The Postmaster
by Joseph Crosby Lincoln · English · Gutenberg #37482 · 401,913 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Postmaster
Author: Joseph Crosby Lincoln
Illustrator: Howard Heath
Release date: September 19, 2011 [eBook #37482]
Most recently updated: March 20, 2025
Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE POSTMASTER ***
THE POSTMASTER
BY JOSEPH C. LINCOLN
Author of "The Depot Master," "Cap’n Warrens Wards,"
"Cap’n Eri," "Mr. Pratt," etc.
_With Four Illustrations_
_By_ HOWARD HEATH
A. L. BURT COMPANY
_Publishers New York_
_Copyright, 1912, by_
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
Copyright, 1911, 1912, by the Curtis Publishing Company
Copyright, 1911, 1912, by the Ainslee Magazine Company
Copyright, 1912, by the Ridgeway Company
Published, April, 1912
Printed in the United States of America
————
[Illustration: _Seems to me I never saw her look prettier._]
————
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I—I MAKE TWO BETS—AND LOSE ONE OF ’EM
CHAPTER II—WHAT A "PULLET" DID TO A PEDIGREE
CHAPTER III—I GET INTO POLITICS
CHAPTER IV—HOW I MADE A CLAM CHOWDER; AND WHAT A CLAM CHOWDER MADE
OF ME
CHAPTER V—A TRAP AND WHAT THE "RAT" CAUGHT IN IT
CHAPTER VI—I RUN AFOUL OF COUSIN LEMUEL
CHAPTER VII—THE FORCE AND THE OBJECT
CHAPTER VIII—ARMENIANS AND INJUNS; LIKEWISE BY-PRODUCTS
CHAPTER IX—ROSES—BY ANOTHER NAME
CHAPTER X—THE SIGN OF THE WINDMILL
CHAPTER XI—COOKS AND CROOKS
CHAPTER XII—JIM HENRY STARTS SCREENIN’
CHAPTER XIII—WHAT CAME THROUGH THE SCREEN
CHAPTER XIV—THE EPISTLE TO ICHABOD
CHAPTER XV—HOW IKE’S LOSS TURNED OUT TO BE MY GAIN
CHAPTER XVI—I PAY MY OTHER BET
————
THE POSTMASTER
————
CHAPTER I—I MAKE TWO BETS—AND LOSE ONE OF ’EM
"So you’re through with the sea for good, are you, Cap’n Zeb," says Mr.
Pike.
"You bet!" says I. "Through for good is just _what_ I am."
"Well, I’m sorry, for the firm’s sake," he says. "It won’t seem natural
for the _Fair Breeze_ to make port without you in command. Cap’n, you’re
goin’ to miss the old schooner."
"Cal’late I shall—some—along at fust," I told him. "But I’ll get over
it, same as the cat got over missin’ the canary bird’s singin’; and I’ll
have the cat’s consolation—that I done what seemed best for me."
He laughed. He and I were good friends, even though he was ship-owner
and I was only skipper, just retired.
"So you’re goin’ back to Ostable?" he says. "What are you goin’ to do
after you get there?"
"Nothin’; thank you very much," says I, prompt.
"No work at _all_?" he says, surprised. "Not a hand’s turn? Goin’ to be
a gentleman of leisure, hey?"
"Nigh as I can, with my trainin’. The ’leisure’ part’ll be all right,
anyway."
He shook his head and laughed again.
"I think I see you," says he. "Cap’n, you’ve been too busy all your life
even to get married, and—"
"Humph!" I cut in. "Most married men I’ve met have been a good deal
busier than ever I was. And a good deal more worried when business was
dull. No, sir-ee! ’twa’n’t that that kept me from gettin’ married. I’ve
been figgerin’ on the day when I could go home and settle down. If I’d
had a wife all these years I’d have been figgerin’ on bein’ able to
settle up. I ain’t goin’ to Ostable to get married."
"I’ll bet you do, just the same," says he. "And I’ll bet you somethin’
else: I’ll bet a new hat, the best one I can buy, that inside of a year
you’ll be head over heels in some sort of hard work. It may not be
seafarin’, but it’ll be somethin’ to keep you busy. You’re too good a
man to rust in the scrap heap. Come! I’ll bet the hat. What do you say?"
"Take you," says I, quick. "And if you want to risk another on my
marryin’, I’ll take that, too."
"Go you," says he. "You’ll be married inside of three years—or five,
anyway."
"One year that I’ll be at work—steady work—and five that I’m married.
You’re shipped, both ways. And I wear a seven and a quarter, soft hat,
black preferred."
"If I don’t win the first bet I will the second, sure," he says,
confident. "’Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands,’ you know.
Well, good-by, and good luck. Come in and see us whenever you get to New
York."
We shook hands, and I walked out of that office, the office that had
been my home port ever since I graduated from fust mate to skipper. And
on the way to the Fall River boat I vowed my vow over and over again.
"Zebulon Snow," I says to myself—not out loud, you understand; for,
accordin’ to Scriptur’ or the Old Farmers’ Almanac or somethin’, a
feller who talks to himself is either rich or crazy and, though I was
well enough fixed to keep the wolf from the door, I wa’n’t by no means
so crazy as to leave the door open and take chances—"Zebulon Snow," says
I, "you’re forty-eight year old and blessedly single. All your life
you’ve been haulin’ ropes, or bossin’ fo’mast hands, or tryin’ to make
harbor in a fog. Now that you’ve got an anchor to wind’ard—now that the
one talent you put under the stock exchange napkin has spread out so
that you have to have a tablecloth to tote it home in, don’t you be a
fool. Don’t plant it again, cal’latin’ to fill a mains’l next time,
’cause you won’t do it. Take what you’ve got and be thankful—and
careful. You go ashore at Ostable, where you was born, and settle down
and be somebody."
That’s about what I said to myself, and that’s what I started to do. I
made Ostable on the next mornin’s train. The town had changed a whole
lot since I left it, mainly on account of so many summer folks buyin’
and buildin’ everywhere, especially along the water front. The few
reg’lar inhabitants that I knew seemed to be glad to see me, which I
took as a sort of compliment, for it don’t always foller by a
consider’ble sight. I got into the depot wagon—the same horse was
drawin’ it, I judged, that Eben Hendricks had bought when I was a
boy—and asked to be carted to the Travelers’ Inn. It appeared that there
wa’n’t any Travelers’ Inn now, that is to say, the name of it had been
changed to the Poquit House; "Poquit" bein’ Injun or Portygee or
somethin’ foreign.
But the name was the only thing about that hotel that was changed. The
grub was the same and the wallpaper on the rooms they showed to me
looked about the same age as I was, and wa’n’t enough handsomer to
count, either. I hired a couple of them rooms, one to sleep in and smoke
in, and t’other to entertain the parson in, if he should call,
which—unless the profession had changed, too—I judged he would do pretty
quick. I had the rooms cleaned and papered, bought some dyspepsy
medicine to offset the meals I was likely to have, and settled down to
be what Mr. Pike had called a "gentleman of leisure."
Fust three months ’twas fine. At the end of the second three it
commenced to get a little mite dull. In about two more I found my mind
was shrinkin’ so that the little mean cat-talks at the breakfast table
was beginnin’ to seem interestin’ and important. Then I knew ’twas time
to doctor up with somethin’ besides dyspepsy pills. Ossification was
settin’ in and I’d got to do somethin’ to keep me interested, even if I
paid for Pike’s hats for the next generation.
You see, there was such a sameness to the programme. Turn out in the
mornin’, eat and listen to gossip, go out and take a walk, smoke, talk
with folks I met—more gossip—come back and eat again, go over and watch
the carpenters on the latest summer cottage, smoke some more, eat some
more, and then go down to the Ostable Grocery, Dry Goods, Boots and
Shoes and Fancy Goods Store, or to the post-office, and set around with
the gang till bedtime. That may be an excitin’ life for a jellyfish, or
a reg’lar Ostable loafer—but it didn’t suit me.
I was feelin’ that way, and pretty desperate, the night when Winthrop
Adams Beanblossom—which wa’n’t the critter’s name but is nigh enough to
the real one for him to cruise under in this yarn—told me the story of
his life and started me on the v’yage that come to mean so much to me. I
didn’t know 'twas goin’ to mean much of anything when I started in. But
that night Winthrop got me to paddlin’, so’s to speak, and, later on,
come Jim Henry Jacobs to coax me into deeper water; and, after that, the
combination of them two and Miss Letitia Lee Pendlebury shoved me in all
under, so ’twas a case of stickin’ to it or swimmin’ or drownin’.
I was in the Ostable Store that evenin’, as usual. 'Twas almost nine
o’clock and the rest of the bunch around the stove had gone home. I was
fillin’ my pipe and cal’latin’ to go, too—if you can call a tavern like
the Poquit House a home. Beanblossom was in behind the desk, his funny
little grizzly-gray head down over a pile of account books and papers,
his specs roostin’ on the end of his thin nose, and his pen scratchin’
away like a stray hen in a flower bed.
"Well, Beanblossom," says I, gettin’ up and stretchin’, "I cal’late it’s
time to shed the partin’ tear. I’ll leave you to figger out whether to
spend this week’s profits in government bonds or trips to Europe and go
and lay my weary bones in the tomb, meanin’ my private vault on the
second floor of the Poquit. Adieu, Beanblossom," I says; "remember me at
my best, won’t you?"
He didn’t seem to sense what I was drivin’ at. He lifted his head out of
the books and papers, heaved a sigh that must have started somewheres
down along his keelson, and says, sorrowful but polite—he was always
polite—"Er—yes? You were addressin’ me, Cap’n Snow?"
"Nothin’ in particular," I says. "I was just askin’ if you intended
spendin’ your profits on a trip to Europe this summer."
Would you believe it, that little storekeepin’ man looked at me through
his specs, his pale face twitchin’ and workin’ like a youngster’s when
he’s tryin’ not to cry, and then, all to once, he broke right down,
leaned his head on his hands and sobbed out loud.
I looked at him. "For the dear land sakes," I sung out, soon’s I could
collect sense enough to say anything, "what is the matter? Is anybody
dead or—"
He groaned. "Dead?" he interrupted. "I wish to heaven, I was dead."
"Well!" I gasps. "_Well!_"
"Oh, why," says he, "was I ever born?"
That bein’ a question that I didn’t feel competent to answer, I didn’t
try. My remark about goin’ to Europe was intended for a joke, but if my
jokes made grown-up folks cry I cal’lated ’twas time I turned serious.
"What _is_ the matter, Beanblossom?" I says. "Are you in trouble?"
For a spell he wouldn’t answer, just kept on sobbin’ and wringin’ his
thin hands, but, after consider’ble of such, and a good many
unsatisfyin’ remarks, he give in and told me the whole yarn, told me all
his troubles. They were complicated and various.
Picked over and b’iled down they amounted to this: He used to have an
income and he lived on it—in bachelor quarters up to Boston. Nigh as I
could gather he never did any real work except to putter in libraries
and collect books and such. Then, somehow or other, the bank the heft of
his money was in broke up and his health broke down. The doctors said he
must go away into the country. He couldn’t afford to go and do nothin’,
so he has a wonderful inspiration—he’ll buy a little store in what he
called a "rural community" and go into business. He advertises, "Country
Store Wanted Cheap," or words to that effect. Abial Beasley’s widow had
the "Ostable Grocery, Dry Goods, Boots and Shoes and Fancy Goods Store"
on her hands. She answers the ad and they make a dicker. Said dicker
took about all the cash Beanblossom had left. For a year he had been
fightin’ along tryin’ to make both ends meet, but now they was so fur
apart they was likely to meet on the back stretch. He owed 'most a
thousand dollars, his trade was fallin’ off, he hadn’t a cent and nobody
to turn to. What should he do? _What_ should he do?
That was another question I couldn’t answer off hand. It was plain
enough why he was in the hole he was, but how to get him out was
different. I set down on the edge of the counter, swung my legs and
tried to think.
"Hum," says I, "you don’t know much about keepin’ store, do you,
Beanblossom? Didn’t know nothin’ about it when you started in?"
He shook his head. "I’m afraid not, Cap’n Snow," he says. "Why should I?
I never was obliged to labor. I was not interested in trade. I never
supposed I should be brought to this. I am a man of family, Cap’n Snow."
"Yes," I says, "so’m I. Number eight in a family of thirteen. But that
never helped me none. My experience is that you can’t count much on your
relations."
Would I pardon him, but that was not the sense in which he had used the
word "family." He meant that he came of the best blood in New England.
His ancestors had made their marks and—
"Made their marks!" I put in. "Why? Couldn’t they write their names?"
He was dreadful shocked, but he explained. The Beanblossoms and their
gang were big-bugs, fine folks. He was terrible proud of his family.
During the latter part of his life in Boston he had become interested in
genealogy. He had begun a "family tree"—whatever that was—but he never
finished it. The smash came and shook him out of the branches; that
wa’n’t what he said, but ’twas the way I sensed it. And now he had come
to this. His money was gone; he couldn’t pay his debts; he couldn’t have
any more credit. He must fail; he was bankrupt. Oh, the disgrace! and
likewise oh, the poorhouse!
"But," says I, considerin’, "it can’t be so turrible bad. You don’t owe
but a thousand dollars, this store’s the only one in town and Abial used
to do pretty well with it. If your debts was paid, and you had a little
cash to stock up with, seems to me you might make a decent v’yage yet.
Couldn’t you?"
He didn’t know. Perhaps he could. But what was the use of talkin’ that
way? For him to pick up a thousand would be about as easy as for a
paralyzed man with boxin’ gloves on to pick up a flea, or words to that
effect. No, no, ’twas no use! he must go to the poorhouse! and so forth
and so on.
"You hold on," I says. "Don’t you engage your poorhouse berth yet. You
keep mum and say nothin’ to nobody and let me think this over a spell. I
need somethin’ to keep me interested and ... I’ll see you to-morrow
sometime. Good night."
I went home thinkin’ and I thought till pretty nigh one o’clock. Then I
decided I was a fool even to think for five minutes. Hadn’t I sworn to
be careful and never take another risk? I was sorry for poor old
Winthrop, but I couldn’t afford to mix pity and good legal tender; that
was the sort of blue and yeller drink that filled the poor-debtors’
courts. And, besides, wasn’t I pridin’ myself on bein’ a gentleman of
leisure. If I got mixed up in this, no tellin’ what I might be led into.
Hadn’t I bragged to Pike about—Oh, I _was_ a fool!
Which was all right, only, after listenin’ to the breakfast conversation
at the Poquit House, down I goes to the store and afore the forenoon was
over I was Winthrop Adams Beanblossom’s silent partner to the extent of
twenty-five hundred dollars. I was busy once more and glad of it, even
though Pike _was_ goin’ to get a hat free.
This was in January. By early March I was twice as busy and not half as
glad. You see I’d cal’lated that the store was all right, all it needed
was financin’. Trade was just asleep, taking a nap, and I could wake it
up. I was wrong. Trade was dead, and, barrin’ the comin’ of a prophet or
some miracle worker to fetch it to life, what that shop was really
sufferin’ for was an undertaker. My twenty-five hundred was funeral
expenses, that’s all.
But the prophet came. Yes, sir, he came and fetched his miracle with
him. One evenin’, after all the reg’lar customers, who set around in
chairs borrowin’ our genuine tobacco and payin’ for it with counterfeit
funny stories, had gone—after everybody, as we cal’lated, had cleared
out—Beanblossom and I set down to hold our usual autopsy over the
remains of the fortni’t’s trade. ’Twas a small corpse and didn’t take
long to dissect. We’d lost twenty-one dollars and sixty-eight cents, and
the only comfort in that was that ’twas seventy-six cents less than the
two weeks previous. The weather had been some cooler and less stuff had
sp’iled on our hands; that accounted for the savin’.
Beanblossom—I’d got into the habit of callin’ him "Pullet" ’cause his
general build was so similar to a moultin’ chicken—he vowed he couldn’t
understand it.
"I think I shall give up buyin’ so liberally, Cap’n Snow," says he. "If
we didn’t keep on buyin’ we shouldn’t lose half so much," he says.
"Yes," says I, "that’s logic. And if we give up sellin’ we shouldn’t
lose the other half. You and me are all right as fur as we go, Pullet,
and I guess we’ve gone about as fur as we can."
"Please don’t call me ’Pullet,’" he says, dignified. "When I think of
what I once was, it—"
"S-sh-h!" I broke in. "It’s what I am that troubles me. I don’t dare
think of that when the minister’s around—he might be a mind-reader. No,
Pul—Beanblossom, I mean—it’s no use. I imagined because I could run a
three-masted schooner I could navigate this craft. I can’t. I know twice
as much as you do about keepin’ store, but the trouble with that example
is the answer, which is that you don’t know nothin’. We might just
exactly as well shut up shop now, while there’s enough left to square
the outstandin’ debts."
He turned white and began the hand-wringin’ exercise.
"Think of the disgrace!" he says.
"Think of my twenty-five hundred," says I.
"Excuse me, gentlemen," says a voice astern of us; "excuse me for
buttin’ in; but I judge that what you need is a butter."
Pullet and I jumped and turned round. We’d supposed we was alone and to
say we was surprised is puttin’ it mild. For a second I couldn’t make
out what had happened, or where the voice came from, or who ’twas that
had spoke—then, as he come across into the lamplight I recognized him.
’Twas Jim Henry Jacobs, the livin’ mystery.
[Illustration: _As he come across into the lamplight I recognized him._]
Jim Henry was middlin’-sized, sharp-faced, dressed like a ready-tailored
advertisement, and as smooth and slick as an eel in a barrel of sweet
ile. Accordin’ to his entry on the books of the Poquit House he hailed
from Chicago. He’d been in Ostable for pretty nigh a month and nobody
had been able to find out any more about him than just that, which is a
some miracle of itself—if you know Ostable. He was always ready to
talk—talkin’ was one of his main holts—but when you got through talkin’
with him all you had to remember was a smile and a flow of words. He was
at the seashore for his health, that he always give you to understand.
You could believe it if you wanted to.
He’d got into the habit of spendin’ his evenin’s at Pullet’s store,
settin’ around listenin’ and smilin’ and agreein’ with folks. He was the
only feller I ever met who could say no and agree with you at the same
time. Solon Saunders tried to borrow fifty cents of him once and when
the pair of ’em parted, Saunders was scratchin’ his head and lookin’
puzzled. "I can’t understand it," says Solon. "I would have swore he’d
lent it to me. ’Twas just as if I had the fifty in my hand. I—I thanked
him for it and all that, but—but now he’s gone I don’t seem to be no
richer than when I started. I can’t understand it."
Pullet and I had seen him settin’ abaft the stove early in the evenin’,
but, somehow or other, we got the notion that he’d cleared out with the
other loafers. However, he hadn’t, and he’d heard all we’d been sayin’.
He walked across to where we was, pulled a shoe box from under the
counter, come to anchor on it and crossed his legs.
"Gentlemen," he says again, "you need a butter."
Poor old Pullet was so set back his brains was sort of scrambled, like a
pan of eggs.
"Er-er, Mr. Jacobs," he says, "I am very sorry, extremely sorry, but we
are all out just at this minute. I fully intended to order some to-day,
but I—I guess I must have forgotten it."
Jacobs couldn’t seem to make any more out of this than I did.
"Out?" he says, wonderin’. "Out? Who’s out? What’s out? I guess I’ve
dropped the key or lost the combination. What’s the answer?"
"Why, butter," says Pullet, apologizin’. "You asked for butter, didn’t
you? As I was sayin’, I should have ordered some to-day, but—"
Jim Henry waved his hands. "Sh-h," he says, "don’t mention it. Forget
it. If I’d wanted butter in this emporium I should have asked for
somethin’ else. I’ve been givin’ this mart of trade some attention for
the past three weeks and I judge that its specialty is bein’ able to
supply what ain’t wanted. I hinted that you two needed a butter-in. All
right. I’m the goat. Now if you’ll kindly give me your attention, I’ll
elucidate."
We give the attention. After he’d "elucidated" for five minutes we’d
have given him our clothes. You never heard such a mess of language as
that Chicago man turned loose. He talked and talked and talked. He knew
all about the store and the business, and what he didn’t know he guessed
and guessed right. He knew about Pullet and his buyin’ the place, about
my goin’ in as silent partner—though _that_ nobody was supposed to know.
He knew the shebang wa’n’t payin’ and, also and moreover, he knew why.
And he had the remedy buttoned up in his jacket—the name of it was James
Henry Jacobs.
"Gentlemen," he says, "I’m a specialist. I’m a doctor of sick business.
Ever since my medicine man ordered me to quit the giddy metropolis and
the Grand Central Department Store, where I was third assistant manager,
I’ve been driftin’ about seekin’ a nice, quiet hamlet and an
opportunity. Here’s the ham and, if you say the word, here’s the
opportunity. This shop is in a decline; it’s got creepin’ paralysis and
locomotive hang-back-tia. There’s only one thing that can change the
funeral to a silver weddin’—that’s to call in Old Doctor Jacobs. Here he
is, with his pocket full of testimonials. Now you listen."
We’d been listenin’—’twas by long odds the easiest thing to do—and we
kept right on. He had testimonials—he showed ’em to us—and they took
oath to his bein’ honest and the eighth business wonder of the world. He
went on to elaborate. He had a thousand to invest and he’d invest it
provided we’d take him in as manager and give him full swing. He’d
guarantee—etcetery and so on, unlimited and eternal.
"But," says I, when he stopped to eat a throat lozenge, "sellin’ goods
is one thing; gettin’ the right goods to sell is another. Me and
Pullet—Mr. Beanblossom here—have tried to keep a pretty fair-sized
stock, but it’s the kind of stock that keeps better’n it sells."
"Sell!" he puts in. "You can sell anything, if you know how. See here,
let me prove it to you. You think this over to-night and to-morrow
forenoon I’ll be on hand and demonstrate. Just put on your smoked
glasses and watch me. _I’ll_ show you."
He did. Next mornin’ old Aunt Sarah Oliver came in to buy a hank of
black yarn to darn stockin’s with. With diplomacy and patience the
average feller could conclude that dicker in an hour and a quarter—if he
had the yarn. Pullet was just out of black, of course, but that Jim
Henry Jacobs stepped alongside and within twenty minutes he sold Aunt
Sarah two packages of needles, a brass thimble and a half dozen pair of
blue and yellow striped stockin’s that had been on the shelves since
Abial Beasley’s time, and was so loud that a sane person wouldn’t dare
wear ’em except when it thundered. She went out of the store with her
bundles in one hand and holdin’ her head with the other. Then that Jim
Henry man turned to Pullet and me.
"Well?" he says, serene and smilin’.
It was well, all right. At just quarter to twelve that night the
arrangements was made. Jacobs was partner in and manager of the "Ostable
Grocery, Dry Goods, Boots and Shoes and Fancy Goods Store."
CHAPTER II—WHAT A "PULLET" DID TO A PEDIGREE
In less than two months that store of ours was a payin’ proposition. Jim
Henry Jacobs was responsible, that is all I can tell you. Don’t ask me
how he did it. ’Twas advertisin’, mainly. Advertisin’ in the papers,
advertisin’ on the fences, things set out in the windows, a new gaudy
delivery cart, special bargain days for special stuff—they all helped.
Of course if we’d limited ourselves to Ostable the cargo wouldn’t have
been so heavy that we’d get stoop-shouldered, but that Jim Henry was
unlimited. He advertised in the county weekly and sent a special cart to
take orders for twenty mile around. The early summer cottages was
beginnin’ to open and ’twas summer trade, rich city folks’ trade, that
the Jacobs man said we must have. And we got it, one way or another we
got it all. Most of the swell big-bugs had been in the habit of orderin’
wholesale from Boston, but he soon stopped that. One after another Jim
Henry landed ’em. When I asked him how, he just winked.
"Skipper," says he—he most generally called me "Skipper" same as I
called Beanblossom "Pullet"—"Skipper," he says, "you can always hook a
cod if there’s any around and you keepin’ changin’ bait; ain’t that so?
Um-hm; well, I change bait, that’s all. Every man, woman and suffragette
has got a weak p’int somewheres. I just cast around till I find that
particular weak p’int; then they swaller hook, line and sinker."
"Humph!" I says, "Miss Letitia ain’t swallowed nothin’ yet, that I’ve
noticed. Her weak p’ints all strong ones? or what is the matter?"
He made a face. "Sister Pendlebury," says he, "is the frostiest
proposition I ever tackled outside of an ice chest. But I’ll get her
yet. You wait and see. Why, man, we’ve _got_ to get her."
Well, I could find more truth in them statements than I could
satisfaction. We’d got to get her—yes. But she wouldn’t be got. She was
the richest old maid on the North Shore; lived in a stone and plaster
house bigger’n the Ostable County jail, which she’d labeled "Pendlebury
Villa"; had six servants, three cats and a poll parrot; and was so
tipped back with dignity and importance that a plumb-line dropped from
her after-hair comb would have missed her heels by three inches. Her
winter port was Brookline; summers she condescended to shed glory over
Ostable.
To get the trade of Pendlebury Villa had been Jim Henry’s dream from the
start. And up to date he was still dreamin’. The other big-bugs he had
caged, but Letitia was still flyin’ free and importin’ her honey from
Boston, so to speak. Jacobs had tried everything he could think of,
bribin’ the servants, sendin’ samples of fancy breakfast food and
pickles free gratis, writin’ letters, callin’ with his Sunday clothes
on, everything—but ’twas "Keep Off the Grass" at Pendlebury Villa so far
as we was concerned. ’Twas the biggest chunk of trade under one head on
the Cape and it hurt Jim Henry’s pride not to get it. However, he kept
on tryin’.
One mornin’ he comes back to the store after a cruise to the Villa and
it seemed to me that he looked happier than was usual after one of these
trips.
"Skipper," says he, "I think—I wouldn’t bet any more’n my small change,
but I _think_ I’ve laid a corner stone."
"With Miss Pendlebury?" says I, excited.
"With Letitia," he says, noddin’. "I haven’t got an order, but I have
got a promise. She’s agreed to drop in one of these days and look us
over."
"Well!" says I, "I should say that _was_ a corner stone."
"We’ll hope ’tis," he says. "Ho, ho! Skipper, I wish you might have been
present at the exercises. They were funny."
Seems he’d managed—bribery and corruption of the hired help again—to see
Letitia alone in what she called her "mornin’ room." He said that, if
he’d paid any attention to the temperature of that room when he and she
first met in it, he’d have figgered he’d struck the morgue; but he
warmed it up a little afore he left. Miss Pendlebury just set and glared
frosty while he talked and talked and talked. She said about three words
to his two hundred thousand, but every one of hers was a "no." She
didn’t care to patronize the local merchants. The city ones were bad
enough—she had all the trouble she wanted with _them_. She was not
interested; and would he please be careful when he went out and not step
on the flower beds.
He was about ready to give it up when he happened to notice an ile
portrait in a gorgeous gold frame hangin’ on the wall. ’Twas the picture
of a man, and Jim Henry said there was a kind of great-I-am look to it,
a combination of fatness and importance and wisdom, same as you see in a
stuffed owl, that give him an idea. He started to go, stopped in front
of the picture and began to look it over, admirin’ but reverent, same as
a garter snake might look at a boa-constrictor, as proof of what the
race was capable of.
"Excuse me, Miss Pendlebury," he says, "but that is a wonderful
portrait. I have had some experience in judgin’ paintin’s—" he was clerk
in the Grand Central Store framed picture department once—"and I think I
know what I’m talkin’ about."
Would you believe it, she commenced to unbend right off.
"It is a Sargent," says she.
Now I should have asked: "Sergeant of militia, or what?" and upset the
whole calabash; but Jim Henry knew better. He bows, solemn and wise, and
says he’d been sure of it right along.
"But any painter," he says, "would have made a success with a subject
like that gentleman before him. There is somethin’ about him, the height
of his brow, and his wonderful eyes, etcetery, which reminds me—You’ll
excuse me, Miss Pendlebury, but isn’t that a portrait of one of your
near relatives?"
She unbent some more and almost smiled. The painted critter was her pa
and he was considered a wonderful likeness.
Well, that was enough for your uncle Jim Henry. He settled down to his
job then and the way he poured gush over that painted Pendlebury man was
close to sacreligion. But Letitia never pumped up a blush; worship was
what she expected for her and her pa. He’d been a member of the
Governor’s staff and a bank president and a church warden and an
alderman and land knows what. His daughter and Jacobs had a real
sociable interview and it ended by her promisin’ to drop in at the store
and look our stock over. ’Course ’twa’n’t likely ’twould suit her—she
was very exacting, she said—but she’d look it over.
We looked it over fust. We put in the rest of that day changin’
everything around on the counters and shelves, puttin’ the canned stuff
in piles where they’d do the most good, and settin’ advertisin’ signs
and such in front of the empty places where they’d been afore. Even
Pullet worked, though he couldn’t understand it, and growled because he
had to leave the musty old book he was readin’ and the "genealogical
tree" he’d begun to cultivate once more. Jacobs was pretty well
disgusted with Pullet. Said he was an incumbrance on the concern and
hadn’t any business instinct.
All the next day and the next we hung around, dressed up to kill—that
is, Jim Henry’s togs would have killed anything with weak eyes—waitin’
for Letitia Pendlebury to come aboard and inspect. But she didn’t come
that day, or the next either. Jacobs was disapp’inted, but he wouldn’t
give in that he was discouraged. The fourth forenoon, when there was
still nothin’ doin’, he and I went on a cruise with a hired horse and
buggy over to Bayport, where we had some business. We left Pullet in
charge of the store and when we came back he was lookin’ pretty joyful.
"Who do you think has been here?" he says, in his thin, polite little
voice. "Miss Letitia Pendlebury called this afternoon."
"She did!" shouts Jacobs.
"Did she buy anythin’?" I wanted to know.
No, it appeared that she hadn’t bought anythin’. Fact is, Pullet had
forgot he was supposed to be a storekeeper. When Letitia came in he was
roostin’ in his family tree, had the chart spread out on the counter and
was fillin’ in some of the twigs with the names of dead and gone
Beanblossoms. He couldn’t climb down to common things like crackers and
salt pork.
"But she was very much interested," he says, his specs shinin’ with joy.
"When she found out what I was busy with she was _very_ much interested,
really. She is a lady of family, too."
"She _is_?" I sings out. "What are you talkin’ about? She’s an old maid
and an only child besides, and—"
"Hush up, Skipper," orders Jacobs. "Go on, Pullet—Mr. Beanblossom, I
mean—go on."
So on went Pullet, both wings flappin’. Letitia and he had talked
"family" to beat the cars. She had ’most everything in the Villa except
a family tree. She must have one right away. She simply must.
"And I am to help her in preparin’ it," says Pullet, puffed up and
vainglorious. "The Pendlebury family tree will be an honor to prepare.
Of course it will require much labor and research, but I shall enjoy
doing it. I told her so. Her father would have prepared one himself, had
often spoken of it, but he was a very busy man of affairs and lacked the
time."
My, but I was mad! I cal’late if I had a marlinspike handy our coop
would have been a Pullet short. But Jim Henry Jacobs was so full of
tickle he couldn’t keep still. He fairly dragged me into the back room.
"Skipper," he says, "here it is at last! We’ve got it!"
"Yes," I sputters, thinkin’ he was referrin’ to Beanblossom, "we’ve got
it; and, if you ask me, I’d tell you we’d ought to chloroform it afore
it does any more harm."
"No, no," he says, "you don’t understand. We’ve got the old girl’s weak
p’int at last. It’s genealogy. Pullet shall grow her a family tree if I
have to buy a carload of fertilizer to-morrer. Think of it! think of it!
Why, she won’t give him a minute’s rest from now on. She’ll be after him
the whole time."
"But I can’t see where the trade comes in," says I.
"You _can’t_! With our senior pardner head forester? My boy, if any
other shop sells Pendlebury Villa a dollar’s worth after this, I’ll
Fletcherize my hat, that’s all!"
He knew what he was talkin’ about, as usual. The very next forenoon
Letitia was in to consult with Pullet about huntin’ up her family
records. Afore she left Jacobs took orders for thirty-two dollars’ worth
and I’d have bet she didn’t know a thing she bought. After dinner, Jim
Henry sent Pullet up to see her. He stayed until supper time. Next day
he had supper at the Villa. A week later he made his first trip to
Boston, to the Genealogical Society, to hunt for records. And Jacobs
stayed in Ostable and kept the Villa supplied with the luxuries of life.
If the Pendlebury servants didn’t die of gout and overeatin’, it wasn’t
our fault.
By August the whole town was talkin’. They had it all settled. ’Cordin’
to the gossip-spreaders there could be only one reason for Pullet and
Miss Letitia bein’ together so much—they was cal’latin’ to marry. The
weddin’ day was prophesied and set anywheres from to-morrer to next
Christmas. I thought such talk ought to be stopped. Jim Henry didn’t.
"Why?" says he.
"_Why!_" I says. "Because it’s foolishness, that’s why. ’Cause there’s
no truth in it and you know it."
"No, I don’t know," says he. "Stranger things than that have happened."
"_She_ marry that old fossilized pauper!"
"Why not? He’s a gentleman and a scholar, if he _is_ poor. She’s rich,
but if there’s one thing she isn’t, it’s a scholar."
"Humph! fur’s that goes," says I, "she ain’t a gentleman, either—though
she’s next door to it."
"That’s all right. Skipper, there’s some things money can’t buy.
Pullet’s got book learnin’ and treed ancestors and she ain’t. She’s got
money and he ain’t. Both want what t’other’s best fixed in. If old
Beanblossom had any sand, I should believe 'twas a sure thing. I guess
I’ll drop him a hint."
"My land!" I sang out; "don’t you do it. The fat’ll all be in the fire
then."
"Skipper," says he, "you’re a cagey old bird, but you don’t know it all.
There’s some things you can leave to me. And, anyhow, whether the
weddin’ bells chime or not, all this talk is good free advertisin’ for
the store."
'Twa’n’t long after this that the genealogical man begun to seem less
gay-like. He and Letitia was together as much as ever, the Pendlebury
tree and the Beanblossom tree—he worked on both at the same time—was
flourishin’, after the topsy-turvy way of such vegetables—from the upper
branches down towards the trunks; but there was a look on Pullet’s face
as he pawed through his books and papers that I couldn’t understand. He
looked worried and troubled about somethin’.
"What’s the matter?" I asked him, once. "Ain’t your ancestors turnin’ up
satisfactory?"
"Yes," he says, polite as ever, but sort of condescendin’ and proud,
"the Beanblossom history is, if you will permit me to say so, a very
satisfactory record indeed."
"And the Pendleburys?" says I. "George Washin’ton was first cousin on
their ma’s side, I s’pose."
He didn’t answer for a minute. Then he wiped his specs with his
handkerchief. "The Pendlebury records are," he says, slow, "a trifle
more confused and difficult. But I am progressin’—yes, Cap’n Snow, I
think I may say that I am progressin’."
The thunderbolt hit us, out of a clear sky, the fust week in September.
Yet I s’pose we’d ought to have seen it comin’ at least a day ahead.
That day the Pendlebury gasoline carryall come buzzin’ up to the front
platform and Letitia steps out, grand as the Queen of Sheba, of course.
"Cap’n Snow," says she, and it seemed to me that she hesitated just a
minute, "is Mr. Beanblossom about?"
"No," says I, "he ain’t. I don’t know where he is exactly. He was in the
store this mornin’ askin’ about a letter he’s expectin’ from the
Genealogical Society folks, but he went out right afterwards and I ain’t
seen him since. I s’posed, of course, he was up to your house."
"No," she says, and I thought she colored up a little mite; "he has not
been there since day before yesterday. Perhaps that is natural, under
the circumstances," speakin’ more to herself than to me, "but ...
however, will you kindly tell him I called before leavin’ for the city.
I am goin’ to Boston on a shoppin’ excursion," she adds, condescendin’.
"I shall return on Wednesday."
She went away. Pullet didn’t show up until night and then the first
thing he asked for was the mail. When I told him about the Pendlebury
woman he turned round and went out again.
Next day was Saturday and we was pretty busy, that is, Jim Henry and the
clerk was busy. I was about as much use as usual, and, as for Pullet, he
was no use at all. A big green envelope from the Genealogical Society
come for him in the morning mail—he was always gettin’ letters from that
Society—and he grabbed at it and went out on the platform. A little
while afterwards I saw him roostin’ on a box out there, with his hair,
what there was of it, all rumpled up, and an expression of such
everlastin’, world-without-end misery on his face that I stopped stock
still and looked at him.
"For the mercy sakes," says I, "what’s happened?"
He turned his head, stared at me fishy-eyed, and got up off the box.
"What’s wrong?" I asked. "Is the world comin’ to an end?"
He put one hand to his head and waved the other up and down like a pump
handle.
"Yes," he sings out, frantic like. "It is ended already. It is all over.
I—I—"
And with that he jumps off the platform and goes staggerin’ up the road.
I’d have follered him, but just then Jim Henry calls to me from inside
the store and in a little while I’d forgot Beanblossom altogether. I
thought of him once or twice durin’ the day, but ’twa’n’t till about
shuttin’-up time that I thought enough to mention him to Jacobs. Then he
mentioned him fust.
"Whew!" says he, settin’ down for the fust time in two hours. "Whew! I’m
tired. This has been the best day this concern has had since I took hold
of it, and I’ve worked like a perpetual motion machine. We’ll need
another boy pretty soon, Skipper. Pullet’s no good as a salesman. By the
way, where _is_ Pullet? I ain’t seen him since noon."
Neither had I, now that I come to think of it.
"I wonder if the poor critter’s sick," I says. Then I started to tell
how queer he’d acted out on the platform. I’d just begun when Amos
Hallett’s boy come into the store with a note.
"It’s for you, Cap’n Zeb," he says, all out of breath. "I meant to give
it to you afore, but I just this minute remembered it. Mr. Beanblossom,
he give it to me at the depot when he took the up train."
"Took the up train?" says I. "Who did? Not Pul—Mr. Beanblossom?"
"Yes," says the boy. "He’s gone to Boston, leastways the depot-master
said he bought a ticket for there. Why? Didn’t you know it? He—"
I was too astonished to speak at all, but Jim Henry was cool as usual.
"Yes, yes, son," he says. "It’s all right. You trot right along home
afore you catch cold in your freckles." Then, after the youngster’d
gone, he turns to me quick. "Open it, Skipper," he orders. "Somethin’s
happened. Open it."
I opened the envelope. Inside was a sheet of foolscap covered from top
to bottom with mighty shaky handwritin’. I read it out loud.
"_Captain Zebulon Snow_,
"_Dear Sir_:
"Polite as ever, ain’t he?" I says. "He’d been genteel if he was writin’
his will."
"Go on!" snaps Jacobs. "Hurry up."
"_Dear Sir_: When you receive this I shall have left Ostable, it
may be forever. I have made a horrible discovery, which has
wrecked all my hopes and my life. In accordance with Mr. Jacob’s
kindly counsel, I recently summoned courage to ask Miss
Pendlebury to become my wife.
"Good heavens to Betsy!" I sang out, almost droppin’ the letter.
"Go on!" shouts Jacobs. "Don’t stop now."
"But he asked her to _marry_ him!" I gasps. "In accordance with your
advice—_yours_! Did _you_ have the cheek to—"
"_Will_ you go on? Of course I advised him. We’d got the Pendlebury
trade, hadn’t we? Can you think of any surer way to cinch it than to
have those two idiots marry each other? Go on—or give me the letter."
I went on, as well as I could, everything considered.
"She did not refuse. She was kinder than I had a right to
expect. I realized my presumption, but—"
"Skip that," orders Jim Henry. "Get down to brass tacks."
I skipped some.
"She told me she must have a few days’ time to consider. I
waited. To-day I received a communication from the Genealogical
Society which has dashed my hopes to the ground. It was in
connection with my work on the Pendlebury family tree. For some
time I have been very much troubled concerning developments in
that work. The later Pendleburys have been ladies and gentlemen
of repute and worth, but as I delved deeper into the past and
approached the early generations in this country, I—"
"Skip again," says Jacobs.
I skipped.
"And now, to my horror, I find the fact proven beyond doubt.
Ezekiel Jonas Pendlebury—whose name should be inscribed upon the
trunk of the tree, he being the original settler in America—was
hanged in the Massachusetts Bay Colony for stealing a hog upon
the Sabbath Day."
Then I _did_ drop the letter. "My land of love!" was all I could say.
And what Jacobs said was just as emphatic. We stared at each other; and
then, all at once, he began to laugh, laugh till I thought he’d never
stop. His laughin’ made me mad until I commenced to see the funny side
of the thing; then I laughed, too, and the pair of us rocked back and
forth and haw-hawed like loons.
"Oh, dear me!" says Jim Henry, wipin’ his eyes. "The original Pendlebury
hung for hog stealin’!"
"Stealin’ it on Sunday," says I. "Don’t forget that. Sabbath-breakin’
was worse than thievin’ in them days."
"Well, go on, go on," says he. "There’s more of it, ain’t they?"
There was. The writing got finer and finer as it got close to the bottom
of the page. Poor Pullet had caved in when that revelation struck him.
Honor compelled him to tell Letitia the truth and how could he tell her
such a truth as that? She, so proud and all. He had led her into this
dreadful research work and she would blame him, of course, and dismiss
him with scorn and contempt. Her contempt he could not bear. No, he must
go away. He could never face her again. He was goin’ to Boston, to his
cousin’s house in Newton, and stay there for a spell. Perhaps some day,
after she had shut up her summer villa and gone, too, he might return;
he didn’t know. But would we forgive him, etcetery and so forth,
and—good-by.
His name was squeezed in the very corner. I looked at Jacobs.
"Well," I says, some disgusted, "it looks to me, as a man up a tree—not
a family tree, neither, thank the Lord—as if instead of cinchin’ the
Pendlebury trade your ’advice’ had queered it forever."
He didn’t say nothin’. Just scowled and kicked his heels together. Then
he grabbed the letter out of my hand and begun to read it again. I
scowled, too, and set starin’ at the floor and thinkin’. All at once I
heard him swear, a sort of joyful swear-word, seemed to me. I looked up.
As I did he swung off the counter, crumpled up the letter, jammed it in
his pocket and grabbed up his hat.
"Skipper," he says, his eyes shinin’, "there’s a night freight to
Boston, ain’t there?"
"Yes, there is, but—"
"So long, then. I’ll be back soon’s I can. You and Bill"—that was the
clerk—"must do as well as you can for a day or so. So long. But you just
remember this: Old Doctor James Henry Jacobs, specialist in sick
businesses, ain’t given up hopes of this patient yet, not by any manner
of means. By, by."
He was gone afore I could say another word, and for the rest of that
night and all day Sunday and until Monday evenin’s train come in, I was
like a feller walkin’ in his sleep. All creation looked crazy and I was
the only sane critter in it.
On Monday evenin’ he came sailin’ into the store, all smiles. ’Twas some
time afore I could get him alone, but, when I could, I nailed him.
"Now," says I, "perhaps you’ll tell me why you run off and left me, and
where you’ve been, and what you mean by it, and a few other things."
He grinned. "Been?" he says. "Well, I’ve been to see the last of Miss
Letitia Pendlebury of Pendlebury Villa, Ostable, Mass. Miss Pendlebury
is no more."
"No more!" I hollered. "No _more_! Don’t tell me she’s dead!"
"I sha’n’t," says he, "because she isn’t. She’s alive, all right, but
she’s no more Miss Pendlebury. She’s Mrs. Winthrop Adams Beanblossom
now," he says. "They were married this forenoon."
"_Married?_"
"Married."
"But—but—after the hangin’ news—and the hog-stealin’—and—Does she know
it? She wouldn’t marry him after _that_?"
"She knows and she was tickled to death to marry him. Skipper, there was
a P.S. on the back of that letter of Pullet’s. You didn’t turn the page
over; I did and I recognized the life-saver right off. Here it is."
He passed me Beanblossom’s letter, back side up. There was a P.S., but
it looked to me more like the finishin’ knock on the head than it did
like a life-saver. This was it:
"P.S. I have neglected to state another fact which my researches
have brought to light and which makes the affair even more
hopeless. My own ancestor, at that time Governor of the Colony,
was the person who sentenced Ezekiel Pendlebury and caused him
to be hanged."
"And that," says I, "is what you call a life-saver! My nine-times
great-granddad has your nine-times great-granddad hung and that removes
all my objections to marryin’ you. Oh, sure and sartin! Yes, indeed!"
He smiled superior. "Listen, you doubtin’ Thomas," says he. "You can’t
see it, but Sister Letitia saw it right off when I put Pullet’s case
afore her at the Hotel Somerset, where she was stoppin’. _Her_ ancestor
was a hog-stealer and a hobo; but Beanblossom’s ancestor was a Governor
and a nabob from way back. If by just sayin’ yes you could swap a
pig-thief for a governor, you’d do it, wouldn’t you? You would if you’d
been braggin’ ’family’ as Letitia has for the past three months. I saw
her, turned on some of my convincin’ conversation, saw Pullet at his
cousin’s and convinced him. They were married at Trinity parsonage this
very forenoon."
"My! my! my!" I says, after this had really sunk in. "And the Pendlebury
tree is—"
"There ain’t any Pendlebury tree," he interrupts. "It’s the kindlin’-bin
for that shrub. But the _Beanblossom_ tree, with governors and judges
and generals proppin’ up every main limb, is goin’ to hang right next to
Pa Pendlebury’s picture in the mornin’ room of Pendlebury Villa. And the
head of Pendlebury Villa is the senior partner in the Ostable Grocery,
Dry Goods, Boots and Shoes and Fancy Goods Store."
He was wrong there. Letitia Pendlebury Beanblossom had another surprise
under her bonnet and she sprung it when she got back. She sent for
Jacobs and me and made proclamation that her husband would withdraw from
the firm.
"I trust that Mr. Beanblossom and I are democratic," she says. "Of
course we shall continue to purchase our supplies from you gentlemen.
But, really," she says, "you _must_ see that a man whose ancestor by
direct descent was Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony could scarcely
humiliate himself by engaging in _trade_."
So, instead of gettin’ out of storekeepin’, I was left deeper in it than
ever. But Jim Henry cheered me up by sayin’ I hadn’t really been in it
at all yet.
"This foundlin’ is only beginnin’ to set up and take notice," he says.
"Skipper, you put your faith in old Doctor Jacobs’ Teethin’ Syrup and
Tonic for Business Infants."
"I guess that’s where it’s put," says I, drawin’ a long breath.
"It couldn’t be in a better place, could it? No, we’ve got a good start,
but that’s all it is. Before I get through you’ll see. We’ve got to make
this store prominent and keep it prominent, and the best way to do that
is to be prominent ourselves. Skipper, I wish you’d go into politics."
"Politics!" says I, soon as I could catch my breath. "Well, when I do, I
give you leave to order my room at the Taunton Asylum. What do you
cal’late I’d better try to get elected to—President or pound-keeper?"
He laughed.
"Both of them jobs are filled at the present time," I went on,
sarcastic. "So is every other I can think of off-hand."
"That’s all right," says he. "Some of these days you’ll hold office
right in this town. We need political prestige in our business and you,
Cap’n Snow, bein’ the solid citizen of this close corporation, will have
to sacrifice yourself on the altar of public duty."
"Nary sacrifice," says I. Which shows how little the average man knows
what’s in store for him.
CHAPTER III—I GET INTO POLITICS
When I shook hands with Mary Blaisdell and left her standin’ under the
wistaria vine at the front door of the little old house that had
belonged to Henry, all I said was for her to keep a stiff upper lip and
not to be any bluer than was necessary. "Ostable’s lost a good
postmaster," says I, "and you’ve lost a kind, thoughtful, providin’
brother. I know it looks pretty foggy ahead to you just now and you
can’t see how you’re goin’ to get along; but you keep up your pluck and
a way’ll be provided. Meantime I’m goin’ to think hard and perhaps I can
see a light somewheres. My owners used to tell me I was consider’ble of
a navigator, so between us we’d ought to fetch you into port."
Her eyes were wet, but she smiled, rainbow fashion, through the shower,
and said I was awful good and she’d never forget how kind I’d been
through it all.
"Whatever becomes of me, Cap’n Snow," she says, "I shall never forget
that."
What I’d done wa’n’t worth talkin’ about, so I said good-by and hurried
away. At the top of the hill I turned and looked back. She was still
standin’ in the door and, in spite of the wistaria and the hollyhocks
and the green summer stuff everywheres, the whole picture was pretty
forlorn. The little white buildin’ by the road, with the sign,
"Post-office" over the window, looked more lonesome still. And yet the
sight of it and the sight of that sign give me an inspiration. I stood
stock still and thumped my fists together.
"Why not?" says I to myself. "By mighty, yes! Why not?"
You see, Henry Blaisdell was one of the few Ostable folks that I’d known
as a boy and who was livin’ there yet when I came back. He was younger
than I, and Mary, his sister, was younger still. I liked Henry and his
death was a sort of personal loss to me, as you might say. I liked Mary,
too. She was always so quiet and common-sense and comfortable. _She_
didn’t gossip, and the way she helped her brother in the post-office was
a treat to see. She wa’n’t exactly what you’d call young, and the world
hadn’t been all fair winds and smooth water for her, by a whole lot;
but, in spite of it, she’d managed to keep sweet and fresh. She and
Henry and I had got to be good friends and I gen’rally took a walk up
towards their house of a Sunday or managed to run in at the post-office
buildin’ at least once every week-day and have a chat with ’em.
When I heard of Henry’s dyin’ so sudden my fust thought was about Mary
and what would she do. How was she goin’ to get along? I thought of that
even durin’ the funeral, and now, the day after it, when I went up to
see her, I was thinkin’ of it still. And, at last, I believed I had got
the answer to the puzzle.
Half the way back to the "Ostable Grocery, Dry Goods, Boots and Shoes
and Fancy Goods Store," I was thinkin’ of my new notion and makin’ up my
mind. The other half I was layin’ plans to put it through. When I walked
into the store, Jim Henry met me.
"Hello, Skipper," says he, brisk and fresh as a no’theast breeze in dog
days, "did you ever hear the story about the office-seekin’ feller in
Washin’ton, back in President Harrison’s time? He wanted a gov’ment job
and he happened to notice a crowd down by the Potomac and asked what was
up. They told him one of the Treasury clerks had been found drowned. He
run full speed to the White House, saw the President, and asked for the
drowned chap’s place. ’You’re too late,’ says Harrison, 'I’ve just
app’inted the man that saw him fall in.’"
I’d heard it afore, but I laughed, out of politeness, and wanted to know
what made him think of the yarn.
"Why," says he, "because that’s the way it’s workin’ here in Ostable.
Poor old Blaisdell’s funeral was only yesterday and it’s already settled
who’s to be the new postmaster."
Considerin’ what I’d been goin’ over in my mind all the way home from
Mary’s, this statement, just at this time, knocked me pretty nigh out of
water.
"What?" I gasped. "How did you know?"
"Why wouldn’t I know?" says he. "I got the advance information right
from the oracle. I was told not ten minutes since that the app’intment
was to go to Abubus Payne."
I stared at him. "Abubus Payne!" says I. "Abubus—Are you dreamin’?"
He laughed. "I’d never dream a name like 'Abubus,’ he says, ’even after
one of our Poquit House dinners. No, it’s no dream. The Major was just
in and he says his mind is made up. That settles it, don’t it? You
wouldn’t contradict the all-wise mouthpiece of Providence, would you,
Cap’n Zeb?"
I never said anything—not then. I was realizin’ that, if I wanted Mary
Blaisdell to be postmistress at Ostable—which was the inspiration I was
took with when I looked back at her from the hill—I’d got to do
somethin’ besides say. I’d got to work and work hard. And even at that
my work was cut out from the small end of the goods. To beat Major
Cobden Clark in a political fight was no boy’s job. But Abubus Payne!
Abubus Payne postmaster at Ostable!! Think of it! Maybe you can; _I_
couldn’t without stimulants.
You see, this critter Abubus—did you ever hear such a name in your
life?—had lived around ’most every town on the Cape at one time or
another. He and his wife wa’n’t what you’d call permanent settlers
anywhere, but had a habit of breakin’ out in new and unexpected places,
like a p’ison-ivy rash. He worked some at carpenterin’, when he couldn’t
help it, but his main business, as you might say, had always been
lookin’ for an easier job. In Ostable he’d got one. He was caretaker and
general nurse of Major Cobden Clark. His wife, who was about as
shiftless as he was, was the Major’s housekeeper.
And the Major? Well, the Major was a star, a planet—yes, in his own
opinion, the whole solar system. He was big and fleshy and straight and
gray-haired and red-faced. He belonged to land knows how many clubs and
societies and milishys, includin’ the Ancient and Honorable Artillery
Company of Boston and the Old Guard of New York. He had political
influence and a long pocketbook and a short temper. Likewise he suffered
from pig-headedness and chronic indigestion. ’Twas the indigestion that
brought him to Ostable and Abubus; or rather ’twas his doctor, Dr.
Conquest Payne, the celebrated food and diet specializer—see
advertisements in ’most any newspaper—who sent him there. Abubus was
Doctor Conquest’s cousin and I judge the two of ’em figgered the Clark
stomach and income as things too good to be treated outside of the
family.
Anyway, the spring afore I landed in Ostable, down comes the Major, buys
a good-sized house on the lower road nigh the water front, hires Abubus
and his wife to look out for the place and him, and settles down to the
simple life, which wa’n’t the kind he’d been livin’, by a consider’ble
sight. But he lived it now; yes, sir, he did! He lived by the clock and
he ate and slept by the clock, and that clock was wound up and set
accordin’ to the rules prescribed by Dr. Conquest Payne, "World Famous
Dietitian and Food Specialist"—see more advertisin’, with a tintype of
the Doctor in the corner.
Nigh as I could find out the diet was a queer one. It give me dyspepsy
just to think of it. Breakfast at seven sharp, consistin’ of a dozen nut
meats, two raw prunes, some "whole wheat bread"—whatever that is—and a
pint of hot water. Luncheon at quarter to eleven, with another
assortment of similar truck. Afternoon snack at three and dinner at
half-past seven. He had two soft b’iled eggs for dinner, or else a
two-inch slice of rare steak, and, with them exceptions, the whole bill
of fare was, accordin’ to my notion, more fittin’ for a goat than a
human bein’. He mustn’t smoke and he mustn’t drink: Considerin’ what
he’d been used to afore the "World Famous" one hooked him it ain’t much
wonder that he was as crabbed and cranky as a liveoak windlass.
However, it—or somethin’ else—had made him feel better since he landed
in Ostable and he swore by that Conquest Payne man and everybody
connected with him. And if he once took a notion into his tough old
head, nothin’ short of a surgeon’s operation could get it out. He’d
decided to make Abubus postmaster and he’d move heaven and earth to do
it. All right, then, it was up to me to do some movin’ likewise. I can
be a little mite pig-headed myself, if I set out to be.
And I set out right then. It may seem funny to say so, but I was about
as good a friend as the Major had in Ostable. Course he had a tremendous
influence with the selectmen and the like of that, owin’ to his soldier
record and his pompousness and the amount of taxes he paid. And he and I
never agreed on one single p’int. But just the same he spent the heft of
his evenin’s at the store and I was always glad to see him. I respected
the cantankerous old critter, and liked him, in a way. And I’m inclined
to think he respected and liked me. I cal’late both of us enjoyed
fightin’ with somebody that never tried for an under-holt or quit even
when he was licked.
So that night, when he comes puffin’ in and sets down, as usual, in the
most comfortable chair, I went over and come to anchor alongside of him.
"Hello," he grunts, "you old salt hayseed. Any closer to bankruptcy than
you was yesterday?"
"Your bill’s a little bigger and more overdue, that’s all," says I. "See
here, I want to talk politics with you. Mary Blaisdell, Henry’s sister,
is goin’ to have the post-office now he’s gone, and I want you to put
your name on her petition. Not that she needs it, or anybody else’s, but
just to help fill up the paper."
Well, sir, you ought to have seen him! His red face fairly puffed out,
like a young-one’s rubber balloon. He whirled round on the edge of his
chair—he was too big to move in any other part of it—and glared at me.
What did I mean by that? Hey? Was my punkin head sp’ilin’ now that warm
weather had come, or what? Had I heard what he told my partner that very
mornin’?
"Yes," says I, "I heard it. But I judged you must have broke your rule
about drinkin’ liquor, or else your dyspepsy has struck to your brains.
No sane person would set out to make Abubus Payne anythin’ more
responsible than keeper of a pig pen. You didn’t mean it, of course."
He didn’t! He’d show me what he meant! Abubus was the most honest, able
man on the whole blessed sand-heap, and he was goin’ to be postmaster.
Mary Blaisdell was an old maid, good enough of her kind, maybe, but the
place for her was some kind of an asylum or home for incompetent
females. He’d sign a petition to put her in one of them places, but
nothin’ else. Abubus was just as good as app’inted already.
We had it back and forth. There was consider’ble chair thumpin’ and
hollerin’, I shouldn’t wonder. Anyhow, afore ’twas over every loafer on
the main road was crowdin’ ’round us and Jim Henry Jacobs was pacin’ up
and down back of the counter with the most worried look on his face ever
I see there. It ended by the Major’s jumpin’ to his feet and headin’ for
the door.
"You—you—you tarry old imbecile," he hollers, shakin’ a fat forefinger
at me, "I’ll show you a few things. I’ll never set foot in this rathole
of yours again."
"You better not," I sung out. "If you dare to, I’ll—"
"What?" he interrupts. "You’ll what? I’ll be back here to-morrow night.
Then what’ll you do?"
"I’ll show you Mary Blaisdell’s petition," I says. "And the names on
it’ll make you curl up and quit like a sick caterpillar."
"Humph! I’ll show _you_ a petition for Abubus Payne, next postmaster of
Ostable, with a string of names on it so long you’ll die of old age
afore you can finish readin’ ’em. Bah!"
With that he went out and I went into the back room to wash my face in
cold water.
I wrote the headin’ to the Blaisdell petition afore I turned in that
very night. Next mornin’ I hurried over and, after consider’ble arguin’,
I got Mary to say she’d try for the place. All the rest of that day I
put in drivin’ from Dan to Beersheby gettin’ signatures. And I got ’em,
too, a schooner load of ’em. I had the petition ready to show the Major
that evenin’; but, when he come into the store, he had a petition, too,
just as long as mine. And the worst of it was, in a lot of cases the
same names was signed to both papers. Accordin’ to those petitions the
heft of Ostable folks wanted somebody to keep post-office and they
didn’t much care who. They wanted to please me and they didn’t like to
say no to the Major.
He was mad and I was mad and we had another session. But he wouldn’t
cross the names off and neither would I and so, after another week, both
petitions went in as they was. All the good they seemed to do was that
we each got a letter from the Post-office Department and Mary Blaisdell
was allowed to hold over her brother’s place until somebody was picked
out permanent. And every evenin’ Major Clark came into the store to tell
me Abubus was sure to win and get my prediction that Mary was as good as
elected. One week dragged along and then another, and ’twas still a
draw, fur’s a body could tell. The Washin’ton folks wa’n’t makin’ a
peep.
But old Ancient and Honorable Clark was workin’ his wires on the quiet
and I must give in that he pulled one on me that I wa’n’t expectin’. The
whole town had got sort of tired of guessin’ and talkin’ about the
post-office squabble and had drifted back into the reg’lar rut of
pickin’ their neighbors to pieces. The Major had set ’em talkin’ on a
new line durin’ the last fortni’t. He’d been fixin’ up his house and
havin’ the grounds seen to, and so forth. Likewise he’d bought an
automobile, one of the nobbiest kind. This was somethin’ of a surprise,
'cause afore that he’d been pretty much down on autos and did his
drivin’ around in a high-seated sort of buggy—"dog cart" he called
it—though 'twas hauled by a horse and he hated dogs so that he kept a
shotgun loaded with rock salt on his porch to drive stray ones off his
premises.
"Who’s goin’ to run that smell-wagon of yours?" I asked him, sarcastic.
He kept comin’ to the store just the same as ever and we had our reg’lar
rows constant. I cal’late we’d both have missed ’em if they’d stopped. I
know I should.
"Humph!" he snorts; "smell-wagon, hey? If it smells any worse than that
old fish dory of yours, I’ll have it buried, for the sake of the public
health."
By "fish dory" he meant a catboat I’d bought. She was named the _Glide_
and she could glide away from anything of her inches in the bay.
"But who’s goin’ to run that auto?" I asked again. "’Tain’t possible
you’re goin’ to do it yourself. If she went by alcohol power, I could
understand, but—"
"Hush up!" he says, forgettin’ to be mad for once and speakin’ actually
plaintive. "Don’t talk that way, Snow," says he. "If you knew how much I
wanted a drink you wouldn’t speak lightly of alcohol."
"Why don’t you take one, then?" I wanted to know. "I believe ’twould do
you good. That and a square meal. If you’d forget your prunes and your
nutmeats and your quack doctorin’—"
He was mad then, all right. To slur at the "World Famous" was a good
deal worse than murder, in his mind. He expressed his opinion of me,
free and loud. He said I’d ought to try Doctor Conquest, myself, for
developin’ my brains. The Doctor was pretty nigh a vegetarian, he said,
and my head was mainly cabbage—and so on. Incidentally he announced that
Abubus was to run the new auto.
"Abubus!" says I. "Why, he don’t know a gas engine from a coffee mill!
He wouldn’t know what the craft’s for."
"That’s all right," he says. "He’s been takin’ lessons at the garage in
Hyannis and he can run it like a bird. He knows what it’s for. He! he!
so do I. By the way, Snow, are you ready to give up the post-office to
my candidate yet?"
"Give up?" says I. "Tut! tut! tut! I hate to hear a supposed sane man
talk so. Mary Blaisdell handles the mail in the Ostable post-office for
the next three years—longer, if she wants to."
"Bet you five she don’t," he says.
"Take the bet," says I.
He went out chucklin’. I wondered what he had up his sleeve. A week
later I found out. Congressman Shelton, our district Representative at
Washin’ton, came to Ostable to look the post-office situation over and,
lo and behold you, he comes as Major Cobden Clark’s guest, to stay at
his house.
When Jim Henry Jacobs learned that, he took me to one side to give me
some brotherly advice.
"It’s all up for Mary now," he says. "She can’t win. Clark and Shelton
are old chums in politics. There’s only one chance to beat Payne and
that’s to bring forward a compromise candidate—a dark horse."
"Rubbish!" I sung out. "Dark horse be hanged! Shelton’s square as a
brick. Nobody can bribe him."
"It ain’t a question of bribin’," he says. "If it was, you could bribe,
too. Shelton is square, and that’s why he’d welcome a compromise
candidate. But if it comes to a fight between Mary Blaisdell and Abubus
Payne, Abubus’ll win because he’s the Major’s pet. Shelton knows the
Major better than he knows you. Take my advice now and look out for the
dark horse."
But I wouldn’t listen. All the next hour I was ugly as a bear with a
sore head and long afore dinner time I told Jacobs I was goin’ for a
sail in the _Glide_. "Goin’ somewheres on salt water where the air’s
clean and not p’isoned by politics and automobiles and congressmen and
Paynes," I told him.
I headed out of the harbor and then run, afore a wind that was fair but
gettin’ lighter all the time, up the bay. I sailed and sailed until some
of my bad temper wore off and my appetite begun to come back. All the
time I was settin’ at the tiller I was thinkin’ over the post-office
situation and, try as hard as I could to see the bright side for Mary
Blaisdell, it looked pretty dark. The Major would give that Shelton man
the time of his life and he’d talk Abubus to him to beat the cars. I
couldn’t get at the Congressman to put in an oar for Mary and—well, I’d
have discounted my five-dollar bet for about seventy-five cents, at that
time.
I thought and thought and sailed and sailed. When I came to myself and
realized I was hungry the _Glide_ was miles away from Ostable. I came
about and started to beat back; then I saw I was in for a long job. Let
alone that the wind was ahead, ’twas dyin’ fast, and if I knew the signs
of a flat calm, there was one due in half an hour. I took as long tacks
as I could, but I made mighty little progress.
On the second tack inshore I came up abreast of Jonathan Crowell’s house
at Heron P’int. Jonathan’s just a no-account longshoreman or he wouldn’t
live in that place, which is the fag-end of creation. There’s a
twenty-mile stretch of beach and pines and such close to the shore
there, with a road along it. The first eight mile of that road is pretty
good macadam and hard dirt. A land company tried to develop that section
of beach once and they put in the road; but the land didn’t sell and the
company busted and after that eight mile the road is just beach sand,
soft and coarse. The strip of solid ground, with its pines and
scrub-oaks, is, as I said afore, twenty mile long, but it’s only a half
mile or so wide. Between it and the main cape is a tremendous salt
marsh, all cut up with cricks that nobody can get over without a boat.
Jonathan’s is the only house for the whole twenty mile, except the
lighthouse buildin’s down at the end. The land company put up a few
summer shacks on speculation, but they’re all rickety and fallin’ to
pieces.
I knew Jonathan had gone to Bayport, quahaug rakin’, and that his wife
was visitin’ over to Wellmouth, so when the _Glide_ crept in towards the
beach and I saw a couple of folk by the Crowell house, I was surprised.
I didn’t pay much attention to 'em, however, until I was just about
ready to put the helm over and stand out into the bay again. Then they
come runnin’ down to the beach, yellin’ and wavin’ their arms. I thought
one of ’em had a familiar look and, as I come closer, I got more and
more sure of it. It didn’t seem possible, but it was—one of those
fellers on the beach was Major Cobden Clark.
"Hi-i!" yells the Major, hoppin’ up and down and wavin’ both arms as if
he was practicin’ flyin’; "Hi-i-i! you man in the boat! Come here! I
want you!"
That was him, all over. He wanted me, so of course I must come. My
feelin’s in the matter didn’t count at all. I run the _Glide_ in as nigh
the beach as I dared and then fetched her up into what little wind there
was left.
"Ahoy there, Major," I sung out. "Is that you?"
"Hey?" he shouts. "Do you know—Why, I believe it’s Snow! Is that you,
Snow?"
"Yes, it’s me," I hollers. "What in time are you doin’ way over here?"
"Never mind what I’m doin’," he roared. "You come ashore here. I want
you."
If I hadn’t been so curious to know what he was doin’, I’d have seen him
in glory afore I ever thought of obeyin’ an order from him; but I was
curious. While I was considerin’ the breeze give a final puff and died
out altogether. That settled it. I might as well go ashore as stay
aboard. I couldn’t get anywhere without wind. So I hove anchor and
dropped the mains’l.
"Come on!" he kept yellin’. "What are you waitin’ for? Don’t you hear me
say I want you?"
I had on my long-legged rubber boots and the water wa’n’t more’n up to
my knees. When I got good and ready, I swung over the side and waded to
the beach.
"Hello, Maje," I says, brisk and easy, "you ought not to holler like
that. You’ll bust a b’iler. Your face looks like a red-hot stove
already."
He mopped his forehead. "Shut up, you old fool," says he. "Think I’m
here to listen to a lecture about my face? You carry Mr. Shelton and me
out to that boat of yours. We want you to sail us home."
So the other chap was the Congressman. I’d guessed as much. I went up to
him and held out my hand.
"Pleased to know you, Mr. Shelton," says I. "Had the pleasure of votin’
for you last fall."
Shelton shook and smiled. "This is Cap’n Snow, isn’t it?" he says, his
eyes twinklin’. "Glad to meet you, I’m sure. I’ve heard of you often."
"I shouldn’t wonder," says I. "Major Clark and me are old chums and I
cal’late he’s mentioned my name at least once. Hey, Maje?"
The Major grinned. I grinned, too; and Shelton laughed out loud.
"I never saw such a talkin’ machine in my life," snaps Clark. "Don’t
stop to tell us the story of your life. Take us aboard that boat of
yours. You’ve got to get us back to Ostable, d’you understand?"
"Have, hey?" says I. "I appreciate the honor, but.... However, maybe you
won’t mind tellin’ me what you’re doin’ here, twelve miles from
nowhere?"
The Major was too mad to answer, so Shelton did it for him.
"Well," he says, smilin’ and with a wink at his partner, "we _came_ in
the Major’s auto, but—"
He stopped without finishin’ the sentence.
"The auto?" says I. "You came in the auto? Well, why don’t you go back
in it? What’s the matter? Has it broke down? Humph! I ain’t surprised;
them things are always breakin’ down, 'specially the cheap ones."
_That_ stirred up the kettle. The Major give me to understand that his
auto cost six thousand dollars and was the best blessedty-blank car on
earth. It wa’n’t the auto’s fault. It hadn’t broke down. It had stuck in
the eternal and everlastin’ sand and they couldn’t get it out, that was
the trouble.
"But Abubus can get it out, can’t he?" says I. "Abubus runs it like a
bird, you told me so yourself. Now a bird can fly, and if you want to
get from here to Ostable in anything like a straight line, you’ve _got_
to fly. By the way, where is Abubus?"
Three or four more questions, and a hogshead of profanity on the Major’s
part, and I had the whole story. He and Shelton had started for a ride
way up the Cape. They was cal’latin’ to get home by eleven o’clock, but
the machine went so fast that they got where they was goin’ early and
had time to spare. Shelton happened to remember that he’d sunk some
money in the land company I mentioned and he thought he’d like to see
the place where 'twas sunk. He asked Abubus if they couldn’t run along
the beach road a ways. Abubus hemmed and hawed and didn’t know for
sure—he never was sure about anything. But the Major said course they
could; that car could go anywhere. So they turned in way up by Sandwich
and come b’ilin’ down alongshore. Long’s the old land company road
lasted they was all right, but when, runnin’ thirty-five miles an hour,
they whizzed off the end of that road, ’twas different. The automobile
lit in the soft sand like a snow-plow and stopped—and stayed. They tried
to dig it out with boards from Jonathan Crowell’s pig pen, but the more
they dug the deeper it sunk. At last they give it up; nothin’ but a team
of horses could haul that machine out of that sand. So Abubus starts to
walk the ten or eleven miles back to civilization and livery stables and
the Major and Shelton waited for him. And the more they waited the
hungrier and madder Clark got. ’Twas all Abubus’s fault, of course. He
ought to have had more sense than to run that way on that road, anyhow.
He ought to have known better than to get into that sand, a feller that
had lived in sand all his life. He was an incompetent jackass. Well, I
knew that afore, but it certainly did me good to hear the Major confirm
my judgment.
I went over and looked at the automobile. It had always acted like a
mighty lively contraption, but now it looked dead enough. And not only
dead, but two-thirds buried.
"Well?" fumes Clark, "how much longer have we got to stay in this hole?"
"It’s consider’ble of a hole," says I, "and it looks to me as if she’d
stay there till Abubus gets back with a pair of horses. Considerin’ how
far he’s got to tramp and how long it’ll be afore he can get a pair, I
cal’late the hole’ll be occupied until some time in the night."
That wa’n’t what he meant and I knew it. Did I suppose he and Shelton
was goin’ to wait and starve until the middle of the night? No, sir; the
auto could stay where it was; he and the Congressman would sail home
with me in the _Glide_.
"I hope you ain’t in any partic’lar hurry," says I, lookin’ out over the
bay. There wa’n’t a breath of air stirrin’ and the water was slick and
shiny as a starched shirt. "The _Glide_ runs by wind power and there’s
no wind. This calm may last one hour or it may last two. As long as it
lasts I stay where I am."
What! Did I think they would stay there just because I was too lazy to
get my whoopety-bang fish-dory under way? Stay there in that
sand-heap—sand-heap was the politest of the names he called Crowell’s
plantation—and starve?
"Oh," says I. "I won’t starve. I’m goin’ to get dinner."
Dinner! The very name of it was like a life-preserver to a feller who’d
gone under for the second time.
"Can you get us dinner?" roars the Major. "By George, if you can I’ll—"
"Not for you I can’t," I says. "You live accordin’ to the Payne
schedule, on prunes and pecans and such. The prune crop ’round here is a
failure and I don’t see a pecan tree in Jonathan’s back yard. No, any
dinner I’d get would give you compound, gallopin’ dyspepsy, and I can’t
be responsible for your death—I love you too much. But I cal’late I can
scratch up a meal that’ll keep folks with common insides from perishin’
of hunger. Anyhow, I’m goin’ to try."
CHAPTER IV—HOW I MADE A CLAM CHOWDER; AND WHAT A CLAM CHOWDER MADE OF ME
Well, sir, even the Major’s guns was spiked for a minute. I cal’late
that, for once, he’d forgot all about his dietizin’ and only remembered
his appetite. He gurgled and choked and glared. Afore he could get his
artillery ready for a broadside I walked off and left him. He’d riled me
up a little and I saw a chance to rile him back.
I went around to the back part of the Crowell house and tried the
kitchen door. ’Twas locked, for a wonder, but the window side of it
wasn’t. I pushed up the sash and reached in fur enough to unhook the
door. Then I went into the house and begun to overhaul the supplies in
the galley. I found flour and sugar and salt and pepper and coffee and
butter and canned milk and salt pork—about everything I wanted. Jonathan
and I was friendly enough so’s I knew he wouldn’t care what I used so
long as I paid for it. If he had I’d have taken the risk, just then.
The wood-box was full and I got a fire goin’ in the cookstove, and put
on a couple of kettles of water to heat. Then I went out to the shed and
located a clam hoe and a bucket. There’s clams a-plenty ’most anywheres
along that beach and the tide was out fur enough for me to get a
bucket-full of small ones in no time. I fetched ’em up to the house and
set down on the back step to open 'em.
The Major and Shelton was watchin’ me all this time and they looked
interested—that is, the Congressman did, and Clark was doin’ his best
not to. Pretty soon Shelton walks over and asks a question. "What are
you doin’ with those things, Cap’n Snow?" says he, referrin’ to the
clams.
"Oh," says I, cheerful, "I’m figgerin’ on makin’ a chowder, if nothin’
busts."
"A chowder," he says, sort of eager. "A clam chowder? Can you?"
"I can. That is, I have made a good many and I cal’late to make this
one, unless I’m struck with paralysis."
"A clam chowder!" he says again, sort of eager but reverent. "By George!
that’s good—er—for you, I mean."
"I hope ’twill be good for you, too," says I. "I’m sorry that Major
Clark’s dyspepsy’s such that 'twon’t be good for him, but that’s his
misfortune, not my fault."
Shelton looked sort of queer and went away to jine his chum. The two of
’em did consider’ble talkin’ and the Major appeared to be deliverin’ a
sermon, at least I heard a good many orthodox words in the course of it.
I finished my clam openin’, went in and got my cookin’ started. The
flour and the butter made me think that some hot spider-bread would go
good with the chowder and I started to mix a batch. Then I got another
idea.
'Twas too late for huckleberries and such, but out back of the shed,
beyond the pines, was a little swampy place. I took a tin pail, went out
there and filled the pail with early wild cranberries in five minutes.
As I was comin’ back I noticed an onion patch in the garden. A chowder
without onions is like a camp-meetin’ Sunday without your best
girl—pretty flat and impersonal. Most of those left in the patch had
gone to seed, but I got a half dozen.
After a short spell that kitchen begun to get fragrant and folksy, as
you might say. The coffee was b’ilin’, the chowder was about ready,
there was a pan of red-hot spider-bread on the back of the stove and a
cranberry shortcake—’twould have been better with cream, but to skim
condensed milk is more exercise than profit—in the oven. I’d opened all
the windows and the door, so the smell drifted out and livened up the
surroundin’ scenery. Clark and Shelton were settin’ on a sand hummock a
little ways off and I could see ’em wrinklin’ their noses.
When the table was set and everything was ready I put my head out of the
window and hollered:
"Dinner!" I sung out.
There wa’n’t any answer. The pair on the hummock stirred and acted
uneasy, but they didn’t move. I ladled out some of the chowder and the
perfume of it got more pervadin’ and extensive. Then I rattled the
dishes and tried again.
"Dinner!" I hollered. "Come on; chowder’s gettin’ cold."
Still they didn’t move and I begun to think my fun had been all for
myself. I was disappointed, but I set down to the table and commenced to
eat. Then I heard a noise. The pair of ’em had drifted over to the
doorway and was lookin’ in.
"Hello!" says I, blowin’ a spoonful of chowder to cool it. "Am I givin’
a good imitation of a hungry man? If I ain’t, appearances are
deceitful."
"_Hog!_" snarls Clark, with enthusiasm.
"Not at all," says I. "There’s plenty of everything and Mr. Shelton’s
welcome. So would you be, Major, if there was anything aboard you could
eat. I’m awful sorry about them prunes and nutmeats. I only wish Crowell
had laid in a supply—I do so."
The Major’s mouth was waterin’ so he had to swallow afore he could
answer. When he did I realized what he was at his best. Shelton didn’t
say a word, but the looks of him was enough.
"My, my!" says I, "I’m glad I made a whole kettleful of this stuff; I
can use a grown man’s share of it."
Shelton looked at Clark and Clark looked at him. Then the Major yelps at
him like a sore pup.
"Go ahead!" he shouts. "Go ahead in! Don’t stand starin’ at me like a
cannibal. Go in and eat, why don’t you?"
You could see the Congressman was divided in his feelin’s. He wanted
dinner worse than the Old Harry wanted the backslidin’ deacon, but he
hated to desert his friend.
"You’re sure—" he stammered. "It seems mean to leave you, but.... Sure
you wouldn’t mind? If it wasn’t that you are on a diet and _can’t_ eat I
shouldn’t think of it, but—"
"Shut up!" The Major fairly whooped it to Jericho. "If you talk diet to
me again I’ll kill you. Go in and eat. Eat, you idiot! I’d just as soon
watch two pigs as one. Go in!"
So Shelton came in and I had a plate of chowder waitin’ for him. He
grabbed up his spoon and didn’t speak until he’d finished the whole of
it. Then he fetched a long breath, passed the plate for more, and says
he:
"By George, Cap’n, that is the best stuff I ever tasted. You’re a
wonderful cook."
"Much obliged," says I. "But you ain’t competent to judge until after
the third helpin’. And now you try a slab of that spider-bread and a cup
of coffee. And don’t forget to leave room for the shortcake because....
Well, I swan to man! Why, Major Clark, are you crazy?"
For, as sure as I’m settin’ here, old Clark had come bustin’ into that
kitchen, yanked a chair up to that table, grabbed a plate and the ladle
and was helpin’ himself to chowder.
"Major!" says I.
"Why, _Cobden_!" says Shelton.
"Shut up!" roars the Major. "If either of you say a word I won’t be
responsible for the consequences."
We didn’t say anything and neither did he. Judgin’ by the silence ’twas
a mighty solemn occasion. Everybody ate chowder and just thought, I
guess.
"Pass me that bread," snaps Clark.
"But Cobden," says Shelton again.
"It’s hot," says I, "and it’s fried, and—"
"Give it to me! If you don’t I shall know it’s because you’re too
rip-slap stingy to part with it."
After that, there was nothin’ to be done but the one thing. He got the
bread and he ate it—not one slice, but two. And he drank coffee and ate
a three-inch slab of shortcake. When the meal was over there wa’n’t
enough left to feed a healthy canary.
"Now," growls the Major, turnin’ to Shelton, "have you a cigar in your
pocket? If you have, hand it over."
The Congressman fairly gasped. "A cigar!" he sings out. "You—goin’ to
_smoke_? _You?_"
"Yes—me. I’m goin’ to die anyway. This murderer here," p’intin’ to me,
"laid his plans to kill me and he’s succeeded. But I’ll die happy. Give
me that cigar! If you had a drink about you I’d take that."
He bit the end off his cigar, lit it, and slammed out of that kitchen,
puffin’ like a soft-coal tug. Shelton shook his head at me and I shook
mine back.
"Do you s’pose he _will_ die?" he asked. "He’s eaten enough to kill
anybody. And with his stomach! And to smoke!"
"The dear land knows," says I. To tell you the truth I was a little
conscience-struck and worried. My idea had been to play a joke on
Clark—tantalize him by eatin’ a square meal that he couldn’t touch—and
get even for some of the names he’d called me. But now I wa’n’t sure
that my fun wouldn’t turn out serious. When a man with a lame digestion
eats enough to satisfy an elephant nobody can be sure what’ll come of
it.
The Congressman and I washed the dishes and 'twas a pretty average
sorrowful job. Only once, when I happened to glance at him and caught a
queer look in his eyes, was the ceremony any more joyful than a funeral.
Then the funny side of it struck me and I commenced to laugh. He joined
in and the pair of us haw-hawed like loons. Then we was sorry for it.
Shelton went out when the dish-washin’ was over. I cleaned up
everything, left a note and some money on Jonathan’s table and locked up
the house. When I got outside there was a fair to middlin’ breeze
springin’ up. Shelton was settin’ on the hummock waitin’ for me.
"Where—where’s the Major?" I asked, pretty fearful.
"He’s over there in the shade—asleep," he whispered.
"Asleep!" says I. "Sure he ain’t dead?"
"Listen," says he.
I listened. If the Major was dead he was a mighty noisy remains.
He woke up, after an hour or so, and come trampin’ over to where we was.
"Well," he snaps, "it’s blowin’ hard enough now, ain’t it? Why don’t you
take us home?"
"How about the auto?" I asked.
The auto could stay where it was until the horses came to pull it out.
As for him he wanted to be took home.
"But—but are you able to go?" asked Shelton, anxious.
What in the sulphur blazes did we mean by that? Course he was able to
go! And had Shelton got another cigar in his clothes?
All of the sail home I was expectin’ to see that military man keel over
and begin his digestion torments. But he didn’t keel. He smoked and
talked and was better-natured than ever I’d seen him. He didn’t mention
his stomach once and you can be sure and sartin that I didn’t. As we was
comin’ up to the moorin’s in Ostable I’m blessed if he didn’t begin to
sing, a kind of a fool tune about "Down where the somethin’-or-other
runs." Then I _was_ scared, because I judged that his attack had started
and delirium was settin’ in.
Shelton shook hands with me at the landin’.
"You’re all right, Cap’n Snow," he says. "That was the best meal I ever
tasted and nobody but you could have conjured it up in the middle of a
howlin’ wilderness. If there’s anything I can do for you at any time
just let me know."
There was one thing he could do, of course, but I wouldn’t be mean
enough to mention it then. The Major and I had, generally speakin’,
fought fair, and I wouldn’t take advantage of a delirious invalid. And
just then up comes the invalid himself.
"See here, Snow," says he, pretty gruff; "I’ll probably be dead afore
mornin’, but afore I die I want to tell you that I’m much obliged to you
for bringin’ us home. Yes, and—and, by the great and mighty, I’m obliged
to you for that chowder and the rest of it! It’ll be my death, but
nothin’ ever tasted so good to me afore. There!"
"That’s all right," says I.
"No, it ain’t all right. I’m much obliged, I tell you. You’re a
stubborn, obstinate, unreasonable old hayseed, but you’re the most
competent person in this town just the same. Of course though," he adds,
sharp, "you understand that this don’t affect our post-office fight in
the least. That Blaisdell woman don’t get it."
"Who said it did affect it?" I asked, just as snappy as he was. That’s
the way we parted and I wondered if I’d ever see him alive again.
I didn’t see him for quite a spell, but I heard about him. I woke up
nights expectin’ to be jailed for murder, but I wa’n’t; and when, three
days later, Shelton started for Washin’ton, the Major went away on the
train with him. Abubus and his wife shut up the house and went off, too,
and nobody seemed to know where they’d gone. All’s could be found out
was that Abubus acted pretty ugly and wouldn’t talk to anybody. This was
comfortin’ in a way, though, most likely, it didn’t mean anything at
all.
But at the end of two weeks a thing happened that meant somethin’. I got
two letters in the mail, one in a big, long envelope postmarked from the
Post-Office Department at Washington and the other a letter from Shelton
himself. I don’t suppose I’ll ever forget that letter to my dyin’ day.
"Dear Captain Snow," it begun. "You may be interested to know
that our mutual friend, Major Clark, has suffered no ill effects
from our picnic at the beach. In fact, he is better than he ever
was and has been enjoying the comforts of city life to an extent
which I should not dare attempt. Whether his long respite from
such comforts helped, or whether the celebrated Doctor Conquest
was responsible, I know not. The Major, however, declares Doctor
Payne to be a fraud and to have been, as he says, ’working him
for a sucker.’ Therefore he has discharged the doctor and
discharged the cousin with the odd name—your fellow townsman,
Abubus Payne. The mishap with the auto was the beginning of
Abubus’s finish and the fact that no indigestion followed our
chowder party completed it. And also—which may interest you
still more—Major Clark has withdrawn his support of Payne’s
candidacy for the post-office and urged the appointment of
another person, one whom he declares to be the only able,
common-sense, honest _man_ in the village. As I have long felt
the appointment of a compromise candidate to be the sole
solution of the problem, I was very happy to agree with him,
particularly as I thoroughly approve of his choice. When you
learn the new postmaster’s name I trust you may agree with us
both. I know the citizens of Ostable will do so.
"Yours sincerely,
"_William A. Shelton._
"P.S. I am coming down next summer and shall expect another one
of your chowders."
My hands shook as I ripped open the other envelope. I knew what was
comin’—somethin’ inside me warned me what to expect. And there it was.
Me—_me_—Zebulon Snow, was app’inted postmaster of Ostable!
Was I mad? I was crazy! I fairly hopped up and down. What in thunder did
I want of the postmastership? And if I wanted it ever so much did they
think I was a traitor? Was it likely that I’d take it, after workin’
tooth and nail for Mary Blaisdell? What would Mary say to me? By time,
_I’d_ show ’em! It should go back that minute and my free and frank
opinion with it. I’d kicked one chair to pieces already, and was
beginnin’ on another, when Jim Henry Jacobs come runnin’ in and stopped
me.
No use to goin’ into particulars of the argument we had. It lasted till
after one o’clock next mornin’. Jim Henry argued and coaxed and proved
and I ripped and vowed I wouldn’t. He was tickled to death. The
post-office was the greatest thing to bring trade that the store could
have, and so on. I _must_ take the job. If I didn’t somebody else would,
somebody that, more’n likely, we wouldn’t like any better than we did
Abubus.
"No," says I. "_No!_ Mary Blaisdell shall have—"
"She won’t get it anyway," says he. "She’s out of it—Shelton as much as
says so—whatever happens. And she don’t want the title anyway. All she
needs or cares for is the pay and I’ve thought of a way to fix that. You
listen."
I listened—under protest, and the upshot of it was that the next day I
went up to see Mary. She’d heard that I was likely to get the
appointment—old Clark had been doin’ some hintin’ afore he left town, I
cal’late—and she congratulated me as hearty as if ’twas what she’d
wanted all along. But I wa’n’t huntin’ congratulations. I felt as mean
as if I’d been took up by the constable for bein’ a chicken thief, and I
told her so.
"Mary," says I, "I wa’n’t after the postmastership. I swear by all that
is good and great I wa’n’t. I don’t know what you must think of me."
"What I’ve always thought," says she, "and what poor Henry thought
before he died. My opinion is like Major Clark’s," with a kind of half
smile, "that the appointment has gone to the best man in Ostable."
"My, my!" says I. "_Your_ digestion ain’t given you delirium, has it? No
sir-ee! I’m no more fit to be postmaster than a ship’s goat is to teach
school."
"You mustn’t talk so," she says, earnest. "You will take the position,
won’t you?"
"I’ll take it," says I, "under one condition." Then I told her what the
condition was. She argued against it at fust, but after I’d said
flat-footed that ’twas either that or the government could take its
appointment and make paper boats of it, and she’d seen that I meant it,
she give in.
"But," says she, chokin’ up a little, "I know you’re doin’ this just to
help me. How I can ever repay your kindness I don’t—"
I cut in quick. My deadlights was more misty than I like to have ’em.
"Rubbish!" says I, "I’m doin’ it to win my bet with old Clark. I’d do
anything to beat out that old critter."
So it happened that when, along in November, the Major came back to
Ostable to look over his place, afore leavin’ for Florida, and come into
the store, I was ready for him. He grinned and asked me if he had any
mail.
"While you’re about it," he says, chucklin’, "you can pay me that bet."
Now the very sound of the word "bet" hit me on a sore place. I’d lost
one hat to Mr. Pike and the letter I’d got from him rubbed me across the
grain every time I thought of it.
"What bet?" says I.
"Why, the bet you made that the Blaisdell woman would be postmistress
here."
"I didn’t bet that," I says.
"You didn’t?" he roared. "You did, too! You bet—"
"I bet that Mary would handle the mail, that’s all. So she will; fact
is, she’s handlin’ it now. She’s my assistant in the post-office here.
If you don’t believe it, go back to the mail window and look in. No,
Major, _I_ win the bet."
Maybe I did, but he wouldn’t pay it. He vowed I was a low down swindler
and a "welsher," whatever that is. He blew out of that store like a toy
typhoon and I didn’t see him again until the next summer. However, I had
a feelin’ that Major Cobden Clark wa’n’t the wust friend I had, by a
consider’ble sight.
You see, that was Jim Henry’s great scheme—to hire Mary to run the
office as my assistant. He didn’t say what salary I was to pay her, and,
if I chose to hand over three-quarters of the postmaster’s pay to her,
what business was it of his? I told him that plain, and, to do him
justice, he didn’t seem to care.
But he did rub it in about my declarin’ I’d never go into politics.
In a little while the mail department was as much a part of the "Ostable
Grocery, Dry Goods, Boots and Shoes and Fancy Goods Store" as the calico
and dress goods counter. We bought the Blaisdell letter-box rack and
fixin’s and set ’em up and they done fust-rate for the time bein’. I was
postmaster, so fur as name goes, but ’twas Mary that really run that end
of the ship. It seemed as natural to have her come in mornin’s, as it
did for the sun to rise; and, if she was late, which didn’t happen
often, it seemed almost as if the sun hadn’t rose. The old store needed
somethin’ like her to keep it clean and sweet and even Jim Henry give in
that she was the best investment the business had made yet.
As for business it kept on good, even though the summer folks had gone
and winter had set in. Our order carts kept runnin’ and they _took_
orders, too. The store was doin’ well by us both and I certainly owed
old Pullet a debt of thanks for workin’ on my sympathies until I put my
cash into it. There was consider’ble buildin’ goin’ on in town and, when
spring begun to show symptoms of makin’ Ostable harbor, Jim Henry got
possessed of a new idea. I didn’t pay much attention at fust. He was
always as full of notions as a peddler’s cart and if I took every one of
’em serious we’d either been Rockefellers or star boarders at the
poorhouse, one or t’other. ’Twa’n’t till that day in April when old
Ebenezer Taylor came in after his mail and went out after the constable
that I realized somethin’ had to be done.
You see, Ebenezer’s eyes was failin’ on him and, to make things worse,
he’d forgot his nigh-to specs and had on his far-off pair. Consequently,
when he headed for the after end of the store, he wa’n’t in no condition
to keep clear of the rocks and shoals in the channel. Fust thing he run
into was a couple of dress-forms with some bargain calico gowns on 'em.
While he was beggin’ pardon of them forms, under the impression that
they was women customers, he backed into a roll of barbed wire fencin’
that was leanin’ against the candy and cigar counter. His clothes was
sort of thin and if that barbed wire had been somebody tryin’ to borrer
a quarter of him he couldn’t have jumped higher or been more emphatic in
his remarks. The third jump landed him against the gunwale of a bushel
basket of eggs that Jacobs was makin’ a special run on and had set out
prominent in the aisle. Maybe Ebenezer was tired from the jumpin’ or
maybe the excitement had gone to his head and he thought he was a hen.
Anyhow he set on them eggs, and in two shakes of a heifer’s tail he was
the messiest lookin’ omelet ever I see. Jacobs and me and the clerk
scraped him off best we could with pieces of barrel hoop and the cheese
knife, and Mary come out from behind the letter boxes and helped along
with the floor mop, but when we’d finished with him he was consider’ble
more like somethin’ for breakfast than he was human.
And mad! An April fool chocolate cream couldn’t have been more peppery
than he was. He distributed his commentaries around pretty general—Mary
got some and so did Jacobs—but the heft was fired at me. He hated me
anyhow, ’count of my bein’ made postmaster and for some other reasons.
"You—you thunderin’ murderer!" he hollered, shakin’ his old fist in my
face. "’Twas all your fault. You done it a-purpose. Look at me! Look! my
legs punched full of holes like a skimmer, and—and my clothes! Just look
at my clothes! A whole suit ruined! A suit I paid ten dollars and a half
for—"
"Ten year and a half ago," I put in, involuntary, as you might say.
"It’s a lie. ’Twon’t be nine year till next September. You think you’re
funny, don’t you? Ever since this consarned, robbin’ Black Republican
administration made you postmaster! Postmaster! You’re a healthy
postmaster! I’ll have you arrested! I’ll march straight out and have you
took up. I will!"
He headed for the door. I didn’t say nothin’. I was sorry about the
clothes and I’d have paid for 'em willin’ly, but arguin’ just then was a
waste of time, as the feller said when the deef and dumb man caught him
stealin’ apples. Ebenezer stamped as fur as the door and then turned
around.
"I may not have you took up," he says; "but I’ll get even with you, Zeb
Snow, yet. You wait."
After he’d gone and we’d made the place look a little less like an
egg-nog, I took Jim Henry by the sleeve and led him into the back room
where we could be alone. Even there the surroundin’s was so cluttered up
with goods and bales and boxes that we had to stand edgeways and talk
out of the sides of our mouths.
"Jim," says I, "this place of ours ain’t big enough. We’ve got to have
more room."
He pretended to be dreadful surprised.
"Why, why, Skipper!" he says. "You shock me. This is so sudden. What put
such an idea as that in your head? Seems to me I have a vague
remembrance of handin’ you that suggestion no less than twenty-five
times since the last change of the moon, but I hope _that_ didn’t
influence you."
"Aw, dry up," says I. "You was right. Let it go at that. Afore I got the
postmastership this buildin’ was big enough. Now it ain’t. We’ve got to
build on or move or somethin’. Have you got any definite plan?"
He smiled, superior and top-lofty, and reached over to pat me on the
back; but reachin’ in that crowded junk-shop was bad judgment, ’cause
his elbow hit against the corner of a tea chest and his next set of
remarks was as explosive and fiery as a box of ship rockets.
"Never mind the blessin’," I says. "Go ahead with the fust course. Have
you got anything up your sleeve? anything besides that bump, I mean."
Well, it seems he had. Seems he’d thought it all out. We’d ought to buy
Philander Foster’s buildin’, which was on the next lot to ours, move it
close up, cut doors through, and use it for the post-office department.
"Humph!" says I, after I’d turned the notion over in my mind. "That
ain’t so bad, considerin’ where it come from. I can only sight one
possible objection in the offin’."
"What’s that, you confounded Jezebel?" he says.
"Jezebel?" says I. "What on airth do you call me that for?"
"’Cause you’re him all over," he says. "He was the feller I used to hear
about in Sunday School, the prophet chap that was always croakin’ and
believed everything was goin’ to the dogs. That was Jezebel, wasn’t it?"
"No," says I, "that was Jeremiah; Jezebel was the one the dogs _went_
to. And she was a woman, at that."
"Well, all right," he says. "Whatever he or she was they didn’t have
anything on you when it comes to croaks. What’s the objection?"
"Nothin’ much. Only I don’t know’s you’ve happened to think that
Philander might not care to sell his buildin’, to us or to anybody
else."
That was all right. We could go and see, couldn’t we? Well, we could of
course—and we did.
CHAPTER V—A TRAP AND WHAT THE "RAT" CAUGHT IN IT
Foster run a shebang that was labeled "The Palace Billiard, Pool and
Sipio Parlors. Cigars and Tobacco. Tonics, all Flavors. Ice Cream in
Season." The "Palace" part was some exaggeration and so was the
"Parlors," but the place was the favorite hang-out of all the loafers
and young sports in town and the church folks was tumble down on it,
callin’ it a "gilded hell" and such pious profanity. The gilt had wore
off years afore and if the hot place ain’t more interestin’ than that
billiard saloon it must be dull for some of the permanent boarders.
We found Philander asleep back of the soft drink counter and young
Erastus Taylor—"Ratty," everybody called him—practicin’ pin pool, as
usual, at one of the tables. "Ratty" was Ebenezer Taylor’s only son and
the combination trial and idol of the old man’s soul. Ebenezer thought
most as much of him as he did of his money, and when you’ve said that
you couldn’t make it any stronger. He’d done a heap to make a man of
"Rat"—his idea of a man—even separatin’ from enough cash to send him to
a business college up to Middleboro; but all the boy got from that
college was a thunder and lightnin’ taste in clothes and a post-graduate
course in pool playin’. Pool playin’ was the only thing he cared about
and he could spot any one of the Ostable sharps four balls and beat ’em
hands down. He’d sampled two or three jobs up to Boston, but they always
undermined his health and he drifted back home to live on dad and look
for another "openin’." I cal’late the pair lived a cat and dog life, for
Ratty always wanted money to spend and Ebenezer wanted it to keep. The
old man was the wust down on the billiard room of anybody and his son
put in most of his time there.
Me and Jim Henry woke up Philander and told him we wanted to talk with
him private. He said go ahead and talk; there wa’n’t anybody to hear but
Ratty, and Rat was just like one of the family. So, as we couldn’t do it
any different, we went ahead. Jacobs explained that we felt that maybe
we might some time or other need a little extry room for our business
and, bein’ as he—Philander—was handy by and we was always prejudiced in
favor of a neighbor and so on, perhaps he’d consider sellin’ us his
buildin’ and lot. Course it didn’t make so much difference to him; he
could easy move his "Parlors" somewheres else—and similar sweet ile.
Philander listened till Jim Henry had poured on the last soothin’ drop,
and then he laughed.
"Um ... ya-as," he says. "I could move a heap, _I_ could! I’m so durned
popular amongst the good landholders in this town that any one of ’em
would turn their best settin’-rooms over to me the minute I mentioned
it. Yes, indeed! Just where ’bouts would I move?—if ’tain’t too much to
ask."
Well, that was some of a sticker, ’cause _I_ couldn’t think of anybody
that would have that billiard room within a thousand fathoms of their
premises, if they could help it. But Jim Henry he pretended not to be
shook up a cent’s wuth. That was easy; ’twas just a matter of
Philander’s pickin’ out the right place, that was all there was to it.
Philander heard him through and then he laughed again.
"You’re wastin’ good business breath," he says. "I wouldn’t sell if I
could, unless I had a fust-class place to move into, and there ain’t no
such place on the main road and you know it. I’m doin’ trade enough to
keep me alive and I’m satisfied, though I can’t lay up a cent. But, so
fur as movin’ out is concerned, I expect to do that on the fust of next
November. I’ll be fired out, I judge, and prob’ly’ll have to leave town.
Hey, Rat?"
Ratty Taylor, who’d been listenin’, twisted his mouth and grunted.
"Yes," he says, "I guess that’s right, worse luck!"
"You bet it’s right!" says Philander. "As I said, Mr. Jacobs, if I could
sell out to you and Cap’n Zeb I wouldn’t, without a good handy place to
move into. And I can’t sell any way. There’s a thousand dollar mortgage
on this shop and lot; it’s due June fust; and, unless I pay it off—which
I can’t, havin’ not more’n five hundred to my name—the mortgage’ll be
foreclosed and out I go."
This was news all right. Then me and Jim Henry asked the same question,
both speakin’ together.
"Who owns the mortgage?" we asked.
Foster looked at Ratty and grinned. Rat grinned back, sort of sickly.
"Shall I tell ’em?" says Philander.
"I don’t care," says Ratty. "Tell ’em, if you want to."
"Well," says Foster, "old Ebenezer Taylor, Ratty’s dad, owns it, drat
him! and he’s tryin’ to drive me out of town ’count of Rat’s spendin’ so
much time in here. Ratty’s a fine feller, but his pa’s the meanest old
skinflint that ever drawed the breath of life. Not meanin’ no
reflections on your family, Rat—but ain’t it so?"
"_I_ shan’t contradict you, Phi," says Ratty.
Jacobs and I looked at each other. Then I got up from my chair.
"Jim Henry," says I, "I don’t see as we’ve got much to gain by stayin’
here. Let’s go home."
We went back to the store, neither of us speakin’, but both thinkin’
hard. It was all off now, of course. If old Taylor owned that mortgage,
he’d foreclose on the nail, if only to get rid of his son’s loafin’
place. And he wouldn’t sell to us—hatin’ us as he did—unless we covered
the place with cash an inch deep. No, buyin’ the "Palace" was a dead
proposition. And there wa’n’t another available buildin’ or lot big
enough for us to move to within a mile of Ostable Center.
"Humph!" says I, some sarcastic. "It looks to me—speakin’ as a man in
the crosstrees—as if that wonderful business brain of yours had sprung a
leak somewheres, Jim. Better get your pumps to workin’, hadn’t you?"
He snorted. "I’d rather have a leaky head than a solid wood one like
some I know," he says. "Quiet your Jezebellerin’ and let me think....
There’s one thing we might do, of course: We might advance the other
five hundred to Foster, let him pay off his mortagage, and then—"
"And then trust to luck to get the money back," I put in. "There’s more
charity than profit in that, if you ask me. Once that mortgage is paid,
you couldn’t get Philander out of that buildin’ with a derrick. He don’t
want to go."
"But we might make some sort of a deal to pay him a hundred dollars or
so to boot and then—"
"And then you’d have another hundred to collect, that’s all. I wouldn’t
trust that billiard and sipio man as fur as old Ebenezer could see
through his nigh-to specs. No sir-ee! Nothin’ doin’, as the boys say."
Next forenoon I met old Ebenezer Taylor on the sidewalk in front of the
Methodist meetin’-house and, when he saw me, he stopped and commenced
chucklin’ and gigglin’ as if he was wound up.
"He, he, he!" says he. "He, he! I hear you and that partner of yours,
Zebulon, want to buy my property next door to you. Well, I’ll sell it to
you—at a price. He, he, he! at a price."
[Illustration: _'Well, I’ll sell it to you—at a price.’_]
"So your hopeful and promisin’ son’s been tellin’ tales, has he?" says
I. "I wa’n’t aware that it was your property—yet."
He stopped gigglin’ and glared at me, sour and bitter as a green
crab-apple.
"It’s goin’ to be," he says. "Don’t you forget that, it’s goin’ to be.
And if you want it, you’ll pay my price. You owe me for them clothes you
ruined, Zeb Snow—for them and for other things. And I cal’late I’ve got
you fellers about where I want you."
"Oh, I don’t know," says I. "You may be glad enough to sell to us later
on. What good is an empty buildin’ on your hands? Unless of course you
intend rentin’ it for another billiard saloon."
That made him so mad he fairly gurgled.
"There’ll be no billiard saloon in this town," he declared. "No more
gilded ha’nts of sin, temptin’ young men whose parents have spent good
money on their education. No, you bet there won’t! And that buildin’ may
not be empty, nuther. I know somethin’. He, he, he!"
"Sho!" says I. "Do you? I wouldn’t have believed it of you, Ebenezer."
I left him tryin’ to think of a fittin’ answer, and walked on to the
store. Mary called to me from behind the letter-boxes.
"Mr. Jacobs is in the back room," she says, "and he wants to see you
right away. Erastus Taylor is with him."
"’Rastus Taylor?" I sung out. "Ratty? What in the world—?"
I hurried into the back room. Sure enough, there was Jim Henry and Ratty
caged behind a pile of boxes and barrels.
"Ah, Skipper!" says Jacobs; "is that you? I was hopin’ you’d come. Young
Taylor here has been suggestin’ an idea that looks good to me. Tell the
Cap’n what you’ve been tellin’ me, Ratty."
Rat twisted uneasy on the box where he was settin’ and give me a side
look out of his little eyes. I never saw him look more like his
nickname.
"Well, Cap’n Zeb," he says, "it’s like this: I’ve been thinkin’ and I
believe I’ve thought of a way so you and Mr. Jacobs can get Philander’s
lot and buildin’."
"You have, hey?" says I. "That’s interestin’, if true. What’s the way?"
"Why," says he, twistin’ some more, "that mortgage is due on the first
of June. If it ain’t paid, Philander’ll be foreclosed and he’ll move out
of town. It’s only a thousand dollars and Phi’s got half of it. If
somebody—you and Mr. Jacobs, say—was to lend him t’other half, why then
he could pay it off and—and—"
"And stay where he is," I finished disgusted. "That would be real lovely
for Philander, but I don’t see where we come in. This ain’t a billiard
and loan society Mr. Jacobs and I are runnin’, thankin’ you and Foster
for the suggestion."
"Wait a minute, Skipper," says Jim Henry. "Your engine is runnin’ wild.
That ain’t Ratty’s scheme at all. Go on, Rat; spring it on him."
"Philander wouldn’t be so set on stayin’ where he is, Cap’n Zeb," says
Rat, quick as a flash, "if he had another place to move into; another
place here on the main road, convenient and handy by. And I think I know
a place that could be got for him."
I didn’t answer for a minute. I was runnin’ over in my mind every
possible place that might be sold or let to Philander Foster for a
"Palace." And to save my life I couldn’t think of one.
"Well," says I, at last, "where is it?"
Ratty leaned forward. "What’s the matter with Aunt Hannah Watson’s
buildin’ up the street?" he says. "She’s been crazy to sell it for a
long spell. And the lower floor would make a pretty fair billiard room,
wouldn’t it?"
I was disgusted. I knew the buildin’ he meant, of course. Jacobs and I
had talked it over that very mornin’ as a possible place to move the
"Ostable Grocery, Dry Goods, Boots and Shoes and Fancy Goods Store" to,
but we’d both decided it wa’n’t nigh big enough.
"Humph!" says I, "that scheme’s so brilliant you need smoked glass to
look at it. Do you cal’late as good a church woman as Aunt Hannah Watson
would sell or let her place for a billiard room? She needs the money bad
enough, land knows; but she’s as down on those ha’nts of sin as your dad
is, Rat Taylor. She’d never sell to Phi Foster in this world."
"_She_ mightn’t, I give in," answered Rat. "But her nephew up to Wareham
is a diff’rent breed of cats. And since she moved over there to live
along with him, he’s got the handlin’ of her property. I found that out
to-day. From what I hear of this nephew man he ain’t as particular as
his aunt. And, anyway, ’tain’t necessary for Philander to make the deal.
You and Mr. Jacobs might make it for him."
I thought this over for a minute. I begun to catch the idea that the
young scamp had in his noddle—or I thought I did.
"H’m," I says. "Yes, yes. You mean that if we’d lend Philander enough to
pay the balance of his mortgage on the buildin’ he’s in now and would
fix it so’s Aunt Hannah’d sell us her place, under the notion that _we_
was goin’ to use it—you mean that then, after June fust, Foster’d swap.
He’d move in there and turn over the old ’Palace’ to us."
He and Jim Henry both bobbed their heads emphatic.
"That’s what he means," says Jim.
"That’s the idea exactly, Cap’n," says Rat. "I think Philander might be
willin’ to do that."
"Is that so!" says I, sarcastic. "Well, well! I want to know! But, say,
Ratty, ain’t you takin’ an awful lot of trouble on Foster’s account?
You’re turrible unselfish and disinterested all to once; or else there’s
a nigger in the woodpile somewheres. Where do you come in on this?"
He looked pretty average cheap. He fussed and fumed for a minute and
then he blurts out his reason. "Well, I’ll tell you, Cap’n," he says.
"Philander’s about the best friend I’ve got in this bum town and I get
more solid comfort in his saloon than anywheres else. If he’s drove out
of Ostable, I’ll be lonesomer than the grave. I don’t want him to go.
And besides—well, you see, the old man—dad, I mean—has got a notion
about settin’ me up in business here. And I don’t want to be set up—not
in his kind of business. I know the kind of business I want to go into,
and ... but never mind that part," he adds, in a hurry.
I smiled. I remembered what old Ebenezer had said about the "Palace"
buildin’ not bein’ empty on his hands very long and about somethin’ he
knew. It was all plain enough now. He intended openin’ some sort of a
store there with his son as boss. I almost wished he would. ’Twould be
as good as a three-ring circus, that store would, if I knew Ratty. But I
was mad, just the same, and when Jim Henry spoke, I was ready for him.
"Well, Skipper," says Jacobs, "what do you think of the plan?"
"Think it’s a good one, if you’re willin’ to heave morals and common
honesty overboard—otherwise no. To put up a trick like that on an old
widow woman like Aunt Hannah Watson—to land a billiard room on her
property, when she’d rather die than have it there, is too close to
robbin’ the Old Ladies’ Home to suit me. I wouldn’t touch it with a
ten-foot pole. So good day to you, Rat Taylor," says I, and walked out.
But Jim Henry Jacobs didn’t walk out. No, sir! him and that young Taylor
scamp stayed in that back room for another half hour and left it
whisperin’ in each other’s ears and actin’ thicker than thieves. I
wondered what was up, but I was too put-out and mad to ask.
"I’ll look it over right after dinner to-morrer," says Jacobs, as they
shook hands at the front door.
"Sure you will, now?" asks Ratty, anxious. "Don’t put it off, ’cause it
may be too late."
"At one o’clock to-morrer I’ll be there," says Jim Henry, and Rat went
away lookin’ pretty average happy.
Jacobs scarcely spoke to me all the rest of that day nor the next
mornin’. As we got up from the boardin’ house table the follerin’ noon
he says, without lookin’ me in the face, "I ain’t goin’ back to the
store now. I’ve got an errand somewheres else."
"Yes," says I, "I imagined you had. You’re goin’ down to look at that
buildin’ of poor old Aunt Hannah’s. That’s where you’re goin’. Ain’t you
ashamed of yourself, Jim Jacobs?"
"Oh, cut it out!" he snaps, savage. "You make me tired, Skipper. You and
your backwoods scruples give me a pain. I’ve lived where people aren’t
so narrow and bigoted and I don’t consider a billiard room an annex to
the hot place. If, by a business deal, I can get that buildin’ next door
to add to our establishment, I’m goin’ to do it, if I have to use my own
money and not a cent of yours. Yes, I _am_ goin’ to look at that Watson
property. Now, what have you got to say about it?"
"Why, just this," says I; "I cal’late I’ll go with you."
"You will?" he sings out. "_You?_"
"Yes," says I, "me. Not that I feel any different about skinnin’ Aunt
Hannah than I ever did, but because there’s a bare chance that her place
may be big enough for us to move the store and post-office to, after
all. With that idea and no other, I’ll go with you, Jim."
So we went together, though we never spoke more than two words on the
way down. We got the key at the jewelry and hardware shop next door and
went in. The Watson place was an old-fashioned tumble-down buildin’ with
a big open lower floor and two or three rooms overhead. I saw right off
'twouldn’t do for us to move into, but likewise I saw that the lower
floor _might_ do for Foster, though 'twa’n’t as good as where he was, by
consider’ble.
Jim Henry looked the place over.
"No good for us," he snapped.
"None at all," says I.
"Humph!" says he, and we locked up and came down the steps together. As
we did so I noticed someone watchin’ us from acrost the road.
"There’s our friend, Jim Henry," says I. "And, judgin’ by the way he’s
starin’, he’s got on his fur-off glasses and knows who we are."
He looked across. "Old Taylor, by thunder!" says he. "Well, if my deal
goes through we’ll jolt the old tight-wad yet."
"Do you mean you’re goin’ on with that low-down billiard-room game?" I
asked.
"Of course I do," he snapped.
"Then you’ll do it on your own hook. _I_ won’t be part or parcel of it."
"Who asked you to?" he wanted to know. And we didn’t speak again for the
rest of that day. It made me feel bad, because he and I had been mighty
friendly, as well as partners together. The only comfort I got out of it
was that, judgin’ by the way he kept from lookin’ at me or speakin’, he
didn’t feel any too good himself.
But that evenin’ Ratty drifted in and the pair of 'em had another
confab. And next day, after the mail had gone, Jacobs got me alone and
says he:
"Well," he says, "I think I ought to tell you that I’ve written that
nephew in Wareham and made an offer on the Watson property. I did it on
my own responsibility and I’ll pay the freight. But I thought perhaps I
ought to tell you."
"What did you offer?" I asked. He told me.
"I’ll take half," says I, "because I consider it a good investment at
that figger. But only with the agreement that the billiard saloon
sha’n’t go there."
"Then you can keep your money," he says, short. And there was another
long spell of not speakin’ between the two of us.
Mary noticed that there was somethin’ wrong, and it worried her. She
spoke to me about it.
"Cap’n Zeb," she says, "what’s the trouble between you and Mr. Jacobs?
Of course it isn’t my business, and you mustn’t tell me unless you wish
to."
I thought it over. "Well," says I, "I can’t tell you just now, Mary.
It’s a business matter we don’t agree on and it’s kind of private. I’ll
tell you some day, but just now I can’t. It ain’t all my secret, you
see."
"I see," says she. "I shouldn’t have asked. I beg your pardon. I wasn’t
curious, but I do hate to see any trouble between you two. I like you
both."
I nodded. I was feelin’ pretty blue. "Jim’s a mighty good chap at
heart," I says. "I owe him a lot and he’s consider’ble more than just a
partner to me."
"He thinks the world of you, too," says she. "He’s told me so a great
many times. That is why I can’t bear to see you disagree."
I couldn’t bear it none too well, either, but Jim Henry showed no signs
of givin’ in and I wouldn’t. So we moped around, keepin’ out of each
other’s way, and actin’ for all the world like a couple of young-ones in
bad need of a switch.
A couple more days went by afore the answer came from Wareham. When I
saw the envelope on the desk, with the Watson man’s name in the corner,
I knew what it meant and I was on hand when Jim Henry opened it. He was
ugly and scowlin’ when he ripped off the envelope. Then I heard him
swear. I was dyin’ to know what the letter said, but I wouldn’t have
asked him for no money. I walked out to the front of the store. Five
minutes later I felt his hand on my shoulder. He had a curious
expression on his face, sort of a mixture of mad and glad.
"Skipper," he says, "we’re buncoed again. We don’t get the Watson
place."
"Don’t, hey?" says I. "All right, I sha’n’t shed any tears. I wa’n’t
after it, and you know it. But I’m surprised that your offer wa’n’t
accepted. Why wa’n’t it?"
"Because somebody got ahead of me. Here’s the letter. Listen to this:
’Your offer for my aunt’s property in Ostable came a day too late.
Yesterday I gave a year’s option on that property, for five hundred
dollars cash, to—’"
"Land of love!" I interrupted. "Only yesterday! That was close haulin’,
I must say."
"Wait," says he, "you haven’t heard the whole of it. ’A year’s option
... for five hundred dollars cash, to Mr. Taylor of your town.’"
"Taylor!" says I. "_Taylor!_ My soul and body! The old skinflint beat us
again! Well, I swan!"
"Um-hm," says he. "I size it up like this. He saw us come out of there
the other day and guessed that we thought of buyin’ and movin’. So, as
he owed us a grudge, and because the Watson property is, as you said, a
good investment anyhow, he makes his option offer on the jump, and beat
me to it."
I whistled. "I cal’late you’ve hit the nailhead, Jim," says I. "Well, to
be free and frank, I’m glad of it."
"So am I," says he.
_That_ was a staggerer. I whirled round and looked at him.
"You _are_?" I sung out.
"Yes," says he, "I am. Of course I had my heart set on gettin’ that
’Palace’ for an addition that would give more room and extry space to
our place here; and the only way I could see to get it was to take up
with that Rat’s proposition. I haven’t any prejudice against billiards—"
"Neither have I, but—"
"I know. And you’re right. Old lady Watson has, and to run Foster’s
establishment in on her would have been a low-down mean trick. I’ve felt
like a thief, but I was so pig-headed I wouldn’t back down. Now that
I’ve got it where the chicken got his, I’m glad of it, I really am.
Partner, will you forget my meanness and shake hands?"
Would I? I was as tickled as a youngster with a new tin whistle. And so
was he.
"There’s only one thing that keeps me mad," he says, "and that is that
old Ebenezer’s got the laugh on us again. As for more room for the
store—well, we’ll have to think that out."
We thought, but it wa’n’t us that got the answer. 'Twas Mary Blaisdell.
I told her what our fuss had been about, and she agreed that I was right
and that Jim Henry’s sharp business sense had sort of run away with him
for the time bein’.
"But," says she, "we certainly do need more room, both in the mail
department and the store. I’ve had an idea for some time. Let _me_ think
a while."
Next day she told Jacobs and me what her idea was. ’Twas that we should
build an addition on to our own buildin’. Run it two stories high and
right out into the back yard. ’Twas just the thing and the wonder is
that we hadn’t thought of it ourselves.
"She’s a wonder, Jim, ain’t she?" says I, when we was alone together.
"_You_ think so, don’t you, Skipper," says he, smilin’.
I flared up. "Sartin I do," I says. "Don’t you?"
"Indeed I do."
"Then what do you mean?"
"Oh, nothin’, nothin’. Say, have you seen old Taylor lately? I suppose
he’s crowin’ like a Shanghai rooster. I do hate for that old skinflint
to have the joke always on his side."
"I know," says I. "So do I. But some day, if we wait long enough, we may
have a chance to laugh at him. I’ve lived a good many year and I’ve seen
it work that way pretty often. We’ll wait—and when we do laugh, we’ll
laugh hard."
And we didn’t have to wait so turrible long neither. We got a carpenter
in, told him to keep it a secret, but to plan how we could build the
backyard extension. The plannin’ and estimatin’ kept us busy and we
forgot about everything else. Fust along I expected young Taylor would
pester us with more schemes, but he didn’t. He never came nigh us once,
fact is he seemed mighty anxious to keep out of our way, and so long as
he did we didn’t complain. His dad come crowin’ and chucklin’ around a
couple of times and finally Jacobs lost his temper and told him if he
ever showed his face on our premises again he was liable to be put to
the expense of havin’ it repaired by the doctor. Ebenezer vowed
vengeance and law suits, but he went, and after that he sent a boy for
his mail instead of comin’ to fetch it himself.
One forenoon, about eleven o’clock ’twas, I was standin’ on the store
platform, when I heard the Old Harry’s own row in the "Palace Billiard,
Pool and Sipio Parlors." Loud voices, all goin’ at once, and two or
three different assortments of language. Jim Henry heard it, too, and
come out to listen.
"Skipper," he says, sudden; "what day is this?"
"Why, Thursday," says I, "ain’t it? Oh, you mean what day of the month.
Hey? By the everlastin’! I declare if it ain’t the fust of June!"
"The day Foster’s mortgage falls due," he says, excited. "I wonder....
You don’t suppose—"
He didn’t have to suppose, for inside of the next two minutes we both
knew. Three men came bustin’ out of the billiard room door. One was
Philander himself, the other was Ezra Colcord, the lawyer, and the third
was our old shipmate and bosom friend, Ebenezer Taylor. The old man was
fairly frothin’ at the mouth.
"You—you—" he sputtered, "you’ve deceived me. You’ve lied to me. You led
me to think—"
"I don’t see as you’ve got any kick, Mr. Taylor," purrs Philander,
smilin’. "You’ve got your money. What more can you ask?"
"But—but I don’t want the money. I want this property, and I’ll have
it."
"Oh, no, you won’t, Mr. Taylor," says Colcord, the lawyer. "This
property belongs to Foster now. He’s paid your mortgage in full. You
have no rights here whatever and I advise you to go before you are
arrested for trespassin’."
Well, the old man went, but he was still talkin’ and threatenin’ when he
turned the corner. Colcord laughed and shook hands with Philander.
"Don’t mind him, Foster," he says. "He’s sore, that’s all, but he has no
claim whatever. You’ve paid off your mortgage and the property is yours
absolutely. As for the other matter, the papers will be ready for
signature this afternoon. Ha, ha! I imagine they won’t add to our
friend’s joy."
"Cal’late not," says Philander, grinnin’. "This’ll be his day for
surprises, hey?"
They shook hands again and Colcord left. Soon’s he’d gone, Jim Henry
grabbed me by the arm. He didn’t even wait for the lawyer to get out of
sight.
"Come on," he says. "This is too good to be true. We must find out about
this, Skipper."
So over to the "Parlors" we hurried. Philander looked sort of queer when
he saw us comin’, but he didn’t run away. We commenced to ask questions,
both of us together. After we’d asked a dozen or so, he held up his
hand.
"Come inside," he says, "and I’ll tell you about it. The secret’ll be
out in a little while, anyhow, and maybe we do owe you fellers a little
mite of explanation."
We went in, wonderin’. Philander set up the cigars, ten-centers at that,
and then he says: "Yes, I’ve paid off my mortgage and I cal’late you
wonder where the money came from. Five hundred of it I had myself. You
knew that."
"Yes," says Jacobs, and I nodded.
"Um-hm," says he. "Well, I loaned the five hundred to Ratty and he
bought the option on Aunt Hannah’s buildin’ with it."
We fairly jumped off our pins.
"What?" says I.
"_Rat_ bought that option?" gasped Jim Henry. "Nonsense! his dad bought
it."
"No-o," says Philander, solemn, "’twas Rat that bought it at fust. The
whole scheme was his and I give him credit for it. After Mr. Jacobs here
had agreed to look at the Watson place, Ratty got Ed. Holmes to take him
over to Wareham in his auto. There he see this nephew of Aunt Hannah’s,
paid down his five hundred and got the option."
"But that letter I got said—" began Jim Henry, and then he pulled up
short. "No," says he, "it said ’Mr. Taylor’ had secured the option; I
remember now. But, of course, we supposed it was Ebenezer."
"And Ebenezer did have it," I put in. "He told me so himself. I met him
on the road and he—"
"Hold on, Cap’n," cuts in Philander, "no use goin’ through all that.
Ebenezer _has_ got it now. Ratty decoyed his dad down abreast the Watson
place while you and Mr. Jacobs was inside lookin’ it over, and the old
man see you two come out."
"I know he did," says I. "I saw him peekin’ at us from behind a tree."
"Yes," goes on Foster, "he was there. And, naturally, he jedged you was
cal’latin’ to buy that buildin’ and move into it. Fact is, he’d been
intendin’ to buy it himself as an investment, and, now that there was a
chance to spite you fellers hove in for good measure, he was more
anxious to get it than ever. Then Rat broke the news that he had the
option and was willin’ to sell it to the highest bidder. Ha! ha! I guess
there was a lively session, but the upshot of it was that Ebenezer
bought that option off his boy for a thousand dollars. That’s how _he_
got it."
"Well, I’ll be hanged!" says Jim Henry. I was way past sayin’ anything.
"And so," continues Philander, "the five hundred dollars’ profit on the
option and the five hundred dollars I lent Rat to start with made just
the amount needful to pay off my mortgage. And, Squire Colcord and me
paid it off this mornin’. You fellers heard the concludin’ section of
the ceremonies. Ebenezer’s benediction was some spicy, hey!"
"But—but—why, look here, Philander," says I. "I don’t understand this at
all. Five hundred of that thousand was Rat’s. He ain’t no
philanthropist; he wouldn’t _give_ it to you, unless miracles are comin’
into fashion again. What—"
Foster laughed. "There is a little somethin’ underneath," he says. "It’s
been kept pretty close, but the cat’ll be out of the bag afore the day’s
over and, considerin’ how much you two helped without meanin’ to, I’d
just as soon tell you. Ratty told you that his pa was cal’latin’ to set
him up in business, didn’t he? Yes. Well, Rat’s had a notion for a long
spell about the business he meant to get into. There’s a new sign been
ordered for this shebang of mine. Here’s the copy for it."
He reached under the cigar counter and held up a long piece of
pasteboard. ’Twas lettered like this:
PALACE BILLIARD, POOL AND SIPIO PARLORS.
_Philander Foster & Erastus Taylor,_
_Proprietors._
"I cal’late the old man’ll disown his son when he knows it," goes on
Foster, "but Rat had rather run a pool room than be rich, any day in the
week. And say," he adds, "if I was you fellers I’d try to be on hand
when Ebenezer fust sees the new sign. I should think you’d get
consider’ble satisfaction from watchin’ his face. I’m cal’latin’ to,
myself," says Philander Foster.
CHAPTER VI—I RUN AFOUL OF COUSIN LEMUEL
Well, to be honest, I felt pretty bad about that billiard room business.
I was real sorry for old Ebenezer. Of course Taylor was a skinflint and
a thorough-goin’ mean man, but Ratty was his son and his pride, and to
have a son play a dog’s trick like that on the father that had, at
least, tried to make somethin’ out of him, seemed tough enough. And my
conscience plagued me. I felt almost as if I was to blame somehow. I
wa’n’t, of course, but I felt that way. A feller’s conscience is the
most unreasonable part of his works; I’ve noticed it often.
But I needn’t have wasted any sympathy on Ebenezer. For the fust little
while after his boy went into the pool and sipio business, he was a sore
chap. Then, all at once, I noticed that he took to hangin’ around the
"Parlors" consider’ble and one evenin’ I saw him comin’ out of there,
all smiles. I was standin’ on the store platform and as he passed me I
hailed him. We hadn’t spoken for a consider’ble spell, but I hadn’t any
grudge, for my part.
"Hello!" says I, "what are you so tickled about?"
I didn’t know as he wouldn’t throw somethin’ at me for darin’ to hail
him, but no, he was ready to talk to anybody, even me.
"No use," says he, "that boy of mine’s a mighty smart feller. He just
beat Tom Baker three games runnin’, and spotted him two balls on the
last one. He’s a wonder, if I do say it."
I looked at him. This didn’t sound much like disinheritin’.
"Three games of what?" says I.
"Why, pool," says he, "of course. And Baker’s been countin’ himself the
best player in the county. 'Rastus was playin’ for the house. Him and
Philander cleared over a hundred dollars in the last month. That ain’t
so bad for a young feller just startin’ in, is it? I always knew that
boy had the business instinct, if he’d only wake up to it. I’ve told
folks so time and again."
He went along, chucklin’ to himself, and I stood still and whistled. And
when I heard that the old man had taken to callin’ the
anti-billiard-room crowd bigoted and narrer it didn’t surprise me much.
I judged that Ebenezer’s opinions was like those of others of his
tribe—dependent on the profit and loss account in the ledger. You can
forgive your own kith and kin a lot easier than you can outsiders,
especially if your moral scruples are the Taylor kind, to be reckoned in
dollars and cents.
The carpenters were ready to begin work on our store addition at last,
and we started right in to build on. ’Twas an awful job, enough sight
worse than movin’, but it had to be got through with some way and we
wanted to have it finished when the summer season opened for good. If
the store had been cluttered up and crowded afore, it was ten times
worse now. The amount of energy and healthy remarks that Jacobs and I
wasted in fallin’ over and runnin’ into things would have kept a
steamer’s engines goin’ from Boston to Liverpool, I cal’late. I expected
one of us would break our neck sartin sure, but we didn’t and, by the
fust of July we thought we could see the end.
"There!" says I, "in another week we’ll be clear of sawdust, I do
believe. The painters won’t be so bad. And we’ve got on without any
accidents, too, which is a miracle."
"You ought to knock wood when you say that, Skipper," says Jim Henry.
"I’ve knocked enough of it already—with my head," I told him. But I
hadn’t. At any rate the accident come, and not by reason of the buildin’
on, either. It come right in the way of everyday trade, from where we
wa’n’t expectin’ it. That’s the way such things generally happen. A
feller runs under a tree, so’s to keep from gettin’ rained on and
catchin’ cold, and then the tree’s struck by lightnin’.
If I’d remembered what old Sylvanus Baxter said when they asked him to
prove one of his fish statements, I’d have been a wiser man. Sylvanus
was tellin’ how many mack’rel him and his brother caught off Setucket
P’int with a hand line, back when Methusalum was a child, or about then.
Forty-eight barrels they caught, and it nigh filled the dory. One of the
young city fellers who was listenin’ undertook to doubt the yarn. He got
a piece of paper and a pencil and proved that a dory wouldn’t hold that
many fish. Sylvanus shut him up in a hurry.
"Young man," he says, scornful, "where a human bein’ is blessed with a
memory same as I’ve got, proof’s too unsartin to compare with it."
If I’d borne in mind what Sylvanus said and abided by it I might not
have dropped the barrel of sugar on my starboard foot. I’d have been
satisfied to remember my strength and not try to prove it by liftin’ the
said barrel off the tailboard of our delivery wagon.
However, I did try, and the result was that the barrel slipped when I’d
got it ’most to the ground, and my foot went out of commission with a
hurrah, so to speak.
Jim Henry come runnin’ and him and the clerk loaded me into the wagon
and carted me off to my rooms at the Poquit House. And there I stayed in
dry dock for three weeks, while the doctor done his best to patch up my
busted trotter and get me off the ways and into active service again.
He done his part all right. I was mendin’ so far as the lower end of me
was concerned, but my upper works and temper was gettin’ more tangled
and snarled every day. Too much company was the trouble. I had too many
folks runnin’ in to ask how I was gettin’ on and to talk and talk and
talk. Jim Henry he come, of course, to talk about the store; and Mary
Blaisdell, to tell me how the post-office was doin’. I could stand them;
fact is, Mary was a sort of soothin’ sirup, with her pleasant face and
calm, cheery voice. But the parson he come, to keep the spiritual part
of me ready for whatever might happen; and the undertaker, to be sure he
got the other part, if it _did_ happen; and twenty-odd old maids and
widows from sewin’-circle to talk about each other and church squabbles
and the dreadful sufferin’s and agonizin’ deaths of their relations,
who’d had accidents similar to mine.
They made me so fidgety and mad that the doctor noticed it. "What’s
troublin’ you, Cap’n Snow?" he asked. "No new pains, I hope?"
"Humph!" says I. "Your hope’s blasted. I’ve got the meanest pain I’ve
had yet."
"Where?" says he, anxious.
"All over," I says. "Tabitha Nickerson’s responsible for it. She’s been
here for the last hour and a half, tellin’ about how her second cousin,
by her uncle’s marriage, stuck a nail in his hand and was amputated
twice and finally died of lingerin’ lockjaw. She never missed a groan.
Consarn her! _She_ gives me a pain just to look at."
He laughed. "That’s the trouble with you old bachelors," he says.
"You’re too popular with the fair sex."
"Fair!" I sung out. "Doc, if you mean to say Tabby Nickerson’s fair,
then I’m goin’ to switch to the homeopaths. _Your_ judgment ain’t
dependable."
He laughed again and then he went on. Seems he’d been thinkin’ for quite
a spell that the Poquit House wasn’t the place for me.
"What you need, Cap’n," he says, "is a nice quiet spot where nobody can
get at you—that is, nobody but the disagreeable necessities, like me.
I’ve found the place for you to board durin’ your convalescence. Do you
know the Deacon house over at South Ostable on the lower road?"
"If you mean Lot Deacon’s, I do—yes," says I.
"That’s it," says he. "Lot’s all alone there, and he’d be mighty glad of
a boarder. The house is as neat as wax, and Lot used to go as cook on a
Banks’ boat, so you’ll be fed well. It’s right on the shore, with the
woods back of it. There’s a splendid view, the air’s fine, and—and—"
"Don’t strain yourself, Doc," I put in. "You couldn’t think of anything
else if you thought for a week. Air and view is all there is in that
neighborhood. What on earth have I done to be sentenced to serve a term
at Lot Deacon’s?"
Well, it was quiet, and I needed quiet. It was restful, and I needed
rest. It was too far from civilization for the undertaker or the
sewin’-circle to get at me. It was—but there! never mind the rest. The
upshot was that I agreed to board at Lot’s till my foot got well enough
to navigate and they carted me down in the delivery wagon, next day.
The Deacon place lived up to specifications all right. Nighest neighbor
half a mile off, woods all round on three sides, and the bay on t’other.
Good grub and plenty of it. And no company except the doctor every other
day, and Jim Henry the days between, and Lot—oh, land, yes! Lot, always
and forever.
He was a meek little critter, Lot was, accommodatin’ and willin’ to
please, as good a cook as ever fried a clam, and a great talker on some
subjects. He was a widower, with no relations except an aunt-in-law over
to Denboro, and a third cousin up to Boston; and his principal hobby was
spirits and mediums and such. He was as sot on Spiritu’lism as anybody
ever you see, and hadn’t missed a Spirit’list camp-meetin’ in Harniss
durin’ the memory of man.
However, Lot and I got along first-rate and he’d set and talk by the
hour about the camp-meetin’, which was a couple of weeks off, and how he
was goin’, and so on. Said I needn’t worry about bein’ left alone,
’cause his wife’s Aunt Lucindy from Denboro was comin’ to keep house for
me durin’ the two days he was away.
"Is your Aunt Lucindy given to spirits, too?" I wanted to know.
No, she wasn’t. Seems her particular bug was "mind cure." She was a
widow whose husband had died of creepin’ paralysis. She’d tried every
kind of doctorin’ and patent medicines on him and, in spite of it, the
last specimen of "Swamp Bitters" or "Thistle Tea" finished him. But,
anyhow, Aunt Lucindy had no faith in medicines or doctors after that.
She’d tried ’em all and they’d gone back on her. Now she was a
"mind-curer."
"She’ll prob’bly try to cure your foot with mind, Cap’n Zeb," says Lot,
apologetic as usual. "But you mustn’t worry about that. She means well."
"I sha’n’t worry," I says. "She can put her mind on my foot, if she
wants to; unless it’s as hefty as that sugar barrel I cal’late ’twon’t
hurt me much. But say, Lot," I says, "are all your folks taken with
something special in the line of religion or cures? How about this
cousin—this Lemuel one? What’s possessin’ _him_?"
Oh, Cousin Lemuel was different. He’d had money left him and was an
aristocrat. He never married, but lived in "chambers" up to Boston. He
didn’t have to work, but was a "collector" for the fun of it; collected
postage stamps and folks’ hand-writin’s and insects and such. He wasn’t
very well, his nerves was kind of twittery, so Lot said.
"Um-hm," says I. "Well, collectin’ insects would make most anybody’s
nerves twitter, I cal’late. But if Cousin Lemuel likes ’em, I s’pose we
hadn’t ought to fret. He could pick up a healthy collection of
wood-ticks back here in the pines, if he’d only come after ’em, though
it ain’t likely he will."
But he did, just the same. Not after the ticks, exactly, but, as sure as
I’m settin’ here, this Cousin Lemuel landed in the house at South
Ostable, bag and baggage. ’Twas three days afore the beginnin’ of
camp-meetin’ and two afore Aunt Lucindy was expected over. Lot and me
was settin’ in rockin’ chairs by the front windows in my room lookin’
out over the bay, when all to once we heard the rattle of a wagon from
the woods abaft the kitchen.
"It’s the doctor, I cal’late," says Lot, wakin’ up and stretchin’. "Ah,
hum, I s’pose I’ll have to go down and let him in."
"’Tain’t the doctor," says I. "He come yesterday. More likely it’s Mr.
Jacobs, though I thought he’d gone to Boston and wouldn’t be back for
three or four days."
But a minute later we see we was mistaken. Around the house come
rattlin’ Simeon Wixon’s old depot wagon, with the curtains all drawed
down—though 'twas hot summer—and the rack astern and the seat in front
piled up high with trunks and bags and satchels and goodness knows what
all. Sim was drivin’ and he had a grin on him like a Chessy cat.
"Whoa!" says he, haulin’ in the horses. "Ahoy, Lot! Turn out there! Got
a passenger for you."
Lot was so surprised he could hardly believe his ears, though they was
big enough to be believed. He h’isted up the window screen and looked
out.
"Hey?" he says, bewildered-like. "Did you say a _passenger_?"
"That’s what I said. A passenger for you. Come on down."
"A passenger? For _me_?"
"Yes! yes! yes!" Simeon’s patience was givin’ out, and no wonder. "Don’t
stay up there," he snaps, "with your head stuck out of that window like
a poll-parrot’s out of a cage. And don’t keep sayin’ things over and
over or I’ll believe you _are_ a poll-parrot. Come down!" Then, leaning
back and hollerin’ in behind the carriage curtains, he sung out, "Hi,
mister! here we be. You can get out now."
The curtains shook a little mite and then, from behind ’em, sounded a
voice, a man’s voice, but kind of shrill and high, and with a quiver in
the middle of it.
"Are you sure this is the right place, driver?" it says.
"Sartin sure. This is it."
"But are you certain those animals are perfectly safe? They won’t run
away?"
The horses was takin’ a nap, the two of ’em. Sim grinned, wider’n ever,
and winks up at the window.
"I’ll do my best to hold ’em," he says. "If I’d known you was comin’ I’d
have fetched an anchor."
The curtains shook some more, as if the feller inside was fidgetin’ with
’em. Then the voice says again and more excited than ever, "Well, why in
Heaven’s name don’t you unfasten this dreadful door? How am I to get
out?"
Simeon stood grinnin’, ripped a remark loose under his breath, jumped
from the seat, and yanked the door open. There was a full half minute
afore anything happened. Then out from that wagon door popped a black
felt hat with a brim like a small-sized umbrella. Under the hat was a
pair of thin, grayish side-whiskers, a long nose, and a pair of specs
like full moons. The hat and the rest of it turned towards the horses
and the voice says:
"You’re _perfectly_ sure of those creatures you are drivin’? Very good.
Where is the step? Oh, dear! where is the _step_?"
Sim reached in, grabbed a little foot with one of them things they call
a "gaiter" on it, hauled it down and planted it on the step of the
carriage.
"There!" he snaps. "There ’tis, underneath you. Come on! Here! I’ll
unload you."
Maybe the passenger would have said somethin’ else, but he didn’t have a
chance. Afore he could even think he was jerked out of that depot wagon
and stood up on the ground.
"There!" says Simeon. "Now you’re safe and no bones broken. Where do you
want your dunnage; in the house?"
I don’t know what answer he got. Afore I could hear it there was a gasp
and a gurgle from Lot. I turned to him. He was leaning out of the window
starin’ down at the little man under the big hat.
"I believe—" he says, "I—I—_why_, it’s Cousin Lemuel!"
Cousin Lemuel looked around him, at the house, at the woods, at the bay,
at everything.
"Good heavens!" says he, in a sort of groan.—"Good heavens! what an
awful place!"
That’s how he made port and that was his first observation after
landin’. He made consider’ble many more durin’ the next few days, but
the drift of ’em was all similar. He was a bird, Cousin Lemuel was. His
twittery nerves had twittered so much durin’ the past month or so that
his doctors—he had seven or eight of ’em—had got tired of the chirrup, I
cal’late, had held officers’ counsel, and decided he must be got rid of
somehow. They couldn’t kill him, ’cause that was against the law, so
they done the next best and ordered him to the seashore for a complete
rest; at least, he said the rest was to be for him, but I judge ’twas
the doctors that needed it most. He wouldn’t go to a hotel—hotels were
horrible,—but he happened to think of relation Lot down in South Ostable
and headed for there. Whether or not Lot could take him in, or wanted
to, didn’t trouble him a mite! _He_ wanted to come and that was
sufficient! He never even took the trouble to write that he was comin’.
When he once made up his mind to do a thing, and got sot on it, he was
like the laws of the Medes and Possums—or whatever they was—in
Scripture; you couldn’t upset him in two thousand years. It got to be a
"matter of principle" with him—he was always tellin’ about his matters
of principle—and when the "principle" complication struck, that settled
it. Oh, Cousin Lemuel was a bird, just as I said.
And Lot, of course, didn’t have gumption enough to say he wasn’t
welcome. No, indeed; fact is, Lot seemed to consider his comin’ a sort
of honor, as you might say. If that retired bug-collector had been the
Queen of Sheba, he couldn’t have had more fuss made over him. The
schooner-load of trunks and satchels was carted aloft to the big room
next to mine,—Lot’s room ’twas, but Lot soared to the attic,—and Cousin
Lemuel was carted there likewise. He was introduced to me, and about the
first thing he said was, would I mind wearin’ a dressin’-robe, or a
bath-sack, or somethin’ to cover up my game foot? the sight of the
dreadful bandage affected his nerves. I was sort of shy on sacks and
dolmans and such, but I done my best to please him with a patchwork
comforter.
I can’t begin to tell you the things he did, or had Lot do for him.
Changin’ the feather bed for a pumped-up air mattress he’d fetched
along—air mattresses was a matter of principle with him—and firin’ the
rag mats off the floor of his room, ’cause the round-and-round braids
made whirligigs in his head—and so on. But I sha’n’t forget that first
night in a hurry.
He was in and out of my room no less than fifteen times, rigged out in
some sort of blanket dress, fastened with a rope amidships. He wore that
over his nightgown, and a shawl like an old woman’s on top of the
blanket. His head was tied up in a silk handkerchief; and his feet was
shoved into slippers that flapped up and down when he walked and sounded
like a slack jib in a light breeze. First off he couldn’t sleep ’cause
the frogs hollered. Next, 'twas the surf that troubled him. Then the
window blinds creaked. And, at last, I’m blessed if he didn’t come
flappin’ and rustlin’ in at half-past one to ask what made it so quiet.
I was desp’rate, and I told him I was subject to nightmare, and had been
known to cripple folks that come in and woke me sudden that way. He
cleared out and I heard him pilin’ chairs and furniture against his door
on the inside. After that I managed to sleep till six o’clock. Then he
knocked and asked if I was thoroughly awake, 'cause if I was would I
tell him what sort of weather 'twas likely to be, so’s he could dress
accordin’. His risin’ hour was nine,—more principle, of course,—but he
liked to know what to wear when he did get up.
And he was just as bad all that day and the next. I’d have quit and had
the doctor take me back to the Poquit House, but I didn’t like to on
Lot’s account. Poor Lot was all upset and needed some sane person to
turn to for comfort. And besides, although he made me mad, I got
consider’ble fun out of this Lemuel man’s doin’s. He was such a specimen
that I liked to study him, same as he used to study a new species of
insect, when he had that particular craze.
He seemed to like me, too, in a way. Anyhow he used to come in and talk
to me pretty frequent. He had three words that he used all the
time—"awful" and "dreadful" and "horrible." Everything in the
neighborhood fitted to them words, 'cordin’ to his notion. And he had
one question that he kept askin’ over and over: What should he do? What
was there to do in the dreadful place?
"Why don’t you keep on collectin’?" I asked him. "We’re kind of scurce
on postage stamps, and the handwritin’ supply is limited; though you
never collected anything like Lot’s signature, I’ll bet a cooky. But
there’s bugs enough, land knows! Why don’t you go bug-huntin’?"
Oh, he was tired of insects. Never wanted to see one again!
"Then you’ll have to wear blinders when you go past the salt-marsh,"
says I. "The moskeeters are so thick there they get in your eyes. Why
not take a swim?"
Horrible! he loathed salt-water. He never bathed in it, as a matter of—
I interrupted quick—"Then take a walk," says I.
Walking was a "bore."
"Well then," I says, "just do what the doctor ordered—set and rest."
But settin’ made his nerves worse than ever! "I don’t know what is the
matter with me, Cap’n Snow," he says. "My physicians seemed to think I
should find what I needed here, but I don’t!—I don’t! I am more
depressed and enervated than ever."
"I know what you need," I said emphatic.
"Do you indeed? What, pray?"
"Somethin’ to keep you interested," I told him. "Your life’s like a
wharf timber that the worms have been at—there’s too many ’bores’ in it.
If you could find somethin’ bran-new to interest you, you’d be lively
enough. I’d risk the depression then—and the enervation, too, whatever
that is."
Oh, horrible! How could I joke about a matter of life and death?
Well, so it went for the two days and in the evenin’ of the second day,
Lot come tiptoein’ into my room. He was all nerved up. The next mornin’
was the time he’d planned to go to camp-meetin’; and how could he go
now?
"Why not?" says I. "I’ll be all right. Your Aunt Lucindy’s comin’ to
keep house, ain’t she?"
"Yes—yes, she’s comin’. But how can I leave Cousin Lemuel? He won’t want
me to go, I’m sure."
"So’m I," I says; "he’ll kick as a matter of principle. But if you’re
gone afore he knows it, he’ll _have_ to like it—or lump it, one or
t’other. See here, Lot Deacon; you take my advice and clear out
to-morrow early, afore the bug-hunter’s nerves twitter loud enough to
wake him. You can get our breakfast and leave it on the table out here
in the hall. I can manage to hobble that far. Afore dinner Aunt
Lucindy’ll be on deck."
He brightened up consider’ble. "I might do that," he says. "And anyway
Aunt Lucindy’s likely to be here afore breakfast. She’s always terrible
prompt. But will Cousin Lemuel forgive me, do you think?"
"I don’t know," says I. "But I will, provided you don’t say ’terrible’
again. Now clear out and don’t let me see you till camp-meetin’s over.
And say," I called after him, "just ask one of your spirit chums what’s
good for nerve twitters."
Next mornin’ was sort of dark and cloudy, so probably that accounts for
my oversleepin’. Anyhow 'twas after seven o’clock when Cousin Lemuel,
blanket and shawl and slippers, full undress uniform, comes flappin’
into my room. I woke up and stared at him. He was pale, and tremblin’
all over.
"What’s the matter now?" says I.
"Hush!" he whispers, fearful. "Hush! somethin’ awful has happened. My
cousin Lot is insane."
"_What?_" I sung out, settin’ up in bed.
"Hush! hush!" says he. "It is horrible. Insanity is hereditary in our
family. What shall we do?"
"Insane—rubbish!" says I, havin’ waked up a little more by this time.
"What makes you think he’s insane?"
He held up a shakin’ hand. "Listen!" he whispers. "He has been makin’
dreadful noises for the past half-hour, and singin’—actually singin’—in
the strangest voice. Listen!"
I listened. Down below in the kitchen there was a racket of pans and
dishes and a stompin’ as if a menagerie elephant had broke loose from
its moorin’s. Then somebody busts out singin’, loud and high:
"There’s a land that is fairer than day,
And by faith we can see it afar."
"There, there!" says Lemuel. "Don’t you hear it? Would a sane man sing
like that?"
I rocked back and forth in bed and roared and laughed. "A sane man
wouldn’t," I says, "but a sane _woman_ might, if she had strong enough
lungs. That ain’t Lot. Lot’s gone to camp-meetin’, to be gone till
to-morrow night. That’s his wife’s aunt, Lucindy Hammond, from Denboro.
She’s goin’ to keep house for us till he gets back."
CHAPTER VII—THE FORCE AND THE OBJECT
Well, it took all of fifteen minutes for me to drive the idea out of
that critter’s head that his relative had gone loony. I was hoppin’
around on my sound foot tryin’ to dress, while I explained things. I had
enough clothes on to be presentable in white folks’ society, when there
come a whoop up the back stairs.
"Good morn-in’!" whoops Aunt Lucindy. "Breakfast is ready! Shall I fetch
it up?"
"My soul!" squeals Cousin Lemuel, and bolts for his own room. I buttoned
my collar by main strength and answered the hail.
"All hands on deck!" I sung out. "Fetch her along."
There was a mighty stompin’ on the stairs, and then through the door
marches as big a woman as ever I see in my born days. ’Twa’n’t only that
she was fleshy,—she must have weighed all of two hundred and thirty,—but
she was big, big as a small mountain, seemed so, and was dressed in some
sort of curtain-calico gown that made her look bigger yet. She was
luggin’ a tray heaped up with vittles enough for a small ship’s company.
"Good mornin’," says she, in a voice as big as the rest of her, and as
cheery as the fust sunshine on a foggy day. She was smilin’ all over,
but there was a square look to her chin—the upper one, for she had no
less than two and a half—that made me think she could be the other thing
if occasion called for. "Good mornin’," says she. "Is this Lemuel?"
"It ain’t," says I. "Cousin Lemuel is in disability just at present. My
name’s Snow."
"Oh, yes!" she hollers—every time she spoke she hollered—"Oh, yes! Cap’n
Zebulon Snow, of course. I’m Mrs. Hammond. Here’s your breakfast."
"Mine!" says I, lookin’ at the heap of rations. "You mean mine and
Cousin Lemuel’s."
"Oh, no, I don’t," says she, still smilin’, and puttin’ the tray down on
the table, in the way she did everything, with a bang; "I mean yours,
Cap’n Snow. Lemuel’s is all ready, though, and I’ll fetch it right up. I
know what men’s appetites are; I’ve had experience."
Afore I could think of an answer to this she swept out of the door like
a toy typhoon, the breeze from her skirts settin’ papers and light stuff
flyin’, and was stompin’ down the stairs, singin’ "Sweet By and By" at
the top of her lungs. I looked at the tray and scratched my head. My
appetite ain’t a hummin’-bird’s, by a considerable sight, but that
breakfast would have lasted me all day. As for Lemuel, about all he did
with food was find fault with it. And just then in he comes.
"What’s that?" says he, pointin’ to the tray.
"That?" says I. "That’s my breakfast. Yours is just like it and it’ll be
right up."
He fidgeted with his specs and bent over to look. His nose was anything
but a pug, but I give you my word you could almost see it turn up.
"Fried potatoes!" he says; "and fried fish! and fried eggs! and
griddle-cakes! Why—why it’s _all_ fried! Horrible!"
"Ain’t there enough?" I asks, sarcastic. "If not, I presume likely
there’s more in the kitchen."
"Enough!" he fairly screamed it. "I never take anything but a slice of
very dry toast and a cup of tea in the mornin’. It’s a principle of
mine. And I never eat anything fried! I—I—"
"All right," says I, "you tell her so. Here she is." And afore he could
get out of the door she sailed through it, luggin’ another tray loaded
like the fust one. She slammed it down and turned to the invalid, who
was tryin’ to hide his blanket dressin’-sack behind a chair.
"Here is Lemuel!" she hollers. "It _is_ Lemuel, isn’t it? I’m _so_ glad
to see you! I’m Lucindy, Lot’s auntie. In a way we’re related, so we
must shake hands."
She reached over and took his little thin hand in her big one and gave
it a squeeze that made him curl up like a fishin’ worm.
"There!" says she, "now we’re all acquainted and sociable. Ain’t that
nice! You two set right down and eat. I’ll trot up again in a few
minutes to see how you’re gettin’ on. Sure you’ve got all you want? All
right, then." Out she went, singin’ away, and Cousin Lemuel flopped down
in a chair.
"Good heavens!" he gasps, working the fingers Aunt Lucindy had shook, to
make sure they was all there. "Good heavens!" says he.
"Yes," says I, "I agree with you."
"She calls me by my Christian name!" he says, pantin’, "and I never saw
her before in my life! And it—it didn’t seem to occur to her that I was
not fully dressed. What shall I do?"
"Well," says I, "if you asked me I should say you better make believe
eat somethin’. What _I_ can’t eat I’m goin’ to heave out of the back
window. I’d ruther satisfy that woman than explain to her, enough
sight."
But he wouldn’t eat, seemed to be in a sort of daze, as you might say,
and went flappin’ back to his own room. I tackled the breakfast.
It would take a week to tell you all that happened that forenoon. My
time’s limited, so I’ll only tell a little of it. When Aunt Lucindy come
upstairs again and see his tray, not a thing on it touched, she wanted
to know why. I done my best to explain, tellin’ her Cousin Lemuel was
afflicted in the nerves, and about his tea and toast, and his diff’rent
kinds of medicines, and his doctors, and so on, but she wouldn’t listen
to more’n half of it.
"The poor thing!" she says, "Lot told me some about him. He’s in error,
ain’t he. Horatio, my husband that was, was in error, too, but he died
of it. That was afore I got enlightened. And you’re in error with your
foot, Cap’n Snow, so Lot says. Well, it’s a mercy I’m here. The first
thing I’ll do for you is to give you a cheerful thought. ’All’s right in
the world.’ You keep thinkin’ that this forenoon and I’ll give you
another after dinner. I must get a thought for poor Lemuel, but he needs
a stronger one. I’ll have one ready for him pretty soon. Now I must do
my dishes."
Soon’s she cleared out this time I locked my door. An hour or so later
there was a snappish kind of knock on it.
"Cap’n Snow! I say, Cap’n Snow," whispers Lemuel, pretty average testy,
"where is my tea and toast? Did you tell that woman about my tea and
toast? I’m hungry."
"I told her," says I. "If you ain’t got it, you better tell her
yourself."
"But I don’t want to see the creature," he says.
"Neither do I; that is, I ain’t partic’lar about it. And I couldn’t hop
down-stairs if I was. You’ll have to do your own tellin’. I’m goin’ to
read a spell."
My readin’ didn’t amount to much. He went grumblin’ back to his room,
but I judge his longin’ for tea and toast got the better of his dread
for the "creature," ’cause pretty soon I heard him go down-stairs. Aunt
Lucindy’s singin’ and dish-clatterin’ stopped, and I heard consider’ble
pow-wow goin’ on. Cousin Lemuel’s voice kept gettin’ higher and
shriller, but Aunt Lucindy’s was just the same even cheerfulness all the
time. Then the ex-insect man comes up the stairs again. I was curious,
so I unlocked the door.
"How was the toast?" I asked. His usual pale face was bright red and he
was a heap more energetic than I’d ever seen him.
"She—she—that woman’s crazy!" he sputters. "She’s insane; I told her so.
I—"
"Hold on!" I interrupted. "Did you get the toast?"
"I did not. She refused to give it to me. Actually refused! She—she had
that dreadful fried breakfast on the back of the stove and told me to
sit right down and eat it—like a good fellow. A good fellow—to me!—as if
I was a dog! A dog, by Jove! I explained—in spite of my just resentment
I endeavored to reason with her. I told her the doctor had forbidden my
eatin’ a heavy breakfast. I said that my nerves were shattered and so
on. And what do you suppose she said to me? She had the brazen
effrontery to tell me that I had no nerves. Nerves were ’errors,’
whatever that means. All I had to do was to think that—that those fried
outrages were all right and they would be. And when I—you’ll admit I had
a good reason—when I lost my temper and expressed my opinion of her she
began to sing. And she kept on singin’. _Such_ singin’! Good heavens!
Horrible!"
"Then you ain’t had any breakfast?"
"I have not. But I will have it! I will! You mark my words, I—"
He stopped. "The Sweet By and By" had swung into the lower entry and was
movin’ up the stairs. I expected to see Cousin Lemuel beat for snug
harbor, but no sir-ee! he stayed right where he was, settin’ up in his
chair as straight as a ramrod. Aunt Lucindy’s treatment might not be
workin’ exactly as she intended, the patient’s nerves might not be any
better, but his _nerve_ was improvin’ fast.
In she swept, smilin’ like clockwork, as smooth and as serene as a flat
calm in Ostable cove. She paid no attention to the way the little man
glared at her, but turned to me and says: "Well, Cap’n," she says, "have
you cherished the thought I gave you?"
"Um-hm," says I, "I’ve put it on ice. I cal’late 'twill keep over
Sunday."
"I’ve thought up one for you, Lemuel, you poor thing," she says, turnin’
to the insect chaser. "It is—"
"Woman," broke in Cousin Lemuel, "I’ll trouble you not to call me a poor
thing. Where is my tea and toast?"
She smiled at him, condescendin’ but pitiful, same as a cow might smile
at a kitten that tried to scratch it—if a cow could smile.
"Your breakfast is on the stove, all nice and warm," she says. "You
don’t really want tea and toast; you only think so. Cap’n Snow will tell
you how nice those fried potatoes are, and the codfish and—"
"Confound your codfish, madam! I shall have that tea and toast. I—I
_must_ have it. My system demands it."
She shook her head. "Oh, no, it doesn’t," says she. "It will demand all
the nice things I’ve cooked for you if you only think so. Thought is
all. Now let me give you your cheerful thought for the day. It is—"
"Confound your thoughts!" yells the nerve sufferer, jumpin’ out of his
chair and makin’ for the door. "I always have tea and toast for
breakfast, and I intend to have it now."
I hate a fuss, so I tried to pour a little ile on the troubled waters.
"Now, Lemuel," says I, "don’t let’s be stubborn. You—"
He whirled on me like a teetotum. "Stubborn!" he snaps, "I was never
stubborn in my life. This is a matter of principle with me. That woman
shall give me my tea and toast."
Aunt Lucindy smiled, same as ever. "Oh, no, I sha’n’t," says she, "it
would only encourage you in your error and that I shall not permit.
Please listen to the thought I have for you. It is _such_ a nice one.
’Be true to your higher self and’—"
"Madam," shrieks Lemuel, "my thought about you is that you’re an old fat
fool! There!" And he rushed into the hall and the next second his door
slammed so it shook the house.
For just one minute I thought Aunt Lucindy was goin’ after him. Her
smile stopped, her teeth snapped together, she took one step towards the
door, and her big hands opened and shut. But that one step was all she
took. When she turned back to me her face was red, but the smile had got
busy once more. She set down in the cane rocker—it cracked, but it
held—and says she:
"He’s a little mite antagonistic, don’t you think so, Cap’n Snow?"
"Well," says I, "I should think you might call it that without
exaggeratin’ much."
"Yes," says she, "but I don’t mind. There was a time when if anybody’d
called me an old fat fool I’d have—well, never mind. I’m above such
things now. Nothin’ can make me cross any more. Not even a sassy little,
long-nosed shrimp like.... Ahem. Cap’n Snow, have you read ’The Soarin’
of Self’? It’s a lovely book, an upliftin’ book."
I said I hadn’t read it and she commenced to tell me about it, repeatin’
it by chapters, so to speak. I couldn’t make much out of it but a
whirligig of words, and when she was just beginnin’ I thought I heard
Lemuel’s door creak. However, I didn’t hear anything more, and she
strung along and strung along, about "soul" and "mental uplift" and
"high altitude of spirit" and a lot more. By and by I commenced to
sniff.
"Excuse me, marm," I says, "but seems to me I smell somethin’ burnin’.
Have you got anything on cookin’?"
_She_ sniffed then. "No," says she, wonderin’. "I can’t remember
anything." Then, with another sniff, "But seems as if I smelt it, too.
Like—like bread burnin’. Hey? You don’t s’pose—"
She put for down-stairs. Next thing I knew there was the greatest
hullabaloo below decks that you ever heard. Then up the stairs comes
Cousin Lemuel, two steps at a jump, which, considerin’ that his usual
gait had been a crawl, was surprisin’ enough of itself. He had a
scorched slice of bread in each hand and he stopped on the upper landin’
and waved 'em.
"I’ve got the toast," he yells, triumphant, "and I’m goin’ to have the
tea." Then he bolts into his room and locked the door.
Up the stairs comes Aunt Lucindy. Her face was so red that it looked as
if somebody’d lit a fire inside it, and her big hands was shut tight.
She marched straight to that locked door and hollers through the
keyhole.
"You—you little, dried-up critter!" she pants. "Humph! I s’pose you’ve
been sent to try my faith, but you sha’n’t shake it. No, sir! you nor
nobody else can shake it or make me lose my temper. I’m perfectly calm
and cheerful this minute. I am! Ha, ha! Ha, ha!"
"I got my toast," hollers Cousin Lemuel from inside. "And I’ll have my
tea, in spite of all the New Thought cranks in this horrible hole!"
"Indeed you won’t. I was prepared for a difficult case when I came here.
Cousin Lot told me about your foolish ’nerves’ and all the other errors
your selfishness has brought onto you. I made up my mind to set you in
the right path and I’m goin’ to do it."
"I’ll have that tea."
"No, you sha’n’t. When folks are in error I never give in to ’em. That’s
my principle and I stick to it."
When she said "principle" I pretty nigh fell over. If _she’d_ got the
"principle" disease the case was desperate. Anyhow, I thought ’twas
about time for somebody with a teaspoonful of common sense to take a
hand.
"See here," says I, "for grown-up folks this is the most ridiculous
doin’s I ever heard of. Mrs. Hammond, for the land sakes let him have
his tea and maybe we’ll have peace along with it."
She turned to me. "Cap’n Snow," she says, "speakin’ as one who has
learned to rise above their baser self, and perfectly calm and
good-tempered, I advise you to mind your own business. I don’t care
nothin’ about the tea itself; it’s the principle I’m strivin’ for, I
tell you. Do you s’pose I’ll let that little withered-up, sassy,
benighted scoffer—"
"There! there!" says I. Then I bent down to the keyhole. "Lemuel," I
says, "be a man and not prize inmate in a feeble-minded home. You’re not
an idiot. Apologize to this lady and, if you can’t get tea, take hot
water."
The answer I got was hotter than any water he was likely to get, enough
sight. And there was some "principle" in it, too.
"Well," says I, disgusted, "I’m durn glad that I’m unprincipled. Fight
it out amongst yourselves, but don’t you either of you dare come nigh
me. I mean that." And I went into my room and locked _that_ door.
For two hours I stayed there, readin’ some and thinkin’ a whole lot
more. Down-stairs Aunt Lucindy was singin’ at the top of her lungs—to
show how good her temper was, I presume likely—and out in the upper hall
Cousin Lemuel was tiptoein’ back and forth and yellin’ at her that he’d
have his tea in spite of her, and passin’ comments on her music. I never
knew two such stubborn critters in my life, and I couldn’t see any signs
of either of ’em givin’ in, long as their principles held out.
I remembered a conundrum that, when I was a young one in school, the
teacher used to spring on the big boys in the first class in arithmetic.
’Twas somethin’ like this:
"If an irresistible force runs afoul of an immovable object, what’s the
result?"
The boys used to grin and say they didn’t know. Neither did I—then; but
I was learnin’ the answer that very minute. When an irresistible force
meets an immovable object it’s a matter of principle, and the result is
liable to be ’most anything. That was the answer, and I was learnin’ it
by observation and experience, same as the barefooted boy learned where
the snappin’-turtle’s mouth was.
Now the force and the object was in the same house with me, and the
minute the doctor, or Jim Henry Jacobs, or anybody else with a horse and
team, come to that house, they could take me away with ’em. I’d
contracted for quiet and rest, not for a session in Bedlam.
Twelve o’clock struck and I begun to think of dinner. I hobbled over to
my door, unlocked it and looked out. Cousin Lemuel’s door was open, too,
but he wasn’t in his room or in the hall either. I wondered where on
earth he could be. Next minute I found out.
There was a whoop from the kitchen—Lemuel’s voice and brimmin’ with pure
joy. Then, somewhere in the same neighborhood, began a most tremendous
thumpin’ and bangin’. A "cast" horse in a narrow stall was the only
sounds I ever heard that compared with it. It kept on and kept on, and
Lemuel was whoopin’ and hurrahin’ accompaniments. Such a racket you
never heard in your born days.
Thinks I, "The critter’s nerves have gone back on him for good. He’s
really crazy and he’s killin’ that poor mind-curer out of principle."
Somehow or other I hopped down them stairs on my sound foot, draggin’
t’other after me. Through the dinin’-room I hobbled and into the
kitchen. There was a roarin’ fire in the cookstove and in front of that
stove was Cousin Lemuel dancin’ round with a teapot in his hand. The
cellar door opened out of the kitchen. It was shut tight, and somebody
behind it was bangin’ the panels till I expected every second to see ’em
go by the board. If they hadn’t been built in the days when they made
things solid they would have.
"What in the world—" I commenced. "You—Lemuel—whatever your name is—what
are you doin’?"
He turned and saw me. His bald head was all shinin’ with the heat, his
big round specs was almost droppin’ off the end of his long nose, and he
sartin did look like somethin’ the cat brought in.
"What am I doin’?" he says. "Can’t you see? I’m gettin’ my tea, same as
I said I would. Ho! ho!"
"Where’s Aunt Lucinda?" I sung out. "You loon, have you killed her?"
He laughed. "No, no!" he says. "She deserves to be killed, but she’s
alive. She refused to give me my tea; she refused to stop her horrible
singin’. She was utterly impossible and I got rid of her. I crept down
and watched until she went into the cellar. Then I closed the door and
locked it. Cap’n Snow, I have never been treated as that woman treated
me in my life! It was a matter of principle with me and I was obliged—"
He couldn’t say any more because the poundin’ on the door broke out
again louder than ever. I headed for it and he got in front of me.
"She is absolutely unharmed, I assure you," he says.
She sounded healthy, that was a fact. The names she called that
insect-hunter was a caution!
"Let me out!" she kept hollerin’. "You let me out of this cellar, you
miserable little good-for-nothin’! If I ever get my hands on you I’ll—"
"Ha! ha!" laughs Lemuel. "I couldn’t make her lose her temper, could I?
Oh, no, she’s perfectly calm now! You’re not in the cellar, madam," he
calls to her, "you’re in error. Thought can do anything; think yourself
out."
I looked at him. "Well," says I, "for a person with twitterin’ nerves,
you—"
"D—n my nerves!" says he, which was the most human remark he’d ever made
in my hearin’ and proved that he wasn’t beyond hopes. "You told me that
all I needed was somethin’ to keep me interested. Well, I’ve got it."
"You let me out!" whoops Aunt Lucindy. "Cap’n Snow, if you’re there, you
let me out!"
I think maybe I would have let her out, but when I heard what she
intended doin’ to Lemuel I thought 'twas too big a risk. I turned and
hobbled through the dinin’-room to the front outside door. And there,
just turnin’ into the yard, was Jim Henry Jacobs, with his horse and
buggy. When he saw me he almost fell off the seat. And maybe I wa’n’t
glad to see him!
"You!" he says. "You! _walkin’!_"
"Yes," says I, "and in five minutes I’d have been flyin’, I cal’late.
Don’t stop to talk. Help me into that buggy.... There! drive home as
fast as you can!"
"But what under the canopy is the row?" he says.
"Row enough," says I. "I’ve been shut up along with an irresistible
force and an immovable object, and I want to get away from ’em. Git
dap."
We turned the horse’s head. We had just left the yard when he looked
back. I looked, too. The cellar had an outside entrance, a bulkhead
door. This door was bendin’ and heavin’ as if an earthquake was under
it. Next minute the staple flew, the door slammed back, and Aunt Lucindy
popped out like a jack-in-the-box. She never paid no attention to us,
but made for the kitchen.
"Who—what is that?" gasps Jacobs.
"That," says I, "is the irresistible force."
There was a yell from the kitchen and then out of the door flew Cousin
Lemuel. _He_ didn’t stop for us, either, but ran like a lamplighter to
the fence, fell over it, and dove head-fust into the woods. After he was
away out of sight we could hear the bushes crackin’.
"And—and _what_," gasps Jim Henry, "was _that_?"
"That," says I, "was the immovable object. Drive on, for mercy sakes!"
————
Next day Lot came to see me at the Poquit House. He was dreadful upset.
Seems he hadn’t stayed his time out at camp-meetin’. One of the mediums
or spooks or somethin’ over there told him there was a destructive
influence hoverin’ over his house and he’d hurried back to find out
about it.
"Humph!" says I. "I should have said it had quit hoverin’ and had lit.
How’s Cousin Lemuel?"
Seems Cousin Lemuel was at the hotel over to Bayport. He’d telephoned
for his trunks.
"And he told me," says Lot, wonderin’ like, "to tell Aunt Lucindy that
he intended havin’ tea and toast three times a day now, as a matter of
principle. That’s strange, isn’t it?"
"Not to me ’tain’t," says I. "And how’s Aunt Lucindy?"
"Aunt Lucindy’s gone back to Denboro," he says. "And she left word for
Cousin Lemuel that she should send him a ’thought’—whatever that
is—every day by mail from now on. And you’d ought to have seen her face
when she said it! But, Cap’n Zeb, when are you comin’ back to board with
me?"
I shook my head. "Lot," says I, "I like you fust-rate, but your
relations are too irresistibly immovable. I’m goin’ to keep clear of ’em
for the rest of my life—as a matter of principle," I says, chucklin’.
CHAPTER VIII—ARMENIANS AND INJUNS; LIKEWISE BY-PRODUCTS
You can imagine that Jim Henry and Mary had a good deal of fun over my
experience with Lot and his tribe. They joked me about it consider’ble.
But I didn’t mind. My foot was all right again, or nearly so, and the
extension to the store had been finished and was workin’ out fine. We
moved the mail room way back and that give us lots of room on the main
floor, and Mary had a nice clean place, with plenty of air and light,
new sortin’ table, new desks, and all that. As for business, we done
more that summer than we had previous and it kept up surprisin’ well
through the winter. I was happy and satisfied and Jacobs seemed to be.
But he wa’n’t. It took a whole lot to satisfy him and, by the time
another spring reached us and the cottages begun to open I could see
that he was gettin’ fidgety. One mornin’ he come back from a cruise
amongst the cottagers—he always handled their trade himself—and I could
see that he was about ready to bile over.
"Well," says I, "what’s weighin’ on your mind now? Or is it your
stomach? I’m willin’ to bet that I’m two pound heftier than I was afore
I ate them hot biscuits at our boardin’ house this mornin’; and you got
away with three more’n I did. Has your ballast shifted, or what?"
He shook his head.
"Skipper," says he, "we’re ruined by foreign cheap labor."
"You’re right," says I. "I heard that that Dutch cook used to work in a
cement factory, and them biscuits prove it."
"Nothin’ doin’," he says. "My noon lunch for two years was ’Draw one
with a plate of sinkers’; and when it comes to warm dough, I’m an
immune. That Poquit House cook could practice on me for a week and never
dent my nickel-steel digestion. No. What I’m full of just now is
embroidery."
I looked at him.
"See here, Jim Henry," says I, "you’ve got me a mile offshore in a fog.
Unless you’ve swallowed your napkin, I don’t see—"
"There! There!" he interrupted. "It’s nothin’ I’ve swallowed, I tell
you! It’s somethin’ I’ve seen that I _can’t_ swallow. I can’t swallow
those tan-faced, hook-nosed lace peddlers. It’s only spring, yet they
are thicker round here already than lumps of saleratus in those biscuit
we’ve been talkin’ about. They’re separatin’ perfectly good easy marks
from money that belongs to us, and I’m gettin’ mad. My Turkish blood’s
risin’, and there’s likely to be another Armenian massacre in this
neighborhood pretty soon."
I understood what he meant then. Every summer for the last year or two
the Cape has been sufferin’ from a plague of fellers peddlin’ handmade
lace, and embroidery, and such. They’re all shades of color except
white, and they talk all sorts of languages except plain United States;
but, no matter what they look like or how they jabber, every last one of
them claims to be an Armenian, and to have his hand satchel solid full
of native-made tidies, and tablecloths, and the like of that. I never
run across the Armenian flag on any of my v’yages, but if it ain’t a
doily, then it ought to be.
And the prices they charge! Whew! A white man would blush every time he
named one; but these fellers, bein’ all complexions, from light tan
Oxford to dark rubber boot, are born to blush unseen, and can charge
four dollars for a crocheted necktie and never crack, spot, nor fade.
Jim Henry was some on high prices himself; likewise, he considered the
summer cottagers and the hotel folks as more or less our special
property. Therefore, you can understand how this Armenian competition
riled and disturbed him. And, as it turned out, that very mornin’ he’d
gone to call on Mrs. Burke Smythe, who was one of the Ostable Store’s
best and most well-off customers, and found her ankle-deep in lamp mats
and centerpieces which an Armenian specimen was diggin’ out of a couple
of suit cases. And she’d told him that she couldn’t pay our bill for
another month ’count of havin’ spent all her "household allowance" on
the "loveliest set of embroidered dress and waist patterns" and such
that ever was. There was the dress pattern. Didn’t he think it was a
"dear"?
Well, Jim Henry give in to the "dear" part—she’d paid sixty-four dollars
for it—and come away disgusted. These peddlers was takin’ the coin right
out of our mouths, he vowed. What was we goin’ to do about it?
"Keep our mouths shut, I guess," says I. "I can’t see anything else."
But that wouldn’t do for him. He went away growlin’, and for the next
couple of days he hardly said a word. I knew he was hatchin’ some scheme
or other, and I took care not to scare him off the nest. The third
mornin’, he came off himself, fetchin’ his brood with him.
"Skipper," says he, joyful, "I believe I’ve got it. I believe I’ve got
the idea that’ll put those Armenians in the discard. You listen to me."
I listened, and what he’d hatched was somethin’ like this: We—that is,
the "Ostable Grocery, Dry Goods, Boots and Shoes, and Fancy Goods
Store"—would sell embroidery and crocheted plunder, and run the peddlers
out of business. We’d open a tidy department on our own hook. What did I
think of that?
Well, I didn’t think much of it, and I told him so.
"Don’t believe we can do it," says I.
"Why not?" says he. "We can charge as much as they can, and that seems
to be the main thing."
"That ain’t it," I told him. "We can’t get the stuff to sell. Plenty of
machine made, but the summer folks won’t have that, cheap or high. What
they wake up nights and cry for is the genuine, hand-manufactured
article; and, unless you buy it off the peddlers themselves—which would
be unprofitable, to say the least—_I_ don’t see where you’re goin’ to
get it. Besides, if you could get it, sellin’ it in a store wouldn’t do.
’Tain’t romantic and foolish enough. Take this Burke Smythe woman," says
I; "she’s a fair sample. She could have got just as nice, pretty dress
patterns out of a fashion magazine, or—"
"Great snakes!" he broke in. "You don’t think ’twas a _paper_ pattern
she paid sixty-four dollars for, do you?"
"Never mind what ’twas," I says, dignified; "’twould be all the same,
paper or sheet iron. She wouldn’t care for it at all if she’d bought it
in a store. There’s nothin’ mysterious or romantic in that. But here
comes one of these liver-complected, black-haired fellers, lookin’ for
all the world like a pirate, and whispers in her ear he’s got somethin’
in that carpetbag of his that nobody else has got, and that’ll make Mrs.
General Jupiter Jones, or some other of the Smythe bosom friends, look
like a last summer’s scarecrow. And, as a favor to her, he ain’t showed
it to Mrs. Jupiter—which is most likely a lie, but never mind—and he’ll
sell it to her at a sixty-four-dollar sacrifice, because—"
"Hold on!" he interrupts. "Cut it out! Break away! Don’t you s’pose I’ve
thought of that? Your old Uncle James Henry Jacobs, doctor of sick
businesses, wa’n’t born yesterday by about thirty-eight years. I ain’t
figgerin’ to handle Armenian stuff. See here, Skipper. What makes the
summer bunch so crazy to get hold of old clocks, and old chains, and
antique junk generally?"
"Well," says I, "for one thing, ’cause they _are_ antiques. For another,
because they come from right here on the Cape, and—"
"That’s it," he sings out. "And that’s enough. Well, there’s plenty of
handmade embroideries and laces, not to mention lamp mats and bed
quilts, made right here on the Cape, too. Last fall, the county fair had
a buildin’ solid full of ’em. This is my plan. Do stop your Doubtin’
Thomas act, and listen."
The plan was sort of simple but complicated. Fust off, him and me was to
see all the old ladies and young girls in Ostable and the surroundin’
country, and get ’em to agree to sell their handmade knittin’ to us. If
they wouldn’t sell to us direct, then we’d sell it for them on
commission. We’d fit up a room in the loft over the store, advertise it
as the "Colonial Curio Shop" or the "Pilgrim Mothers’ Exchange," or some
such ridiculous or mysterious name, stock it full of the truck the
widows and orphans had been knittin’ or tattin’ all winter, drop a hint
to the summer folks—and then set back and take the money.
"It’ll go, I tell you," he says, enthusiastic. "It’s a sure winner. Just
say the word, Skipper, and we’ll start fittin’ up the loft to-morrow
mornin’."
"Well," says I, pretty doubtful, "if you’re so sure, Jim, I—"
"Sure!" he broke in. "Why wouldn’t I be sure? There’s only one kind of
people that can get ahead of me in a business deal—and they don’t hail
from Armenia. Skipper, here’s where we hand our peddlin’ friends theirs,
and then some."
Next mornin’ he took the spare horse and started out. When he got back
that night, he had the bottom of the wagon covered with bundles of
knittin’ and handmade contraptions, and he made proclamations that he
hadn’t begun to cover the available territory. He’d seen I don’t know
how many single females and widows who had the fancywork and crochetin’
habit; and they sold him everything they had in stock, and promised
more.
"They take to it like a duck to water," says he, joyful. "They’re all
down on the peddlers, and they’re goin’ to pitch in and supply the home
market. In another week you can’t pass two houses in this town without
hearin’ the merry click of the needle. To-morrow I canvass Denboro and
Bayport, and the next day I tackle Harniss. By Monday we’ll be ready to
fit up the loft."
And, sure enough, he was right. The amount of stuff he fetched back in
that wagon was surprisin’. How the female population of Ostable County
could have turned out all that embroidery and found time to cook meals
and sweep, let alone make calls and talk about their neighbors, beat me
a mile. But when he told me what he paid for the collection I begun to
understand. However, I didn’t say nothin’. 'Twa’n’t until he commenced
to rig up the room over the store that I spoke my thoughts.
"Why, Jim Henry!" I says. "What are you thinkin’ of? Puttin’ panelin’ on
those walls! And paperin’ with that expensive paper! It must have cost
land knows how much a roll. And, for the dear land sakes, what are those
carpenters cuttin’ that hole in the upper deck for?"
"For stairs, of course," says he. "Think the customers are goin’ to fly
up there? Don’t bother me, Skipper, I’m busy."
"Stairs!" I sings out. "Why, there’s stairs already. What’s the matter
with the steps leadin’ aloft from the back room? _We’ve_ used them ever
since we’ve been here, and—"
"S-shh! S-shh!" says he, resigned but impatient. "Cap’n, your business
instinct is all right in some things, like—like—well, I can’t think what
just now, but never mind. You’re a good feller, but you’re too apt to
cal’late by last year’s almanac. You ain’t as up to date as you might
be. Do you suppose Her Majesty Burke Smythe, and the rest of the Royal
Family we’re settin’ this trap for, will take the trouble to hunt up
that back room, and fall over egg cases and kerosene barrels to find the
ladder to that loft? And climb the ladder after they find it? No, no!
We’ll have a flight of stairs right from the main part of this store,
where they can’t help seein’ ’em. And there’ll be old-fashioned rag mats
on the landin’s, and brass candlesticks with candles in ’em at night,
and—"
"Candles!" says I. "Well; that is the final piece of lunacy! Why, I
could light those stairs like a glory with kerosene lamps while a body
was tryin’ to get _sight_ of ’em with a candle! I never heard such
nonsense."
But ’twas no use. What we must do was make that loft "quaint," and
old-fashioned, and the like of that. I didn’t understand—and so on.
"All right," says I, "maybe I don’t; but I do understand this: Judgin’
by the amount of hard cash you’ve spent for lace tuckers and doilies,
and the bill them stairs and panelin’s and candlesticks’ll come to, I
don’t see a profit on the Pilgrim Curio Mothers’ Exchange in ten year
big enough to cover a five-cent piece."
He’d risk the profit. Besides, there was another reason for the stairs,
and such. To get to ’em all, the rich folks would have to go right
through the store; and if they didn’t buy anything upstairs they would
down, sure and sartin. He was figgerin’ on catchin’ the transient trade,
the automobile trade; and all around the foot of the stairs we’d have
temptin’ lunches put up and set out, and bottles of ginger ale and boxes
of cigars, and so forth, and so on. He preached for half an hour,
windin’ up with:
"Anyhow, Skipper, if the curio shop should lose money—which it won’t—it
will bring customers to the Ostable Grocery, Dry Goods, Boots and Shoes,
and Fancy Goods Store, which is the main thing; that and keepin’ the
coin in the United States instead of shippin’ it to Armenia. The
embroideries and laces are by-products, as you might say; and if a plant
comes out even on its by-products, it’s a payin’ proposition."
He had me there. I didn’t know a by-product from a salt herrin’; so I
shut up.
The "Old Colony Women’s Exchange and Curio Room," which was the name he
finally picked out, opened at the end of a fortni’t. Jacobs had
advertised it in the papers, and put signs for miles up and down the
main roads, let alone tellin’ every well-off summer woman within
reachin’ distance. And, almost from the very start, it done well. The
loft was crowded ’most every afternoon; and sometimes there’d be as many
as three automobiles anchored alongside our main platform.
At the end of the fust month, the Exchange had cleared—cleared, mind
you—over two hundred dollars; and Jim Henry was crowin’ over me like a
Shanghai rooster over a bantam. He’d had another happy thought, and had
added "antiques" to the stock in the loft; and the prices he got for
lame chairs and rheumatic tables was somethin’ scandalous. But it wa’n’t
all joy. There was two things that troubled him.
One of the things was that the supply of knittin’ and fancywork was
givin’ out. Likewise the "antiques." Of course, there was some on hand.
Aunt Susannah Cahoon’s yeller and black mittens, ear lappets, and
tippets hadn’t sold, and wa’n’t likely to; and Abinadab Saint’s
alabaster whale-oil lamp with the crack in it, that his Great-uncle
Peleg brought home from sea, hadn’t been grabbed to any extent. But
these were the exceptions. ’Most all the good stuff had gone; and,
though Jacobs had raked the county with a fine-tooth comb, as you might
say, the reg’lar dealers from Boston had raked it ahead of him, and
there wa’n’t any "antiques" left.
There was several reasons for the shortage in fancywork. One was that
the knitters and tatters couldn’t turn it out fast enough; and,
moreover, the season for church fairs was settin’ in, and the heft of
the females, bein’ reg’lar members in good standin’, _had_ to tack ship
and go to helpin’ their meetin’-houses. So our stock was gettin’ low,
and Jim Henry was worried.
The other thing that worried him was that we couldn’t get the right kind
of help to sell the stuff. He couldn’t tend to it himself, bein’ too
busy otherwise. Mary had the post-office department on her hands. The
clerk and the delivery boys wa’n’t fitted for the job at all; and, as
for me, I couldn’t sell a blue sugar bowl without a cover for seven
dollars and take the money. I knew the one that bought it was perfectly
satisfied, but I couldn’t do it; I ain’t built that way.
"It’s no use, Jim Henry," says I. "I may be foolish, but I have ideas
about some things; and it’s my notion that sartin kinds of folks are
fitted by nature for sartin kinds of things. Now, Cape Codders they’re
fitted for seafarin’, and such; and New Yorkers and Chicagoers, like
you, are fitted for stock-brokin’ and storekeepin’; and Italians for
hand organs, and diggin’ streets, and singin’ in opera. And when it
comes to sellin’ secondhand stuff or keepin’ a pawnshop, there’s—"
"Rubbish!" he snaps. "A while ago, you’d have said that the embroidery
trade was cornered by the Armenians. We’ve proved that’s a fairy tale,
ain’t we? I’ve got some ideas myself. I know the kind of person I want
to run that Exchange, and, sooner or later, I’ll find him—or her.
Meantime, we’ll have to do the best we can; and I’ll take it as a favor
if you’ll let up on the hammer exercise."
I wa’n’t sure what he meant by the "hammer exercise"; but ’twas plain
enough that them "by-products" was a sore subject, and that he was
worried.
However, he wa’n’t the only worried lace dealer in the neighborhood. The
Old Colony Exchange had made good in one direction, anyhow. It had
knocked the embroidery peddlin’ business higher’n a kite. Where there
used to be a dozen suitcase luggers paradin’ through the town, now you
scarcely sighted one; and that one looked pretty sick and discouraged.
The home market had smashed foreign competition for the time bein’; that
much was pretty sure. But our stock kept gettin’ lower and lower, and
the auto crowds begun to go by now instead of stoppin’. And the few that
did stop hardly ever bought anything unless Jim Henry himself was there
to hypnotize ’em into it.
One mornin’ I came to the store pretty late, and found our clerk talkin’
to a dark-complected chap with curly hair and a suitcase. I didn’t shove
my bows into the talk; but, when ’twas over, I asked the clerk what the
critter wanted. He laughed.
"Oh, he’s the last survivor of the peddlin’ crew," he says. "He ain’t
sold a thing, and he’s goin’ back to Boston right off. I told him he
might as well. He asked a lot of questions about the Exchange, and I
took him upstairs and showed him around."
"You did?" says I. "What for?"
"Oh, just to let him see what he was up against, that’s all. He was a
pretty decent feller—some of them Armenians ain’t so bad—and I pitied
him. He was awful discouraged. He’d heard Mr. Jacobs had been tryin’ to
hire a salesman for up there; and he hinted that he’d kind of like the
job."
"Did, hey?" says I. "Well, it’s a good thing for you and him that Mr.
Jacobs didn’t catch you. He’d sooner have a snake on the premises than
one of them peddlers. What else did he say? Anything?"
Why, yes. It developed that he’d said a good deal. Asked where we got
our stuff, and so on. I judged ’twas a providence that I come in when I
did, or that clerk would have told every last word he knew. I didn’t say
anything to Jim Henry. No use frettin’ him unnecessary.
Three days after that the Injun showed up. I don’t know as you know it,
but there are a few Injuns left on the Cape—half-breeds, or
three-quarters, they are mostly; and they live up around Cohasset
Narrows, or off in the woods in those latitudes. This one was an old
feller, black-haired, of course, and kind of fleshy, with a hook nose
and skin the color of gingerbread. I heard talk upstairs in the
Exchange; and, when I went aloft, I found him and Jim Henry settin’
among the by-products, and as confidential as a couple of rats in a
schooner’s hold. Soon as Jacobs seen me, he sung out for me to heave
alongside.
"Look at that, Cap’n Zeb," he says. "What do you think of that?"
I took what he handed me, and looked at it. 'Twas a piece of handmade
lace—a centerpiece, I believe they call it—and ’twas mighty well done.
"Think of it?" says I. "Well, I ain’t much of a judge, but I’d call it a
pretty slick article. Who made it?"
The old black-haired chap answered.
"My sister," he says. "She make ’em. Make 'em plenty."
"Bully for her!" says I. "She’s the lady we’ve been lookin’ for. Maybe
she make some more; hey?"
He grinned; and Jacobs mentioned for me to clear out; so I done it. He
and old Gingerbread Face stayed aloft in that Exchange for upward of an
hour; and, when they came down, Jim Henry went with him as fur as the
door. When the stranger had gone, Jim turns to me and stuck out his
hand.
"Skipper," says he, grinnin’ like a punkin lantern, "shake! I’ve got
it."
"What have you got?" I asked. I was a little mite provoked at bein’ sent
below so unceremonious. "What have you got—Asiatic cholery? Thought you
wouldn’t have nothin’ to do with Armenians."
"Armenians be hanged!" says he. "That’s no Armenian. He’s an Indian, a
full-blooded Indian, or pretty near it. And his family is about the only
full-bloods left. There’s a colony of them up t
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