← catalogue

The Portygee

by Joseph Crosby Lincoln · English · Gutenberg #3263 · 688,498 chars · public domain (US)

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Portygee
    
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: The Portygee

Author: Joseph Crosby Lincoln


        
Release date: May 30, 2006 [eBook #3263]
                Most recently updated: March 5, 2018

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3263

Credits: Produced by Donald Lainson; David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PORTYGEE ***




Produced by Donald Lainson





THE PORTYGEE


By Joseph Crosby Lincoln




CHAPTER I


Overhead the clouds cloaked the sky; a ragged cloak it was, and, here
and there, a star shone through a hole, to be obscured almost instantly
as more cloud tatters were hurled across the rent. The pines threshed on
the hill tops. The bare branches of the wild-cherry and silverleaf trees
scraped and rattled and tossed. And the wind, the raw, chilling December
wind, driven in, wet and salty, from the sea, tore over the dunes and
brown uplands and across the frozen salt-meadows, screamed through
the telegraph wires, and made the platform of the dismal South Harniss
railway station the lonesomest, coldest, darkest and most miserable spot
on the face of the earth.

At least that was the opinion of the seventeen-year-old boy whom the
down train--on time for once and a wonder--had just deposited upon that
platform. He would not have discounted the statement one iota. The South
Harniss station platform WAS the most miserable spot on earth and he was
the most miserable human being upon it. And this last was probably true,
for there were but three other humans upon that platform and, judging by
externals, they seemed happy enough. One was the station agent, who was
just entering the building preparatory to locking up for the night,
and the others were Jim Young, driver of the “depot wagon,” and Doctor
Holliday, the South Harniss “homeopath,” who had been up to a Boston
hospital with a patient and was returning home. Jim was whistling
“Silver Bells,” a tune much in vogue the previous summer, and Doctor
Holliday was puffing at a cigar and knocking his feet together to keep
them warm while waiting to get into the depot wagon. These were the only
people in sight and they were paying no attention whatever to the lonely
figure at the other end of the platform.

The boy looked about him. The station, with its sickly yellow gleam
of kerosene lamp behind its dingy windowpane, was apparently the only
inhabited spot in a barren wilderness. At the edge of the platform
civilization seemed to end and beyond was nothing but a black earth
and a black sky, tossing trees and howling wind, and cold--raw, damp,
penetrating cold. Compared with this even the stuffy plush seats and
smelly warmth of the car he had just left appeared temptingly homelike
and luxurious. All the way down from the city he had sneered inwardly at
a one-horse railroad which ran no Pullmans on its Cape branch in winter
time. Now he forgot his longing for mahogany veneer and individual
chairs and would gladly have boarded a freight car, provided there were
in it a lamp and a stove.

The light in the station was extinguished and the agent came out with
a jingling bunch of keys and locked the door. “Good-night, Jim,”
 he shouted, and walked off into the blackness. Jim responded with a
“good-night” of his own and climbed aboard the wagon, into the dark
interior of which the doctor had preceded him. The boy at the other end
of the platform began to be really alarmed. It looked as if all living
things were abandoning him and he was to be left marooned, to starve or
freeze, provided he was not blown away first.

He picked up the suitcase--an expensive suitcase it was, elaborately
strapped and buckled, with a telescope back and gold fittings--and
hastened toward the wagon. Mr. Young had just picked up the reins.

“Oh,--oh, I say!” faltered the boy. We have called him “the boy” all
this time, but he did not consider himself a boy, he esteemed himself
a man, if not full-grown physically, certainly so mentally. A man,
with all a man's wisdom, and more besides--the great, the all-embracing
wisdom of his age, or youth.

“Here, I say! Just a minute!” he repeated. Jim Young put his head around
the edge of the wagon curtain. “Eh?” he queried. “Eh? Who's talkin'? Oh,
was it you, young feller? Did you want me?”

The young fellow replied that he did. “This is South Harniss, isn't it?”
 he asked.

Mr. Young chuckled. “Darn sure thing,” he drawled. “I give in that it
looks consider'ble like Boston, or Providence, R. I., or some of them
capitols, but it ain't, it's South Harniss, Cape Cod.”

Doctor Holliday, on the back seat of the depot wagon, chuckled. Jim
did not; he never laughed at his own jokes. And his questioner did not
chuckle, either.

“Does a--does a Mr. Snow live here?” he asked.

The answer was prompt, if rather indefinite. “Um-hm,” said the driver.
“No less'n fourteen of him lives here. Which one do you want?”

“A Mr. Z. Snow.”

“Mr. Z. Snow, eh? Humph! I don't seem to recollect any Mr. Z. Snow
around nowadays. There used to be a Ziba Snow, but he's dead. 'Twan't
him you wanted, was it?”

“No. The one I want is--is a Captain Snow. Captain--” he paused before
uttering the name which to his critical metropolitan ear had seemed
so dreadfully countrified and humiliating; “Captain Zelotes Snow,” he
blurted, desperately.

Jim Young laughed aloud. “Good land, Doc!” he cried, turning toward his
passenger; “I swan I clean forgot that Cap'n Lote's name begun with a
Z. Cap'n Lote Snow? Why, darn sure! I . . . Eh?” He stopped short,
evidently struck by a new idea. “Sho!” he drawled, slowly. “Why,
I declare I believe you're . . . Yes, of course! I heard they was
expectin' you. Doc, you know who 'tis, don't you? Cap'n Lote's grandson;
Janie's boy.”

He took the lighted lantern from under the wagon seat and held it up so
that its glow shone upon the face of the youth standing by the wheel.

“Hum,” he mused. “Don't seem to favor Janie much, does he, Doc. Kind of
got her mouth and chin, though. Remember that sort of good-lookin' set
to her mouth she had? And SHE got it from old Cap'n Lo himself. This
boy's face must be more like his pa's, I cal'late. Don't you cal'late
so, Doc?”

Whether Doctor Holliday cal'lated so or not he did not say. It may be
that he thought this cool inspection of and discussion concerning a
stranger, even a juvenile stranger, somewhat embarrassing to its object.
Or the lantern light may have shown him an ominous pucker between the
boy's black brows and a flash of temper in the big black eyes beneath
them. At any rate, instead of replying to Mr. Young, he said, kindly:

“Yes, Captain Snow lives in the village. If you are going to his house
get right in here. I live close by, myself.”

“Darned sure!” agreed Mr. Young, with enthusiasm. “Hop right in, sonny.”

But the boy hesitated. Then, haughtily ignoring the driver, he said: “I
thought Captain Snow would be here to meet me. He wrote that he would.”

The irrepressible Jim had no idea of remaining ignored. “Did Cap'n Lote
write you that he'd be here to the depot?” he demanded. “All right, then
he'll be here, don't you fret. I presume likely that everlastin' mare
of his has eat herself sick again; eh, Doc? By godfreys domino, the way
they pet and stuff that fool horse is a sin and a shame. It ain't Lote's
fault so much as 'tis his wife's--she's responsible. Don't you fret,
Bub, the cap'n'll be here for you some time to-night. If he said he'll
come he'll come, even if he has to hire one of them limmysines. He, he,
he! All you've got to do is wait, and . . . Hey! . . . Hold on a minute!
. . . Bub!”

The boy was walking away. And to hail him as “Bub” was, although Jim
Young did not know it, the one way least likely to bring him back.

“Bub!” shouted Jim again. Receiving no reply he added what he had
intended saying. “If I run afoul of Cap'n Lote anywheres on the road,”
 he called, “I'll tell him you're here a-waitin'. So long, Bub. Git dap,
Chain Lightnin'.”

The horse, thus complimented, pricked up one ear, lifted a foot, and
jogged off. The depot wagon became merely a shadowy smudge against the
darkness of the night. For a few minutes the “chock, chock” of the hoofs
upon the frozen road and the rattle of wheels gave audible evidence of
its progress. Then these died away and upon the windswept platform of
the South Harniss station descended the black gloom of lonesomeness
so complete as to make that which had been before seem, by comparison,
almost cheerful.

The youth upon that platform turned up his coat collar, thrust his
gloved hands into his pockets, and shivered. Then, still shivering,
he took a brisk walk up and down beside the suitcase and, finally,
circumnavigated the little station. The voyage of discovery was
unprofitable; there was nothing to discover. So far as he could
see--which was by no means far--upon each side of the building was
nothing but bare fields and tossing pines, and wind and cold and
blackness. He came to anchor once more by the suitcase and drew a long,
hopeless breath.

He thought of the cheery dining room at the school he had left the day
before. Dinner would be nearly over by now. The fellows were having
dessert, or, probably, were filing out into the corridors, the younger
chaps to go to the study hall and the older ones--the lordly seniors, of
whom he had been one--on the way to their rooms. The picture of his own
cheerful, gay room in the senior corridor was before his mind; of that
room as it was before the telegram came, before the lawyer came with
the letter, before the end of everything as he knew it and the beginning
of--this. He had not always loved and longed for that school as he loved
and longed for it now. There had been times when he referred to it as
“the old jail,” and professed to hate it. But it had been the only real
home he had known since he was eight years old and now he looked back
upon it as a fallen angel might have looked back upon Paradise. He
sighed again, choked and hastily drew his gloved hand across his eyes.
At the age of seventeen it is very unmanly to cry, but, at that age
also, manhood and boyhood are closely intermingled. He choked again
and then, squaring his shoulders, reached into his coat pocket for the
silver cigarette case which, as a recent acquisition, was the pride of
his soul. He had just succeeded in lighting a cigarette when, borne upon
the wind, he heard once more the sound of hoofs and wheels and saw in
the distance a speck of light advancing toward the station.

The sounds drew nearer, so did the light. Then an old-fashioned buggy,
drawn by a plump little sorrel, pulled up by the platform and a hand
held a lantern aloft.

“Hello!” hailed a voice. “Where are you?”

The hail did not have to be repeated. Before the vehicle reached the
station the boy had tossed away the cigarette, picked up the suitcase,
and was waiting. Now he strode into the lantern light.

“Here I am,” he answered, trying hard not to appear too eager. “Were you
looking for me?”

The holder of the lantern tucked the reins between the whip-socket and
the dash and climbed out of the buggy. He was a little man, perhaps
about forty-eight or fifty, with a smooth-shaven face wrinkled at the
corners of the mouth and eyes. His voice was the most curious thing
about him; it was high and piping, more like a woman's than a man's. Yet
his words and manner were masculine enough, and he moved and spoke with
a nervous, jerky quickness.

He answered the question promptly. “Guess I be, guess I be,” he said
briskly. “Anyhow, I'm lookin' for a boy name of--name of--My soul to
heavens, I've forgot it again, I do believe! What did you say your name
was?”

“Speranza. Albert Speranza.”

“Sartin, sartin! Sper--er--um--yes, yes. Knew it just as well as I did
my own. Well, well, well! Ye-es, yes, yes. Get right aboard, Alfred. Let
me take your satchel.”

He picked up the suitcase. The boy, his foot upon the buggy step, still
hesitated. “Then you're--you're not my grandfather?” he faltered.

“Eh? Who? Your grandfather? Me? He, he, he!” He chuckled shrilly. “No,
no! No such luck. If I was Cap'n Lote Snow, I'd be some older'n I be now
and a dum sight richer. Yes, yes. No, I'm Cap'n Lote's bookkeeper over
at the lumber consarn. He's got a cold, and Olive--that's his wife--she
said he shouldn't come out to-night. He said he should, and while they
was Katy-didin' back and forth about it, Rachel--Mrs. Ellis--she's the
hired housekeeper there--she telephoned me to harness up and come meet
you up here to the depot. Er--er--little mite late, wan't I?”

“Why, yes, just a little. The other man, the one who drives the mail
cart--I think that was what it was--said perhaps the horse was sick, or
something like that.”

“No-o, no, that wan't it this time. I--er--All tucked in and warm
enough, be you? Ye-es, yes, yes. No, I'm to blame, I shouldn't wonder. I
stopped at the--at the store a minute and met one or two of the fellers,
and that kind of held me up. All right now? Ye-es, yes, yes. G'long,
gal.”

The buggy moved away from the platform. Its passenger, his chilly feet
and legs tightly wrapped in the robes, drew a breath of relief between
his chattering teeth. He was actually going somewhere at last; whatever
happened, morning would not find him propped frozen stiff against the
scarred and mangy clapboards of the South Harniss station.

“Warm enough, be you?” inquired his driver cheerfully.

“Yes, thank you.”

“That's good, that's good, that's good. Ye-es, yes, yes.
Well--er--Frederick, how do you think you're goin' to like South
Harniss?”

The answer was rather non-committal. The boy replied that he had not
seen very much of it as yet. His companion seemed to find the statement
highly amusing. He chuckled and slapped his knee.

“Ain't seen much of it, eh? No-o, no, no. I guess you ain't, guess you
ain't. He, he, he . . . Um . . . Let's see, what was I talkin' about?”

“Why, nothing in particular, I think, Mr.--Mr.--”

“Didn't I tell you my name? Sho, sho! That's funny. My name's
Keeler--Laban B. Keeler. That's my name and bookkeeper is my station.
South Harniss is my dwellin' place--and I guess likely you'll have to
see the minister about the rest of it. He, he, he!”

His passenger, to whom the old schoolbook quatrain was entirely unknown,
wondered what on earth the man was talking about. However, he smiled
politely and sniffed with a dawning suspicion. It seemed to him there
was an unusual scent in the air, a spirituous scent, a--

“Have a peppermint lozenger,” suggested Mr. Keeler, with sudden
enthusiasm. “Peppermint is good for what ails you, so they tell me.
Ye-es, yes, yes. Have one. Have two, have a lot.”

He proceeded to have a lot himself, and the buggy was straightway
reflavored, so to speak. The boy, his suspicions by no means dispelled,
leaned back in the corner behind the curtains and awaited developments.
He was warmer, that was a real physical and consequently a slight mental
comfort, but the feeling of lonesomeness was still acute. So far his
acquaintanceship with the citizens of South Harniss had not filled him
with enthusiasm. They were what he, in his former and very recent state
of existence, would have called “Rubes.” Were the grandparents whom he
had never met this sort of people? It seemed probable. What sort of
a place was this to which Fate had consigned him? The sense of utter
helplessness which had had him in its clutches since the day when he
received the news of his father's death was as dreadfully real as ever.
He had not been consulted at all. No one had asked him what he wished to
do, or where he wished to go. The letter had come from these people, the
Cape Cod grandparents of whom, up to that time, he had never even
heard, and he had been shipped to them as though he were a piece of
merchandise. And what was to become of him now, after he reached his
destination? What would they expect him to do? Or be? How would he be
treated?

In his extensive reading--he had been an omnivorous reader--there were
numerous examples of youths left, like him, to the care of distant
relatives, or step-parents, or utter strangers. Their experiences,
generally speaking, had not been cheerful ones. Most of them had run
away. He might run away; but somehow the idea of running away, with no
money, to face hardship and poverty and all the rest, did not make an
alluring appeal. He had been used to comfort and luxury ever since he
could remember, and his imagination, an unusually active one, visualized
much more keenly than the average the tribulations and struggles of a
runaway. David Copperfield, he remembered, had run away, but he did it
when a kid, not a man like himself. Nicholas Nickleby--no, Nicholas had
not run away exactly, but his father had died and he had been left to an
uncle. It would be dreadful if his grandfather should turn out to be a
man like Ralph Nickleby. Yet Nicholas had gotten on well in spite of his
wicked relative. Yes, and how gloriously he had defied the old
rascal, too! He wondered if he would ever be called upon to defy his
grandfather. He saw himself doing it--quietly, a perfect gentleman
always, but with the noble determination of one performing a
disagreeable duty. His chin lifted and his shoulders squared against the
back of the buggy.

Mr. Keeler, who had apparently forgotten his passenger altogether, broke
into song,


     “She's my darlin' hanky-panky
        And she wears a number two,
      Her father keeps a barber shop
        Way out in Kalamazoo.”


He sang the foregoing twice over and then added a chorus, plainly
improvised, made up of “Di doos” and “Di dums” ad lib. And the buggy
rolled up and over the slope of a little hill and, in the face of a
screaming sea wind, descended a long, gentle slope to where, scattered
along a two-mile water frontage, the lights of South Harniss twinkled
sparsely.


     “Did doo dum, dee dum, doo dum
       Di doo dum, doo dum dee.”


So sang Mr. Keeler. Then he broke off his solo as the little mare turned
in between a pair of high wooden posts bordering a drive, jogged along
that drive for perhaps fifty feet, and stopped beside the stone step
of a white front door. Through the arched window above that door shone
lamplight warm and yellow.

“Whoa!” commanded Mr. Keeler, most unnecessarily. Then, as if himself a
bit uncertain as to his exact whereabouts, he peered out at the door and
the house of which it was a part, afterward settling back to announce
triumphantly: “And here we be! Yes, sir, here we be!”

Then the door opened. A flood of lamplight poured upon the buggy and its
occupants. And the boy saw two people standing in the doorway, a man and
a woman.

It was the woman who spoke first. It was she who had opened the door.
The man was standing behind her looking over her shoulder--over her head
really, for he was tall and broad and she short and slender.

“Is it--?” she faltered.

Mr. Keeler answered. “Yes, ma'am,” he declared emphatically, “that's who
'tis. Here we be--er--er--what's-your-name--Edward. Jump right out.”

His passenger alighted from the buggy. The woman bent forward to look at
him, her hands clasped.

“It--it's Albert, isn't it?” she asked.

The boy nodded. “Yes,” he said.

The hands unclasped and she held them out toward him. “Oh, Albert,” she
cried, “I'm your grandmother. I--”

The man interrupted. “Wait till we get him inside, Olive,” he said.
“Come in, son.” Then, addressing the driver, he ordered: “Labe, take the
horse and team out to the barn and unharness for me, will you?”

“Ye-es, yes, yes,” replied Mr. Keeler. “Yes indeed, Cap'n. Take her
right along--right off. Yes indeedy. Git dap!”

He drove off toward the end of the yard, where a large building,
presumably a barn, loomed black against the dark sky. He sang as
he drove and the big man on the step looked after him and sniffed
suspiciously.

Meanwhile the boy had followed the little woman into the house through
a small front hall, from which a narrow flight of stairs shot aloft with
almost unbelievable steepness, and into a large room. Albert had a
swift impression of big windows full of plants, of pictures of ships and
schooners on the walls, of a table set for four.

“Take your things right off,” cried his grandmother. “Here, I'll take
'em. There! now turn 'round and let me look at you. Don't move till I
get a good look.”

He stood perfectly still while she inspected him from head to foot.

“You've got her mouth,” she said slowly. “Yes, you've got her mouth. Her
hair and eyes were brown and yours are black, but--but I THINK you look
like her. Oh, I did so want you to! May I kiss you, Albert? I'm your
grandmother, you know.”

With embarrassed shyness he leaned forward while she put her arms about
his neck and kissed him on the cheek. As he straightened again he
became aware that the big man had entered the room and was regarding him
intently beneath a pair of shaggy gray eyebrows. Mrs. Snow turned.

“Oh, Zelotes,” she cried, “he's got Janie's mouth, don't you think so?
And he DOES look like her, doesn't he?”

Her husband shook his head. “Maybe so, Mother,” he said, with a half
smile. “I ain't a great hand for locatin' who folks look like. How are
you, boy? Glad to see you. I'm your grandfather, you know.”

They shook hands, while each inspected and made a mental estimate of the
other. Albert saw a square, bearded jaw, a firm mouth, gray eyes with
many wrinkles at the corners, and a shock of thick gray hair. The eyes
had a way of looking straight at you, through you, as if reading your
thoughts, divining your motives and making a general appraisal of you
and them.

Captain Zelotes Snow, for his part, saw a tall young fellow, slim and
straight, with black curly hair, large black eyes and regular features.
A good-looking boy, a handsome boy--almost too handsome, perhaps, or
with just a touch of the effeminate in the good looks. The captain's
glance took in the well-fitting suit of clothes, the expensive tie, the
gold watch chain.

“Humph!” grunted Captain Zelotes. “Well, your grandma and I are glad
to have you with us. Let me see, Albert--that's your right name, ain't
it--Albert?”

Something in his grandfather's looks or tone aroused a curious feeling
in the youth. It was not a feeling of antagonism, exactly, but more of
defiance, of obstinacy. He felt as if this big man, regarding him so
keenly from under the heavy brows, was looking for faults, was expecting
to find something wrong, might almost be disappointed if he did not find
it. He met the gaze for a moment, the color rising to his cheeks.

“My name,” he said deliberately, “is Alberto Miguel Carlos Speranza.”

Mrs. Snow uttered a little exclamation. “Oh!” she ejaculated. And then
added: “Why--why, I thought--we--we understood 'twas 'Albert.' We didn't
know there was--we didn't know there was any more to it. What did you
say it was?”

Her grandson squared his shoulders. “Alberto Miguel Carlos Speranza,”
 he repeated. “My father”--there was pride in his voice now--“my father's
name was Miguel Carlos. Of course you knew that.”

He spoke as if all creation must have known it. Mrs. Snow looked
helplessly at her husband. Captain Zelotes rubbed his chin.

“We--ll,” he drawled dryly, “I guess likely we'll get along with
'Albert' for a spell. I cal'late 'twill come more handy to us Cape
folks. We're kind of plain and everyday 'round here. Sapper's ready,
ain't it, Mother? Al must be hungry. I'm plaguey sure _I_ am.”

“But, Zelotes, maybe he'd like to go up to his bedroom first. He's been
ridin' a long ways in the cars and maybe he'd like to wash up or change
his clothes?”

“Change his clothes! Lord sakes, Olive, what would he want to change his
clothes this time of night for? You don't want to change your clothes,
do you, boy?”

“No, sir, I guess not.”

“Sartin sure you don't. Want to wash? There's a basin and soap and towel
right out there in the kitchen.”

He pointed to the kitchen door. At that moment the door was partially
opened and a brisk feminine voice from behind it inquired: “How about
eatin'? Are you all ready in there?”

It was Captain Snow who answered.

“You bet we are, Rachel!” he declared. “All ready and then some. Trot
her out. Sit down, Mother. Sit down, Al. Now then, Rachel, all aboard.”

Rachel, it appeared, was the owner of the brisk feminine voice just
mentioned. She was brisk herself, as to age about forty, plump, rosy and
very business-like. She whisked the platter of fried mackerel and the
dishes of baked potatoes, stewed corn, hot biscuits and all the rest,
to the table is no time, and then, to Albert's astonishment, sat down at
that table herself. Mrs. Snow did the honors.

“Albert,” she said, “this is Mrs. Ellis, who helps me keep house.
Rachel, this is my grandson, Albert--er--Speranza.”

She pronounced the surname in a tone almost apologetic. Mrs. Ellis did
not attempt to pronounce it. She extended a plump hand and observed: “Is
that so? Real glad to know you, Albert. How do you think you're goin' to
like South Harniss?”

Considering that his acquaintance with the village had been so decidedly
limited, Albert was somewhat puzzled how to reply. His grandfather saved
him the trouble.

“Lord sakes, Rachel,” he declared, “he ain't seen more'n three square
foot of it yet. It's darker'n the inside of a nigger's undershirt
outdoors to-night. Well, Al--Albert, I mean, how are you on mackerel?
Pretty good stowage room below decks? About so much, eh?”

Mrs. Snow interrupted.

“Zelotes,” she said reprovingly, “ain't you forgettin' somethin'?”

“Eh? Forgettin'? Heavens to Betsy, so I am! Lord, we thank thee for
these and all other gifts, Amen. What did I do with the fork; swallow
it?”

As long as he lives Albert Speranza will not forget that first meal in
the home of his grandparents. It was so strange, so different from
any other meal he had ever eaten. The food was good and there was an
abundance of it, but the surroundings were so queer. Instead of the
well-ordered and sedate school meal, here all the eatables from fish
to pie were put upon the table at the same time and the servant--or
housekeeper, which to his mind were one and the same--sat down, not
only to eat with the family, but to take at least an equal part in the
conversation. And the conversation itself was so different. Beginning
with questions concerning his own journey from the New York town where
the school was located, it at length reached South Harniss and there
centered about the diminutive person of Laban Keeler, his loquacious and
tuneful rescuer from the platform of the railway station.

“Where are your things, Albert?” asked Mrs. Snow. “Your trunk or
travelin' bag, or whatever you had, I mean?”

“My trunks are coming by express,” began the boy. Captain Zelotes
interrupted him.

“Your trunks?” he repeated. “Got more'n one, have you?”

“Why--why, yes, there are three. Mr. Holden--he is the headmaster, you
know--”

“Eh? Headmaster? Oh, you mean the boss teacher up there at the school?
Yes, yes. Um-hm.”

“Yes, sir. Mr. Holden says the trunks should get here in a few days.”

Mrs. Ellis, the housekeeper, made the next remark. “Did I understand you
to say you had THREE trunks?” she demanded.

“Why, yes.”

“Three trunks for one boy! For mercy sakes, what have you got in 'em?”

“Why--why, my things. My clothes and--and--everything.”

“Everything, or just about, I should say. Goodness gracious me, when
I go up to Boston I have all I can do to fill up one trunk. And I'm
bigger'n you are--bigger 'round, anyway.”

There was no doubt about that. Captain Zelotes laughed shortly.

“That statement ain't what I'd call exaggerated, Rachel,” he declared.
“Every time I see you and Laban out walkin' together he has to keep on
the sunny side or be in a total eclipse. And, by the way, speakin'
of Laban--Say, son, how did you and he get along comin' down from the
depot?”

“All right. It was pretty dark.”

“I'll bet you! Laban wasn't very talkative, was he?”

“Why, yes, sir, he talked a good deal but he sang most of the time.”

This simple statement appeared to cause a most surprising sensation. The
Snows and their housekeeper looked at each other. Captain Zelotes leaned
back in his chair and whistled.

“Whew!” he observed. “Hum! Sho! Thunderation!”

“Oh, dear!” exclaimed his wife.

Mrs. Ellis, the housekeeper, drew a long breath. “I might have expected
it,” she said tartly. “It's past time. He's pretty nigh a month overdue,
as 'tis.”

Captain Snow rose to his feet. “I was kind of suspicious when he started
for the barn,” he declared. “Seemed to me he was singin' then. WHAT did
he sing, boy?” he asked, turning suddenly upon his grandson.

“Why--why, I don't know. I didn't notice particularly. You see, it was
pretty cold and--”

Mrs. Ellis interrupted. “Did he sing anything about somebody's bein' his
darlin' hanky-panky and wearin' a number two?” she demanded sharply.

“Why--why, yes, he did.”

Apparently that settled it. Mrs. Snow said, “Oh, dear!” again and the
housekeeper also rose from the table.

“You'd better go right out to the barn this minute, Cap'n Lote,” she
said, “and I guess likely I'd better go with you.”

The captain already had his cap on his head.

“No, Rachel,” he said, “I don't need you. Cal'late I can take care
of 'most anything that's liable to have happened. If he ain't put the
bridle to bed in the stall and hung the mare up on the harness pegs I
judge I can handle the job. Wonder how fur along he'd got. Didn't hear
him singin' anything about 'Hyannis on the Cape,' did you, boy?”

“No.”

“That's some comfort. Now, don't you worry, Mother. I'll be back in a
few minutes.”

Mrs. Snow clasped her hands. “Oh, I HOPE he hasn't set the barn afire,”
 she wailed.

“No danger of that, I guess. No, Rachel, you 'tend to your supper. I
don't need you.”

He tramped out into the hall and the door closed behind him. Mrs. Snow
turned apologetically to her puzzled grandson, who was entirely at a
loss to know what the trouble was about.

“You see, Albert,” she hesitatingly explained, “Laban--Mr. Keeler--the
man who drove you down from the depot--he--he's an awful nice man and
your grandfather thinks the world and all of him, but--but every once in
a while he--Oh, dear, I don't know how to say it to you, but--”

Evidently Mrs. Ellis knew how to say it, for she broke into the
conversation and said it then and there.

“Every once in a while he gets tipsy,” she snapped. “And I only wish I
had my fingers this minute in the hair of the scamp that gave him the
liquor.”

A light broke upon Albert's mind. “Oh! Oh, yes!” he exclaimed. “I
thought he acted a little queer, and once I thought I smelt--Oh, that
was why he was eating the peppermints!”

Mrs. Snow nodded. There was a moment of silence. Suddenly the
housekeeper, who had resumed her seat in compliance with Captain
Zelotes' order, slammed back her chair and stood up.

“I've hated the smell of peppermint for twenty-two year,” she declared,
and went out into the kitchen. Albert, looking after her, felt his
grandmother's touch upon his sleeve.

“I wouldn't say any more about it before her,” she whispered. “She's
awful sensitive.”

Why in the world the housekeeper should be particularly sensitive
because the man who had driven him from the station ate peppermint was
quite beyond the boy's comprehension. Nor could he thoroughly understand
why the suspicion of Mr. Keeler's slight inebriety should cause such a
sensation in the Snow household. He was inclined to think the tipsiness
rather funny. Of course alcohol was lectured against often enough
at school and on one occasion a member of the senior class--a
twenty-year-old “hold-over” who should have graduated the fall
before--had been expelled for having beer in his room; but during his
long summer vacations, spent precariously at hotels or in short visits
to his father's friends, young Speranza had learned to be tolerant.
Tolerance was a necessary virtue in the circle surrounding Speranza
Senior, in his later years. The popping of corks at all hours of the
night and bottles full, half full or empty, were sounds and sights to
which Albert had been well accustomed. When one has more than once seen
his own father overcome by conviviality and the affair treated as a huge
joke, one is not inclined to be too censorious when others slip. What
if the queer old Keeler guy was tight? Was that anything to raise such a
row about?

Plainly, he decided, this was a strange place, this household of his
grandparents. His premonition that they might be “Rubes” seemed
likely to have been well founded. What would his father--his great,
world-famous father--have thought of them? “Bah! these Yankee
bourgeoisie!” He could almost hear him say it. Miguel Carlos Speranza
detested--in private--the Yankee bourgeoisie. He took their money and
he married one of their daughters, but he detested them. During his last
years, when the money had not flowed his way as copiously, the detest
grew.

“You won't say anything about Laban before Mrs. Ellis, will you,
Albert?” persisted Mrs. Snow. “She's dreadful sensitive. I'll explain by
and by.”

He promised, repressing a condescending smile.

Both the housekeeper and Captain Snow returned in a few minutes. The
latter reported that the mare was safe and sound in her stall.

“The harness was mostly on the floor, but Jess was all right, thank the
Lord,” observed the captain.

“Jess is our horse's name, Albert,” explained Mrs. Snow. “That is, her
name's Jessamine, but Zelotes can't ever seem to say the whole of any
name. When we first bought Jessamine I named her Magnolia, but he
called her 'Mag' all the time and I COULDN'T stand that. Have some more
preserves, Albert, do.”

All through the meal Albert was uneasily conscious that his grandfather
was looking at him from under the shaggy brows, measuring him,
estimating him, reading him through and through. He resented the
scrutiny and the twinkle of sardonic humor which, it seemed to him,
accompanied it. His way of handling his knife and fork, his clothes, his
tie, his manner of eating and drinking and speaking, all these Captain
Zelotes seemed to note and appraise. But whatever the results of his
scrutiny and appraisal might be he kept them entirely to himself. When
he addressed his grandson directly, which was not often, his remarks
were trivial commonplaces and, although pleasant enough, were terse and
to the point.

Several times Mrs. Snow would have questioned Albert concerning the life
at school, but each time her husband interfered.

“Not now, not now, Mother,” he said. “The boy ain't goin' to run away
to-night. He'll be here to-morrow and a good many to-morrows,
if”--and here again Albert seemed to detect the slight sarcasm and
the twinkle--“if we old-fashioned 'down easters' ain't too common and
every-day for a high-toned young chap like him to put up with. No, no,
don't make him talk to-night. Can't you see he's so sleepy that it's
only the exercise of openin' his mouth to eat that keeps his eyes from
shuttin'? How about that, son?”

It was perfectly true. The long train ride, the excitement, the cold
wait on the station platform and the subsequent warmth of the room, the
hearty meal, all these combined to make for sleepiness so overpowering
that several times the boy had caught his nose descending toward his
plate in a most inelegant nod. But it hurt his pride to think his
grandfather had noticed his condition.

“Oh, I'm all right,” he said, with dignity.

Somehow the dignity seemed to have little effect upon Captain Zelotes.

“Um--yes, I know,” observed the latter dryly, “but I guess likely you'll
be more all right in bed. Mother, you'll show Albert where to turn in,
won't you? There's your suitcase out there in the hall, son. I fetched
it in from the barn just now.”

Mrs. Snow ventured a protest.

“Oh, Zelotes,” she cried, “ain't we goin' to talk with him at ALL? Why,
there is so much to say!”

“'Twill say just as well to-morrow mornin', Mother; better, because
we'll have all day to say it in. Get the lamp.”

Albert looked at his watch.

“Why, it's only half-past nine,” he said.

Captain Zelotes, who also had been looking at the watch, which was a
very fine and very expensive one, smiled slightly. “Half-past nine some
nights,” he said, “is equal to half-past twelve others. This is one of
the some. There, there, son, you're so sleepy this minute that you've
got a list to starboard. When you and I have that talk that's comin'
to us we want to be shipshape and on an even keel. Rachel, light that
lamp.”

The housekeeper brought in and lighted a small hand lamp. Mrs. Snow
took it and led the way to the hall and the narrow, breakneck flight of
stairs. Captain Zelotes laid a hand on his grandson's shoulder.

“Good-night, son,” he said quietly.

Albert looked into the gray eyes. Their expression was not unkindly,
but there was, or he imagined there was, the same quizzical, sardonic
twinkle. He resented that twinkle more than ever; it made him feel very
young indeed, and correspondingly obstinate. Something of that obstinacy
showed in his own eyes as he returned his grandfather's look.

“Good-night--sir,” he said, and for the life of him he could not resist
hesitating before adding the “sir.” As he climbed the steep stairs
he fancied he heard a short sniff or chuckle--he was not certain
which--from the big man in the dining-room.

His bedroom was a good-sized room; that is, it would have been of good
size if the person who designed it had known what the term “square”
 meant. Apparently he did not, and had built the apartment on the
hit-or-miss, higglety-pigglety pattern, with unexpected alcoves cut into
the walls and closets and chimneys built out from them. There were
three windows, a big bed, an old-fashioned bureau, a chest of drawers, a
washstand, and several old-fashioned chairs. Mrs. Snow put the lamp upon
the bureau. She watched him anxiously as he looked about the room.

“Do--do you like it?” she asked.

Albert replied that he guessed he did. Perhaps there was not too much
certainty in his tone. He had never before seen a room like it.

“Oh, I hope you will like it! It was your mother's room, Albert. She
slept here from the time she was seven until--until she went away.”

The boy looked about him with a new interest, an odd thrill. His
mother's room. His mother. He could just remember her, but that was all.
The memories were childish and unsatisfactory, but they were memories.
And she had slept there; this had been her room when she was a girl,
before she married, before--long before such a person as Alberto Miguel
Carlos Speranza had been even dreamed of. That was strange, it was queer
to think about. Long before he was born, when she was years younger than
he as he stood there now, she had stood there, had looked from those
windows, had--

His grandmother threw her arms about his neck and kissed him. Her cheek
was wet.

“Good-night, Albert,” she said chokingly, and hurried out of the room.

He undressed quickly, for the room was very cold. He opened the window,
after a desperate struggle, and climbed into bed. The wind, whistling
in, obligingly blew out the lamp for him. It shrieked and howled about
the eaves and the old house squeaked and groaned. Albert pulled the
comforter up about his neck and concentrated upon the business of going
to sleep. He, who could scarcely remember when he had had a real home,
was desperately homesick.

Downstairs in the dining-room Captain Zelotes stood, his hands in his
pockets, looking through the mica panes of the stove door at the fire
within. His wife came up behind him and laid a hand on his sleeve.

“What are you thinkin' about, Father?” she asked.

Her husband shook his head. “I was wonderin',” he said, “what my
granddad, the original Cap'n Lote Snow that built this house, would have
said if he'd known that he'd have a great-great-grandson come to live in
it who was,” scornfully, “a half-breed.”

Olive's grip tightened on his arm.

“Oh, DON'T talk so, Zelotes,” she begged. “He's our Janie's boy.”

The captain opened the stove door, regarded the red-hot coals for an
instant, and then slammed the door shut again.

“I know, Mother,” he said grimly. “It's for the sake of Janie's half
that I'm takin' in the other.”

“But--but, Zelotes, don't you think he seems like a nice boy?”

The twinkle reappeared in Captain Lote's eyes.

“I think HE thinks he's a nice boy, Mother,” he said. “There, there,
let's go to bed.”



CHAPTER II


The story of the events which led up to the coming, on this December
night, of a “half-breed” grandson to the Snow homestead, was an old
story in South Harniss. The date of its beginning was as far back as the
year 1892.

In the fall of that year Captain Zelotes Snow was in Savannah. He was in
command of the coasting schooner Olive S. and the said schooner was then
discharging a general cargo, preparatory to loading with rice and cotton
for Philadelphia. With the captain in Savannah was his only daughter,
Jane Olivia, age a scant eighteen, pretty, charming, romantic and
head over heels in love with a handsome baritone then singing in a
popular-priced grand opera company. It was because of this handsome
baritone, who, by the way, was a Spaniard named Miguel Carlos Speranza,
that Jane Snow was then aboard her father's vessel. Captain Lote was not
in the habit of taking his women-folks on his voyages with him. “Skirts
clutter up the deck too much,” was his opinion.

He had taken Jane, however, not only on this voyage, but on that
preceding it, which had been to Rio. It was Captain Lote's belief,
and his wife's hope, that a succession of sea winds might blow away
recollections of Senor Speranza--“fan the garlic out of her head,” as
the captain inelegantly expressed it. Jane had spent her sixteenth and
seventeenth years at a school for girls near Boston. The opera company
of which Speranza was a member was performing at one of the
minor theaters. A party of the school girls, duly chaperoned and
faculty-guarded, of course, attended a series of matinees. At these
matinees Jane first saw her hero, brave in doublet and hose, and braver
still in melody and romance. She and her mates looked and listened
and worshiped from afar, as is the habit of maidenly youth under such
circumstances. There is no particular danger in such worship provided
the worshiper remains always at a safely remote distance from the idol.
But in Jane's case this safety-bar was removed by Fate. The wife of a
friend of her father's, the friend being a Boston merchant named Cole
with whom Captain Zelotes had had business dealings for many years, was
a music lover. She was in the habit of giving what she was pleased to
call “musical teas” at her home. Jane, to whom Mr. and Mrs. Cole had
taken a marked fancy, was often invited to those teas and, because the
Coles were “among our nicest people,” she was permitted by the school
authorities to attend.

At one of those teas Senor Miguel Carlos Speranza was the brightest
star. The Senor, then in his twenty-ninth year, handsome, talented and
picturesque, shone refulgent. Other and far more experienced feminine
hearts than Jane Snow's were flutteringly disturbed by the glory of
his rays. Jane and he met, they shook hands, they conversed. And at
subsequent teas they met again, for Speranza, on his part, was strongly
attracted to the simple, unaffected Cape Cod schoolgirl. It was not
her beauty alone--though beauty she had and of an unusual type--it
was something else, a personality which attracted all who met her.
The handsome Spaniard had had many love affairs of a more or less
perfunctory kind, but here was something different, something he had
not known. He began by exerting his powers of fascination in a lazy,
careless way. To his astonishment the said powers were not overwhelming.
If Jane was fascinated she was not conquered. She remained sweet,
simple, direct, charmingly aloof.

And Speranza was at first puzzled, then piqued, then himself madly
fascinated. He wrote fervid letters, he begged for interviews, he
haunted each one of Mrs. Cole's “teas.” And, at last, he wrung from Jane
a confession of her love, her promise to marry him. And that very week
Miss Donaldson, the head of the school, discovered and read a package of
the Senor's letters to her pupil.

Captain Zelotes happened to be at home from a voyage. Being summoned
from South Harniss, he came to Boston and heard the tale from Miss
Donaldson's agitated lips. Jane was his joy, his pride; her future was
the great hope and dream of his life. WHEN she married--which was not
to be thought of for an indefinite number of years to come--she would of
course marry a--well, not a President of the United States, perhaps--but
an admiral possibly, or a millionaire, or the owner of a fleet of
steamships, or something like that. The idea that she should even
think of marrying a play-actor was unbelievable. The captain had never
attended the performance of an opera; what was more, he never expected
to attend one. He had been given to understand that a “parcel of
play-actin' men and women hollered and screamed to music for a couple
of hours.” Olive, his wife, had attended an opera once and, according
to her, it was more like a cat fight than anything else. Nobody but
foreigners ever had anything to do with operas. And for foreigners of
all kinds--but the Latin variety of foreigner in particular--Captain
Zelotes Snow cherished a detest which was almost fanatic.

And now his daughter, his own Janie, was receiving ardent love
letters from a play-acting foreigner, a Spaniard, a “Portygee,” a
“macaroni-eater”! When finally convinced that it was true, that the
letters had really been written to Jane, which took some time, he
demanded first of all to be shown the “Portygee.” Miss Donaldson could
not, of course, produce the latter forthwith, but she directed her irate
visitor to the theater where the opera company was then performing. To
the theater Captain Zelotes went. He did not find Speranza there, but
from a frightened attendant he browbeat the information that the singer
was staying at a certain hotel. So the captain went to the hotel. It was
eleven o'clock in the morning, Senor Speranza was in bed and could not
be disturbed. Couldn't, eh? By the great and everlasting et cetera and
continued he was going to be disturbed then and there. And unless some
of the hotel's “hired help” set about the disturbing it would be done
for them. So, rather than summon the police, the hotel management
summoned its guest, and the first, and only, interview between the
father and lover of Jane Snow took place.

It was not a long interview, but it was spirited. Captain Zelotes began
by being what he considered diplomatic. Having assured his wife before
leaving home, and the alarmed Miss Donaldson subsequently, that there
was to be no trouble whatever--everything would be settled as smooth
and easy as slidin' downhill; “that feller won't make any fuss, you'll
see”--having thus prophesied, the captain felt it incumbent upon himself
to see to the fulfillment. So he began by condescendingly explaining
that of course he was kind of sorry for the young man before him, young
folks were young folks and of course he presumed likely 'twas natural
enough, and the like of that, you understand. But of course also Mr.
Speranza must realize that the thing could not go on any further. Jane
was his daughter and her people were nice people, and naturally, that
being the case, her mother and he would be pretty particular as to who
she kept company with, to say nothing of marrying, which event was
not to be thought of for ten years, anyway. Now he didn't want to
be--er--personal or anything like that, and of course he wouldn't think
of saying that Mr. Speranza wasn't a nice enough man for--well, for--for
. . . You see, everybody wasn't as particular as he and Mrs. Snow were.
But--

Here Senor Speranza interrupted. He politely desired to know if the
person speaking was endeavoring to convey the idea that he, Miguel
Carlos Speranza, was not of sufficient poseetion, goodness, standing,
what it is? to be considered as suitor for that person's daughter's
hand. Did Meester Snow comprehend to whom he addressed himself?

The interview terminated not long after. The captain's parting remark
was in the nature of an ultimatum. It was to the effect that if
Speranza, or any other condemned undesirable like him, dared to so
much as look in the direction of Jane Olivia Snow, his daughter, he
personally would see that the return for that look was a charge of
buckshot. Speranza, white-faced and furiously gesticulative, commanded
the astonished bellboy to put that “Bah! pig-idiot!” out into the hall
and air the room immediately afterward.

Having, as he considered, satisfactorily attended to the presumptuous
lover, Captain Zelotes returned to the school and to what he believed
would be the comparatively easy task, the bringing of his daughter to
reason. Jane had always been an obedient girl, she was devoted to her
parents. Of course, although she might feel rather disappointed at
first, she would soon get over it. The idea that she might flatly
refuse to get over it, that she might have a will of her own, and a
determination equal to that of the father from whom she inherited it,
did not occur to the captain at all.

But his enlightenment was prompt and complete. Jane did not rage or
become hysterical, she did not even weep in his presence. But, quietly,
with a set of her square little chin, she informed Captain Zelotes that
she loved Speranza, that she meant to marry him and that she should
marry him, some day or other. The captain raged, commanded, pleaded,
begged. What was the matter with her? What had come over her? Didn't she
love her father and mother any more that she should set out to act this
way? Yes, she declared that she loved them as much as ever, but that
she loved her lover more than all the world, and no one--not even her
parents--should separate them.

Captain Zelotes gave it up at last. That is, he gave up the appeal to
reason and the pleadings. But he did not give up the idea of having his
own way in the matter; being Zelotes Snow, he certainly did not give
that up. Instead he took his daughter home with him to South Harniss,
where a tearful and heart-broken Olive added her persuasions to his.
But, when she found Jane obdurate, Mrs. Snow might have surrendered.
Not her husband, however. Instead he conceived a brilliant idea. He was
about to start on a voyage to Rio Janeiro; he would take his wife and
daughter with him. Under their immediate observation and far removed
from the influence of “that Portygee,” Jane would be in no danger and
might forget.

Jane made no remonstrance. She went to Rio and returned. She was always
calm, outwardly pleasant and quiet, never mentioned her lover unless in
answer to a question; but she never once varied from her determination
not to give him up. The Snows remained at home for a month. Then
Zelotes, Jane accompanying him, sailed from Boston to Savannah. Olive
did not go with them; she hated the sea and by this time both she and
her husband were somewhat reassured. So far as they could learn by
watchful observation of their daughter, the latter had not communicated
with Speranza nor received communications from him. If she had not
forgotten him it seemed likely that he had forgotten her. The thought
made the captain furiously angry, but it comforted him, too.

During the voyage to Savannah this sense of comfort became stronger.
Jane seemed in better spirits. She was always obedient, but now she
began to seem almost cheerful, to speak, and even laugh occasionally
just as she used to. Captain Zelotes patted himself on the back,
figuratively. His scheme had been a good one.

And in Savannah, one afternoon, Jane managed to elude her father's
observation, to leave the schooner and to disappear completely. And
that night came a letter. She and Miguel Carlos Speranza had been
in correspondence all the time, how or through whose connivance is a
mystery never disclosed. He had come to Savannah, in accordance with
mutual arrangement; they had met, were married, and had gone away
together.

“I love you, Father,” Jane wrote in the letter. “I love you and Mother
so very, VERY much. Oh, PLEASE believe that! But I love him, too. And I
could not give him up. You will see why when you know him, really know
him. If it were not for you I should be SO happy. I know you can't
forgive me now, but some day I am sure you will forgive us both.”

Captain Zelotes was far, far from forgiveness as he read that letter.
His first mate, who was beside him when he opened and read it, was
actually frightened when he saw the look on the skipper's face. “He went
white,” said the mate; “not pale, but white, same as a dead man, or--or
the underside of a flatfish, or somethin'. 'For the Lord sakes, Cap'n,'
says I, 'what's the matter?' He never answered me, stood starin' at
the letter. Then he looked up, not at me, but as if somebody else was
standin' there on t'other side of the cabin table. 'Forgive him!' he
says, kind of slow and under his breath. 'I won't forgive his black soul
in hell.' When I heard him say it I give you my word my hair riz under
my cap. If ever there was killin' in a man's voice and in his looks
'twas in Cap'n Lote's that night. When I asked him again what was the
matter he didn't answer any more than he had the first time. A few
minutes afterwards he went into his stateroom and shut the door. I
didn't see him again until the next mornin'.”

Captain Zelotes made no attempt to follow the runaway couple. He did
take pains to ascertain that they were legally married, but that
was all. He left his schooner in charge of the mate at Savannah and
journeyed north to South Harniss and his wife. A week he remained at
home with her, then returned to the Olive S. and took up his command and
its duties as if nothing had happened. But what had happened changed his
whole life. He became more taciturn, a trifle less charitable, a little
harder and more worldly. Before the catastrophe he had been interested
in business success and the making of money chiefly because of his plans
for his daughter's future. Now he worked even harder because it helped
him to forget. He became sole owner of the Olive S., then of other
schooners. People spoke of him as one destined to become a wealthy man.

Jane lived only a few years after her marriage. She died at the birth of
her second child, who died with her. Her first, a boy, was born a year
after the elopement. She wrote her mother to tell that news and Olive
answered the letter. She begged permission of her husband to invite Jane
and the baby to visit the old home. At first Zelotes said no, flatly;
the girl had made her bed, let her lie in it. But a year later he had
so far relented as to give reluctant consent for Jane and the child to
come, provided her condemned husband did not accompany them. “If that
low-lived Portygee sets foot on my premises, so help me God, I'll
kill him!” declared the captain. In his vernacular all foreigners were
“Portygees.”

But Jane was as proud and stubborn as he. Where her husband was not
welcome she would not go. And a little later she had gone on the longest
of all journeys. Speranza did not notify her parents except to send a
clipped newspaper account of her death and burial, which arrived a week
after the latter had taken place. The news prostrated Olive, who was ill
for a month. Captain Zelotes bore it, as he had borne the other great
shock, with outward calm and quiet. Yet a year afterward he suddenly
announced his determination of giving up the sea and his prosperous and
growing shipping business and of spending the rest of his days on the
Cape.

Olive was delighted, of course. Riches--that is, more than a comfortable
competency--had no temptations for her. The old house, home of three
generations of Snows, was painted, repaired and, to some extent,
modernized. For another year Captain Zelotes “loafed,” as he called it,
although others might have considered his activities about the place
anything but that. At the end of that year he surprised every one by
buying from the heirs of the estate the business equipment of the late
Eben Raymond, hardware dealer and lumber merchant of South Harniss,
said equipment comprising an office, a store and lumber yards near
the railway station. “Got to have somethin' to keep me from gettin'
barnacled,” declared Captain Lote. “There's enough old hulks rottin' at
their moorin's down here as 'tis. I don't know anything about lumber and
half as much about hardware, but I cal'late I can learn.” As an aid in
the learning process he retained as bookkeeper Laban Keeler, who had
acted in that capacity for the former proprietor.

The years slipped away, a dozen of them, as smoothly and lazily as South
Harniss years have always slipped. Captain Zelotes was past sixty
now, but as vigorous as when forty, stubborn as ever, fond of using
quarter-deck methods on shore and especially in town-meeting, and
very often in trouble in consequence. He was a member of the Board of
Selectmen and was in the habit of characterizing those whose opinions
differed from his as “narrow-minded.” They retorted by accusing him of
being “pig-headed.” There was some truth on both sides. His detest of
foreigners had not abated in the least.

And then, in this December of the year 1910, fell as from a clear sky
the legacy of a grandson. From Senor Miguel Carlos Speranza the Snows
had had no direct word, had received nothing save the newspaper clipping
already mentioned. Olive had never seen him; her husband had seen him
only on the occasion of the memorable interview in the hotel room. They
never spoke of him, never mentioned him to each other. Occasionally,
in the Boston newspapers, his likeness in costume had appeared amid the
music notes or theatrical jottings. But these had not been as numerous
of late. Of his son, their own daughter's child, they knew nothing;
he might be alive or he might be dead. Sometimes Olive found herself
speculating concerning him, wondering if he was alive, and if he
resembled Jane. But she put the speculation from her thoughts; she
could not bear to bring back memories of the old hopes and their bitter
ending. Sometimes Captain Lote at his desk in the office of “Z. Snow
& Co., Lumber and Builders' Hardware,” caught himself dreaming of his
idolized daughter and thinking how different the future might have been
for him had she married a “white man,” the kind of man he had meant for
her to marry. There might be grandchildren growing up now, fine boys
and girls, to visit the old home at South Harniss. “Ah hum! Well! . . .
Labe, how long has this bill of Abner Parker's been hangin' on?
For thunder sakes, why don't he pay up? He must think we're runnin' a
meetin'-house Christmas tree.”

The letter from the lawyer had come first. It was written in New York,
was addressed to “Captain Lotus Snow,” and began by taking for granted
the fact that the recipient knew all about matters of which he knew
nothing. Speranza was dead, so much was plain, and the inference was
that he had been fatally injured in an automobile accident, “particulars
of which you have of course read in the papers.” Neither Captain Lote
nor his wife had read anything of the kind in the papers. The captain
had been very busy of late and had read little except political news,
and Mrs. Snow never read of murders and accidents, their details at
least. She looked up from the letter, which her husband had hastened
home from the office to bring her, with a startled face.

“Oh, Zelotes,” she cried, “he's dead!”

The captain nodded.

“Seems so,” he said. “That part's plain enough, but go on. The rest of
it is what I can't get a hand-hold on. See what you make of the rest of
it, Olive.”

The rest of it was to the effect that the writer, being Mr. Speranza's
business adviser, “that is to say, as much or more so than any one
else,” had been called in at the time of the accident, had conferred
with the injured man, and had learned his last wishes. “He expressed
himself coherently concerning his son,” went on the letter, “and it is
in regard to that son that I am asking an interview with you. I should
have written sooner, but have been engaged with matters pertaining to
Mr. Speranza's estate and personal debts. The latter seem to be large--”

“I'LL bet you!” observed Captain Zelotes, sententiously, interrupting
his wife's reading by pointing to this sentence with a big forefinger.

“'And the estate's affairs much tangled,'” went on Olive, reading aloud.
“'It seems best that I should see you concerning the boy at once. I
don't know whether or not you are aware that he is at school in ----,
New York. I am inclined to think that the estate itself will scarcely
warrant the expense of his remaining there. Could you make it convenient
to come to New York and see me at once? Or, if not, I shall be in
Boston on Friday of next week and can you meet me there? It seems almost
impossible for me to come to you just now, and, of course, you will
understand that I am acting as a sort of temporary executor merely
because Mr. Speranza was formerly my friend and not because I have any
pecuniary interest in the settlement of his affairs.

“'Very truly yours,

“'MARCUS W. WEISSMANN.'”


“Weissman! Another Portygee!” snorted Captain Lote.

“But--but what does it MEAN?” begged Mrs. Snow. “Why--why should he want
to see you, Zelotes? And the boy--why--why, that's HER boy. It's Janie's
boy he must mean, Zelotes.”

Her husband nodded.

“Hers and that blasted furriner's,” he muttered. “I suppose so.”

“Oh, DON'T speak that way, Zelotes! Don't! He's dead.”

Captain Lote's lips tightened. “If he'd died twenty years ago 'twould
have been better for all hands,” he growled.

“Janie's boy!” repeated Olive slowly. “Why--why, he must be a big boy
now. Almost grown up.”

Her husband did not speak. He was pacing the floor, his hands in his
pockets.

“And this man wants to see you about him,” said Olive. Then, after a
moment, she added timidly: “Are you goin', Zelotes?”

“Goin'? Where?”

“To New York? To see this lawyer man?”

“I? Not by a jugful! What in blazes should I go to see him for?”

“Well--well, he wants you to, you know. He wants to talk with you about
the--the boy.”

“Humph!”

“It's her boy, Zelotes.”

“Humph! Young Portygee!”

“Don't, Zelotes! Please! . . . I know you can't forgive that--that man.
We can't either of us forgive him; but--”

The captain stopped in his stride. “Forgive him!” he repeated. “Mother,
don't talk like a fool. Didn't he take away the one thing that I was
workin' for, that I was plannin' for, that I was LIVIN' for? I--”

She interrupted, putting a hand on his sleeve.

“Not the only thing, dear,” she said. “You had me, you know.”

His expression changed. He looked down at her and smiled.

“That's right, old lady,” he admitted. “I had you, and thank the
Almighty for it. Yes, I had you . . . But,” his anger returning, “when
I think how that damned scamp stole our girl from us and then neglected
her and killed her--”

“ZELOTES! How you talk! He DIDN'T kill her. How can you!”

“Oh, I don't mean he murdered her, of course. But I'll bet all I've got
that he made her miserable. Look here, Mother, you and she used to write
back and forth once in a while. In any one of those letters did she ever
say she was happy?”

Mrs. Snow's answer was somewhat equivocal. “She never said she was
unhappy,” she replied. Her husband sniffed and resumed his pacing up and
down.

After a little Olive spoke again.

“New York IS a good ways,” she said. “Maybe 'twould be better for you to
meet this lawyer man in Boston. Don't you think so?”

“Bah!”

Another interval. Then: “Zelotes?”

“Yes,” impatiently. “What is it?”

“It's her boy, after all, isn't it? Our grandson, yours and mine. Don't
you think--don't you think it's your duty to go, Zelotes?”

Captain Lote stamped his foot.

“For thunderation sakes, Olive, let up!” he commanded. “You ought to
know by this time that there's one thing I hate worse than doin' my
duty, that's bein' preached to about it. Let up! Don't you say another
word.”

She did not, having learned much by years of experience. He said the
next word on the subject himself. At noon, when he came home for dinner,
he said, as they rose from the table: “Where's my suitcase, up attic?”

“Why, yes, I guess likely 'tis. Why?”

Instead of answering he turned to the housekeeper, Mrs. Ellis.

“Rachel,” he said, “go up and get that case and fetch it down to the
bedroom, will you? Hurry up! Train leaves at half-past two and it's
'most one now.”

Both women stared at him. Mrs. Ellis spoke first.

“Why, Cap'n Lote,” she cried; “be you goin' away?”

Her employer's answer was crisp and very much to the point. “I am if
I can get that case time enough to pack it and make the train,” he
observed. “If you stand here askin' questions I probably shall stay to
home.”

The housekeeper made a hasty exit by way of the back stairs. Mrs. Snow
still gazed wonderingly at her husband.

“Zelotes,” she faltered, “are you--are you--”

“I'm goin' to New York on to-night's boat. I've telegraphed that--that
Weiss--Weiss--what-do-you-call-it--that Portygee lawyer--that I'll be to
his office to-morrow mornin'.”

“But, Zelotes, we haven't scarcely talked about it, you and I, at all.
You might have waited till he came to Boston. Why do you go so SOON?”

The captain's heavy brows drew together.

“You went to the dentist's last Friday,” he said. “Why didn't you wait
till next week?”

“Why--why, what a question! My tooth ached and I wanted to have it fixed
quick as possible.”

“Um-m, yes. Well, this tooth aches and I want it fixed or hauled out,
one or t'other. I want the thing off my mind. . . . Don't TALK to me?”
 he added, irritably. “I know I'm a fool. And,” with a peremptory wave of
the hand, “don't you DARE say anything about DUTY!”

He was back again two days later. His wife did not question him, but
waited for him to speak. Those years of experience already mentioned had
taught her diplomacy. He looked at her and pulled his beard. “Well,” he
observed, when they were alone together, “I saw him.”

“The--the boy?” eagerly.

“No, no! Course not! The boy's at school somewhere up in New York State;
how could I see him! I saw that lawyer and I found out about--about the
other scamp. He was killed in an auto accident, drunk at the time, I
cal'late. Nigh's I can gather he's been drinkin' pretty heavy for the
last six or seven years. Always lived high, same as his kind generally
does, and spent money like water, I judge--but goin' down hill fast
lately. His voice was givin' out on him and he realized it, I presume
likely. Now he's dead and left nothin' but trunks full of stage clothes
and photographs and,” contemptuously, “letters from fool women, and
debts--Lord, yes! debts enough.”

“But the boy, Zelotes. Janie's boy?”

“He's been at this school place for pretty nigh ten years, so the lawyer
feller said. That lawyer was a pretty decent chap, too, for a furriner.
Seems he used to know this--Speranza rascal--when Speranza was younger
and more decent--if he ever was really decent, which I doubt. But this
lawyer man was his friend then and about the only one he really had when
he was hurt. There was plenty of make-believe friends hangin' on, like
pilot-fish to a shark, for what they could get by spongin' on him, but
real friends were scarce.”

“And the boy--”

“For the Lord sakes, Mother, don't keep sayin' 'The boy,' 'the boy,'
over and over again like a talkin' machine! Let me finish about the
father first. This Weis--er--thingamajig--the lawyer, had quite a talk
with Speranza afore he died, or while he was dyin'; he only lived a few
hours after the accident and was out of his head part of that. But
he said enough to let Weiss--er--er--Oh, why CAN'T I remember that
Portygee's name?--to let him know that he'd like to have him settle up
what was left of his affairs, and to send word to us about--about the
boy. There! I hope you feel easier, Mother; I've got 'round to 'the boy'
at last.”

“But why did he want word sent to us, Zelotes? He never wrote a line to
us in his life.”

“You bet he didn't!” bitterly; “he knew better. Why did he want word
sent now? The answer to that's easy enough. 'Cause he wanted to get
somethin' out of us, that's the reason. From what that lawyer could
gather, and from what he's found out since, there ain't money enough
for the boy to stay another six weeks at that school, or anywhere else,
unless the young feller earns it himself. And, leavin' us out of the
count, there isn't a relation this side of the salt pond. There's
probably a million or so over there in Portygee-land,” with a derisive
sniff; “those foreigners breed like flies. But THEY don't count.”

“But did he want word sent to us about the--”

“Sshh! I'm tellin' you, Olive, I'm tellin' you. He wanted word sent
because he was in hopes that we--you and I, Mother--would take that son
of his in at our house here and give him a home. The cheek of it! After
what he'd done to you and me, blast him! The solid brass nerve of it!”

He stormed up and down the room. His wife did not seem nearly so much
disturbed as he at the thought of the Speranza presumption. She looked
anxious--yes, but she looked eager, too, and her gaze was fixed upon her
husband's face.

“Oh!” she said, softly. “Oh! . . . And--and what did you say, Zelotes?”

“What did I say? What do you suppose I said? I said no, and I said it
good and loud, too.”

Olive made no comment. She turned away her head, and the captain,
who now in his turn was watching her, saw a suspicious gleam, as of
moisture, on her cheek. He stopped his pacing and laid a hand on her
shoulder.

“There, there, Mother,” he said, gently. “Don't cry. He's comin'.”

“Comin'?” She turned pale. “Comin'?” she repeated. “Who?”

“That boy! . . . Sshh! shh!” impatiently. “Now don't go askin' me
questions or tellin' me what I just said I said. I SAID the right thing,
but--Well, hang it all, what else could I DO? I wrote the boy--Albert--a
letter and I wrote the boss of the school another one. I sent a check
along for expenses and--Well, he'll be here 'most any day now, I
shouldn't wonder. And WHAT in the devil are we goin' to do with him?”

His wife did not reply to this outburst. She was trembling with
excitement.

“Is--is his name Albert?” she faltered.

“Um-hm. Seems so.”

“Why, that's your middle name! Do you--do you s'pose Janie could have
named him for--for you?”

“I don't know.”

“Of course,” with some hesitation, “it may be she didn't. If she'd named
him Zelotes--”

“Good heavens, woman! Isn't one name like that enough in the family?
Thank the Lord we're spared two of 'em! But there! he's comin'. And when
he gets here--then what?”

Olive put her arm about her big husband.

“I hope--yes, I'm sure you did right, Zelotes, and that all's goin' to
turn out to be for the best.”

“Are you? Well, _I_ ain't sure, not by a thousand fathom.”

“He's Janie's boy.”

“Yes. And he's that play-actor's boy, too. One Speranza pretty nigh
ruined your life and mine, Olive. What'll this one do? . . . Well, God
knows, I suppose likely, but He won't tell. All we can do is wait and
see. I tell you honest I ain't very hopeful.”



CHAPTER III


A brisk rap on the door; then a man's voice.

“Hello, there! Wake up.”

Albert rolled over, opened one eye, then the other and raised himself on
his elbow.

“Eh? Wh-what?” he stammered.

“Seven o'clock! Time to turn out.”

The voice was his grandfather's. “Oh--oh, all right!” he answered.

“Understand me, do you?”

“Yes--yes, sir. I'll be right down.”

The stairs creaked as Captain Zelotes descended them. Albert yawned
cavernously, stretched and slid one foot out of bed. He drew it back
instantly, however, for the sensation was that of having thrust it into
a bucket of cold water. The room had been cold the previous evening;
plainly it was colder still now. The temptation was to turn back and go
to sleep again, but he fought against it. Somehow he had a feeling that
to disregard his grandfather's summons would be poor diplomacy.

He set his teeth and, tossing back the bed clothes, jumped to the floor.
Then he jumped again, for the floor was like ice. The window was wide
open and he closed it, but there was no warm radiator to cuddle against
while dressing. He missed his compulsory morning shower, a miss which
did not distress him greatly. He shook himself into his clothes, soused
his head and neck in a basin of ice water poured from a pitcher, and,
before brushing his hair, looked out of the window.

It was a sharp winter morning. The wind had gone down, but before
subsiding it had blown every trace of mist or haze from the air, and
from his window-sill to the horizon every detail was clean cut and
distinct. He was looking out, it seemed, from the back of the house. The
roof of the kitchen extension was below him and, to the right, the high
roof of the barn. Over the kitchen roof and to the left he saw little
rolling hills, valleys, cranberry swamps, a pond. A road wound in
and out and, scattered along it, were houses, mostly white with green
blinds, but occasionally varied by the gray of unpainted, weathered
shingles. A long, low-spreading building a half mile off looked as if
it might be a summer hotel, now closed and shuttered. Beyond it was a
cluster of gray shanties and a gleam of water, evidently a wharf and a
miniature harbor. And, beyond that, the deep, brilliant blue of the sea.
Brown and blue were the prevailing colors, but, here and there, clumps
and groves of pines gave splashes of green.

There was an exhilaration in the crisp air. He felt an unwonted
liveliness and a desire to be active which would have surprised some of
his teachers at the school he had just left. The depression of spirits
of which he had been conscious the previous night had disappeared
along with his premonitions of unpleasantness. He felt optimistic this
morning. After giving his curls a rake with the comb, he opened the door
and descended the steep stairs to the lower floor.

His grandmother was setting the breakfast table. He was a little
surprised to see her doing it. What was the use of having servants if
one did the work oneself? But perhaps the housekeeper was ill.

“Good morning,” he said.

Mrs. Snow, who had not heard him enter, turned and saw him. When he
crossed the room, she kissed him on the cheek.

“Good morning, Albert,” she said. “I hope you slept well.”

Albert replied that he had slept very well indeed. He was a trifle
disappointed that she made no comment on his promptness in answering his
grandfather's summons. He felt such promptness deserved commendation. At
school they rang two bells at ten minute intervals, thus giving a fellow
a second chance. It had been a point of senior etiquette to accept
nothing but that second chance. Here, apparently, he was expected to
jump at the first. There was a matter of course about his grandmother's
attitude which was disturbing.

She went on setting the table, talking as she did so.

“I'm real glad you did sleep,” she said. “Some folks can hardly
ever sleep the first night in a strange room. Zelotes--I mean your
grandpa--'s gone out to see to the horse and feed the hens and the pig.
He'll be in pretty soon. Then we'll have breakfast. I suppose you're
awful hungry.”

As a matter of fact he was not very hungry. Breakfast was always a
more or less perfunctory meal with him. But he was surprised to see
the variety of eatables upon that table. There were cookies there, and
doughnuts, and even half an apple pie. Pie for breakfast! It had been a
newspaper joke at which he had laughed many times. But it seemed not to
be a joke here, rather a solemn reality.

The kitchen door opened and Mrs. Ellis put in her head. To Albert's
astonishment the upper part of the head, beginning just above the brows,
was swathed in a huge bandage. The lower part was a picture of hopeless
misery.

“Has Cap'n Lote come in yet?” inquired the housekeeper, faintly.

“Not yet, Rachel,” replied Mrs. Snow. “He'll be here in a minute,
though. Albert's down, so you can begin takin' up the things.”

The head disappeared. A sigh of complete wretchedness drifted in as the
door closed. Albert looked at his grandmother in alarm.

“Is she sick?” he faltered.

“Who? Rachel? No, she ain't exactly sick . . . Dear me! Where did I put
that clean napkin?”

The boy stared at the kitchen door. If his grandmother had said the
housekeeper was not exactly dead he might have understood. But to say
she was not exactly sick--

“But--but what makes her look so?” he stammered. “And--and what's she
got that on her head for? And she groaned! Why, she MUST be sick!”

Mrs. Snow, having found the clean napkin, laid it beside her husband's
plate.

“No,” she said calmly. “It's one of her sympathetic attacks; that's what
she calls 'em, sympathetic attacks. She has 'em every time Laban
Keeler starts in on one of his periodics. It's nerves, I suppose. Cap'n
Zelotes--your grandfather--says it's everlastin' foolishness. Whatever
'tis, it's a nuisance. And she's so sensible other times, too.”

Albert was more puzzled than ever. Why in the world Mrs. Ellis should
tie up her head and groan because the little Keeler person had gone on a
spree was beyond his comprehension.

His grandmother enlightened him a trifle.

“You see,” she went on, “she and Laban have been engaged to be married
ever since they were young folks. It's Laban's weakness for liquor
that's kept 'em apart so long. She won't marry him while he drinks and
he keeps swearin' off and then breaking down. He's a good man, too; an
awful good man and capable as all get-out when he's sober. Lately that
is, for the last seven or eight years, beginnin' with the time when that
lecturer on mesmerism and telegraphy--no, telepathy--thought-transfers
and such--was at the town hall--Rachel has been havin' these sympathetic
attacks of hers. She declares that alcohol-takin' is a disease and
that Laban suffers when he's tipsy and that she and he are so bound up
together that she suffers just the same as he does. I must say I never
noticed him sufferin' very much, not at the beginnin,' anyhow--acts
more as he was havin' a good time--but she seems to. I don't wonder you
smile,” she added. “'Tis funny, in a way, and it's queer that such a
practical, common-sense woman as Rachel Ellis is, should have such a
notion. It's hard on us, though. Don't say anything to her about it, and
don't laugh at her, whatever you do.”

Albert wanted to laugh very much. “But, Mrs. Snow--” he began.

“Mercy sakes alive! You ain't goin' to call me 'Mrs. Snow,' I hope.”

“No, of course not. But, Grandmother why do you and Captain--you and
Grandfather keep her and Keeler if they are so much trouble? Why don't
you let them go and get someone else?”

“Let 'em go? Get someone else! Why, we COULDN'T get anybody else, anyone
who would be like them. They're almost a part of our family; that is,
Rachel is, she's been here since goodness knows when. And, when he's
sober Laban almost runs the lumber business. Besides, they're nice
folks--almost always.”

Plainly the ways of South Harniss were not the ways of the world he had
known. Certainly these people were “Rubes” and queer Rubes, too. Then he
remembered that two of them were his grandparents and that his immediate
future was, so to speak, in their hands. The thought was not entirely
comforting or delightful. He was still pondering upon it when his
grandfather came in from the barn.

The captain said good morning in the same way he had said good night,
that is, he and Albert shook hands and the boy was again conscious of
the gaze which took him in from head to foot and of the quiet twinkle in
the gray eyes.

“Sleep well, son?” inquired Captain Zelotes.

“Yes . . . Yes, sir.”

“That's good. I judged you was makin' a pretty good try at it when I
thumped on your door this mornin'. Somethin' new for you to be turned
out at seven, eh?”

“No, sir.”

“Eh? It wasn't?”

“No, sir. The rising bell rang at seven up at school. We were supposed
to be down at breakfast at a quarter past.”

“Humph! You were, eh? Supposed to be? Does that mean that you were
there?”

“Yes, sir.”

There was a surprised look in the gray eyes now, a fact which Albert
noticed with inward delight. He had taken one “rise” out of his
grandfather, at any rate. He waited, hoping for another opportunity, but
it did not come. Instead they sat down to breakfast.

Breakfast, in spite of the morning sunshine at the windows, was somewhat
gloomy. The homesickness, although not as acute as on the previous
night, was still in evidence. Albert felt lost, out of his element,
lonely. And, to add a touch of real miserableness, the housekeeper
served and ate like a near relative of the deceased at a funeral feast.
She moved slowly, she sighed heavily, and the bandage upon her forehead
loomed large and portentous. When spoken to she seldom replied before
the third attempt. Captain Zelotes lost patience.

“Have another egg?” he roared, brandishing the spoon containing it at
arm's length and almost under her nose. “Egg! Egg! EGG! If you can't
hear it, smell it. Only answer, for heaven sakes!”

The effect of this outburst was obviously not what he had hoped. Mrs.
Ellis stared first at the egg quivering before her face, then at the
captain. Then she rose and marched majestically to the kitchen. The door
closed, but a heartrending sniff drifted in through the crack. Olive
laid down her knife and fork.

“There!” she exclaimed, despairingly. “Now see what you've done. Oh,
Zelotes, how many times have I told you you've got to treat her tactful
when she's this way?”

Captain Lote put the egg back in the bowl.

“DAMN!” he observed, with intense enthusiasm.

His wife shook her head.

“Swearin' don't help it a mite, either,” she declared. “Besides I
don't know what Albert here must think of you.” Albert, who, between
astonishment and a wild desire to laugh, was in a critical condition,
appeared rather embarrassed. His grandfather looked at him and smiled
grimly.

“I cal'late one damn won't scare him to death,” he observed. “Maybe he's
heard somethin' like it afore. Or do they say, 'Oh, sugar!' up at that
school you come from?” he added.

Albert, not knowing how to reply, looked more embarrassed than ever.
Olive seemed on the point of weeping.

“Oh, Zelotes, how CAN you!” she wailed. “And to-day, of all days! His
very first mornin'!”

Captain Lote relented.

“There, there, Mother!” he said. “I'm sorry. Forget it. Sorry if I
shocked you, Albert. There's times when salt-water language is the only
thing that seems to help me out . . . Well, Mother, what next? What'll
we do now?”

“You know just as well as I do, Zelotes. There's only one thing you can
do. That's go out and beg her pardon this minute. There's a dozen places
she could get right here in South Harniss without turnin' her hand over.
And if she should leave I don't know WHAT I'd do.”

“Leave! She ain't goin' to leave any more'n than the ship's cat's goin'
to jump overboard. She's been here so long she wouldn't know how to
leave if she wanted to.”

“That don't make any difference. The pitcher that goes to the
well--er--er--”

She had evidently forgotten the rest of the proverb. Her husband helped
her out.

“Flocks together or gathers no moss, or somethin', eh? All right,
Mother, don't fret. There ain't really any occasion to, considerin'
we've been through somethin' like this at least once every six months
for ten years.”

“Zelotes, won't you PLEASE go and ask her pardon?”

The captain pushed back his chair. “I'll be hanged if it ain't a healthy
note,” he grumbled, “when the skipper has to go and apologize to the
cook because the cook's made a fool of herself! I'd like to know what
kind of rum Labe drinks. I never saw any but his kind that would go
to somebody else's head. Two people gettin' tight and only one of 'em
drinkin' is somethin'--”

He disappeared into the kitchen, still muttering. Mrs. Snow smiled
feebly at her grandson.

“I guess you think we're funny folks, Albert,” she said. “But Rachel is
one hired help in a thousand and she has to be treated just so.”

Five minutes later Cap'n 'Lote returned. He shrugged his shoulders and
sat down at his place.

“All right, Mother, all right,” he observed. “I've been heavin' ile on
the troubled waters and the sea's smoothin' down. She'll be kind and
condescendin' enough to eat with us in a minute or so.”

She was. She came into the dining-room with the air of a saint going to
martyrdom and the remainder of the meal was eaten by the quartet almost
in silence. When it was over the captain said:

“Well, Al, feel like walkin', do you?”

“Why, why, yes, sir, I guess so.”

“Humph! You don't seem very wild at the prospect. Walkin' ain't much in
your line, maybe. More used to autoin', perhaps?”

Mrs. Snow put in a word. “Don't talk so, Zelotes,” she said. “He'll
think you're makin' fun of him.”

“Who? Me? Not a bit of it. Well, Al, do you want to walk down to the
lumber yard with me?”

The boy hesitated. The quiet note of sarcasm in his grandfather's voice
was making him furiously angry once more, just as it had done on the
previous night.

“Do you want me to?” he asked, shortly.

“Why, yes, I cal'late I do.”

Albert, without another word, walked to the hat-rack in the hall and
began putting on his coat. Captain Lote watched him for a moment and
then put on his own.

“We'll be back to dinner, Mother,” he said. “Heave ahead, Al, if you're
ready.”

There was little conversation between the pair during the half mile
walk to the office and yards of “Z. Snow and Co., Lumber and Builders'
Hardware.” Only once did the captain offer a remark. That was just as
they came out by the big posts at the entrance to the driveway. Then he
said:

“Al, I don't want you to get the idea from what happened at the table
just now--that foolishness about Rachel Ellis--that your grandmother
ain't a sensible woman. She is, and there's no better one on earth.
Don't let that fact slip your mind.”

Albert, somewhat startled by the abruptness of the observation, looked
up in surprise. He found the gray eyes looking down at him.

“I noticed you lookin' at her,” went on his grandfather, “as if you was
kind of wonderin' whether to laugh at her or pity her. You needn't
do either. She's kind-hearted and that makes her put up with Rachel's
silliness. Then, besides, Rachel herself is common sense and practical
nine-tenths of the time. It's always a good idea, son, to sail one
v'yage along with a person before you decide whether to class 'em as A.
B. or just roustabout.”

The blood rushed to the boy's face. He felt guilty and the feeling made
him angrier than ever.

“I don't see why,” he burst out, indignantly, “you should say I was
laughing at--at Mrs. Snow--”

“At your grandmother.”

“Well--yes--at my grandmother. I don't see why you should say that. I
wasn't.”

“Wasn't you? Good! I'm glad of it. I wouldn't, anyhow. She's liable to
be about the best friend you'll have in this world.”

To Albert's mind flashed the addition: “Better than you, that means,”
 but he kept it to himself.

The lumber yards were on a spur track not very far from the railway
station where he had spent that miserable half hour the previous
evening. The darkness then had prevented his seeing them. Not that he
would have been greatly interested if he had seen them, nor was he
more interested now, although his grandfather took him on a personally
conducted tour between the piles of spruce and pine and hemlock and
pointed out which was which and added further details. “Those are two by
fours,” he said. Or, “Those are larger joist, different sizes.” “This is
good, clear stock, as good a lot of white pine as we've got hold of for
a long spell.” He gave particulars concerning the “handiest way to drive
a team” to one or the other of the piles. Albert found it rather boring.
He longed to speak concerning enormous lumber yards he had seen in New
York or Chicago or elsewhere. He felt almost a pitying condescension
toward this provincial grandparent who seemed to think his little piles
of “two by fours” so important.

It was much the same, perhaps a little worse, when they entered the
hardware shop and the office. The rows and rows of little drawers and
boxes, each with samples of its contents--screws, or bolts, or hooks,
or knobs--affixed to its front, were even more boring than the lumber
piles. There was a countryfied, middle-aged person in overalls sweeping
out the shop and Captain Zelotes introduced him.

“Albert,” he said, “this is Mr. Issachar Price, who works around the
place here. Issy, let me make you acquainted with my grandson, Albert.”

Mr. Price, looking over his spectacles, extended a horny hand and
observed: “Yus, yus. Pleased to meet you, Albert. I've heard tell of
you.”

Albert's private appraisal of “Issy” was that the latter was another
funny Rube. Whatever Issy's estimate of his employer's grandson might
have been, he, also, kept it to himself.

Captain Zelotes looked about the shop and glanced into the office.

“Humph!” he grunted. “No sign or symptoms of Laban this mornin', I
presume likely?”

Issachar went on with his sweeping.

“Nary one,” was his laconic reply.

“Humph! Heard anything about him?”

Mr. Price moistened his broom in a bucket of water. “I see Tim Kelley
on my way down street,” he said. “Tim said he run afoul of Laban along
about ten last night. Said he cal'lated Labe was on his way. He was
singin' 'Hyannis on the Cape' and so Tim figgered he'd got a pretty fair
start already.”

The captain shook his head. “Tut, tut, tut!” he muttered. “Well, that
means I'll have to do office work for the next week or so. Humph! I
declare it's too bad just now when I was countin' on him to--” He did
not finish the sentence, but instead turned to his grandson and said:
“Al, why don't you look around the hardware store here while I open
the mail and the safe. If there's anything you see you don't understand
Issy'll tell you about it.”

He went into the office. Albert sauntered listlessly to the window
and looked out. So far as not understanding anything in the shop was
concerned he was quite willing to remain in ignorance. It did not
interest him in the least. A moment later he felt a touch on his elbow.
He turned, to find Mr. Price standing beside him.

“I'm all ready to tell you about it now,” volunteered the unsmiling
Issy. “Sweepin's all finished up.”

Albert was amused. “I guess I can get along,” he said.

“Don't worry.”

“_I_ ain't worried none. I don't believe in worryin'; worryin' don't do
folks no good, the way I look at it. But long's Cap'n Lote wants me to
tell you about the hardware I'd ruther do it now, than any time. Henry
Cahoon's team'll be here for a load of lath in about ten minutes or so,
and then I'll have to leave you. This here's the shelf where we keep
the butts--hinges, you understand. Brass along here, and iron here. Got
quite a stock, ain't we.”

He took the visitor's arm in his mighty paw and led him from shelves
to drawers and from drawers to boxes, talking all the time, so the boy
thought, “like a catalogue.” Albert tried gently to break away several
times and yawned often, but yawns and hints were quite lost on his
guide, who was intent only upon the business--and victim--in hand. At
the window looking across toward the main road Albert paused longest.
There was a girl in sight--she looked, at that distance, as if she might
be a rather pretty girl--and the young man was languidly interested.
He had recently made the discovery that pretty girls may be quite
interesting; and, moreover, one or two of them whom he had met at the
school dances--when the young ladies from the Misses Bradshaws' seminary
had come over, duly guarded and chaperoned, to one-step and fox-trot
with the young gentlemen of the school--one or two of these young ladies
had intimated a certain interest in him. So the feminine possibility
across the road attracted his notice--only slightly, of course; the
sophisticated metropolitan notice is not easily aroused--but still,
slightly.

“Come on, come on,” urged Issachar Price. “I ain't begun to show ye the
whole of it yet . . . Eh? Oh, Lord, there comes Cahoon's team now! Well,
I got to go. Show you the rest some other time. So long . . . Eh? Cap'n
Lote's callin' you, ain't he?”

Albert went into the office in response to his grandfather's call to
find the latter seated at an old-fashioned roll-top desk, piled with
papers.

“I've got to go down to the bank, Al,” he said. “Some business about
a note that Laban ought to be here to see to, but ain't. I'll be back
pretty soon. You just stay here and wait for me. You might be lookin'
over the books, if you want to. I took 'em out of the safe and they're
on Labe's desk there,” pointing to the high standing desk by the window.
“They're worth lookin' at, if only to see how neat they're kept. A set
of books like that is an example to any young man. You might be lookin'
'em over.”

He hurried out. Albert smiled condescendingly and, instead of looking
over Mr. Keeler's books, walked over to the window and looked out of
that. The girl was not in sight now, but she might be soon. At any rate
watching for her was as exciting as any amusement he could think of
about that dull hole. Ah hum! he wondered how the fellows were at
school.

The girl did not reappear. Signs of animation along the main road were
limited. One or two men went by, then a group of children obviously on
their way to school. Albert yawned again, took the silver cigarette case
from his pocket and looked longingly at its contents. He wondered
what his grandfather's ideas might be on the tobacco question. But his
grandfather was not there then . . . and he might not return for some
time . . . and . . . He took a cigarette from the case, tapped, with
careful carelessness, its end upon the case--he would not have dreamed
of smoking without first going through the tapping process--lighted the
cigarette and blew a large and satisfying cloud. Between puffs he sang:


      “To you, beautiful lady,
       I raise my eyes.
     My heart, beautiful lady,
       To your heart cries:
     Come, come, beautiful lady,
       To Par-a-dise,
     As the sweet, sweet--'”


Some one behind him said: “Excuse me.” The appeal to the beautiful lady
broke off in the middle, and he whirled about to find the girl whom he
had seen across the road and for whose reappearance he had been watching
at the window, standing in the office doorway. He looked at her and she
looked at him. He was embarrassed. She did not seem to be.

“Excuse me,” she said: “Is Mr. Keeler here?”

She was a pretty girl, so his hasty estimate made when he had first
sighted her was correct. Her hair was dark, so were her eyes, and her
cheeks were becomingly colored by the chill of the winter air. She was
a country girl, her hat and coat proved that; not that they were in bad
taste or unbecoming, but they were simple and their style perhaps nearer
to that which the young ladies of the Misses Bradshaws' seminary had
worn the previous winter. All this Albert noticed in detail later on.
Just then the particular point which attracted his embarrassed attention
was the look in the dark eyes. They seemed to have almost the same
disturbing quality which he had noticed in his grandfather's gray ones.
Her mouth was very proper and grave, but her eyes looked as if she were
laughing at him.

Now to be laughed at by an attractive young lady is disturbing and
unpleasant. It is particularly so when the laughter is from the
provinces and the laughee--so to speak--a dignified and sophisticated
city man. Albert summoned the said dignity and sophistication to his
rescue, knocked the ashes from his cigarette and said, haughtily:

“I beg your pardon?”

“Is Mr. Keeler here?” repeated the girl.

“No, he is out.”

“Will he be back soon, do you think?”

Recollections of Mr. Price's recent remark concerning the missing
bookkeeper's “good start” came to Albert's mind and he smiled, slightly.
“I should say not,” he observed, with delicate irony.

“Is Issy--I mean Mr. Price, busy?”

“He's out in the yard there somewhere, I believe. Would you like to have
me call him?”

“Why, yes--if you please--sir.”

The “sir” was flattering, if it was sincere. He glanced at her. The
expression of the mouth was as grave as ever, but he was still uncertain
about those eyes. However, he was disposed to give her the benefit of
the doubt, so, stepping to the side door of the office--that leading to
the yards--he opened it and shouted: “Price! . . . Hey, Price!”

There was no answer, although he could hear Issachar's voice and another
above the rattle of lath bundles.

“Price!” he shouted, again. “Pri-i-ce!”

The rattling ceased. Then, in the middle distance, above a pile of
“two by fours,” appeared Issachar's head, the features agitated and the
forehead bedewed with the moisture of honest toil.

“Huh?” yelled Issy. “What's the matter? Be you hollerin' to me?”

“Yes. There's some one here wants to see you.”

“Hey?”

“I say there's some one here who wants to see you.”

“What for?”

“I don't know.”

“Well, find out, can't ye? I'm busy.”

Was that a laugh which Albert heard behind him? He turned around, but
the young lady's face wore the same grave, even demure, expression.

“What do you want to see him for?” he asked.

“I wanted to buy something.”

“She wants to buy something,” repeated Albert, shouting.

“Hey?”

“She wants to--BUY--something.” It was humiliating to have to scream in
this way.

“Buy? Buy what?”

“What do you want to buy?”

“A hook, that's all. A hook for our kitchen door. Would you mind asking
him to hurry? I haven't much time.”

“She wants a hook.”

“Eh? We don't keep books. What kind of a book?”

“Not book--HOOK. H-O-O-K! Oh, great Scott! Hook! HOOK! Hook for a door!
And she wants you to hurry.”

“Eh? Well, I can't hurry now for nobody. I got to load these laths
and that's all there is to it. Can't you wait on him?” Evidently the
customer's sex had not yet been made clear to the Price understanding.
“You can get a hook for him, can't ye? You know where they be, I showed
ye. Ain't forgot so soon, 'tain't likely.”

The head disappeared behind the “two by fours.” Its face was red, but no
redder than Mr. Speranza's at that moment.

“Fool rube!” he snorted, disgustedly.

“Excuse me, but you've dropped your cigarette,” observed the young lady.

Albert savagely slammed down the window and turned away. The dropped
cigarette stump lay where it had fallen, smudging and smelling.

His caller looked at it and then at him.

“I'd pick it up, if I were you,” she said. “Cap'n Snow HATES
cigarettes.”

Albert, his dignity and indignation forgotten, returned her look with
one of anxiety.

“Does he, honest?” he asked.

“Yes. He hates them worse than anything.”

The cigarette stump was hastily picked up by its owner.

“Where'll I put it?” he asked, hurriedly.

“Why don't you--Oh, don't put it in your pocket! It will set you on
fire. Put it in the stove, quick.”

Into the stove it went, all but its fragrance, which lingered.

“Do you think you COULD find me that hook?” asked the girl.

“I'll try. _I_ don't know anything about the confounded things.”

“Oh!” innocently. “Don't you?”

“No, of course I don't. Why should I?”

“Aren't you working here?”

“Here? Work HERE? ME? Well, I--should--say--NOT!”

“Oh, excuse me. I thought you must be a new bookkeeper, or--or a new
partner, or something.”

Albert regarded her intently and suspiciously for some seconds before
making another remark. She was as demurely grave as ever, but his
suspicions were again aroused. However, she WAS pretty, there could be
no doubt about that.

“Maybe I can find the hook for you,” he said. “I can try, anyway.”

“Oh, thank you ever so much,” gratefully. “It's VERY kind of you to take
so much trouble.”

“Oh,” airily, “that's all right. Come on; perhaps we can find it
together.”

They were still looking when Mr. Price came panting in.

“Whew!” he observed, with emphasis. “If anybody tells you heavin'
bundles of laths aboard a truck-wagon ain't hard work you tell him for
me he's a liar, will ye. Whew! And I had to do the heft of everything,
'cause Cahoon sent that one-armed nephew of his to drive the team. A
healthy lot of good a one-armed man is to help heave lumber! I says to
him, says I: 'What in time did--' Eh? Why, hello, Helen! Good mornin'.
Land sakes! you're out airly, ain't ye?”

The young lady nodded. “Good morning, Issachar,” she said. “Yes, I am
pretty early and I'm in a dreadful hurry. The wind blew our kitchen door
back against the house last night and broke the hook. I promised Father
I would run over here and get him a new one and bring it back to him
before I went to school. And it's quarter to nine now.”

“Land sakes, so 'tis! Ain't--er--er--what's-his-name--Albert here, found
it for you yet? He ain't no kind of a hand to find things, is he? We'll
have to larn him better'n that. Yes indeed!”

Albert laughed, sarcastically. He was about to make a satisfyingly
crushing reproof to this piece of impertinence when Mr. Price began to
sniff the air.

“What in tunket?” he demanded. “Sn'f! Sn'f! Who's been smokin' in here?
And cigarettes, too, by crimus! Sn'f! Sn'f! Yes, sir, cigarettes, by
crimustee! Who's been smokin' cigarettes in here? If Cap'n Lote knew
anybody'd smoked a cigarette in here I don't know's he wouldn't kill
'em. Who done it?”

Albert shivered. The girl with the dark blue eyes flashed a quick glance
at him. “I think perhaps someone went by the window when it was open
just now,” she suggested. “Perhaps they were smoking and the smoke blew
in.”

“Eh? Well, maybe so. Must have been a mighty rank cigarette to smell up
the whole premises like this just goin' past a window. Whew! Gosh!
no wonder they say them things are rank pison. I'd sooner smoke
skunk-cabbage myself; 'twouldn't smell no worse and 'twould be a dum
sight safer. Whew! . . . Well, Helen, there's about the kind of hook I
cal'late you need. Fifteen cents 'll let you out on that. Cheap enough
for half the money, eh? Give my respects to your pa, will ye. Tell him
that sermon he preached last Sunday was fine, but I'd like it better if
he'd laid it on to the Univer'lists a little harder. Folks that don't
believe in hell don't deserve no consideration, 'cordin' to my notion.
So long, Helen . . . Oh say,” he added, as an afterthought, “I guess
you and Albert ain't been introduced, have ye? Albert, this is Helen
Kendall, she's our Orthodox minister's daughter. Helen, this young
feller is Albert--er--er--Consarn it, I've asked Cap'n Lote that name a
dozen times if I have once! What is it, anyway?”

“Speranza,” replied the owner of the name.

“That's it, Sperandy. This is Albert Sperandy, Cap'n Lote's grandson.”

Albert and Miss Kendall shook hands.

“Thanks,” said the former, gratefully and significantly.

The young lady smiled.

“Oh, you're welcome,” she said. “I knew who you were all the time--or I
guessed who you must be. Cap'n Snow told me you were coming.”

She went out. Issachar, staring after her, chuckled admiringly.
“Smartest girl in THIS town,” he observed, with emphasis. “Head of her
class up to high school and only sixteen and three-quarters at that.”

Captain Zelotes came bustling in a few minutes later. He went to his
desk, paying little attention to his grandson. The latter loitered idly
up and down the office and hardware shop, watching Issachar wait on
customers or rush shouting into the yard to attend to the wants of
others there. Plainly this was Issachar's busy day.

“Crimus!” he exclaimed, returning from one such excursion and mopping
his forehead. “This doin' two men's work ain't no fun. Every time Labe
goes on a time seem's if trade was brisker'n it's been for a month.
Seems as if all creation and part of East Harniss had been hangin' back
waitin' till he had a shade on 'fore they come to trade. Makes a feller
feel like votin' the Prohibition ticket. I WOULD vote it, by crimustee,
if I thought 'twould do any good. 'Twouldn't though; Labe would take
to drinkin' bay rum or Florida water or somethin', same as Hoppy Rogers
done when he was alive. Jim Young says he went into Hoppy's barber-shop
once and there was Hoppy with a bottle of a new kind of hair-tonic in
his hand. 'Drummer that was here left it for a sample,' says Hoppy.
'Wanted me to try it and, if I liked it, he cal'lated maybe I'd buy
some. I don't think I shall, though,' he says; 'don't taste right to
me.' Yes, sir, Jim Young swears that's true. Wan't enough snake-killer
in that hair tonic to suit Hoppy. I--Yes, Cap'n Lote, what is it? Want
me, do ye?”

But the captain did not, as it happened, want Mr. Price at that time.
It was Albert whose name he had called. The boy went into the office and
his grandfather rose and shut the door.

“Sit down, Al,” he said, motioning toward a chair. When his grandson had
seated himself Captain Zelotes tilted back his own desk chair upon its
springs and looked at him.

“Well, son,” he said, after a moment, “what do you think of it?”

“Think of it? I don't know exactly what--”

“Of the place here. Shop, yards, the whole business. Z. Snow and
Company--what do you think of it?”

Privately Albert was inclined to classify the entire outfit as one-horse
and countrified, but he deemed it wiser not to express this opinion. So
he compromised and replied that it “seemed to be all right.”

His grandfather nodded. “Thanks,” he observed, dryly. “Glad you find it
that way. Well, then, changin' the subject for a minute or two, what do
you think about yourself?”

“About myself? About me? I don't understand?”

“No, I don't suppose you do. That's what I got you over here this
mornin' for, so as we could understand--you and me. Al, have you given
any thought to what you're goin' to do from this on? How you're goin' to
live?”

Albert looked at him uncomprehendingly.

“How I'm going to live?” he repeated. “Why--why, I thought--I supposed I
was going to live with you--with you and Grandmother.”

“Um-hm, I see.”

“I just kind of took that for granted, I guess. You sent for me to come
here. You took me away from school, you know.”

“Yes, so I did. You know why I took you from school?”

“No, I--I guess I DON'T, exactly. I thought--I supposed it was because
you didn't want me to go there any more.”

“'Twasn't that. I don't know whether I would have wanted you to go there
or not if things had been different. From what I hear it was a pretty
extravagant place, and lookin' at it from the outside without knowin'
too much about it, I should say it was liable to put a lot of foolish
and expensive notions into a boy's head. I may be wrong, of course; I
have been wrong at least a few times in my life.”

It was evident that he considered the chances of his being wrong in this
instance very remote. His tone again aroused in the youth the feeling of
obstinacy, of rebellion, of desire to take the other side.

“It is one of the best schools in this country,” he declared. “My father
said so.”

Captain Zelotes picked up a pencil on his desk and tapped his chin
lightly with the blunt end. “Um,” he mused. “Well, I presume likely he
knew all about it.”

“He knew as much as--most people,” with a slight but significant
hesitation before the “most.”

“Um-hm. Naturally, havin' been schooled there himself, I suppose.”

“He wasn't schooled there. My father was a Spaniard.”

“So I've heard. . . . Well, we're kind of off the subject, ain't we?
Let's leave your father's nationality out of it for a while. And we'll
leave the school, too, because no matter if it was the best one on earth
you couldn't go there. I shouldn't feel 'twas right to spend as much
money as that at any school, and you--well, son, you ain't got it to
spend. Did you have any idea what your father left you, in the way of
tangible assets?”

“No. I knew he had plenty of money always. He was one of the most famous
singers in this country.”

“Maybe so.”

“It WAS so,” hotly. “And he was paid enough in one week to buy this
whole town--or almost. Why, my father--”

“Sshh! Sssh!”

“No, I'm not going to hush. I'm proud of my father. He was a--a great
man. And--and I'm not going to stand here and have you--”

Between indignation and emotion he choked and could not finish the
sentence. The tears came to his eyes.

“I'm not going to have you or anyone else talk about him that way,” he
concluded, fiercely.

His grandfather regarded him with a steady, but not at all unkindly,
gaze.

“I ain't runnin' down your father, Albert,” he said.

“Yes, you are. You hated him. Anybody could see you hated him.”

The captain slowly rapped the desk with the pencil. He did not answer at
once.

“Well,” he said, after a moment, “I don't know as I ought to deny that.
I don't know as I can deny it and be honest. Years ago he took away from
me what amounted to three-quarters of everything that made my life worth
while. Some day you'll know more about it than you do now, and maybe
you'll understand my p'int of view better. No, I didn't like your
father--Eh? What was you sayin'?”

Albert, who had muttered something, was rather confused. However, he
did not attempt to equivocate. “I said I guessed that didn't make much
difference to Father,” he answered, sullenly.

“I presume likely it didn't. But we won't go into that question now.
What I'm tryin' to get at in this talk we're having is you and your
future. Now you can't go back to school because you can't afford it. All
your father left when he died was--this is the honest truth I'm tellin'
you now, and if I'm puttin' it pretty blunt it's because I always think
it's best to get a bad mess out of the way in a hurry--all your father
left was debts. He didn't leave money enough to bury him, hardly.”

The boy stared at him aghast. His grandfather, leaning a little toward
him, would have put a hand on his knee, but the knee was jerked out of
the way.

“There, that's over, Al,” went on Captain Zelotes. “You know the worst
now and you can say, 'What of it?' I mean just that: What of it? Bein'
left without a cent, but with your health and a fair chance to make
good--that, at seventeen or eighteen ain't a bad lookout, by any manner
of means. It's the outlook _I_ had at fifteen--exceptin' the chance--and
I ain't asked many favors of anybody since. At your age, or a month or
two older, do you know where I was? I was first mate of a three-masted
schooner. At twenty I was skipper; and at twenty-five, by the Almighty,
I owned a share in her. Al, all you need now is a chance to go to work.
And I'm goin' to give you that chance.”

Albert gasped. “Do you mean--do you mean I've got to be a--a sailor?” he
stammered.

Captain Zelotes put back his head and laughed, laughed aloud.

“A sailor!” he repeated. “Ho, ho! No wonder you looked scared. No,
I wan't cal'latin' to make a sailor out of you, son. For one reason,
sailorin' ain't what it used to be; and, for another, I have my doubts
whether a young feller of your bringin' up would make much of a go
handlin' a bunch of fo'mast hands the first day out. No, I wasn't
figgerin' to send you to sea . . . What do you suppose I brought you
down to this place for this mornin'?”

And then Albert understood. He knew why he had been conducted through
the lumber yards, about the hardware shop, why his grandfather and Mr.
Price had taken so much pains to exhibit and explain. His heart sank.

“I brought you down here,” continued the captain, “because it's a
first-rate idea to look a vessel over afore you ship aboard her. It's
kind of late to back out after you have shipped. Ever since I made up my
mind to send for you and have you live along with your grandmother and
me I've been plannin' what to do with you. I knew, if you was a decent,
ambitious young chap, you'd want to do somethin' towards makin' a start
in life. We can use--that is, this business can use that kind of a chap
right now. He could larn to keep books and know lumber and hardware
and how to sell and how to buy. He can larn the whole thing. There's
a chance here, son. It's your chance; I'm givin' it to you. How big a
chance it turns out to be 'll depend on you, yourself.”

He stopped. Albert was silent. His thoughts were confused, but out of
their dismayed confusion two or three fixed ideas reared themselves like
crags from a whirlpool. He was to live in South Hamiss always--always;
he was to keep books--Heavens, how he hated mathematics, detail work of
any kind!--for drunken old Keeler; he was to “heave lumber” with
Issy Price. He--Oh, it was dreadful! It was horrible. He couldn't! He
wouldn't! He--

Captain Zelotes had been watching him, his heavy brows drawing closer
together as the boy delayed answering.

“Well?” he asked, for another minute. “Did you hear what I said?”

“Yes.”

“Understood, did you?”

“Yes--sir.”

“Well?”

Albert was clutching at straws. “I--I don't know how to keep books,” he
faltered.

“I didn't suppose you did. Don't imagine they teach anything as
practical as bookkeepin' up at that school of yours. But you can larn,
can't you?”

“I--I guess so.”

“I guess so, too. Good Lord, I HOPE so! Humph! You don't seem to be
jumpin' for joy over the prospect. There's a half dozen smart young
fellers here in South Harniss that would, I tell you that.”

Albert devoutly wished they had jumped--and landed--before his arrival.
His grandfather's tone grew more brusque.

“Don't you want to work?” he demanded.

“Why, yes, I--I suppose I do. I--I hadn't thought much about it.”

“Humph! Then I think it's time you begun. Hadn't you had ANY notion of
what you wanted to do when you got out of that school of yours?”

“I was going to college.”

“Humph! . . . Yes, I presume likely. Well, after you got out of college,
what was you plannin' to do then?”

“I wasn't sure. I thought I might do something with my music. I can
play a little. I can't sing--that is, not well enough. If I could,”
 wistfully, “I should have liked to be in opera, as father was, of
course.”

Captain Zelotes' only comment was a sniff or snort, or combination of
both. Albert went on.

“I had thought of writing--writing books and poems, you know. I've
written quite a good deal for the school magazine. And I think I should
like to be an actor, perhaps. I--”

“Good God!” His grandfather's fist came down upon the desk before him.
Slowly he shook his head.

“A--a poetry writer and an actor!” he repeated. “Whew! . . . Well,
there! Perhaps maybe we hadn't better talk any more just now. You can
have the rest of the day to run around town and sort of get acquainted,
if you want to. Then to-morrow mornin' you and I'll come over here
together and we'll begin to break you in. I shouldn't wonder,” he added,
dryly, “if you found it kind of dull at first--compared to that school
and poetry makin' and such--but it'll be respectable and it'll pay for
board and clothes and somethin' to eat once in a while, which may
not seem so important to you now as 'twill later on. And some day I
cal'late--anyhow we'll hope--you'll be mighty glad you did it.”

Poor Albert looked and felt anything but glad just then. Captain
Zelotes, his hands in his pockets, stood regarding him. He, too, did not
look particularly happy.

“You'll remember,” he observed, “or perhaps you don't know, that when
your father asked us to look out for you--”

Albert interrupted. “Did--did father ask you to take care of me?” he
cried, in surprise.

“Um-hm. He asked somebody who was with him to ask us to do just that.”

The boy drew a long breath. “Well, then,” he said, hopelessly,
“I'll--I'll try.”

“Thanks. Now you run around town and see the sights. Dinner's at half
past twelve prompt, so be on hand for that.”

After his grandson had gone, the captain, hands still in his pockets,
stood for some time looking out of the window. At length he spoke aloud.

“A play actor or a poetry writer!” he exclaimed. “Tut, tut, tut! No use
talkin', blood will tell!”

Issachar, who was putting coal on the office fire, turned his head.

“Eh?” he queried.

“Nothin',” said Captain Lote.

He would have been surprised if he could have seen his grandson just at
that moment. Albert, on the beach whither he had strayed in his desire
to be alone, safely hidden from observation behind a sand dune, was
lying with his head upon his arms and sobbing bitterly.

A disinterested person might have decided that the interview which had
just taken place and which Captain Zelotes hopefully told his wife that
morning would probably result in “a clear, comf'table understandin'
between the boy and me”--such a disinterested person might have decided
that it had resulted in exactly the opposite. In calculating the results
to be obtained from that interview the captain had not taken into
consideration two elements, one his own and the other his grandson's.
These elements were prejudice and temperament.



CHAPTER IV


The next morning, with much the same feeling that a convict must
experience when he enters upon a life imprisonment, Albert entered the
employ of “Z. Snow and Co., Lumber and Builders' Hardware.” The day,
he would have sworn it, was at least a year long. The interval between
breakfast and dinner was quite six months, yet the dinner hour itself
was the shortest sixty minutes he had ever known. Mr. Keeler had not yet
returned to his labors, so there was no instruction in bookkeeping;
but his grandfather gave him letters to file and long dreary columns of
invoice figures to add. Twice Captain Zelotes went out and then, just
as Albert settled back for a rest and breathing spell, Issachar Price
appeared, warned apparently by some sort of devilish intuition, and
invented “checking up stock” and similar menial and tiresome tasks to
keep him uncomfortable till the captain returned. The customers who came
in asked questions concerning him and he was introduced to at least
a dozen citizens of South Harniss, who observed “Sho!” and “I want to
know!” when told his identity and, in some instances, addressed him as
“Bub,” which was of itself a crime deserving capital punishment.

That night, as he lay in bed in the back bedroom, he fell asleep facing
the dreary prospect of another monotonous imprisonment the following
day, and the next day, and the day after that, and after that--and
after that--and so on--and on--and on--forever and ever, as long as
life should last. This, then, was to be the end of all his dreams, this
drudgery in a country town among these commonplace country people. This
was the end of his dreams of some day writing deathless odes and sonnets
or thrilling romances; of treading the boards as the hero of romantic
drama while star-eyed daughters of multi-millionaires gazed from the
boxes in spellbound rapture. This . . . The thought of the star-eyed
ones reminded him of the girl who had come into the office the afternoon
of his first visit to that torture chamber. He had thought of her many
times since their meeting and always with humiliation and resentment. It
was his own foolish tongue which had brought the humiliation upon him.
When she had suggested that he might be employed by Z. Snow and Co. he
had replied: “Me? Work HERE! Well, I should say NOT!” And all the time
she, knowing who he was, must have known he was doomed to work there. He
resented that superior knowledge of hers. He had made a fool of himself
but she was to blame for it. Well, by George, he would NOT work there!
He would run away, he would show her, and his grandfather and all the
rest what was what. Night after night he fell asleep vowing to run away,
to do all sorts of desperate deeds, and morning after morning he went
back to that office.

On the fourth morning the prodigal came home, the stray lamb returned
to the fold--Mr. Keeler returned to his desk and his duties. There was
a premonition of his return at the Snow breakfast table. For three days
Mrs. Ellis had swathed her head in white and her soul in black. For
three days her favorite accompaniment to conversation had been a groan
or a sigh. Now, on this fourth morning, she appeared without the bandage
on her brow or the crape upon her spirit. She was not hilarious but
she did not groan once, and twice during the meal she actually smiled.
Captain Lote commented upon the change, she being absent from table
momentarily.

“Whew!” he observed, in an undertone, addressing his wife. “If it ain't
a comfort to see the wrinkles on Rachel's face curvin' up instead of
down. I'm scared to death that she'll go out some time in a cold spell
when she's havin' one of them sympathetics of hers, and her face'll
freeze that way. Well, Albert,” turning to his grandson, “the colors'll
be h'isted to the truck now instead of half-mast and life'll be
somethin' besides one everlastin' 'last look at the remains.' Now we can
take off the mournin' till the next funeral.”

“Yes,” said Olive, “and Laban'll be back, too. I'm sure you must have
missed him awfully, Zelotes.”

“Missed him! I should say so. For one thing, I miss havin' him between
me and Issy. When Labe's there Is talks to him and Labe keeps on
thinkin' of somethin' else and so it don't worry him any. I can't do
that, and my eardrums get to wearin' thin and that makes me nervous.
Maybe you've noticed that Issy's flow of conversation ain't what you'd
call a trickle,” he added, turning to Albert.

Albert had noticed it. “But,” he asked, “what makes Rachel--Mrs.
Ellis--so cheerful this morning? Does she know that Mr. Keeler will be
back at work? How does she know? She hasn't seen him, has she?”

“No,” replied the captain. “She ain't seen him. Nobody sees him, far's
that goes. He generally clears out somewheres and locks himself up in
a room, I judge, till his vacation's over. I suppose that's one way to
have fun, but it ain't what I'd call hilarious.”

“Don't, Zelotes,” said Mrs. Snow. “I do wish you wouldn't call it fun.”

“I don't, but Laban seems to. If he don't do it for fun I don't know
what he does it for. Maybe it's from a sense of duty. It ain't to oblige
me, I know that.”

Albert repeated his question. “But how does she know he will be back
to-day?” he asked.

His grandmother shook her head. “That's the mysterious part about it,”
 she whispered. “It makes a person think there may be somethin' in the
sympathetic notion she talks so much about. She don't see him at all and
yet we can always tell when he's comin' back to work by her spirits. If
he ain't back to-day he will be to-morrow, you'll see. She never misses
by more than a day. _I_ think it's real sort of mysterious, but Zelotes
laughs at me.”

Captain Lote's lip twitched. “Yes, Mother,” he said, “it's about as
mysterious as the clock's strikin' twelve when it's noon. _I_ know it's
morally sartin that Labe'll be back aboard to-day or to-morrow because
his sprees don't ever last more than five days. I can't swear to how
she knows, but that's how _I_ know--and I'm darned sure there's no
'sympathy' about my part.” Then, as if realizing that he had talked more
than usual, he called, brusquely: “Come on, Al, come on. Time we were on
the job, boy.”

Sure enough, as they passed the window of the office, there, seated on
the stool behind the tall desk, Albert saw the diminutive figure of the
man who had been his driver on the night of his arrival. He was curious
to see how the delinquent would apologize for or explain his absence.
But Mr. Keeler did neither, nor did Captain Snow ask a question. Instead
the pair greeted each other as if they had parted in that office at the
close of business on the previous day.

“Mornin', Cap'n Lote,” said Laban, quietly.

“Mornin', Labe,” replied the captain, just as calmly.

He went on and opened his own desk, leaving his grandson standing by
the door, not knowing whether to speak or offer to shake hands. The
situation was a little difficult, particularly as Mr. Keeler gave no
sign of recognition, but, after a glance at his employer's companion,
went on making entries in the ledger.

Captain Zelotes looked up a moment later. His gray eyes inspected
the pair and the expression on Albert's face caused them to twinkle
slightly. “Labe,” he said, “this is my grandson, Albert, the one I told
you was comin' to live with us.”

Laban turned on the stool, regarded Albert over his spectacles, and
extended a hand.

“Pleased to meet you,” he said. “Yes, yes . . . Yes, yes, yes. . .
Pleased to meet you. Cap'n Lote said you was comin'--er--er--Alfred.
Howdy do.”

They shook hands. Mr. Keeler's hand trembled a little, but that was
the only symptom of his recent “vacation” which the youth could notice.
Certain vivid remembrances of his father's bad humor on mornings
following convivial evenings recurred to him. Was it possible that this
odd, precise, dried-up little man had been on a spree for four days? It
did not seem possible. He looked more as if he might be expected to rap
on the desk and ask the school to come to order.

“Albert's goin' to take hold here with us in the office,” went on
Captain Lote. “You'll remember I spoke to you about that when we talked
about his comin'. Al, Labe--Mr. Keeler here--will start you in larnin'
to bookkeep. He'll be your first mate from now on. Don't forget you're
a fo'mast hand yet awhile and the way for a fo'mast hand to get ahead
is to obey orders. And don't,” he added, with a quiet chuckle, “do any
play-actin' or poetry-makin' when it's your watch on deck. Laban nor I
ain't very strong for play-actin', are we, Labe?”

Laban, to whom the reference was anything but clear, replied rather
vaguely that he didn't know as he was, very. Albert's temper flared
up again. His grandfather was sneering at him once more; he was always
sneering at him. All right, let him sneer--now. Some day he would be
shown. He scowled and turned away. And Captain Zelotes, noticing the
scowl, was reminded of a scowl he had seen upon the face of a Spanish
opera singer some twenty years before. He did not like to be reminded of
that man.

He went out soon afterward and then Laban, turning to Albert, asked a
few questions.

“How do you think you're goin' to like South Harniss, Ansel?” he asked.

Albert was tempted to reply that he, Keeler, had asked him that very
question before, but he thought it best not to do so.

“I don't know yet,” he answered, carelessly. “Well enough, I guess.”

“You'll like it fust-rate bimeby. Everybody does when they get used
to it. Takes some time to get used to a place, don't you know it does,
Ansel?”

“My name is Albert.”

“Eh? Yes, yes, so 'tis. Yes, yes, yes. I don't know why I called you
Ansel, 'less 'twas on account of my knowin' an Ansel Olsen once . . .
Hum . . . Yes, yes. Well, you'll like South Harniss when you get used to
it.”

The boy did not answer. He was of the opinion that he should die long
before the getting used process was completed. Mr. Keeler continued.

“Come on yesterday's train, did you?” he asked.

Albert looked at him. Was the fellow joking? He did not look as if he
was.

“Why no,” he replied. “I came last Monday night. Don't you remember?”

“Eh? Oh, yes . . . Yes, yes, yes . . . Last Monday night you come, eh?
On the night train, eh?” He hesitated a moment and then asked. “Cap'n
Lote fetch you down from the depot?”

Albert stared at him open-mouthed.

“Why, no!” he retorted. “You drove me down yourself.”

For the first time a slight shade of embarrassment crossed the
bookkeeper's features. He drew a long breath.

“Yes,” he mused. “Yes, yes, yes. I kind of thought I--yes, yes,--I--I
thought likely I did . . . Yes, yes, course I did, course I did. Well,
now maybe we'd better be startin' you in to work--er--Augustus. Know
anything about double-entry, do you?”

Albert did not, nor had he the slightest desire to learn. But before
the first hour was over he foresaw that he was destined to learn, if he
remained in that office, whether he wanted to or not. Laban Keeler might
be, and evidently was, peculiar in his ways, but as a bookkeeper he was
thoroughness personified. And as a teacher of his profession he was just
as thorough. All that forenoon Albert practiced the first principles
of “double entry” and, after the blessed hour for dinner, came back to
practice the remainder of the working day.

And so for many days. Little by little he learned to invoice and
journalize and “post in the ledger” and all the rest of the detail of
bookkeeping. Not that his instructor permitted him to do a great deal
of actual work upon the books of Z. Snow and Co. Those books were too
spotless and precious for that. Looking over them Albert was surprised
and obliged to admit a grudging admiration at the manner in which, for
the most part, they had been kept. Page after page of the neatest of
minute figures, not a blot, not a blur, not an erasure. So for months;
then, in the minor books, like the day-book or journal, would suddenly
break out an eruption of smudges and scrawls in the rugged handwriting
of Captain Zelotes. When he first happened upon one of these Albert
unthinkingly spoke to Mr. Keeler about it. He asked the latter what it
meant.

Laban slowly stroked his nose with his thumb and finger, a habit he had.

“I cal'late I was away for a spell then,” he said, gravely. “Yes,
yes . . . Yes, yes, yes. I was away for a little spell.”

He went soberly back to his desk. His new assistant, catching a glimpse
of his face, felt a pang of real pity for the little man. Of course the
reason for the hiatus in the books was plain enough. He knew about those
“little spells.” Oddly enough Laban seemed to feel sorry for them. He
remembered how funny the bookkeeper had appeared at their first meeting,
when one “spell” was just developing, and the contrast between the
singing, chirruping clown and the precise, grave little person at the
desk struck even his youthful mind as peculiar. He had read “Doctor
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” and now here was an example of something similar.
He was beginning to like Laban Keeler, although he was perfectly sure
that he should never like bookkeeping.

He did not slave at the books all the time, of course. For stretches,
sometimes lasting whole days, his slavery was of another sort. Then he
was working in the lumber yard with Issachar, or waiting on customers in
the hardware shop. The cold of winter set in in earnest now and handling
“two by fours” and other timber out where the raw winds swept piercingly
through one's overcoat and garments and flesh to the very bone was a
trying experience. His hands were chapped and cracked, even though his
grandmother had knit him a pair of enormous red mittens. He appreciated
the warmth of the mittens, but he hated the color. Why in the name of
all that was inartistic did she choose red; not a deep, rich crimson,
but a screeching vermilion, like a fireman's shirt?

Issachar, when he had the opportunity, was a hard boss. It suited Mr.
Price to display his superior knowledge and to find fault with his
helper's lack of skill. Albert's hot temper was at the boiling point
many times, but he fought it down. Occasionally he retorted in kind, but
his usual and most effective weapon was a more or less delicate sarcasm.
Issachar did not understand sarcasm and under rapid fire he was inclined
to lose his head.

“Consarn it!” he snapped, irritably, on one occasion. “Consarn it,
Al, why don't you h'ist up on t'other end of that j'ist? What do you
cal'late you're out here along of me for; to look harnsome?”

Albert shook his head. “No, Is,” he answered, gravely. “No, that
wouldn't be any use. With you around nobody else has a look-in at the
'handsome' game. Issy, what do you do to your face?”

“Do to it? What do you mean by do to it?”

“What do you do to it to make it look the way it does? Don't tell me it
grew that way naturally.”

“Grew! Course it grew! What kind of talk's that?”

“Issy, with a face like yours how do you keep the birds away?”

“Eh? Keep the birds away! Now look here, just--”

“Excuse me. Did I say 'birds,' Issy? I didn't mean birds like--like
crows. Of course a face like yours would keep the crows away all right
enough. I meant girls. How do you keep the girls away? I should think
they would be making love all the time.”

“Aw, you shut up! Just 'cause you're Cap'n Lote's grandson I presume
likely you think you can talk any kind of talk, don't ye?”

“Not any kind, Is. I can't talk like you. Will you teach me?”

“Shut up! Now, by Crimus, you--you furriner--you Speranzy--”

Mr. Keeler appeared at the office window. His shrill voice rose pipingly
in the wintry air as he demanded to know what was the trouble out there.

Mr. Price, still foaming, strode toward the window; Albert laughingly
followed him.

“What's the matter?” repeated Laban. “There's enough noise for a sewin'
circle. Be still, Is, can't you, for a minute. Al, what's the trouble?”

“Issy's been talking about his face,” explained Albert, soberly.

“I ain't neither. I was h'istin' up my end of a j'ist, same as I'm
paid to do, and, 'stead of helpin' he stands there and heaves out talk
about--about--”

“Well, about what?”

“Aw, about--about me and--and girls--and all sorts of dum foolishness.
I tell ye, I've got somethin' else to do beside listen to that kind of
cheap talk.”

“Um. Yes, yes. I see. Well, Al, what have you got to say?”

“Nothing. I'm sure I don't know what it is all about. I was working as
hard as I could and all at once he began pitching into me.”

“Pitchin' into you? How?”

“Oh, I don't know. Something about my looks he didn't like, I guess.
Wanted to know if I thought I was as handsome as he was, or something
like that.”

“Eh? I never neither! All I said was--”

Mr. Keeler raised his hand. “Seems to be a case for an umpire,” he
observed. “Um. Seem's if 'twas, seems so, seems so. Well, Captain Lote's
just comin' across the road and, if you say the word, I'll call him in
to referee. What do you say?”

They said nothing relevant to the subject in hand. Issachar made the
only remark. “Crimus-TEE!” he ejaculated. “Come on, Al, come on.”

The pair hurried away to resume lumber piling. Laban smiled slightly and
closed the window. It may be gathered from this incident that when the
captain was in charge of the deck there was little idle persiflage among
the “fo'mast hands.” They, like others in South Harniss, did not presume
to trifle with Captain Lote Snow.

So the business education of Alberto Miguel Carlos Speranza progressed.
At the end of the first six weeks in South Harniss he had learned a
little about bookkeeping, a little about selling hardware, a little
about measuring and marking lumber. And it must be admitted that that
little had been acquired, not because of vigorous application on the
part of the pupil, but because, being naturally quick and intelligent,
he could not help learning something. He liked the work just as little
as he had in the beginning of his apprenticeship. And, although he was
forgetting his thoughts of running away, of attempting fortune on his
own hook, he was just as rebellious as ever against a future to be spent
in that office and at that work.

Outside the office and the hateful bookkeeping he was beginning to find
several real interests. At the old house which had for generations been
called “the Snow place,” he was beginning to feel almost at home. He
and his grandmother were becoming close friends. She was not looking for
trouble, she never sat for long intervals gazing at him as if she were
guessing, guessing, guessing concerning him. Captain Zelotes did that,
but Olive did not. She had taken the boy, her “Janie's boy,” to her
heart from the moment she saw him and she mothered him and loved him in
a way which--so long as it was not done in public--comforted his lonely
soul. They had not yet reached the stage where he confided in her to
any great extent, but that was certain to come later. It was his
grandmother's love and the affection he was already beginning to feel
for her which, during these first lonesome, miserable weeks, kept him
from, perhaps, turning the running away fantasy into a reality.

Another inmate of the Snow household with whom Albert was
becoming better acquainted with was Mrs. Rachel Ellis. Their real
acquaintanceship began one Sunday forenoon when Captain Zelotes and
Olive had gone to church. Ordinarily he would have accompanied them,
to sit in the straight-backed old pew on a cushion which felt lumpy and
smelt ancient and musty, and pretend to listen while old Mr. Kendall
preached a sermon which was ancient and musty likewise.

But this Sunday morning he awoke with a headache and his grandmother had
pleaded for him, declaring that he ought to “lay to bed” a while and get
over it. He got over it with surprising quickness after the church bell
ceased ringing, and came downstairs to read Ivanhoe in the sitting room.
He had read it several times before, but he wanted to read something and
the choice of volumes in the Snow bookcase was limited. He was stretched
out on the sofa with the book in his hand when the housekeeper entered,
armed with a dust-cloth. She went to church only “every other” Sunday.
This was one of the others without an every, and she was at home.

“What are you readin', Albert?” she asked, after a few' minutes vigorous
wielding of the dust-cloth. “It must be awful interestin', you stick at
it so close.”

The Black Knight was just then hammering with his battle-axe at the gate
of Front de Buef's castle, not minding the stones and beams cast
down upon him from above “no more than if they were thistle-down or
feathers.” Albert absently admitted that the story was interesting. The
housekeeper repeated her request to be told its name.

“Ivanhoe,” replied the boy; adding, as the name did not seem to convey
any definite idea to his interrogator's mind: “It's by Walter Scott, you
know.”

Mrs. Ellis made no remark immediately. When she did it was to the effect
that she used to know a colored man named Scott who worked at the hotel
once. “He swept out and carried trunks and such things,” she explained.
“He seemed to be a real nice sort of colored man, far as ever I heard.”

Albert was more interested in the Black Knight of Ivanhoe than the black
man of the hotel, so he went on reading. Rachel sat down in a chair by
the window and looked out, twisting and untwisting the dust-cloth in her
lap.

“I presume likely lots and lots of folks have read that book, ain't
they?” she asked, after another interval.

“What? Oh, yes, almost everybody. It's a classic, I suppose.”

“What's that?”

“What's what?”

“What you said the book was. A class-somethin' or other?”

“Oh, a classic. Why, it's--it's something everybody knows about,
or--or ought to know about. One of the big things, you know. Like--like
Shakespeare or--or Robinson Crusoe or Paradise Lost or--lots of them.
It's a book everybody reads and always will.”

“I see. Humph! Well, I never read it. . . . I presume likely you think
that's pretty funny, don't you?”

Albert tore himself away from the fight at the gate.

“Why, I don't know,” he replied.

“Yes, you do. You think it's awful funny. Well, you wouldn't if you knew
more about how busy I've been all my life. I ain't had time to read the
way I'd ought to. I read a book once though that I'll never forget. Did
you ever read a book called Foul Play?”

“No. . . . Why, hold on, though; I think I have. By Charles Reade,
wasn't it?”

“Yes, that's who wrote it, a man named Charles Reade. Laban told me that
part of it; he reads a lot, Laban does. I never noticed who wrote it,
myself. I was too interested in it to notice little extry things like
that. But ain't that a WONDERFUL book? Ain't that the best book you ever
read in all your LIFE?”

She dropped the dust-cloth and was too excited and enthusiastic to pick
it up. Albert did his best to recall something definite concerning Foul
Play. The book had been in the school library and he, who read almost
everything, had read it along with the others.

“Let me see,” he said musingly. “About a shipwreck--something about a
shipwreck in it, wasn't there?”

“I should say there was! My stars above! Not the common kind of
shipwreck, neither, the kind they have down to Setuckit P'int on the
shoals. No sir-ee! This one was sunk on purpose. That Joe Wylie bored
holes right down through her with a gimlet, the wicked thing! And that
set 'em afloat right out on the sea in a boat, and there wan't anything
to eat till Robert Penfold--oh, HE was the smart one; he'd find
anything, that man!--he found the barnacles on the bottom of the boat,
just the same as he found out how to diffuse intelligence tied onto a
duck's leg over land knows how many legs--leagues, I mean--of ocean. But
that come later. Don't you remember THAT?”

Albert laughed. The story was beginning to come back to him.

“Oh, sure!” he exclaimed. “I remember now. He--the Penfold fellow--and
the girl landed on this island and had all sorts of adventures, and fell
in love and all that sort of stuff, and then her dad came and took her
back to England and she--she did something or other there to--to get the
Penfold guy out of trouble.”

“Did somethin'! I should say she did! Why, she found out all about who
forged the letter--the note, I mean--that's what she done. 'Twas Arthur
Wardlaw, that's who 'twas. And he was tryin' to get Helen all the time
for himself, the skinner! Don't talk to me about that Arthur Wardlaw! I
never could bear HIM.”

She spoke as if she had known the detested Wardlaw intimately from
childhood. Young Speranza was hugely amused. Ivanhoe was quite
forgotten.

“Foul Play was great stuff,” he observed. “When did you read it?”

“Eh? When? Oh, ever and ever so long ago. When I was about twenty, I
guess, and laid up with the measles. That's the only time I ever was
real what you might call down sick in my life, and I commenced with
measles. That's the way a good many folks commence, I know, but they
don't generally wait till they're out of their 'teens afore they start.
I was workin' for Mrs. Philander Bassett at the time, and she says to
me: 'Rachel,' she says, 'you're on the mendin' hand now, wouldn't you
like a book to read?' I says, 'Why, maybe I would.' And she fetched
up three of 'em. I can see 'em now, all three, plain as day. One was
Barriers Burned Away. She said that was somethin' about a big fire.
Well, I'm awful nervous about fires, have been from a child, so I didn't
read that. And another had the queerest kind of a name, if you'd call it
a name at all; 'twas She.”

Albert nodded.

“Yes,” he said. “I've read that.”

“Have you? Well, I begun to, but my stars, THAT wasn't any book to give
to a person with nerve symptoms. I got as far as where those Indians or
whatever they was started to put red-hot kettles on folks's heads, and
that was enough for ME. 'Give me somethin' civilized,' says I, 'or not
at all.' So I commenced Foul Play, and I tell you I kept right on to the
end.

“I don't suppose,” she went on, “that there ever was a much better book
than that wrote, was there?”

Albert temporized. “It is a good one,” he admitted.

“Don't seem to me there could be much better. Laban says it's good,
though he won't go so far as to say it's the very best. He's read lots
and lots of books, Laban has. Reads an awful lot in his spare time. He's
what you'd call an educated person, which is what I ain't. And I guess
you'll say that last is plain enough without bein' told,” she added.

Her companion, not exactly knowing how to answer, was silent for a
moment. Rachel, who had picked up and was again twisting the dust-cloth,
returned to the subject she so delighted in.

“But that Foul Play book,” she continued, “I've read till I've pretty
nigh wore the covers off. When Mrs. Bassett saw how much I liked it
she gave it to me for a present. I read a little bit in it every little
while. I kind of fit the folks in that book to folks in real life, sort
of compare 'em, you know. Do you ever do that?”

Albert, repressing a chuckle, said, “Sure!” again. She nodded.

“Now there's General Rolleson in that book,” she said. “Do you know who
he makes me think of? Cap'n Lote, your grandpa, that's who.”

General Rolleson, as Albert remembered him, was an extremely dignified,
cultured and precise old gentleman. Just what resemblance there might
be between him and Captain Zelotes Snow, ex-skipper of the Olive S.,
he could not imagine. He could not repress a grin, and the housekeeper
noticed it.

“Seems funny to you, I presume likely,” she said. “Well, now you think
about it. This General Rolleson man was kind of proud and sot in his
ways just as your grandpa is, Albert. He had a daughter he thought all
the world of; so did Cap'n Lote. Along come a person that wanted to
marry the daughter. In the book 'twas Robert Penfold, who had been
a convict. In your grandpa's case, 'twas your pa, who had been a
play-actor. So you see--”

Albert sat up on the sofa. “Hold on!” he interrupted indignantly. “Do
you mean to compare my father with a--with a CONVICT? I want you to
understand--”

Mrs. Ellis held up the dust-cloth. “Now, now, now,” she protested.
“Don't go puttin' words in my mouth that I didn't say. I don't doubt
your pa was a nice man, in his way, though I never met him. But 'twan't
Cap'n Lote's way any more than Robert Penfold's was General Rolleson's.”

“My father was famous,” declared the youth hotly. “He was one of the
most famous singers in this country. Everybody knows that--that is,
everybody but Grandfather and the gang down here,” he added, in disgust.

“I don't say you're wrong. Laban tells me that some of those singin'
folks get awful high wages, more than the cap'n of a steamboat, he says,
though that seems like stretchin' it to me. But, as I say, Cap'n Lote
was proud, and nobody but the best would satisfy him for Janie, your
mother. Well, in that way, you see, he reminds me of General Rolleson in
the book.”

“Look here, Mrs. Ellis. Tell me about this business of Dad's marrying my
mother. I never knew much of anything about it.”

“You didn't? Did your pa never tell you?”

“No.”

“Humph! That's funny. Still, I don't know's as 'twas, after all,
considerin' you was only a boy. Probably he'd have told you some day.
Well, I don't suppose there's any secret about it. 'Twas town talk down
here when it happened.”

She told him the story of the runaway marriage. Albert listened with
interest and the almost incredulous amazement with which the young
always receive tales of their parents' love affairs. Love, for people of
his age or a trifle older, was a natural and understandable thing, but
for his father, as he remembered him, to have behaved in this way was
incomprehensible.

“So,” said Rachel, in conclusion, “that's how it happened. That's why
Cap'n Lote couldn't ever forgive your father.”

He tossed his head. “Well, he ought to have forgiven him,” he declared.
“He was dead lucky to get such a man for a son-in-law, if you ask me.”

“He didn't think so. And he wouldn't ever mention your pa's name.”

“Oh, I don't doubt that. Anybody can see how he hated Father. And he
hates me the same way,” he added moodily.

Mrs. Ellis was much disturbed. “Oh, no, he don't,” she cried. “You
mustn't think that, Albert. He don't hate you, I'm sure of it. He's
just kind of doubtful about you, that's all. He remembers how your pa
acted--or how he thinks he acted--and so he can't help bein' the least
mite afraid the same thing may crop out in you. If you just stick to
your job over there at the lumber yards and keep on tryin' to please
him, he'll get all over that suspicion, see if he don't. Cap'n Lote
Snow is stubborn sometimes and hard to turn, but he's square as a brick.
There's some that don't like him, and a good many that don't agree with
him--but everybody respects him.”

Albert did not answer. The housekeeper rose from her chair.

“There!” she exclaimed. “I don't know when I've set down for so long.
Goodness knows I've got work enough to do without settin' around
talkin'. I can't think what possessed me to do it this time, unless
'twas seein' you readin' that book.” She paused a moment and then said:
“Albert, I--I don't want you and your grandpa to have any quarrels. You
see--well, you see, I used to know your mother real well, and--and I
thought an awful sight of her. I wish--I do wish when you and the cap'n
have any trouble or anything, or when you think you're liable to have
any, you'd come and talk it over with me. I'm like the feller that Laban
tells about in his dog-fight yarn. This feller was watchin' the fight
and when they asked him to stop it afore one or t'other of the dogs
was killed, he just shook his head. 'No-o,' he says, kind of slow and
moderate, 'I guess I shan't interfere. One of 'em's been stealin' my
chickens and the other one bit me. I'm a friend to both parties,' he
says. Course I don't mean it exactly that way,” she added, with a smile,
“but you know what I do mean, I guess. WILL you talk things over with me
sometimes, Albert?”

His answer was not very enthusiastic, but he said he guessed so, and
Rachel seemed satisfied with that. She went on with her dusting, and he
with his reading, but the conversation was the first of many between the
pair. The housekeeper appeared to consider his having read her beloved
Foul Play a sort of password admitting him to her lodge and that
thereafter they were, in consequence, to be confidants and comrades. She
never hesitated to ask him the most personal questions concerning his
work, his plans, the friends or acquaintances he was making in the
village. Some of those questions he answered honestly and fully, some he
dodged, some he did not answer at all. Mrs. Ellis never resented his not
answering. “I presume likely that ain't any of my business, is it?” she
would say, and ask about something else.

On the other hand, she was perfectly outspoken concerning her own
affairs. He was nearly overcome with hilarious joy when, one day, she
admitted that, in her mind, Robert Penfold, the hero of Foul Play, lived
again in the person of Laban Keeler.

“Why, Mrs. Ellis,” he cried, as soon as he could trust himself to speak
at all, “I don't see THAT. Penfold was a six-footer, wasn't he?
And--and athletic, you know, and--and a minister, and young--younger, I
mean--and--”

Rachel interrupted. “Yes, yes, I know,” she said. “And Laban is little,
and not very young, and, whatever else he is, he ain't a minister. I
know all that. I know the outside of him don't look like Robert Penfold
at all. But,” somewhat apologetically, “you see I've been acquainted
with him so many years I've got into the habit of seein' his INSIDE.
Now that sounds kind of ridiculous, I know,” she added. “Sounds as if
I--I--well, as if I was in the habit of takin' him apart, like a watch
or somethin'. What I mean is that I know him all through. I've known him
for a long, long while. He ain't much to look at, bein' so little and
sort of dried up, but he's got a big, fine heart and big brains. He can
do 'most anything he sets his hand to. When I used to know him, when I
was a girl, folks was always prophesyin' that Laban Keeler would turn
out to be a whole lot more'n the average. He would, too, only for one
thing, and you know what that is. It's what has kept me from marryin'
him all this time. I swore I'd never marry a man that drinks, and I
never will. Why, if it wasn't for liquor Labe would have been runnin'
his own business and gettin' rich long ago. He all but runs Cap'n Lote's
place as 'tis. The cap'n and a good many other folks don't realize that,
but it's so.”

It was plain that she worshiped the little bookkeeper and, except during
the periods of “vacation” and “sympathetics,” was tremendously proud
of him. Albert soon discovered that Mr. Keeler's feeling for her was
equally strong. In his case, though, there was also a strong strain of
gratitude.

“She's a fine woman, Al,” he confided to his assistant on one occasion.
“A fine woman. . . . Yes, yes, yes. They don't make 'em any finer. Ah
hum! And not so long ago I read about a passel of darn fools arguin'
that the angels in heaven was all he-ones. . . . Umph! . . . Sho, sho!
If men was as good as women, Ansel--Alfred--Albert, I mean--we could
start an opposition heaven down here most any time. 'Most any time--yes,
yes.”

It was considerable for him to say. Except when on a vacation, Laban was
not loquacious.

Each Sunday afternoon, when the weather was pleasant, he came, dressed
in his best black cutaway, shiny at elbows and the under part of the
sleeves, striped trousers and a pearl gray soft hat with a black band,
a hat which looked as much out of place above his round, withered little
face as a red roof might have looked on a family vault, and he and the
housekeeper went for a walk.

Rachel, in her Sunday black, bulked large beside him. As Captain Zelotes
said, the pair looked like “a tug takin' a liner out to sea.”



CHAPTER V


Outside of the gates of the Snow place Albert was making many
acquaintances and a few friends. After church on Sundays his grandmother
had a distressful habit of suddenly seizing his arm or his coat-tail as
he was hurrying toward the vestibule and the sunshine of outdoors, and
saying: “Oh, Albert, just a minute! Here's somebody you haven't met
yet, I guess. Elsie”--or Nellie or Mabel or Henry or Charlie or George,
whichever it happened to be--“this is my grandson, Albert Speranza.” And
the young person to whom he was thus introduced would, if a male, extend
a hesitating hand, give his own an embarrassed shake, smile uncertainly
and say, “Yes--er--yes. Pleased to meet you.” Or, if of the other sex,
would blush a little and venture the observation that it was a lovely
morning, and wasn't the sermon splendid.

These Sabbath introductions led to week-day, or rather week-evening,
meetings. The principal excitement in South Harniss was “going for the
mail.” At noon and after supper fully one-half of the village population
journeyed to the post office. Albert's labors for Z. Snow and Co.
prevented his attending the noon gatherings--his grandfather usually
got the morning mail--but he early formed the habit of sauntering “down
street” in the evening if the weather was not too cold or disagreeable.
There he was certain to find groups of South Harniss youth of both
sexes, talking, giggling, skylarking and flirting. Sometimes he joined
one or the other of these groups; quite as often he did not, but kept
aloof and by himself, for it may as well be acknowledged now, if it is
not already plain, that the son of Miguel Carlos Speranza had inherited
a share of his father's temperament and self-esteem. The whim of the
moment might lead him to favor these young people with his society, but
he was far from considering himself under obligation to do so. He had
not the least idea that he was in any way a snob, he would have hotly
resented being called one, but he accepted his estimate of his own worth
as something absolute and certain, to be taken for granted.

Now this attitude of mind had its dangers. Coupled with its possessor's
extraordinary good looks, it was fascinating to a large percentage of
the village girls. The Speranza eyes and the Speranza curls and nose
and chin were, when joined with the easy condescension of the Speranza
manner, a combination fatal to the susceptible. The South Harniss
“flappers,” most of them, enthused over the new bookkeeper in the lumber
office. They ogled and giggled and gushed in his presence, and he was
tolerant or bored, just as he happened to be feeling at the moment. But
he never displayed a marked interest in any one of them, for the very
good reason that he had no such interest. To him they were merely girls,
nice enough in their way, perhaps, but that way not his. Most of the
town young fellows of his age he found had a “girl” and almost every
girl had a “fellow”; there was calf love in abundance, but he was a
different brand of veal.

However, a great man must amuse himself, and so he accepted invitations
to church socials and suppers and to an occasional dance or party. His
style of dancing was not that of South Harniss in the winter. It was
common enough at the hotel or the “tea house” in July and August when
the summer people were there, but not at the town hall at the Red Men's
Annual Ball in February. A fellow who could foxtrot as he could swept
all before him. Sam Thatcher, of last year's class in the high school,
but now clerking in the drug store, who had hitherto reigned as the best
“two-stepper” in town, suddenly became conscious of his feet. Then, too,
the contents of the three trunks which had been sent on from school were
now in evidence. No Boston or Brockton “Advanced Styles” held a candle
to those suits which the tailor of the late Miguel Carlos had turned out
for his patron's only son. No other eighteen-year-older among the town's
year-around residents possessed a suit of evening clothes. Albert wore
his “Tux” at the Red Men's Ball and hearts palpitated beneath new muslin
gowns and bitter envy stirred beneath the Brockton “Advanced Styles.”

In consequence, by spring the social status of Albert Speranza among
those of his own age in the village had become something like this: He
was in high favor with most of the girls and in corresponding disfavor
with most of the young fellows. The girls, although they agreed that he
was “stand-offish and kind of queer,” voted him “just lovely, all the
same.” Their envious beaux referred to him sneeringly among themselves
as a “stuck-up dude.” Some one of them remembered having been told that
Captain Zelotes, years before, had been accustomed to speak of his hated
son-in-law as “the Portygee.” Behind his back they formed the habit
of referring to their new rival in the same way. The first time Albert
heard himself called a “Portygee” was after prayer meeting on Friday
evening, when, obeying a whim, he had walked home with Gertie Kendrick,
quite forgetful of the fact that Sam Thatcher, who aspired to be
Gertie's “steady,” was himself waiting on the church steps for that
privilege.

Even then nothing might have come of it had he and Sam not met in the
path as he was sauntering back across lots to the main road and home. It
was a brilliant moonlight night and the pair came together, literally,
at the bend where the path turns sharply around the corner of Elijah
Doane's cranberry shanty. Sam, plowing along, head down and hands in his
pockets, swung around that corner and bumped violently into Albert,
who, a cigarette between his lips--out here in the fields, away from
civilization and Captain Zelotes, was a satisfyingly comfortable place
to smoke a cigarette--was dreaming dreams of a future far away from
South Harniss. Sam had been thinking of Gertie. Albert had not. She had
been a mere incident of the evening; he had walked home with her because
he happened to be in the mood for companionship and she was rather
pretty and always talkative. His dreams during the stroll back alone
in the moonlight had been of lofty things, of poetry and fame and
high emprise; giggling Gerties had no place in them. It was distinctly
different with Sam Thatcher.

They crashed together, gasped and recoiled.

“Oh, I'm sorry!” exclaimed Albert.

“Can't you see where you're goin', you darned Portygee half-breed?”
 demanded Sam.

Albert, who had stepped past him, turned and came back.

“What did you say?” he asked.

“I said you was a darned half-breed, and you are. You're a no-good
Portygee, like your father.”

It was all he had time to say. For the next few minutes he was too busy
to talk. The Speranzas, father and son, possessed temperament; also they
possessed temper. Sam's face, usually placid and good-natured, for Sam
was by no means a bad fellow in his way, was fiery red. Albert's, on the
contrary, went perfectly white. He seemed to settle back on his heels
and from there almost to fly at his insulter. Five minutes or so later
they were both dusty and dirty and dishevelled and bruised, but Sam was
pretty thoroughly licked. For one thing, he had been taken by surprise
by his adversary's quickness; for another, Albert's compulsory training
in athletics at school gave him an advantage. He was by no means an
unscarred victor, but victor he was. Sam was defeated, and very much
astonished. He leaned against the cranberry house and held on to his
nose. It had been a large nose in the beginning, it was larger now.

Albert stood before him, his face--where it was not a pleasing
combination of black and blue--still white.

“If you--if you speak of my father or me again like that,” he panted,
“I'll--I'll kill you!”

Then he strode off, a bit wobbly on his legs, but with dignity.

Oddly enough, no one except the two most interested ever knew of this
encounter. Albert, of course, did not tell. He was rather ashamed of it.
For the son of Miguel Carlos Speranza to conquer dragons was a worthy
and heroic business, but there seemed to be mighty little heroism in
licking Sam Thatcher behind 'Lije Doane's cranberry shack. And Sam did
not tell. Gertie next day confided that she didn't care two cents for
that stuck-up Al Speranza, anyway; she had let him see her home only
because Sam had danced so many times with Elsie Wixon at the ball
that night. So Sam said nothing concerning the fight, explaining the
condition of his nose by saying that he had run into something in the
dark. And he did not appear to hold a grudge against his conqueror; on
the contrary when others spoke of the latter as a “sissy,” Sam defended
him. “He may be a dude,” said Sam; “I don't say he ain't. But he ain't
no sissy.”

When pressed to tell why he was so certain, his answer was: “Because he
don't act like one.” It was not a convincing answer, the general opinion
being that that was exactly how Al Speranza did act.

There was one young person in the village toward whom Albert found
himself making exceptions in his attitude of serenely impersonal
tolerance. That person was Helen Kendall, the girl who had come into his
grandfather's office the first morning of his stay in South Harniss. He
was forced to make these exceptions by the young lady herself. When he
met her the second time--which was after church on his first Sunday--his
manner was even more loftily reserved than usual. He had distinct
recollections of their first conversation. His own part in it had not
been brilliant, and in it he had made the absurd statement--absurd in
the light of what came after--that he was certainly NOT employed by Z.
Snow and Co.

So he was cool and superior when his grandmother brought them together
after the meeting was over. If Helen noticed the superiority, she was
certainly not over-awed by it, for she was so simple and natural and
pleasant that he was obliged to unbend and be natural too. In fact,
at their third meeting he himself spoke of the interview in the
lumber office and again expressed his thanks for warning him of his
grandfather's detestation of cigarettes.

“Gee!” he exclaimed, “I'm certainly glad that you put me on to the old
boy's feelings. I think he'd have murdered me if he had come back and
found me puffing a Pall Mall in there.”

She smiled. “He does hate them, doesn't he?” she said.

“Hate them! I should say he did. Hating cigarettes is about the only
point where he and Issy get along without an argument. If a traveler for
a hardware house comes into the office smoking a cig, Issy opens all the
windows to let the smell out, and Grandfather opens the door to throw
the salesman out. Well, not exactly to throw him out, of course, but he
never buys a single cent's worth of a cigarette smoker.”

Helen glanced at him. “You must be awfully glad you're not a traveling
salesman,” she said demurely.

Albert did not know exactly what to make of that remark. He, in his
turn, looked at her, but she was grave and quite unconcerned.

“Why?” he asked, after a moment.

“Why--what?”

“Why ought I to be glad I'm not a traveling salesman?”

“Oh, I don't know. It just seemed to me that you ought, that's all.”

“But why?”

“Well, if you were you wouldn't make a great hit with your grandfather,
would you?”

“Eh? . . . Oh, you mean because I smoke. Say, YOU'RE not silly enough to
be down on cigarettes the way grandfather is, are you?”

“No-o, I'm not down on them, especially. I'm not very well acquainted
with them.”

“Neither is he. He never smoked one in his life. It's just country
prejudice, that's all.”

“Well, I live in the country, too, you know.”

“Yes, but you're different.”

“How do you know I am?”

“Oh, because any one can see you are.” The manner in which this remark
was made, a manner implying a wide knowledge of humanity and a hint of
personal interest and discriminating appreciation, had been found quite
effective by the precocious young gentleman uttering it. With variations
to suit the case and the individual it had been pleasantly received by
several of the Misses Bradshaw's pupils. He followed it with another
equally tried and trustworthy.

“Say,” he added, “would YOU rather I didn't smoke?”

The obvious reply should have been, “Oh, would you stop if I asked you
to?” But Helen Kendall was a most disconcerting girl. Instead of purring
a pleased recognition of the implied flattery, she laughed merrily. The
Speranza dignity was hurt.

“What is there to laugh at?” he demanded. “Are you laughing at me?”

The answer was as truthful as truth itself.

“Why, of course I am,” she replied; and then completed his discomfiture
by adding, “Why should I care whether you smoke or not? You had better
ask your grandfather that question, I should think.”

Now Alberto Miguel Carlos Speranza had not been accustomed to this sort
of treatment from young persons of the other sex, and he walked away in
a huff. But the unusual is always attractive, and the next time he and
Miss Kendall met he was as gracious and cordial as ever. But it was
not long before he learned that the graciousness was, in her case, a
mistake. Whenever he grew lofty, she took him down, laughed at him with
complete frankness, and refused to treat him as anything but a boy. So
they gradually grew friendly, and when they met at parties or church
socials he spent most of the time in her company, or, rather, he would
have so spent it had she permitted. But she was provokingly impartial
and was quite as likely to refuse a dance with him to sit out one
with Sam Thatcher or Ben Hammond or any other village youth of her
acquaintance. However, although she piqued and irritated him, he was
obliged to admit to his inner consciousness that she was the most
interesting person he had yet discovered in South Harniss, also that
even in the eyes of such connoisseurs as his fellow members of the
senior class at school she would have been judged a “good looker,” in
spite of her country clothes.

He met her father, of course. The Reverend Mr. Kendall was a dreamy
little old gentleman with white hair and the stooped shoulders of a
student. Everybody liked him, and it was for that reason principally
that he was still the occupant of the Congregational pulpit, for to
quote Captain Zelotes, his sermons were inclined to be like the sandy
road down to Setuckit Point, “ten mile long and dry all the way.” He was
a widower and his daughter was his companion and managing housekeeper.
There was a half-grown girl, one of the numerous Price family, a cousin
of Issachar's, who helped out with the sweeping, dish-washing and
cooking, but Helen was the real head of the household.

“And she's a capable one, too,” declared Mrs. Snow, when at supper one
evening Helen's name had come into the conversation. “I declare when I
was there yesterday to see the minister about readin' poetry to us at
sewin'-circle next Monday that parlor was as neat as wax. And 'twas all
Helen's work that kept it so, that was plain enough. You could see her
way of settin' a vase or puttin' on a table cloth wherever you looked.
Nobody else has just that way. And she does it after school or before
school or 'most any odd time. And whatever 'tis is done right.”

The housekeeper put in a word. “There's no doubt about that,” she said,
“and there ain't any more doubt that she don't get much help from her pa
or that Maria B.” There were so many Prices within the township limits
that individuals were usually distinguished by their middle initial. “As
for Mr. Kendall,” went on Rachel, “he moves with his head in the clouds
and his feet cruisin' with nobody at the wheel two-thirds of the time.
Emma Smith says to me yesterday, says she, 'Mr. Kendall is a saint on
earth, ain't he,' says she. 'Yes,' says I, 'and he'll be one in heaven
any minute if he goes stumblin' acrost the road in front of Doctor
Holliday's automobile the way I see him yesterday.' The doctor put on
the brakes with a slam and a yell. The minister stopped right there in
the middle of the road with the front wheels of that auto not MORE'N two
foot from his old baggy trousers' knees, and says he, 'Eh? Did you want
me, Doctor?' The doctor fetched a long breath. 'Why, no, Mr. Kendall,'
he says, 'I didn't, but I come darn nigh gettin' you.' I don't know what
WOULD become of him if he didn't have Helen to look out for him.”

As they came to know each other better their conversation dealt with
matters more personal. They sometimes spoke of plans for the future.
Albert's plans and ambitions were lofty, but rather vague. Helen's
were practical and definite. She was to graduate from high school that
spring. Then she was hoping to teach in the primary school there in the
village; the selectmen had promised her the opportunity.

“But, of course,” she said, “I don't mean to stay here always. When I
can, after I have saved some money and if Father doesn't need me
too badly, I shall go away somewhere, to Bridgewater, or perhaps to
Radcliffe, and study. I want to specialize in my teaching, you know.”

Albert regarded her with amused superiority.

“I don't see why on earth you are so anxious to be a school-marm,” he
said. “That's the last job I'd want.”

Her answer was given promptly, but without the least trace of temper.
That was one of the most provoking things about this girl, she would not
lose her temper. He usually lost his trying to make her. She spoke now,
pleasantly, and deliberately, but as if she were stating an undesirable
fact.

“I think it would be the last one you would get,” she said.

“Why? Great Scott! I guess I could teach school if I wanted to. But you
bet I wouldn't want to! . . . NOW what are you laughing at?”

“I'm not laughing.”

“Yes, you are. I can always tell when you're laughing; you get that look
in your eyes, that sort of--of--Oh, I can't tell you what kind of look
it is, but it makes me mad. It's the same kind of look my grandfather
has, and I could punch him for it sometimes. Why should you and he think
I'm not going to amount to anything?”

“I don't think so. And I'm sure he doesn't either. And I wasn't laughing
at you. Or, if I was, it--it was only because--”

“Well, because what?”

“Oh, because you are so AWFULLY sure you know--well, know more than most
people.”

“Meaning I'm stuck on myself, I suppose. Well, now I tell you I'm
not going to hang around in this one-horse town all my life to please
grandfather or any one else.”

When he mentioned his determination to win literary glory she was always
greatly interested. Dreams of histrionic achievement were more coldly
received. The daughter of a New England country clergyman, even in these
days of broadening horizons, could scarcely be expected to look with
favor upon an actor's career.

June came and with it the first of the summer visitors. For the next
three months Albert was happy with a new set of acquaintances. They were
HIS kind, these young folks from the city, and his spare moments were
for the most part spent in their society. He was popular with them, too.
Some of them thought it queer that he should be living all the year in
the village and keeping books for a concern like Z. Snow and Co., but
juvenile society is tolerant and a youth who could sing passably, dance
wonderfully and, above all, was as beautifully picturesque as Albert
Speranza, was welcomed, especially by the girls. So the Saturdays and
Sundays and evenings of that summer were pleasant for him. He saw little
of Helen or Gertie Kendrick while the hotel or the cottages remained
open.

Then came the fall and another long, dreary winter. Albert plodded on at
his desk or in the yard, following Mr. Keeler's suggestions, obeying his
grandfather's orders, tormenting Issy, doing his daily stint because he
had to, not because he liked it. For amusement he read a good deal, went
to the usual number of sociables and entertainments, and once took part
in amateur theatricals, a play given by the church society in the
town hall. There was where he shone. As the dashing young hero he was
resplendent. Gertie Kendrick gazed upon him from the third settee
center with shining eyes. When he returned home after it was over his
grandmother and Mrs. Ellis overwhelmed him with praises.

“I declare you was perfectly splendid, Albert!” exclaimed Olive. “I was
so proud of you I didn't know what to do.”

Rachel looked upon him as one might look upon a god from Olympus.

“All I could think of was Robert Penfold,” she said. “I says so to
Laban: 'Laban,' says I, ain't he Robert Penfold and nobody else?' There
you was, tellin' that Hannibal Ellis that you was innocent and some day
the world would know you was, just the way Robert Penfold done in the
book. I never did like that Hannie Ellis!”

Mrs. Snow smiled. “Mercy, Rachel,” she said, “I hope you're not blamin'
Hannie because of what he did in that play. That was his part, he had to
do it.”

But Rachel was not convinced. “He didn't have to be so everlastin' mean
and spiteful about it, anyhow,” she declared. “But there, that family
of Ellises never did amount to nothin' much. But, as I said to Laban,
Albert, you was Robert Penfold all over.”

“What did Labe say to that?” asked Albert, laughing.

“He never had a chance to say nothin'. Afore he could answer, that Maria
B. Price--she was settin' right back of me and eatin' molasses candy out
of a rattly paper bag till I thought I SHOULD die--she leaned forward
and she whispered: 'He looks more to me like that Stevie D. that used to
work for Cap'n Crowell over to the Center. Stevie D. had curly hair like
that and HE was part Portygee, you remember; though there was a little
nigger blood in him, too,' she says. I could have shook her! And then
she went to rattlin' that bag again.”

Even Mr. Keeler congratulated him at the office next morning. “You done
well, Al,” he said. “Yes--yes--yes. You done fust-rate, fust-rate.”

His grandfather was the only one who refused to enthuse.

“Well,” inquired Captain Zelotes, sitting down at his desk and glancing
at his grandson over his spectacles, “do you cal'late to be able to get
down to earth this mornin' far enough to figger up the payroll? You can
put what you made from play-actin' on a separate sheet. It's about as
much as the average person makes at that job,” he added.

Albert's face flushed. There were times when he hated his grandfather.
Mr. Keeler, a moment later, put a hand on his shoulder.

“You mustn't mind the old man, Al,” he whispered. “I expect that seein'
you last night brought your dad's job back to him strong. He can't bear
play-actin', you know, on your dad's account. Yes--yes. That was it.
Yes--yes--yes.”

It may have been a truthful explanation, but as an apology it was a
limited success.

“My father was a gentleman, at any rate,” snapped Albert. Laban opened
his mouth to reply, but closed it again and walked back to his books.

In May, which was an unusually balmy month, the Congregational Sunday
School gave an automobile excursion and box-luncheon party at High Point
Light down at Trumet. As Rachel Ellis said, it was pretty early for
picnickin', but if the Almighty's season was ahead of time there didn't
seem to be any real good reason why one of his Sunday schools shouldn't
be. And, which was the principal excuse for the hurry, the hotel busses
could be secured, which would not be the case after the season opened.

Albert went to the picnic. He was not very keen on going, but his
grandfather had offered him a holiday for the purpose, and it was one
of his principles never to refuse a chance to get away from that office.
Besides, a number of the young people of his age were going, and Gertie
Kendrick had been particularly insistent.

“You just MUST come, Al,” she said. “It won't be any fun at all if you
don't come.”

It is possible that Gertie found it almost as little fun when he
did come. He happened to be in one of his moods that day; “Portygee
streaks,” his grandfather termed these moods, and told Olive that they
were “that play-actor breakin' out in him.” He talked but little during
the ride down in the bus, refused to sing when called upon, and, after
dinner, when the dancing in the pavilion was going on, stepped quietly
out of the side door and went tramping along the edge of the bluff,
looking out over the sea or down to the beach, where, one hundred and
fifty feet below, the big waves were curling over to crash into a creamy
mass of froth and edge the strand with lacy ripples.

The high clay bluffs of Trumet are unique. No other part of the Cape
shows anything just like them. High Point Light crowns their highest
and steepest point and is the flashing beacon the rays of which spell
“America” to the incoming liner Boston bound.

Along the path skirting the edge of the bluff Albert strolled, his hands
in his pockets and his thoughts almost anywhere except on the picnic
and the picnickers of the South Harniss Congregational Church. His
particular mood on this day was one of discontent and rebellion against
the fate which had sentenced him to the assistant bookkeeper's position
in the office of Z. Snow and Co. At no time had he reconciled himself to
the idea of that position as a permanent one; some day, somehow he was
going to break away and do--marvelous things. But occasionally, and
usually after a disagreeable happening in the office, he awoke from his
youthful day dreams of glorious futures to a realization of the dismal
to-day.

The happening which had brought about realization in this instance was
humorous in the eyes of two-thirds of South Harniss's population. They
were chuckling over it yet. The majority of the remaining third were
shocked. Albert, who was primarily responsible for the whole affair, was
neither amused nor shocked; he was angry and humiliated.

The Reverend Seabury Calvin, of Providence, R. I., had arrived in town
and opened his summer cottage unusually early in the season. What
was quite as important, Mrs. Seabury Calvin had arrived with him. The
Reverend Calvin, whose stay was in this case merely temporary, was
planning to build an addition to his cottage porch. Mrs. Calvin, who was
the head of the summer “Welfare Workers,” whatever they were, had called
a meeting at the Calvin house to make Welfare plans for the season.

The lumber for the new porch was ordered of Z. Snow and Co. The Reverend
Calvin ordered it himself in person. Albert received the order.

“I wish this delivered to-morrow without fail,” said Mr. Calvin. Albert
promised.

But promises are not always easy to keep. One of Z. Snow and Co.'s teams
was busy hauling lumber for the new schoolhouse at Bayport. The other
Issachar had commandeered for deliveries at Harniss Center and refused
to give up his claim. And Laban Keeler, as it happened, was absent
on one of his “vacations.” Captain Zelotes was attending a directors'
meeting at Osham and from there was going to Boston for a day's stay.

“The ship's in your hands, Al,” he had said to his grandson. “Let me see
how you handle her.”

So, in spite of Albert's promise, the Calvin lumber was not delivered on
time. The Reverend gentleman called to ask why. His manner was anything
but receptive so far as excuses were concerned.

“Young man,” he said loftily, “I am accustomed to do business with
business people. Did you or did you not promise to deliver my order
yesterday?”

“Why, yes sir, I promised, but we couldn't do it. We--”

“I don't care to know why you didn't do it. The fact that you did not is
sufficient. Will that order of mine be delivered to-day?”

“If it is a possible thing, Mr. Calvin, it--”

“Pardon me. Will it be delivered?”

The Speranza temper was rising. “Yes,” said the owner of that temper,
succinctly.

“Does yes mean yes, in this case; or does it mean what it meant before?”

“I have told you why--”

“Never mind. Young man, if that lumber is not delivered to-day I shall
cancel the order. Do you understand?”

Albert swallowed hard. “I tell you, Mr. Calvin, that it shall be
delivered,” he said. “And it will be.”

But delivering it was not so easy. The team simply could NOT be taken
off the schoolhouse job, fulfillment of a contract was involved there.
And the other horse had gone lame and Issachar swore by all that was
solemn that the animal must not be used.

“Let old Calvin wait till to-morrow,” said Issy. “You can use the big
team then. And Cap'n Lote'll be home, besides.”

But Albert was not going to let “old Calvin” wait. That lumber was going
to be delivered, if he had to carry it himself, stick by stick. He asked
Mr. Price if an extra team might not be hired.

“Ain't none,” said Issy. “Besides, where'd your granddad's profits be
if you spent money hirin' extry teams to haul that little mite of stuff?
I've been in this business a good long spell, and I tell you--”

He did not get a chance to tell it, for Albert walked off and left him.
At half-past twelve that afternoon he engaged “Vessie” Young--christened
Sylvester Young and a brother to the driver of the depot wagon--to
haul the Calvin lumber in his rickety, fragrant old wagon. Simpson
Mullen--commonly called “Simp”--was to help in the delivery.

Against violent protests from Issy, who declared that Ves Young's
rattle-trap wan't fit to do nothin' but haul fish heads to the
fertilizer factory, the Calvin beams and boards were piled high on
the wagon and with Ves on the driver's seat and Simp perched, like a
disreputable carrion crow on top of the load, the equipage started.

“There!” exclaimed Albert, with satisfaction. “He can't say it wasn't
delivered this time according to promise.”

“Godfreys!” snorted Issy, gazing after the departing wagon. “He won't be
able to say nothin' when he sees that git-up--and smells it. Ves carts
everything in that cart from dead cows to gurry barrels. Whew! I'd
hate to have to set on that porch when 'twas built of that lumber. And,
unless I'm mistook, Ves and Simp had been havin' a little somethin'
strong to take, too.”

Mr. Price, as it happened, was not “mistook.” Mr. Young had, as the
South Harniss saying used to be, “had a jug come down” on the train from
Boston that very morning. The jug was under the seat of his wagon and
its contents had already been sampled by him and by Simp. The journey to
the Calvin cottage was enlivened by frequent stops for refreshment.

Consequently it happened that, just as Mrs. Calvin's gathering of
Welfare Workers had reached the cake and chocolate stage in their
proceedings and just as the Reverend Mr. Calvin had risen by invitation
to say a few words of encouragement, the westerly wind blowing in at
the open windows bore to the noses and ears of the assembled faithful a
perfume and a sound neither of which was sweet.

Above the rattle and squeak of the Young wagon turning in at the Calvin
gate arose the voices of Vessie and Simp uplifted in song.

“'Here's to the good old whiskey, drink 'er daown,'” sang Mr. Young.


     “'Here's to the good old whiskey,
         Drink 'er daown!
       Here's to the good old whiskey,
       It makes you feel so frisky,
         Drink 'er--'


Git up there, blank blank ye! What the blankety blank you stoppin' here
for? Git up!”

The horse was not the only creature that got up. Mrs. Calvin rose from
her chair and gazed in horror at the window. Her husband, being already
on his feet, could not rise but he broke off short the opening sentence
of his “few words” and stared and listened. Each Welfare Worker stared
and listened also.

“Git up, you blankety blank blank,” repeated Ves Young, with cheerful
enthusiasm. Mr. Mullen, from the top of the load of lumber, caroled
dreamily on:


     “'Here's to the good old rum,
         Drink 'er daown!
       Here's to the good old rum,
         Drink 'er daown!
       Here's to the good old rum,
       Ain't you glad that you've got some?
       Drink 'er daown!  Drink 'er daown!
         Drink 'er daown!'”


And floating, as it were, upon the waves of melody came the odor of the
Young wagon, an odor combining deceased fish and late lamented cow and
goodness knows what beside.

The dissipated vehicle stopped beneath the parlor windows of the Calvin
cottage. Mr. Young called to his assistant.

“Here we be, Simp!” he yelled. “A-a-ll ashore that's goin' ashore! Wake
up there, you unmentionably described old rum barrel and help unload
this everlastingly condemned lumber.”

Mr. Calvin rushed to the window. “What does this mean?” he demanded, in
frothing indignation.

Vessie waved at him reassuringly. “'Sall right, Mr. Calvin,” he shouted.
“Here's your lumber from Ze-lotes Snow and Co., South Harniss, Mass., U.
S. A. 'Sall right. Let 'er go, Simp! Let 'er blankety-blank go!”

Mr. Mullen responded with alacrity and a whoop. A half dozen boards
crashed to the ground beneath the parlor windows. Mrs. Calvin rushed to
her husband's side.

“This is DREADFUL, Seabury!” she cried. “Send those creatures and--and
that horrible wagon away at once.”

The Reverend Calvin tried to obey orders. He commanded Mr. Young to go
away from there that very moment. Vessie was surprised.

“Ain't this your lumber?” he demanded.

“It doesn't make any difference whether it is or not, I--”

“Didn't you tell Z. Snow and Co. that this lumber'd got to be delivered
to-day or you'd cancel the order?”

“Never mind. That is my business, sir. You--”

“Hold on! Ho-o-ld on! _I_ got a business, too. My business is deliverin'
what I'm paid to deliver. Al Speranzy he says to me: 'Ves,' he says, 'if
you don't deliver that lumber to old man Calvin to-day you don't get no
money, see. Will you deliver it?' Says I, 'You bet your crashety-blank
life I'll (hic) d'liver it! What I say I'll do, I'll do!' And I'm
deliverin' it, ain't I? Hey? Ain't I? Well, then, what the--” And so
forth and at length, while Mrs. Calvin collapsed half fainting in an
easy-chair, and horrified Welfare Workers covered their ears--and longed
to cover their noses.

The lumber was delivered that day. Its delivery was, from the viewpoint
of Messrs. Young and Mullen, a success. The spring meeting of the
Welfare Workers was not a success.

The following day Mr. Calvin called at the office of Z. Snow and Co. He
had things to say and said them. Captain Zelotes, who had returned from
Boston, listened. Then he called his grandson.

“Tell him what you've just told me, Mr. Calvin,” he said.

The reverend gentleman told it, with added details.

“And in my opinion, if you'll excuse me, Captain Snow,” he said, in
conclusion, “this young man knew what he was doing when he sent those
drunken scoundrels to my house. He did it purposely, I am convinced.”

Captain Zelotes looked at him.

“Why?” he asked.

“Why, because--because of--of what I said to him--er--er--when I called
here yesterday morning. He--I presume he took offense and--and this
outrage is the result. I am convinced that--”

“Wait a minute. What did you say for him to take offense at?”

“I demanded that order should be delivered as promised. I am accustomed
to do business with business men and--”

“Hold on just a minute more, Mr. Calvin. We don't seem to be gettin' at
the clam in this shell as fast as we'd ought to. Al, what have you got
to say about all this business?”

Albert was white, almost as white as when he fought Sam Thatcher, but as
he stood up to Sam so also did he face the irate clergyman. He told
of the latter's visit to the office, of the threat to cancel the order
unless delivery was promised that day, of how his promise to deliver was
exacted, of his effort to keep that promise.

“I HAD to deliver it, Grandfather,” he said hotly. “He had all but
called me a liar and--and by George, I wasn't going to--”

His grandfather held up a warning hand.

“Sshh! Ssh!” he said. “Go on with your yarn, boy.”

Albert told of the lame horse, of his effort to hire another team, and
finally how in desperation he had engaged Ves Young as a last resort.
The captain's face was serious but there was the twinkle under his heavy
brows. He pulled at his beard.

“Humph!” he grunted. “Did you know Ves and Simp had been drinkin' when
you hired 'em?”

“Of course I didn't. After they had gone Issy said he suspected that
they had been drinking a little, but _I_ didn't know it. All I wanted
was to prove to HIM,” with a motion toward Mr. Calvin, “that I kept my
word.”

Captain Zelotes pulled at his beard. “All right, Al,” he said, after a
moment; “you can go.”

Albert went out of the private office. After he had gone the captain
turned to his irate customer.

“I'm sorry this happened, Mr. Calvin,” he said, “and if Keeler or I had
been here it probably wouldn't. But,” he added, “as far as I can see,
the boy did what he thought was the best thing to do. And,” the twinkle
reappeared in the gray eyes, “you sartinly did get your lumber when
'twas promised.”

Mr. Calvin stiffened. He had his good points, but he suffered from what
Laban Keeler once called “ingrowin' importance,” and this ailment often
affected his judgment. Also he had to face Mrs. Calvin upon his return
home.

“Do I understand,” he demanded, “that you are excusing that young man
for putting that outrage upon me?”

“We-ll, as I say, I'm sorry it happened. But, honest, Mr. Calvin, I
don't know's the boy's to blame so very much, after all. He delivered
your lumber, and that's somethin'.”

“Is that all you have to say, Captain Snow? Is that--that impudent young
clerk of yours to go unpunished?”

“Why, yes, I guess likely he is.”

“Then I shall NEVER buy another dollar's worth of your house again,
sir.”

Captain Zelotes bowed. “I'm sorry to lose your trade, Mr. Calvin,” he
said. “Good mornin'.”

Albert, at his desk in the outer office, was waiting rebelliously to be
called before his grandfather and upbraided. And when so called he was
in a mood to speak his mind. He would say a few things, no matter what
happened in consequence. But he had no chance to say them. Captain
Zelotes did not mention the Calvin affair to him, either that day or
afterward. Albert waited and waited, expecting trouble, but the trouble,
so far as his grandfather was concerned, did not materialize. He could
not understand it.

But if in that office there was silence concerning the unusual delivery
of the lumber for the Calvin porch, outside there was talk enough and
to spare. Each Welfare Worker talked when she reached home and the story
spread. Small boys shouted after Albert when he walked down the main
street, demanding to know how Ves Young's cart was smellin' these days.
When he entered the post office some one in the crowd was almost sure to
hum, “Here's to the good old whiskey, drink her down.” On the train
on the way to the picnic, girls and young fellows had slyly nagged him
about it. The affair and its consequence were the principal causes of
his mood that day; this particular “Portygee streak” was due to it.

The path along the edge of the high bluff entered a grove of scraggy
pitch pines about a mile from the lighthouse and the picnic ground.
Albert stalked gloomily through the shadows of the little grove and
emerged on the other side. There he saw another person ahead of him on
the path. This other person was a girl. He recognized her even at this
distance. She was Helen Kendall.

She and he had not been quite as friendly of late. Not that there was
any unfriendliness between them, but she was teaching in the primary
school and, as her father had not been well, spent most of her evenings
at home. During the early part of the winter he had called occasionally
but, somehow, it had seemed to him that she was not quite as cordial, or
as interested in his society and conversation as she used to be. It was
but a slight indifference on her part, perhaps, but Albert Speranza
was not accustomed to indifference on the part of his feminine
acquaintances. So he did not call again. He had seen her at the picnic
ground and they had spoken, but not at any length.

And he did not care to speak with her now. He had left the pavilion
because of his desire to be alone, and that desire still persisted.
However, she was some little distance ahead of him and he waited in the
edge of the grove until she should go over the crest of the little hill
at the next point.

But she did not go over the crest. Instead, when she reached it, she
walked to the very edge of the bluff and stood there looking off at the
ocean. The sea breeze ruffled her hair and blew her skirts about her and
she made a pretty picture. But to Albert it seemed that she was standing
much too near the edge. She could not see it, of course, but from where
he stood he could see that the bank at that point was much undercut by
the winter rains and winds, and although the sod looked firm enough from
above, in reality there was little to support it. Her standing there
made him a trifle uneasy and he had a mind to shout and warn her.
He hesitated, however, and as he watched she stepped back of her own
accord. He turned, re-entered the grove and started to walk back to the
pavilion.

He had scarcely done so when he heard a short scream followed by a
thump and a rumbling, rattling sound. He turned like a flash, his heart
pounding violently.

The bluff edge was untenanted. A semi-circular section of the sod where
Helen had stood was missing. From the torn opening where it had been
rose a yellow cloud of dust.



CHAPTER VI


A goodly number of the South Harniss “natives,” those who had not seen
him play tennis, would have been willing to swear that running was, for
Albert Speranza, an impossibility. His usual gait was a rather languid
saunter. They would have changed their minds had they seen him now.

He ran along that path as he had run in school at the last track meet,
where he had been second in the hundred-yard dash. He reached the spot
where the sod had broken and, dropping on his knees, looked fearfully
over. The dust was still rising, the sand and pebbles were still
rattling in a diminishing shower down to the beach so far below. But he
did not see what he had so feared to see.

What he did see, however, was neither pleasant nor altogether
reassuring. The bluff below the sod at its top dropped sheer and
undercut for perhaps ten feet. Then the sand and clay sloped outward and
the slope extended down for another fifty feet, its surface broken by
occasional clinging chunks of beach grass. Then it broke sharply again,
a straight drop of eighty feet to the mounds and dunes bordering the
beach.

Helen had of course fallen straight to the upper edge of the slope,
where she had struck feet first, and from there had slid and rolled to
the very edge of the long drop to the beach. Her skirt had caught in
the branches of an enterprising bayberry bush which had managed to find
roothold there, and to this bush and a clump of beach grass she was
clinging, her hands outstretched and her body extended along the edge of
the clay precipice.

Albert gasped.

“Helen!” he called breathlessly.

She turned her head and looked up at him. Her face was white, but she
did not scream.

“Helen!” cried Albert, again. “Helen, do you hear me?”

“Yes.”

“Are you badly hurt?”

“No. No, I don't think so.”

“Can you hold on just as you are for a few minutes?”

“Yes, I--I think so.”

“You've got to, you know. Here! You're not going to faint, are you?”

“No, I--I don't think I am.”

“You can't! You mustn't! Here! Don't you do it! Stop!”

There was just a trace of his grandfather in the way he shouted the
order. Whether or not the vigor of the command produced the result is a
question, but at any rate she did not faint.

“Now you stay right where you are,” he ordered again. “And hang on as
tight as you can. I'm coming down.”

Come down he did, swinging over the brink with his face to the bank,
dropping on his toes to the upper edge of the slope and digging boots
and fingers into the clay to prevent sliding further.

“Hang on!” he cautioned, over his shoulder. “I'll be there in a second.
There! Now wait until I get my feet braced. Now give me your hand--your
left hand. Hold on with your right.”

Slowly and cautiously, clinging to his hand, he pulled her away from the
edge of the precipice and helped her to scramble up to where he clung.
There she lay and panted. He looked at her apprehensively.

“Don't go and faint now, or any foolishness like that,” he ordered
sharply.

“No, no, I won't. I'll try not to. But how are we ever going to climb
up--up there?”

Above them and at least four feet out of reach, even if they stood up,
and that would be a frightfully risky proceeding, the sod projected over
their heads like the eaves of a house.

Helen glanced up at it and shuddered.

“Oh, how CAN we?” she gasped.

“We can't. And we won't try.”

“Shall we call for help?”

“Not much use. Nobody to hear us. Besides, we can always do that if
we have to. I think I see a way out of the mess. If we can't get up,
perhaps we can get down.”

“Get DOWN?”

“Yes, it isn't all as steep as it is here. I believe we might sort of
zig-zag down if we were careful. You hold on here just as you are; I'm
going to see what it looks like around this next point.”

The “point” was merely a projection of the bluff about twenty feet away.
He crawfished along the face of the slope, until he could see beyond it.
Helen kept urging him to be careful--oh, be careful!

“Of course I'll be careful,” he said curtly. “I don't want to break my
neck. Yes--yes, by George, it IS easier around there! We could get down
a good way. Here, here; don't start until you take my hand. And be sure
your feet are braced before you move. Come on, now.”

“I--I don't believe I can.”

“Of course you can. You've GOT to. Come on. Don't look down. Look at the
sand right in front of you.”

Getting around that point was a decidedly ticklish operation, but they
managed it, he leading the way, making sure of his foothold before
moving and then setting her foot in the print his own had made. On the
other side of the projection the slope was less abrupt and extended much
nearer to the ground below. They zigzagged down until nearly to the edge
of the steep drop. Then Albert looked about for a new path to safety. He
found it still farther on.

“It takes us down farther,” he said, “and there are bushes to hold on to
after we get there. Come on, Helen! Brace up now, be a sport!”

She was trying her best to obey orders, but being a sport was no slight
undertaking under the circumstances. When they reached the clump of
bushes her guide ordered her to rest.

“Just stop and catch your breath,” he said. “The rest is going to be
easier, I think. And we haven't so very far to go.”

He was too optimistic. It was anything but easy; in fact, the last
thirty feet was almost a tumble, owing to the clay giving

Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/3263