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“Then, Josiah, if you ain’t love-sick, what is it?”
“Maybe that’s a part of what’s ailing me. But what I want you to say this morning is that you ain’t got nothing against me for what I said yesterday about you taking to sea in my dory.”
“Josiah, that was awful foolish in me. You’d best forgive me, too, for the way I acted.”
“Thanks, Clemmie. You’ve sartinly done me many a good turn, and it would be a wonder if I wa’n’t in love with you. You’ve always been mighty good and kind to me. But, there, don’t you get excited again, I ain’t going to say nothing more about it.”
“Tell me about your trouble, Josiah.”
The old seaman pulled hard at the ends of his ragged moustache, and his voice grew husky. “I felt just like I had to tell somebody. I was going to tell Mack last night when I see a light in his study, but when I went in I see he had all he could tote, so I just went on up to my room without telling him....218You know I’ve been out of a job for quite a spell.”
“It has been long for you,” nodded Miss Pipkin as she drew another chair opposite. “But you’ve got the church to look after.”
“That ain’t my trade, and it comes hard. I feel all the time like I’d clumb onto the wrong deck. I’d hoped to get a ship afore now. Jim promised me one, and–––”
“Do you mean you’ve been expecting to get a ship through Jim Fox? Why, Josiah Pott! He’d not give you a splinter to hang on if you was drowning. Depending on him! Pooh! I thought you had more sense than that.”
“But I ain’t. I’m just what I’ve told you afore, an old fool. I cal’late I know how you feel about Jim. I’d always felt that way, too, till he come honeying round me this spring. You called me once an old fool with good intentions. I cal’late you ain’t far off in your soundings.”
“I never said that!” she rejoined. “Anyhow, I didn’t mean it like that.”
“You don’t need to excuse what you said.219It’s God’s truth. That’s exactly what I be.”
“You ain’t, neither, and I don’t see why you want to talk that way. What I don’t see, neither, is why you want to go hanging round, waiting for that man to give you a ship. There’s plenty of others that would be glad to get you.”
“I ain’t sartin ’bout that last p’int. You see, I ain’t so young no more. I’m getting up in years, and ship-owners ain’t hiring none but young men.”
“Nonsense! There you go again. As long as you think and talk like Methuselah there ain’t no owner going to take a chance on you for fear you’d forget the name of the port he’d ordered you to. You get that idea out of your head along with the notion that Jim Fox is going to help you, and you’ll get a ship. The very best there is afloat, too.”
“It’s mighty kind of you to say that, Clemmie. I cal’late the notion about Jim is purty well shook out. That’s one thing I wanted to talk to you about. You know the old place here had been sort of run down for a good220many year. I’d always held to the idea that some day I’d come back here after I’d got rich, remodel the home, and get the best woman in all the world to ship side by side with me as best mate. I’ve told you all that afore, many the time, Clemmie.”
Miss Pipkin barely nodded. The suggestion of moisture gathered in her eyes as she gazed at the tragic face before her.
“Well, I’m back, and it looks like it was for good and all, but I ain’t got no money, and I don’t see no way to get any unless I rob somebody. And the law won’t let me do that. The trouble is that I’m up to my gunwales in debt.”
“In debt!” To Miss Pipkin’s mind there was no greater calamity in the world than to be in debt. She, too, had suffered a like fate many years ago.
“Yes. In bad, too. Jim come up to my house last spring just afore the minister took up his new quarters here, and he says to me: ‘Here’s some money to repair your place with. There’ll be no interest on it. It’s because of my civic pride in the affairs of Little221River that I make you this liberal offer.’ Well, it did look too good to be true, but I couldn’t see nothing wrong, and he promised me on his word to see that I got a ship, the very next one his company was to send out. I ain’t much up on them legal papers. I ain’t had nothing to do with any kind of papers for years ’cepting owners’ orders. I took his word for ’em being straight. I wouldn’t have took a cent of the money if them papers had been straight as the Bible, but he promised me so fair and square to place me that I fell for him hard. You know he’s one of the owners of the Atlantic Coastwise Trading Company. Well, I went right down to the city next day, and for several days I hung round. Then, they told me another feller got in ahead of me. When I was going out I see Jim in one of them little glass rooms talking earnest-like to some of his partners, and I heerd him speak my name. I knew right off that there was something up the mizzenmast. I come home, and waited. It was then I found Mack in the house. Mrs. Beaver put him in here while I was away. I also found the222painters all over the place. I knew right off that Jim had me on the hip, but I couldn’t make out what his game was. Yesterday the thing come tumbling down on my head; a lawyer brought it. Them papers I signed up has turned out to be a mortgage on my old home.”
Miss Pipkin gasped. “A mortgage and a lawyer was here to see you yesterday?”
“They sure was. One of ’em brung the other, and I had to meet ’em both alone. They seemed real glad to see me, but I wa’n’t none too friendly with either of ’em.”
“Josiah, stop your joking. You say there was a lawyer here to see you, and he brought a mortgage on your place?”
The old man looked away and cleared his throat. “The feller come from the city. He showed me how them papers called for a settlement afore the fust of November. I ain’t got a chance in the hull world to get hold of any money afore then. He said something about a foreclosure, too, and he said that meant I was to lose my place. He see how hard I took it, and was real kind. He said223he’d come all the way from the city just to let me know.”
“Kind! Pooh! You’d better have showed him the door like you told me you did Harry Beaver.”
“It wa’n’t his fault, Clemmie. He was real sorry. He was just doing his duty. He offered to buy the place after I’d showed him about. What he said he’d give wa’n’t what it’s wuth by a heap, but it would pay Jim off and leave me a mite.”
“Offered to buy it, did he? Well, you didn’t tell him you’d sell, did you?”
“Not for sartin, I didn’t. I told him I’d think it over a spell and let him know.”
“Let him know! Pooh! I should say you will think it over, and for a purty long spell, too. You ain’t going to sell a foot of it! That feller wasn’t here for himself. He was playing one of Jim Fox’s tricks on you.”
“But, Clemmie,–––”
“Josiah, you mark my word, that lawyer feller was here to buy this place for Jim Fox. It’s as plain as the nose on your face, and I224don’t need to look twice to see that. Don’t you dare to sell one inch of this place.”
The Captain rubbed the organ to which Miss Pipkin referred, and thought for some time. “Suppose your guess is right, and he did come for Jim, there ain’t nothing left for me but to sell. That’s better than losing everything.” He tried to clear his husky voice. “It’s kind of hard. I’ve got you and the minister here now, and I’m sort of obligated to you both. It’s kind of hard.”
“Obligated, fiddlesticks! I ain’t so young that I can’t take care of myself, nor so old, neither. I’ll get on all right, and the minister, too, for that matter.” Her voice dropped with an unsteady quality. “But what you’re going to do, I can’t see.”
He shook his head wearily. “I’ve been trying to see some way all night long, but I can’t, ’cepting to sell.”
“Josiah,”––she crossed over and laid her hand on his shoulder,––“there’s a picture in the setting-room that says beneath it something like this: ‘Don’t Give Up the Ship.’ I was looking at it yesterday after I’d been so225silly about what you said to me. I must have been sent to the picture for a purpose in this hour of our trial. We ain’t going to give up the ship, not till we have to.”
“But he’s got the law on his side, and I ain’t got nothing on mine.”
“You’ve got a clear conscience, and that’s more than all the law with which he’s clothing his guilty mind. And, then,”––she eyed him closely,––“you’ve got me. Does that help? We ain’t going to run up the white flag till we have to, and I don’t care if he’s got the whole creation on his side.”
He rose and laid his rough palm over the bony fingers on his shoulder. “Do you mean that you’re going to stick by me, Clemmie?”
She nodded.
“I cal’late that’ll help a heap, even if things go dead against me. It’s purty nigh three weeks afore he can close up on me,” he faltered, as though he dared not hope even in the presence of this unexpected aid that had come to him. “What are we going to do?”
“The fust thing you’re going to do is to see Jim Fox himself, and you’re going to tell him226that you’re going to see a good lawyer, the best you can find. If them papers ain’t straight he’ll show plain that he’s worried.” She drew her hand from his. “Josiah, I’m going to show you something I ain’t ever showed to a living soul. It ain’t much, but it might start you along the right way of finding something out.”
She went to her room, and soon returned with a piece of paper. It was yellow with age, and had to be handled with care to keep it from falling apart at the creases. She handed it to the Captain, indicating a section for him to read. He nearly tumbled from his chair as the truth it conveyed concerning the past life of Jim Fox flashed into his mind.
“Holy mackerel!”
The entrance of the minister prevented further comment, except for the Captain to whisper:
“Thanks, Clemmie. ’Twill help, I cal’late. You’re a good woman,” he finished, taking her hand between both of his. “You’re smart, too. You’ve helped me more than you know, and God bless you!”
227CHAPTER XII
That evening the Captain dropped the brass knocker to the Elder’s front door with a heavy thud. A servant opened the door.
“I want to see Mr. Fox.”
“He’s not in, sir. Will you leave any–––”
“Who is it, Debbs?” called a voice from the top of the stair.
“Captain Pott, sir. I thought you was to see no one to-night, sir.”
“That’s all right. Send him right up to my room.”
The Elder’s den was across the hall from his daughter’s room, in the most quiet part of the house.
“Right in here, Josiah. We shall be more private here than down-stairs.”
The Captain entered, and took the chair indicated by the Elder.
“I was very busy, and told Debbs I was not to be disturbed, but I recognized your voice, and––er––wanted to see you. It has228been quite a long while since we have had a friendly chat, Josiah. I wish you would come more often. I get very lonesome in this big place. Have a cigar? No? I shall, if you don’t mind.”
“We ain’t been none too neighborly, as you might say.”
“Why don’t you come up once in a while?”
“Cal’late for the same reason you don’t get over to the other end of the road. For one thing, I’m too busy paying off debts.”
The Elder looked questioningly at the seaman as he touched the lighted end of a match to his cigar. “That is true. We––er––are busy, too busy for our own good. We ought to be more sociable here in Little River. We need something to stir us up.”
“We’re too damn selfish, if you ask me. As far as stirring goes, I cal’late we’ve got as much of that as any town along this coast. About all a feller can do is to set his teeth against the hurricane and grin.”
The Elder laughed without restraint, and his visitor began to show signs of uneasiness.
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“You’d best be careful with them delicate blood-vessels,” mildly suggested the Captain.
“True, Josiah. But that was a good joke, a very good joke. One can take it in two ways.”
“Not the way I mean it. There’s enough gossip–––”
“Yes, we are too selfish,” broke in the Elder, “and it is too bad. I often think of the time we were kids together. We had our little scraps, made up, and were ready to fight for each other.”
The Captain could recall no occasion when he had fought for Jim Fox.
“How long ago that all seems! Yet how––er––happy were those days. No cares. No sorrows. No troubles. No misunderstandings. Excuse me, Josiah. I don’t know why it is that I hark back like this when we get together. But it does me a world of good.”
“Maybe you’ve got another fish to fry,” suggested the Captain, wholly untouched by the Elder’s memory picture. “That was the way you done when you wanted us boys to do230something for you, and you ain’t got over it with age.”
“I was quite a diplomat in those days, wasn’t I? But we can’t bring them back. No, sir, we can’t. They are––er––gone forever.”
“I ain’t sartin I want to fetch ’em back. Leastwise, that wa’n’t my purpose in coming here to-night. I come over to see you about that mortgage you slipped over on me.”
“Mortgage?”
“Yes, mortgage.”
“Oh! You refer to that little loan I made you some time ago? That was––er––real humor calling it a mortgage.”
“It may be funny to you, but it ain’t to me.”
“I hope that little matter isn’t bothering you.”
“It ain’t, but a feller from the city is. He told me you was intending to take my place.”
“I’m sorry he told you that. I do not know what I should do with it if I had it.”
“I don’t know what I’d do without it, Jim.”
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“I think it can be arranged without difficulty. It is such a small matter.”
“It may look small to you, but it looks a heap sight different to me.”
“I know, Josiah. It is very opportune that you have come to me to-night. Not more than an hour ago I was thinking of you, and wishing I might––er––see you. I have been thinking, too, of others, some who stood by me in time of peril and poverty. I feel greatly indebted to them, and since they were members of your family, I must now show my appreciation for their kindness.”
“I cal’late you’re referring to them you served a dirty trick over in Australia.”
“Why, Josiah! I have told you a hundred times that I was never in Australia,” declared the other, paling slightly.
“That’s so, you have, Jim. Excuse me.”
“As I was saying,” he continued, showing great relief, “I feel indebted to them, and I want to pay back–––”
“Look here, Jim, you needn’t offer none of your blood money. It don’t look good to me.”
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It was a bold stroke, but it went home. The color crept slowly from the Elder’s sanguine face.
“I have no intention of offering you charity.”
“You know damn well you dasn’t. I’m not speaking of charity, and you know that, too, Jim. I’m speaking of blood money, and I mean just what I say.”
“You are still the same doubting Thomas, I see. Do you recall how you were always the last one––er––to be won over to a new enterprise?” The Elder tried to smile.
“I had good reason to go slow. A mite of caution is a purty fair endowment of nature where some people’s schemes is concerned. If I’d used a little of it last spring I’d not be in the fix I am to-day.”
“But that bump of caution on your head is pretty hard on your friends.”
“I cal’late it won’t hurt my friends none. We wa’n’t speaking of them just then. Anyhow, it’s kept me with a clean conscience to sleep with, and I’d a heap sight rather ship with clear rigging than be ballasted with some233people’s money and have to make bedfellows with their conscience.”
“Yes,––er––ahem––quite true,” was the hasty reply. “What can I do for you, Josiah? If I can be of the least service,––er––I shall be only too glad.”
“It depends on what you’ve got to offer me. The fust thing I’d like to suggest is that you stop that there er-ing and hem-ing. There ain’t no one here but me, and it don’t make no impression. Being that you’re so infernal anxious to get back to boyhood days we might just as well go all-hog on it. You didn’t try none of that foolishness then.”
“What you say is quite true.” The Elder stroked his chops thoughtfully.
“You didn’t have them things to pet, neither. You might just as well stop that. It makes me nervous.”
Elder Fox eyed him narrowly. He had a mind to tell this man to leave his house at once. He even entertained the thought that it might be a good thing to call Debbs and have him put out. But a certain fear, which234had for years haunted the Elder, laid a cold restraining hand on his inclinations.
“Yes, Josiah, those are habits that I have formed in business. Dealing with so many different kinds of men makes us do odd things at times, and if repeated often enough they become habits. I have always tried to be courteous even to men that bore me, and I presume I took on those senseless little syllables to temper my natural brusqueness.”
“Well, you don’t need ’em to-night, and you can be as brusque as you like.”
“Before we speak of that little matter between us, I have something else I want to say. When we have finished, I trust there will be no need to mention the other.”
“If it’s advice you’re wanting to give, I’ll tell you right off that I’ve had enough of it. What I need is time on that mortgage you and your crooked lawyer put over on me.”
“There may be lots of money in what I have to propose. In fact, there is, if you do as I say. How badly do you want a ship to man and command?”
“See here, Jim, I ain’t in no frame of mind235to be fooled with to-night. If you don’t mean just what you’re going to say, you’d best not say it.”
“I mean every word of it, but I shall expect more consideration and respect from you before I open my mouth again.”
“If you’re in dead earnest, Jim, I beg your pardon. This damn mortgage has got on my nerves purty bad. Heave over your proposition, and get it off your chest.”
“I shall have to exact one promise from you.”
The Captain took one step toward the Elder’s chair, his swarthy old face alight with anticipation and hope. One promise! He would give a hundred, and keep them all. The Captain was fine-looking at all times, every span of him a man and a seaman. But when his face was bright with eagerness, and his muscular body tense with anticipation, he was superb. To those less steeled against human magnetism than Mr. Fox, he was irresistible at such times. The Elder merely waved him back to the vacated chair.
“That one promise will bind us both,” he236said coldly. “In fact, it is to your interest as well as to mine to make it. You will not see it at first, but time will prove that I am right in asking it.”
“I’ll promise anything that’s reasonable if you’ll only swing me the job of skipper.”
“Very well.” The Elder began to shuffle some papers with deft fingers.
“But that there mortgage, Jim, is soon due, and–––”
“We shall not speak of that for the present. There are other ways of disposing of mortgages than by paying them,” he remarked, striking a match and holding it significantly beneath a piece of paper which the Captain recognized as the one displayed by the lawyer yesterday.
Captain Pott did not take his eyes from the face of the man across the table. A suspicion was forcing its way into his mind, and it was as unpleasant as it was unwelcome.
“How do I know that you’ll keep your end of the promise, Jim?”
“You have my word.”
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“I had that afore, at the time you give me that money, but it didn’t get me nothing.”
“I do not remember that I gave any definite promise. I said I would do my best for you, and I did.”
“Maybe you done your best, but–––”
“We’ll not quarrel about that. There is nothing indefinite about the position I have to offer you this time. I have the papers here on my table, and the command is yours in less than five minutes after you make the promise. At the same time the note for my loan to you goes into the fire.”
“Well, is there any special reason why you should take so long to get this thing off your chest?”
“I want you to realize the importance of the request I have to make.” The Elder threw aside what little mask he had been wearing. An imperious note crept into his voice, giving it a hard metallic ring. “It is time for you to recognize, Josiah, that I have you about where I want you. I can make or ruin you in five minutes, and it all depends on238how you reply now. Think hard before you answer.”
“That’s right, Jim, you’ve got me with a purty tight hip-hold,” admitted the Captain. “But I’m waiting just now for them orders to see if I’m going to sign up.”
“You’ll sign up, I’m not afraid of that. That is, if you really wish to keep your place. The promise that you are to make to me is concerning the man staying in your house.”
Captain Pott stiffened, and threw up his guard. He carefully concealed his rising anger, however. He must be more certain of his ground before he made any leap that might prove dangerous.
“What in tarnation has he got to do with this affair?”
“He has everything to do with it, so far as you are concerned at this particular moment. We must get that man out of this town. You must believe me when I tell you that such action is as much to your interest as mine. If he is permitted to stay here–––”
“Heave to, there, Jim!” exploded the seaman.239He leaned across the table and glared at the man on the other side.
“There, now, sit down and compose yourself,” soothed the Elder. “I was prepared for you to take it this way at first. I don’t mean anything against the man, so far as his personal character is concerned, but his presence here is a decided menace both to you and me. If I dared to tell you the whole truth, you, too, would see the sense of my request. It is best that he go for his own good, too. Some physical violence will certainly be done him if he remains. You must see with me that it is best on that one point that we remove him quietly from the town. Sim Hicks has sworn to do him harm. Now, you are the logical man to go to Mr. McGowan, and show him the sense of his leaving Little River. You seem to be the only one who can influence him in any degree.”
“By the Almighty, Jim Fox! If it wa’n’t for your darter, I’d swipe up this floor with your dirty carcass!”
“It will be best if you take this calmly, Josiah, and stop your foolish raving. Just240listen to reason for once in your life. There is a past in that man’s life known to a very select few. I came across it accidentally. If it became known it would create no end of scandal and ruin our little church. That man had no good intention in putting in his request for the Little River pulpit. What is more, he is not a real minister of the gospel. He is using it merely as a pretext.”
The Captain caught his breath. “He ain’t a minister? What do you mean by that?”
“Nothing more than what it conveys to your mind. I cannot tell you more, just now.”
“Jim, you’re lying to me!”
“Be careful, Josiah. You are making a very serious charge, and I may decide to make you prove it in court.”
The seaman reached into his coat-pocket for the yellow bit of paper which Miss Pipkin had given him that morning. But he quickly withdrew his hand without the paper. The thought flashed through his mind that he could not prove with certainty the truth of the message written thereon.
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“I’ve got something here in my pocket that’d interest you a heap, Jim. But I ain’t able to prove it all, so it can wait for a spell. But if it leads in the direction I think it does, the Lord pity you!”
“I’d advise you to hold your tongue, as it might get you into trouble. If you will drop all that foolishness about getting even with me for imaginary wrongs, we shall be able to talk business. Here are the receipts for the full amount I loaned you, and here are papers waiting your signature and mine that will put you in command of the best vessel put out by our company in many years. It all depends now on your willingness to help me get Mr. McGowan out of our town.”
Mr. Fox shoved the papers temptingly across the table, keeping one hand on the corner of them. The Captain appeared to waver. Of course, he acknowledged, it did seem easy. But he did not touch the papers. He rather drew back as though they were deadly poison. He eyed the Elder narrowly.
“Well, what do you say?”
“Jim Fox,”––began the seaman slowly, his242voice lowering with the rise of his anger,––“you’re a white-livered coward! You’ve always been getting others to do your dirty work for you, and I’m sartin now that you’re offering me a bribe to help stack your damn cards against Mack. There ain’t money enough in the world to make me do that. I see your game just as plain as though you’d written it out like you done them papers. You mean to wreck Mack’s life, and you’re asking me to sit in with you and the devil while you do it. You mean to throw him out of a job, and you mean to keep him from getting another by working through that Means hypocrite. Yes, I can see through you, as plain as a slit canvas. There’s something infernal back of all this, and that something is your goat. You’re skeered that the minister is going to get it, and that’s what is ailing you. By God! I’ll be on deck to help him, whether he’s a preacher or a detective from Australia looking for crooks. You’ve been lying all these years about where you made your money. You’ve been telling that you got it in Africa, trading in diamonds. I’ve got a piece of paper in my pocket that blows up your lies like dynamite. You was in Australia all them years. By the Almighty! I’m going to sign up with the preacher, and I don’t care a tinker’s dam if you get the last cent I have, and send me up Riverhead way to the Poor Farm to eat off the county. Foreclose on my property! That ain’t no more than you’ve been doing to others all your miserable life. It ain’t no more than you done to Clemmie Pipkin years ago, leaving her nothing to live on. But mine will be the last you’ll foreclose on, and I’m going to see one or two of the best lawyers in the city afore you do that!”
“There ain’t money enough in the world to make me do that.”––Page 242.
“There ain’t money enough in the world to make me do that.”––Page 242.
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The Captain strode from the room and down the stair. Mr. Fox called feebly, begging him to return. But the seaman was deaf with rage, and he left the house without hearing the mumbled petition of an apparently penitent Elder.
Captain Pott half ran, half stumbled, down to the wharf. He hurriedly untied his dory, and rowed out to theJennie P.A little later he anchored his power-boat in the harbor of244Little River where the railroad station was located. He rowed ashore, secured his dory, and ran to the depot. He climbed aboard the city-bound train just as it began to move.
245CHAPTER XIII
Daylight was beginning to peep through the morning darkness when the Captain threaded his way along the crooked path to the rear of his house. He drew off his boots outside the kitchen door, and tiptoed to his room. Without removing his clothing he threw himself on the bed. The sunlight was streaming through the eastern windows when he awoke. He stretched himself off the bed, and threw back the covers so that Miss Pipkin would think he had slept there the night through. He went down to the kitchen.
“Anything special to tell me this morning, Josiah?” whispered the housekeeper as he entered. “How pale you look! Ain’t been seeing ghosts, have you? You look like one yourself.”
“Maybe ’twas ghosts I see, but they looked purty tolerable real to me. Yes, Clemmie, I’ve sartin been looking on things what ain’t good for a healthy man to see. One of ’em is246that I’m a ruined man, and there ain’t no help for it.”
“Don’t talk such nonsense! Get out and fill your lungs with fresh air. That cures the blues quicker than anything I know.”
“It won’t cure this fit. If it would, I’d had it cured long ago, ’cause that’s all I’ve been doing for a good many weeks. If I’d talked less and done more I’d been a heap sight better off.”
“I thought from the way you was staying up there last night that you was doing something. I never heerd you come in at all.”
“Maybe I wa’n’t up there all that time. The fact is, Clemmie, I went into the city last night.”
“You went into New York last night? What did you do that for?”
“I went in and pulled a lawyer friend of mine out of bed for a little confab. I don’t mind telling you who it was. It was Harold Fox.... Clemmie, that feller that was here to see me about that mortgage lied to me about the date it was due. Harold says the time is up on it next Saturday.”
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“Josiah!”
“I also talked with another friend of mine who knew Jim purty well in his palmy days, and he says what that letter of yours says is so. He told me a lot more stuff, too.”
“What? About Jim or Adoniah?”
“Both. What would you do if there wa’n’t no way to save my place excepting by ruination of the other feller?”
“You’d see him stop for you, wouldn’t you? I’d not give it a second thought, I’d just–––”
“That ain’t it, Clemmie. There’s his darter, the sweetest little thing that God ever made. It would kill her, and I ain’t got no right to hurt her just to save my own skin.”
“You’re right, Josiah.”
“But what I’m to do, I don’t know.”
Mr. McGowan entered with an armful of wood, and as he stooped to drop it into the box Miss Pipkin looked sorrowfully at the Captain and shook her head.
“I’ve done my best,” said the seaman, slowly.
“You’d think he was making his last will248and testament from the way he’s talking,” remarked Miss Pipkin, trying hard to appear as though she was without the least concern.
“Maybe I be, Clemmie. Maybe I be.”
“What’s the cause for all this dejection?” asked the minister.
“Cause enough, Mack.... I’ll be going back to the city to-morrow. I hate to leave you to the wiles of the menagerie, for if I ain’t terrible mistook they’re out for your blood, and they think they’ve got a whiff of it. But I cal’late they’ve got their ropes crossed. They’ve got the idea they’re h’isting the mains’l, but it ain’t nothing but the spanker. If I was going to stay aboard I’d give ’em a few lessons the next few days that they’d not forget all the rest of their lives.”
“You’re certainly mixing your figures in great shape this morning,” commented the minister good-naturedly.
“Well, if mixing figures is like mixing drinks, making ’em more elevating to the thoughts, I cal’late I’d best do a little more mixing. There’s going to be a squall right soon that’ll test the ribs of the old salvation249ark to the cracking p’int. If I was you I’d furl my sails a mite, and stand by, Mack.”
“We’re so accustomed to trouble now that–––”
“Trouble? This is going to be hell, that is, unless luck or Providence takes a hand and steers her through. Your Elder thinks he’s on the home stretch to winning his laurels, but if I was going to hang round here he’d wake up right sudden one of these fine mornings to find his wreath missing.”
“Josiah, you’re as wicked as you can be this morning. What on earth has come over you?” exclaimed Miss Pipkin with deep concern.
“You’d feel wicked, too, if you was dealing with that kind. But that there Elder puts me in mind of a tramp printer that come to work for Adoniah one time. Adoniah was a brother of mine,” he explained in answer to a quizzing look from the minister. “Adoniah was managing a country paper down the line then, and being short on help he took this tramp printer on. He gave him something to set up that the editor had writ,––you250couldn’t tell one of the letters of that editor from t’other, hardly,––and that feller had a time with it. The piece was about some chap that was running for office, and it closed up with something like this: ‘Dennis, my boy, look well to your laurels.’ When that tramp got through with it, it come back to the editor like this: ‘Dammit, my boy, bark well at your barrels.’”
Mr. McGowan laughed heartily, and Miss Pipkin struggled against a like inclination, doing her best to appear shocked.
“Josiah Pott!” she said at last. “I’d think you’d be ashamed telling such things!”
“It ain’t nothing more than what Adoniah told, and it happened just as I spun it. You used to think what Adoniah said was all right.”
The minister sobered instantly.
“But it ain’t right defaming the dead like that.”
“I ain’t defaming no one. Don’t get mad, Clemmie. Adoniah told the yarn himself.”
“Well, it ain’t to his credit, and I ain’t so sure he told it with that bad word in it.”
251
“He sartin did. That’s what makes it funny.”
“If you wasn’t so anxious to use them words you’d not be telling such stories, and, of all people, to the minister.”
“He’s heerd me say lots worse ones than that. I was telling it for illustration. You see, Jim has got the idea that he’s looking to his laurels, and he ain’t doing nothing but barking at his barrels, and empty ones at that.”
“You’d best not try to illustrate if you can’t use words decent enough to listen to,” answered Miss Pipkin as she left the room.
Late that evening Mr. McGowan drew the Captain into his study. A cheery fire was crackling in the fire-back. The minister placed a chair before the grate and slid another near. For some time the two men sat looking into the fire. As Mr. McGowan tossed in another stick of wood, he turned toward the seaman.
“I did not know that you had a brother by the name of Adoniah,” he said.
“It ain’t often I make mention of him. I252wa’n’t over fond of him. He didn’t treat Clemmie fair. Then, he wa’n’t nothing but a half-brother.”
“Don’t tell me his last name was Phillips?”
“Sartin was.... What was that you said, Mack?”
“I didn’t speak. I was just thinking.”
“I’d a heap sight rather you’d speak out loud than grunt like that. What in tarnation is the matter with you?”
“If you can throw any light on this man Phillips, I wish you’d do it. I’ve heard his name mentioned twice, by two different people, with quite different effects.”
“What do you mean by me throwing light on him?”
“Tell me about him, all you know, good and bad. What does Miss Pipkin know about him? Where is he?”
“Heave to, there, Mack! One at a time. I don’t know if Clemmie has any idea where he is now. She was purty thick with him once, and heerd from him once or twice after he went off to sea.”
“She was in love with him?”
253
“That’s putting it purty tame. I cal’late––Say, has she been speaking to you about him?” asked the seaman eagerly.
The minister nodded. “I’m breaking a promise to her by talking with you about it, but–––”
“Breaking a promise you made to Clemmie? How’s that?”
“She made me promise to say nothing to you. But I must. This thing is getting too interesting for me to keep my hands off any longer.”
“You mean she made you say that you’d not tell me that she was in love with Adoniah? That’s funny, ain’t it? Why, I knew–––” He broke off abruptly, a new light coming into his tired eyes. He leaned forward and whispered hoarsely: “Mack, it ain’t likely she’s in love with––well,––with any other feller, is it?”
“She didn’t–––”
“With me, for example,” broke in the seaman. “You don’t think maybe that was the reason she made you give that promise, do you?” The Captain made no effort to hide254his eagerness. “I don’t mind telling you that I love Clemmie. I loved her long afore Adoniah come along and sp’iled it. He was smarter than me, and went to school. He was real bright and handsome. It wa’n’t that Clemmie loved him, but she didn’t know the difference. And I know right well he didn’t love her. He had took a spite against me because I was left the home place, and he took it out on me by stealing my girl. You don’t s’pose she sees now that he didn’t really care–––” He slowly settled back into his chair, and shook his head. “I cal’late that ain’t possible. You heerd what she said about his sacred memory this morning. Good Lord! Why won’t she ever forget!”
“She may some day, Cap’n. No man can predict to-day what a woman may do to-morrow.”
“The most of ’em are that way, but Clemmie’s different from the common run. I know I’m an old fool for wishing it, but it ain’t easy to give up the woman you love, even after long years of her saying no to you.”
255
“You’re right, Cap’n. It isn’t easy to give up the woman you love.”
The minister gave the fire a vigorous poke, sending a thick shower of sparks up the chimney. The seaman glanced at him.
“Have you the slightest idea where your brother is?”
“No. I ain’t heerd from him for more than twenty years, and then it wa’n’t direct. He left because he was ’feared Clemmie was going to make him marry her, and he knew if he took to sailing the seas she’d never foller him. Damn him! He didn’t treat her square. That’s why I don’t have much use for him. If he’d told her out and out that he wa’n’t going to marry her, I’d forgive him. But–––”
“Did Mr. Fox know this half-brother?”
“About as well as he knew the rest of us about town. He always was sort of h’ity-t’ity, Jim was.”
“Did he know him better after they left Little River?”
“Mack, I ain’t got your tack, yet. Mind telling me where you’re heading?”