There was a knock on the door of Captain Perez's sleeping apartment.
“Cap'n Hedge,” said Mrs. Snow, “Cap'n Hedge! I'm sorry to wake you up, but it's 'most ten o'clock and—”
“What? Ten o'clock! Godfrey scissors! Of all the lazy—I'll be out in a jiffy. Perez, turn out there! Turn out, I tell you!”
Captain Eri had fallen asleep in the rocker where he had seated himself upon his return from the fruitless search for the coat. He had had no intention of sleeping, but he was tired after his strenuous work at the fire, and had dropped off in the midst of his worry. He sprang to his feet, and tried to separate dreams from realities.
“Land of love, Perez!” he ejaculated. “Here you and me have been sleepin' ha'f the forenoon. We'd ought to be ashamed of ourselves. Let's git dressed quicker 'n chain lightnin'.”
“Dressed?” queried Perez, sitting up in bed. “I should think you was dressed now, boots and all. What are you talkin' 'bout?”
The Captain glanced down at his clothes and seemed as much surprised as his friend. He managed to pull himself together, however, and stammered:
“Dressed? Oh, I'm dressed, of course. It's you I'm tryin' to git some life into.”
“Well, why didn't you call a feller, 'stead of gittin' up and dressin' all by yourself. I never see such a critter. Where's my socks?”
To avoid further perplexing questions Captain Eri went into the dining room. The table was set, really set, with a clean cloth and dishes that shone. The knives and forks were arranged by the plates, not piled in a heap for each man to help himself. The Captain gasped.
“Well, I swan to man!” he said. “Has Jerry had a fit or what's struck him? I ain't seen him do anything like this for I don't know when.”
“Oh, Cap'n Burgess didn't fix the table, if that's what you mean,” said the new nurse. “Cap'n Baxter seemed to be sleepin' or in a stupor like, and the Doctor, when he come, said I might leave him long enough to run downstairs for a few minutes, so—”
“The Doctor? Has the Doctor been here this mornin'?”
“Yes, he come 'bout an hour ago. Now, if you wouldn't mind goin' up and stayin' with Cap'n Baxter for a few minutes while I finish gettin' breakfast. I've been up and down so many times in the last ha'f hour, I don't know's I'm sartin whether I'm on my head or my heels.”
The Captain went upstairs in a dazed state. As he passed through what had been his room he vaguely noticed that the bureau top was clean, and that most of the rubbish that had ornamented it had disappeared.
The sick man lay just as he had left him, his white face as colorless as the clean pillow case against which it rested. Captain Eri remembered that the pillow cases in the spare room had looked a little yellow the night before, possibly owing to the fact that, as the room had not been occupied for months, they had not been changed. He reasoned that the improvement was another one of the reforms instituted by the lady from Nantucket.
He sat down in the rocker by the bed and thought, with a shiver, of the missing coat. There were nine chances out of ten that whoever found it would recognize it as belonging to the old “Come-Outer.” The contents of the pocket would be almost certain to reveal the secret if the coat itself did not. It remained to be seen who the finder was and what he would do. Meanwhile there was no use worrying. Having come to this conclusion the Captain, with customary philosophy, resolved to think of something else.
Mrs. Snow entered and announced that breakfast was ready and that he must go down at once and eat it while it was hot. She, having breakfasted some time before, would stay with the patient until the meal was over. Captain Eri at first flatly declined to listen to any such arrangement, but the calm insistence of the Nantucket visitor prevailed as usual. The Captain realized that the capacity for “bossin' things,” that he had discerned in the letter, was even more apparent in the lady herself. One thing he did insist upon, however, and this was that Mrs. Snow should “turn in” as soon as breakfast was over. One of the three would take the watch in the sick room while the other two washed the dishes. The nurse was inclined to balk on the dishwashing proposition, saying that she could do it herself after she had had a wink or two, but this the Captain wouldn't hear of. He went away, however, with an unsettled conviction that, although he and his partners might wash the dishes, Mrs. Snow would wash them again as soon as she had an opportunity. “She didn't say so, but she sort of looked it,” he explained afterward.
He found his friends seated at the table and feasting on hot biscuits, eggs, and clear, appetizing coffee. They greeted him joyously.
“Hey, Eri!” hailed Captain Perez. “Ain't this gay? Look at them eggs; b'iled jest to a T. Ain't much like Jerry's h'af raw kind.”
“Humph! You needn't say nothin', Perez,” observed Captain Jerry, his mouth full of biscuit. “When you was cook, you allers b'iled 'em so hard they'd dent the barn if you'd fired 'em at it. How's John, Eri?”
Captain Eri gave his and the Doctor's opinion of his friend's condition and then said, “Now, we've got to have some kind of a settlement on this marryin' question. Last night, when I was up in the room there, it come acrost me all of a sudden that, from what I'd seen of this Nantucket woman, she'd be jest the sort of nurse that John needed. So I skipped out while you fellers was busy with the Doctor, found her at the hotel, explained things to her, and got her to come down. That's all there is to that. I ain't made no arrangement with her, and somethin's got to be done. What do you think of her, jedgin' by what you've seen?”
Captain Perez gave it as his opinion that she was “all right,” and added, “If Jerry here wa'n't so pigheaded all at once, he'd marry her without waitin' another minute.”
Eri nodded. “That's my idee,” he said emphatically.
But Captain Jerry was as obstinate as ever. He simply would not consider immediate marriage. In vain his comrades reminded him of the original compact, and the fact that the vote was two to one against him; he announced that he had changed his mind, and that that was all there was about it.
At length Captain Eri lost patience.
“Jerry,” he exclaimed, “you remind me of that old white hen we used to have. When we didn't want her to set she'd set on anything from a doorknob to a rock, couldn't keep her off; but when we give in finally and got a settin' of eggs for her, she wouldn't come nigher to 'em than the other end of the hen-yard. Now you might as well make up your mind that somethin's got to be done. This Mrs. Snow ain't nobody's fool. We put out a bait that anybody with sense would say couldn't catch nothin' but sculpin, and, by mighty, we hooked a halibut! If the woman was anything like what you'd think she'd be, answerin' an advertisement like that, I'd be the fust to say let her go, but she ain't; she's all right, and we need her to nuss John besides.”
“Tell you what we might do,” said Perez slowly; “we might explain to her that Jerry don't feel that 'twould be right to think of marryin' with Cap'n Baxter so sick in the house and that, if she's willin', we'll put it off till he dies or gets better. Meantime, we'll pay her so much to stay here and nuss. Seems to me that's about the only way out of it.”
So they agreed to lay this proposal before the Nantucket lady, Captain Jerry reluctantly consenting. Then Captain Eri took up another subject.
John Baxter, as has been said, had one relative, a granddaughter, living somewhere near Boston. Captain Eri felt that this granddaughter should be notified of the old man's illness at once. The difficulty was that none of them knew the young lady's address.
“Her fust name's Elizabeth, same as her mothers was,” said Eri, “and her dad's name was Preston. They called her Elsie. John used to write to her every once in a while. P'raps Sam would know where she lived.”
“Jest' cause Sam's postmaster,” observed Perez, “it don't foller that he reads the name on every letter that goes out and remembers 'em besides.”
“Well, if he don't,” said Captain Jerry decidedly, “Mary Emma does. She reads everything, postals and all.”
Miss Mary Emma Cahoon was the assistant at the post-office, and was possessed of a well-developed curiosity concerning other people's correspondence.
“Humph!” exclaimed Captain Eri, “that's so. We'll write the letter, and I'll ask Mary Emma for the address when I go up to mail it.”
So Captain Perez went upstairs to take Mrs Snow's place as nurse, while that lady “turned in.” Captain Jerry went into the kitchen to wash the dishes, and Captain Eri sat down to write the note that should inform Elizabeth Preston of her grandfather's illness. It was a very short note, and merely stated the fact without further information. Having had some experience in that line, the Captain placed very little reliance upon the help to be expected from relatives.
Dr. Palmer had spread the news as he went upon his round of visits that morning, and callers began to drop in to inquire after the sick man. Miss Busteed was one of the first arrivals, and, as Captain Eri had seen her through the window, he went upstairs and took Perez' place as temporary nurse. To Perez, therefore, fell the delightful task of entertaining the voluble female for something like an hour, while she talked fire, paralysis, and general gossip at express speed.
Ralph Hazeltine came in a little later, and was introduced to Mrs. Snow, that lady's nap having been but a short one. Ralph was favorably impressed with the capable appearance of the new nurse, and so expressed himself to Captain Eri as they walked together toward the post-office.
“I like her,” he said emphatically. “She's quiet and sensible and cheerful besides. She looks as if trouble didn't trouble her very much.”
“I jedge she's seen enough of it in her time, too,” observed the Captain reflectively. “Queer thing how trouble acts different on folks. Kind of like hot weather, sours milk, but sweetens apples. She's one of the sweetened kind. And yet, I cal'late she can be pretty sharp, too, if you try to tread on her toes. Sort of a sweet pickle, hey?” and he laughed.
Miss Cahoon remembered the Preston girl's address. It was Cambridge, Kirkland Street, but the number, she did declare, had skipped her mind. The Captain said he would chance it without the number, so the letter was posted. Then, with the electrician, he strolled over to inspect the remains of the billiard saloon.
There was a small crowd gathered about the building, prominent among its members being the “train committee,” who were evidently holding a special session on this momentous occasion. The busy “Squealer,” a trifle enlivened by some of Mr. Saunders' wet goods that had escaped the efforts of the volunteer salvage corps, hailed the new arrivals as brother heroes.
“Well now, Cap'n Eri!” he exclaimed, shaking hands vigorously. “And Mr. Hazeltine, too! How're you feelin' after last night? I says to Web, I says, 'There's folks in this town besides me that kept you from losin' the whole thing and you ought to thank 'em,' I says. 'One of 'em 's Cap'n Eri and t'other one's Mr. Hazeltine. If we three didn't work, then I don't know,' I says.”
“Web found out how the fire started yit?” inquired the Captain with apparent unconcern.
“No, he hain't for sure. There was a lot of us thought old Baxter might have set it, but they tell me it couldn't have been him, cause he was took down runnin' to the fire. Web, he's sort of changed his tune, and don't seem to think anybody set it; thinks it catched itself.”
Mr. Saunders, his smooth self again, with all traces of mental disturbance gone from his face and all roughness from his tongue, came briskly up, smiling as if the burning of his place of business was but a trifling incident, a little annoying, of course, but not worth fretting about. He thanked the Captain and Hazeltine effusively for their service of the previous night, and piled the weight of his obligations upon them until, as Captain Eri said afterwards, “the syrup fairly dripped off his chin.” The Captain broke in upon the sugary flow as soon as he could.
“How d'you think it started, Web?” he asked.
“Well,” replied Mr. Saunders slowly, “I kind of cal'late she started herself. There was some of the boys in here most of the evenin', and, jest like's not, a cigar butt, or a match, or somethin' dropped somewheres and got to smolderin', and smoldered along till bime-by—puff!” An expressive wave of a fat hand finished the sentence.
“Humph!” grunted the Captain. “Changed your mind sence last night. Seems to me I heard you then swearin' you knew 'twas set and who set it.”
“Well, ye-es. I was considerable shook up last night and maybe I said things I hadn't ought to. You see there's been a good deal of hard feelin's towards me in town and for a spell I thought some feller'd tried to burn me out. But I guess not; I guess not. More I think of it, more I think it catched itself. Seems to me I remember smellin' sort of a scorchin' smell when I was lockin' up. Oh, say! I was mighty sorry to hear 'bout Cap'n Baxter bein' took sick. The old man was dreadful down on liquor, but I laid that to his religion and never had no hard feelin's against him. How's he gittin' along?”
Captain Eri brusquely replied that his friend was “'bout the same,” and asked if Mr. Saunders intended to rebuild. “Web” didn't know just yet. He was a poor man, didn't carry much insurance, and so on. Thought likely he should fix up again if it didn't cost too much. Did the Doctor say whether Captain Baxter would pull through or not?
Captain Eri gave an evasive answer and turned away. He was silent for some little time, and when Ralph commented on “Web's” overnight change of manner, his rejoinder was to the effect that “ile was bound to rise, but that didn't mean there wa'n't dirty water underneath.” On the way home he asked Hazeltine concerning the trouble at the cable station, and how Mr. Langley had treated the matter.
Ralph replied that Mr. Langley had said nothing to him about it. It was his opinion that the old gentleman understood the affair pretty well, and was not disposed to blame him. As for the men, they had been as docile as lambs, and he thought the feeling toward himself was not as bitter as it had been. All of which his companion said he was glad to hear.
They separated at the gate, and the Captain entered the house to find Mrs. Snow wielding a broom and surrounded by a cloud of dust. Perez was upstairs with the patient, and Captain Jerry, whose habits had been considerably upset by the sweeping, was out in the barn.
That evening the situation was explained to Mrs. Snow by Captain Eri, in accordance with the talk at the breakfast table. The lady from Nantucket understood and respected Captain Jerry's unwillingness to discuss the marriage question while John Baxter's condition continued critical, and she agreed to act as nurse and housekeeper for a while, at least, for the sum of six dollars a week. This price was fixed only after considerable discussion by the three mariners, for Captain Eri was inclined to offer eight, and Captain Jerry but four.
When Ralph Hazeltine called late in the afternoon of the following day, the dining room was so transformed that he scarcely knew it. The dust had disappeared; the chronometer was polished till it shone; the table was covered with a cloth that was snow-white, and everything movable had the appearance of being in its place. Altogether, there was an evidence of order that was almost startling.
Captain Eri came to the door in response to his knock, and grinned appreciatively at his caller's look of wonder.
“I don't wonder you're s'prised,” he said, with a chuckle. “I ain't begun to git over it yit, myself, and Lorenzo's so shook up he ain't been in the house sence breakfast time. He's out in the barn, keepin' Dan'l comp'ny and waitin' for the end of the world to strike, I cal'late.”
Ralph laughed. “Mrs. Snow?” he inquired.
“Mrs. Snow,” answered the Captain. “It beats all what a woman can do when she's that kind of a woman. She's done more swabbin' decks and overhaulin' runnin' riggin' than a new mate on a clipper. The place is so all-fired clean that I feel like brushin' myself every time I go to set down.”
“How's Captain Baxter?” asked Hazeltine.
“Seems to be some better. He come to a little this mornin', and seemed to know some of us, but he ain't sensed where he is yit, nor I don't b'lieve he will fur a spell. Set down and keep me comp'ny. It's my watch jest now. Perez, he's over to Barry's; Jerry's up to the schoolhouse, and Mrs. Snow's run up to the post-office to mail a letter. John's asleep, so I can stay downstairs a little while, long's the door's open. What's the news uptown? Web changed his mind ag'in 'bout the fire?”
It appeared that Mr. Saunders had not changed his mind, at least so current gossip reported. And it may be remarked here that, curiously enough, the opinion that the fire “caught itself” came at last to be generally accepted in the village. For some weeks Captain Eri was troubled with thoughts concerning the missing coat, but, as time passed, and the accusing garment did not turn up, he came to believe that some boy must have found it and that it had, in all probability, been destroyed. There were, of course, some persons who still suspected John Baxter as the incendiary, but the old man's serious illness and respect for his former standing in the community kept these few silent. The Baxter house had been locked up and the Captain had the key.
Hazeltine and his host chatted for a few minutes on various topics. The gilt titles on the imposing “Lives of Great Naval Commanders,” having received their share of the general dusting, now shone forth resplendent, and the Captain noticed Ralph's eye as it involuntarily turned toward them.
“Noticin' our library?” he chuckled. “Perez' property, that is. 'Gusty Black talked him into buyin' 'em. Never met 'Gusty, did you? No, I guess likely not. She lives over to the Neck, and don't git down to the village much. 'Gusty's what you call a business woman. She' always up to somethin' to make a dollar, and she's as slick a talker as ever was, I guess. She never give Perez no rest till he signed the deed for them books. Told him they'd give liter'ry tone to the shebang. Perez started to read 'em out loud when they fust come, but he had to stop so often to spell out the furrin names that me and Jerry used to go to sleep. That made him mad, and he said, liter'ry tone be durned; he wa'n't goin' to waste his breath readin' us to sleep; so they've been on the shelf ever sence.”
Ralph laughed. “So you have book agents, too?” he said.
“Well, we've got 'Gusty,” was the reply, “and she's enough to keep us goin'. Gits round reg'lar as clockwork once a month to collect the two dollars from Perez. It's her day now, and I told Perez that that was why he sneaked off to Barry's. You see, 'Gusty's after him to buy the history of Methuselah, or some old critter, and he don't like to see her. She's after me, too, but I'm 'fraid she don't git much encouragement.”
After they had talked a little longer, the Captain seemed to remember something, for he glanced at his watch and said, “Mr. Hazeltine, I wonder if I could git you to do me a favor. I really ought to go down and see to my shanty. Ain't been there sence day afore yesterday, and there's so many boys 'round, I'm 'fraid to leave it unlocked much longer. I thought some of the folks would be back 'fore this, but if you could stay here long enough for me to run down there a minute or two, I'd be ever so much obliged. I'll step up and see how John is.”
He went upstairs and returned to report that the patient was quiet and seemed to be asleep.
“If you hear him groan, or anything,” he said, “jest come to the door and whistle. Whistle anyway, if you want me. Ain't nobody likely to come, 'less it's 'Gusty or the Reverend Perley come to ask 'bout John. If it's a middlin' good-lookin' young woman with a satchel, that's 'Gusty. Don't whistle; tell her I'm out. I'll be back in a jiffy, but you needn't tell either of them so unless your conscience hurts you TOO much.”
After the Captain had gone Ralph took down a volume of the “Great Commanders” and sat down in a chair by the table to look it over. He was smiling over the gaudy illustrations and flamboyant descriptions of battles, when there was a step on the walk outside and knock at the door. “Which is it,” he thought, “'Gusty or the Reverend?”
Obviously it was Miss Black. She stood on the mica slab that formed the step and looked up at him as he swung the door open. She had a small leather bag in her hand, just as the Captain had said she would have, but it flashed across Mr. Hazeltine's mind that the rest of the description was not a fair one; she was certainly much more than “middlin' good-lookin'!”
“Is Captain Hedge in?” she asked.
Now, from his friend's hints, Ralph had expected to hear a rather sharp and unpleasant voice,—certain disagreeable remembrances of former encounters with female book agents had helped to form the impression perhaps,—but Miss Black's voice was mellow, quiet, and rather pleasing than otherwise.
“No,” said Mr. Hazeltine, obeying orders with exactitude. “Captain Hedge is out just now.”
“'Gusty”—somehow the name didn't seem to fit—was manifestly disappointed.
“Oh, dear!” she said, and then added, “Will he be back soon?”
Now this was a question unprovided for. Ralph stammered, and then miserably equivocated. He really couldn't say just when the Captain would return.
“Oh, dear!” said the young lady again. Then she seemed to be waiting for some further observation on the part of the gentleman at the door. None being forthcoming, she seemed to make up her mind to act on her own initiative.
“I think I will come in and wait,” she said with decision. And come in she did, Mr. Hazeltine not knowing exactly what to do, under the circumstances.
Now this was much more in keeping with the electrician's preconceived ideas of a book agent's behavior; nevertheless, when he turned and found the young lady standing in the middle of the floor, he felt obliged to be at least decently polite.
“Won't you take a chair?” he asked.
“Thank you,” said the caller, and took one.
The situation was extremely awkward, but Ralph felt that loyalty to Captain Eri forbade his doing anything that might urge the self-possessed Miss Black to prolong her visit, so for a time he said nothing. The young lady looked out of the window and Mr. Hazeltine looked at her. He was more than ever of the opinion that the “middlin'” term should be cut out of her description. He rather liked her appearance, so he decided. He liked the way she wore her hair; so simple an arrangement, but so effective. Also he liked her dress. It was the first tailor-made walking suit he had seen since his arrival in Orham. And worn by a country book agent, of all people.
Just then Miss Black turned and caught him intently gazing at her. She colored, apparently with displeasure, and looked out of the window again. Mr. Hazeltine colored also and fidgeted with the book on the table. The situation was confoundedly embarrassing. He felt that he must say something now, so he made the original observation that it had been a pleasant day.
To this the young lady agreed, but there was no enthusiasm in her tone. Then Ralph, nervously fishing for another topic, thought of the book in his hand.
“I was just reading this,” he said. “I found it quite interesting.”
The next moment he realized that he had said what, of all things, was the most impolitic. It was nothing less than a bid for a “canvass,” and he fully expected to be confronted with the necessary order blanks without delay. But, strangely enough, the book lady made no such move. She looked at him, it is true, but with an expression of surprise and what seemed to be amusement on her face. He was certain that her lips twitched as she said calmly:
“Did you? I am glad to hear it.”
This dispassionate remark was entirely unexpected, and the electrician, as Captain Eri would have said, “lost his bearings” completely.
“Yes—er, yes,” he stammered. “Very interesting indeed. I—I suppose you must take a good many orders in the course of a week.”
“A good many ORDERS?”
“Why, yes. Orders for the books, I mean. The books—the 'Great Naval Lives'—er—these books here.”
“I beg your pardon, but who do you think I am?”
And it was then that the perception of some tremendous blunder began to seize upon Mr. Hazeltine. He had been red before; now, he felt the redness creeping over his scalp under his hair.
“Why, why, Miss Black, I suppose; that is, I—”
Just here the door opened and Captain Eri came in. He took off his cap and then, seeing the visitor, remained standing, apparently waiting for an introduction. But the young lady did not keep him waiting long.
“Are you Captain Eri Hedge?” she asked.
“Yes'm,” answered the Captain.
“Oh, I'm SO glad. Your letter came this morning, and I hurried down on the first train. I'm Elizabeth Preston.”
Perhaps, on the whole, it is not surprising that Captain Eri didn't grasp the situation. Neither his two partners nor himself had given much thought to the granddaughter of the sick man in the upper room. The Captain knew that there was a granddaughter, hence his letter; but he had heard John Baxter speak of her as being in school somewhere in Boston, and had all along conceived of her as a miss of sixteen or thereabouts. No wonder that at first he looked at the stylishly gowned young woman, who stood before him with one gloved hand extended, in a puzzled, uncomprehending way.
“Excuse me, ma'am,” he said slowly, mechanically swallowing up the proffered hand in his own mammoth fist, “but I don't know's I jest caught the name. Would you mind sayin' it ag'in?”
“Elizabeth Preston,” repeated the visitor. “Captain Baxter's granddaughter. You wrote me that he was ill, you know, and I—”
“What!” roared the Captain, delighted amazement lighting up his face like a sunrise. “You don't mean to tell me you're 'Liz'beth Baxter's gal Elsie! Well! Well! I want to know! If this don't beat all! Set down! Take your things right off. I'm mighty glad to see you.”
Captain Eri's hand, with Miss Preston's hidden in it, was moving up and down as if it worked by a clock-work arrangement. The young lady withdrew her fingers from the trap as soon as she conveniently could, but it might have been noticed that she glanced at them when she had done so, as if to make sure that the original shape remained.
“Thank you, Captain Hedge,” she said. “And now, please tell me about grandfather. How is he? May I see him?”
The Captain's expression changed to one of concern.
“Why, now, Miss Preston,” he said, “your grandpa is pretty sick. Oh, I don't mean he's goin' to die right off or anything like that,” he added hastily. “I mean he's had a stroke of palsy, or somethin', and he ain't got so yit that he senses much of what goes on. Now I don't want to frighten you, you know, but really there's a chance—a leetle mite of a chance—that he won't know you. Don't feel bad if he don't, now will you?”
“I knew he must be very ill from your letter,” said the girl simply. “I was afraid that he might not be living when I reached here. They told me at the station that he was at your house and so I came. He has been very good to me and I—”
Her voice broke a little and she hesitated. Captain Eri was a picture of nervous distress.
“Yes, yes, I know,” he said hastily. “Don't you worry now. He's better; the Doctor said he was consid'rably better to-day; didn't he, Mr. Hazeltine? Why, what am I thinkin' of? Let me make you known to Mr. Hazeltine; next-door neighbor of ours; right acrost the road,” and he waved toward the bay.
Ralph and Miss Preston shook hands. The electrician managed to utter some sort of formality, but he couldn't have told what it was. He was glad when the Captain announced that, if Mr. Hazeltine would excuse them, he guessed Miss Preston and he would step upstairs and see John. The young lady took off her hat and jacket, and Captain Eri lighted a lamp, for it was almost dark by this time. As its light shone upon the visitor's face and hair the crimson flush before mentioned circumnavigated the electrician's head once more, and his bump of self-esteem received a finishing blow. That any man supposed to possess two fairly good eyes and a workable brain could have mistaken her for an Orham Neck book agent by the name of “'Gusty—'Gusty Black!” Heavens!
“I'll be down in a few minutes, Mr. Hazeltine,” said the Captain. “Set still, won't you?”
But Mr. Hazeltine wouldn't sit still. He announced that it was late and he must be going. And go he did, in spite of his host's protestations.
“Look out for the stairs,” cautioned the Captain, leading the way with the lamp. “The feller that built 'em must have b'lieved that savin' distance lengthens out life. Come to think of it, I wouldn't wonder if them stairs was the reason why me and Jerry and Perez took this house. They reminded us so of the shrouds on a three-master.”
Elsie Preston did her best to smile as her companion rattled on in this fashion, but both the smile and the Captain's cheerfulness were too plainly assumed to be convincing, and they passed down the hall in silence. At the open door of the sick room Captain Eri paused.
“He's asleep,” he whispered, “and, remember, if he wakes up and doesn't know you, you needn't feel bad.”
Elsie slipped by him and knelt by the bed, looking into the white, old face on the pillow. Somehow the harsh lines had faded out of it, and it looked only old and pitiful.
The Captain watched the tableau for a moment or two, and then tiptoed into the room and placed the lamp on the bureau.
“Now, I think likely,” he said in a rather husky whisper, “that you'd like to stay with your grandpa for a little while, so I'll go downstairs and see about supper. No, no, no!” he added, holding up his hand as the girl spoke some words of protest, “you ain't goin' nowheres to supper. You're goin' to stay right here. If you want me, jest speak.”
And he hurried downstairs and into the kitchen, clearing his throat with vigor and making a great to-do over the scratching of a match.
Mrs. Snow returned a few minutes later and to her the news of the arrival was told, as it was also to Perez and Jerry when they came. Mrs. Snow took charge of the supper arrangements. When the meal was ready, she said to Captain Eri:
“Now, I'll go upstairs and tell her to come down. I'll stay with Cap'n Baxter till you're through, and then p'raps, if one of you'll take my place, I'll eat my supper and wash the dishes. You needn't come up now. I'll introduce myself.”
Some few minutes passed before Miss Preston came down. When she did so her eyes were wet, but her manner was cheerful, and the unaffected way in which she greeted Captain Perez and Captain Jerry, when these two rather bashful mariners were introduced by Eri, won them at once.
The supper was a great success. It was Saturday night, and a Saturday night supper to the average New Englander means baked beans. The captains had long ago given up this beloved dish, because, although each had tried his hand at preparing it, none had wholly succeeded, and the caustic criticisms of the other two had prevented further trials. But Mrs. Snow's baked beans were a triumph. So, also, was the brown bread.
“I snum,” exclaimed Captain Perez, “if I don't b'lieve I'd sooner have these beans than turkey. What do you say, Jerry?”
“I don't know but I had,” assented the sacrifice, upon whose countenance sat a placidity that had not been there since the night of the “matching.” “'Specially if the turkey was like the one we tried to cook last Thanksgivin'. 'Member that, Eri?”
Captain Eri, his mouth full, grunted an emphatic assent.
“Tell me,” said Miss Preston, who had eaten but little, but was apparently getting more satisfaction from watching her companions, “did you three men try to keep house here alone?”
“Yes,” answered Eri dryly. “We tried. First we thought 'twas goin' to be fine; then we thought we'd like it better after we got used to it; finally we decided that by the time we got used to it we'd die, like the horse that was fed on sawdust.”
“And so you hired Mrs. Snow to keep house for you? Well, I don't see how you could have made a better choice; she's a dear, good woman; I'm sure of it. And now I want to thank you all for what you've done for grandfather. Mrs. Snow told me all about it; you've been so kind that I—”
“That's all right! that's all right!” hastily interrupted Captain Eri. “Pity if we couldn't help out a shipmate we've sailed with for years and years. But you'd ought to have tried some of OUR cookin'. Tell her about the sugar cake you made, Perez. The one that killed the yaller chicken.”
So Captain Perez told it, and then their visitor set them all laughing by relating some queer housekeeping experiences that she and a school friend had had while camping at Chautauqua. Somehow each one felt at home with her. As Captain Eri said afterwards, “She didn't giggle, and then ag'in she didn't talk down at you.”
As they rose from the table the young lady asked a question concerning the location of the hotel. The Captain made no answer at the time, but after a short consultation with the remainder of the triumvirate, he came to her as she stood by the window and, laying his hand on her shoulder, said:
“Now, Elsie—I hope you don't mind my callin' you Elsie, but I've been chums with your grandpa so long seems's if you must be a sort of relation of mine—Elsie, you ain't goin' to no hotel, that is, unless you're real set on it. Your grandpa's here and we're here, and there's room enough. I don't want to say too much, but I'd like to have you b'lieve that me and Perez and Jerry want you to stay right in this house jest as long's you stop in Orham. Now you will, won't you?”
And so it was settled, and Captain Perez harnessed Daniel and went to the station for the trunk.
That evening, just before going to bed, the captains stood by the door of the sick room watching Elsie and the lady from Nantucket as they sat beside John Baxter's bed. Mrs. Snow was knitting, and Elsie was reading. Later, as Captain Eri peered out of the dining-room window to take a final look at the sky in order to get a line on the weather, he said slowly:
“Fellers, do you know what I was thinkin' when I see them two women in there with John? I was thinkin' that it must be a mighty pleasant thing to know that if you're took sick somebody like that 'll take care of you.”
Perez nodded. “I think so, too,” he said.
But if this was meant to influence the betrothed one, it didn't succeed, apparently, for all Captain Jerry said was:
“Humph! 'Twould take more than that to make me hanker after a stroke of palsy.”
And with the coming of Elsie Preston and Mrs. Snow life in the little house by the shore took on a decided change. The Nantucket lady having satisfied herself that John Baxter's illness was likely to be a long one, wrote several letters to persons in her native town, which letters, although she did not say so, were supposed by the captains to deal with the care of her property while she was away. Having apparently relieved her mind by this method, and evidently considering the marriage question postponed for the present, she settled down to nurse the sick man and to keep house as, in her opinion, a house should be kept. The captains knew nothing of her past history beyond what they had gathered from stray bits of her conversation. She evidently did not consider it necessary to tell anything further, and, on the other hand, asked no questions.
In her care of Baxter she was more like a sister than a hired nurse. No wife could have been more tender in her ministrations or more devotedly anxious for the patient's welfare.
In her care of the house, she was neatness itself. She scoured and swept and washed until the rooms were literally spotless. Order was Heaven's first law, in her opinion, and she expected everyone else to keep up to the standard. Captain Perez and Captain Eri soon got used to the change and gloried in it, but to Captain Jerry it was not altogether welcome.
“Oh, cat's foot!” he exclaimed one day, after hunting everywhere for his Sunday tie, and at length finding it in his bureau drawer. “I can't git used to this everlastin' spruced-up bus'ness. Way it used to be, this necktie was likely to be 'most anywheres 'round, and if I looked out in the kitchen or under the sofy, I was jest as likely to find it. But now everything's got a place and is in it.”
“Well, that's the way it ought to be, ain't it?” said Eri. “Then all you've got to do is look in the place.”
“Yes, and that's jest it, I'm always forgittin' the place. My shoes is sech a place; my hankerchers is sech a place; my pipe is sech a place; my terbacker is another place. When I want my pipe I look where my shoes is, and when I want my shoes I go and look where I found my pipe. How a feller's goin' to keep run of 'em is what I can't see.”
“You was the one that did most of the growlin' when things was the old way.”
“Yes, but jest 'cause a man don't want to live in a pigpen it ain't no sign he wants to be put under a glass case.”
Elsie's influence upon the house and its inmates had become almost as marked as Mrs. Snow's. The young lady was of an artistic bent, and the stiff ornaments in the shut-up parlor and the wonderful oil-paintings jarred upon her. Strange to say, even the wax-dipped wreath that hung in its circular black frame over the whatnot did not appeal to her. The captains considered that wreath—it had been the principal floral offering at the funeral of Captain Perez's sister, and there was a lock of her hair framed with it—the gem of the establishment. They could understand, to a certain degree, why Miss Preston objected to the prominence given the spatter-work “God bless our Home” motto, but her failure to enthuse over the wreath was inexplicable.
But by degrees they became used to seeing the blinds open at the parlor windows the week through, and innovations like muslin curtains and vases filled with late wild flowers came to be at first tolerated and then liked. “Elsie's notions,” the captains called them.
There were some great discussions on art, over the teacups after supper. Miss Preston painted very prettily in water-colors, and her sketches were received with enthusiastic praise by the captains and Mrs. Snow. But one day she painted a little picture of a fishing boat and, to her surprise, it came in for some rather sharp criticism.
“That's a pretty picture, Elsie,” said Captain Eri, holding the sketch at arm's length and squinting at it with his head on one side, “but if that's Caleb Titcomb's boat, and I jedge 'tis, it seems to me she's carryin' too much sail. What do you think, Jerry?”
Captain Jerry took the painting from his friend and critically examined it, also at arm's length.
“Caleb's boat ain't got no sech sail as that,” was his deliberate comment. “She couldn't carry it and stand up that way. Besides, the way I look at it, she's down by the head more 'n she'd ought to be.”
“But I didn't try to get it EXACTLY right,” said the bewildered artist. “The boat's sails were so white, and the water was so blue, and the sand so yellow that I thought it made a pretty picture. I didn't think of the size of the sail.”
“Well, I s'pose you wouldn't, nat'rally,” observed Captain Perez, who was looking over Jerry's shoulder. “But you have to be awful careful paintin' vessels. Now you jest look at that picture,” pointing to the glaring likeness of the Flying Duck, that hung on the wall. “Jest look at them sails, every one of 'em drawin' fine; and them ropes, every one in JEST the right place. That's what I call paintin'.”
“But don't you think, Captain Perez, that the waves in that picture would be better if they weren't so all in a row, like a picket fence?”
“Well, now, that ain't it. That's a picture of the A1 two-masted schooner Flyin' Duck, and the waves is only thrown in, as you might say. The reel thing is the schooner, rigged jest right, trimmed jest right, and colored jest the way the Flyin' Duck was colored. You understand them waves was put there jest 'cause there had to be some to set the schooner in, that's all.”
“But you needn't feel bad, Elsie,” said Captain Jerry soothingly. “'Tain't to be expected that you could paint vessels like Eben Lothrop can. Eben he used to work in a shipyard up to East Boston once, and when he was there he had to paint schooners and things, reely put the paint onto 'em I mean, so, of course, when it come to paintin' pictures of 'em, why—”
And Captain Jerry waved his hand.
So, as there was no answer to an argument like this, Miss Preston gave up marine painting for the time and began a water-color of the house and its inmates. This was an elaborate affair, and as the captains insisted that each member of the family, Daniel and Lorenzo included, should pose, it seemed unlikely to be finished for some months, at least.
Ralph Hazeltine called on the afternoon following Elsie's arrival, and Captain Eri insisted on his staying to tea. It might have been noticed that the electrician seemed a trifle embarrassed when Miss Preston came into the room, but as the young lady was not embarrassed in the least, and had apparently forgotten the mistaken-identity incident, his nervousness soon wore off.
But it came back again when Captain Eri said:
“Oh, I say, Mr. Hazeltine, I forgot to ask you, did 'Gusty come yesterday?”
Ralph answered, rather hurriedly, that she did not. He endeavored to change the subject, but the Captain wouldn't let him.
“Well, there!” he exclaimed amazedly; “if 'Gusty ain't broke her record! Fust time sence Perez was took with the 'Naval Commander' disease that she ain't been on hand when the month was up, to git her two dollars. Got so we sort of reckoned by her like an almanac. Kind of thought she was sure, like death and taxes. And now she has gone back on us. Blessed if I ain't disapp'inted in 'Gusty!”
“Who is she?” inquired Mrs. Snow. “One of those book-agent critters?”
“Well, if you called her that to her face, I expect there'd be squalls, but I cal'late she couldn't prove a alibi in court.”
Now it may have been Mr. Hazeltine's fancy, but he could have sworn that there was just the suspicion of a twinkle in Miss Preston's eye as she asked, innocently enough:
“Is she a young lady, Captain Eri?”
“Well, she hopes she is,” was the deliberate answer. “Why?”
“Does she look like me?”
“Like YOU? Oh, my soul and body! Wait till you see her. What made you ask that?”
“Oh, nothing! I was a little curious, that's all. Have you seen her, Mr. Hazeltine?”
Ralph stammered, somewhat confusedly, that he hadn't had the pleasure. The Captain glanced from the electrician to Miss Preston and back again. Then he suddenly realized the situation.
“Ho! ho!” he roared, slapping his knee and rocking back and forth in his chair. “Don't for the land's sake tell me you took Elsie here for 'Gusty Black! Don't now! Don't!”
“He asked me if I had taken many orders,” remarked the young lady demurely.
When the general hilarity had abated a little Ralph penitently explained that it was dark, that Captain Eri had said Miss Black was young, and that she carried a bag.
“So I did, so I did,” chuckled the Captain. “I s'pose 'twas nat'ral enough, but, oh dear, it's awful funny! Now, Elsie, you'd ought to feel flattered. Wait till you see 'Gusty's hat, the one she got up to Boston.”
“Am I forgiven, Miss Preston?” asked Hazeltine, as he said good-night.
“Well, I don't know,” was the rather non-committal answer. “I think I shall have to wait until I see 'Gusty.”
But Mr. Hazeltine apparently took his forgiveness for granted, for his calls became more and more frequent, until his dropping in after supper came to be a regular occurrence. Young people of the better class are scarce in Orham during the fall and winter months, and Ralph found few congenial companions. He liked the captains and Mrs. Snow, and Elsie's society was a relief after a day with the operators at the station. Mr. Langley was entirely absorbed in his business, and spent his evenings in his room, reading and smoking.
So September and October passed and November came. School opened in October and the captains had another boarder, for Josiah Bartlett, against his wishes, gave up his position as stage-driver, and was sent to school again. As the boy was no longer employed at the livery stable, Captain Perez felt the necessity of having him under his eye, and so Josiah lived at the house by the shore, a cot being set up in the parlor for his use. His coming made more work for Mrs. Snow, but that energetic lady did not seem to mind, and even succeeded in getting the youngster to do a few “chores” about the place, an achievement that won the everlasting admiration of Captain Perez, who had no governing power whatever over the boy, and condoned the most of his faults or scolded him feebly for the others.
John Baxter continued to waver between this world and the next. He had intervals of consciousness in which he recognized the captains and Elsie, but these rational moments were few and, although he talked a little, he never mentioned recent events nor alluded to the fire.
The fire itself became an old story and gossip took up other subjects. The “Come-Outers” held a jubilee service because of the destruction of the saloon, but, as “Web” soon began to rebuild and repair, their jollification was short-lived. As for Mr. Saunders, he was the same unctuous, smiling personage that he had formerly been. It was a curious fact, and one that Captain Eri noted, that he never ceased to inquire after John Baxter's health, and seemed honestly glad to hear of the old man's improvement. He asked a good many questions about Elsie, too, but received little satisfaction from the Captain on this subject.
Captain Jerry sat behind the woodshed, in the sunshine, smoking and thinking. He had done a good deal of the first ever since he was sixteen years old; the second was, in a measure, a more recent acquirement. The Captain had things on his mind.
It was one of those perfect, springlike mornings that sometimes come in early November. The sky was clear blue, and the air was so free from haze that the houses at Cranberry Point could be seen in every detail. The flag on the cable station across the bay stood out stiff in the steady breeze, and one might almost count the stripes. The pines on Signal Hill were a bright green patch against the yellow grass. The sea was a dark sapphire, with slashes of silver to mark the shoals, and the horizon was notched with sails. The boats at anchor in front of the shanties swung with the outgoing tide.
Then came Captain Eri, also smoking.
“Hello!” said Captain Jerry. “How is it you ain't off fishin' a mornin' like this?”
“Somethin' else on the docket,” was the answer. “How's matchmakin' these days?”
Now this question touched vitally the subject of Captain Jerry's thoughts. From a placid, easygoing retired mariner, recent events had transformed the Captain into a plotter, a man with a “deep-laid scheme,” as the gentlemanly, cigarette-smoking villain of the melodrama used to love to call it. To tell the truth, petticoat government was wearing on him. The marriage agreement, to which his partners considered him bound, and which he saw no way to evade, hung over him always, but he had put this threat of the future from his mind so far as possible. He had not found orderly housekeeping the joy that he once thought it would be, but even this he could bear. Elsie Preston was the drop too much.
He liked Mrs. Snow, except in a marrying sense. He liked Elsie better than any young lady he had ever seen. The trouble was, that between the two, he, as he would have expressed it, “didn't have the peace of a dog.”
Before Elsie came, a game of checkers between Perez and himself had been the regular after-supper amusement. Now they played whist, Captain Eri and Elsie against him and his former opponent. As Elsie and her partner almost invariably won, and as Perez usually found fault with him because they lost, this was not an agreeable change. But it was but one. He didn't like muslin curtains in his bedroom, because they were a nuisance when he wanted to sit up in bed and look out of the window; but the curtains were put there, and everybody else seemed to think them beautiful, so he could not protest. Captain Perez and Captain Eri had taken to “dressing up” for supper, to the extent of putting on neckties and clean collars. Also they shaved every day. He stuck to the old “twice-a-week” plan for a while, but looked so scrubby by contrast that out of mere self-respect he had to follow suit. Obviously two females in the house were one too many. Something had to be done.
Ralph Hazeltine's frequent calls gave him the inspiration he was looking for. This was to bring about a marriage between Ralph and Miss Preston. After deliberation he decided that if this could be done the pair would live somewhere else, even though John Baxter was still too ill to be moved. Elsie could come in every day, but she would be too busy with her own establishment to bother with the “improvement” of theirs. It wasn't a very brilliant plan and had some vital objections, but Captain Jerry considered it a wonder.
He broached it to his partners, keeping his real object strictly in the background and enlarging upon his great regard for Ralph and Elsie, and their obvious fitness for each other. Captain Perez liked the scheme well enough, provided it could be carried out. Captain Eri seemed to think it better to let events take their own course. However, they both agreed to help if the chance offered.
So, when Mr. Hazeltine called to spend the evening, Captain Jerry would rise from his chair and, with an elaborate cough and several surreptitious winks to his messmates, would announce that he guessed he would “take a little walk,” or “go out to the barn,” or something similar. Captain Perez would, more than likely, go also. As for Captain Eri, he usually “cal'lated” he would step upstairs, and see how John was getting along.
But in spite of this loyal support, the results obtained from Captain Jerry's wonderful plan had not been so startlingly successful as to warrant his feeling much elated. Ralph and Elsie were good friends and seemed to enjoy each other's society, but that was all that might be truthfully said, so far.
Captain Jerry, therefore, was a little discouraged as he sat in the sunshine and smoked and pondered. He hid his discouragement, however, and in response to Captain Eri's question concerning the progress of the matchmaking, said cheerfully:
“Oh, it's comin' along, comin' along. Kind of slow, of course, but you can't expect nothin' diff'rent. I s'pose you noticed he was here four times last week?”
“Why, no,” said Captain Eri, “I don't know's I did.”
“Well, he was, and week a fore that 'twas only three. So that's a gain, ain't it?”
“Sartin.”
“I didn't count the time he stopped after a drink of water neither. That wasn't a real call, but—”
“Oh, it ought to count for somethin'! Call it a ha'f a time. That would make four times and a ha'f he was here.”
Captain Jerry looked suspiciously at his friend's face, but its soberness was irreproachable, so he said:
“Well, it's kind of slow work, but, as I said afore, it's comin' along, and I have the satisfaction of knowin' it's all for their good.”
“Yes, like the feller that ate all the apple-dumplin's so's his children wouldn't have the stomach-ache. But say, Jerry, I come out to ask if you'd mind bein' housekeeper to-day. Luther Davis has been after me sence I don't know when to come down to the life-savin' station and stay to dinner. His sister Pashy—the old maid one—is down there, and it's such a fine day I thought I'd take Perez and Elsie and Mrs. Snow and, maybe, Hazeltine along. Somebody's got to stay with John, and I thought p'raps you would. I'd stay myself only Luther asked me so particular, and you was down there two or three months ago. When Josiah comes back from school he'll help you some, if you need him.”
Captain Jerry didn't mind staying at home, and so Eri went into the house to make arrangements for the proposed excursion. He had some difficulty in persuading Mrs. Snow and Elsie to leave the sick man, but both were tired and needed a rest, and there was a telephone at the station, so that news of a change in the patient's condition could be sent almost immediately. Under these conditions, and as Captain Jerry was certain to take good care of their charge, the two were persuaded to go. Perez took the dory and rowed over to the cable station to see if Mr. Hazeltine cared to make one of the party. When he returned, bringing the electrician with him, Daniel, harnessed to the carryall, was standing at the side door, and Captain Eri, Mrs. Snow, and Elsie were waiting.
Ralph glanced at the carryall, and then at those who were expected to occupy it.
“I think I'd better row down, Captain,” he said. “I don't see how five of us are going to find room in there.”
“What, in a carryall?” exclaimed the Captain. “Why, that's what a carryall's for. I've carried six in a carryall 'fore now. 'Twas a good while ago, though,” he added with a chuckle, “when I was consid'rable younger 'n I am now. Squeezin' didn't count in them days, 'specially if the girls wanted to go to camp-meetin'. I cal'late we can fix it. You and me'll set on the front seat, and the rest in back. Elsie ain't a very big package, and Perez, he's sort of injy-rubber; he'll fit in 'most anywheres. Let's try it anyhow.”
And try it they did. While it was true that Elsie was rather small, Mrs. Snow was distinctly large, and how Captain Perez, in spite of his alleged elasticity, managed to find room between them is a mystery. He, however, announced that he was all right, adding, as a caution:
“Don't jolt none, Eri, 'cause I'm kind of hangin' on the little aidge of nothin'.”
“I'll look out for you,” answered his friend, picking up the reins. “All ashore that's goin' ashore. So long, Jerry. Git dap, Thousand Dollars!”
Daniel complacently accepted this testimony to his monetary worth and jogged out of the yard. Fortunately appearances do not count for much in Orham, except in the summer, and the spectacle of five in a carryall is nothing out of the ordinary. They turned into the “cliff road,” the finest thoroughfare in town, kept in good condition for the benefit of the cottagers and the boarders at the big hotel. The ocean was on the left, and from the hill by the Barry estate—Captain Perez' charge—they saw twenty miles of horizon line with craft of all descriptions scattered along it.
Schooners there were of all sizes, from little mackerel seiners to big four- and five-masters. A tug with a string of coal barges behind it was so close in that they could make out the connecting hawsers. A black freight steamer was pushing along, leaving a thick line of smoke like a charcoal mark on the sky. One square-rigger was in sight, but far out.
“What do you make of that bark, Perez?” inquired Captain Eri, pointing to the distant vessel. “British, ain't she?”
Captain Perez leaned forward and peered from under his hand. “French, looks to me,” he said.
“Don't think so. Way she's rigged for'ard looks like Johnny Bull. Look at that fo'tops'l.”
“Guess you're right, Eri, now I come to notice it. Can you make out her flag? Wish I'd brought my glass.”
“Great Scott, man!” exclaimed Ralph. “What sort of eyes have you got? I couldn't tell whether she had a flag or not at this distance. How do you do it?”
“'Cordin' to how you're brought up, as the goat said 'bout eatin' shingle-nails,” replied Captain Eri. “When you're at sea you've jest got to git used to seein' things a good ways off and knowin' 'em when you see 'em, too.”
“I remember, one time,” remarked Mrs. Snow, “that my brother Nathan—he's dead now—was bound home from Hong Kong fust mate on the bark Di'mond King. 'Twas the time of the war and the Alabama was cruisin' 'round, lookin' out for our ships. Nate and the skipper—a Bangor man he was—was on deck, and they sighted a steamer a good ways off. The skipper spied her and see she was flyin' the United States flag. But when Nate got the glass he took one look and says, 'That Yankee buntin' don't b'long over that English hull,' he says. You see he knew she was English build right away. So the skipper pulled down his own flag and h'isted British colors, but 'twa'n't no use; the steamer was the Alabama sure enough, and the Di'mond King was burned, and all hands took pris'ners. Nate didn't git home for ever so long, and everybody thought he was lost.”
This set the captains going, and they told sea-stories until they came to the road that led down to the beach beneath the lighthouse bluff. The lifesaving station was in plain sight now, but on the outer beach, and that was separated from them by a two-hundred-yard stretch of water.
“Well,” observed Captain Eri, “here's where we take Adam's bridge.”
“Adam's bridge?” queried Elsie, puzzled.
“Yes; the only kind he had, I cal'late. Git dap, Daniel! What are you waitin' for? Left your bathin' suit to home?”
Then, as Daniel stepped rather gingerly into the clear water, he explained that, at a time ranging from three hours before low tide to three hours after, one may reach the outer beach at this point by driving over in an ordinary vehicle. The life-savers add to this time-limit by using a specially built wagon, with large wheels and a body considerably elevated.
“Well, there now!” exclaimed the lady from Nantucket, as Daniel splashingly emerged on the other side. “I thought I'd done about everything a body could do with salt water, but I never went ridin' in it afore.”
The remainder of the way to the station was covered by Daniel at a walk, for the wheels of the heavy carryall sank two inches or more in the coarse sand as they turned. The road wound between sand dunes, riven and heaped in all sorts of queer shapes by the wind, and with clumps of the persevering beach grass clinging to their tops like the last treasured tufts of hair on partially bald heads. Here and there, half buried, sand-scoured planks and fragments of spars showed, relics of wrecks that had come ashore in past winters.
“Five years ago,” remarked Captain Eri, “there was six foot of water where we are now. This beach changes every winter. One good no'theaster jest rips things loose over here; tears out a big chunk of beach and makes a cut-through one season, and fills in a deep hole and builds a new shoal the next. I've heard my father tell 'bout pickin' huckleberries when he was a boy off where them breakers are now. Good dry land it was then. Hey! there's Luther. Ship ahoy, Lute!”
The little brown life-saving station was huddled between two sand-hills. There was a small stable and a henhouse and yard just behind it. Captain Davis, rawboned and brown-faced, waved a welcome to them from the side door.
“Spied you comin', Eri,” he said in a curiously mild voice, that sounded odd coming from such a deep chest. “I'm mighty glad to see you, too? Jump down and come right in. Pashy 'll be out in a minute. Here she is now.”
Miss Patience Davis was as plump as her brother was tall. She impressed one as a comfortable sort of person. Captain Eri did the honors and everyone shook hands. Then they went into the living room of the station.
What particularly struck Mrs. Snow was the neatness of everything. The brass on the pump in the sink shone like fire as the sunlight from the window struck it. The floor was white from scouring. There were shelves on the walls and on these, arranged in orderly piles, were canned goods of all descriptions. The table was covered with a figured oilcloth.
Two or three men, members of the crew, were seated in the wooden chairs along the wall, but rose as the party came in. Captain Davis introduced them, one after the other. Perhaps the most striking characteristic of these men was the quiet, almost bashful, way in which they spoke; they seemed like big boys, as much as anything, and yet the oldest was nearly fifty.
“Ever been in a life-saving station afore?” asked Captain Eri.
Elsie had not. Ralph had and so had Mrs. Snow, but not for years.
“This is where we keep the boat and the rest of the gear,” said Captain Davis, opening a door and leading the way into a large, low-studded room. “Them's the spare oars on the wall. The reg'lar ones are in the boat.”
The boat itself was on its carriage in the middle of the room. Along the walls on hooks hung the men's suits of oilskins and their sou'westers. The Captain pointed out one thing after another, the cork jackets and life-preservers, the gun for shooting the life line across a stranded vessel, the life car hanging from the roof, and the “breeches buoy.”
“I don't b'lieve you'd ever git me into that thing,” said the Nantucket lady decidedly, referring to the buoy. “I don't know but I'd 'bout as liefs be drownded as make sech a show of myself.”
“Took off a bigger woman than you one time,” said Captain Davis. “Wife of a Portland skipper, she was, and he was on his fust v'yage in a brand-new schooner jest off the stocks. Struck on the Hog's Back off here and then drifted close in and struck again. We got 'em all, the woman fust. That was the only time we've used the buoy sence I've been at the station. Most of the wrecks are too fur off shore and we have to git out the boat.”
He took them upstairs to the men's sleeping rooms and then up to the little cupola on the roof.
“Why do you have ground-glass windows on this side of the house?” asked Elsie, as they passed the window on the landing.
Captain Davis laughed.
“Well, it is pretty nigh ground-glass now,” he answered, “but it wa'n't when it was put in. The sand did that. It blows like all possessed when there's a gale on.”
“Do you mean that those windows were ground that way by the beach sand blowing against them?” asked Ralph, astonished.
“Sartin. Git a good no'therly wind comin' up the beach and it fetches the sand with it. Mighty mean stuff to face, sand blowin' like that is; makes you think you're fightin' a nest of yaller-jackets.”
With the telescope in the cupola they could see for miles up and down the beach and out to sea. An ocean tug bound toward Boston was passing, and Elsie, looking through the glass, saw the cook come out of the galley, empty a pan over the side, and go back again.
“Let me look through that a minute,” said Captain Eri, when the rest had had their turn. He swung the glass around until it pointed toward their home away up the shore.
“Perez,” he called anxiously, “look here quick!”
Captain Perez hastily put his eye to the glass, and his friend went on:
“You see our house?” he said. “Yes; well, you see the dinin'-room door. Notice that chair by the side of it?”
“Yes, what of it?”
“Well, that's the rocker that Elsie made the velvet cushion for. I want you to look at the upper southeast corner of that cushion, and see if there ain't a cat's hair there. Lorenzo's possessed to sleep in that chair, and—”
“Oh, you git out!” indignantly exclaimed Captain Perez, straightening up.
“Well, it was a pretty important thing, and I wanted to make sure. I left that chair out there, and I knew what I'd catch if any cat's hairs got on that cushion while I was gone. Ain't that so, Mrs. Snow?”
The housekeeper expressed her opinion that Captain Eri was a “case,” whatever that may be.
They had clam chowder for dinner—a New England clam chowder, made with milk and crackers, and clams with shells as white as snow. They were what the New Yorker calls “soft-shell” clams, for a Fulton Market chowder is a “quahaug soup” to the native of the Cape.
Now that chowder was good; everybody said so, and if the proof of the chowder, like that of the pudding, is in the eating of it, this one had a clear case. Also, there were boiled striped bass, which is good enough for anybody, hot biscuits, pumpkin pie, and beach-plum preserves. There was a running fire of apologies from Miss Patience and answering volleys of compliments from Mrs. Snow.
“I don't see how you make sech beach-plum preserves, Miss Davis,” exclaimed the lady from Nantucket. “I declare! I'm goin' to ask you for another sasserful. I b'lieve they're the best I ever ate.”
“Well, now! Do you think so? I kind of suspected that the plums was a little mite too ripe. You know how 'tis with beach-plums, they've got to be put up when they're jest so, else they ain't good for much. I was at Luther for I don't know how long 'fore I could git him to go over to the P'int and pick 'em, and I was 'fraid he'd let it go too long. I only put up twenty-two jars of 'em on that account. How much sugar do you use?”
There was material here for the discussion that country housewives love, and the two ladies took advantage of it. When it was over the female portion of the company washed the dishes, while the men walked up and down the beach and smoked. Here they were joined after a while by the ladies, for even by the ocean it was as mild as early May, and the wind was merely bracing and had no sting in it.
The big blue waves shouldered themselves up from the bosom of the sea, marched toward the beach, and tumbled to pieces in a roaring tumult of white and green. The gulls skimmed along their tops or dropped like falling stones into the water after sand eels, emerging again, screaming, to repeat the performance.
The conversation naturally turned to wrecks, and Captain Davis, his reserve vanishing before the tactful inquiries of the captains and Ralph, talked shop and talked it well.
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