was one of them gushy, goo-gooey kind of girls,
+and she was as struck with the shebang as her dad. She said the house
+itself was a "perfect dear."
+
+And after supper they paired off and got to talking, the colonel with
+Mrs. Badger, and Asaph with Mabel. Now, I can just imagine how Ase
+talked to that poor, unsuspecting young female. He sartin did love an
+audience, and here was one that didn't know him nor his history, nor
+nothing. He played the sad and mysterious. You could see that he was a
+blighted bud, all right. He was a man with a hidden sorrer, and the way
+he'd sigh and change the subject when it come to embarrassing questions
+was enough to bring tears to a graven image, let alone a romantic girl
+just out of boarding school.
+
+Then, after a spell of this, Mabel wanted to be shown the house, so as
+to see the "sweet, old-fashioned rooms." And she wanted papa to see 'em,
+too, so Ase led the way, like the talking man in the dime museum. And
+the way them Lamonts agonized over every rag mat, and corded bedstead
+was something past belief. When they was saying good-night--they HAD to
+stay all night because their own clothes wa'n't dry and those they had
+on were more picturesque than stylish--Mabel turns to her father and
+says she:
+
+"Papa, dear," she says, "I believe that at last we've found the very
+thing we've been looking for."
+
+And the colonel said yes, he guessed they had. Next morning they was up
+early and out enjoying the view; it IS about the best view alongshore,
+and they had a fit over it. When breakfast was done the Lamonts takes
+Asaph one side and the colonel says:
+
+"Mr. Blueworthy," he says, "my daughter and I am very much pleased with
+the Cape and the Cape people. Some time ago we made up our minds that
+if we could find the right spot we would build a summer home here.
+Preferably we wish to purchase a typical, old-time, Colonial homestead
+and remodel it, retaining, of course, all the original old-fashioned
+flavor. Cost is not so much the consideration as location and the house
+itself. We are--ahem!--well, frankly, your place here suits us exactly."
+
+"We adore it," says Mabel, emphatic.
+
+"Mr. Blueworthy," goes on the colonel, "will you sell us your home? I am
+prepared to pay a liberal price."
+
+Poor Asaph was kind of throwed on his beam ends, so's to speak. He
+hemmed and hawed, and finally had to blurt out that he didn't own the
+place. The Lamonts was astonished. The colonel wanted to know if it
+belonged to Mrs. Badger.
+
+"Why, no," says Ase. "The fact is--that is to say--you see--"
+
+And just then the widow opened the kitchen window and called to 'em.
+
+"Colonel Lamont," says she, "there's a sailboat beating up the harbor,
+and I think the folks on it are looking for you."
+
+The colonel excused himself, and run off down the hill toward the back
+side of the point, and Asaph was left alone with the girl. He see, I
+s'pose, that here was his chance to make the best yarn out of what was
+bound to come out anyhow in a few minutes. So he fetched a sigh that
+sounded as if 'twas racking loose the foundations and commenced.
+
+He asked Mabel if she was prepared to hear something that would shock
+her turrible, something that would undermine her confidence in human
+natur'. She was a good deal upset, and no wonder, but she braced up and
+let on that she guessed she could stand it. So then he told her that
+her dad and her had been deceived, that that house wa'n't his nor Mrs.
+Badger's; 'twas the Wellmouth poor farm, and he was a pauper.
+
+She was shocked, all right enough, but afore she had a chance to ask
+a question, he begun to tell her the story of his life. 'Twas a fine
+chance for him to spread himself, and I cal'late he done it to the
+skipper's taste. He told her how him and his sister had lived in their
+little home, their own little nest, over there by the shore, for years
+and years. He led her out to where she could see the roof of his old
+shanty over the sand hills, and he wiped his eyes and raved over it.
+You'd think that tumble-down shack was a hunk out of paradise; Adam and
+Eve's place in the Garden was a short lobster 'longside of it. Then, he
+said, he was took down with an incurable disease. He tried and tried to
+get along, but 'twas no go. He mortgaged the shanty to a grasping money
+lender--meanin' Poundberry--and that money was spent. Then his sister
+passed away and his heart broke; so they took him to the poorhouse.
+
+"Miss Lamont," says he, "good-by. Sometimes in the midst of your
+fashionable career, in your gayety and so forth, pause," he says, "and
+give a thought to the broken-hearted pauper who has told you his life
+tragedy."
+
+Well, now, you take a green girl, right fresh from novels and music
+lessons, and spring that on her--what can you expect? Mabel, she cried
+and took on dreadful.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Blueworthy!" says she, grabbing his hand. "I'm SO glad you told
+me. I'm SO glad! Cheer up," she says. "I respect you more than ever, and
+my father and I will--"
+
+Just then the colonel comes puffing up the hill. He looked as if he'd
+heard news.
+
+"My child," he says in a kind of horrified whisper, "can you realize
+that we have actually passed the night in the--in the ALMSHOUSE?"
+
+Mabel held up her hand. "Hush, papa," she says. "Hush. I know all about
+it. Come away, quick; I've got something very important to say to you."
+
+And she took her dad's arm and went off down the hill, mopping her
+pretty eyes with her handkerchief and smiling back, every once in a
+while, through her tears, at Asaph.
+
+Now, it happened that there was a selectmen's meeting that afternoon
+at four o'clock. I was on hand, and so was Zoeth Tiddit and most of the
+others. Cap'n Poundberry and Darius Gott were late. Zoeth was as happy
+as a clam at high water; he'd sold the poorhouse property that very day
+to a Colonel Lamont, from Harniss, who wanted it for a summer place.
+
+"And I got the price we set on it, too," says Zoeth. "But that wa'n't
+the funniest part of it. Seems's old man Lamont and his daughter was
+very much upset because Debby Badger and Ase Blueworthy would be turned
+out of house and home 'count of the place being sold. The colonel was
+hot foot for giving 'em a check for five hundred dollars to square
+things; said his daughter'd made him promise he would. Says I: 'You
+can give it to Debby, if you want to, but don't lay a copper on that
+Blueworthy fraud.' Then I told him the truth about Ase. He couldn't
+hardly believe it, but I finally convinced him, and he made out the
+check to Debby. I took it down to her myself just after dinner. Ase was
+there, and his eyes pretty nigh popped out of his head.
+
+"'Look here,' I says to him; 'if you'd been worth a continental
+you might have had some of this. As it is, you'll be farmed out
+somewheres--that's what'll happen to YOU.'"
+
+And as Zoeth was telling this, in comes Cap'n Benijah. He was happy,
+too.
+
+"I cal'late the Lamonts must be buying all the property alongshore,"
+he says when he heard the news. "I sold that old shack that I took
+from Blueworthy to that Lamont girl to-day for three hundred and fifty
+dollars. She wouldn't say what she wanted of it, neither, and I didn't
+care much; _I_ was glad to get rid of it."
+
+"_I_ can tell you what she wanted of it," says somebody behind us. We
+turned round and 'twas Gott; he'd come in. "I just met Squire Foster,"
+he says, "and the squire tells me that that Lamont girl come into his
+office with the bill of sale for the property you sold her and made him
+deed it right over to Ase Blueworthy, as a present from her."
+
+"WHAT?" says all hands, Poundberry loudest of all.
+
+"That's right," said Darius. "She told the squire a long rigamarole
+about what a martyr Ase was, and how her dad was going to do some thing
+for him, but that she was going to give him his home back again with her
+own money, money her father had given her to buy a ring with, she said,
+though that ain't reasonable, of course--nobody'd pay that much for a
+ring. The squire tried to tell her what a no-good Ase was, but she froze
+him quicker'n--Where you going, Cap'n Benije?"
+
+"I'm going down to that poorhouse," hollers Poundberry. "I'll find out
+the rights and wrongs of this thing mighty quick."
+
+We all said we'd go with him, and we went, six in one carryall. As we
+hove in sight of the poorhouse a buggy drove away from it, going in
+t'other direction.
+
+"That looks like the Baptist minister's buggy," says Darius. "What on
+earth's he been down here for?"
+
+Nobody could guess. As we run alongside the poorhouse door, Ase
+Blueworthy stepped out, leading Debby Badger. She was as red as an
+auction flag.
+
+"By time, Ase Blueworthy!" hollers Cap'n Benijah, starting to get out
+of the carryall, "what do you mean by--Debby, what are you holding that
+rascal's hand for?"
+
+But Ase cut him short. "Cap'n Poundberry," says he, dignified as a boy
+with a stiff neck, "I might pass over your remarks to me, but when you
+address my wife--"
+
+"Your WIFE?" hollers everybody--everybody but the cap'n; he only sort of
+gurgled.
+
+"My wife," says Asaph. "When you men--church members, too, some of
+you--sold the house over her head, I'm proud to say that I, having a
+home once more, was able to step for'ard and ask her to share it with
+me. We was married a few minutes ago," he says.
+
+"And, oh, Cap'n Poundberry!" cried Debby, looking as if this was the
+most wonderful part of it--"oh, Cap'n Poundberry!" she says, "we've
+known for a long time that some man--an uncommon kind of man--was coming
+to offer me a home some day, but even Asaph didn't know 'twas himself;
+did you, Asaph?"
+
+We selectmen talked the thing over going home, but Cap'n Benijah didn't
+speak till we was turning in at his gate. Then he fetched his knee a
+thump with his fist, and says he, in the most disgusted tone ever I
+heard:
+
+"A house and lot for nothing," he says, "a wife to do the work for him,
+and five hundred dollars to spend! Sometimes the way this world's run
+gives me moral indigestion."
+
+Which was tolerable radical for a Come-Outer to say, seems to me.
+
+
+
+
+
+JONESY
+
+
+'Twas Peter T. Brown that suggested it, you might know. And, as likewise
+you might know, 'twas Cap'n Jonadab that done the most of the growling.
+
+"They ain't no sense in it, Peter," says he. "Education's all right in
+its place, but 'tain't no good out of it. Why, one of my last voyages
+in the schooner Samuel Emory, I had a educated cook, feller that had
+graduated from one of them correspondence schools. He had his diploma
+framed and hung up on the wall of the galley along with tintypes of two
+or three of his wives, and pictures cut out of the Police News, and the
+like of that. And cook! Why, say! one of the fo'mast hands ate half a
+dozen of that cook's saleratus biscuit and fell overboard. If he hadn't
+been tangled up in his cod line, so we could haul him up by that, he'd
+have been down yet. He'd never have riz of his own accord, not with them
+biscuits in him. And as for his pie! the mate ate one of them bakeshop
+paper plates one time, thinking 'twas under crust; and he kept sayin'
+how unusual tender 'twas, at that. Now, what good was education to that
+cook? Why--"
+
+"Cut it out!" says Peter T., disgusted. "Who's talking about cooks?
+These fellers ain't cooks--they're--"
+
+"I know. They're waiters. Now, there 'tis again. When I give an order
+and there's any back talk, I want to understand it. You take a passel of
+college fellers, like you want to hire for waiters. S'pose I tell one
+of 'em to do something, and he answers back in Greek or Hindoo, or such.
+_I_ can't tell what he says. I sha'n't know whether to bang him over the
+head or give him a cigar. What's the matter with the waiters we had last
+year? They talked Irish, of course, but I understood the most of that,
+and when I didn't 'twas safe to roll up my sleeves and begin arguing.
+But--"
+
+"Oh, ring off!" says Peter. "Twenty-three!"
+
+And so they had it, back and forth. I didn't say nothing. I knew how
+'twould end. If Peter T. Brown thought 'twas good judgment to hire a
+mess of college boys for waiters, fellers who could order up the squab
+in pigeon-English and the ham in hog-Latin, I didn't care, so long as
+the orders and boarders got filled and the payroll didn't have growing
+pains. I had considerable faith in Brown's ideas, and he was as set on
+this one as a Brahma hen on a plaster nest-egg.
+
+"It'll give tone to the shebang," says he, referring to the hotel; "and
+we want to keep the Old Home House as high-toned as a ten-story organ
+factory. And as for education, that's a matter of taste. Me, I'd just as
+soon have a waiter that bashfully admitted 'Wee, my dam,' as I would one
+that pushed 'Shur-r-e, Moike!' edge-ways out of one corner of his mouth
+and served the lettuce on top of the lobster, from principle, to keep
+the green above the red. When it comes to tone and tin, Cap'n, you trust
+your Uncle Pete; he hasn't been sniffling around the tainted-money bunch
+all these days with a cold in his head."
+
+So it went his way finally, as I knew it would, and when the Old Home
+opened up on June first, the college waiters was on hand. And they was
+as nice a lot of boys as ever handled plates and wiped dishes for their
+board and four dollars a week. They was poor, of course, and working
+their passage through what they called the "varsity," but they attended
+to business and wa'n't a mite set up by their learning.
+
+And they made a hit with the boarders, especially the women folks. Take
+the crankiest old battle ship that ever cruised into breakfast with
+diamond headlights showing and a pretty daughter in tow, and she would
+eat lumpy oatmeal and scorched eggs and never sound a distress signal.
+How could she, with one of them nice-looking gentlemanly waiters hanging
+over her starboard beam and purring, "Certainly, madam," and "Two lumps
+or one, madam?" into her ear? Then, too, she hadn't much time to find
+fault with the grub, having to keep one eye on the daughter. The amount
+of complaints that them college boys saved in the first fortnight was
+worth their season's wages, pretty nigh. Before June was over the Old
+Home was full up and we had to annex a couple of next-door houses for
+the left-overs.
+
+I was skipper for one of them houses, and Jonadab run the other. Each
+of us had a cook and a waiter, a housekeeper and an up-stairs girl.
+My housekeeper was the boss prize in the package. Her name was Mabel
+Seabury, and she was young and quiet and as pretty as the first bunch
+of Mayflowers in the spring. And a lady--whew! The first time I set
+opposite to her at table I made up my mind I wouldn't drink out of my
+sasser if I scalded the lining off my throat.
+
+She was city born and brought up, but she wa'n't one of your common "He!
+he! ain't you turrible!" lunch-counter princesses, with a head like a
+dandelion gone to seed and a fish-net waist. You bet she wa'n't! Her
+dad had had money once, afore he tried to beat out Jonah and swallow
+the stock exchange whale. After that he was skipper of a little society
+library up to Cambridge, and she kept house for him. Then he died and
+left her his blessing, and some of Peter Brown's wife's folks, that knew
+her when she was well off, got her the job of housekeeper here with us.
+
+The only trouble she made was first along, and that wa'n't her fault.
+I thought at one time we'd have to put up a wire fence to keep them
+college waiters away from her. They hung around her like a passel of
+gulls around a herring boat. She was nice to 'em, too, but when you're
+just so nice to everybody and not nice enough to any special one, the
+prospect ain't encouraging. So they give it up, but there wa'n't a male
+on the place, from old Dr. Blatt, mixer of Blatt's Burdock Bitters and
+Blatt's Balm for Beauty, down to the boy that emptied the ashes, who
+wouldn't have humped himself on all fours and crawled eight miles if
+she'd asked him to. And that includes me and Cap'n Jonadab, and we're
+about as tough a couple of women-proof old hulks as you'll find afloat.
+
+Jonadab took a special interest in her. It pretty nigh broke his heart
+to think she was running my house instead of his. He thought she'd ought
+to be married and have a home of her own.
+
+"Well," says I, "why don't she get married then? She could drag out and
+tie up any single critter of the right sex in this neighborhood with
+both hands behind her back."
+
+"Humph!" says he. "I s'pose you'd have her marry one of these
+soup-toting college chaps, wouldn't you? Then they could live on Greek
+for breakfast and Latin for dinner and warm over the leavings for
+supper. No, sir! a girl hasn't no right to get married unless she gets
+a man with money. There's a deck-load of millionaires comes here every
+summer, and I'm goin' to help her land one of 'em. It's my duty as a
+Christian," says he.
+
+One evening, along the second week in July 'twas, I got up from the
+supper-table and walked over toward the hotel, smoking, and thinking
+what I'd missed in not having a girl like that set opposite me all these
+years. And, in the shadder of the big bunch of lilacs by the gate, I see
+a feller standing, a feller with a leather bag in his hand, a stranger.
+
+"Good evening," says I. "Looking for the hotel, was you?"
+
+He swung round, kind of lazy-like, and looked at me. Then I noticed
+how big he was. Seemed to me he was all of seven foot high and broad
+according. And rigged up--my soul! He had on a wide, felt hat, with a
+whirligig top onto it, and a light checked suit, and gloves, and slung
+more style than a barber on Sunday. If I'D wore them kind of duds they'd
+have had me down to Danvers, clanking chains and picking straws, but on
+this young chap they looked fine.
+
+"Good evening," says the seven-footer, looking down and speaking to me
+cheerful. "Is this the Old Ladies' Home--the Old Home House, I should
+say?"
+
+"Yes, sir," says I, looking up reverent at that hat.
+
+"Right," he says. "Will you be good enough to tell me where I can find
+the proprietor?"
+
+"Well," says I, "I'm him; that is, I'm one of him. But I'm afraid we
+can't accommodate you, mister, not now. We ain't got a room nowheres
+that ain't full."
+
+He knocked the ashes off his cigarette. "I'm not looking for a room,"
+says he, "except as a side issue. I'm looking for a job."
+
+"A job!" I sings out. "A JOB?"
+
+"Yes. I understand you employ college men as waiters. I'm from Harvard,
+and--"
+
+"A waiter?" I says, so astonished that I could hardly swaller. "Be you a
+waiter?"
+
+"_I_ don't know. I've been told so. Our coach used to say I was the best
+waiter on the team. At any rate I'll try the experiment."
+
+Soon's ever I could gather myself together I reached across and took
+hold of his arm.
+
+"Son," says I, "you come with me and turn in. You'll feel better in the
+morning. I don't know where I'll put you, unless it's the bowling alley,
+but I guess that's your size. You oughtn't to get this way at your age."
+
+He laughed a big, hearty laugh, same as I like to hear. "It's straight,"
+he says. "I mean it. I want a job."
+
+"But what for? You ain't short of cash?"
+
+"You bet!" he says. "Strapped."
+
+"Then," says I, "you come with me to-night and to-morrer morning you go
+somewheres and sell them clothes you've got on. You'll make more out of
+that than you will passing pie, if you passed it for a year."
+
+He laughed again, but he said he was bound to be a waiter and if
+I couldn't help him he'd have to hunt up the other portion of the
+proprietor. So I told him to stay where he was, and I went off and found
+Peter T. You'd ought to seen Peter stare when we hove in sight of the
+candidate.
+
+"Thunder!" says he. "Is this Exhibit One, Barzilla? Where'd you pick up
+the Chinese giant?"
+
+I done the polite, mentioning Brown's name, hesitating on t'other
+chap's.
+
+"Er-Jones," says the human lighthouse. "Er-yes; Jones."
+
+"Glad to meet you, Mr. Jones," says Peter. "So you want to be a waiter,
+do you? For how much per?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know. I'll begin at the bottom, being a green hand. Twenty
+a week or so; whatever you're accustomed to paying."
+
+Brown choked. "The figure's all right," he says, "only it covers a month
+down here."
+
+"Right!" says Jones, not a bit shook up. "A month goes."
+
+Peter stepped back and looked him over, beginning with the tan shoes and
+ending with the whirligig hat.
+
+"Jonesy," says he, finally, "you're on. Take him to the servants'
+quarters, Wingate."
+
+A little later, when I had the chance and had Brown alone, I says to
+him:
+
+"Peter," says I, "for the land sakes what did you hire the emperor for?
+A blind man could see HE wa'n't no waiter. And we don't need him anyhow;
+no more'n a cat needs three tails. Why--"
+
+But he was back at me before I could wink. "Need him?" he says. "Why,
+Barzilla, we need him more than the old Harry needs a conscience. Take
+a bird's-eye view of him! Size him up! He puts all the rest of the
+Greek statues ten miles in the shade. If I could only manage to get his
+picture in the papers we'd have all the romantic old maids in Boston
+down here inside of a week; and there's enough of THEM to keep one hotel
+going till judgment. Need him? Whew!"
+
+Next morning we was at the breakfast-table in my branch establishment,
+me and Mabel and the five boarders. All hands was doing their best to
+start a famine in the fruit market, and Dr. Blatt was waving a banana
+and cheering us with a yarn about an old lady that his Burdock Bitters
+had h'isted bodily out of the tomb. He was at the most exciting part,
+the bitters and the undertaker coming down the last lap neck and neck,
+and an even bet who'd win the patient, when the kitchen door opens and
+in marches the waiter with the tray full of dishes of "cereal." Seems
+to me 'twas chopped hay we had that morning--either that or shavings; I
+always get them breakfast foods mixed up.
+
+But 'twa'n't the hay that made everybody set up and take notice. 'Twas
+the waiter himself. Our regular steward was a spindling little critter
+with curls and eye-glasses who answered to the hail of "Percy." This
+fellow clogged up the scenery like a pet elephant, and was down in the
+shipping list as "Jones."
+
+The doc left his invalid hanging on the edge of the grave, and stopped
+and stared. Old Mrs. Bounderby h'isted the gold-mounted double spyglass
+she had slung round her neck and took an observation. Her daughter
+"Maizie" fetched a long breath and shut her eyes, like she'd seen her
+finish and was resigned to it.
+
+"Well, Mr. Jones," says I, soon's I could get my breath, "this is kind
+of unexpected, ain't it? Thought you was booked for the main deck."
+
+"Yes, sir," he says, polite as a sewing-machine agent, "I was, but Percy
+and I have exchanged. Cereal this morning, madam?"
+
+Mrs. Bounderby took her measure of shavings and Jones's measure at the
+same time. She had him labeled "Danger" right off; you could tell that
+by the way she spread her wings over "Maizie." But I wa'n't watching her
+just then. I was looking at Mabel Seabury--looking and wondering.
+
+The housekeeper was white as the tablecloth. She stared at the Jones
+man as if she couldn't believe her eyes, and her breath come short and
+quick. I thought sure she was going to cry. And what she ate of that
+meal wouldn't have made a lunch for a hearty humming-bird.
+
+When 'twas finished I went out on the porch to think things over. The
+dining room winder was open and Jonesy was clearing the table. All of a
+sudden I heard him say, low and earnest:
+
+"Well, aren't you going to speak to me?"
+
+The answer was in a girl's voice, and I knew the voice. It said:
+
+"You! YOU! How COULD you? Why did you come?"
+
+"You didn't think I could stay away, did you?"
+
+"But how did you know I was here? I tried so hard to keep it a secret."
+
+"It took me a month, but I worked it out finally. Aren't you glad to see
+me?"
+
+She burst out crying then, quiet, but as if her heart was broke.
+
+"Oh!" she sobs. "How could you be so cruel! And they've been so kind to
+me here."
+
+I went away then, thinking harder than ever. At dinner Jonesy done the
+waiting, but Mabel wa'n't on deck. She had a headache, the cook said,
+and was lying down. 'Twas the same way at supper, and after supper Peter
+Brown comes to me, all broke up, and says he:
+
+"There's merry clink to pay," he says. "Mabel's going to leave."
+
+"No?" says I. "She ain't neither!"
+
+"Yes, she is. She says she's going to-morrer. She won't tell me why, and
+I've argued with her for two hours. She's going to quit, and I'd rather
+enough sight quit myself. What'll we do?" says he.
+
+I couldn't help him none, and he went away, moping and miserable. All
+round the place everybody was talking about the "lovely" new waiter,
+and to hear the girls go on you'd think the Prince of Wales had landed.
+Jonadab was the only kicker, and he said 'twas bad enough afore, but
+now that new dude had shipped, 'twa'n't the place for a decent,
+self-respecting man.
+
+"How you goin' to order that Grand Panjandrum around?" he says. "Great
+land of Goshen! I'd as soon think of telling the Pope of Rome to empty
+a pail of swill as I would him. Why don't he stay to home and be a
+tailor's sign or something? Not prance around here with his high-toned
+airs. I'm glad you've got him, Barzilla, and not me."
+
+Well, most of that was plain jealousy, so I didn't contradict. Besides
+I was too busy thinking. By eight o'clock I'd made up my mind and I went
+hunting for Jones.
+
+I found him, after a while, standing by the back door and staring up at
+the chamber winders as if he missed something. I asked him to come along
+with me. Told him I had a big cargo of talk aboard, and wouldn't be able
+to cruise on an even keel till I'd unloaded some of it. So he fell into
+my wake, looking puzzled, and in a jiffy we was planted in the rocking
+chairs up in my bedroom.
+
+"Look here," says I, "Mr.--Mr.--"
+
+"Jones," says he.
+
+"Oh, yes--Jones. It's a nice name."
+
+"I remember it beautifully," says he, smiling.
+
+"All right, Mr. Jones. Now, to begin with, we'll agree that it ain't
+none of my darn business, and I'm an old gray-headed nosey, and the like
+of that. But, being that I AM old--old enough to be your dad, though
+that's my only recommend for the job--I'm going to preach a little
+sermon. My text is found in the Old Home Hotel, Wellmouth, first house
+on the left. It's Miss Seabury," says I.
+
+He was surprised, I guess, but he never turned a hair. "Indeed?" he
+says. "She is the--the housekeeper, isn't she?"
+
+"She was," says I, "but she leaves to-morrer morning."
+
+THAT hit him between wind and water.
+
+"No?" he sings out, setting up straight and staring at me. "Not really?"
+
+"You bet," I says. "Now down in this part of the chart we've come to
+think more of that young lady than a cat does of the only kitten left
+out of the bag in the water bucket. Let me tell you about her."
+
+So I went ahead, telling him how Mabel had come to us, why she come, how
+well she was liked, how much she liked us, and a whole lot more. I guess
+he knew the most of it, but he was too polite not to act interested.
+
+"And now, all at once," says I, "she gives up being happy and well and
+contented, and won't eat, and cries, and says she's going to leave.
+There's a reason, as the advertisement folks say, and I'm going to make
+a guess at it. I believe it calls itself Jones."
+
+His under jaw pushed out a little and his eyebrows drew together. But
+all he said was, "Well?"
+
+"Yes," I says. "And now, Mr. Jones, I'm old, as I said afore, and nosey
+maybe, but I like that girl. Perhaps I might come to like you, too; you
+can't tell. Under them circumstances, and with the understanding that
+it didn't go no farther, maybe you might give me a glimpse of the lay
+of the land. Possibly I might have something to say that would help. I'm
+fairly white underneath, if I be sunburned. What do you think about it?"
+
+He didn't answer right off; seemed to be chewing it over. After a spell
+he spoke.
+
+"Mr. Wingate," says he, "with the understanding that you mentioned, I
+don't mind supposing a case. Suppose you was a chap in college. Suppose
+you met a girl in the vicinity that was--well, was about the best ever.
+Suppose you came to find that life wasn't worth a continental without
+that girl. Then suppose you had a dad with money, lots of money. Suppose
+the old fo--the gov'nor, I mean--without even seeing her or even
+knowing her name or a thing about her, said no. Suppose you and the old
+gentleman had a devil of a row, and broke off for keeps. Then suppose
+the girl wouldn't listen to you under the circumstances. Talked rot
+about 'wasted future' and 'throwing your life away' and so on. Suppose,
+when you showed her that you didn't care a red for futures, she ran
+away from you and wouldn't tell where she'd gone. Suppose--well, I guess
+that's enough supposing. I don't know why I'm telling you these things,
+anyway."
+
+He stopped and scowled at the floor, acting like he was sorry he spoke.
+I pulled at my pipe a minute or so and then says I:
+
+"Hum!" I says, "I presume likely it's fair to suppose that this break
+with the old gent is for good?"
+
+He didn't answer, but he didn't need to; the look on his face was
+enough.
+
+"Yes," says I. "Well, it's likewise to be supposed that the idea--the
+eventual idea--is marriage, straight marriage, hey?"
+
+He jumped out of his chair. "Why, damn you!" he says. "I'll--"
+
+"All right. Set down and be nice. I was fairly sure of my soundings, but
+it don't do no harm to heave the lead. I ask your pardon. Well, what you
+going to support a wife on--her kind of a wife? A summer waiter's job at
+twenty a month?"
+
+He set down, but he looked more troubled than ever. I was sorry for him;
+I couldn't help liking the boy.
+
+"Suppose she keeps her word and goes away," says I. "What then?"
+
+"I'll go after her."
+
+"Suppose she still sticks to her principles and won't have you? Where'll
+you go, then?"
+
+"To the hereafter," says he, naming the station at the end of the route.
+
+"Oh, well, there's no hurry about that. Most of us are sure of a free
+one-way pass to that port some time or other, 'cording to the parson's
+tell. See here, Jones; let's look at this thing like a couple of men,
+not children. You don't want to keep chasing that girl from pillar to
+post, making her more miserable than she is now. And you ain't in no
+position to marry her. The way to show a young woman like her that you
+mean business and are going to be wuth cooking meals for is to get the
+best place you can and start in to earn a living and save money. Now,
+Mr. Brown's father-in-law is a man by the name of Dillaway, Dillaway of
+the Consolidated Cash Stores. He'll do things for me if I ask him to,
+and I happen to know that he's just started a branch up to Providence
+and is there now. Suppose I give you a note to him, asking him, as a
+favor to me, to give you the best job he can. He'll do it, I know. After
+that it's up to you. This is, of course, providing that you start for
+Providence to-morrer morning. What d'you say?"
+
+He was thinking hard. "Suppose I don't make good?" he says. "I never
+worked in my life. And suppose she--"
+
+"Oh, suppose your granny's pet hen hatched turkeys," I says, getting
+impatient, "I'll risk your making good. I wa'n't a first mate, shipping
+fo'mast hands ten years, for nothing. I can generally tell beet greens
+from cabbage without waiting to smell 'em cooking. And as for her, it
+seems to me that a girl who thinks enough of a feller to run away from
+him so's he won't spile his future, won't like him no less for being
+willing to work and wait for her. You stay here and think it over. I'm
+going out for a spell."
+
+When I come back Jonesy was ready for me.
+
+"Mr. Wingate," says he, "it's a deal. I'm going to go you, though I
+think you're plunging on a hundred-to-one shot. Some day I'll tell you
+more about myself, maybe. But now I'm going to take your advice and
+the position. I'll do my best, and I must say you're a brick. Thanks
+awfully."
+
+"Good enough!" I says. "Now you go and tell her, and I'll write the
+letter to Dillaway."
+
+So the next forenoon Peter T. Brown was joyful all up one side because
+Mabel had said she'd stay, and mournful all down the other because his
+pet college giant had quit almost afore he started. I kept my mouth
+shut, that being the best play I know of, nine cases out of ten.
+
+I went up to the depot with Jonesy to see him off.
+
+"Good-by, old man," he says, shaking hands. "You'll write me once in a
+while, telling me how she is, and--and so on?"
+
+"Bet you!" says I. "I'll keep you posted up. And let's hear how you
+tackle the Consolidated Cash business."
+
+July and the first two weeks in August moped along and everything at the
+Old Home House kept about the same. Mabel was in mighty good spirits,
+for her, and she got prettier every day. I had a couple of letters from
+Jones, saying that he guessed he could get bookkeeping through his skull
+in time without a surgical operation, and old Dillaway was down over one
+Sunday and was preaching large concerning the "find" my candidate was
+for the Providence branch. So I guessed I hadn't made no mistake.
+
+I had considerable fun with Cap'n Jonadab over his not landing a rich
+husband for the Seabury girl. Looked like the millionaire crop was going
+to be a failure that summer.
+
+"Aw, belay!" says he, short as baker's pie crust. "The season ain't over
+yet. You better take a bath in the salt mack'rel kag; you're too fresh
+to keep this hot weather."
+
+Talking "husband" to him was like rubbing pain-killer on a scalded pup,
+so I had something to keep me interested dull days. But one morning he
+comes to me, excited as a mouse at a cat show, and says he:
+
+"Ah, ha! what did I tell you? I've got one!"
+
+"I see you have," says I. "Want me to send for the doctor?"
+
+"Stop your foolishing," he says. "I mean I've got a millionaire. He's
+coming to-night, too. One of the biggest big-bugs there is in New York.
+Ah, ha! what did I tell you?"
+
+He was fairly boiling over with gloat, but from between the bubbles I
+managed to find out that the new boarder was a big banker from New
+York, name of Van Wedderburn, with a barrel of cash and a hogshead of
+dyspepsy. He was a Wall Street "bear," and a steady diet of lamb with
+mint sass had fetched him to where the doctors said 'twas lay off for
+two months or be laid out for keeps.
+
+"And I've fixed it that he's to stop at your house, Barzilla," crows
+Jonadab. "And when he sees Mabel--well, you know what she's done to the
+other men folks," he says.
+
+"Humph!" says I, "maybe he's got dyspepsy of the heart along with the
+other kind. She might disagree with him. What makes you so cock sartin?"
+
+"'Cause he's a widower," he says. "Them's the softest kind."
+
+"Well, you ought to know," I told him. "You're one yourself. But,
+from what I've heard, soft things are scarce in Wall Street. Bet you
+seventy-five cents to a quarter it don't work."
+
+He wouldn't take me, having scruples against betting--except when he
+had the answer in his pocket. But he went away cackling joyful, and that
+night Van Wedderburn arrived.
+
+Van was a substantial-looking old relic, built on the lines of the
+Boston State House, broad in the beam and with a shiny dome on top. But
+he could qualify for the nervous dyspepsy class all right, judging
+by his language to the depot-wagon driver. When he got through making
+remarks because one of his trunks had been forgot, that driver's
+quotation, according to Peter T., had "dropped to thirty cents, with a
+second assessment called." I jedged the meals at our table would be as
+agreeable as a dog-fight.
+
+However, 'twas up to me, and I towed him in and made him acquainted with
+Mabel. She wa'n't enthusiastic--having heard some of the driver sermon,
+I cal'late--until I mentioned his name. Then she gave a little gasp
+like. When Van had gone up to his rooms, puffing like a donkey-engyne
+and growling 'cause there wa'n't no elevators, she took me by the arm
+and says she:
+
+"WHAT did you say his name was, Mr. Wingate?"
+
+"Van Wedderburn," says I. "The New York millionaire one."
+
+"Not of Van Wedderburn & Hamilton, the bankers?" she asks, eager.
+
+"That's him," says I. "Why? Do you know him? Did his ma used to do
+washing at your house?"
+
+She laughed, but her face was all lit up and her eyes fairly shone. I
+could have--but there! never mind.
+
+"Oh, no," she says, "I don't know him, but I know of him--everybody
+does."
+
+Well, everybody did, that's a fact, and the way Marm Bounderby and
+Maizie was togged out at the supper-table was a sin and a shame. And the
+way they poured gush over that bald-headed broker was enough to make him
+slip out of his chair. Talk about "fishers of men"! them Bounderbys was
+a whole seiner's crew in themselves.
+
+But what surprised me was Mabel Seabury. She was dressed up, too; not
+in the Bounderbys' style--collar-bones and diamonds--but in plain white
+with lace fuzz. If she wa'n't peaches and cream, then all you need is
+lettuce to make me a lobster salad.
+
+And she was as nice to Van as if he was old Deuteronomy out of the
+Bible. He set down to that meal with a face on him like a pair of
+nutcrackers, and afore 'twas over he was laughing and eating apple pie
+and telling funny yarns about robbing his "friends" in the Street. I
+judged he'd be sorry for it afore morning, but I didn't care for that. I
+was kind of worried myself; didn't understand it.
+
+And I understood it less and less as the days went by. If she'd been
+Maizie Bounderby, with two lines in each hand and one in her teeth, she
+couldn't have done more to hook that old stock-broker. She cooked little
+special dishes for his dyspepsy to play with, and set with him on the
+piazza evenings, and laughed at his jokes, and the land knows what.
+Inside of a fortni't he was a gone goose, which wa'n't surprising--every
+other man being in the same fix--but 'TWAS surprising to see her helping
+the goneness along. All hands was watching the game, of course, and it
+pretty nigh started a mutiny at the Old Home. The Bounderbys packed
+up and lit out in ten days, and none of the other women would speak
+to Mabel. They didn't blame poor Mr. Van, you understand. 'Twas all
+her--"low, designing thing!"
+
+And Jonadab! he wa'n't fit to live with. The third forenoon after Van
+Wedderburn got there he come around and took the quarter bet. And the
+way he crowed over me made my hands itch for a rope's end. Finally I
+owned up to myself that I'd made a mistake; the girl was a whitewashed
+tombstone and the whitewash was rubbing thin. That night I dropped a
+line to poor Jonesy at Providence, telling him that, if he could get
+a day off, maybe he'd better come down to Wellmouth, and see to his
+fences; somebody was feeding cows in his pasture.
+
+The next day was Labor Day, and what was left of the boarders was going
+for a final picnic over to Baker's Grove at Ostable. We went, three
+catboats full of us, and Van and Mabel Seabury was in the same boat. We
+made the grove all right, and me and Jonadab had our hands full, baking
+clams and chasing spiders out of the milk, and doing all the chores that
+makes a picnic so joyfully miserable. When the dinner dishes was washed
+I went off by myself to a quiet bunch of bayberry bushes half a mile
+from the grove and laid down to rest, being beat out.
+
+I guess I fell asleep, and what woke me was somebody speaking close by.
+I was going to get up and clear out, not being in the habit of listening
+to other folks' affairs, but the very first words I heard showed me that
+'twas best, for the feelings of all concerned, to lay still and keep on
+with my nap.
+
+"Oh, no!" says Mabel Seabury, dreadful nervous and hurried-like; "oh,
+no! Mr. Van Wedderburn, please don't say any more. I can't listen to
+you, I'm so sorry."
+
+"Do you mean that--really mean it?" asks Van, his voice rather shaky
+and seemingly a good deal upset. "My dear young lady, I realize that I'm
+twice your age and more, and I suppose that I was an old fool to hope;
+but I've had trouble lately, and I've been very lonely, and you have
+been so kind that I thought--I did hope--I--Can't you?"
+
+"No," says she, more nervous than ever, and shaky, too, but decided.
+"No! Oh, NO! It's all my fault. I wanted you to like me; I wanted you to
+like me very much. But not this way. I'm--I'm--so sorry. Please forgive
+me."
+
+She walked on then, fast, and toward the grove, and he followed,
+slashing at the weeds with his cane, and acting a good deal as if he'd
+like to pick up his playthings and go home. When they was out of sight I
+set up and winked, large and comprehensive, at the scenery. It looked to
+me like I was going to collect Jonadab's quarter.
+
+That night as I passed the lilac bushes by the gate, somebody steps out
+and grabs my arm. I jumped, looked up, and there, glaring down at me out
+of the clouds, was friend Jones from Providence, R. I.
+
+"Wingate," he whispers, fierce, "who is the man? And where is he?"
+
+"Easy," I begs. "Easy on that arm. I might want to use it again. What
+man?"
+
+"That man you wrote me about. I've come down here to interview him.
+Confound him! Who is he?"
+
+"Oh, it's all right now," says I. "There was an old rooster from New
+York who was acting too skittish to suit me, but I guess it's all off.
+His being a millionaire and a stock-jobber was what scart me fust along.
+He's a hundred years old or so; name of Van Wedderburn."
+
+"WHAT?" he says, pinching my arm till I could all but feel his thumb and
+finger meet. "What? Stop joking. I'm not funny to-night."
+
+"It's no joke," says I, trying to put my arm together again. "Van
+Wedderburn is his name. 'Course you've heard of him. Why! there he is
+now."
+
+Sure enough, there was Van, standing like a statue of misery on the
+front porch of the main hotel, the light from the winder shining full on
+him. Jonesy stared and stared.
+
+"Is that the man?" he says, choking up. "Was HE sweet on Mabel?"
+
+"Sweeter'n a molasses stopper," says I. "But he's going away in a day or
+so. You don't need to worry."
+
+He commenced to laugh, and I thought he'd never stop.
+
+"What's the joke?" I asks, after a year or so of this foolishness. "Let
+me in, won't you? Thought you wa'n't funny to-night."
+
+He stopped long enough to ask one more question. "Tell me, for the
+Lord's sake!" says he. "Did she know who he was?"
+
+"Sartin," says I. "So did every other woman round the place. You'd think
+so if--"
+
+He walked off then, laughing himself into a fit. "Good night, old man,"
+he says, between spasms. "See you later. No, I don't think I shall worry
+much."
+
+If he hadn't been so big I cal'lated I'd have risked a kick. A man hates
+to be made a fool of and not know why.
+
+A whole lot of the boarders had gone on the evening train, and at our
+house Van Wedderburn was the only one left. He and Mabel and me was the
+full crew at the breakfast-table the follering morning. The fruit season
+was a quiet one. I done all the talking there was; every time the broker
+and the housekeeper looked at each other they turned red.
+
+Finally 'twas "chopped-hay" time, and in comes the waiter with the
+tray. And again we had a surprise, just like the one back in July. Percy
+wa'n't on hand, and Jonesy was.
+
+But the other surprise wa'n't nothing to this one. The Seabury girl was
+mightily set back, but old Van was paralyzed. His eyes and mouth opened
+and kept on opening.
+
+"Cereal, sir?" asks Jones, polite as ever.
+
+"Why! why, you--you rascal!" hollers Van Wedderburn. "What are you doing
+here?"
+
+"I have a few days' vacation from my position at Providence, sir,"
+answers Jones. "I'm a waiter at present."
+
+"Why, ROBERT!" exclaims Mabel Seabury.
+
+Van swung around like he was on a pivot. "Do you know HIM?" he pants,
+wild as a coot, and pointing.
+
+'Twas the waiter himself that answered.
+
+"She knows me, father," he says. "In fact she is the young lady I told
+you about last spring; the one I intend to marry."
+
+Did you ever see the tide go out over the flats? Well, that's the way
+the red slid down off old Van's bald head and across his cheeks. But it
+came back again like an earthquake wave. He turned to Mabel once more,
+and if ever there was a pleading "Don't tell" in a man's eyes, 'twas in
+his.
+
+"Cereal, sir?" asks Robert Van Wedderburn, alias "Jonesy."
+
+Well, I guess that's about all. Van Senior took it enough sight more
+graceful than you'd expect, under the circumstances. He went straight
+up to his room and never showed up till suppertime. Then he marches to
+where Mabel and his son was, on the porch, and says he:
+
+"Bob," he says, "if you don't marry this young lady within a month I'll
+disown you, for good this time. You've got more sense than I thought.
+Blessed if I see who you inherit it from!" says he, kind of to himself.
+
+Jonadab ain't paid me the quarter yet. He says the bet was that she'd
+land a millionaire, and a Van Wedderburn, afore the season ended, and
+she did; so he figgers that he won the bet. Him and me got wedding cards
+a week ago, so I suppose "Jonesy" and Mabel are on their honeymoon
+now. I wonder if she's ever told her husband about what I heard in the
+bayberry bushes. Being the gamest sport, for a woman, that ever I see,
+I'll gamble she ain't said a word about it.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Cape Cod Stories, by Joseph C. Lincoln
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAPE COD STORIES ***
+
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