The Portygee

CHAPTER XV

There was nothing miraculous about it. That is to say, it was no more of a miracle than hundreds of similar cases in the World War. The papers of those years were constantly printing stories of men over whose supposed graves funeral sermons had been preached, to whose heirs insurance payments had been made, in whose memory grateful communities had made speeches and delivered eulogiums—the papers were telling of instance after instance of those men being discovered alive and in the flesh, as casuals in some French hospital or as inmates of German prison camps.

Rachel Ellis had asked what was to hinder Albert's having been taken prisoner by the Germans and carried off by them. As a matter of fact nothing had hindered and that was exactly what had happened. Sergeant Speranza, wounded by machine gun fire and again by the explosion of the grenade, was found in the ruins of the cottage when the detachment of the enemy captured it. He was conscious and able to speak, so instead of being bayonetted was carried to the rear where he might be questioned concerning the American forces. The questioning was most unsatisfactory to the Prussian officers who conducted it. Albert fainted, recovered consciousness and fainted again. So at last the Yankee swine was left to die or get well and his Prussian interrogators went about other business, the business of escaping capture themselves. But when they retreated the few prisoners, mostly wounded men, were taken with them.

Albert's recollections of the next few days were hazy and very doubtful. Pain, pain and more pain. Hours and hours—they seemed like years—of jolting over rough roads. Pawing-over by a fat, bearded surgeon, who may not have been intentionally brutal, but quite as likely may. A great desire to die, punctuated by occasional feeble spurts of wishing to live. Then more surgical man-handling, more jolting—in freight cars this time—a slow, miserable recovery, nurses who hated their patients and treated them as if they did, then, a prison camp, a German prison camp. Then horrors and starvation and brutality lasting many months. Then fever.

He was wandering in that misty land between this world and the next when, the armistice having been signed, an American Red Cross representative found him. In the interval between fits of delirium he told this man his name and regiment and, later, the name of his grandparents. When it seemed sure that he was to recover the Red Cross representative cabled the facts to this country. And, still later, those facts, or the all-important fact that Sergeant Albert M. C. Speranza was not dead but alive, came by telegraph to Captain Zelotes Snow of South Harniss. And, two months after that, Captain Zelotes himself, standing on the wharf in Boston and peering up at a crowded deck above him, saw the face of his grandson, that face which he had never expected to see again, looking eagerly down upon him.

A few more weeks and it was over. The brief interval of camp life and the mustering out were things of the past. Captain Lote and Albert, seated in the train, were on their way down the Cape, bound home. Home! The word had a significance now which it never had before. Home!

Albert drew a long breath. “By George!” he exclaimed. “By George, Grandfather, this looks good to me!”

It might not have looked as good to another person. It was raining, the long stretches of salt marsh were windswept and brown and bleak. In the distance Cape Cod Bay showed gray and white against a leaden sky. The drops ran down the dingy car windows.

Captain Zelotes understood, however. He nodded.

“It used to look good to me when I was bound home after a v'yage,” he observed. “Well, son, I cal'late your grandma and Rachel are up to the depot by this time waitin' for you. We ain't due for pretty nigh an hour yet, but I'd be willin' to bet they're there.”

Albert smiled. “My, I do want to see them!” he said.

“Shouldn't wonder a mite if they wanted to see you, boy. Well, I'm kind of glad I shooed that reception committee out of the way. I presumed likely you'd rather have your first day home to yourself—and us.”

“I should say so! Newspaper reporters are a lot of mighty good fellows, but I hope I never see another one. . . . That's rather ungrateful, I know,” he added, with a smile, “but I mean it—just now.”

He had some excuse for meaning it. The death of Albert Speranza, poet and warrior, had made a newspaper sensation. His resurrection and return furnished material for another. Captain Zelotes was not the only person to meet the transport at the pier; a delegation of reporters was there also. Photographs of Sergeant Speranza appeared once more in print. This time, however, they were snapshots showing him in uniform, likenesses of a still handsome, but less boyish young man, thinner, a scar upon his right cheek, and the look in his eyes more serious, and infinitely older, the look of one who had borne much and seen more. The reporters found it difficult to get a story from the returned hero. He seemed to shun the limelight and to be almost unduly modest and retiring, which was of itself, had they but known it, a transformation sufficiently marvelous to have warranted a special “Sunday special.”

“Will not talk about himself,” so one writer headed his article. Gertie Kendrick, with a brand-new ring upon her engagement finger, sniffed as she read that headline to Sam Thatcher, who had purchased the ring. “Al Speranza won't talk about himself!” exclaimed Gertie. “Well, it's the FIRST time, then. No wonder they put it in the paper.”

But Albert would not talk, claiming that he had done nothing worth talking about, except to get himself taken prisoner in almost his first engagement. “Go and ask some of the other fellows aboard here,” he urged. “They have been all through it.” As he would not talk the newspaper men were obliged to talk for him, which they did by describing his appearance and his manner, and by rehashing the story of the fight in the French village. Also, of course, they republished some of his verses. The Lances of Dawn appeared in a special edition in honor of its author's reappearance on this earth.

“Yes sir,” continued Captain Zelotes, “the reception committee was consider'ble disappointed. They'd have met you with the Orham band if they'd had their way. I told 'em you'd heard all the band music you wanted in camp, I guessed likely, and you'd rather come home quiet. There was goin' to be some speeches, too, but I had them put off.”

“Thanks, Grandfather.”

“Um-hm. I had a notion you wouldn't hanker for speeches. If you do Issy'll make one for you 'most any time. Ever since you got into the papers Issy's been swellin' up like a hot pop-over with pride because you and he was what he calls chummies. All last summer Issachar spent his evenin's hangin' around the hotel waitin' for the next boarder to mention your name. Sure as one did Is was ready for him. 'Know him?' he'd sing out. 'Did I know Al Speranza? ME? Well, now say!—' And so on, long as the feller would listen. I asked him once if he ever told any of 'em how you ducked him with the bucket of water. He didn't think I knew about that and it kind of surprised him, I judged.”

Albert smiled. “Laban told you about it, I suppose,” he said. “What a kid trick that was, wasn't it?”

The captain turned his head and regarded him for an instant. The old twinkle was in his eye when he spoke.

“Wouldn't do a thing like that now, Al, I presume likely?” he said. “Feel a good deal older now, eh?”

Albert's answer was seriously given.

“Sometimes I feel at least a hundred and fifty,” he replied.

“Humph! . . . Well, I wouldn't feel like that. If you're a hundred and fifty I must be a little older than Methuselah was in his last years. I'm feelin' younger to-day, younger than I have for quite a spell. Yes, for quite a spell.”

His grandson put a hand on his knee. “Good for you, Grandfather,” he said. “Now tell me more about Labe. Do you know I think the old chap's sticking by his pledge is the bulliest thing I've heard since I've been home.”

So they talked of Laban and of Rachel and of South Harniss happenings until the train drew up at the platform of that station. And upon that platform stepped Albert to feel his grandmother's arms about him and her voice, tremulous with happiness, at his ear. And behind her loomed Mrs. Ellis, her ample face a combination of smiles and tears, “all sunshine and fair weather down below but rainin' steady up aloft,” as Captain Lote described it afterwards. And behind her, like a foothill in the shadow of a mountain, was Laban. And behind Laban—No, that is a mistake—in front of Laban and beside Laban and in front of and beside everyone else when opportunity presented was Issachar. And Issachar's expression and bearings were wonderful to see. A stranger, and there were several strangers amid the group at the station, might have gained the impression that Mr. Price, with of course a very little help from the Almighty, was responsible for everything.

“Why, Issy!” exclaimed Albert, when they shook hands. “You're here, too, eh?”

Mr. Price's already protuberant chest swelled still further. His reply had the calmness of finality.

“Yes, sir,” said Issy, “I'm here. 'Who's goin' to look out for Z. Snow and Co. if all hands walks out and leaves 'em?' Labe says. 'I don't know,' says I, 'and I don't care. I'm goin' to that depot to meet Al Speranzy and if Z. Snow and Co. goes to pot while I'm gone I can't help it. I have sacrificed,' I says, 'and I stand ready to sacrifice pretty nigh everything for my business, but there's limits and this is one of 'em. I'm goin' acrost to that depot to meet him,' says I, 'and don't you try to stop me, Labe Keeler.'”

“Great stuff, Is!” said Albert, with a laugh. “What did Labe say to that?”

“What was there for him to say? He could see I meant it. Course he hove out some of his cheap talk, but it didn't amount to nothin'. Asked if I wan't goin' to put up a sign sayin' when I'd be back, so's to ease the customers' minds. 'I don't know when I'll be back,' I says. 'All right,' says he, 'put that on the sign. That'll ease 'em still more.' Just cheap talk 'twas. He thinks he's funny, but I don't pay no attention to him.”

Others came to shake hands and voice a welcome. The formal reception, that with the band, had been called off at Captain Zelotes's request, but the informal one was, in spite of the rain, which was now much less heavy, quite a sizable gathering.

The Reverend Mr. Kendall held his hand for a long time and talked much, it seemed to Albert that he had aged greatly since they last met. He wandered a bit in his remarks and repeated himself several times.

“The poor old gentleman's failin' a good deal, Albert,” said Mrs. Snow, as they drove home together, he and his grandparents, three on the seat of the buggy behind Jessamine. “His sermons are pretty tiresome nowadays, but we put up with 'em because he's been with us so long. . . . Ain't you squeezed 'most to death, Albert? You two big men and me all mashed together on this narrow seat. It's lucky I'm small. Zelotes ought to get a two-seated carriage, but he won't.”

“Next thing I get, Mother,” observed the captain, “will be an automobile. I'll stick to the old mare here as long as she's able to navigate, but when she has to be hauled out of commission I'm goin' to buy a car. I believe I'm pretty nigh the last man in this county to drive a horse, as 'tis. Makes me feel like what Sol Dadgett calls a cracked teapot—a 'genuine antique.' One of these city women will be collectin' me some of these days. Better look out, mother.”

Olive sighed happily. “It does me good to hear you joke again, Zelotes,” she said. “He didn't joke much, Albert, while—when we thought you—you—”

Albert interrupted in time to prevent the threatened shower.

“So Mr. Kendall is not well,” he said. “I'm very sorry to hear it.”

“Of course you would be. You and he used to be so friendly when Helen was home. Oh, speakin' of Helen, she IS comin' home in a fortni't or three weeks, so I hear. She's goin' to give up her teachin' and come back to be company for her father. I suppose she realizes he needs her, but it must be a big sacrifice for her, givin' up the good position she's got now. She's such a smart girl and such a nice one. Why, she came to see us after the news came—the bad news—and she was so kind and so good. I don't know what we should have done without her. Zelotes says so too, don't you, Zelotes?”

Her husband did not answer. Instead he said: “Well, there's home, Al. Rachel's there ahead of us and dinner's on the way, judgin' by the smoke from the kitchen chimney. How does the old place look to you, boy?”

Albert merely shook his head and drew a long breath, but his grandparents seemed to be quite satisfied.

There were letters and telegrams awaiting him on the table in the sitting-room. Two of the letters were postmarked from a town on the Florida coast. The telegram also was from that same town.

“I had one of those things,” observed Captain Zelotes, alluding to the telegram. “Fosdick sent me one of those long ones, night-letters I believe they call 'em. He wants me to tell you that Mrs. Fosdick is better and that they cal'late to be in New York before very long and shall expect you there. Of course you knew that, Al, but I presume likely the main idea of the telegram was to help say, 'Welcome home' to you, that's all.”

Albert nodded. Madeline and her mother had been in Florida all winter. Mrs. Fosdick's health was not good. She declared that her nerves had given way under her frightful responsibilities during the war. There was, although it seems almost sacrilege to make such a statement, a certain similarity between Mrs. Fletcher Fosdick and Issachar Price. The telegram was, as his grandfather surmised, an expression of welcome and of regret that the senders could not be there to share in the reception. The two letters which accompanied it he put in his pocket to read later on, when alone. Somehow he felt that the first hours in the old house belonged exclusively to his grandparents. Everything else, even Madeline's letters, must take second place for that period.

Dinner was, to say the least, an ample meal. Rachel and Olive had, as Captain Lote said, “laid themselves out” on that dinner. It began well and continued well and ended best of all, for the dessert was one of which Albert was especially fond. They kept pressing him to eat until Laban, who was an invited guest, was moved to comment.

“Humph!” observed Mr. Keeler. “I knew 'twas the reg'lar program to kill the fatted calf when the prodigal got home, but I see now it's the proper caper to fat up the prodigal to take the critter's place. No, no, Rachel, I'd like fust-rate to eat another bushel or so to please you, but somethin'—that still, small voice we're always readin' about, or somethin'—seems to tell me 'twouldn't be good jedgment. . . . Um-hm. . . . 'Twouldn't be good jedgment. . . . Cal'late it's right, too. . . . Yes, yes, yes.”

“Now, Cap'n Lote,” he added, as they rose from the table, “you stay right to home here for the rest of the day. I'll hustle back to the office and see if Issy's importance has bust his b'iler for him. So-long, Al. See you pretty soon. Got some things to talk about, you and I have. . . . Yes, yes.”

Later, when Rachel was in the kitchen with the dishes, Olive left the sitting room and reappeared with triumph written large upon her face. In one hand she held a mysterious envelope and in the other a book. Albert recognized that book. It was his own, The Lances of Dawn. It was no novelty to him. When first the outside world and he had reopened communication, copies of that book had been sent him. His publisher had sent them, Madeline had sent them, his grandparents had sent them, comrades had sent them, nurses and doctors and newspaper men had brought them. No, The Lances of Dawn was not a novelty to its author. But he wondered what was in the envelope.

Mrs. Snow enlightened him. “You sit right down now, Albert,” she said. “Sit right down and listen because I've got somethin' to tell you. Yes, and somethin' to show you, too. Here! Stop now, Zelotes! You can't run away. You've got to sit down and look on and listen, too.”

Captain Zelotes smiled resignedly. There was, or so it seemed to his grandson, an odd expression on his face. He looked pleased, but not altogether pleased. However, he obeyed his wife's orders and sat.

“Stop, look and listen,” he observed. “Mother, you sound like a railroad crossin'. All right, here I am. Al, the society of 'What did I tell you' is goin' to have a meetin'.”

His wife nodded. “Well,” she said, triumphantly, “what DID I tell you? Wasn't I right?”

The captain pulled his beard and nodded.

“Right as right could be, Mother,” he admitted. “Your figgers was a few hundred thousand out of the way, maybe, but barrin' that you was perfectly right.”

“Well, I'm glad to hear you say so for once in your life. Albert,” holding up the envelope, “do you know what this is?”

Albert, much puzzled, admitted that he did not. His grandmother put down the book, opened the envelope and took from it a slip of paper.

“And can you guess what THIS is?” she asked. Albert could not guess.

“It's a check, that's what it is. It's the first six months' royalties, that's what they call 'em, on that beautiful book of yours. And how much do you suppose 'tis?”

Albert shook his head. “Twenty-five dollars?” he suggested jokingly.

“Twenty-five dollars! It's over twenty-five HUNDRED dollars. It's twenty-eight hundred and forty-three dollars and sixty-five cents, that's what it is. Think of it! Almost three thousand dollars! And Zelotes prophesied that 'twouldn't be more than—”

Her husband held up his hand. “Sh-sh! Sh-sh, Mother,” he said. “Don't get started on what I prophesied or we won't be through till doomsday. I'll give in right off that I'm the worst prophet since the feller that h'isted the 'Fair and Dry' signal the day afore Noah's flood begun. You see,” he explained, turning to Albert, “your grandma figgered out that you'd probably clear about half a million on that book of poetry, Al. I cal'lated 'twan't likely to be much more'n a couple of hundred thousand, so—”

“Why, Zelotes Snow! You said—”

“Yes, yes. So I did, Mother, so I did. You was right and I was wrong. Twenty-eight hundred ain't exactly a million, Al, but it's a darn sight more than I ever cal'lated you'd make from that book. Or 'most anybody else ever made from any book, fur's that goes,” he added, with a shake of the head. “I declare, I—I don't understand it yet. And a poetry book, too! Who in time BUYS 'em all? Eh?”

Albert was looking at the check and the royalty statement.

“So this is why I couldn't get any satisfaction from the publisher,” he observed. “I wrote him two or three times about my royalties, and he put me off each time. I began to think there weren't any.”

Captain Zelotes smiled. “That's your grandma's doin's,” he observed. “The check came to us a good while ago, when we thought you was—was—well, when we thought—”

“Yes. Surely, I understand,” put in Albert, to help him out.

“Yes. That's when 'twas. And Mother, she was so proud of it, because you'd earned it, Al, that she kept it and kept it, showin' it to all hands and—and so on. And then when we found out you wasn't—that you'd be home some time or other—why, then she wouldn't let me put it in the bank for you because she wanted to give it to you herself. That's what she said was the reason. I presume likely the real one was that she wanted to flap it in my face every time she crowed over my bad prophesyin', which was about three times a day and four on Sundays.”

“Zelotes Snow, the idea!”

“All right, Mother, all right. Anyhow, she got me to write your publisher man and ask him not to give you any satisfaction about those royalties, so's she could be the fust one to paralyze you with 'em. And,” with a frank outburst, “if you ain't paralyzed, Al, I own up that I am. Three thousand poetry profits beats me. I don't understand it.”

His wife sniffed. “Of course you don't,” she declared. “But Albert does. And so do I, only I think it ought to have been ever and ever so much more. Don't you, yourself, Albert?”

The author of The Lances of Dawn was still looking at the statement of its earnings.

“Approximately eighteen thousand sold at fifteen cents royalty,” he observed. “Humph! Well, I'll be hanged!”

“But you said it would be twenty-five cents, not fifteen,” protested Olive. “In your letter when the book was first talked about you said so.”

Albert smiled. “Did I?” he observed. “Well, I said a good many things in those days, I'm afraid. Fifteen cents for a first book, especially a book of verse, is fair enough, I guess. But eighteen thousand SOLD! That is what gets me.”

“You mean you think it ought to be a lot more. So do I, Albert, and so does Rachel. Why, we like it a lot better than we do David Harum. That was a nice book, but it wasn't lovely poetry like yours. And David Harum sold a million. Why shouldn't yours sell as many? Only eighteen thousand—why are you lookin' at me so funny?”

Her grandson rose to his feet. “Let's let well enough alone, Grandmother,” he said. “Eighteen thousand will do, thank you. I'm like Grandfather, I'm wondering who on earth bought them.”

Mrs. Snow was surprised and a little troubled.

“Why, Albert,” she said, “you act kind of—kind of queer, seems to me. You talk as if your poetry wasn't beautiful. You know it is. You used to say it was, yourself.”

He interrupted her. “Did I, Grandmother?” he said. “All right, then, probably I did. Let's walk about the old place a little. I want to see it all. By George, I've been dreaming about it long enough!”

There were callers that afternoon, friends among the townsfolk, and more still after supper. It was late—late for South Harniss, that is—when Albert, standing in the doorway of the bedroom he nor they had ever expected he would occupy again, bade his grandparents good night. Olive kissed him again and again and, speech failing her, hastened away down the hall. Captain Zelotes shook his hand, opened his mouth to speak, shut it again, repeated both operations, and at last with a brief, “Well, good night, Al,” hurried after his wife. Albert closed the door, put his lamp upon the bureau, and sat down in the big rocker.

In a way the night was similar to that upon which he had first entered that room. It had ceased raining, but the wind, as on that first night, was howling and whining about the eaves, the shutters rattled and the old house creaked and groaned rheumatically. It was not as cold as on that occasion, though by no means warm. He remembered how bare and comfortless he had thought the room. Now it looked almost luxurious. And he had been homesick, or fancied himself in that condition. Compared to the homesickness he had known during the past eighteen months that youthful seizure seemed contemptible and quite without excuse. He looked about the room again, looked long and lovingly. Then, with a sigh of content, drew from his pocket the two letters which had lain upon the sitting-room table when he arrived, opened them and began to read.

Madeline wrote, as always, vivaciously and at length. The maternal censorship having been removed, she wrote exactly as she felt. She could scarcely believe he was really going to be at home when he received this, at home in dear, quaint, queer old South Harniss. Just think, she had not seen the place for ever and ever so long, not for over two years. How were all the funny, odd people who lived there all the time? Did he remember how he and she used to go to church every Sunday and sit through those dreadful, DREADFUL sermons by that prosy old minister just as an excuse for meeting each other afterward? She was SO sorry she could not have been there to welcome her hero when he stepped from the train. If it hadn't been for Mother's poor nerves she surely would have been. He knew it, didn't he? Of course he did. But she should see him soon “because Mother is planning already to come back to New York in a few weeks and then you are to run over immediately and make us a LONG visit. And I shall be so PROUD of you. There are lots of Army fellows down here now, officers for the most part. So we dance and are very gay—that is, the other girls are; I, being an engaged young lady, am very circumspect and demure, of course. Mother carries The Lances about with her wherever she goes, to teas and such things, and reads aloud from it often. Captain Blanchard, he is one of the family's officer friends, is crazy about your poetry, dear. He thinks it WONDERFUL. You know what I think of it, don't you, and when I think that I actually helped you, or played at helping you write some of it!

“And I am WILD to see your war cross. Some of the officers here have them—the crosses, I mean—but not many. Captain Blanchard has the military medal, and he is almost as modest about it as you are about your decoration. I don't see how you CAN be so modest. If I had a Croix de Guerre I should want EVERY ONE to know about it. At the tea dance the other afternoon there was a British major who—”

And so on. The second letter was really a continuation of the first. Albert read them both and, after the reading was finished, sat for some time in the rocking chair, quite regardless of the time and the cold, thinking. He took from his pocketbook a photograph, one which Madeline had sent him months before, which had reached him while he lay in the French hospital after his removal from the German camp. He looked at the pretty face in the photograph. She looked just as he remembered her, almost exactly as she had looked more than two years before, smiling, charming, carefree. She had not, apparently, grown older, those age-long months had not changed her. He rose and regarded his own reflection in the mirror of the bureau. He was surprised, as he was constantly being surprised, to see that he, too, had not changed greatly in personal appearance.

He walked about the room. His grandmother had told him that his room was just as he had left it. “I wouldn't change it, Albert,” she said, “even when we thought you—you wasn't comin' back. I couldn't touch it, somehow. I kept thinkin', 'Some day I will. Pretty soon I MUST.' But I never did, and now I'm so glad.”

He wandered back to the bureau and pulled open the upper drawers. In those drawers were so many things, things which he had kept there, either deliberately or because he was too indolent to destroy them. Old dance cards, invitations, and a bundle of photographs, snapshots. He removed the rubber band from the bundle and stood looking them over. Photographs of school fellows, of picnic groups, of girls. Sam Thatcher, Gertie Kendrick—and Helen Kendall. There were at least a dozen of Helen.

One in particular was very good. From that photograph the face of Helen as he had known it four years before looked straight up into his—clear-eyed, honest, a hint of humor and understanding and common-sense in the gaze and at the corners of the lips. He looked at the photograph, and the photograph looked up at him. He had not seen her for so long a time. He wondered if the war had changed her as it had changed him. Somehow he hoped it had not. Change did not seem necessary in her case.

There had been no correspondence between them since her letter written when she heard of his enlistment. He had not replied to that because he knew Madeline would not wish him to do so. He wondered if she ever thought of him now, if she remembered their adventure at High Point light. He had thought of her often enough. In those days and nights of horror in the prison camp and hospital he had found a little relief, a little solace in lying with closed eyes and summoning back from memory the things of home and the faces of home. And her face had been one of these. Her face and those of his grandparents and Rachel and Laban, and visions of the old house and the rooms—they were the substantial things to cling to and he had clung to them. They WERE home. Madeline—ah! yes, he had longed for her and dreamed of her, God knew, but Madeline, of course, was different.

He snapped the rubber band once more about the bundle of photographs, closed the drawer and prepared for bed.

For the two weeks following his return home he had a thoroughly good time. It was a tremendous comfort to get up when he pleased, to eat the things he liked, to do much or little or nothing at his own sweet will. He walked a good deal, tramping along the beach in the blustering wind and chilly sunshine and enjoying every breath of the clean salt air. He thought much during those solitary walks, and at times, at home in the evenings, he would fall to musing and sit silent for long periods. His grandmother was troubled.

“Don't it seem to you, Zelotes,” she asked her husband, “as if Albert was kind of discontented or unsatisfied these days? He's so—so sort of fidgety. Talks like the very mischief for ten minutes and then don't speak for half an hour. Sits still for a long stretch and then jumps up and starts off walkin' as if he was crazy. What makes him act so? He's kind of changed from what he used to be. Don't you think so?”

The captain patted her shoulder. “Don't worry, Mother,” he said. “Al's older than he was and what he's been through has made him older still. As for the fidgety part of it, the settin' down and jumpin' up and all that, that's the way they all act, so far as I can learn. Elisha Warren, over to South Denboro, tells me his nephew has been that way ever since he got back. Don't fret, Mother, Al will come round all right.”

“I didn't know but he might be anxious to see—to see her, you know.”

“Her? Oh, you mean the Fosdick girl. Well, he'll be goin' to see her pretty soon, I presume likely. They're due back in New York 'most any time now, I believe. . . . Oh, hum! Why in time couldn't he—”

“Couldn't he what, Zelotes?”

“Oh, nothin', nothin'.”

The summons came only a day after this conversation. It came in the form of another letter from Madeline and one from Mrs. Fosdick. They were, so the latter wrote, back once more in their city home, her nerves, thank Heaven, were quite strong again, and they were expecting him, Albert, to come on at once. “We are all dying to see you,” wrote Mrs. Fosdick. “And poor, dear Madeline, of course, is counting the moments.”

“Stay as long as you feel like, Al,” said the captain, when told of the proposed visit. “It's the dull season at the office, anyhow, and Labe and I can get along first-rate, with Issy to superintend. Stay as long as you want to, only—”

“Only what, Grandfather?”

“Only don't want to stay too long. That is, don't fall in love with New York so hard that you forget there is such a place as South Harniss.”

Albert smiled. “I've been in places farther away than New York,” he said, “and I never forgot South Harniss.”

“Um-hm. . . . Well, I shouldn't be surprised if that was so. But you'll have better company in New York than you did in some of those places. Give my regards to Fosdick. So-long, Al.”