Emily said—well, the first thing she said was, “Oh, Aunt Thankful!” Then she added that she couldn't believe it.
“It's so,” declared Mrs. Barnes, “whether we believe it or not. When you come to think it over there's nothin' so wonderful about it, after all. I had a sneakin' suspicion when I was sittin' here by you, after you'd gone to sleep. What I saw afterwards made me almost sure. I—Hum! I guess likely that'll keep till we get to the hotel, if we ever do get there. Perhaps Mr.—Mr.—”
“Bangs is my name, ma'am,” said the big man with the lantern. “Obed Bangs.”
“Thank you, Mr. Bangs. Or it's 'Cap'n Bangs,' ain't it?”
“They generally call me Cap'n, ma'am, though I ain't been doin' any active seafarin' for some time.”
“I thought as much. Down here on Cape Cod, and givin' orders the way I heard you afore you come into this room, 'twas nine chances to one you was a cap'n, or you had been one. Bangs—Bangs—Obed Bangs? Why, that name sounds kind of familiar. Seems as if—Cap'n Bangs, you didn't use to know Eben Barnes of Provincetown, did you?”
“Eben Barnes? Cap'n Eben of the White Foam, lost off Cape Hatteras in a gale?”
“Yes, that's the one. I thought I heard him speak of you. He was my husband.”
Captain Obed Bangs uttered an exclamation. Then he stepped forward and seized Mrs. Barnes' hand. The lady's hand was not a very small one but the Captain's was so large that, as Thankful remarked afterward, it might have shaken hers twice at the same time.
“Eben Barnes' wife!” exclaimed Captain Obed. “Why, Eben and I was messmates on I don't know how many v'yages! Well, well, well, ma'am, I'm real glad to see you.”
“You ain't so glad as we are to see you—and your friend,” observed Thankful, drily. “Is he a captain, too?”
He didn't look like one, certainly. He had removed his sou'wester, uncovering a round head, with reddish-gray hair surrounding a bald spot at the crown. He had a double chin and a smile which was apologetic but ingratiating. He seemed less frightened than when he first entered the room, but still glanced about him with evident apprehension.
“No—no, ma'am,” he stammered, in answer to the question. “No, ma'am, I—I—my name's Parker. I—I ain't a cap'n; no, ma'am.”
“Kenelm ain't been promoted yet,” observed Captain Obed gravely. “He's waitin' until he get's old enough to go to sea. Ain't that it, Kenelm?”
Kenelm smiled and shifted his sou'wester from his right hand to his left.
“I—I cal'late so,” he answered.
“Well, it don't make any difference,” declared Thankful. “My cousin and I are just as glad to see him as if he was an admiral. We've been waitin' so long to see any human bein' that we'd begun to think they was all drowned. But you haven't met my cousin yet. Her name's Howes.”
Emily, who had stood by, patient but chilly, during the introductions and reminiscences, shook hands with Captain Bangs and Mr. Parker. Both gentlemen said they were pleased to meet her; no, Captain Obed said that—Kenelm said that he was “glad to be acquaintanced.”
“I don't know as we hadn't ought to beg your pardon for creepin' in on you this way,” said the captain. “We thought the house was empty. We didn't know you was visitin' your—your property.”
“Well, so far as that goes, neither did we. I don't wonder you expected to find burglars or tramps or whatever you did expect. We've had an awful time this night, ain't we, Emily?”
“We certainly have,” declared Miss Howes, with emphasis.
“Yes, you see—”
She gave a brief history of the cruise and wreck of the depot-wagon. Also of their burglarious entry of the house.
“And now, Cap'n,” she said, in conclusion, “if you could think up any way of our gettin' to that hotel, we'd be ever so much obliged. . . . Hello! There's that driver, I do believe! And about time, I should say!”
From without came the sound of wheels and the voice of Winnie S., hailing his missing passengers.
“Hi! Hi-i! Where be ye?”
“He'll wear his lungs out, screamin' that way,” snapped Thankful. “Can't he see the light, for goodness sakes?”
Captain Obed answered. “He couldn't see nothin' unless 'twas hung on the end of his nose,” he said. “That boy's eyes and brains ain't connected. Here, Kenelm,” turning to Mr. Parker, “you go out and tell Win to shut down on his fog whistle; he's wastin' steam. Tell him the women-folks are in here. Look alive, now!”
Kenelm looked alive, but not much more than that.
“All right, Cap'n,” he stammered. “A—a—all right. What—what—shall I say—what shall I—had I better—”
“Thunderation! Do you need a chart and compass? Stay where you are. I'll say it myself.”
He strode to the window, threw it open, and shouted in a voice which had been trained to carry above worse gales than the present one:
“Ahoy! Ahoy! Win! Fetch her around aft here. Lay alongside the kitchen door! D'you hear? Ahoy! Win! d'you hear?”
Silence. Then, after a moment, came the reply. “Yup, I hear ye. Be right there.”
The captain turned from the window.
“Took some time for him to let us know he heard, didn't it,” he observed. “Cal'late he had to say 'Judas priest' four or five times afore he answered. If you cut all the 'Judas priests' out of that boy's talk he'd be next door to tongue-tied.”
Thankful turned to her relative.
“There, Emily,” she said, with a sigh of relief. “I guess likely we'll make the hotel this tack. I begun to think we never would.”
Captain Bangs shook his head.
“You won't go to no hotel this night,” he said, decidedly. “It's a long ways off and pretty poor harbor after you make it. You'll come right along with me and Kenelm to his sister's house. It's only a little ways and Hannah's got a spare room and she'll be glad to have you. I'm boardin' there myself just now. Yes, you will,” he added. “Of course you will. Suppose I'm goin' to let relations of Eben Barnes put up at the East Wellmouth tavern? By the everlastin', I guess not! I wouldn't send a—a Democrat there. Come right along! Don't say another word.”
Both of the ladies said other words, a good many of them, but they might as well have been orders to the wind to stop blowing. Captain Obed Bangs was, evidently, a person accustomed to having his own way. Even as they were still protesting their new acquaintance led them to the kitchen door, where Winnie S. and a companion, a long-legged person who answered to the name of “Jabez,” were waiting on the front seat of a vehicle attached to a dripping and dejected horse. To the rear of this vehicle “General Jackson” was tethered by a halter. Winnie S. was loaded to the guards with exclamatory explanations.
“Judas priest!” he exclaimed, as the captain assisted Mrs. Barnes and Emily into the carriage. “If I ain't glad to see you folks! When I got back here and there wa'n't a sign of you nowheres, I was took some off my pins, I tell ye. Didn't know what to do. I says to Jabez, I says—”
Captain Obed interrupted. “Never mind what you said to Jabez, Win,” he said. “Why didn't you get back sooner? That's what we want to know.”
Winnie S. was righteously indignant. “Sooner!” he repeated. “Judas priest! I tell ye right now I'm lucky to get back at all. Took me pretty nigh an hour to get to the village. Such travelin' I never see. Tried to save time by takin' the short cut acrost the meadow, and there ain't no meadow no more. It's three foot under water. You never see such a tide. So back I had to frog it and when I got far as Jabe's house all hands had turned in. I had to pretty nigh bust the door down 'fore I could wake anybody up. Then Jabe he had to get dressed and we had to harness up and—hey? Did you say anything, ma'am?”
The question was addressed to Mrs. Barnes, who had been vainly trying to ask one on her own account.
“I say have you got our valises?” asked Thankful. “Last I saw of them they was in that other wagon, the one that broke down.”
The driver slapped his knee. “Judas priest!” he cried. “I forgot all about them satchels. Here, Jabe,” handing the reins to his companion. “You take the hellum while I run back and fetch 'em.”
He was back in a few moments with the missing satchels. Then Jabez, who was evidently not given to wasting words, drawled: “Did you get the mail? That's in there, too, ain't it?”
“Judas priest! So 'tis. Why didn't you remind me of it afore? Set there like—like a wooden figurehead and let me run my legs off—”
His complaints died away in the distance. At last, with the mail bag under the seat, the caravan moved on. It was still raining, but not so hard, and the wind blew less fiercely. They jogged and rocked and splashed onward. Suddenly Winnie S. uttered another shout.
“The lantern!” he cried. “Where's that lantern I lent ye?”
“It's there in the house,” said Thankful. “It burned itself out and I forgot it. Mercy on us! You're not goin' back after that, I hope.”
“Well, I dunno. That lantern belongs to the old man—dad, I mean—and he sets a lot of store by it. If I've lost that lantern on him, let alone leavin' his depot-wagon all stove up, he'll give me—”
“Never mind what he'll give you,” broke in Captain Bangs. “You keep on your course or I'LL give you somethin'. Don't you say another word till we get abreast of Hannah Parker's.”
“Humph! We're there now. I thought these folks was goin' to our hotel.”
“Take my advice and don't think so much. You'll open a seam in your head and founder, first thing you know. Here we are! And here's Hannah! Hannah, Kenelm and I've brought you a couple of lodgers. Now, ma'am, if you'll stand by. Kenelm, open that hatch.”
Mr. Parker opened the hatch—the door of the carriage—and the captain assisted the passengers to alight. Emily caught a glimpse of the white front of a little house and of a tall, angular woman standing in the doorway holding a lamp. Then she and Mrs. Barnes were propelled by the strong arms of their pilot through that doorway and into a little sitting-room, bright and warm and cheery.
“There!” declared Captain Obed. “That cruise is over. Kenelm! Where is Kenelm? Oh, there you are! You tell that Winnie S. to trot along. We'll settle for passage tomorrow mornin'. Now, ma'am,” turning to Thankful, “you and your relation want to make yourselves as comf'table as you can. This is Miss Parker, Kenelm's sister. Hannah, this is Mrs. Barnes, Eben Barnes' widow. You've heard me speak of him. And this is Miss Howes. I cal'late they're hungry and I know they're wet. Seems's if dry clothes and supper might be the next items on the manifest.”
Miss Parker rose to the occasion. She flew about preparing the “items.” Thankful and Emily were shown to the spare room, hot water and towels were provided, the valise was brought in. When the ladies again made their appearance in the sitting-room, they were arrayed in dry, warm garments, partly their own and partly supplied from the wardrobe of their hostess. As to the fit of these latter, Mrs. Barnes expressed her opinion when she said:
“Don't look at me, Emily. I feel like a barrel squeezed into an umbrella cover. This dress is long enough, land knows, but that's about all you can say of it. However, I suppose we hadn't ought to—to look a gift dress in the waistband.”
Supper was ready in the dining-room and thither they were piloted by Kenelm, whose hair, what there was of it, was elaborately “slicked down,” and whose celluloid collar had evidently received a scrubbing. In the dining-room they found Captain Bangs awaiting them. Miss Parker made her appearance bearing a steaming teapot. Hannah, now that they had an opportunity to inspect her, was seen to be as tall and sharp-featured as her brother was short and round. She was at least fifteen years older than he, but she moved much more briskly. Also she treated Kenelm as she might have treated a child, an only child who needed constant suppression.
“Please to be seated, everybody,” she said. “Cap'n Obed, you take your reg'lar place. Mrs. Barnes, if you'll be so kind as to set here, and Miss Howes next to you. Kenelm, you set side of me. Set down, don't stand there fidgetin'. WHAT did you put on that necktie for? I told you to put on the red one.”
Kenelm fingered his tie. “I—I cal'late I must have forgot, Hannah,” he stammered. “I never noticed. This one's all right, ain't it?”
“All right! It'll have to be. You can't change it now. But, for goodness sakes, look out it stays on. The elastic's all worn loose and it's li'ble to drop into your tea or anywheres else. Now,” with a sudden change from a family to a “company” manner, “may I assist you to a piece of the cold ham, Miss Howes? I trust you are feelin' quite restored to yourself again?”
Emily's answer being in the affirmative, their hostess continued:
“I'm so sorry to be obliged to set nothin' but cold ham and toast and tea before you,” she said. “If I had known you was comin' I should have prepared somethin' more fittin'. After such an experience as you must have been through this night to set down to ham and toast! I—I declare I feel real debilitated and ashamed to offer 'em to you.”
Thankful answered.
“Don't say a word, Miss Parker,” she said, heartily. “We're the ones that ought to be ashamed. Landin' on you this way in the middle of the night. You're awfully good to take us in at all. My cousin and I were on our way to the hotel, but Cap'n Bangs wouldn't hear of it. He's responsible for our comin' here.”
Miss Parker nodded.
“Cap'n Obed is the most hospital soul livin',” she said, grandly. “He done just right. If he'd done anything else Kenelm and I would have felt hurt. I—Look out!” with a sudden snatch at her brother's shirt front. “There goes that tie. Another second and 'twould have been right in your plate.”
Kenelm snapped the loop of the “made” tie over his collar button. “Don't grab at me that way, Hannah,” he protested mildly. “I'm kind of nervous tonight, after what I've been through. 'Twouldn't have done no great harm if I had dropped it. I could pick it up again, couldn't I?”
“You could, but I doubt if you would. You might have ate it, you're so absent-minded. Nervous! YOU nervous! What do you think of me? Mrs. Barnes,” turning to Thankful and once more resuming the “company” manner, “you'll excuse our bein' a little upset. You see, when my brother came home and said he'd seen lights movin' around in the old Barnes' house, he frightened us all pretty near to death. All Cap'n Obed could think of was tramps, or thieves or somethin'. Nothin' would do but he must drag Kenelm right back to see who or what was in there. And I was left alone to imagine all sorts of dreadful things. Tramps I might stand. They belong to this world, anyhow. But in THAT house, at eleven o'clock at night, I—Mrs. Barnes, do you believe in aberrations?”
Thankful was nonplused. “In—in which?” she asked.
“In aberrations, spirits of dead folks comin' alive again?”
For just a moment Mrs. Barnes hesitated. Then she glanced at Emily, who was trying hard not to smile, and answered, with decision: “No, I don't.”
“Well, I don't either, so far as that goes. I never see one myself, and I've never seen anybody that has. But when Kenelm came tearin' in to say he'd seen a light in a house shut up as long as that one has been, and a house that folks—”
Captain Bangs interrupted. He had been regarding Thankful closely and now he changed the subject.
“How did it happen you saw that light, Kenelm?” he asked. “What was you doin' over in that direction a night like this?”
Kenelm hesitated. He seemed to find it difficult to answer.
“Why—why—” he stammered, “I'd been up to the office after the mail. And—and—it was so late comin' that I give it up. I says to Lemuel Ryder, 'Lem,' I says—”
His sister broke in.
“Lem Ryder!” she repeated. “Was he at the post-office?”
“Well—well—” Kenelm's confusion was more marked than ever. “Well—well—” he stammered, “I see him, and I says—”
“You see him! Where did you see him? Kenelm Parker, I don't believe you was at the postoffice at all. You was at the clubroom, that's where you was. At that clubroom, smokin' and playin' cards with that deprivated crowd of loafers and gamblers. Tell me the truth, now, wasn't you?”
Mr. Parker's tie fell off then, but neither he nor his sister noticed it.
“Gamblers!” he snorted. “There ain't no gamblers there. Playin' a hand or two of Californy Jack just for fun ain't gamblin'. I wouldn't gamble, not for a million dollars.”
Captain Obed laughed. “Neither would I,” he observed. “Nor for two cents, with that clubroom gang; 'twould be too much nerve strain collectin' my winnin's. I see now why you come by the Barnes' house, Kenelm. It's the nighest way home from that clubhouse. Well, I'm glad you did. Mrs. Barnes and Miss Howes would have had a long session in the dark if you hadn't. Yes, and a night at Darius Holt's hotel, which would have been a heap worse. So you've been livin' at South Middleboro, Mrs. Barnes, have you? Does Miss Howes live there, too?”
Thankful, very grateful for the change of topic, told of her life since her husband's death, of her long stay with Mrs. Pearson, of Emily's teaching school, and their trip aboard the depot-wagon.
“Well,” exclaimed Miss Parker, when she had finished, “you have been through enough, I should say! A reg'lar story-book adventure, ain't it? Lost in a storm and shut up in an empty house, the one you come purpose to see. It's a mercy you wa'n't either of you hurt, climbin' in that window the way you did. You might have broke your arms or your necks or somethin'. Mr. Alpheus Bassett, down to the Point—a great, strong, fleshy man, weighs close to two hundred and fifty and never sick a day in his life—he was up in the second story of his buildin' walkin' around spry as anybody—all alone, which he shouldn't have been at his age—and he stepped on a fish and away he went. And the next thing we hear he's in bed with his collar-bone. Did you ever hear anything like that in your life, Miss Howes?”
It was plain that Emily never had. “I—I'm afraid I don't understand,” she faltered. “You say he was in the second story of a building and he stepped on—on a FISH?”
“Yes, just a mackerel 'twas, and not a very big one, they tell me. At first they was afraid 'twas the spine he'd broke, but it turned out to be only the collar-bone, though that's bad enough.”
Captain Obed burst into a laugh. “'Twa'n't the mackerel's collar-bone, Miss Howes,” he explained, “though I presume likely that was broke, too, if Alpheus stepped on it. He was up in the loft of his fish shanty icin' and barrelin' fish to send to Boston, and he fell downstairs. Wonder it didn't kill him.”
Miss Parker nodded. “That's what I say,” she declared. “And Sarah—that's his wife—tells me the doctors are real worried because the fraction ain't ignited yet.”
Thankful coughed and then observed that she should think they would be.
“If you don't mind,” she added, “I think it's high time all hands went to bed. It must be way along into the small hours and if we set here any longer it'll be time for breakfast. You folks must be tired, settin' up this way and I'm sure Emily and I am. If we turn in now we may have a chance to look over that precious property of mine afore we go back to South Middleboro. I don't know, though, as we haven't seen enough of it already. It don't look very promisin' to me.”
The captain rose from the table and, walking to the window, pushed aside the shade.
“It'll look better tomorrow—today, I should say,” he observed. “The storm's about over, and the wind's hauled to the west'ard. We'll have a spell of fair weather now, I guess. That property of yours, Mrs. Barnes, 'll look a lot more promisin' in the sunshine. There's no better view along shore than from the front windows of that house. 'Tain't half bad, that old house ain't. All it needs is fixin' up.”
Good nights—good mornings, for it was after two o'clock—were said and the guests withdrew to their bedroom. Once inside, with the door shut, Thankful and Emily looked at each other and both burst out laughing.
“Oh, dear me!” gasped the former, wiping her eyes. “Maybe it's mean to laugh at folks that's been as kind to us as these Parkers have been, but I never had such a job keepin' a straight face in my life. When she said she was 'debilitated' at havin' to give us ham and toast that was funny enough, but what come afterwards was funnier. The 'fraction' ain't 'ignited' yet and the doctors are worried. I should think they'd be more worried if it had.”
Emily shook her head. “I am glad I didn't have to answer that remark, Auntie,” she said. “I never could have done it without disgracing myself. She is a genuine Mrs. Malaprop, isn't she?”
This was a trifle too deep for Mrs. Barnes, who replied that she didn't know, she having never met the Mrs. What's-her-name to whom her cousin referred. “She's a genuine curiosity, this Parker woman, if that's what you mean, Emily,” she said. “And so's her brother, though a different kind of one. We must get Cap'n Bangs to tell us more about 'em in the mornin'. He thinks that—that heirloom house of mine will look better in the daylight. Well, I hope he's right; it looked hopeless enough tonight, what I could see of it.”
“I like that Captain Bangs,” observed Emily.
“So do I. It seems as if we'd known him for ever so long. And how his salt-water talk does take me back. Seems as if I was hearin' my father and Uncle Abner—yes, and Eben, too—speakin'. And it is so sort of good and natural to be callin' somebody 'Cap'n.' I was brought up amongst cap'ns and I guess I've missed 'em more'n I realized. Now you must go to sleep; you'll need all the sleep you can get, and that won't be much. Good night.”
“Good night,” said Emily, sleepily. A few minutes later she said: “Auntie, what did become of that lantern our driver was so anxious about? The last I saw of it it was on the floor by the sofa where I was lying. But I didn't seem to remember it after the captain and Mr. Parker came.”
Mrs. Barnes' reply was, if not prompt, at least conclusive.
“It's over there somewhere,” she said. “The light went out, but it ain't likely the lantern went with it. Now you go to sleep.”
Miss Howes obeyed. She was asleep very soon thereafter. But Thankful lay awake, thinking and wondering—yes, and dreading. What sort of a place was this she had inherited? She distinctly did not believe in what Hannah Parker had called “aberrations,” but she had heard something—something strange and inexplicable in that little back bedroom. The groans might have been caused by the gale, but no gale spoke English, or spoke at all, for that matter. Who, or what, was it that had said “Oh Lord!” in the darkness and solitude of that bedroom?
Thankful opened her eyes. The sunlight was streaming in at the window. Beneath that window hens were clucking noisily. Also in the room adjoining someone was talking, protesting.
“I don't know, Hannah,” said Mr. Parker's voice. “I tell you I don't know where it is. If I knew I'd tell you, wouldn't I? I don't seem to remember what I done with it.”
“Well, then, you've got to set down and not stir till you do remember, that's all. When you went out of this house last evenin' to go to the postoffice—Oh, yes! To the postoffice—that's where you said you was goin'—you had the lantern and that umbrella. When you came back, hollerin' about the light you see in the Cap'n Abner house, you had the lantern. But the umbrella you didn't have. Now where is it?”
“I don't know, Hannah. I—I—do seem to remember havin' had it, but—”
“Well, I'm glad you remember that much. You lost one of your mittens, too, but 'twas an old one, so I don't mind that so much. But that umbrella was your Christmas present and 'twas good gloria silk with a real gilt-plated handle. I paid two dollars and a quarter for that umbrella, and I told you never to take it out in a storm because you were likely to turn it inside out and spile it. If I'd seen you take it last night I'd have stopped you, but you was gone afore I missed it.”
“But—but, consarn it all, Hannah—”
“Don't swear, Kenelm. Profanity won't help you none.”
“I wa'n't swearin'. All I say is what's the use of an umbrella if you can't hist it in a storm? I wouldn't give a darn for a schooner load of 'em when 'twas fair weather. I—I cal'late I—I left it somewheres.”
“I cal'late you did. I'm goin' over to the village this mornin' and I'll stop in at that clubhouse, myself.”
“I—I don't believe it's at the clubhouse, Hannah.”
“You don't? Why don't you?”
“I—I don't know. I just guess it ain't, that's all. Somethin' seems to tell me 'tain't.”
“Oh, it does, hey? I want to know! Hum! Was you anywheres else last night? Answer me the truth now, Kenelm Parker. Was you anywheres else last night?”
“Anywheres else. What do you mean by that?”
“I mean what I say. You know what I mean well enough. Was you—well, was you callin' on anybody?”
“Callin' on anybody? CALLIN' on 'em?”
“Yes, callin' on 'em. Oh, you needn't look so innocent and buttery! You ain't above it. Ain't I had experience? Haven't I been through it? Didn't you use to say that I, your sister that's been a mother to you, was the only woman in this world for you, and then, the minute I was out of sight and hardly out of hearin', you—”
“My soul! You've got Abbie Larkin in your head again, ain't you? It—it—I swear it's a reg'lar disease with you, seems so. Ain't I told you I ain't seen Abbie Larkin, nor her me, for the land knows how long? And I don't want to see her. My time! Do you suppose I waded and paddled a mile and a quarter down to call on Abbie Larkin a night like last night? What do you think I am—a bull frog? I wouldn't do it to see the—the Queen of Rooshy.”
This vehement outburst seemed to have some effect. Miss Parker's tone was more conciliatory.
“Well, all right,” she said. “I s'pose likely you didn't call on her, if you say so, Kenelm. I suppose I am a foolish, lone woman. But, O Kenelm, I do think such a sight of you. And you know you've got money and that Abbie Larkin is so worldly she'd marry you for it in a minute. I didn't know but you might have met her.”
“Met her! Tut—tut—tut! If that ain't—and in a typhoon like last night! Oh, sartin, I met her! I was up here on top of Meetin'-house Hill, larnin' her to swim in the mud puddles. You do talk so silly sometimes, Hannah.”
“Maybe I do,” with a sniff. “Maybe I do, Kenelm, but you mean so much to me. I just can't let you go.”
“Go! I ain't goin' nowheres, am I? What kind of talk's that?”
“And to think you'd heave away that umbrella—the umbrella I gave you! That's what makes me feel so bad. A nice, new, gilt-plated umbrella—”
“I never hove it away. I—I—well, I left it somewheres, I—I cal'late. I'll go look for it after breakfast. Say, when are we goin' to have breakfast, anyhow? It's almost eight o'clock now. Ain't them women-folks EVER goin' to turn out?”
Thankful had heard enough. She was out of bed the next instant.
“Emily! Emily!” she cried. “It's late. We must get up now.”
The voices in the sitting-room died to whispers.
“I—I can't help it,” pleaded Kenelm. “I never meant nothin'. I thought they was asleep. And 'TIS most eight. By time, Hannah, you do pick on me—”
A vigorous “Sshh!” interrupted him. The door between the sitting-room and dining-room closed with a slam. Mrs. Barnes and Emily dressed hurriedly.
They gathered about the breakfast table, the Parkers, Captain Obed and the guests. Miss Parker's “company manner” was again much in evidence and she seemed to feel it her duty to lead the conversation. She professed to have discovered a striking resemblance between Miss Howes and a deceased relative of her own named Melinda Ellis.
“The more I see of you, Miss Howes,” she declared, “the more I can't help thinkin' of poor Melindy. She was pretty and had dark eyes and hair same's you've got, and that same sort of—of consumptic look to her. Not that you've got consumption, I don't mean that. Only you look the way she done, that's all. She did have consumption, poor thing. Everybody thought she'd die of it, but she didn't. She got up in the night to take some medicine and she took the wrong kind—toothache lotion it was and awful powerful—and it ate right through to her diagram. She didn't live long afterwards, poor soul.”
No one said anything for a moment after this tragic recital. Then Captain Bangs observed cheerfully:
“Well, I guess Miss Howes ain't likely to drink any toothache lotion.”
Hannah nodded sedately. “I trust not,” she said. “But accidents do happen. And Melindy and Miss Howes look awful like each other. You're real well, I hope, Miss Howes. After bein' exposed the way you was last night I HOPE you haven't caught cold. You never can tell what'll follow a cold—with some people.”
Thankful was glad when the meal was over. She, too, was fearful that her cousin might have taken cold during the wet chill of the previous night. But Emily declared she was very well indeed; that the very sight of the sunlit sea through the dining-room windows had acted like a tonic.
“Good enough!” exclaimed Captain Obed, heartily. “Then we ought to be gettin' a bigger dose of that tonic. Mrs. Barnes, if you and Miss Howes would like to walk over and have a look at that property of yours, now's as good a time as any to be doin' it. I'll go along with you if I won't be in the way.”
Thankful looked down rather doubtfully at the borrowed gown she was wearing, but Miss Parker came to the rescue by announcing that her guests' own garments must be dry by this time, they had been hanging by the stove all night. So, after the change had been made, the two left the Parker residence and took the foot-path at the top of the bluff. Captain Obed seemed at first rather uneasy.
“Hope I ain't hurryin' you too much,” he said. “I thought maybe it would be just as well to get out of sight of Hannah as quick as possible. She might take a notion to come with us. I thought sure Kenelm would, but he's gone on a cruise of his own somewheres. He hustled outdoor soon as breakfast was over.”
Emily burst out laughing. “Excuse me, please,” she said, “but I've been dying to do this for so long. That—that Miss Parker is the oddest person!”
The captain grinned. “Thinkin' about that 'diagram' yarn?” he asked. “'Tis funny when you hear it the first four or five times. Hannah Parker can get more wrong words in the right places than anybody I ever run across. She must have swallowed a dictionary some time or 'nother, but it ain't digested well, I'm afraid.”
Thankful laughed, too. “You must find her pretty amusin', Cap'n Bangs,” she said.
The captain shook his head. “She's a reg'lar dime show,” he observed. Then he added: “Only trouble with that kind of a show is it gets kind of tiresome when you have to set through it all winter. There! now you can see your property, Mrs. Barnes, and ten mile either side of it. Look's some more lifelike and cheerful than it did last night, don't it?”
It most assuredly did. They had reached the summit of a little hill and before and behind and beneath them was a view of shore and sea that caused Emily to utter an exclamation of delight.
“Oh!” she cried. “WHAT a view! What a wonderful view!”
Behind them, beyond the knoll upon which stood the little Parker house which they had just left, at the further side of the stretch of salt meadow with the creek and bridge, was East Wellmouth village. Along the white sand of the beach, now garlanded with lines of fresh seaweed torn up and washed ashore by the gale, were scattered a half dozen fishhouses, with dories and lobster pots before them, and at the rear of these began the gray and white huddle of houses and stores, with two white church spires and the belfry of the schoolhouse rising above their roofs.
At their right, only a few yards from the foot-path where they stood, the high sand bluff broke sharply down to the beach and the sea. The great waves, tossing their white plumes on high, came marching majestically in, to trip, topple and fall, one after the other, in roaring, hissing Niagaras upon the shore. Over their raveled crests the gulls dipped and soared. The air was clear, the breeze keen and refreshing and the salty smell of the torn seaweed rose to the nostrils of the watchers.
To the left were barren hills, dotted with scrub, and farther on the pine groves, with the road from Wellmouth Centre winding out from their midst.
All these things Thankful and Emily noticed, but it was on the prospect directly ahead that their interest centered. For there, upon the slope of the next knoll stood the “property” they had come to see and to which they had been introduced in such an odd fashion.
Seen by daylight and in the glorious sunshine the old Barnes house did look, as their guide said, more “lifelike and cheerful.” A big, rambling, gray-gabled affair, of colonial pattern, a large yard before it and a larger one behind, the tumble-down shed in which General Jackson had been tethered, a large barn, also rather tumble-down, with henhouses and corncribs beside it and attached to it in haphazard fashion. In the front yard were overgrown clusters of lilac and rose bushes and, behind the barn, was the stubble of a departed garden. Thankful looked at all these.
“So that's it,” she said.
“That's it,” said Captain Obed. “What do you think of it?”
“Humph! Well, there's enough of it, anyhow, as the little boy said about the spring medicine. What do you think, Emily?”
Emily's answer was prompt and emphatic.
“I like it,” she declared. “It looks so different this morning. Last night it seemed lonesome and pokey and horrid, but now it is almost inviting. Think what it must be in the spring and summer. Think of opening those upper windows on a summer morning and looking out and away for miles and miles. It would be splendid!”
“Um—yes. But spring and summer don't last all the time. There's December and January and February to think of. Even March ain't all joy; we've got last night to prove it by. However, it doesn't look quite so desperate as I thought it might; I'll give in to that. Last night I was about ready to sell it for the price of a return ticket to South Middleboro. Now I guess likely I ought to get a few tradin' stamps along with the ticket. Humph! This sartin isn't ALL Poverty Lane, is it? THAT place wa'n't built with tradin' stamps. Who lives there?”
She was pointing to the estate adjoining the Barnes house and fronting the sea further on. “Estate” is a much abused term and is sometimes applied to rather insignificant holdings, but this one deserved the name. Great stretches of lawns and shrubbery, ornamental windmill, greenhouses, stables, drives and a towered and turreted mansion dominating all.
“I seem to have aristocratic neighbors, anyhow,” observed Mrs. Barnes. “Whose tintype belongs in THAT gilt frame?”
Captain Obed chuckled at the question.
“Why, nobody's just now,” he said. “There was one up to last fall, though I shouldn't have called him a tintype. More of a panorama, if you asked me—or him, either. That place belonged to our leadin' summer resident, Mr. Hamilton Colfax, of New York. There's a good view from there, too, but not as fine as this one of yours, Mrs. Barnes. When your uncle, Cap'n Abner, bought this old house it used to set over on a part of that land there. The cap'n didn't like the outlook so well as the one from here, so he bought this strip and moved the house down. Quite a job movin' a house as old as this one.
“Mr. Colfax died last October,” he added, “and the place is for sale. Good deal of a shock, his death was, to East Wellmouth. Kind of like takin' away the doughnut and leavin' nothin' but the hole. The Wellmouth Weekly Advocate pretty nigh gave up the ghost when Mr. Colfax did. It always cal'lated on fillin' at least three columns with the doin's of the Colfaxes and their 'house parties' and such. All summer it told what they did do and all winter it guessed what they was goin' to do. It ain't been much more than a patent medicine advertisin' circular since the blow struck. Well, have you looked enough? Shall we heave ahead and go aboard your craft, Mrs. Barnes?”
They walked on, down the little hill and up the next, and entered the front yard of the Barnes house. There were the marks in the mud and sand where the depot-wagon had overturned, but the wagon itself was gone. “Cal'late Winnie S. and his dad come around early and towed it home,” surmised Captain Obed. “Seemed to me I smelled sulphur when I opened my bedroom window this mornin'. Guess 'twas a sort of floatin' memory of old man Holt's remarks when he went by. That depot-wagon was an antique and antiques are valuable these days. Want to go inside, do you?”
Thankful hesitated. “I haven't got the key,” she said. “I suppose it's at that Badger man's in the village. You know who I mean, Cap'n Bangs.”
The captain nodded.
“Christopher S. H. Badger, tinware, groceries, real estate, boots and shoes, and insurance,” he said. “Likewise justice of the peace and first mate of all creation. Yes, I know Chris.”
“Well, he's been in charge of this property of mine. He collected the rent from that Mr. Eldredge who used to live here. I had a good many letters from him, mainly about paintin' and repairs.”
“Um—hum; I ain't surprised. Chris sells paint as well as tea and tinware. He's got the key, has he?”
“I suppose he has. I ought to have gone up and got it from him.”
“Well, I wouldn't fret about it. Of course we can't go in the front door like the minister and weddin' company, but the kitchen door was unfastened last night and I presume likely it's that way now. You haven't any objection to the kitchen door, have you? When old Laban lived here it's a safe bet he never used any other. Cur'ous old critter, he was.”
They entered by the kitchen door. The inside of the house, like the outside, was transformed by day and sunshine. The rooms downstairs were large and well lighted, and, in spite of their emptiness, they seemed almost cheerful.
“Whose furniture is this?” asked Thankful, referring to the stove and chair and sofa in the dining-room.
“Laban's; that is, it used to be. When he died he didn't have chick nor child nor relation, so fur's anybody knew, and his stuff stayed right here. There wa'n't very much of it. That is—” He hesitated.
“But, there must have been more than this,” said Thankful. “What, became of it?”
Captain Obed shook his head. “You might ask Chris Badger,” he suggested. “Chris sells antiques on the side—the high side.”
“Did old Mr. Eldredge live here ALL alone?” asked Emily.
“Yup. And died all alone, too. Course I don't mean he was alone all the time he was sick. Most of that time he was out of his head and folks could stay with him, but he came to himself occasional and when he did he'd fire 'em out because feedin' 'em cost money. He wa'n't what you'd call generous, Laban wa'n't.”
“Where did he die?” asked Thankful, who was looking out of the window.
“Upstairs in the little back bedroom. Smallest room in the house 'tis, and folks used to say he slept there 'cause he could heat it by his cussin' instead of a stove. 'Most always cussin', he was—cussin' and groanin'.”
Thankful was silent. Emily said: “Groaning? You mean he groaned when he was ill?”
“Yes, and when he was well, too. A habit of his, groanin' was. I don't know why he done it—see himself in the lookin'-glass, maybe; that was enough to make anybody groan. He'd groan in his sleep—or snore—or both. He was the noisiest sleeper ever I set up with. Shall we go upstairs?”
The narrow front stairs creaked as loudly in the daytime as they had on the previous night, but the long hall on the upper floor was neither dark nor terrifying. Nevertheless it was with just a suspicion of dread that Mrs. Barnes approached the large room at the end of the hall and the small one adjoining it. Her common-sense had returned and she was naturally brave, but an experience such as hers had been is not forgotten in a few hours. However, she was determined that no one should know her feelings; therefore she was the first to enter the little room.
“Here's where Laban bunked,” said the captain. “You'd think with all the big comf'table bedrooms to choose from he wouldn't pick out this two-by-four, would you? But he did, probably because nobody else would. He was a contrary old rooster, and odd as Dick's hat-band.”
Thankful was listening, although not to their guide's remarks. She was listening for sounds such as she had heard—or thought she had heard—on the occasion of her previous visit to that room. But there were no such sounds. There was the bed, the patchwork comforter, the chair and the pictures on the walls, but when she approached that bed there came no disturbing groans. And, by day, the memory of her fright seemed absolutely ridiculous. For at least the tenth time she solemnly resolved that no one should ever know how foolish she had been.
Emily uttered an exclamation and pointed.
“Why, Auntie!” she cried. “Isn't that—where did that lantern come from?”
Captain Obed looked where she was pointing. He stepped forward and picked up the overturned lantern.
“That's Darius Holt's lantern, I do believe,” he declared. “The one Winnie S. was makin' such a fuss about last night. How in the nation did it get up here?”
Thankful laughed. “I brought it up,” she said. “I come on a little explorin' cruise when Emily dropped asleep on that sittin'-room lounge, but I hadn't much more'n got in here when the pesky thing went out. You ought to have seen me hurryin' along that hall to get down before you woke up, Emily. No, come to think of it, you couldn't have seen me—'twas too dark to see anything. . . . Well,” she added, quickly, in order to head off troublesome questioning, “we've looked around here pretty well. What else is there to see?”
They visited the garret and the cellar; both were spacious and not too clean.
“If I ever come here to live,” declared Thankful, with decision, “there'll be some dustin' and sweepin' done, I know that.”
Emily looked at her in surprise.
“Come here to live!” she repeated. “Why, Auntie, are you thinking of coming here to live?”
Her cousin's answer was not very satisfactory. “I've been thinkin' a good many things lately,” she said. “Some of 'em was even more crazy than that sounds.”
The inside of the house having been thus thoroughly inspected they explored the yard and the outbuildings. The barn was a large one, with stalls for two horses and a cow and a carriage-room with the remnants of an old-fashioned carryall in it.
“This is about the way it used to be in Cap'n Abner's day,” said Captain Obed. “That carryall belonged to your uncle, the cap'n, Mrs. Barnes. The boys have had it out for two or three Fourth of July Antiques and Horribles' parades; 'twon't last for many more by the looks of it.”
“And what,” asked Thankful, “is that? It looks like a pigsty.”
They were standing at the rear of the house, which was built upon a slope. Under the washshed, which adjoined the kitchen, was a rickety door. Beside that door was a boarded enclosure which extended both into the yard and beneath the washshed.
Captain Bangs laughed. “You've guessed it, first crack,” he said. “It is a pigpen. Some of Laban's doin's, that is. He used to keep a pig and 'twas too much trouble to travel way out back of the barn to feed it, so Labe rigged up this contraption. That door leads into the potato cellar. Labe fenced off half the cellar to make a stateroom for the pig. He thought as much of that hog as if 'twas his own brother, and there WAS a sort of family likeness.”
Thankful snorted. “A pigsty under the house!” she said. “Well, that's all I want to know about THAT man!”
As they were returning along the foot-path by the bluff Captain Obed, who had been looking over his shoulder, suddenly stopped.
“That's kind of funny,” he said.
“What?” asked Emily.
“Oh, nothin', I guess. I thought I caught a sight of somebody peekin' around the back of that henhouse. If 'twas somebody he dodged back so quick I couldn't be sure. Humph! I guess I was mistaken, or 'twas just one of Solon Taylor's young ones. Solon's a sort of—sort of stevedore at the Colfax place. Lives there and takes care of it while the owners are away. No-o; no, I don't see nobody now.”
Thankful was silent during the homeward walk. When she and Miss Howes were alone in their room, she said:
“Emily, are you real set on gettin' back to South Middleboro tonight?”
“No, Auntie. Why?”
“Well, if you ain't I think I'd like to stay over another day. I've got an idea in my head and, such a thing bein' kind of unusual, I'd like to keep company with it for a spell. I'll tell you about it by and by; probably 'twon't come to anything, anyway.”
“But do you think we ought to stay here, as Miss Parker's guests? Wouldn't it be—”
“Of course it would. We'll go over to that hotel, the one we started for in the first place. Judgin' from what I hear of that tavern it'll be wuth experiencin'; and—and somethin' may come of that, too.”
She would not explain further, and Emily, knowing her well, did not press the point.
Hannah Parker protested volubly when her “company” declared its intention of going to the East Wellmouth Hotel.
“Of course you shan't do no such thing,” she declared. “The idea! It's no trouble at all to have you, and that hotel really ain't fit for such folks as you to stay at. Mrs. Bacon, from Boston, stayed there one night in November and she pretty nigh famished with the cold, to say nothin' of havin' to eat huckleberry preserves for supper two nights runnin'. Course they had plenty of other things in the closet, but they'd opened a jar of huckleberries, so they had to be et up afore they spiled. That's the way they run THAT hotel. And Mrs. Bacon is eastern Massachusetts delegate from the State Grange. She's Grand Excited Matron. Just think of treatin' her that way! Well, where've you been all the forenoon?”
The question was addressed to her brother, who entered the house by the side door at that moment. Kenelm seemed a trifle confused.
“I—I been lookin' for that umbrella, Hannah,” he explained. “I knew I must have left it somewheres 'cause—'cause, you see I—I took it out with me last night and—and—”
“And come home without it. It wouldn't take a King Solomon to know that. Did you find it?”
Kenelm's embarrassment appeared to increase.
“Well,” he stammered, “I ain't exactly found it—but—”
“But what?”
“I—I'm cal'latin' to find it, Hannah.”
“Yes, I know. You're cal'latin' to get to Heaven some time or other, I s'pose, but if the path is as narrow and crooked as they say 'tis I should be scared if I was you. You'll find a way to lose it, if there is one. Oh, dear me!” with a sudden change to a tone almost pleading. “Be you goin' to smoke again?”
Kenelm's reply was strange for him. He scratched a match and lit his pipe with calm deliberation.
“I'm cal'latin' to,” he said, cheerfully. And his sister, to the surprise of Mrs. Barnes and Emily, did not utter another word of protest.
Captain Obed volunteered to accompany them to the hotel and to the store of Mr. Badger. On the way Thankful mentioned Mr. Parker's amazing independence in the matter of the pipe.
The captain chuckled. “Yes,” he said, “Kenelm smokes when he wants to, and sometimes when he don't, I guess, just to keep his self-respect. Smokin' is one p'int where he beat out Hannah. It's quite a yarn, the way he done it is. Some time I'll tell it to you, maybe.”
The hotel—it was kept by Darius Holt, father of Winnie S.—was no more inviting than Miss Parker's and Captain Bangs' hints had led them to expect. But Thankful insisted on engaging a room for the night and on returning there for dinner, supper and breakfast the following day.
“After that, we'll see,” she said. “Now let's go and make a call on that rent collector of mine.”
Mr. Badger was surprised to meet the owner of the Barnes house, surprised and a bit taken aback, so it seemed to Mrs. Barnes and her cousin. He was very polite, almost obsequiously so, and his explanations concerning the repairs which he had found it necessary to make and the painting which he had had done were lengthy if not convincing.
As they left him, smiling and bowing in the doorway of his store, Thankful shook her head. When they were out of earshot she said:
“Hum! The paint he says he put on that precious property of mine don't show as much as you'd expect, but he used enough butter and whitewash this morning to make up. He's a slick party, that Mr. Badger is, or I miss my guess. His business arithmetic don't go much further than addition. Everything in creation added to one makes one and he's the one. Mr. Chris Badger's got jobs enough, accordin' to his sign. He won't starve if he don't collect rents for me any more.”
The hotel dinner was neither bountiful nor particularly well cooked. The Holts joined them at table and Winnie S. talked a good deal. He expressed much joy at the recovery of his lantern.
“But when I see you folks in that house last night,” he said, “I thought to myself, 'Judas priest!' thinks I. 'Them women has got more spunk than I've got.' Gettin' into a house like that all alone in the dark—Whew! Judas priest! I wouldn't do it!”
“Why not?” asked Emily.
“Oh, just 'cause I wouldn't, I suppose. Now I don't believe in such things, of course, but old Laban he did die there. I never heard nothin', but they tell me—”
“Rubbish!” broke in Mr. Holt, Senior. “'Tain't nothin' but fool yarns, the whole of it. Take an old house, a hundred year old same as that is, and shut her up and 'tain't long afore folks do get to pretendin' they hear things. I never heard nothin'. Have some more pie, Miss Howes? Huh! There AIN'T no more, is there!”
After dinner Emily retired to her room for a nap. She did so under protest, declaring that she was not tired, but Thankful insisted.
“If you ain't tired now you will be when the excitement's over,” she said. “My conscience is plaguin' me enough about fetchin' you on this cruise, as it is. Just take it as easy as you can, Emily. Lie down and rest, and please me.”
So Emily obeyed orders and Mrs. Barnes, after drawing the curtains and asking over and over again if her cousin was sure she was comfortable, went out. It was late in the afternoon when she returned.
“I've been talkin' until my face aches,” she declared. “And my mind is about made up to do—to do what may turn out to be the craziest thing I ever DID do. I'll tell you the whole thing after supper, Emily. Let's let my tongue have a vacation till then.”
And, after supper, which, by the way, was no better than the dinner, she fulfilled her promise. They retired to the bedroom and Thankful, having carefully closed the windows and door and hung a towel over the keyhole, told of her half-formed plan.
“Emily,” she began, “I presume likely you'll feel that you'd ought to go back home tomorrow? Yes, I knew you'd feel that way. Well, I ain't goin' with you. I've made up my mind to stay here for a few days longer. Now I'll tell you why.
“You see, Emily,” she went on, “my comin' down here to East Wellmouth wa'n't altogether for the fun of lookin' at the heirloom Uncle Abner left me. The first thing I wanted to do was see it, but when I had seen it, and if it turned out to be what I hoped it might be, there was somethin' else. Emily, Mrs. Pearson's dyin' leaves me without a job. Oh, of course I know I could 'most likely get another chance at nursin' or keepin' house for somebody, but, to tell you the truth, I'm gettin' kind of tired of that sort of thing. Other folks' houses are like other folks' ailments; they don't interest you as much as your own do. I'm sick of askin' somebody else what they want for dinner; I'd like to get my own dinner, or, at least, if somebody else is to eat with me, I want to decide myself what they'll have to eat. I want to run my own house once more afore I die. And it seems—yes, it seems to me as if here was the chance; nothin' but a chance, and a risky one, but a chance just the same. Emily, I'm thinkin' of fixin' up Uncle Abner's old rattletrap and openin' a boardin'-house for summer folks in it.
“Yes, yes; I know,” she continued, noticing the expression on her companion's face. “There's as much objection to the plan as there is slack managin' in this hotel, and that's some consider'ble. Fust off, it'll cost money. Well; I've saved a little money and those cranberry bog shares Mrs. Pearson left me will sell for two thousand at least. That would be enough, maybe, if I wanted to risk it all, but I don't. I've got another scheme. This property of mine down here is free and clear, but, on account of its location and the view, Cap'n Bangs tells me it's worth consider'ble more than I thought it was. I believe—yes, I do believe I could put a mortgage on it for enough to pay for the fixin' over, maybe more.”
Emily interrupted.
“But, Auntie,” she said, “a mortgage is a debt, isn't it? A debt that must be paid. And if you borrow from a stranger—”
“Just a minute, Emily. Course a mortgage is a debt, but it's a debt on the house and land and, if worse comes to worst, the house and land can go to pay for it. And I don't mean to borrow from a stranger, if I can help it. I've got a relation down here on the Cape, although he's a pretty fur-off, round-the-corner relation, third cousin, or somethin' like that. His name's Solomon Cobb and he lives over to Trumet, about nine mile from here, so Cap'n Bangs says. And he and Uncle Abner used to sail together for years. He was mate aboard the schooner when Uncle Abner died on a v'yage from Charleston home. This Cobb man is a tight-fisted old bachelor, they say, but his milk of human kindness may not be all skimmed. And, anyhow, he does take mortgages; that's the heft of his business—I got that from the cap'n without tellin' him what I wanted to know for.”
Miss Howes smiled.
“You and Captain Bangs have been putting your heads together, I see,” she said.
“Um—hm. And his head ain't all mush and seeds like a pumpkin, if I'm any judge. The cap'n tells me that east Wellmouth needs a good summer boardin'-house. This—this contraption we're in now is the nighest thing there is to it, and that's as far off as dirt is from soap; you can see that yourself. 'Cordin' to Cap'n Bangs, lots and lots of city people would come here summers if there was a respectable, decent place to go to. Now, Emily, why can't I give 'em such a place? Seems to me I can. Anyhow, if I can mortgage the place to Cousin Sol Cobb I think—yes, I'm pretty sure I shall try. Now what do you think? Is your Aunt Thankful Barnes losin' her sense—always providin' she's ever had any to lose—or is she gettin' to be a real business woman at last?”
Emily's reply was at first rather doubtful. She raised one objection after the other, but Mrs. Barnes was always ready with an answer. It was plain that she had looked at her plan from every angle. And, at last, Miss Howes, too, became almost enthusiastic.
“I do believe,” she said, “it may turn out to be a splendid thing for you, Auntie. At least, I'm sure you will succeed if anyone can. Oh dear!” wistfully. “I only wish it were possible for me to stay here and help with it all. But I can't—I can't. Mother and the children need the money and I must go back to my school.”
Thankful nodded. “Yes,” she admitted, “I suppose likely you must, for the present. But—but if it SHOULD be a go and I SHOULD see plainer sailin' ahead, then I'd need somebody to help manage, somebody younger and more up-to-date than I am. And I know mighty well who I shall send for.”
They talked for a long time, but at last, after they were in bed and the lamp was extinguished, Emily said:
“I hate to go back and leave you here, Auntie; indeed I do. I shall be so interested and excited I shall scarcely be able to wait for your letters. You will write just as soon as you have seen this Mr. Cobb, won't you?”
“Yes, sartin sure I will. I know it's goin' to be hard for you to go and leave me, Emily, but I shan't be havin' a Sunday-school picnic, exactly, myself. From what I used to hear about Cousin Solomon, unless he's changed a whole lot since, gettin' a dollar from him won't be as easy as pullin' a spoon out of a kittle of soft-soap. I'll have to do some persuadin', I guess. Wish my tongue was as soothin'-syrupy as that Mr. Badger's is. But I'm goin' to do my best. And if talkin' won't do it I'll—I swear I don't know as I shan't give him ether. Maybe he'd take THAT if he could get it for nothin'. Good night.”