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Fair Harbor

by Joseph Crosby Lincoln · English · Gutenberg #22745 · 725,131 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Fair Harbor

Author: Joseph Crosby Lincoln


        
Release date: September 23, 2007 [eBook #22745]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22745

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FAIR HARBOR ***


E-text prepared by Roger Frank and the Project Gutenberg Online
Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)



FAIR HARBOR


      *      *      *      *      *      *


By JOSEPH C. LINCOLN

   FAIR HARBOR
   GALUSHA THE MAGNIFICENT
   THE PORTYGEE
   "SHAVINGS"
   MARY-'GUSTA
   CAP'N DAN'S DAUGHTER
   THE RISE OF ROSCOE PAINE
   THE POSTMASTER
   THE WOMAN HATERS
   KEZIAH COFFIN
   CY WHITTAKER'S PLACE
   CAP'N ERI
   EXTRICATING OBADIAH
   THANKFUL'S INHERITANCE
   MR. PRATT
   MR. PRATT'S PATIENTS
   KENT KNOWLES: "QUAHAUG"
   CAP'N WARREN'S WARDS
   THE DEPOT MASTER
   OUR VILLAGE
   PARTNERS OF THE TIDE
   THE OLD HOME HOUSE
   CAPE COD BALLADS


      *      *      *      *      *      *


FAIR HARBOR

A Novel

by

JOSEPH C. LINCOLN

Author of "Galusha the Magnificent," "Shavings," "Mary 'Gusta,"
"Mr. Pratt," "Cap'n Eri," Etc.







D. Appleton and Company
New York :: 1922 :: London

Copyright, 1922, by D. Appleton Company
Copyright, 1922, by the Curtis Publishing Company

Printed in the United States of America




FAIR HARBOR

CHAPTER I


"Hi hum," observed Mr. Joel Macomber, putting down his knife and fork
with obvious reluctance and tilting back his chair. "Hi hum-a-day! Man,
born of woman, is of few days and full of--of somethin', I forget
what--George, what is it a man born of woman is full of?"

George Kent, putting down his knife and fork, smiled and replied that he
didn't know. Mr. Macomber seemed shocked.

"_Don't know?_" he repeated. "Tut, tut! Dear me, dear me! A young feller
that goes to prayer meetin' every Friday night--or at least waits
outside the meetin'-house door every Friday night--and yet he don't
remember his Scriptur' well enough to know what man born of woman is
full of? My soul and body! What's the world comin' to?"

Nobody answered. The six Macomber children, Lemuel, Edgar, Sarah-Mary,
Bemis, Aldora and Joey, ages ranging from fourteen to two and a half,
kept on eating in silence--or, if not quite in silence, at least without
speaking. They had been taught not to talk at table; their mother had
taught them, their father playing the part of horrible example. Mrs.
Macomber, too, was silent. She was busy stacking plates and cups and
saucers preparatory to clearing away. When the clearing away was
finished she would be busy washing dishes and after that at some other
household duty. She was always busy and always behind with her work.

Her husband turned to the only other person at the crowded table.

"Cap'n Sears," he demanded, "you know 'most everything. What is it man
born of woman is full of besides a few days?"

Sears Kendrick thoughtfully folded his napkin. There was a hole in the
napkin--holes were characteristic of the Macomber linen--but the napkin
was clean; this was characteristic, too.

"Meanin' yourself, Joel?" he asked, bringing the napkin edges into line.

"Not necessarily. Meanin' any man born of woman, I presume likely."

"Humph! Know many that wasn't born that way?"

Mr. Macomber's not too intellectual face creased into many wrinkles and
the low ceiling echoed with his laugh. "Not many, I don't cal'late," he
said, "that's a fact. But you ain't answered my question, Cap'n. What is
man born of woman full of?"

Captain Kendrick placed the folded napkin carefully beside his plate.

"Breakfast, just now, I presume likely," he said. "At least, I know two
or three that ought to be, judgin' by the amount of cargo I've seen 'em
stow aboard in the last half hour." Then, turning to Mrs. Macomber, he
added, "I'm goin' to help you with the dishes this mornin', Sarah."

The lady of the house had her own ideas on that subject.

"Indeed you won't do anything of the sort," she declared. "The idea! And
you just out of a crippled bed, as you might say."

This remark seemed to amuse her husband hugely. "Ho, ho!" he shouted.
"That's a good one! I didn't know the bed was crippled, Sarah. What's
the matter with it; got a pain in the slats?"

Sarah Macomber seldom indulged in retort. Usually she was too busy to
waste the time. But she allowed herself the luxury of a half minute on
this occasion.

"No," she snapped, "but it's had one leg propped up on half a brick for
over a year. And at least once a week in all that time you've been
promisin' to bring home a new caster and fix it. If that bed ain't a
cripple I don't know what is."

Joel looked a trifle taken aback. His laugh this time was not quite as
uproarious.

"Guess you spoke the truth that time, Sarah, without knowin' it. Who is
it they say always speaks the truth? Children and fools, ain't it? Well,
you ain't a child scarcely, Sarah. Hope you ain't the other thing. Eh?
Ho, ho!"

Mrs. Macomber was halfway to the kitchen door, a pile of plates upon her
arm. She did not stop nor turn, but she did speak.

"Well," she observed, "I don't know. I was one once in my life, there's
precious little doubt about that."

She left the room. Young Kent and Captain Kendrick exchanged glances.
Mr. Macomber swallowed, opened his mouth, closed it and swallowed again.
Lemuel and Sarah-Mary, the two older children, giggled. The clock on the
mantel struck seven times. The sound came, to the adults, as a timely
relief from embarrassment.

Captain Kendrick looked at his watch.

"What's that?" he exclaimed. "Six bells already? So 'tis. I declare I
didn't think 'twas so late."

Joel rose to his feet, moving--for him--with marked rapidity.

"Seven o'clock!" he cried. "My, my! We've got to get under way, George,
if we want to make port at the store afore 'Liphalet does. Come on,
George, hurry up."

Kent lingered for a moment to speak to Sears Kendrick. Then he emerged
from the house and he and Joel walked rapidly off together. They were
employed, one as clerk and bookkeeper and the other as driver of the
delivery wagon, at Eliphalet Bassett's Grocery, Dry Goods, Boots and
Shoes and Notion Store at the corner of the main road and the depot
road. Joel's position there was fixed for eternity, at least he
considered it so, having driven that same delivery wagon at the same
wage for twenty-two years. "Me and that grocery cart," Mr. Macomber was
wont to observe, "have been doin' 'Liphalet's errands so long we've come
to be permanent fixtures. Yes, sir, permanent fixtures." When this was
repeated to Mr. Bassett the latter affirmed that it was true. "Every
time the dum fool goes out takin' orders," said Eliphalet, "he stays so
long that I begin to think he's turned _into_ a permanent fixture. Takes
an order for a quarter pound of tea and a spool of cotton and then hangs
'round and talks steady for half an hour. Permanent fixture! Permanent
gas fixture, that's what _he_ is."

George Kent did not consider himself a permanent fixture at Bassett's.
He had been employed there for three years, or ever since the death of
his father, Captain Sylvester Kent, who had died at sea aboard his ship,
the _Ocean Ranger_, on the voyage home from Java to Philadelphia. George
remained in Bayport to study law with Judge Knowles, who was interested
in the young man and, being a lawyer of prominence on the Cape, was an
influential friend worth having. The law occupied young Kent's attention
in the evenings; he kept Mr. Bassett's books and sold Mr. Bassett's
brown sugar, calico and notions during the days, not because he loved
the work, the place, or its proprietor, but because the twelve dollars
paid him each Saturday enabled him to live. And, in order to live so
cheaply that he might save a bit toward the purchase of clothes, law
books and sundries, he boarded at Joel Macomber's. Sarah Macomber took
him to board, not because she needed company--six children and a husband
supplied a sufficiency of that--but because three dollars more a week
was three dollars more.

Joel and George having tramped off to business and the very last crumb
of the Macomber breakfast having vanished, the Macomber children
proceeded to go through their usual morning routine. Lemuel, who did
chores for grumpy old Captain Elijah Samuels at the latter's big place
on the depot road, departed to rake hay and be sworn at. Sarah-Mary went
upstairs to make beds; when the bed-making was over she and Edgar and
Bemis would go to school. Aldora and Joey, the two youngest, went
outdoors to play. And Captain Sears Kendrick, late master of the ship
_Hawkeye_, and before that of the _Fair Wind_ and the _Far Seas_ and
goodness knows how many others, who ran away to ship as cabin boy when
he was thirteen, who fought the Malay pirates when he was eighteen, and
outwitted Semmes by outmaneuvering the _Alabama_ when he was
twenty-eight, a man once so strong and bronzed and confident, but now so
weak and shaken--Captain Sears Kendrick rose painfully and with effort
from his chair, took his cane from the corner and hobbled to the
kitchen.

"Sarah," he said, "I'm goin' to help you with those dishes this
mornin'."

"Sears," said Mrs. Macomber, taking the kettle of boiling dish-water
from the top of the stove, "you'll do nothin' of the kind. You'll go
outdoors and get a little sunshine this lovely day. It's the first real
good day you've had since you got up from bed, and outdoors 'll help you
more than anything else. Now you go!"

"But look here, Sarah, for Heaven's sake----"

"Be still, Sears, and don't be foolish. There ain't dishes enough to
worry about. I'll have 'em done in half a shake. Go outdoors, I tell
you. But don't you walk on those legs of yours. You hear me."

Her brother--Sarah Macomber was a Kendrick before she married
Joel--smiled slightly. "How do you want me to walk, Sarah, on my hands?"
he inquired. "Never mind my legs. They're better this mornin' than they
have been since that fat woman and a train of cars fell on 'em.... Ah
hum!" with a change of tone, "it's a pity they didn't fall on my neck
and make a clean job of it, isn't it?"

"Sears!" reproachfully. "How can you talk so? And especially now, when
the doctor says if you take care of yourself, you'll 'most likely be as
well as ever in--in a little while."

"A little while! In a year or two was what he said. In ten years was
probably what he meant, and you'll notice he put in the 'most likely'
even at that. If you were to lash him in the fore-riggin' and keep him
there till he told the truth, he'd probably end by sayin' that I would
always be a good for nothin' hulk same as I am now."

"Sears, don't--please don't. I hate to hear you speak so bitter. It
doesn't sound like you."

"It's the way I feel, Sarah. Haven't I had enough to make me bitter?"

His sister shook her head. "Yes, Sears," she admitted, "I guess likely
you have, but I don't know as that is a very good excuse. Some of the
rest of us," with a sigh, "haven't found it real smooth sailin' either;
but----"

She did not finish the sentence, and there was no need. He understood
and turned quickly.

"I'm sorry, Sarah," he said. "I ought to be hove overboard and towed
astern. The Almighty knows you've had more to put up with than ever I
had and you don't spend your time growlin' about it, either. I declare
I'm ashamed of myself, but--but--well, you know how it is with me. I've
never been used to bein' a loafer, spongin' on my relations."

"Don't, Sears. You know you ain't spongin', as you call it. You've paid
your board ever since you've been here."

"Yes, I have. But how much? Next to half of nothin' a week and you
wouldn't have let me pay that if I hadn't put my foot down. Or said I
was goin' to try to put it down," he added with a grim smile. "You're a
good woman, Sarah, a good woman, with more trials than your share. And
what makes me feel worst of all, I do believe, is that I should be
pitched in on you--to be the biggest trial of all. Well, that part's
about over, anyhow. No matter whether I can walk or not I shan't stay
and sponge on you. If I can't do anything else I'll hire a fish shanty
and open clams for a livin'."

He smiled again and she smiled in sympathy, but there were tears in her
eyes. She was seven years older than her brother, and he had always been
her pride. When she was a young woman, helping with the housework in the
old home there in Bayport, before her father's death and the sale of
that home, she had watched with immense gratification his success in
school. When he ran away to sea she had defended him when others
condemned. Later, when tales of his "smartness," as sailor or mate, or
by and by, a full rated captain, began to drift back, she had gloried in
them. He came to see her semi-occasionally when his ship was in port,
and his yarns of foreign lands and strange people were, to her, far more
wonderful than anything she had ever found in the few books which had
come in her way. Each present he brought her she had kept and cherished.
And there was never a trace of jealousy in her certain knowledge that he
had gone on growing while she had stopped, that he was a strong, capable
man of the world--the big world--whereas she was, and would always be,
the wife and household drudge of Joel Macomber.

Now, as she looked at him, pale, haggard and leaning on his cane,
stooping a little when he had been so erect and sturdy, the pity which
she had felt for him ever since they brought him into her sitting-room
on the day of the railway accident became keener than ever and with it
came an additional flash of insight. She realized more clearly than she
had before that it was not his bodily injuries which hurt most and were
the hardest to bear; it was his self-respect and the pride which were
wounded sorest. That he--_he_--Sears Kendrick, the independent autocrat
of the quarter deck, should be reduced to this! That it was wringing
his soul she knew. He had never complained except to her, and even to
her very, very seldom, but she knew. And she ventured to ask the
question she had wanted to ask ever since he had sufficiently recovered
to listen to conversation.

"Sears," she said "I haven't said a word before, and you needn't tell me
now if you don't want to--it isn't any of my business--but is it true
that you've lost a whole lot of money? It isn't true, is it?"

He had been standing by the open door, looking out into the yard. Now he
turned to look at her.

"What isn't true, Sarah?" he asked.

"That you've lost a lot of money in--in that--that business you went
into. It isn't true, is it, Sears? Oh, I hope it isn't! They say--why,
some of 'em say you've lost all the money you had put by. An awful sight
of money, they say. Sears, tell me it isn't true--please."

He regarded her in silence for a moment. Then he shook his head.

"Part of it isn't true, Sarah," he answered, with a slight smile. "I
haven't lost a big lot of money."

"Oh, I'm _so_ glad. Now I can tell 'em a few things, I guess."

"I wouldn't tell 'em too much, because the other part _is_ true. I have
lost about all I had put by."

"Oh, Sears!"

"Um--hm. And served me right, of course. You can't make a silk ear out
of a sow's purse, as old Cap'n Sam Doane used to love to say. You can't,
no matter how good a purse--or--ear--it is. I was a pretty good sea
cap'n if I do say it, but that wasn't any reason why I should have
figured I was a good enough business man to back as slippery an eel as
Jim Carpenter in the ship chandlery game ashore."

"But--you----" Mrs. Macomber hesitated to utter the disgraceful word,
"you didn't fail up, did you, Sears?" she faltered. "You know that's
what they say you did."

"Well, they say wrong. Carpenter failed, I didn't. I paid dollar for
dollar. That's why I've got next to no dollars now."

"But you--you've got _some_, Sears. You must have," hopefully, "because
you've been paying me board. So you must have _some_ left."

The triumph in her face was pathetic. He hated to disturb her faith.

"Yes," he said dryly, "I have some left. Maybe seven hundred dollars or
some such matter. If I had my legs left it would be enough, or more than
enough. I wouldn't ask odds of anybody if I was the way I was before
that train went off the track. I'd lost every shot I had in the locker,
but I'm not very old yet--some years to leeward of forty--there was more
money to be had where that came from and I meant to have it. And
then--well, then this happened to me."

"I know. And to think that you was comin' down here on purpose to see me
when it did happen. Seems almost as if I was to blame, somehow."

"Nonsense! Nobody was to blame but the engineer that wrecked the train
and the three hundred pound woman that fell on my legs. And the engineer
was killed, poor fellow, and the woman was--well, she carried her own
punishment with her, I guess likely. Anyhow, I should call it a
punishment if I had to carry it. There, there, Sarah! Let's talk about
somethin' else. You do your dishes and, long as you won't let me help
you, I'll hop-and-go-fetch-it out to that settee in the front yard and
look at the scenery. Just think! I've been in Bayport almost four months
and haven't been as far as that gate yet--except when they lugged me in
past it, of course. And I don't recall much about that."

"I guess not, you poor boy. And I saw them bringin' you in, all
stretched out, with your eyes shut, and as white as---- Oh, my soul and
body! I don't want to think about it, let alone talk about it."

"Neither do I, Sarah, so we won't. Do you realize how little I know of
what's been goin' on in Bayport since I was here last? And do you
realize how long it has been since I _was_ here?"

"Why, yes, I do, Sears. It's been almost six years; it will be just six
on the tenth of next September."

The speech was illuminating. He looked at her curiously.

"You do keep account of my goin's and comin's, don't you, old girl?" he
said. "Better than I do myself."

"Oh, it means more to me than it does to you. You live such a busy life,
Sears, all over the world, meetin' everybody in all kinds of places. For
me, with nothin' to do but be stuck down here in Bayport--well, it's
different with me--I have to remember. Rememberin' and lookin' ahead is
about all I have to keep me interested."

He was silent for a moment. Then he said: "It looks as if rememberin'
was all I will be likely to have. Think of it, Sarah! Four months in
Bayport and I haven't been to the post-office. That'll stand as a town
record, I'll bet."

"And--and you'll keep up your courage, Sears? You won't let yourself get
blue and discouraged, for my sake if nobody else's?"

He nodded. "I couldn't, Sarah," he said earnestly. "With you around I'd
be ashamed to."

She ran to help him down the step, but he waved her away, and, leaning
upon the cane and clinging fast to the lattice with the other hand, he
managed to make the descent safely. Once on the flat level of the walk
he moved more rapidly and, so it seemed to his sister, more easily than
he had since his accident. The forty odd feet of walk he navigated in
fair time and came to anchor, as he would have expressed it, upon the
battered old bench by the Macomber gate. The gate, like the picket
fence, of which it was a part, needed paint and the bench needed slats
in its back. Almost anything which Joel Macomber owned needed something
and his wife and family needed most of all.

An ancient cherry tree, its foliage now thickly spotted with green fruit,
for the month was June, cast a shadow upon the occupant of the bench. At
his feet grew a bed of daffodils and jonquils which Sarah Macomber had
planted when she came, a hopeful bride, to that house. Each year they
sprouted and bloomed and now, long after Sarah's hopes had ceased to
sprout, they continued to flourish. Beside the cherry tree grew a lilac
bush. Beyond the picket fence was the dusty sidewalk and beyond that the
dustier, rutted road. And beyond the road and along it upon both sides
were the houses and barns and the few shops of Bayport village, Bayport
as it was, and as some of us remember it, in the early '70's.

In some respects it was much like the Bayport of to-day. The houses
themselves have changed but little. Then, as now, they were trim and
white and green-shuttered. Then, as now, the roses climbed upon their
lattices and the silver-leaf poplars and elms and mulberry trees waved
above them. But the fences which enclosed their trim lawns and yards
have disappeared, and the hitching posts and carriage blocks by their
front gates have gone also. Gone, too, are the horses and buggies and
carryalls which used to stand by these gates or within those barns. They
are gone, just as the ruts and dust of the roads have vanished. When
Mrs. Captain Hammond, of the lower road, used to call upon Mrs. Ryder at
West Bayport, she was wont to be driven to her destination in the
intensely respectable Hammond buggy drawn by the equally respectable
Hammond horse and piloted by the even more respectable--not to say
venerable--Hammond coachman, who was also gardener and "hired man." And
they made the little journey in the very respectable time of thirty-five
minutes. Now when Mrs. Captain Hammond's granddaughter, who winters in
Boston but summers at the old home, wishes to go to West Bayport she
skims over the hard, oiled macadam in her five thousand dollar runabout
and she finishes the skimming in eight minutes or less.

And although the dwellings along the Bayport roads are much as they
were that morning when Captain Sears Kendrick sat upon the bench in the
Macomber yard and gazed gloomily at the section of road which lay
between the Macomber gate and the curve beyond the Orthodox
meeting-house--although the houses were much the same in external
appearance, those who occupy them at the present day are vastly
different from those who owned and lived in them then. Here is the
greatest change which time has brought to old Bayport. Now those
houses--the majority of them--are open only in summer; then they were
open all the year. They who come to them now regard them as playthings,
good-time centers for twelve or fourteen weeks. Then they were the homes
of men and women who were proud of them, loved them, meant to live in
them--while on land--as long as life was theirs; to die in them if
fortunate enough to be found by death while ashore; and at last to be
buried near them, under the pines of the Bayport cemetery. Now these
homes are used by business men or lawyers or doctors, whose real homes
are in Boston, New York, Chicago, or other cities. Then practically
every house was owned or occupied either by a sea captain, active or
retired, or by a captain's widow or near relative.

For example, as Captain Kendrick sat in his brother-in-law's yard on
that June morning of that year in the early '70's, within his sight,
that is within the half mile from curve to curve of the lower road, were
no less than nine houses in which dwelt--or had dwelt--men who gained a
living upon a vessel's quarter deck. Directly across the road was the
large, cupola-crowned house of Captain Solomon Snow. Captain Sol was at
present somewhere between Surinam and New York, bound home. His wife was
with him, so was his youngest child. The older children were at home, in
the big house; their aunt, Captain Sol's sister, herself a captain's
widow, was with them.

Next to Captain Solomon's was the Crowell place. Captain Bethuel Crowell
was in Hong Kong, but, so his wife reported at sewing circle, had
expected to sail from there "any day about now" bound for Melbourne.
Next to Captain Bethuel lived Mrs. Patience Foster, called "Mary Pashy"
by the townspeople to distinguish her from another Mary Foster in East
Bayport. Her husband had been drowned at sea, or at least so it was
supposed. His ship left Philadelphia eight years before and had never
been spoken or heard from since that time. Next to Mary-Pashy's was the
imposing, if ugly, residence of Captain Elkanah Wingate. Captain Elkanah
was retired, wealthy, a member of the school-committee, a selectman, an
aristocrat and an autocrat. And beyond Captain Elkanah lived Captain
Godfrey Peasley--who was not quite of the aristocracy as he commanded a
schooner instead of a square-rigger, and beyond him Mrs. Tabitha Crosby,
whose husband had died of yellow fever while aboard his ship in New
Orleans; and beyond Mrs. Crosby's was--well, the next building was the
Orthodox meeting-house, where the Reverend David Dishup preached.
Nowadays people call it the Congregationalist church. On the same side
of the road as the Macomber cottage were the homes of Captain Sylvanus
Baker and Captain Noah Baker and of Captain Orrin Eldridge.

Bayport, in that day, was not only by the sea, it was of the sea. The
sea winds blew over it, the sea air smelled salty in its highways and
byways, its male citizens--most of them--walked with a sea roll, and
upon the tables and whatnots of their closed and shuttered "front
parlors" or in their cupboards or closets were laquered cabinets, and
whales' teeth, and alabaster images, and carved chessmen and curious
shells and scented fans and heaven knows what, brought from heaven knows
where, but all brought in sailing ships over one or more of the seas of
the world. The average better class house in Bayport was an odd
combination of home and museum, the rear two-thirds the home section and
the remaining third, that nearest the road, the museum. Bayport front
parlors looked like museums, and generally smelled like them.

To a stranger from, let us say, the middle west, the village then must
have seemed a queer little community dozing upon its rolling hills and
by its white beaches, a community where the women had, most of them,
traveled far and seen many strange things and places, but who seldom
talked of them, preferring to chat concerning the minister's wife's new
bonnet; and whose men folk, appearing at long intervals from remote
parts of the world, spoke of the port side of a cow and compared the
three-sided clock tower of the new town hall with the peak of Teneriffe
on a foggy morning.

All this, odd as it may have seemed to visitors from inland, were but
matters of course to Sears Kendrick. To him there was nothing strange in
the deep sea atmosphere of his native town. It had been there ever since
he knew it, he fondly imagined--being as poor a prophet as most of
us--that it would always be. And, as he sat there in the Macomber yard,
his thoughts were busy, not with Bayport's past or future, but with his
own, and neither retrospect nor forecast was cheerful. He could see
little behind him except the mistakes he had made, and before him--not
even the opportunity to make more.

Overhead, amid the cherry branches, the bees buzzed and the robins
chirped. From the kitchen window came the click of dishes as Mrs.
Macomber washed and wiped them. Around the curve of the road by the
meeting-house came Dr. Sheldon's old horse, drawing Dr. Sheldon's
antiquated chaise, with the doctor himself leaning back comfortably upon
its worn cushions. Captain Kendrick, not being in the mood for a chat
just then even with as good a friend as his physician, made no move, and
the old chaise and its occupant passed by and disappeared around the
next curve. Sarah-Mary and Edgar and Bemis noisily trooped out of the
house and started for school. Edgar was enthusiastically carolling a
ditty which was then popular among Bayport juvenility. It was
reminiscent of a recent presidential campaign.

    "Grant and Greely were fightin' for flies,
    Grant gave Greely a pair of black eyes--"

The children, like Doctor Sheldon and the chaise, passed out of sight
around the bend of the road. Edgar's voice, more or less tunefully,
drifted back:

    "Grant said, 'Do you want any more?'
    Greely said, 'No, for my eyes are too sore.'"

Sears Kendrick crossed his knees and changed position upon the bench.
Obviously he could not hope to go to sea again for months at the very
earliest. Obviously he could not live during those months at his
sister's. She would be only too delighted to have him do so, but on that
point his mind was made up. And, quite as obviously, he could not long
exist, and pay an adequate price for the privilege of existing, with the
small sum which was left after his disastrous voyage upon the sea of
business. His immediate problems then were two: First, to find a
boarding place which was very, very cheap. Second, if possible, to find
a means of earning a little money. The first of these he might, perhaps,
solve after a fashion, but the second--and he a cripple! He groaned
aloud.

Then he gradually became aware of a new set of sounds, sounds
approaching along the road from the direction in which the children and
the doctor's equipage had disappeared. The sounds, at first rather
confused, gradually separated themselves into two varieties, one the
sharp, irregular rattle of a springless cart, the second a hoarse
unmusical voice which, like Edgar's, was raised in song. But in this
case the rattle of the cart caused the song to be broken unexpectedly
into jerky spasms, so to speak. Nevertheless, the singer kept manfully
at his task.

    "Now the _Dreadnought's_ a-bowlin' (_Bump! Rattle_)
        down the wild Irish sea
    Where the pass (_Bump!_) engers are merry
        with hearts full of glee,
    While the sailors like lions (_Gid-dap!
        What's the matter with ye_) walk the decks to and fro,
    She's the Liverpool packet (_Bump! Bang! Crack!_)
        Good Lord, let her go!"

Sears Kendrick sat upright on the settee. Of course he recognized the
song, every man who had ever sailed salt water knew the old
_Dreadnought_ chantey, but much more than that, he believed he
recognized the voice of the singer. Leaning forward, he watched for the
latter to appear.

Then, around the clump of lilacs which leaned over Captain Sol Snow's
fence at the corner, came an old white horse drawing an old
"truck-wagon," the wagon painted, as all Cape Cod truck-wagons then were
and are yet, a bright blue; and upon the high seat of the wagon sat a
chunky figure, a figure which rocked back and forth and sang:

    "Now the _Dreadnought's_ a sailin' the (_Bang! Bump!_)
        Atlantic so wide,
    While the (_Thump! Bump!_) dark heavy seas roll
        along her black side,
    With the sails neatly spread (_Crump! Jingle!_)
        and the red cross to show,
    She's the Liverpool packet; Good Lord, let----"

Captain Kendrick interrupted here.

"Ahoy, the _Dreadnought_!" he hailed. "_Dreadnought_ ahoy!"

"Good Lord, let 'er go!" roared the man on the seat of the truck-wagon,
finishing the stanza of his chantey. Then he added "Whoa!" in a mighty
bellow. The white horse stopped in his tracks, as if he had one ear
tipped backward awaiting the invitation. His driver leaned down and
peered into the shadow of the lilac bush.

"Who--?" he began. "Eh? _What?_ Limpin', creepin', crawlin', jumpin'
Moses and the prophets! It ain't Cap'n Sears Kendrick, is it? It is, by
Henry! Well, well, _well_, WELL, _WELL_!"

Each succeeding "well" was louder and more emphatic than its
predecessor. They were uttered as the speaker rolled, rather than
climbed, down from the high seat. Alighting upon a pair of enormous feet
shod in heavy rubber boots, the tops of which were turned down, he
thumped up the little slope from the road to the sidewalk. Then,
thrusting over the fence pickets a red and hairy hand, the size of which
corresponded to that of the feet, he roared another string of delighted
exclamations.

"Cap'n Sears Kendrick, on deck and all taut again! Well, by the jumpin',
creepin'! If this ain't--Cap'n Sears, sir, how be you?"

His broad-brimmed, battered straw hat had fallen off in his descent from
the wagon seat, uncovering a partially bald head and a round, extremely
red face, two-thirds of which was hidden by a tremendously thick and
bristly tangle of short gray whiskers. The whiskers were now bisected by
a broad grin, a grin so broad and so ecstatic that its wrinkles extended
to the bulbous nose and the apple cheeks above.

"Cap'n Sears, sir," repeated the driver of the truck-wagon, "I'm proud
to see you on deck again, sir. Darned if I ain't!"

The captain leaned forward and shook the big red hand extended across
the fence pickets.

"Judah Cahoon, you old salt herrin'," he cried heartily, "I'm just as
glad to see you! But _what_ in the world are you doin' here in
Bayport?"




CHAPTER II


Mr. Cahoon's grin vanished and the expression of his face above the
whiskers indicated extreme surprise.

"What am I doin' here?" he repeated. "Didn't you know I was here, Cap'n
Sears?"

"Of course I didn't. The last I heard of you you had shipped as cook
aboard the _Gallant Rover_ and was bound for Calcutta, or Singapore or
somewhere in those latitudes. And that was only a year ago. What are you
doin' on the Cape and pilotin' that kind of a craft?" indicating the
truck wagon.

The question was ignored. "Didn't they never tell you I was here?"
demanded Judah. "Didn't that Joel Macomber tell you I been hailin' him
every time he crossed my bows, askin' about you every day since you run
on the rocks? Didn't he tell you that?"

"No."

"Never give you my respects nor--nor kind rememberances, nor nawthin'?"

"Not a word. Never so much as mentioned your name."

"The red-headed shark!"

"There! There! Sshh! Never mind him. Come in here and sit down a minute,
can't you? Or are you in a hurry?"

"Eh? No-o, I ain't in no 'special hurry. Just got a deck load of seaweed
aboard carting it up home, that's all."

"Home? What home?"

"Why, where I'm livin'. I call it home; anyhow it's all the home I got.
Eh? Why, Cap'n Sears, ain't they never told you that I'm livin' at the
Minot place?"

"The Minot place! Why--why, man alive, you don't mean the General Minot
place, do you?"

"Um-hm. That's what folks down here call it. There ain't no Generals
there though."

"And _you_ are livin' in the General Minot house? Look here, Judah, are
you trying to make a fool of me?"

Mr. Cahoon's countenance--that portion of it above the whisker tidemark,
of course--registered horror at the thought. He had been cook and
steward aboard Captain Kendrick's ships for many voyages and his feeling
for his former skipper was close kin to idolatry.

"Eh?" he gasped. "Me try to make a fool out of _you_, Cap'n Sears? _Me?_
No, no, I got _some_ sense left, I hope."

Kendrick smiled. "Oh, the thing isn't impossible, Judah," he observed
dryly. "It has been done. I have been made a fool of and more than
once.... But there, never mind that. I want to know what you are doin'
at the General Minot place. Come aboard here and tell me about it. You
can leave your horse, can't you? He doesn't look as if he was liable to
run away."

"Run away! Him?" Judah snorted disgust. "Limpin' Moses! He won't run away
for the same reason old Cap'n Eben Gould didn't say his prayers--he's
forgot how. I was out with that horse on the flats last week and the
tide pretty nigh caught us. The water in the main channel was so deep
that it was clean up to the critter's garboard strake, and still, by the
creepin', I couldn't get him out of a walk. I thought there one spell he
might _drift_ away, but I knew dum well he'd never run.... Whoa!
you--you hipponoceros you!" addressing the ancient animal, who was
placidly gnawing at the Macomber hitching post. "'Vast heavin' on that
post! _Look_ at the blasted idiot!" with huge disgust. "To home, by the
creepin', he'll turn up his nose at good hay and then he'll cruise out
here and start to swaller a wood fence. Whoa! Back! Back, or I'll--I'll
bore a hole in you and scuttle you."

The old horse condescended to back for perhaps two feet, a proceeding
which elicited a grunt of grudging approval from Mr. Cahoon. The latter
then settled himself with a thump upon the settee beside Captain
Kendrick.

"How's the spars splicin'?" he inquired, with a jerk of his thumb toward
the captain's legs. "Gettin' so you can navigate with 'em? Stand up
under sail, will they?"

"Not for much of a cruise," replied Sears, using the same nautical
phraseology. "I shan't be able to run under anything but a jury rig for
a good while, I'm afraid. But never mind the spars. I want to know how
you happen to be down here in Bayport, and especially what on earth you
are doin' at the Minot place? Somebody died and left you a million?"

Mr. Cahoon's whiskers were split again by his wide grin.

"If I was left a million _I'd_ die," he observed with emphasis. "No, no,
nothin' like that, Cap'n. I'm there along of ... humph! You know young
Ogden Minot, don't you?"

"No, I guess I don't. I don't seem to remember him. Ogden Minot, you
say?"

"Sartin. Why, you must have run afoul of him, Cap'n Sears. He has a--a
sort of home moorin's at a desk in Barstow Brothers' shippin' office up
on State Street. Has some kind of berth with the firm, they tell me,
partner or somethin'. You must have seen him there."

"Well, if I have I.... Hold on a minute! Seems to me I do remember him.
Tall fellow, dresses like a tailor's picture; speaks as if--"

"As if the last half of every word was comin' on the next boat. That's
him. Light complected, wears his whiskers wing and wing, like a schooner
runnin' afore the wind. Same kind of side whiskers old Cap'n Spencer of
the _Farewell_ used to carry that voyage when I fust run afoul of you.
You was second mate and I was cook, remember. You recollect the
skipper's side whiskers, Cap'n Sears? Course you do! Stuck out each side
of his face pretty nigh big as old-fashioned studdin' sails. Fo'mast
hands used to call 'em the old man's 'homeward-bounders.' Ho, ho! Why,
I've seen them whiskers blowin'--"

Kendrick interrupted.

"Never mind Cap'n Spencer's whiskers," he said. "Stick to your course,
Judah. What about this Ogden Minot?"

"Everythin' bout him. If 'twan't for him I wouldn't be here now. No
sir-ee, 'stead of settin' here swappin' yarns with you, Cap'n Sears, I'd
be somewheres off Cape Horn, cookin' lobscouse and doughboy over a
red-hot galley stove. Yes sir, that's where I'd be. And I'd just as soon
be here, and a dum sight juster, as the feller said. Ho, ho! Tut, tut,
tut! You can't never tell, can you? How many times I've stood in my
galley with a gale of wind blowin', and my feet braced so's I wouldn't
pitch into the salt-horse kittle every time she rolled, and thinkin'--"

"There, there, Judah! Bring her up, bring her up. You're three points
off again."

"Eh? So I be, so I be. I'll try and hold her nose in the notch from now
on. Well, 'twas last October, a year ago, when I'd about made up my mind
to go cook in the _Gallant Rover_, same as you said. I hadn't signed
articles, you understand, but I was cal'latin' to, and I was down on
Long Wharf where the _Rover_ was takin' cargo, and her skipper, Cap'n
Gustavus Philbrick, 'twas--he was a Cape man, one of the Ostable
Philbricks--he asked me if I wouldn't cruise up to the Barstow Brothers'
office and fetch down some papers that was there for him. So I didn't
have nawthin' to do 'special, and 'twas about time for my eleven
o'clock--when I'm in Boston I always cal'late to hist aboard one eleven
o'clock, rum and sweetenen' 'tis generally, at Jerry Crockett's saloon
on India Street and.... Aye, aye, sir! All right, all right, Cap'n
Sears. I'll keep her in the notch, don't worry. Well--er--er--what was I
sayin'? Oh, yes! Well, I had my eleven o'clock and then I cruised up to
the Barstow place, and the fust mate there, young Crosby Barstow 'twas,
he was talkin' with this Ogden Minot. And when I hove in sight young
Barstow, he sings out: 'And here's another Cape Codder, Ogden,' he says.
'You two ought to know each other. Cahoon,' says he, 'this is Mr. Ogden
Minot; his folks hailed from Bayport. That's down your way, ain't it?'

"'You bet!' says I. 'My home port's Harniss, and that's right next door.
Minot? Minot?' I says, tryin' to recollect, you understand. 'Seems to me
I used to know a Minot down that way. Why, yes, course I did! You any
relation to old Ichabod Minot, that skippered the _Gypsy Maid_ fishin'
to the Banks? Ichabod hailed from--from--Denboro, seems to me 'twas.'

"He said no pretty sharp. Barstow, he laughed like fury and wanted to
know if this Ogden Minot looked like Ichabod. 'Is there a family
resemblance?' he says. I told him I guessed not. 'Anyhow,' says I, 'I
couldn't tell very well. I only seen Ichabod when he was drunk.' That
tickled Barstow most to death. 'You never saw him but that once, then?'
he wanted to know. 'Oh, yes,' says I, 'I seen him about every time he
was on shore after a fishin' trip.'

"That seemed to make him laugh more'n ever and even young Ogden laughed
some. Anyhow, we got to talkin' and I told Barstow how I was cal'latin'
to go cook on the _Gallant Rover_. 'And I'm sick of it,' I says. 'I'd
like a nice snug berth ashore.' 'You would?' says Barstow. Then he says,
'Humph!' and looks at Minot. And Minot, he says, 'Humph!' and looked at
him. And then they both says, 'Humph!' and looked at me. And afore I set
sail from that office to carry Cap'n Philbrick's papers back to him I'd
agreed not to sign on for that v'yage as cook until I'd cruised down
here to Bayport along of young Ogden Minot to see how I'd like to be
sort of--of general caretaker and stevedore, as you might call it, at
the General Minot place. You see, young Ogden was the General's grandson
and he'd had the property left him. And 'twas part of the sailin'
orders--in the old General's will, you understand--that it couldn't be
sold, but must always be took care of and kept up. Ogden could rent it
out but he couldn't sell it; that was the pickle _he_ was in.
Understand, don't you, Cap'n Sears?"

Kendrick nodded. "Why--yes, I guess likely I do," he said. "But this
Minot boy could live in it himself, couldn't he? Why doesn't he do that?
As I remember it, it was considerable of a house. I should think he
would come here himself and live."

Judah nodded. "You would think so, wouldn't you?" he agreed. "But _he_
don't think so, and what's a mighty sight more account, his wife don't
think so. She's one of them kind of women that--that--well, when she
gets to heaven--course I ain't layin' no bets on her gettin' there, but
_if_ she does--the fust thing she'll do after she fetches port is to
find out which one of them golden streets has got the highest-toned gang
livin' on it and then start in tryin' to tie up to the wharf there
herself. _She_ wouldn't live in no Bayport. No sir--ee! She's got winter
moorin's up in one of them streets back of the Common, and summer times
she's down to a place called--er--er--Nahum--Nehimiah--No--jumpin'
prophets! What's the name of that place out on the rocks abaft Lynn?"

"Nahant?" suggested his companion.

"That's it. She and him is to Nahant summers. And what for _I_ don't
know, when right here in Bayport is a great, big, fine house and land
around it and--and flower tubs in the front yard and--and marble top
tables--and--and haircloth chairs and sofys, and--and a Rogers' statoo
in the parlor and--and.... Why, say, Cap'n Sears, you ought to _see_
that house and the things in it. They've spent money on that house same
as if a five dollar bill wan't nawthin'. Wasted it, I call it. The
second day I was there I wanted to brush off some dust that was on the
chair seats and I was huntin' round from bow to stern lookin' for one of
them little brush brooms, you know, same as you brush clothes with.
Well, sir, I'd about give up lookin' when I happened to look on the wall
of the settin'-room and there was one hangin' up. And, say, Cap'n Sears,
I wisht you could have seen it! 'Twas triced up in a--a kind of becket,
as you might say, made out of velvet--yes, sir, by creepin', velvet! And
the velvet had posies and grass painted on it. And, I don't know as
you'll believe it, but it's a fact, the handle of that brush broom was
gilded! Yes sir, by Henry, _gilded_! 'Well,' thinks I to myself, 'if
this ain't then I don't know what is!' I did cal'late that I was
gettin' used to style, and high-toned money-slingin', but when it comes
to puttin' gold handles onto brush-brooms, that had me on my beam ends,
that did. And ain't it a sinful waste, Cap'n Sears, I ask you? Now ain't
it? And what in time is the _good_ of it? A brush-broom is just a broom,
no matter if----"

Again the captain interrupted. "Yes, yes, of course, Judah," he agreed,
laughing; "but what do you do up there all by yourself? In that big
house?"

"Oh, I don't live in the whole house. I could if I wanted to. Ogden, he
don't care where I live or what I do. All he wants of me, he says, is to
keep the place lookin' good, and the grass cut and one thing or 'nother.
He keeps hopin' he's goin' to rent it, you know, but they won't nobody
hire it. The only thing a place big as that would be good for is to keep
tavern. And we've got one tavern here in Bayport already."

Kendrick seemed to be thinking. He pulled his beard. Of course he wore a
beard; in those days he would have been thought queer if he had not.
Even the Harvard students who came to Bayport occasionally on summer
tramping trips wore beards or sidewhiskers; the very callowest Freshman
sported and nourished a moustache.

"So you don't occupy the whole house, Judah?" asked the captain.

"No, no," replied Mr. Cahoon. "I live out in the back part. There's the
kitchen and woodshed and dinin'-room out there and a couple of bedrooms.
That's all _I_ want. There's nine more bedrooms in that house, Cap'n,"
he declared solemnly. "That makes eleven altogether. Now what in tunket
do you cal'late anybody'd ever do with eleven bedrooms?"

Kendrick shook his head. "Give it up, Judah," he said. "For the matter
of that, I don't see what you do with two. Do you sleep in one week
nights and the other on Sundays?"

Judah grinned. "No, no, Cap'n," he said. "I don't know myself why I keep
that other bedroom fixed up. Cal'late I do it just for fun, kind of
makin' believe I'm going to have company, I guess. It gets kind of
lonesome there sometimes, 'specially meal times and evenin's. There I
set at mess, you know, grand as the skipper of the _Great Republic_,
cloth on the table, silver knife and fork, silver castor with blue glass
vinegar and pepper-sass bottles, great, big, elegant mustache cup with
'Forget Me Not' printed out on it in gold letters--everything so fine it
couldn't be no finer--but by creepin', sometimes I can't help feelin'
lonesome! Seems foolish, don't it, but I be."

Captain Kendrick did not speak. He pulled at his beard with more
deliberation and the look in his eye was that of one watching the
brightening dawn of an idea.

"I told Ogden so last time he was down," continued Mr. Cahoon. "He asked
me if I was comf'table and if I wanted anything more and I told him I
didn't. 'Only thing that ails me,' I says, 'is that I get kind of
lonesome bein' by myself so much. Sometimes I wisht I had comp'ny.'
'Well, why don't you _have_ comp'ny?' says he. 'You've got room enough,
lord knows.' 'Yes,' I says, 'but who'll I have?' He laughed. 'That's
your lookout,' says he. 'You can't expect me to hire a companion for
you.'"

"Humph!" Kendrick regarded him thoughtfully. "So you would like company,
would you, Judah?"

"Sartin sure I would, if 'twas the right kind. I got a cat and that
helps a little mite. And Cap'n Shubal Hammond's wife told me yesterday
she'd give me a young pig if I wanted one. That's what I'm cartin' home
this little mite of seaweed for, to bed down the pig sty. But cats and
hogs, they're all right enough, but they ain't human."

"Do you keep hens?"

This apparently harmless question seemed to arouse Mr. Cahoon's ire. His
whiskers bristled and his nose flamed.

"Hens!" he repeated. "Don't talk to me about hens! No, sir, by the
prophets, I don't keep hens! But them everlastin' Fair Harborers keep
'em and if they'd keep 'em to home I wouldn't say a word. But they
don't. Half the time they're over my side of the fence raisin' blue hob
with my garden. Hens! Don't talk to me about 'em! I hate the sight of
the critters."

Kendrick smiled. "And after all," he observed, "hens aren't human,
either."

Judah snorted. "Some are," he declared, "and them's the worst kind."

There was, doubtless, a hidden meaning in this speech, but if so Sears
Kendrick did not seek to find it. Laying a hand upon the broad shoulder
of his former sea-cook he lifted himself to his feet.

"Judah," he asked, briskly, "is that seaweed in your cart there dry?"

"Eh? Dry? Yes, yes, dry as a cat's back. Been layin' on the beach above
tide mark ever since last winter. Why?"

"Do you suppose you could help me hoist myself aboard?"

"Aboard? Aboard that truck-wagon? For the land sakes, what for?"

"Because I want a ride. I've been in drydock here till I'm pretty nearly
crazy. I want to go on a cruise, even if it isn't but a half mile one.
Don't you want to cart me down to your anchorage and let me see how you
and General Minot and the gilt whisk broom get along? I can sprawl on
that seaweed and be as comfortable as a gull on a clam flat. Come on
now! Heave ahead! Give us a hand up!"

"But--limpin' prophets, Cap'n Sears, I couldn't cart you up the main
road of Bayport in a seaweed cart. You, of all men! What do you cal'late
folks would say if they see me doin' it? Course I'd love to have you
ride down and see how I'm livin'. If you'd set up on the thawt there,"
indicating the high seat of the truck-wagon, "I'd be proud to have you.
But to haul you along on a load of seaweed that's goin' to bed down a
hog! Cap'n, you _know_ 'twouldn't be fittin'! Course you do."

His horror at the sacrilege was so ludicrous that Kendrick laughed
aloud. However, he insisted that there was nothing unfitting in the
idea; it was a good idea and founded upon common-sense.

"How long do you think these sprung sticks of mine would last," he
said, referring to his legs, "if they were jouncin' up and down on that
seat aloft there? And I couldn't climb up even if I wanted to. But, you
and I between us, Judah, can get me in on that seaweed, and that's what
we're goin' to do. Come, come! Tumble up! All hands on deck now!
Lively!"

The familiar order, given with a touch of the old familiar crispness and
authority, had its effect. Mr. Cahoon argued no more. Instead he sprang
to attention, figuratively speaking.

"Aye, aye, sir!" he said. "Here she goes. Take it easy, Cap'n; don't
hurry. Ease yourself down that bankin'. If we was to let go and you come
down with a run there'd be the divil and all to pay, wouldn't there? So
... so.... Here we be, alongside. Now---- Aloft with ye."

They had reached the road by the tailboard of the wagon. And now Judah
stooped, picked up his former skipper in his arms and swung him in upon
the load of dry seaweed as if he were a two year old boy instead of a
full-grown, and very much grown, man.

"Well," he asked, as he climbed to the seat, "all ready to make sail, be
we? Any message you want to leave along with Sary? She won't know what
end you've made, will she?"

"Oh, she'll guess I've gone buggy-ridin' with the doctor. He's been
threatenin' to take me with him 'most any day now. Sarah'll be all
right. Get under way, Judah."

"Aye, aye, sir. Git dap! Git dap! Limpin', creepin', crawlin', hoppin',
jumpin'.... Starboard! _starboard_, you son of a Chinee! Need a tug to
haul this critter into the channel, I swan you do! Git dap! All
shipshape aft there, Cap'n Sears? Good enough! let her run."

The old white horse--like the whisk broom and the Rogers group, a part
of the furniture of the General Minot place--plodded along the dusty
road and the blue truck-wagon rolled and rattled behind him. Captain
Kendrick, settling his invalid limbs in the most comfortable fashion,
lay back upon the seaweed and stared at the sky seen through the
branches of elms and silver-leaf poplars which arched above. He made no
attempt to look over the sides of the cart. Raising himself upon an
elbow to do so entailed a good deal of exertion and this was his first
trip abroad since his accident. Besides, seeing would probably mean
being seen and he was not in the mood to answer the questions of
curious, even if sympathetic, townsfolk. Judah made several attempts at
conversation, but the replies were not satisfactory, so he gave it up
after a little and, as was his habit, once more broke forth in song.
Judah Cahoon, besides being sea cook on many, many voyages, had been
"chantey man" on almost as many. His repertoire was, therefore,
extensive and at times astonishing. Now, as he rocked back and forth
upon the wagon seat, he caroled, not the _Dreadnought_ chantey, but
another, which told of a Yankee ship sailing down the Congo River,
evidently in the old days of the slave trade.

    "'Who do you think is the cap'n of her?
      Blow, boys, blow!
    Old Holy Joe, the darky lover,
      Blow, my bully boys, blow!

    'What do you think they've got for dinner?
      Blow, boys, blow!
    Hot water soup, but a dum sight thinner,
      Blow, my bully boys, blow!

    'Oh, blow to-day and blow to-morrer,
      Blow, boys, blow!
    And blow for all old salts in sorrer,
      Blow, my bully----'

"Oh, say, Cap'n Sears!"

"Yes, Judah?"

"They've put up the name sign on the Fair Harbor since you was in
Bayport afore, ain't they? We're right off abreast of it now. Can't you
hist yourself up and look over the side? It's some consider'ble of a
sign, that is. Lobelia she left word to have that sign painted and set
up last time she was here. She's over acrost in one of them Eyetalian
ports now, so I understand, her and that feller she married. Eh? Ain't
that quite a sign, now, Cap'n?"

Kendrick, because his driver seemed to be so eager, sat up and looked
over the sideboard of the truck-wagon. The vehicle was just passing a
long stretch of ornate black iron fence in the center of which was a
still more ornate gate with an iron arch above it. In the curve of the
arch swung a black sign, its edges gilded, and with this legend printed
upon it in gilt letters:

                           FAIR HARBOR

                       For Mariners' Women

                 "Without, the stormy winds increase,
                 Within the harbor all is peace."

Behind the fence was a good-sized tract of lawn heavily shaded with
trees, a brick walk, and at the rear a large house. The house itself was
of the stately Colonial type and its simple dignity was in marked
contrast to the fence.

Captain Kendrick recognized the establishment of course. It, with its
next door neighbor the General Minot place, was for so many years the
home of old Captain Sylvanus Seymour. Captain Sylvanus, during his
lifetime, was active claimant for the throne of King of Bayport. He was
the town's leading Democratic politician, its wealthiest citizen, with
possibly one exception--its most lavish entertainer--with the same
possible exception--and when the Governor came to the Cape on "Cattle
Show Day" he was sure to be a guest at the Seymour place--unless General
Ashahel Minot, who was the exception mentioned--had gotten his
invitation accepted first. For General Minot was Bayport's leading Whig,
as Captain Sylvanus was its leading Democrat, and the rivalry between
the two was intense. Nevertheless, they were, in public at least,
extremely polite and friendly, and when they did agree--as on matters
concerning the village tax rate and the kind of doctrine permitted to be
preached in the Orthodox meeting-house--their agreement was absolute and
overwhelming. In their day the Captain and the General dominated Bayport
by sea and land.

But that day had passed. They had both been dead for some years. Captain
Seymour died first and his place and property were inherited by his
maiden daughter, Miss Lobelia Seymour. Sears Kendrick remembered Lobelia
as a dressy, romantic spinster, very much in evidence at the church
socials and at meetings of the Shakespeare Reading Society, and who sang
a somewhat shrill soprano in the choir.

Now, as he looked over the side of Judah Cahoon's truck-wagon and saw
the sign hanging beneath the arch above the gate of the Seymour place he
began dimly to remember other things, bits of news embodied in letters
which his sister, Sarah Macomber, had written him at various times.
Lobelia Seymour had--she had done something with the family home,
something unusual. What was it? Why, yes....

"Judah," he said, "Lobelia Seymour turned that place into a--a sort of
home, didn't she?"

Judah twisted on the wagon seat to stare at him.

"What are you askin' me that for, Cap'n Sears?" he demanded. "You know
more about it than I do, I guess likely. Anyhow, you ought to; you was
brought up in Bayport; I wasn't."

"Yes, but I've been away from it ten times longer than I've been in it.
I'd forgotten all about Lobelia. Seems to me Sarah wrote me somethin'
about her, though, and that she had turned her father's place into a
home for women."

"For mariners' women, that's what she calls it. Didn't you see it on the
sign? Ho, ho! that's a good one, ain't it, Cap'n Sears? 'Mariners'
women!' Course what it means is sea cap'ns widders and sisters and such,
but it does sound kind of Brigham Youngy, don't it? Haw, haw! Well,
fur's that goes I have known mariners that--Hi! 'Vast heavin' there!
What in time you tryin' to do, carry away that gate post? Whoa! Jumpin'
creepin', limpin'---- Whoa! _Look_ at the critter!" in huge disgust and
referring to the white horse, who had suddenly evinced a desire to turn
in at a narrow driveway and to gallop while doing so. "Look at him!"
repeated Judah. "When I go up to the depot he'll stand right in the
middle of the railroad track and go to sleep. I have to whale the
timbers out of him to get him awake enough to step ahead so's a train of
cars won't stave in his broadside. But get him home here where he can
see the barn, the place where he knows I stow the oats, and he wants to
run right over top of a stone wall. Can't hardly hold him, I can't.
Who-a-a!... Well, Cap'n Sears, here we be at the General Minot place.
Here's where I sling my hammock these days."

Kendrick looked about him, at the grassy back yard, with the ancient
settee beneath the locust tree, the raspberry and currant bushes along
the wall, the venerable apple and pear trees on the other side of the
wall, at the trellis over the back door and the grape vine heavily
festooning it, at the big weather-beaten barn, carriage house and
pig-pens beyond. Turning, he looked upward at the high rambling house,
its dormers and gables, its white clapboards and green window blinds.
The sunlight streamed over it, but beneath the vine-hung lattice and
under the locust tree were coolness and shadow. The wing of the big
house, projecting out to the corner of the drive, shut off the view to
or from the road. Somehow, the whole yard, with its peace and quiet and
sunshine and shadow, and above all, its retirement, made a great appeal.
It seemed so homelike, so shut away, so comforting, like a sheltered
little backwater where a storm-beaten craft might lie snug.

Mr. Cahoon made anxious inquiry.

"What do you think of it, Cap'n?" he asked.

His visitor did not reply. Instead he said, "Judah, I'd like to see your
quarters inside, may I?"

"Sartin sure you may. Right this way. Look out for the rocks in the
channel," indicating the brick floor beneath the lattice. "Two or three
of them bricks stick up more'n they ought to. Twice since I've been here
the stem of one of my boots has fetched up on them bricks and I've all
but pitch-poled. Take your time, Cap'n Sears, take your time. Here, lean
on my shoulder, I'll pilot you."

The captain smiled. "Much obliged, Judah," he said, "but I shan't need
your shoulder. There aren't any stairs to climb, are there? Stair
climbin' is too much for me yet awhile. Perhaps it will always be. I
don't know."

The tone in which he uttered the last sentence caused his companion to
turn his head and regard him with concern.

"Sho, sho, sho!" he exclaimed, hastily. "What kind of talk's that,
Cap'n! I'll live to see you shin up and hang your hat on the main truck
yet.... There, here's the galley. Like it, do you?"

The "galley" was, of course, the kitchen. It was huge and low and very
old-fashioned. Also it was, just now, spotlessly clean. From it opened
the woodshed, and toward the front, the dining room.

"I don't eat in here much," observed Judah, referring to the dining
room. "Generally mess in the galley. Comes more natural to me. The
settin' room, and back parlor and front parlor are out for'ard yonder.
Come on, Cap'n Sears."

The captain shook his head. "Never mind them just now," he said. "I want
to see the bedrooms, those you use, Judah. That is, unless they're up
aloft."

"No, no. Right on the lower deck, both of 'em. Course there _is_ plenty
more up aloft, but, as I told you, I never bother 'em. Here's my berth,"
opening a door from the sitting room. "And here's what I call my spare
stateroom. I keep it ready for comp'ny. Not that I ever have any, you
understand."

Judah's bedroom was small and snug. The "spare stateroom" was a trifle
larger. In both were the old-fashioned mahogany furniture of our
great-grandfathers. Mr. Cahoon apologized for it.

"Kind of old-timey stuff down below here," he explained. "Just common
folks used these rooms, I judge likely. But you'd ought to see them up
on the quarter deck. There's your high-toned fixin's! Marble tops to the
bureaus and tables and washstands, and fruit--peaches and pears and all
sorts--carved out on the headboards of the beds, and wreaths on the
walls all made out of shells, and--and kind of brass doodads at the tops
of the window curtains. Style, don't talk!... Sort of a pretty look-off
through that deadlight, ain't there, Cap'n Sears? Seems so to me."

Kendrick had raised the window shade of the spare stateroom and was
looking out. The view extended across the rolling hills and little pine
groves and cranberry bogs, to the lower road with its white houses and
shade trees. And beyond the lower road were more hills and pines, a
pretty little lake--Crowell's Pond, it was called--sand dunes and then
the blue water of the Bay. The captain looked at the view for a few
moments, then, turning, looked once more at the room and its furniture.

"So you've never had a passenger in your spare stateroom, Judah?" he
asked.

"Nary one, not yet."

"Expectin' any?"

"Nary one. Don't know nobody to expect."

"But you think it would be all right if you did have some one? Your
er--owner--young Minot, I mean, wouldn't object?"

"Object! No, no. He told me to. 'I should think you'd die livin' here
alone,' he says. 'Why don't you take a boarder? I would if I was you.'"

Sears Kendrick stopped looking at the room and its furniture and turned
his gaze upon his former cook.

"Take a boarder?" he repeated. "Did Ogden Minot tell you to take a
boarder? And do you think he meant it?"

"Sartin sure he meant it. He don't care what I do--in reason, of
course."

"Humph!... Well, then, Judah, why don't you take one?"

"Eh? Take one what? A boarder? Who'd I take, for thunder's sakes?"

Captain Kendrick smiled.

"Me," he said.




CHAPTER III


For the half hour which followed the captain's utterance of that simple
little word, "Me," exclamation, protestation and argument heated and
unwontedly disturbed the atmosphere of the Minot spare stateroom and
when the discussion adjourned there, of the little back yard. The old
white horse, left to himself and quite forgotten, placidly meandered on
until he reached a point where he could reach the tender foliage of a
young pear tree which leaned over the wall toward him. Then, with a sigh
of content, he proceeded to devour the tree. No one paid the least
attention to him. Captain Kendrick, now seated upon the bench beneath
the locust, was quietly but persistently explaining why he desired to
become a boarder and lodger at Mr. Cahoon's quarters on the after lower
deck of the General Minot house, and Judah was vociferously and
profanely expostulating against such an idea.

"It ain't fittin', I tell you," he declared, over and over again. "It
ain't fittin', it's the craziest notion ever I heard tell of. What'll
folks think if they know you're here--you, Cap'n Sears Kendrick, that
all hands knows is the smartest cap'n that ever sailed out of Boston
harbor? What'll they say if they know you've hove anchor along of me,
stayin' here in the--in the fo'castle of this house; eatin' the grub I
cook--"

"I've eaten your cookin' for a good many months at a stretch, Judah. You
never heard me find any fault with it, did you?"

"Don't make no odds. That's different, Cap'n Sears, and you know 'tis.
It's ridiculous, stark, ravin' ridiculous."

"So you don't care for my company?"

"Don't tuk so! Wouldn't I be proud to have ye? Wouldn't I ruther have
you aboard here than anybody else on earth? Course I would!"

"All right. And you're goin' to have me. So that's all settled."

"Settled! Who said 'twas settled? Course 'tain't settled. You don't
understand, Cap'n Sears. 'Tain't how I feel about it. 'Tain't even maybe
how you feel about it. But how'll your sister feel about it? How'll Joel
feel? How'll the doctor feel? How'll the folks in town feel? How'll--"

"Oh, shh! shh! Avast, Judah! How'll the cat feel? And the pig? What do I
care? How'll your old horse feel if he eats the other half of that pear
tree? That's considerably more important."

Judah turned, saw the combination of ancient equine and youthful tree
and rushed bellowing to the rescue of the latter. When he returned,
empty of profanity and copiously perspiring, his former skipper was
ready for him.

"Listen, Judah," he said. "Listen, and keep your main hatch closed for
five minutes, if you can. I want to come here to board with you for a
while and I've got the best reasons on earth. Keep still and I'll tell
you again what they are."

He proceeded to give those reasons. They were that he had little money
and must therefore live inexpensively. He would not remain at his
sister's because she had more than enough care and work in her own
family. George Kent boarded with her and one boarder was sufficient.
Then--and this was the principal reason for selecting the General Minot
spare stateroom--he wished to live somewhere away from observation,
where he could be alone, or nearly alone, where he would not be plagued
with questions.

"You see, Judah," he said, "I've had a bump in more ways than one. My
pride was knocked flat as well as my pocket book. The doctor says I've
got to stay ashore for a good while. He says it will be months before
I'm ready for sea--if I'm ever ready--"

"Hold on, hold on! Cap'n Sears, you mustn't talk so. Course you'll be
ready."

"All right, we'll hope I will. But while I'm gettin' ready to be ready I
want to lie snug. I don't want to see a whole lot of people and have to
listen to--to sympathy and all that. I've made a fool of myself, and
that kind of a fool doesn't deserve sympathy. And I don't want it,
anyhow. Give me a pair of sound spars and my health once more and you
won't find me beggin' for sympathy--no, nor anything else.... But
there," he added, straightening and throwing back his shoulders in the
way Judah had seen him do so often on shipboard and which his mates had
learned to recognize as a sign that the old man's mind was made up,
"that's enough of that. Let's stick to the course. I like this place of
yours, Judah, and I'm comin' here to live. I'm weak yet and you can
throw me out, of course," he added, "but I tell you plainly you can't
_talk_ me out, so it's no use to try."

Nevertheless, Mr. Cahoon kept on trying and, when he did give in only
gave in halfway. If Captain Sears was bound to do such a fool thing he
didn't know how he was going to stop him, but at least he did insist
that the captain should take a trial cruise before signing on for the
whole voyage.

"I tell you what you do, Cap'n Sears," he said. "You make me a little
visit of--of two, three days, say. Then, if you cal'late you can stand
the grub--and me--and if the way Bayport folks'll be talkin' ain't
enough to send you back to Sary's again, why--why, then I suppose you
can stay right along, if you want to. _'Twould_ be fine to have you
aboard! Whew!"

He grinned from ear to ear. The captain accepted the compromise.

"All right, Judah," he said. "We'll call the first few days a visit and
I'll begin by stayin' to dinner now. How'll that do, eh?"

Mr. Cahoon affirmed that it would do finely. The only drawback was that
there was nothing in the house for dinner.

"I was cal'latin' to go down to the shore," he said, "and dig a bucket
of clams. Course they'll do well enough for me, but for you--"

"For me they will be just the ticket," declared Kendrick. "Go ahead and
dig 'em, Judah. And on the way stop and tell Sarah I'm goin' to stay
here and help eat 'em. After dinner--well, after dinner I shall have to
go back there again, I suppose, but to-morrow I'm comin' up here to
stay."

So, still under protest, Judah, having unloaded the seaweed, climbed
once more to the high seat of the truck-wagon and the old horse dragged
him out of the yard. After the row of trees bordering the road had
hidden him from sight Kendrick could hear the rattle of the cart and a
fragment of the _Dreadnought_ chantey.

    "Now the _Dreadnought's_ becalmed on the banks of Newfoundland,
    Where the water's all green and the bottom's all sand.
    Says the fish of the ocean that swim to and fro:
    'She's the Liverpool packet, good Lord, let her go.'"

Rattle and chantey died away in the distance. Quiet, warm and lazy,
settled down upon the back yard of the General Minot place. A robin
piped occasionally and, from somewhere off to the left, hens clucked,
but these were the only sounds. Kendrick judged that the hens must
belong to neighbors; Judah had expressed detestation of all poultry.
There was not sufficient breeze to stir the branches of the locust or
the leaves of the grapevine. The captain leaned back on the settee and
yawned. He felt a strong desire to go to sleep.

Now sleeping in the daytime had always been a trick which he despised
and against which he had railed all his life. He had declared times
without number that a man who slept in the daytime--unless of course he
had been on watch all night or something like that--was a loafer, a good
for nothing, a lubber too lazy to be allowed on earth. The day was a
period made for decent, respectable people to work in, and for a man who
did not work, and love to work, Captain Sears Kendrick had no use
whatever. Many so-called able seamen, and even first and second mates,
had received painstaking instructions in this section of their skipper's
code.

But now--now it was different. Why shouldn't he sleep in the daytime?
There was nothing else for him to do. He had no business to transact, no
owners to report to, no vessel to load or unload or to fit for sea. He
had heard the doctor's whisper--not meant for his ears--that his legs
might never be right again, and the word "might" had, he believed, been
substituted for one of much less ambiguous meaning. No, all he was fit
for, he reflected bitterly, was to sit in the sun and sleep, like an old
dog with the rheumatism. He sighed, settled himself upon the bench and
closed his eyes.

But he opened them again almost at once. During that very brief interval
of darkness there had flashed before his mind a picture of a small park
in New York as he had once seen it upon a summer Sunday afternoon. The
park walks had been bordered with rows of benches and upon each bench
slumbered at least one human derelict who, apparently, realized his
worthlessness and had given up the fight. Captain Kendrick sat upright
on the settee, beneath the locust tree. Was he, too, giving
up--surrendering to Fate? No, by the Lord, he was not! And he was not
going to drop off to sleep on that settee like one of those tramps on a
park bench.

He rose to his feet, picked up his cane, and started to walk--somewhere.
Direction made little difference, so long as he kept awake and kept
going. There was a path leading off between the raspberry and currant
bushes, and slowly, but stubbornly, he limped along that path. The path
ended at a gate in a white picket fence. The gate was unlatched and
there was an orchard on the other side of it. Captain Sears opened the
gate and limped on under the apple trees. They were old trees and large
and the shade they cast was cool and pleasant. The soft green slope
beneath them tempted him strongly. He was beginning to realize that
those shaky legs of his were tiring in this, the longest walk they had
attempted since the accident. He had a mind to sit down upon the bank
beneath the apple trees and rest. Then he remembered the mental picture
of the tramps on the park benches and stubbornly refused to yield.
Leaning more heavily upon his cane, he limped on.

The path emerged from beneath the apple trees, ascended a little rise
and disappeared around the shoulder of a high thick clump of lilacs.
Kendrick, tiring more and more rapidly, plodded on. His suffering limbs
were, so to speak, shrieking for mercy but he would not give it to them.
He set himself a "stint"; he would see what was beyond the clump of
lilacs, then he would rest, and then he would hobble back to the Minot
yard. Incidentally he realized that he had been a fool ever to leave it.

His teeth grimly set and each step a labor, he plodded up the little
rise and turned the corner of the lilac bushes. There he stopped, not
entirely because his "stint" was done, but because what he saw surprised
him.

Beyond the lilacs was a small garden, or rather a series of small
gardens. The divisions between them appeared to be exactly the same size
and the plots themselves precisely the same size and shape. There
were--although the captain did not learn this until later--seven of
these plots, each exactly six by nine feet. But there resemblance
ceased, for each was planted and arranged with a marked individuality.
For example, the one nearest the lilac bushes was laid out in a sort of
checkerboard pattern of squares, one square containing a certain sort of
old-fashioned flower and its neighbors other varieties. The plot
adjoining the checkerboard was arranged in diamonds and spirals; the
planting here was floral also, whereas the next was evidently
utilitarian, being given up entirely to corn, potatoes, onions, beets
and other vegetables. And the next seemed to be covered with nothing
except a triumphant growth of weeds.

At the rear of these odd garden plots was a little octagonal building,
evidently a summer-house. Over its door, a door fronting steps leading
down to the gardens, was a sign bearing the name "The Eyrie." And behind
the summer-house was a stretch of rather shabby lawn, a half dozen
trees, and the rear of a large house. Captain Sears recognized the house
as the Seymour residence, now the "Fair Harbor." He had strayed off the
course and was trespassing upon his neighbors' premises. This fact was
immediately brought to his attention. From somewhere at the rear of the
gardens a shrill feminine voice exclaimed:

"Mercy on us! Who's that?"

And another feminine voice chimed in:

"Eh! I declare it's a man, ain't it?"

And the first voice observed sharply:

"Of course it is. You didn't think I thought it was a cow, did you?"

"But what's he doin' here? Is he a tramp?

"I don't know, but I'm going to find out. Hi! Here! You--man--where are
you going?"

Captain Sears had, by this time, located the voices as coming from the
"Eyrie," the summer-house with the poetical name. He had so far,
however, been able to see nothing of the speakers. But now the tangle of
woodbine and morning-glory which draped the front of the summer-house
was drawn aside and revealed a rustic window--or unglazed window
opening--with two heads framed in it like a double portrait. Both of
these heads were feminine, but one was thin-faced and sharp-featured,
and gray-haired, while the other was like a full moon--a full moon with
several chins--and its hair was a startlingly vivid black parted in the
middle and with a series of very regular ripples on each side.

It was the thin face which was hailing him. The other was merely
staring, open-eyed and open-mouthed.

"Here, you--man!" repeated the shrill voice--belonging to the thin face.
"Where are you going?"

The captain smiled. "Why, nowhere in particular, ma'am," he replied. "I
was just figurin' that I'd gone about as far as I could this voyage."

His smile became a chuckle, but there were no symptoms of amusement
visible upon the faces framed in the window of the Eyrie. The thin lips
merely pressed tighter and the plump ones opened wider, that was all.

"Why don't you answer my question?" demanded the thin woman. "What are
you doing on these premises?"

"Why, nothin' in particular, ma'am. I was just tryin' to take a little
walk and not makin' a very good job at it."

There was an interruption here. The full moon broke in to ask a question
of its own.

"Who is he? What's he talkin' about?" it demanded.

"I don't know who he is--yet."

"Well, what's he talkin' about? Make him speak louder."

"I will, if you give me a chance. He says he is taking a walk. What are
you taking a walk in here for? Don't you know it isn't allowed?"

"Why, no, ma'am, I didn't. In fact I didn't realize I was in here until
I--well--until I got here."

"What is he sayin'?" demanded the moon-face again, and somewhat testily.
"I can't hear a word."

Now the captain's tone had been at least ordinarily loud, so it was
evident that the plump woman's hearing was defective. Her curiosity,
however, was not in the least impaired.

"What's that man talkin' about now?" she persisted. Her companion became
impatient.

"Oh, I don't know," she snapped. "Do give me a chance, won't you? I
think he's been drinking. He says he doesn't know where he is or how he
got here."

Kendrick thought it high time to protest. Also to raise his voice when
doing so.

"That wasn't exactly it," he shouted. "I was takin' a little walk,
that's all. I have to navigate pretty slow for my legs aren't just
right."

"What did he say wa'n't right?" demanded the plump female.

"His legs."

"Eh! Legs! What's he talkin' about his legs for?"

"Oh, I don't know! Do be still a minute. It's his head that isn't right,
I guess he means.... Don't you know you're trespassing? What do you
mean by coming in here?"

"Well, ma'am, I didn't mean anything in particular. I just happened in
by accident. I'm sorry."

"Humph! You didn't come in here to run off with anything that didn't
belong to you, I hope."

The captain looked at her for a moment. Then his lip twitched.

"No, ma'am," he said, solemnly, "I didn't come with that idea--but--"

"But? What do you mean by 'but'?"

"But I didn't realize what there was in here to run off with. If I
had.... There, I guess I'd better go. Good day, ladies. Sorry I troubled
you."

He lifted his cap, turned, and limped out of sight around the clump of
lilacs. From behind him came a series of indignant gasps and
exclamations.

"Why--why--Well, I never in all my born days! The saucy, impudent--"

And the voice of the moon-faced one raised in bewildered entreaty:

"What was it? What did he say? Elviry Snowden, why don't you tell me
what 'twas he _said_?"

Captain Kendrick hobbled back to the Minot yard. He hobbled through the
orchard gate, leaving it ajar, and reaching the bench beneath the locust
tree, collapsed upon it. For some time he was conscious of very little
except the ache in his legs and the fact that breathing was a difficult
and jerky operation. Then, as the fatigue and pain ceased to be as
insistent, the memory of his interview with the pair in the Eyrie
returned to him and he began to chuckle. After a time he fancied that he
heard a sympathetic chuckle behind him. It seemed to come from the
vegetable garden, Judah's garden, which, so Mr. Cahoon told his former
skipper, he had set out himself and was "sproutin' and comin' up
better'n ary other garden in the town of Bayport, if I do say it as
shouldn't."

Kendrick could not imagine who could be chuckling in that garden. Also
he could not imagine where the chuckler could be hiding, unless it was
behind the rows of raspberry and currant bushes. Slowly and painfully he
rose to his feet and peered over the bushes. Then the mystery was
explained. The "chuckles" were clucks. A flock of at least a dozen
healthy and energetic hens were enthusiastically busy in the Cahoon
beds. Their feet were moving like miniature steam shovels and showers of
earth and infant vegetables were moving likewise. Judah had boasted that
the fruits of his planting were "comin' up." If he had seen them at that
moment he would have realized how fast they were coming up.

The sight aroused Captain Kendrick's ire. He was, in a way of speaking,
guardian of that vegetable patch. Judah had not formally appointed him
to that position, but he had gone away and, by the fact of so doing, had
left it in his charge. He felt responsible for its safety.

"Shoo!" shouted the captain and, leaning upon his cane, limped toward
the garden.

"Shoo!" he roared again. The hens paid about as much attention to the
roar as a gang of ditch diggers might pay to the buzz of a mosquito.
Obviously something more drastic than shooing was necessary. The captain
stooped and picked up a stone. He threw the stone and hit a hen. She
rose in the air with a frightened squawk, ran around in a circle, and
then, coming to anchor in a patch of tiny beets, resumed excavating
operations.

Kendrick picked up another stone, a bigger one, and threw that. He
missed the mark this time, but the shot was not entirely without
results; it hit one of Mr. Cahoon's cucumber frames and smashed a pane
to atoms. The crash of glass had the effect of causing some of the fowl
to stop digging and appear nervous. But these were in the minority.

The captain was, by this time, annoyed. He was on the verge of losing
his temper. Beyond the little garden and between the raspberry and
currant bushes he caught a glimpse of the path and the gate through
which he had just come on his way back from the grounds of the Fair
Harbor. That gate he saw, with a twinge of conscience, was wide open.
Obviously he must have neglected to latch it on passing through, it had
swung open, and the hens had taken advantage of the sally port to make
their foray upon Judah's pet vegetables. They were Fair Harbor hens.
Somehow this fact did not tend to deepen Sears Kendrick's affection for
them.

"Shoo! Clear out, you pesky nuisances!" he shouted, and waving his cane,
charged laboriously down upon the fowl. They retreated before him, but
their retreat was strategic. They moved from beets to cabbages, from
cabbages to young corn, from corn to onions. And they scratched and
pecked as they withdrew. Nevertheless, they were withdrawing and in the
direction of the open gate; in the midst of his panting and pain the
captain found a slight comfort in the fact that he was driving the
creatures toward the gate.

At last they were almost there--that is, the main body. Kendrick noted,
with sudden uneasiness, that there were stragglers. A gaily decorated
old rooster, a fowl with a dissipated and immoral swagger and a knowing,
devil-may-care tilt of the head, was sidling off to the left. Two or
three young pullets were following the lead of this ancient pirate,
evidently fascinated by his recklessness. The captain turned to head off
the wanderers. They squawked and ran hither and thither. He succeeded in
turning them back, but, at the moment of his success, heard triumphant
cluckings at his rear. The rest of the flock had, while his attention
was diverted by the rooster and his followers, galloped joyfully back to
the garden again. Now, as Captain Sears gazed, the rooster and his
satellites flew to join them. All hands--or, more literally, all
feet--resumed excavating with the abandon of conscientious workers
striving to make up lost time.

And now Sears Kendrick did lose his temper. Probably at another time he
might have laughed, but now he was tired, in pain, and in no mood to see
the humorous side of the situation. He expressed his opinion of the hens
and the rooster, using quarter deck idioms and withholding little. If
the objects of his wrath were disturbed they did not show it. If they
were shocked they hid their confusion in the newly turned earth of Judah
Cahoon's squash bed.

Whether they were shocked or not Sears did not stop to consider. He
intended to shock them to the fullest extent of the word's meaning. At
his feet was a stick, almost a log, part of the limb of a pear tree. He
picked up this missile and hurled it at the marauders. It missed them
but it struck in the squash bed and tore at least six of the delicate
young squashlings from their moorings. Kendrick plunged after it--the
hens separating as he advanced and rejoining at his rear--picked up the
log and, turning, again hurled it.

"There!" roared the captain, "take that, damn you!"

One of the hens did "take it." So did some one else. The missile struck
just beneath the fowl as she fled, lifted her and a peck or two of soil
as well, and hurled the whole mass almost into the face of a person who,
unseen until then, had advanced along the path from the gate and had
arrived at that spot at that psychological instant. This person uttered
a little scream, the hen fled with insane yells, the log and its
accompanying shower fell back to earth, and Sears Kendrick and the young
woman--for the newcomer was a young woman--stood and looked at each
other.

She was bareheaded and her hair was dark and abundant, and she was
wearing a gingham dress and a white apron. So much he noticed at this,
their first meeting. Afterward he became aware that she was slender and
that her age might perhaps be twenty-four or twenty-five. At that
moment, of course, he did not notice anything except that her apron and
dress--yes, even her hair and face--were plentifully besprinkled with
earth and that she was holding a hand to her eyes as if they, too, might
have received a share of the results of the terrestrial disturbance.

"Oh!" he stammered. "I'm awfully sorry! I--I hope I didn't hurt you."

If she heard him she did not answer, but, removing her hand, opened and
shut her eyes rapidly. The captain's alarm grew as he watched this
proceeding.

"I--I _do_ hope I didn't hurt you," he repeated. "It--it didn't put your
eyes out, did it?"

She smiled, although rather uncertainly. "No," she said.

"You're sure?"

"Yes." The smile became broader. "It's not quite as bad as that, I
guess. I seem to be able to see all right."

He drew a relieved breath. "Well, I'm thankful for so much, then," he
announced. "But it's all over your dress--and--and in your hair--and....
Oh, I _am_ sorry!"

She laughed at this outburst. "It is all right," she declared. "Of
course it was an accident, and I'm not hurt a bit, really."

"I'm glad of that. Yes, it was an accident--your part of it, I mean. I
didn't see you at all. I meant the part the hen got, though."

Her laugh was over, but there was still a twinkle in her eye. Kendrick
was, by this time, aware that her eyes were brown.

"Yes," she observed, demurely, "I--gathered that you did."

"Yes, I--" It suddenly occurred to him that his language had been as
emphatic as his actions. "Good lord!" he exclaimed. "I forgot. I beg
your pardon for that, too. When I lose my temper I am liable to--to make
salt water remarks, I'm afraid. And those hens.... Eh? There they are
again, hard at it! Will you excuse me while I kill three or four of 'em?
You see, I'm in charge of that garden and.... _Get out!_"

This last was, of course, another roar at the fowl, who, under the
leadership of the rake-helly rooster, were scratching harder than ever
in the beds. The captain reached for another missile, but his visitor
stepped forward.

"Please don't," she begged. "Please don't kill them."

"Eh? Why not? They ought to be killed."

"I know it, but I don't want them killed--yet, at any rate. You see,
they are my hens."

"Yours?" The captain straightened up and looked at her. "You don't mean
it?" he exclaimed.

"Yes, I do. They are mine, or my mother's, which is the same thing. I am
dreadfully sorry they got in here. I'll have them out in just a minute.
Oh, yes, I will, really."

Kendrick regarded her doubtfully.

"Well," he said, slowly, "I know it isn't polite to contradict a lady
but if you'll tell me _how_ you are goin' to get 'em out without killin'
'em, I'll be ever so much obliged. You can't drive 'em, I know that."

"I shan't try. Just wait, I'll be right back."

She hurried away, down the path and through the open gate. Captain Sears
Kendrick looked after her. Behind and about him the Fair Harbor hens
clucked and scratched blissfully.

In very little more than the promised minute the young woman returned.
She carried a round wooden receptacle--what Cape Codders used to call a
"two quart measure"--and, as she approached, she shook it. Something
within rattled. The hens, some of them, heard the rattle and ceased
their digging.

"Come, chick, chick! Come, biddy, biddy, biddy!" called the young woman,
rattling the measure. More of the fowl gave up their labors, and looked
and listened. Some even began to follow her. She dipped a hand into the
measure, withdrew it filled with corn, and scattered a few grains in the
path.

"Come, biddy, biddy, biddy!" she said again.

And the biddies came. Forgetting the possibilities of Judah Cahoon's
garden, they rushed headlong upon the golden certainties of those yellow
kernels. The young woman retreated along the path, scattering corn as
she went, and after her scrambled and pecked and squawked the fowl. Even
the sophisticated rooster yielded to temptation and was among the
leaders in the rush. The corn bearer and the flock passed through the
open gate, along the path beneath the Fair Harbor apple trees, out of
sight around the bend. Sears Kendrick was left alone upon the battle
ground, amid the dead and wounded young vegetables.

But he was not left alone long. A few minutes later his visitor
returned. She had evidently hurried, for there was a red spot on each of
her cheeks and she was breathing quickly. She passed through the gate
into the grounds of the General Minot place and closed that gate behind
her.

"There!" she said. "Now they are locked up in the hen yard. How in the
world they ever got out of there I don't see. I suppose some one left
the gate open. I--What were you going to say?"

The captain had been about to confess that it was he who left the gate
open, but he changed his mind. Apparently she had been on the point of
saying something more. The confession could wait.

"What was it?" asked the young woman.

"Oh, nothin', nothin'."

"Well, I suppose it doesn't matter much how they got out, as long as
they did. But I am _very_ sorry they got into Mr. Cahoon's garden. I
hope they haven't completely ruined it."

They both turned to survey the battlefield. It was--like all
battlefields after the strife is ended--a sad spectacle.

"Oh, dear!" exclaimed the visitor. "I am afraid they have. What _will_
Mr. Cahoon say?"

The captain smiled slightly.

"I hope you don't expect me to answer that," he observed.

"Why?... Oh, I see! Well, I don't know that I should blame him much.
Have--have they left anything?"

"Oh, yes! Yes, indeed. There are a good many--er--sprouts left. And they
dug up a lot of weeds besides. Judah ought to be thankful for the weeds,
anyhow."

"I am afraid he won't be, under the circumstances."

"Maybe not, but there is one thing that, under the same circumstances,
he _ought_ to be thankful for. That is, that you came when you did. You
may not know it, but I had been tryin' to get those hens out of that
garden for--for a year, I guess. It seems longer, but I presume likely
it wasn't more than a year."

She laughed again. "No," she said, "I guess it wasn't more than that."

"Probably not. If it had been any longer, judgin' by the way they worked,
they'd have dug out the underpinnin' and had the house down by this time.
How did you happen to come? Did you hear the--er--broadsides?"

"Why, no, I--But that reminds me. Have you seen a tramp around here?"

"A tramp? What sort of a tramp?"

"I don't know. Elvira--I mean Miss Snowden--said he was a tall, dark man
and Aurora thought he was rather thick-set and sandy. But they both
agree that he was a dreadful, rough-looking creature who carried a big
club and had a queer slouchy walk. And he came in this direction, so
they thought."

"He did, eh? Humph! Odd I didn't see him. I've been here all the time.
Where was he when they saw him first?"

"Over on our property. In the Fair Harbor grounds, I mean. He came out
of the bushes, so Elvira and Aurora say, and spoke to them. Insulted
them, Elvira says."

"Sho! Well, well! I wonder where he went."

"I can't think. I supposed of course you must have seen him. It was only
a little while ago, not more than an hour. Have you been here all that
time?"

"Yes, I've been here for the last two hours. What part of your grounds
was it? Would you like to have me go over there and look around?"

"No, thank you. You are very kind, but I am sure it won't be necessary.
He has gone by now, of course."

"I should be glad to try." Then, noticing her glance at his limp, he
added: "Oh, I can navigate after a fashion, well enough for a short
cruise like that. But it is funny that, if there was a tramp there such
a little while ago, I didn't run afoul of him. Why, I was over there
myself."

"You were?"

"Yes, you see, I----"

He stopped short. He had been about to tell of his short walk and how he
had inadvertently trespassed within the Fair Harbor boundaries. But
before he could speak the words a sudden and amazing thought flashed
upon him.

"Eh?" he cried. "Why--why, I wonder----"

His visitor was leaning forward. Judging by her expression, she, too,
was experiencing a similar sensation of startled surmise.

"Why----" repeated the captain.

"Oh!" exclaimed the young woman.

"You don't suppose----"

"It couldn't possibly be that----"

"Wait a minute, please. Just a minute." Sears held up his hand. "Where
did those folks of yours see this tramp? Were they in a--in a kind of
roundhouse--summer-house, you might call it?"

"Why, yes. They were in the Eyrie."

"That's it, the Eyrie. And is one of the--er--ladies rather tall and
narrow in the beam, gray-haired, and speaks quick and--school-marmy?"

"Yes. That is Miss Elvira Snowden."

"Of course--Elvira. That's what the other one called her. And she--the
other one--is short and broad and--and hard of hearin'?"

"Yes. Her name is Aurora Chase. Is it possible that you----"

"Just a second more. Has this short one got a--a queer sort of hair rig?
Black as tar and with kind of--of wrinkles in it?"

She smiled at this description. "Yes," she said. "Do you mean that _you_
are----"

"The tramp? I guess likely I am. I was over on your premises just a
little while ago and met those two ladies."

"But you can't be. They said he--the tramp--was a dreadful, rough man,
with a club and--and----"

"Here's the club." Captain Kendrick exhibited his cane. "And these lame
legs of mine would account for that slouchy walk they told you about. I
guess there isn't much doubt that I am the tramp. But I'm sorry if they
thought I insulted 'em. I surely didn't mean to."

He described the meeting by the Eyrie and repeated the dialogue as he
remembered it.

"So you see," he said, in conclusion, "that's all there is to it. I
suppose that hint of mine about bein' tempted to run off with one of 'em
is the nearest to an insult of any of it. Perhaps I shouldn't have said
it, but--but it popped into my head and I couldn't hold it back. I
didn't really mean it," he added solemnly. "I wouldn't have run off with
one of 'em for the world."

This, and the accompanying look, was too much. His visitor had been
listening and trying to appear grave, although her eyes were twinkling.
But now she burst out laughing.

"Honest I wouldn't," reiterated Captain Sears. "And I'm sorry for that
insult."

"Absurd! You needn't be. If there was any insult it was the other way
about. The idea of Elvira's suggesting that you came over there to
steal. Well, we've settled the tramp, at any rate, and I apologize for
the way you were treated, Mr.----"

"Kendrick. My name is Kendrick."

"Yes, Mr. Kendrick. And I am very sorry about the garden, too. Please
tell Mr. Cahoon so, and tell him I think I can promise that the gate
won't be left open again."

"I'll tell him when he comes back. He'll be here pretty soon, I guess.
He and I are old shipmates. He shipped cook aboard of me for a good many
voyages."

She was moving toward the path and the gate, but now she paused and
turned to look at him. There was a new expression on her face, an
expression of marked interest.

"Oh!" she exclaimed. "Are you--are you Cap'n Sears Kendrick? The one who
was--hurt?"

"Wrecked in the train smash up? Yes, I'm the one. Look like a total
wreck, don't I?"

He laughed as he said it, but there was a taint of bitterness in the
laugh. She did not laugh. Instead she took a step toward him and
involuntarily put out her hand.

"Oh, I'm _so_ sorry!" she said.

"Eh? Oh, you needn't be. I'm gettin' along tip-top. Able to walk and
ride and--er--chase hens. That's doin' pretty well for one day."

"I know. But they were my--our--hens and they must have tired you so.
Please forgive us. I won't," with a smile, "ask you to forgive them."

"Oh, that's all right, that's all right, Miss--er----"

"Berry. I am Elizabeth Berry. My mother is in charge here at the
Harbor."

"Harbor? Oh, yes, over yonder. Berry? Berry? The only Berry I remember
around here was Cap'n Isaac Berry. Cap'n Ike, we young fellows used to
call him. I went to sea with him once, my first voyage second mate."

"Did you? He was my father. But there, I _must_ go. Good-by, Cap'n
Kendrick. I hope you will get well very fast now."

"Thanks. Good-bye. Oh, by the way, Miss Berry, what made you think I
might be Sears Kendrick? There are half a dozen Kendricks around
Bayport."

"Yes, but--excuse me--there is only one Cap'n Sears Kendrick. You are
one of Bayport's celebrities, Cap'n."

"Humph! Notorieties, you mean. So all hands have been talkin' about me,
eh? Humph! Well, I guessed as much."

"Why, of course. You are one of our shining lights--sea lights, I mean.
You must expect to be talked about."

"I do--in Bayport, and I'll be talked about more in a day or two, I
guess."

"Why?"

"Eh? Oh, nothin', nothin'. I was thinkin' out loud, didn't realize I
spoke. Good-by."

"Good-by."

The gate closed behind her. Kendrick sat down once more upon the bench
beneath the locust tree.

When Judah returned with the bucket of clams he found his guest and
prospective boarder just where he had left him.

"Well, by Henry, Cap'n Sears!" he exclaimed. "Still at the same old
moorin's, eh? Been anchored right there ever since I sot sail?"

"Not exactly, Judah. Pretty nearly, though."

"Sho! Kind of dull music for you, I'm afraid. Whoa, you lop-sided
hay-barge! Stand still till I give you orders to move, will ye! That's
what I warned you, Cap'n Sears; not much goin' on around here. You'll be
pretty lonesome, I guess likely."

"Oh, I guess I can stand it, Judah. I haven't been lonesome so far."

"Ain't, eh? That's good. Well, I got my clams; now I'll steer this horse
into port and come back and get to work on that chowder. Oh, say, Cap'n
Sears; I see Sary and told her you was cal'latin' to stay here for
dinner."

"Did you? Much obliged. What did she say?"

"Say? She said a whole lot. Wanted to know how in time you got up here.
'You didn't let him _walk_ all that great long ways, Judah Cahoon?' she
says. 'I ain't altogether a fool, be I?' says I."

Mr. Cahoon paused to search his pockets for a match.

"What answer did she make to that?" asked the captain. Judah grinned.

"Wa--ll," he drawled, "she said, 'Perhaps not--altogether.' 'Twan't
much, but it was enough of the kind, as the feller said about the
tobacco in the coffee pot. Oh, say, that reminds me, Cap'n Sears; there
was somebody else talkin' about you. I--whoa, you camel, you! Creepin',
crawlin', jumpin'---- Well, go ahead, then! I'll tell you the rest in
half a shake, Cap'n. Git dap!"

Horse, cart and driver jogged and jolted into the barn. After a brief
interval Mr. Cahoon reappeared, carrying the clam bucket. They entered
the kitchen together. Then the captain said:

"Judah, you said some one beside Sarah was talkin' about me. Who was
it?"

"Hey? Oh, 'twas Emeline Tidditt, her that's keepin' house for Judge
Knowles. She says the old judge is gettin' pretty feeble. Don't cal'late
he'll last out much longer, Emeline don't. Says it's nothin' but just
grit and hang-on that keeps him alive. He's a spunky old critter, Judge
Knowles is, 'cordin' to folks's tell. Course I don't know him same as
some, but I cal'late he's a good deal on the general build and lines of
a man name of George Dingo that I run afoul of one time to a place
called Semurny--over acrost. You know Semurny, don't ye, Cap'n? One of
them Med'terranean port 'tis."

"Smyrna, do you mean?"

"Um-hm. That's it, Semurny. I was there aboard the _William Holcomb_,
out of Philadelphy. We was loadin' with figs and truck like that. You
remember the old _Holcomb_, don't you, Cap'n Sears? Sartin sure you do.
Horncastle and Grant of Philadelphy they owned her. Old Horncastle was a
queer man as ever I see. Had a cork leg. Got the real one shot off in
the Mexican war or run over by a horse car, some said one and some said
t'other. Anyhow he had a cork one spliced on in place of it, and--ho,
ho! 'twas as funny a sight as ever I see--one time he fell off the wharf
there in Philadelphy. Yes, sir, fell right into the dock, he did. And
when they scrabbled down the ladder to haul him in there wasn't nothin'
in sight but that cork leg, stickin' up out of water. The rest of him
had gone under, but that cork leg hadn't--no, sire-ee! Haw, haw!
Well ... er ... er.... What did I start to talk about, Cap'n Sears?"

"I don't know, Judah. It was a good while ago. You began by sayin' that
you met Judge Knowles's housekeeper."

"Hey? Why, sure and sartin!" Mr. Cahoon slapped his leg. "Sartin sure,
Cap'n Sears, that was it. And I said she and me got to talkin' about
you. Well, well, well! I started right there and I fetched up way over
in Semurny, along of George Dingo. Well, by Henry! Ain't that queer,
now?"

He rubbed his legs and shook his head, apparently overcome by the
queerness of it. Kendrick, judging that another Mediterranean cruise was
imminent, made a remark calculated to keep him at home.

"What did this--what's-her-name--this Tidditt woman say about me?" he
asked.

"Hey? Oh, she said that Judge Knowles wanted to see you. Said that he
asked about you 'most every day, wanted to know how you was gittin'
along, because just as soon as you was well enough to cruise on your own
hook he wanted you to come in and see him."

"Judge Knowles wanted me to come in and see him? Why, that's funny! I
don't know the judge well. Haven't seen him for years, and then only two
or three times. What on earth can Judge Knowles have to say to me?....
Humph! I can't think."

He tried to think, nevertheless. Judah busied himself with the sloppy
process of clam opening. A little later he observed:

"So you wan't lonesome all alone here by yourself while I was gone,
Cap'n? That's good. Glad to hear it."

"Thanks, Judah. I wasn't alone, though."

"You wan't? Sho! Do tell! Have company, did ye? Somebody run in?"

"Yes. And they wouldn't run out again, not for a good while. They came
on business."

"Business? What kind of business?"

"Well, I suppose you might call it gardening. They were interested in
raisin' vegetables, I know that."

Judah laid down the clam knife and regarded his former skipper. "Raisin'
vegetables?" he repeated slowly. "What--? Look here Cap'n Sears, who was
they? Where'd they come from?"

"I believe they came from next door?"

"Next door? From the Harbor?" He rose to his feet, suspicion dawning
upon his face above the whiskers.

"Yes, Judah."

"Cap'n Sears, answer me right straight out. Have those dummed
everlastin' Fair Harbor hens been in my garden again?"

"Yes, Judah."

"Have they--have they?----" Words failed him. He strode up the path to
the garden. Then, after a moment's comprehensive gaze upon the scene of
ruin, the words returned.




CHAPTER IV


Sears Kendrick's prophecy that Bayport would, within the next day or
two, talk about him even more than it had before was a true one. As soon
as it became known that he had left the Macomber home and was boarding
and lodging with Judah Cahoon in the rear portion of the General Minot
house every tongue in the village--tongues of animals and small children
excepted--wagged his name. At the sewing-circle, at the Shakespeare
Reading Society--convening that week at Mrs. Tabitha Crosby's--after
Friday night prayer-meeting at the Orthodox meeting-house, in Eliphalet
Bassett's store at mail times, in the sitting-rooms and kitchens and
around breakfast, dinner and supper tables from West Bayport to East
Bayport Neck and from Poverty Lane to Woodchuck's Misery--the principal
topic was Captain Kendrick's surprising move.

"Why?" that was the question.

Various answers were offered, many reasons suggested, but none satisfied
everybody.

At the Shakespeare Society meeting, just before the reading aloud of
"Cymbeline" began--"Cymbeline" carefully edited, censored and kalsomined
by the selective committee, Mrs. Reverend David Dishup and Miss Tryphosa
Taylor--the feelings of the genteel section of the community were
expressed by no less a personage than Mrs. Captain Elkanah Wingate. Mrs.
Wingate, speaking from the Mount Sinai of Bayport's aristocracy, made
proclamation thus:

"Why, if the man must leave his sister's and go somewhere else to live,
_why_ in the world does he choose to go _there_? Aren't there good,
respectable, genteel boarding-houses like--well, like yours, Naomi, for
instance? _I_ should say so."

Mrs. Naomi Newcomb, whose home sheltered a few "paying guests," smiled
and shook her head. The shake indicated not a doubt of Mrs. Wingate's
judgment, but complete loss as to Sears Kendrick's reasons for behaving
as he had. Other members shook their heads also. Mary-Pashy Foster, who
had spent a winter in France when her husband was ill with the small-pox
at Havre, shrugged her shoulders.

"And," continued Mrs. Captain Wingate, "when you consider the place he
has gone to and the person he has gone with! Good heavens, _I_ say! Good
heavens!"

More words and exclamations of approval. Several others declared that
they said so, too.

"Gone to live," went on Mrs. Wingate, "not in the General Minot house
proper--there might be some explanation for _that_, perhaps--but they
tell me that this Judah Cahoon only uses the back part of the house and
that Cap'n Kendrick has got a room just off the kitchen or thereabouts."

"And Judah himself!" broke in Miss Taylor. "He is as rough and common
as--as--I don't know what. How a man like Cap'n Kendrick can lower
himself--debase himself to such a person's level I _do_ not see. You
would as soon expect a needle to go through a camel's eye, as the saying
is."

There was a slight interval of embarrassment after this outburst. The
majority of those present realized that the speaker had gotten her
proverb twisted, but, she being Miss Tryphosa Taylor, no one felt like
venturing to set her right. Mrs. Captain Godfrey Peasley relieved the
situation; she had a habit of relieving situations--when she did not
make them tenser. She had gotten into the Shakespeare Reading Society
purely by persistence and the possession of adamantine self-confidence.
From that shot-proof exterior snubs, hints and reproofs glanced like
blown peas from the hull of a battleship. "Heaven knows," confided Mrs.
Captain Wingate to Miss Taylor and the Reverend Mrs. Dishup, "why Amelia
Peasley ever wanted to join the Society. She doesn't know whether
Shakespeare is a man or a disease." Which may or not have been true,
the fact remaining that Mrs. Peasley _had_ wanted to join the Society
and--joined.

Now, while others hesitated, following Miss Tryphosa's little blunder,
she spoke.

"I think," she declared, with conviction, "that Sears Kendrick ought to
be ashamed of himself. _I_ think such actions are degradatin'--yes,
indeed, right down degradatin'."

After that, further comments upon the captain's conduct would have
seemed like anti-climaxes. Therefore the Society proceeded to read
"Cymbeline." Mrs. Peasley had something to say about "Cymbeline," also.

Captain Sears himself merely grinned when told of the sensation his
conduct was causing.

"All right," he said, "let 'em talk. If they aren't talkin' about me
they will be about somebody else."

Judah, to whom this remark was made, snorted.

"Humph!" he growled. "They _be_ talkin' about somebody else. Don't you
make no mistake about that, Cap'n Sears."

"That so, Judah? Who's the other lucky man?"

"Me. Jumpin', creepin'---- Why, some of them womenfolks seem to cal'late
I lammed you over the head with a marlinspike and then towed you up here
by main strength; seems if they did, by Henry! And some of the men ain't
a whole lot better. Makes me madder'n a sore nose. I was down to the
store--down to 'Liphalet's--and there was a crew of ha'f a dozen there
and they all wanted to know how you was gittin' along.

"'Well, he ain't dead yit,' says I. 'He was lively enough when I left
him. I ain't come to buy no spade to bury him with.'

"You'd think that would satisfy 'em, wouldn't ye? Well, it didn't! Cap'n
Noah Baker was there and he wanted to know this, and that little runt of
a Thad Black he wanted to know that--and kept on wantin'. And that
brother-in-law of yours, Cap'n Sears, that Joel Macomber, I declare to
man if he wan't the wust of all. You'd think _he_ ought to keep quiet
about your doin's, wouldn't ye, now? But he didn't. 'Don't ask me,
boys,' he says. 'I don't know why Sears quit my house and went to
Judah's. We manage to bear up without him somehow,' says he, winkin' to
the gang, 'but if you ask me his _reasons_ for goin' _I_ can't tell ye.
I presume likely Judah can, though,' he says. 'Well, I can see _one_
reason plain enough,' says I, lookin' right at him."

Kendrick burst out laughing. "Did he get the idea, Judah?" he inquired.

"Him? Nary a bit. Wanted me to tell him what the reason was. Limpin',
creepin' prophets! What did a woman like Sary ever marry him for,
anyway, Cap'n? Not that it's any of my business, you understand."

"I understand. Well, it wasn't any of mine either, Judah."

"No, I presume likely not. But that George Kent, he's a nice young
feller, ain't he, Cap'n?"

"Seems to be," replied Kendrick.

"Um--hm. Come up to me, after the gang had quit havin' their good time,
and shook hands nice and chummy and wanted to know how you was. 'Tell
the cap'n I'm goin' to come in and see him some day,' he says, 'if you
and he want callers.' 'Good land, yes,' says I, 'course we do. Don't
stop to call, come right along in.' He's a nice boy that young Kent....
But--but some of these days I'm goin' to _hit_ that Thad Black--hit him
with somethin' soft like--like an anvil. If that critter fell overboard
I wouldn't heave him no life-preserver. No, sir, by Henry, I'd heave him
the sheet anchor. The longer he hung on to that the better 'twould suit
_me_."

To his sister only did Sears give his reasons for leaving her home. With
her he was perfectly frank.

"You know why I'm doin' this, Sarah," he said. "Now don't you--honest?"

Mrs. Macomber hesitated. "Why, Sears," she faltered reluctantly, "I--I
suppose I can guess why you _think_ you're doin' it. But that doesn't
make it right for you to do it, really."

"Oh, yes, it does. Be sensible, Sarah. Here are you with six children to
support and work for, not to mention one boarder and--a husband. The
house is crowded, aloft and alow. There isn't a bit of room for me."

"Now, Sears, how can you talk so? You've _had_ room here, haven't you?"

"Yes, I've had it, plenty of it. But how much room have the rest of you
had?"

"Why--why, we've had enough. Nobody's complained that I know of."

"Good reason why. You wouldn't let 'em, Sarah. And of course you never
would complain yourself. But that is only part of it. The real thing is
that I will not live on you."

"But you pay board."

"Stuff and nonsense! How much do I pay in comparison with what it costs
to keep me?"

"You pay me all you can afford, I'm sure; and I rather guess, from what
you said about your money affairs the other day, that you pay me more
than you ought to afford. And I don't believe you're goin' to pay that
Judah Cahoon any high board for livin' in that old rats' nest of his. If
you are I shall begin to believe you've gone crazy."

Her brother laughed. "I don't mind payin' Judah little or nothin',
Sarah," he declared. "What I get will be worth it, probably, and besides
he's a strong, healthy man. Then, too--well, I shouldn't say it to any
one but you, but there is a little obligation on his side and that keeps
me from feelin' like too much of a barnacle.... But there, what is the
use of our threshin' this all over again? As I said in the beginnin',
Sarah, you know why I'm doin' it perfectly well."

Mrs. Macomber sighed.

"I suppose I do," she admitted. "It's because you are Sears Kendrick and
as independent and--and proud as--as your own self."

So the move was made and Captain Sears Kendrick's sea chest and its
owner moved into Judah Cahoon's spare stateroom at the General Minot's
place. And Bayport talked and talked more and more and then less and
less until at the end of the captain's first week in his new quarters
the move had become old news and people ceased to be interested in it, a
state of affairs which pleased Mr. Cahoon immensely.

"There, by Henry!" he declared, on his return from what he called a
"cruise down the road along." "I honestly do believe you and me has got
so we can bat our weather eye without all hands and the ship's cat
tryin' to see us do it. I met no less than seven folks while I was down
along just now and only two of 'em hailed to ask how you liked bein'
aboard here, Cap'n Sears. Yes, sir, by creepin', only two of 'em; the
rest never said a word. What do you think of that? Some considerable
change, I call it."

So being forgotten by the majority of Bayporters--which was what he
desired to be--the captain settled down to live, or exist, and to wait.
Just what he was waiting for he would have found hard to tell. Of course
he told his sister when she came to see him, which was at least once
every other day, that he was waiting for his legs to get whole and
strong again, and then he should, of course, go to sea. He told Doctor
Sheldon much the same thing, and the doctor said, "Why, of course, Cap'n
Kendrick. We'll have you on your own quarter deck again one of these
days." He said it with heartiness and apparent sincerity, but Sears was
skeptical. After the doctor's visits he was likely to be blue and
dejected for a time, and Judah noticed this fact but attributed it to
quite a different cause.

"It's high time that doctor swab quit comin' here to see you," declared
Judah. "Runnin' in here and lettin' go anchor and settin' round and
sayin', 'Well, how goes it to-day?' and 'Nice spell of weather we're
havin',' and the like of that, and then goin' home and chalkin' up
another dollar on the bill. No sense to it, I say. No wonder you look
glum, Cap'n Sears. Makes _me_ glum, and 'tain't _my_ money that's bein'
talked out of me, nuther. Hear what he said just now? 'I must go,' he
says. 'And what did you say? Why, you said, 'Don't hurry, Doctor. What
do you want to go for?' All I could do to keep from bustin' out in a
laugh. _I_ know what you was sayin' to yourself, you see. 'Stead of
sayin', 'What do you want to go for?' you was thinkin', 'What in blue
blazes do you want to _come_ for?' Haw, haw! That was it, wan't it,
Cap'n?"

"Why, no, Judah. I'm always glad to see the doctor."

"Ye--es, you be!" with sarcasm. "Glad to see his back. Well, no use,
Cap'n, I've got to think up some notion to keep him from comin' here.
How would it do to run up a signal 'Small-pox aboard,' or somethin' like
that? Think that would keep him off?... No, he's a doctor, ain't he? All
he'd read out of that set of flags would be, 'More dollars. Come on in.'
Haw, haw! Well, I got to think up some way."

Judah's chatter kept his lodger from being too lonely. Mr. Cahoon talked
about everybody and everything, and when he was not talking he was
singing. He sang when he turned out in the morning to get breakfast, he
sang when he turned in at bedtime. He sang while working in the garden
repairing the damages done by the Fair Harbor hens. His repertoire was
extensive, embracing not only every conceivable variety of chantey and
sea song, but also an assortment of romantic ballads, running from "The
Blue Juniata," in which:

    "Wild rowed an Indian girl,
    Bright Al-fa-ra-ta,"

to the ancient ditty of twenty-odd verses describing how

    "There was a rich merchant in London did dwell,
    He had for his daughter a very fine gel,
    Her name it was Dinah, just sixteen years old,
    With a very large fortune in silver and gold.

    "Singing Too-ral-i-ooral-i-ooral-i-ay,
    Singing Too-ral-i-ooral-i-ooral-i-ay,"

and continuing to sing "Too-ral-i-ooral-i-ooral-i-ay" four times after
each of the twenty-odd verses to the tragical finish of Dinah and the
ballad.

As some men take to drink upon almost any or no excuse, so Judah Cahoon
took to song. And if the effect upon him was not as unsteadying as an
over indulgence in alcohol, that upon his hearers was at times upsetting
and disastrous. For example, upon the occasion when Captain Sears again
encountered his acquaintances of the Fair Harbor summer-house, Mr.
Cahoon's singing completely wrecked what might possibly have been a
meeting tending to raise the captain in the estimation of those ladies.

Sears happened to be taking what he liked to call his exercise. Judah
called it "pacin' decks." He was hobbling back and forth along the path
leading to the gate opening upon the Fair Harbor grounds. His landlord
was at work in the garden. The captain had limped as far as the gate and
was about to turn and limp back again when, behold, along the path
beyond that gate appeared two feminine figures strolling with what might
be called careful carelessness, looking up, down and on every side
except that upon which stood Captain Sears Kendrick. And the captain
recognized the pair, the one tall, slim, slender--unusually slim and
remarkably slender--the other short and plump--very decidedly plump--as
the ladies with whom he had held brief but spirited discourse the
fortnight before, the ladies who had peered forth at him from the
vine-draped window of the Eyrie--in short, for Miss Elvira Snowden and
Mrs. Aurora Chase.

The pair came scrolling along the path. They were almost at the gate
when Miss Snowden looked up--she would have said she happened to look
up--and saw the captain standing there. She was embarrassed and
surprised--any one might have noticed the surprise and embarrassment.
She started, gasped and uttered a little exclamation. Mrs. Chase, taking
her affliction into account, could not possibly have heard the
exclamation, but no doubt there was a telepathic quality in it, for
she, too, started, looked up and was surprised and embarrassed.

"Why--why, oh, dear!" faltered Miss Snowden.

"Why! My soul and body!" exclaimed Mrs. Chase.

Captain Sears raised his hat. "Good mornin'," he said politely.

The ladies looked at each other. Then Miss Elvira, evidently the born
leader, inclined her head ever so little and said, "Good morning." Mrs.
Aurora looked up at her in order to see what she said.

Captain Sears tried again.

"It's a nice day for a walk," he observed.

Miss Elvira nodded and agreed, distantly--yet not too distant.

"I understand," said the captain, "that I gave you ladies a little bit
of a scare the other day. Understand you thought I was a tramp. I'm real
sorry. Of course I know I hadn't any business over on your premises,
but, as a matter of fact, I didn't exactly realize where I was. It was
the first cruise I'd made in these latitudes, as you might say, and I
didn't think about keepin' on my own side of the channel buoys. I beg
your pardon. I'll hope you'll excuse me."

Miss Snowden nodded elegantly and murmured that she understood.

"You are our new neighbor, I believe," she said.

"Why, yes'm, I suppose I am."

"Cap'n Kendrick, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"I hope, Cap'n Kendrick, that you won't think there was
any--ah--anything personal in our mistaking you for a tramp the other
day. Of course there wasn't. Oh, dear, no!"

The captain hesitated. He was wondering just what answer he was supposed
to make to this speech. Did the lady wish him to infer that it was the
Fair Harbor custom to consider all male strangers tramps until they were
proven innocent? Or--but Mrs. Chase saved him the trouble of reply.

"Elviry," she demanded, "what are you and him whisperin' about? Why
don't you talk so's a body can hear you? He's Cap'n Kendrick, ain't he?
Have you told him who we be, same as you said you was goin' to?"

Miss Snowden, after looking at the rotund Aurora as if she would like to
bite her, smiled instead and began a rather tangled explanation to the
effect that she and Mrs. Chase had felt that perhaps they had been
a--ah--they might have seemed "kind of hasty--you know, Cap'n Kendrick,
in what--in speaking as we did that time, and so--and so I told her if
we ever _did_ meet you--if we ever _should_, you know---- But
we haven't really met yet, have we? Shall we introduce ourselves? I
don't see why not; neighbors, you know. Cap'n Kendrick, this is Mrs.
Aurora Chase, widow of the late Cap'n Ichabod Chase. No doubt, you knew
Cap'n Chase in the old days, Cap'n Kendrick."

And then Aurora, who had been listening with all her ears, and hearing
with perhaps a third of them, broke in to say that her husband was not a
captain. "He was second mate when he died," she explained. "Aboard the
bark _Charles Francis_ he was, bound for New Bedford from the West
Indies with a load of guano."

Miss Snowden, favoring the veracious Aurora with another look, hastily
introduced herself and began to speak of the beauties of the day, of the
surroundings, and particularly of the select and refined joys of life at
the Fair Harbor.

"We have our little circle there," she said. "We live our lives, quiet,
retired, away from the world----"

Mrs. Chase broke in once more to ask what she was talking about. When
the substance of the Snowden rhapsody was given her, she nodded--as well
as her several chins would permit her to nod--and announced that she
agreed.

"We like livin' at the home first-rate," she declared. Elvira flushed.

"It is _not_ a home," she said, sharply. "It is a select retreat, that
is all. It is not a home in _any_ sense of the word. Every one knows
that it is not. Aurora, I wish to goodness you---- But of course Cap'n
Kendrick doesn't want to hear about us all the time. He is interested in
his own new quarters. Do you like it here, Cap'n Kendrick?
I--ah--understand you are, so to speak, a guest of Mr. Cahoon's. He
is--ah--a relation of yours?"

Sears explained the acquaintanceship between Judah and himself. Miss
Snowden nodded comprehension.

"That explains it," she said. "I thought he could hardly be a relation
of _yours_, Cap'n Kendrick. He is--he is a little bit queer, isn't he? I
mean eccentric, you know. Of course I've never met him, and I'm sure
he's real good-hearted, but----"

She paused, leaving the rest of the sentence to be inferred. Captain
Sear's answer was prompt and crisp.

"Judah Cahoon is one of the best fellows that ever lived," he said.

"Yes, I know. I am sure he is. I didn't mean that. I meant is he--is
he----"

And then Judah himself, at work in the garden behind the screen of
bushes, too busy to hear or even be aware of the conversation at the
gate, chose this untoward moment to burst into song, to sing at the top
of his voice, and the top of Judah's voice was an elevation from which
sound traveled far. He sang:

    "Oh, Sally Brown was a bright mulatter,
      Way, oh, roll and go!
    She drinks rum and chews terbacker,
      Spend my money on Sally Brown.
        Whee--_yip_!"

Miss Elvira's thin figure stiffened to an exclamation point of
disapproval. Captain Kendrick turned uneasily in the direction of the
singer. Mrs. Chase, aware that something was going on and not wishing to
miss it, cupped her ear with her hand. And Judah began the second
verse.

    "Oh, Sally Brown, I'll surely miss you,
      Way, oh, roll and go!
    How I'd love to hug and kiss you!
      Spend my money on Sally Brown.
        Whee--_yip_!"

"Judah!" roared the captain, who was suffering acute apprehension.
"Judah!"

"Oh, Sally Brown----"

"_Judah!"_

"Eh? What is it, Cap'n Sears?"

"Shut up."

"Eh! Shut up what? What's open?"

"Stop that noise."

"What noise?"

"That noise of yours. That singin'."

"Eh? Oh, all right, sir. Aye, aye, Cap'n, just as you say."

Captain Sears, relieved, turned again to his visitors. But the visitors
were rapidly retreating along the path, the lines of Miss Elvira's back
indicating disgust and outraged gentility. Mrs. Chase, however, looked
back. Obviously she still did not know what it was all about.

Sears, although he chuckled a good deal over the affair, was a trifle
annoyed, nevertheless. It was a good joke, of course, and he certainly
cared little for the approval or disapproval of Miss Elvira Snowden. But
when he considered what the prim spinster's version of the happening was
likely to be and the reputation her story was sure to confer, inside the
Fair Harbor fences at least, upon him and his household companion, he
was tempted to wish that that companion's musical talent had been hidden
under a napkin, or, better still, a feather bed. He--Kendrick--was to
live, for a time indefinite, next door to the Fair Harborites, and it is
always pleasant to be on good terms with one's neighbors. True, those
neighbors might be, the majority of them, what Mr. Cahoon called
them--which was whatever term of approbrium he happened to think of at
the moment, "pack of old hens" being the mildest--but the captain knew
that one, at least, was not an "old hen." "That Berry girl," which was
his way of thinking of her, was attractive and kind and a lady. They had
met but once, it is true, but she had made a most favorable impression
upon him. He had caught glimpses of her on two occasions, in the Fair
Harbor grounds, and once she had waved a greeting. She was a nice girl,
he was sure of it. If she thought at all of the cripple next door he
would like her to think of him in a kindly way, as a decent sort of
hulk, so to speak. It was provoking to feel that she would next hear of
him as a dissipated ruffian, friend and defender of another ruffian who
howled ribald songs in the presence--or at least in the hearing--of
ladies.

He questioned Judah concerning the Fair Harbor, its founder and the
dwellers within its gates. Judah told him what he knew of the story,
which was very little more than the captain already knew, his knowledge
gained from his sister's letters. Captain Sylvanus Seymour had had but
one child, his daughter Lobelia. At his death she, of course, inherited
all his property. According to Bayport gossip, as reported by Mr.
Cahoon, the old man had died worth anywhere from one half a million to
three or five millions. "Richer'n dock mud, I cal'late he was," declared
Judah. "Made a lot of money out of his Boston shippin' business and a
lot more out of stocks and city real estate and one thing or 'nother."
For years after Captain Sylvanus died Lobelia lived alone in the big
house. Then she had married. Judah could tell little about the man she
married.

"He was a music teacher that come to town here one winter, that's about
all I can swear to," said Judah. "Down here for his health, so he said,
and taught singin' school while he was gittin' healthy. His last name
was Phillips, which is all right, but he had the craziest fust name ever
_I_ heard. Egbert 'twas. Hoppin', creepin' Henry! Did you ever _hear_
such a name? _Egbert!_ Jumpin' prophets! Boys round town, they tell me,
used to call him 'Eg' behind his back. Some of 'em, them that didn't
like him, called him 'Soft biled.' Haw, haw! See what they meant, don't
you, Cap'n Sears? Egbert, you know, that's 'Eg' for short, and then
'Soft biled' meanin' a soft biled egg.... Hey? Yes, I cal'lated you'd
see it, you're pretty sharp at a joke, Cap'n, but there _has_ been them
I've told that to that never.... Hey? Aye, aye, sir, I was just goin' to
tell the rest of it."

According to Judah's report, which was a second or third hand report of
course, Egbert Phillips had not been too popular among the males in
Bayport. But with the females--ah, there it was different.

"He was one of them kind, they tell me," said Judah. "One of them
smooth, slick, buttery kind of fellers that draws womenfolks same as
molasses draws flies. Hailed from Philadelphy he did. I used to know a
good many Philadelphy folks myself once. Why, one time----"

The captain broke in to head off the Philadelphia reminiscence. Brought
back to Bayport and Egbert and Lobelia, Judah went on to tell what more
he knew of the Fair Harbor beginnings. Sears gathered that after the
marriage Egbert who, it seemed, was not in love with the Cape as a place
of residence, would have liked his wife to sell the old house and move
away. But there was a clause in the will of Captain Sylvanus which
prevented this. Under that will the property could not be sold while his
daughter lived. It was then that Lobelia was seized with her great idea.
She, a mariner's daughter, had--until the Providential appearance of the
peerless Egbert--faced a lonely old age. But she had at least a
comfortable home. There were so many women--sea-captains' widows and
sisters--who faced their lonely future without a home. Why not turn the
Seymour property into a home for them--a limited number of them?

"So she done it," said Judah. "And that's how the Fair Harbor got off
the ways."

"But you called it a home," objected Captain Sears. "The other day that
Snowden woman, the thin one, gave the other, the stout one--what's her
name?--Northern lights--Aurora, that's it--she gave Aurora fits for
speakin' of the place as a home. She declared it wasn't a home."

Mr. Caboon chuckled. "Did, eh?" he observed. "Well, you might call a
mackerel gull a canary bird, I presume likely, but 'twouldn't make the
thing sing no better. That Elviry critter likes to make believe she's
the Queen of Sheby. _She_ wouldn't live in no home--no sir-ee! 'Cordin'
to her the Fair Harbor ain't a home because they only take six or eight
passengers, or visitors, or patients, or jailbirds--whatever you might
to call 'em, and it costs four hundred dollars to pay your way in and a
hundred a year to keep you there. So 'tain't a home, you see. It's a--a
genteel henhouse, I'd say. That Elviry Snowden she----"

Then the captain asked the question to which he had been leading since
the beginning.

"That Berry girl's mother runs the place, doesn't she?" he asked.

Judah snorted. "Yeah," he drawled, "she runs it about the way the
skipper's poll parrot runs the vessel. The poll parrot talks a barrel a
minute and the skipper goes right along navigatin'. That's about the way
'tis over yonder," with a jerk of the head in the general direction of
the Fair Harbor.

His lodger was a trifle surprised.

"Why, I understood Mrs. Berry--Cap'n Isaac Berry's widow--was manager
there," he said.

"Um-hm. So she is, the poll parrot manager. But it's that girl of hers,
that 'Lizabeth Berry, that really handles the ropes. There's a capable
little craft, if you want to know," declared Judah, with emphasis.

He whittled a pipe full of tobacco from the mutilated remnant of a plug,
and continued to expatiate on the capabilities of Miss Berry. According
to him whatever was as it should be within the Fair Harbor boundaries
was due to the young woman's efforts, not to those of her mother.

"It's kind of queer, ain't it, Cap'n Sears," he observed, "how things
average up sometimes. Seems if whoever 'tis works out the course up
aloft sort of fixed 'em that way."

"What's that got to do with the Berrys?"

"Cause it worked that way with them. _You_ knew Cap'n Ike Berry, Cap'n
Sears. Sharp, shrewd, able and all that, but rough and hard as the
broadside of a white-oak plank. Well, he married a woman from down in
the Carolinas somewhere. Her folks was well-off and she was brought up
in cotton wool, as you might say. They wouldn't have nothin' to do with
her after she married Cap'n Ike. He fell in love with her and carried
her off by main strength, as you might say. She'd been treated like a
plaything afore he got her and he treated her that way till he died. She
is soft-spoken, and kind of good-lookin', and polite and all that--but
about as much practical use for bossin' a place like the Fair Harbor as
a--well as a paper umbrella would be in a no'theaster. But 'Lizabeth
now, she's different. She's got her mother's good looks and nice manners
and--and kind of genteelness, you understand, and with 'em she's got her
dad's sense and capableness. She's all right, that girl. Don't you think
so, Cap'n Sears?"

The captain nodded.

"I never met her but that once, Judah," he replied. "She was all right
then, surely."

"I bet you! She's all right most of the time, I guess.... That young
George Kent, he thinks so, they tell me."

"Oh ... does he?"

"Um-hm! He's cruisin' up to the Fair Harbor 'bout every once or twice a
week, 'cordin' to tell. If it ain't to see 'Lizabeth I don't know what
'tis. It might be Queen Elviry he's after, but I have my doubts.... Oh,
say, Cap'n, speakin' of the Harbor reminds me of Judge Knowles. You
ain't been in to see him yet, same as he wanted you to."

"That's so, Judah, I haven't. I must pretty soon, I suppose. I can't
think what the old judge wants to see me for. But why did talkin' of the
Fair Harbor and the rest of it make you think of Judge Knowles?"

"Hey? Oh, 'cause the judge is kind of commodore of the fleet there,
looks after the money matters for 'em, I understand. He's Lobelia's
lawyer, same as he was old Cap'n Sylvanus's afore he died.... I declare
I can't guess what he wants to see you for, Cap'n Sears. Do you
s'pose----"

Judah proceeded to suppose several things, each supposition more
far-fetched and improbable than its predecessor. Sears paid little
attention to them. He again expressed his intention of calling upon the
judge before long and changed the subject.

The next day it rained and he did not go and the following day he did
not feel like going. On the day after that, however, further
procrastination was rendered impossible. Mrs. Tidditt, the judge's
housekeeper, visited the General Minot place with another message from
her employer. Emmeline was gray-haired, brisk and, as Judah expressed
it, "straight up and down," both in figure and manner of speaking.

"Good mornin', Cap'n Kendrick," she said. "Judge Knowles wants to know
if 'twill be convenient for you to come over and see him this afternoon?
Says if 'tis he'll send Mike and the hoss-'n'-buggy around for you at
two o'clock."

The captain's guilty conscience made him a trifle embarrassed.
"Why--why, yes, certainly," he stammered. "I---- Well, I'm ashamed of
myself for not goin' over there sooner. Beg Judge Knowles's pardon for
me, will you, and tell him I'll be on hand at two sharp. And tell him
not to bother to send the horse and team. I'll get there all right."

Mrs. Tidditt sniffed. "I'll tell him the first part," she said. "And
Mike'll have the hoss-'n'-buggy here at ten minutes of. Judah Cahoon,
why in the land of Canaan don't you scrub up that back piazza floor once
in a while? It's dirty as a fish shanty."

Judah's back fin rose. "Say, who's keepin' house aboard here, anyway?"
he demanded. Mrs. Tidditt sniffed again. "Nobody, by the looks," she
said, and departed in triumph.

At two the Knowles horse and buggy drove into the yard. It was piloted
by Mike Callahan, an ancient, much bewhiskered Irishman who had been
employed by the judge almost as long as had Mrs. Tidditt. He and Judah
assisted Sears into the vehicle and the captain started upon his cruise,
which was a very short one, the Knowles establishment being but a few
hundred yards from the Minot place. On the way he inquired concerning
the judge's health. Mike shook his head.

"Bad," he grunted. "It's close _to_, the ould judge is."

"Oh, I'm sorry."

"Sure ye are. So are we all. He is a fine man, none better--barrin' he's
a grand ould curmudgeon. Here ye are, Cap'n. Git up till I lift ye
down."

Judge Knowles's house--Sears Kendrick had never been in it before--was a
big square mansion built in the '50's. There was the usual front door
leading to a dark front hall from which, to right and left respectively,
opened parlor and sitting rooms. Emmeline ushered the visitor into the
latter apartment. It was high studded, furnished in black walnut and
haircloth, a pair of tall walnut cases filled with books against one
wall, on the opposite wall a libellous oil portrait of the judge's wife,
who died twenty years before, and a pair of steel engravings depicting
"Sperm Whale Fishing in the Arctic"; No. 1, portraying "The Chase," No.
2, "the Capture." Beneath these stood a marble-topped table upon which
were neatly piled four gigantic volumes, bound copies of Harper's
Weekly, 1861 to '65, the Civil War period.

At the end of the room, where two French windows opened--that is, could
have opened, they never were--upon the narrow, iron-railed veranda, sat
Judge Marcus Aurelious Knowles, in an old-fashioned walnut armchair, his
feet upon a walnut and haircloth footstool--Bayport folk in those days
called such stools "crickets"--a knitted Afghan thrown over his legs and
a pillow beneath his head. And in that dark, shadowy room, its curtains
drawn rather low, so white was the judge's hair and his face that, to
Sears Kendrick, just in from the light out of doors, it was at first
hard to distinguish where the pillow left off and the head began.

But the head on the pillow stirred and the judge spoke.

"Ah--good afternoon, Kendrick," he said. "Glad to see you.... Humph.
Can't see much of you, can I? Here, Emmeline, put those shades up, will
you?"

The housekeeper moved toward the windows, but she protested as she
moved.

"Now, Judge," she said, "I don't believe you want them winder curtains
strung way up, do you? I hauled 'em down purpose so's the sun wouldn't
get in your eyes."

"Um--yes. Well, you haul 'em up again. And don't you haul 'em down till
I'm dead. You'll do it then, I know, and I don't want to attend my
funeral ahead of time."

Mrs. Tidditt gasped.

"Oh, Judge Knowles, how _can_ you talk so!" she wailed.

"I intend to talk as I choose--while I can talk at all.... There, there,
woman, that's enough. Put the blasted things up.... Umph! That's better.
Sit down, Cap'n, sit down. I want to look at you."

The captain took one of the walnut and haircloth chairs. The judge
looked at him and he looked at the judge. He remembered the latter as a
tall, broad-shouldered figure, with a ruddy face, black hair slightly
sprinkled with gray, and a nose and eye like an eagle's. The man in the
armchair was thin and shrunken, the face was deeply lined, and face and
hands and hair were snow white. The nose was, however, more eagle-like
than ever, and the eyes beneath the rough white brows had the old flash.

Sears waited an instant for him to speak, but he did not. So the captain
did.

"I beg your pardon, Judge," he began, "for not comin' over here sooner.
I got your message----"

Knowles interrupted. "Oh, you got it, did you?" he said. "Humph! I told
Emmeline to get word to you and she said---- Oh, well, never mind that.
Can't waste time. I haven't got any too much of it, or strength either.
Sorry to hear about your accident, Cap'n. Doctor Sheldon says you had a
close call of it. How are the legs?"

"Oh, I can navigate with 'em after a fashion, but not far. How are you,
Judge? Gettin' better fast, I hope."

The head on the pillow gave an impatient jerk. "Your hope is lost then.
Don't waste time talking about me. I'm going to die and I know it--and
before long.... There, there," as his caller uttered a protest, "don't
bother to pretend, Kendrick. We aren't children, either of us, although
you're a good many years younger than I am; but we're both too old to
make-believe. I'm almost through. Well, it's all right. I've lived past
my three score and ten and I'm alone in the world and ought not to mind
leaving it, I suppose. I don't much. It's an interesting place and there
are two or three matters I should like to straighten up before....
Humph! I'm the one's who's wasting the time. How are you? I don't mean
how would you like to be or how do your fool friends and the doctor tell
you you are--but how _are_ you?"

Captain Sears smiled. It had been a long, long time since any one had
talked to him like this. Not since he relinquished a mate's rating for
that of a master. But he did not resent it; he, too, was sick of
pretending.

"I'm in bad shape, Judge," he said. "My legs are better and I can hobble
around on 'em, as you saw when I hobbled in here. But as to whether or
not they will ever be fit for sea again I--well, I doubt it. And I
rather guess the doctor doubts it, too. I don't say so to many, haven't
said it to any one but you, but it looks to me as if I were on a lee
shore. I may get out of the breakers some day--or I may just lay there
and rot and drop to pieces.... Well, as you say, what's the use of
wastin' time talkin' about me?"

"I've got a reason for talking about you, Cap'n. So you're not confined
to your bed. And your head is all right, eh?"

Kendrick hesitated. He could not make out what in the world the man was
driving at.

"Eh?" repeated the judge.

"Yes, as right as it ever was, I presume likely. Sometimes I think that
may not be sayin' much."

"When a man thinks that way it is a favorable symptom, according to my
experience. From what I've heard and know, Cap'n Kendrick, your head
will do very well. Now there's another question. Have you got all the
money you need?"

The captain leaned back in his chair. He did not answer immediately.
From the head upon the pillow came a rasping chuckle.

"Go on," observed Judge Knowles, "ask it."

Kendrick stared at him. "Ask what?" he demanded.

"The question you had in mind. If I hadn't been a man with one foot in
the grave you would have asked me if I considered the amount of money
you had any of my damned business. Isn't that right?"

Sears hesitated. Then he grinned. "Just about," he said.

"I thought so. Well, in a way it is my business, because, if you have
all the money you need, fifteen hundred a year for the next two or three
years won't tempt you any. And I want to tempt you, Cap'n."

Again the captain was silent for an interval.

"Fifteen hundred a year?" he repeated, slowly.

"Yes."

"For what?"

"For services to be rendered. I've been looking for a man with time on
his hands, who has been used to managing, who can be firm when it's
necessary, has had enough experience of the world to judge people and
things and who won't let a slick tongue get the better of him. And he
must be honest. I think you fill the bill, Cap'n Kendrick."

The visitor tugged at his beard.

"Look here, Judge Knowles," he said crisply, "what are you talkin'
about? What's the joke?"

"It isn't a joke."

"Well, then what is it? You'll have to give me my bearin's, I'm lost in
the fog. Do I understand you to mean that you are offerin' me a berth, a
job where I can earn--no, I won't put it that way, where I will be paid
fifteen hundred a year?"

"I am, and," with another sardonic chuckle, "I rather think you'll earn
all you get. Of course fifteen hundred dollars a year isn't a large
salary, it isn't a sea captain's wage and share--not such a captain as
you've been, Kendrick. But, as I see it, you can't go to sea for a year
or two at least. You are planning to stay right here in Bayport. Well,
while you are here this thing I am offering you will," there was another
chuckle, "keep you moderately busy, and you will be earning something.
It may be that fifteen hundred won't be enough to be worth your while.
Perhaps I shouldn't venture to offer it if I hadn't heard--hadn't
heard----"

Sears interrupted.

"What you heard was probably true," he said crisply. "True enough, at
any rate. Fifteen hundred a year looks like a lot to me now. But what am
I to do to get it, that's the question. I'm a cripple, don't forget
that."

"I should remember it if I thought it necessary. You won't handle this
job with your legs. It is your head I want. Cap'n Kendrick, I want you
to take charge--take command, if you had rather we used seafaring lingo,
of that establishment next door to where you are living now. I want you
to act as--well, we'll call it captain of the Fair Harbor."

Captain Sears's eyes and mouth opened. His chair creaked as he leaned
forward and then slowly leaned back again.

"You--you--" he gasped, "you want me to--to manage that--that _old
women's home_?"

"Yes."

"_Me?_"

"Yes.... Here! where are you going?"

The visitor had risen.

"Stop!" shouted Judge Knowles. "Where are you going?"

The captain breathed heavily.

"I'm goin' to send for the doctor," he declared. "One of us two needs
him."




CHAPTER V


Judge Knowles's answer to his caller's assertion concerning the need of
a physician's services was another chuckle.

"Sit down, Cap'n," he ordered.

Kendrick shook his head. "No," he began, "I'm----"

"Sit down."

"Judge, look here: I don't suppose you're serious, but if you are, I
tell you----"

"No, I'm going to tell _you_. SIT DOWN."

This time the invalid's voice was raised to such a pitch that Mrs.
Tidditt came hurrying from the kitchen.

"My soul and body, Judge!" she exclaimed. "What is it? What _is_ the
matter?"

Her employer turned upon her.

"The matter is that that confounded door is open again," he snapped.

"Why--why, of course 'tis. I just opened it when I came in."

"Umph! Yes. Well then, hurry up and shut it when you go out. _Shut_ it!"

Emmeline, going, not only shut but slammed the door. The judge smiled
grimly.

"Sit down, Kendrick," he commanded once more, panting. "Sit down, I--I'm
out of breath. Confound that woman! She seems to think I'm four years
old. Ah--ah--whew!"

His exhaustion was so apparent that Sears was alarmed.

"Don't you think, Judge----" he began, but was interrupted.

"Sshh!" ordered Knowles. "Wait.... Wait.... I'll be all right in a
minute!"

The captain waited. It took more than a minute, and even then the
judge's voice was husky and his sentences broken, but his determination
was unshaken.

"I want you to listen to me, Cap'n Kendrick," he said. "I know it sounds
crazy, this proposal of mine, but it isn't. How much do you know about
this Fair Harbor place; its history and so on?"

Captain Sears explained that his sister had written him some facts
concerning it and that recently Judah Cahoon had told him more details.
The judge wished to know what Judah had told. When informed he nodded.

"That's about right, so far as it goes," he admitted. "Fairly straight,
for a Bayport yarn. It doesn't go far enough, though. Here is the
situation:

"Lobelia, when she first conceived the fool notion," he said, "came to
me, of course, to arrange it. I was her father's lawyer for years, and
so naturally I was looking out for her affairs. I said all I could
against it, but she was determined, and had her way. She, through me,
set aside the Sylvanus Seymour house and land to be used as a home for
what she called 'mariners' women' as long as--well, as long as she
should continue to want it used for that purpose. She would have been
contented to pay the bills as they came, but, of course, there was no
business method in that, so we arranged that she was to hand over to me
fifty thousand dollars in bonds, the income from that sum, plus the
entrance fees and one hundred dollars yearly paid by each inmate, was to
run the place. That is the way it has been run. She christened it the
Fair Harbor. Heaven knows I had nothing to do with that.

"For a year or so she lived there herself and had a beautiful time
queening it over the inmates. Then that Phillips chap drifted into
Bayport."

The captain interrupted here. "Oh, then the Fair Harbor was off the ways
before she married Phillips?" he said. "Judah told me it was
afterwards."

"He's wrong. No, the thing had been running two years when that
confounded.... Humph! You never met Egbert Phillips, did you, Cap'n?"

"No."

"You've heard about him?"

"Only what Judah told me the other day."

"Humph! What did he tell?"

"Why, he--he gave me to understand that this Phillips was a pretty
smooth article."

"Smooth! Why, Kendrick, he is.... But there, you'll meet him some day
and no feeble words of mine could do him justice. Besides all my words
are getting too feeble to waste--even on anything as beautiful as Egbert
the great.... And that condemned doctor will be here pretty soon, so we
must get on.... Ah.... Well, he came here to teach singing, Phillips
did, and he had all the women in tune before the first lesson was over.
They said he was wonderful, and he was--good God, yes! They kept on
thinking he was wonderful until he married Lobelia Seymour."

"Then they changed their minds, eh?"

"Humph! You don't know women, do you, Cap'n? Never mind, you've got time
enough left to learn in.... No, they didn't change their minds. They
thought Egbert was as wonderful as ever, but they agreed that Lobelia
had roped him in. _She_ had roped _him_ in! Oh, lord!... Well, they were
married and went to Boston to live. Afterwards they went to Europe. Five
years ago they came back here for a week's visit. Cahoon tell you about
that?"

"No."

"Probably he didn't know about it. They did, though, and stayed here
with me, of course. Lobelia settled that, I imagine--one of the times
when she settled something herself. And while she was here she and I
settled something else. She added a codicil to her will making the fifty
thousand dollars in my possession and the house and Seymour land a gift,
absolute, to the Fair Harbor. And she appointed me as sole trustee of
the fund and financial manager of the home, with authority to appoint my
own successor. And her husband didn't know a thing about it. Didn't
when they went away; I'm sure I don't know whether he does now or not,
but he didn't then. No, sir, we settled the Fair Harbor fund and
Egbert's hash, so far as it was concerned. Ha, ha! And a blessed good
job, too, Kendrick.... Hand me that glass of water, will you? Thanks."

He drank a swallow or two of water and lay back upon the pillow. Captain
Sears was a little anxious. He suggested that, perhaps, he had better be
told the rest another time.

"I think you had better rest now, Judge," he counseled. The judge
consigned the "rest" idea to a place where, according to tradition,
there is very little of it.

"I want you to hear this," he snapped. "Don't bother me, but listen....
Where was I?... Oh, yes.... Well, Lobelia and her husband went away, to
Europe again. They have been there ever since, living in Italy. Egbert
finds the climate there agrees with him, I suppose---- Humph!... I have
had letters from Lobelia. The later ones were shorter and not
encouraging. She wrote that she wasn't well and the doctors didn't seem
to help her much. After two or three of these letters I wrote one,
myself--to the American consul at Florence. He is the son of a good
friend of mine. I explained the situation and asked him to find out just
what ailed her and what the prospects were. His reply explained things.
Poor Lobelia is in my position--except that my age entitles me to be
there and hers doesn't; she has an incurable disease and she is likely
to die at any time. No hope for her. And now, it seems she has found it
out. About a month ago I had another letter from her.... Humph!... Wait
a minute, Cap'n. Give me that glass again, will you. Sorry to be such a
condemned nuisance--particularly to other people.... Wait! Hold on! When
I've finished you can talk. Hear the rest of it first.

"Lobelia's latest--last, I shouldn't wonder--letter was a sad sort of a
thing. I'm a tough old fellow, but I declare I'm sorry for that poor
woman. Fool to marry Phillips? Of course she was, but most of us are
fools, some time or other. And, if I don't miss my guess, she has
repented of her foolishness many times and all the time. She wrote me
she knew she was going to die. And she said---- But here is the letter.
Read it, that page of it."

He fumbled among the papers and books on the table beside him, selected
a sheet of paper, covered with closely written lines, and extended it in
a shaking hand to his caller.

"That explains things a little," he said. "It's illuminating. Read it."

Captain Sears read.... "And so I am _very_ anxious, dear Judge Knowles,
whatever else happens, that the Fair Harbor shall always be as it is, a
home for sisters and widows and daughters of men who went down to the
sea in ships, as father did. I know he would have liked it. And
_please_, after I'm gone, don't let it be sold or given up, or anything
like that. I am asking this of you, because I know I can trust you. You
have proved it so many times. And--I never have written you this before
but it is true--I have so little left except the Fair Harbor and its
endowment. You will wonder where the money has gone. I do not know. It
seems to have slipped away little by little and neither my husband nor I
can account for...."

The page ended there. The captain would have handed it back to Knowles,
but the latter asked him to put it on the table.

"Put it in the envelope and put the envelope in the drawer, will you,
Kendrick?" he said. "My housekeeper is a good housekeeper, but what is
mine is hers--including correspondence.... Well, you see? She can't
account for the disappearance of the money. I can. When you have a five
thousand dollar income and spend ten thousand you can account for a
lot.... Humph! Well, the fact is that I am expecting to hear of
Lobelia's death at any time. She may be dead to-day--or to-morrow--or
next week. And as soon as I hear of it I shall say to myself.... Humph!
Cap'n, you know how the Old Farmer's Almanac, along in November,
prophesies the weather, don't you? 'About this time look out for snow.'
Yes, well, on a date about a month after the day I hear of Lobelia
Phillips's death I should write on the calendar: 'About this time look
for Egbert.' ... Humph.... Eh? See, don't you, Cap'n Kendrick?"

Kendrick smiled, he couldn't help it. He tugged thoughtfully at his
beard.

"Yes," he admitted, "I guess likely I see. But I don't see where I come
in. You can handle Egbert, Judge, or I don't know much about men."

The judge snorted. "Handle him," he repeated. "I think I could handle
him--and enjoy the job. The trouble is I shan't have the chance. I won't
be here. I'll be in the graveyard."

He spoke of it as casually as he might of Boston or New York. Again his
listener could not help but protest.

"Why, Judge," he began, "that's perfectly ridiculous. You----"

The judge interrupted. "Perhaps," he said, drily. "In fact, I agree with
you. The graveyard is a ridiculous place for anybody to be, but I shall
be there--and soon. But I am not going to let it interfere with my plans
concerning the Fair Harbor. Lobelia Seymour I've known since she was a
little girl, and whether I'm dead or alive, I'm going to have her wishes
carried out. That's why I'm telling you these things, Sears Kendrick. I
am counting on you to carry them out."

The captain leaned back in his chair.

"Why pick on me?" he asked, drily.

"Why? Because I've got to pick on somebody and do it while I have the
strength to pick. You and I have never been close friends, Kendrick, but
I've watched you and kept track of you for years, in a general sort of
way. Your sister and I have had a long acquaintanceship. There's another
woman who made a mistake.... Eh?"

Sears nodded.

"I'm afraid so," he admitted. "Joel is a good enough fellow, in his way,
but----"

"But--that's it. Well, he's got a good wife and she's your sister. I
know you can handle this Fair Harbor job if you will and if you take it
on I shall go to--well, to that graveyard we were talking about, with an
easier mind. Look here--why----"

"Hold on a minute, Judge. Heave to and let me say a word. If there
wasn't any other reason why I shouldn't feel like takin' the wheel of an
old woman's home there would be this one: You need a business man there
and I'm no business man."

"How do you know you're not?"

"Because I've just proved it. You heard somethin' of how my voyage in
business ashore turned out. I'll tell you the truth about it."

He did, briefly, giving the facts of his disastrous sojourn in
ship-chandlery.

"So that's how good a business man _I_ am," he said in conclusion. "And
I'm a cripple besides. Much obliged, Judge, but you'll have to ship
another skipper, I'm afraid."

He was rising but Judge Knowles barked a profane order for him to keep
his seat.

"I know all that," he snapped. "Knew about it just after it happened.
And I know, too, that you paid your share of the debts dollar for
dollar. I'll risk you in this job I'm offering you.... Yes, and you're
the only man I will risk--the only one in sight, that is. Come now,
don't say no. Think it over. I'll give you a week to think it over in.
I'd give you a month, but I might not be here at the end of it.... Will
you take the offer under consideration and then come back and have
another talk with me? Eh? Will you?"

The captain hesitated. He wanted to say no, of course, should say it
sooner or later, but he hated to be too abrupt in his refusal. After
all, the offer, although absurd, was, in a way, a compliment and he
liked the old judge. So he hesitated, stammered and then asked another
question.

"You've got a skipper aboard the Fair Harbor already, haven't you?" he
inquired. "Judah told me that Cap'n Ike Berry's widow was runnin' the
place."

"Humph! That isn't all he told you, is it?"

Kendrick smiled. "Why"--he hesitated, "I--"

"Come, come, come! Of course he told you that Cordelia Berry was another
one of those mistakes we've been talking about. She is, but her husband
was one of my best friends and his daughter is another. No mistake
there, Cap'n Kendrick, I tell you.... But you've met Elizabeth, I
understand, eh?"

He chuckled as he said it. Sears was surprised and a trifle confused.
Evidently she had told of their encounter in Judah's garden.

"Well, yes," he admitted. "We met."

"Ha, ha! So I heard. Handled the poultry pretty well, didn't she? She
ought to, she's had experience in handling old hens for some time."

"I presume likely. Then I don't see why you don't let her keep on
handlin' 'em. What do you want me for?"

"Oh, damnation, man, haven't I told you! I want you because I'm going to
die and somebody--some man--must take my place.... Look here, Kendrick.
I appoint you general manager of the Fair Harbor, take it or leave it.
But _if_ you leave it don't do it for a week, and, before you do,
promise me you'll go over there some day and look around. Meet Cordelia
and talk to her, meet Elizabeth and talk to her. Meet some of
the--er--hens and talk to them. But, this is the main thing, look
around, listen, see for yourself. Then you can come back and, if you
accept, we'll discuss details. Will you do that much?"

Captain Sears looked troubled. "Why, yes, I suppose so," he said,
reluctantly, "to oblige you, Judge. But it's wasted time, I shan't
accept. Of course I thank you for the offer and all that, but I might as
well, seems to me, say no now as next week."

"No such thing. And you will go there and look around?"

"Why--yes, I guess so. But won't the Berry woman and the rest of 'em
think I'm nosin' in where I don't belong? I should, if I were they, and
I'd raise a row about it, too."

"Nonsense. They can't object to your making a neighborly call, can they?
And if they do, let 'em. A healthy row won't do a bit of harm over
there. Give 'em the devil, it's what they need.... See here, will you
go?"

"Yes."

"Good! And, remember, you are appointed to this job this minute if you
want it. Or you may take it at any time during the week; don't bother to
speak to me first. Fifteen hundred a year, live with Cahoon or whoever
you like, precious little to do except be generally responsible for the
Fair Harbor--oh, how I hate that syrupy, sentimental name!--financially
and in a business way.... Easy berth, as you sailors would say, eh? Ha,
ha!... Well, good day, Cap'n. Can you find your way out? If not call
that eternally-lost woman of mine and she'll pilot you.... Ah....
yes.... And just hand me that water glass once more.... Thanks.... I
shall hope to hear you've accepted next time I see you. We'll talk
details and sign papers then, eh?... Oh, yes, we will. You won't be fool
enough to refuse. Easy berth, you know, Kendrick. And don't forget
Egbert; eh? Ha, ha.... Umph--ah, yes.... Where's that damned
housekeeper?"

Mike Callahan asked no questions as he drove his passenger back to the
General Minot place--no direct questions, that is--but it was quite
evident that his curiosity concerning the reasons for Captain Kendrick's
visit was intense.

"Well, the ould judge seen you at last, Cap'n," he observed.

"Yes."

"I expect 'twas a great satisfaction to him, eh?"

"Maybe so. Looks as if it was smurrin' up for rain over to the west'ard,
doesn't it?"

Mr. Callahan delivered his passenger at the Minot back door and
departed, looking grumpy. Then Mr. Cahoon took his turn.

"Well, Cap'n Sears," he said, eagerly, "you seen him."

"Yes, Judah, I saw him."

"Um-hm. Pretty glad to see you, too, wan't he?"

"I hope so."

"Creepin' prophets, don't you _know_ so? Ain't he been sendin' word by
Emmeline Tidditt that he wanted to see you more'n a million times?"

"Guess not. So far as I know he only wanted to see me once."

"No, no, no. You know what I mean, Cap'n Sears.... Well--er--er--you
seen him, anyway?"

"Yes, I saw him."

"Um-hm ... so you said."

"Yes, I thought I did."

"Oh, you did--yes, you did.... Um-hm--er--yes."

So Judah, too, was obliged to do without authentic information
concerning Judge Knowles's reason for wishing to meet Sears Kendrick. He
hinted as far as he dared, but experience gained through years of sea
acquaintanceship with his former commander prevented his doing more than
hint. The captain would tell just exactly what he wished and no more,
Judah knew. He knew also that attempting to learn more than that was
likely to be unpleasant as well as unprofitable. It was true that his
beloved "Cap'n Sears" was no longer his commander but merely his lodger,
nevertheless discipline was discipline. Mr. Cahoon was dying to know why
the judge wished to talk to the captain, but he would have died in
reality rather than continue to work the pumps against the latter's
orders, expressed or intimated. Judah was no mutineer.




CHAPTER VI


Sears put in a disagreeable day or two after his call upon the judge. He
was dissatisfied with the ending of their interview. He felt that he had
been foolishly soft-hearted in promising to call at the Fair Harbor, or,
to consider for another hour the preposterous offer of management of
that institution. He must say no in the end. How much better to have
said it then and there. Fifteen hundred a year looked like a lot of
money to him. It tempted him, that part of the proposition. But it did
not tempt him sufficiently to overcome the absurdities of the remaining
part. How could _he_ manage an old woman's home? And what would people
say if he tried?

Nevertheless, he had promised to visit the place and look it over and
the promise must be kept. He dreaded it about as much as he had ever
dreaded anything, but--he had promised. So on the morning of the third
day following that of his call upon Judge Knowles he hobbled painfully
and slowly up the front walk of the Fair Harbor to the formidable front
door, with its great South Sea shells at each end of the granite
step--relics of Captain Sylvanus's early voyages--and its silver-plated
name plate with "SEYMOUR" engraved upon it in Gothic lettering. To one
looking back from the view-point of to-day such a name plate may seem a
bit superfluous and unnecessary in a village where every one knew not
only where every one else lived, but how they lived and all about them.
The fact remains that in Bayport in the '70's there were many name
plates.

Sears gave the glass knob beside the front door a pull. From the
interior of the house came the resultant "_JINGLE_; _jingle_; jingle,
jing, jing." Then a wait, then the sound of footsteps approaching the
other side of the door. Then a momentary glimpse of a reconnoitering eye
behind one of the transparent urns engraved in the ground glass pane.
Then a rattle of bolt and latch and the door opened.

The woman who opened it was rather good looking, but also she
looked--well, if the captain had been ordered to describe her general
appearance instantly, he would have said that she looked "tousled." She
was fully dressed, of course, but there was about her a general
appearance of having just gotten out of bed. Her hair, rather
elaborately coiffured, had several loose strands sticking out here and
there. She wore a gold pin--an oval brooch with a lock of hair in it--at
her throat, but one end was unfastened. She wore cotton gloves, with
holes in them.

"Good mornin'," said the captain.

The woman said "Good morning." There was no "r" in the "morning" so,
remembering what he had heard concerning Mrs. Isaac Berry's rearing,
Kendrick decided that this must be she.

"This is Mrs. Berry, isn't it?" he inquired.

"Yes." The lady's tone was not too gracious, in fact there was a trace
of suspicion in it, as if she was expecting the man on the step to
produce a patent egg-beater or the specimen volume of a set of
encyclopedias.

"How do you do, Mrs. Berry," went on the captain. "My name is Kendrick.
I'm your neighbor next door, and Judge Knowles asked me to be neighborly
and cruise over and call some day. So I--er--so I've cruised, you see."

Mrs. Berry's expression changed. She seemed surprised, perhaps a little
annoyed, certainly very much confused.

"Why--why, yes, Mr. Kendrick," she stammered. "I'm so glad you did.... I
am so glad to see you.... Ah--ah---- Won't you come in?"

Captain Sears entered the dark front hall. It smelt like most front
halls of that day in that town, a combination smell made up of
sandal-wood and Brussels carpet and haircloth and camphor and damp
shut-up-ness.

"Walk right in, do," urged Mrs. Berry, opening the parlor door. The
captain walked right in. The parlor was high-studded and square-pianoed
and chromoed and oil-portraited and black-walnutted and marble-topped
and hairclothed. Also it had the fullest and most satisfying assortment
of whatnot curios and alum baskets and whale ivory and shell frames and
wax fruit and pampas grass. There was a majestic black stove and window
lambrequins. Which is to say that it was a very fine specimen of a very
best parlor.

"Do sit down, Mr. Kendrick," gushed Mrs. Berry, moving about a good deal
but not, apparently, accomplishing very much. There had been a feather
duster on the piano when they entered, but it, somehow or other, had
disappeared beneath the piano scarf--partially disappeared, that is, for
one end still protruded. The lady's cotton dusting-gloves no longer
protected her hands but now peeped coyly from behind a jig-sawed
photograph frame on the marble mantelpiece. The apron she had worn lay
on the floor in the shadow of the table cloth. These habiliments of
menial domesticity slid, one by one, out of sight--or partially so--as
she bustled and chatted. When, after a moment, she raised a window shade
and admitted a square of sunshine to the grand apartment, one would
scarcely have guessed that there was such drudgery as housework,
certainly no one would have suspected the elegant Mrs. Cordelia Berry of
being intimately connected with it.

She swept--in those days the breadth of skirts made all feminine
progress more or less of a sweep--across the room and swished gracefully
into a chair. When she spoke she raised her eyebrows, at the end of the
sentence she lowered them and her lashes. She smiled much, and hers was
still a pretty smile. She made attractive little gestures with her
hands.

"I am _so_ glad you dropped in, Mr. Kendrick," she declared. "So very
glad. Of course if we had known when you were coming we might have been
a little better prepared. But there, you will excuse us, I know.
Elizabeth and I--Elizabeth is my daughter, Mr. Kendrick.... But it is
_Captain_ Kendrick, isn't it? Of course, I might have known. You look
the sea--you know what I mean--I can always tell. My dear husband was a
captain. You knew that, of course. And in the old days at my girlhood
home so many, _many_ captains used to come and go. Our old home--my
girlhood home, I mean--was always open. I met my husband there.... Ah
me, those days are not these days! What my dear father would have said
if he could have known.... But we don't know what is in store for us, do
we?... Oh, dear!... It's such charming weather, isn't it, Captain
Kendrick?"

The captain admitted the weather's charm. He had not heard a great deal
of his voluble hostess's chatter. He was there, in a way, on business
and he was wondering how he might, without giving offence, fulfill his
promise to Judge Knowles and see more of the interior of the Fair
Harbor. Of the matron of that institution he had already seen enough to
classify and appraise her in his mind.

Mrs. Berry rambled on and on. At last, out of the tumult of words,
Captain Sears caught a fragment which seemed to him pertinent and
interesting.

"Oh!" he broke in. "So you knew I was--er--hopeful of droppin' in some
time or other?"

"Why, yes. Elizabeth knew. Judge Knowles told her you said you hoped to.
Of course we were delighted.... The poor dear judge! We are _so_ fond of
him, my daughter and I. He is so--so essentially aristocratic. Oh, if
you knew what that means to me, raised as I was among the people I was.
There are times when I sit here in this dreadful place in utter
despair--utter.... Oh--oh, of course, Captain Kendrick, I wouldn't have
you imagine that Elizabeth and I don't like this house. We _love_ it.
And dear 'Belia Seymour is my _closest_ friend. But, you know----"

She paused, momentarily, and the captain seized the opportunity----

"So Judge Knowles told you I was liable to call, did he?" he queried.
He was somewhat surprised. He wondered if the Judge had hinted at a
reason for his visit.

"Why, yes," replied Mrs. Berry, "he told Elizabeth. She said---- Oh,
here you are, dearie. Captain Kendrick, our next door neighbor, has run
in for a little call. Isn't it delightful of him? Captain Kendrick, this
is my daughter, Elizabeth."

She had entered from the door behind the captain's chair. Now she came
forward as he rose from it.

"How do you do, Cap'n Kendrick?" she said. "I am very glad to see you
again. Judge Knowles told me you were planning to call."

She extended her hand and the captain took it. She was smiling, but it
seemed to him that the smile was an absent-minded one. In fact--of
course it might be entirely his imagination--he had a feeling that she
was troubled about something.

However, he had no time to surmise or even reply to her greeting. Mrs.
Berry had caught a word in that greeting which to her required
explanation.

"Again?" she repeated. "Why, Elizabeth, have you and Captain Kendrick
met before?"

"Yes, Mother, that day when our hens got into Mr. Cahoon's garden. You
remember I told you at the time."

"I don't remember any such thing. I remember Elvira said that she and
Aurora met him one afternoon, but I don't remember your saying anything
about it."

"I told you. No doubt you have forgotten it."

"Nonsense! you know I never forget. If there is one thing I can honestly
pride myself on it is a good memory. You may have thought you told me,
but---- Why, what's that noise?"

The noise was a curious babble or chatter, almost as if the sound-proof
door--if there was such a thing--of a parrot cage had been suddenly
opened. It came from somewhere at the rear of the house and was,
apparently, produced by a number of feminine voices all speaking very
fast and simultaneously.

Elizabeth turned, glanced through the open door behind her, and then at
Mrs. Berry. There was no doubt now concerning the troubled expression
upon her face. She was troubled.

"Mother--" she began, quickly. "Excuse us, Cap'n Kendrick,
please--mother, have Elvira and Susan Brackett been talking to you about
buying that collection of--of what they call garden statuary at Mrs.
Seth Snowden's auction in Harniss?"

And now Mrs. Berry, too, looked troubled. She turned red, stammered and
fidgetted.

"Why--why, Elizabeth," she said, "I--I don't see why you want to discuss
that now. We have a visitor and I'm sure Captain Kendrick isn't
interested."

Her daughter did not seem to care whether the visitor was interested or
not.

"Tell me, mother, please," she urged. "_Have_ they been talking with you
about their plan to buy that--those things?"

Mrs. Berry's confusion increased. "Why--why, yes," she admitted. "Elvira
did tell me about it, something about it. She said it was beautiful--the
fountain and the--the deer and--and how pretty they would look on the
lawn and----"

"Mother, you didn't give them the least encouragement, did you? They
say--Elvira and Mrs. Brackett say you told them you thought it a
beautiful idea and that you were in favor of what they call their
committee going to the sale next Monday and buying those--those
cast-iron dogs and children with the Fair Harbor money? I am sure you
didn't say that, did you, mother?... I'm awfully sorry, Cap'n Kendrick,
to bring this matter into the middle of your call, but really it is very
important and it can't be postponed, because.... Tell me, Mother, they
will be here in a moment. You didn't say any such thing, did you?"

Mrs. Berry's fine eyes--they had been called "starlike" twenty years
before, by romantic young gentlemen--filled with tears. She wrung her
hands.

"I--I only said--" she stammered, "I---- Oh, I don't think I said
anything except--except that---- Well, they were so sure they were
lovely and a great bargain--and you know Captain Snowden's estate in
Harniss was perfectly _charming_. You know it was, Elizabeth!"

"Mother, you didn't tell them they might buy them?"

"Why--why, no, I--I don't think I did. I--I couldn't have because I
never do anything like that without consulting you.... Oh, Elizabeth,
_please_, don't let us have a scene here, with Captain Kendrick present.
What _will_ he think? Oh, dear, dear!"

Her handkerchief was called into requisition. Sears Kendrick rose from
his chair. Obviously he must go and, just as obviously, he knew that in
order to fulfill his promise to the judge in spirit as well as letter he
ought to stay. This was just the sort of situation to shed light upon
the inner secrets of the Fair Harbor and its management....
Nevertheless, he was not going to stay. His position was much too
spylike to suit him. But before he could move there were other
developments.

While Miss Berry and her mother had been exchanging hurried questions
and answers the parrot-cage babble from the distant places somewhere at
the end of the long entry beyond the door had been continuous. Now it
suddenly grew louder. Plainly the babblers were approaching along that
entry and babbling as they came.

A moment more and they were in the room, seven of them. In the lead was
the dignified Miss Elvira herself, an impressive figure of gentility in
black silk and a hair breast pin. Close behind her, of course, was the
rotund Mrs. Aurora Chase, and equally close--yes even a little in
advance of Aurora, was a solidly built female with gray hair, a square
chin, and a very distinct mustache. The others were in the rear, but as
they came in one of these, a little woman in a plain gingham dress, who
wore steel spectacles upon a sharp little nose, left the group and took
a stand a little apart, regarding the company with lifted chin and a
general air of determination and uncompromising defiance. Later on
Captain Sears was destined to learn that the little woman was Mrs.
Esther Tidditt, and the lady with the mustache Mrs. Susanna Brackett.
And that the others were respectively Mrs. Hattie Thomas, Miss Desire
Peasley, and Mrs. Constance Cahoon. Each of the seven was, of course,
either a captain's widow or his sister.

Just at the moment the captain, naturally, recognized nobody except Miss
Snowden and Mrs. Chase. Nor did he notice individual peculiarities
except that something, excitement or a sudden jostle or something, had
pushed Aurora's rippling black locks to one side, with the result that
the part which divided the ripples, instead of descending plumb-line
fashion from the crown of the head to a point directly in the center of
the forehead, now had a diagonal twist and ended over the left eye. The
effect was rather astonishing, as if the upper section of the lady's
head had slipped its moorings.

He had scarcely time to notice even this, certainly none in which to
speculate concerning its cause. Miss Snowden, who held a paper in her
hand, stepped forward and began to speak, gesticulating with the paper
as she did so. She paid absolutely no attention to the masculine
visitor. She was trembling with excitement and it is doubtful if she
even saw him.

"Mrs. Berry," she began, "we are here--we have come here, these ladies
and I--we have come here--we---- Oh, what _is_ it?"

This last was addressed to Mrs. Chase, who was tugging at her skirt.

"Talk louder," cautioned Aurora, in a stage whisper. "I can't hear you."

With an impatient movement Miss Snowden freed her garment and began
again.

"Mrs. Berry," she repeated, "we are here, these ladies and I, to--to ask
a question and to express our opinion on a very important matter. We are
all agreed----"

Here she was again interrupted, this time by Mrs. Esther Tidditt, the
little woman in the gingham dress. Mrs. Tidditt's tone was brisk and
sharp.

"No, we ain't agreed neither," she announced, with a snap of her head
which threatened shipwreck to the steel spectacles. "_I_ think it's
everlastin' foolishness. Don't you say _I'm_ agreed to it, Elvira
Snowden."

Elvira drew her thin form erect and glared. "We are practically agreed,"
she proclaimed crushingly. "You are the only one who doesn't agree."

"Humph! And I'm the only one that is practical. Of all the silly----"

"Esther Tidditt, was you appointed to do the talking for this committee
or was I?"

"You was, but that don't stop me from talkin' when I want to. I ain't on
the committee, thank the good lord. I'm my own committee."

This declaration of independence was received with an outburst of
indignant exclamations, in the midst of which Mrs. Chase could be heard
demanding to be told what was the matter and who said what. Elizabeth
Berry stilled the hubbub.

"Hush, hush!" she pleaded. "Don't, Esther, please. You can say your word
later. I want mother--and Cap'n Kendrick--to hear this, all of it."

The captain was still standing. He had risen when the "committee"
entered the room. Its members, most of them, had been so intent upon the
business which had brought them there that they had ignored his
presence. Now, of course, they turned to look at him. There was
curiosity in their look but by no means enthusiastic approval. Miss
Snowden's nod was decidedly snippy. She looked, sniffed and turned again
to Mrs. Berry.

"We want your mother to hear it," she declared. "We've come here so she
shall hear it--all of it. If--if _others_--who may not be 'specially
interested want to hear they can, I suppose. I don't know why not....
_We_ haven't anything to hide. _We_ ain't ashamed--are not, I should
say. Are we?" turning to those behind and beside her.

Mrs. Brackett announced that she certainly should say not, so did
several others. There was a general murmur of agreement. Every one
continued to look at the captain. He was embarrassed.

"I think perhaps I had better be goin'," he said, addressing Miss Berry.
"I ought to be gettin' home, anyway."

But the young lady would not have it.

"Cap'n Kendrick," she said, earnestly, "I hope you won't go. Judge
Knowles told me you were going to call. I was very glad when I found you
had called now--at this time. And I should like to have you stay. You
can stay, can't you?"

Sears hesitated. "Why--why, yes, I presume likely I can," he admitted.

"And will you--please?"

He looked at her and she at him. Then he nodded.

"I'll stay," he said, and sat down in his chair.

"Thank you," said Elizabeth. "Now, Elvira.... Wait, mother, please."

Miss Snowden sniffed once more. "Now that that important matter is
settled I _suppose_ I may be allowed to go on," she observed, with
sarcasm. "Very good, I will do so in spite of the presence of--of those
not--ahem--intimately concerned. Mrs. Berry, on behalf of this committee
here, a committee of the whole----"

"No such thing," this from Mrs. Tidditt. "I'm part of the whole but I
ain't part of that committee. Stick to the truth, Elviry--pays better."

"Hush, Esther," begged Miss Berry. "Let her go on, please. Go on,
Elvira."

The head of the committee breathed fiercely through her thin nostrils.
Then she made another attempt.

"I address you, Mrs. Cordelia Berry," declaimed Elvira, "because you are
supposed--I say _supposed_--to be officially the managing director--or
directress, to speak correct--of this institution. Not," she added,
hastily, "that it is an institution in any sense of the word--like a
home or any such thing. We all know that, I hope and trust. Although,"
with a venomous glance in the direction of Mrs. Esther, "there appear
to be _some_ that know precious little. I mention no names."

"You don't need to," retorted the Tidditt lady promptly. "Never mind, I
know enough not to vote to buy a lot of second-handed images and
critters just because they belong to one of your relations. I know that
much, Elviry Snowden."

This was a body blow and Elvira visibly winced. For just an instant
Captain Sears thought she was contemplating physical assault upon her
enemy. But she recovered and, white and scornful, proceeded.

"I shan't deign to answer such low--er--insinuations," she declared, her
voice shaking. "I scorn them and her that makes them. I scorn
them--both. _BOTH!_"

This last "Both" was fired like a shot from a "Big Bertha." It should
have annihilated the irreverent little female in the gingham gown. It
did not, however; she merely laughed. The effect of the blast was still
further impaired by Mrs. Chase, who although listening with all her
ears, such as they were, had evidently heard neither well nor wisely.

"That's right, Elviry," proclaimed Aurora, "that's just what I say. Why,
the lion alone is worth the money."

Mrs. Brackett touched the Snowden arm. "Never mind, Elvira," she said.
"Don't pay any attention. Go right ahead and read the resolutions."

Elvira drew a long breath, two long breaths. "Thank you, Susanna," she
said, "I shall. I'm going to. Mrs. Berry," she added, turning to that
lady, who was quite as much agitated as any one present and was
clutching her chair arm with one hand and her daughter's arm with the
other. "Mrs. Berry," repeated Miss Snowden, "this resolution drawn up
and signed by the committee of the whole here present--signed with but
one exception, I should say, one _trifling_ exception--" this with a
glare at Mrs. Tidditt--"is, as I said, addressed to you because you are
supposed--" a glare at Elizabeth this time--"to be in charge of the Fair
Harbor and what goes on and is done within its--er--porticos. Ahem! I
will now read as follows."

And she proceeded to read, using both elocution and gestures. The
resolutions made a rather formidable document. They were addressed to
"Mrs. Cordelia Imogene Berry, widow of the late Captain Isaac Stephens
Berry, in charge of the Fair Harbor for Mariners' Women at Bayport,
Massachusetts, United States of America. Madam: Whereas----"

There were many "Whereases." Captain Kendrick, listening intently, found
the path of his understanding clogged by them and tangled by Miss
Elvira's flowers of rhetoric. He gathered, nevertheless, that the
"little group of ladies resident at the Fair Harbor, having been reared
amid surroundings of culture, art and refinement" were, naturally,
desirous of improving their present surroundings. Also that a "truly
remarkable opportunity" had come in their way by which the said
surroundings might be improved and beautified by the expenditure of a
nominal sum, seventy-five dollars, no more. With this seventy-five
dollars might be bought "the entire collection of lawn statuary and the
fountain which adorned the grounds of the estate of the late lamented
deceased Captain Seth Snowden at Harniss and now the property of his
widow, namely to wit, Mrs. Hannah Snowden."

"And I'll say this," put in Elvira, before reading further, "although
hints and insinuations have been cast at me in the hearing of those
present to-day about my being a relation--relative, that is--of Captain
Seth, and he was my uncle on my father's side, nevertheless it's just
because I am a relation--relative--that we are able to buy all those
elegant things for as cheap a price as seventy-five dollars when they
cost at least five hundred and.... But there! I will proceed.

"'The said statuary, etcetera, consisting of the following, that is to
say:

"'No. 1. Item ... 1 Lawn Fountain. Hand painted iron. Representing two
children beneath umbrella.'"

"And it's the cutest thing," put in the hitherto silent Desire Peasley,
with enthusiastic suddenness. "There's them two young ones standin'
natural as life under that umbrella--just same as anybody _would_ stand
under an umbrella if 'twas rainin' like fury--and the water squirts
right down over top of 'em and drips off the ribs--off the ribs of the
umbrella, I mean--and there they stand and--and---- _Well_, when I see
_that_ I says, 'My glory!' I says, 'what'll they contrive next?' That's
what I said. All hands heard me.... What's that you're mutterin', Esther
Tidditt?"

"I wasn't mutterin', 'special. I just said I bet they heard you if they
was anywheres 'round."

"Is that so? Do tell! Well, I'll have you to understand----"

Elvira and Miss Berry together intervened to calm this new disturbance.
Then the former went on with the reading of the "resolutions."

"'No. 2. Item ... 1 Hand painted lion. Iron....' Hush, Aurora!... Yes,
'lion,' that's right.... I did say 'iron.' It's an iron lion, isn't
it?... Oh, _do_ be quiet! We'll never get through if everybody keeps
interrupting. 'No. 2 ... Item ... 1 Hand painted lion iron'--iron lion,
I mean.... Oh, my soul and body! If everybody keeps talking I shan't
know what I mean.... 'A very wonderful piece of statuary. In perfect
condition. Paint needs touching up, that's all.

"'No. 3--Item.... 1 Deer. Hand painted iron. Perfectly lovely--'"

"Stuff!" This from the irrepressible Mrs. Tidditt, of course. "One horn
is broke off and it looks like the Old Harry. No, I'll take that back;
the Old Harry is supposed to have two horns. But that deer image is a
sight, just the same. Why, it ain't got any paint left on it."

"Nonsense! It may need a little paint, here and there, but----"

"Humph! A little here and a lot there and a whole lot more in between.
Elvira Snowden, that image looks as if 'twas struck with leprosy, like
Lazarus in the Bible; you know it well as I do."

Sears Kendrick enjoyed the reading of these resolutions. If it were not
for certain elements in the situation he would have considered the
morning's performance the most amusing entertainment he had witnessed
afloat or ashore. He managed not to laugh aloud, although he was obliged
to turn his head away several times and to cough at intervals. Once or
twice he and Elizabeth Berry exchanged glances and the whimsical look of
resignation and humorous appreciation in her eyes showed that she, too,
was keenly aware of the joke.

But at other times she was serious enough and it was her expression at
these times which prevented the captain's accepting the whole ridiculous
affair as a hilarious farce. Then she looked deeply troubled and
careworn and anxious. He began to realize that this affair, funny as it
was, was but one of a series, a series of annoyances and trials and
petty squabbles which, taken in the aggregate, were anything but funny
to her. For it was obvious, the truth of what Judah Cahoon had said and
Judge Knowles intimated, that this girl, Elizabeth Berry, was bearing
upon her young shoulders the entire burden of responsibility for the
conduct and management of affairs in the Fair Harbor for Mariners' Women
at Bayport. Her mother was supposed to bear this burden, but it was
perfectly obvious that Cordelia Berry was incapable of bearing any
responsibilities, including her own personal ones.

Miss Snowden solemnly read the concluding paragraph of the resolutions.
It summed up those preceding it and announced that those whose names
were appended, "being guests at the Fair Harbor, the former home of our
beloved benefactress and friend Mrs. Lobelia Phillips, _nee_ Seymour,
are unanimously agreed that as a simple matter of duty to the
institution and those within its gates, not to mention the beautifying
of Bayport, the collection of lawn statuary and fountain now adorning
the estate of the late deceased Captain Seth Snowden be bought,
purchased and obtained from that estate at the very low price of
seventy-five dollars, this money to be paid from the funds in the Fair
Harbor treasury, and the said statuary and fountain to be erected and
set up on the lawns and grounds of the Fair Harbor. Signed----"

Miss Elvira read the names of the signers. They included, as she took
pains to state, the names of every guest in the Fair Harbor with
one--ahem--exception.

"And I'm it, praise the lord," announced Mrs. Tidditt, promptly. "I
ain't quite crazy yet, nor I ain't a niece-in-law of Seth Snowden's
widow neither."

"Esther Tidditt, I've stood your hints and slanders long enough."

"Nobody's payin' _me_ no commissions for gettin' rid of their old junk
for 'em."

"Esther, be still! You shouldn't say such things. Elvira, stop--stop!"
Miss Berry stepped forward. Mrs. Tidditt was bristling like a combative
bantam and Elvira was shaking from head to feet and crooking and
uncrooking her fingers. "There mustn't be any more of this," declared
Elizabeth. "Esther, you must apologize. Stop, both of you, please.
Remember, Cap'n Kendrick is here."

This had the effect of causing every one to look at the captain once
more. He felt unpleasantly conspicuous, but Elizabeth's next speech
transferred the general gaze from him to her.

"There isn't any use in saying much more about this matter, it seems to
me," she said. "It comes down to this: You and the others, Elvira, think
we should buy the--the statues and the fountain because they would, you
think, make our lawns and grounds more beautiful."

"We don't think at all--we know," declared Elvira. Mrs. Brackett said,
"Yes indeed, we do," and there was a general murmur of assent. Also a
loud sniff from the Tidditt direction.

"And your mother thinks so, too," spoke up Miss Peasley, from the group.
"She told me herself she thought they were lovely. Didn't you, Cordelia?
You know you did."

Before Mrs. Berry could answer--her embarrassment and distress seemed
to be bringing her again to the verge of tears--her daughter went on.

"It doesn't make a bit of difference what mother and I think about
their--beauty--and all that," she said. "The whole thing comes down to
the matter of whether or not we can afford to buy them. And we simply
cannot. We haven't the money to spare. Spending seventy-five dollars for
anything except the running expenses of the Harbor is now absolutely
impossible. I told you that, Elvira, when you first suggested it."

Miss Snowden, still trembling, regarded her resentfully. "Yes, _you_
told me," she retorted. "I know you did. You are always telling us we
can't do this or that. But why should _you_ tell us? That is what we
can't understand. _You_ ain't--aren't--manager here, so far as we know.
We never heard of your appointment. _We_ always understood your mother
was the manager, duly appointed. Isn't she?"

"Of course she is, but----"

"Yes, and when we have spoken to _her_--two or three of us at different
times--she has said she thought buying these things was a lovely idea. I
shouldn't be surprised if she thought so now.... Cordelia, don't you
think the Fair Harbor ought to buy those statues and that fountain?"

This pointed appeal, of course, placed Mrs. Berry directly in the
limelight and she wilted beneath its glare. She reddened and then paled.
Her fingers fidgetted with the pin at her throat. She picked up her
handkerchief and dropped it. She looked at Elvira and the committee and
then at her daughter.

"Why--why, I don't know," she faltered. "I think--of course I think
the--the statuary is very beautiful. I--I said so. I--I am always fond
of pretty things. You know I am, Elizabeth, you----"

"Wait a minute, Cordelia. Didn't you tell me you thought the Fair Harbor
ought to buy them? Didn't you tell Suzanna and me just that?"

Mrs. Berry squirmed. She did not answer but, so far as Sears Kendrick
was concerned, no answer was necessary. He was as certain as if she had
sworn it that she had told them just that thing. And, looking at
Elizabeth's face, he could see that she, too, was certain of it.

"Didn't you, Cordelia?" persisted Miss Snowden.

"Why--why, I don't know. Perhaps I did, but--but what difference does it
make? You heard what Elizabeth said. She says we can't afford it. She
always attends to such matters, you know she does."

"Yes," with sarcastic emphasis, "we do, but we don't know _why_ she
should. And in this case we aren't going to stand it. You are supposed
to be managing this place, Cordelia Berry, and if you are willing to
turn your duties over to a--a mere child we aren't willing to let you.
Once more I ask you----"

Elizabeth interrupted. "There, there, Elvira," she said, "what _is_ the
use? It isn't a question of mother's opinion or what she has said
before. It is just a matter of money. We can't afford it."

Miss Snowden ignored her. "We shall not," she repeated, "permit our
future and--and all like that to be ruined by the whims of a mere child.
_That_ is final."

She pronounced the last sentence with solemn emphasis. The pause which
followed should have been impressive but Mrs. Tidditt spoiled the
effect.

"Mere child!" she repeated, significantly. "Well, I presume likely she
_is_ a mere child compared to some folks. Only she just looks childish
and they act that way."

There was another outburst of indignant exclamations from the committee.
The head of that body turned to her followers.

"It is quite evident," she declared, furiously, "that this conference is
going to end just as the others have. But this time we are not going to
sit back and be trampled on. There are those higher up to be appealed to
and we shall appeal to them. Come!"

She stalked majestically to the door and marched out and down the hall,
the committee following her. Only Mrs. Tidditt remained, and she but for
a moment.

"They're goin' to the back room to have another meetin'," she whispered.
"If there's anything up that amounts to anything, 'Lizabeth, I'll come
back and let you know."

Elizabeth did not answer, but Kendrick offered a suggestion. "You don't
belong to this committee," he observed. "Perhaps they won't let you into
the meetin'."

The eyes behind the steel spectacles snapped sparks. "I'd like to see
'em try to keep me out," declared Mrs. Esther, and hurried after the
others. Elizabeth turned to her mother.

"Mother," she said, earnestly, "we must be very firm in this matter. We
simply can't afford to spend any money just now except for necessities.
If they come to you again you must tell them so. You will, won't you?"

And now Mrs. Berry's agitation reached its climax. She turned upon her
daughter.

"Oh, I suppose so," she cried hysterically, "I suppose so! I shall have
to go through another scene and be spoken to as if--as if I were dirt
under these women's feet instead of being as far above them in--in
position and education and refinement as the clouds. Why can't I have
peace--just a little peace and quiet? Why must I _always_ have to
undergo humiliation after humiliation? I----"

"Mother, mother, please don't----"

But her mother was beyond reason.

"And you--" she went on, "you, my own daughter, why must you always take
the other side, and put me in such positions, and--and humiliate me
before--before---- Oh, why can't I die? I _wish_ I were dead! I do! I
do!"

She burst into a storm of hysterical sobs and hurried toward the door.
Elizabeth would have gone to her but she pushed her aside and rushed
into the front hall and up the stairs. They heard her sobs upon the
upper landing.

Sears Kendrick, feeling more like an interloper than ever, looked in
embarrassment at the flowered carpet. He did not dare look at the young
woman beside him. He had never in his life felt more sorry for any one.
Judge Knowles had said he hoped that he--Kendrick--might obtain a
general idea of the condition of affairs in the Fair Harbor. The scenes
he had just witnessed had given him a better idea of that condition than
anything else could have done. And, somehow or other, it was the last of
those scenes which had affected him most. Elizabeth Berry had faced the
sarcasms and sneers of the committee, had never lost her poise or her
temper, had never attempted to shift the responsibility, had never
reproached her mother for the hesitating weakness which was at the base
of all the trouble. And, in return, her mother had accused her of--all
sorts of things.

And yet when Elizabeth spoke it was in defence of that mother.

"I hope, Cap'n Kendrick," she said, "that you won't misunderstand my
mother or take what she just said too seriously. She is not very well,
and very nervous, and, as you see, her position here is a trying one
sometimes."

The captain could not keep back the speech which was at his tongue's
end.

"_Your_ position is rather tryin', too, isn't it?" he observed. "It sort
of would seem that way--to me."

She smiled sadly. "Why, ye

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