The story of the events which led up to the coming, on this December night, of a “half-breed” grandson to the Snow homestead, was an old story in South Harniss. The date of its beginning was as far back as the year 1892.
In the fall of that year Captain Zelotes Snow was in Savannah. He was in command of the coasting schooner Olive S. and the said schooner was then discharging a general cargo, preparatory to loading with rice and cotton for Philadelphia. With the captain in Savannah was his only daughter, Jane Olivia, age a scant eighteen, pretty, charming, romantic and head over heels in love with a handsome baritone then singing in a popular-priced grand opera company. It was because of this handsome baritone, who, by the way, was a Spaniard named Miguel Carlos Speranza, that Jane Snow was then aboard her father's vessel. Captain Lote was not in the habit of taking his women-folks on his voyages with him. “Skirts clutter up the deck too much,” was his opinion.
He had taken Jane, however, not only on this voyage, but on that preceding it, which had been to Rio. It was Captain Lote's belief, and his wife's hope, that a succession of sea winds might blow away recollections of Senor Speranza—“fan the garlic out of her head,” as the captain inelegantly expressed it. Jane had spent her sixteenth and seventeenth years at a school for girls near Boston. The opera company of which Speranza was a member was performing at one of the minor theaters. A party of the school girls, duly chaperoned and faculty-guarded, of course, attended a series of matinees. At these matinees Jane first saw her hero, brave in doublet and hose, and braver still in melody and romance. She and her mates looked and listened and worshiped from afar, as is the habit of maidenly youth under such circumstances. There is no particular danger in such worship provided the worshiper remains always at a safely remote distance from the idol. But in Jane's case this safety-bar was removed by Fate. The wife of a friend of her father's, the friend being a Boston merchant named Cole with whom Captain Zelotes had had business dealings for many years, was a music lover. She was in the habit of giving what she was pleased to call “musical teas” at her home. Jane, to whom Mr. and Mrs. Cole had taken a marked fancy, was often invited to those teas and, because the Coles were “among our nicest people,” she was permitted by the school authorities to attend.
At one of those teas Senor Miguel Carlos Speranza was the brightest star. The Senor, then in his twenty-ninth year, handsome, talented and picturesque, shone refulgent. Other and far more experienced feminine hearts than Jane Snow's were flutteringly disturbed by the glory of his rays. Jane and he met, they shook hands, they conversed. And at subsequent teas they met again, for Speranza, on his part, was strongly attracted to the simple, unaffected Cape Cod schoolgirl. It was not her beauty alone—though beauty she had and of an unusual type—it was something else, a personality which attracted all who met her. The handsome Spaniard had had many love affairs of a more or less perfunctory kind, but here was something different, something he had not known. He began by exerting his powers of fascination in a lazy, careless way. To his astonishment the said powers were not overwhelming. If Jane was fascinated she was not conquered. She remained sweet, simple, direct, charmingly aloof.
And Speranza was at first puzzled, then piqued, then himself madly fascinated. He wrote fervid letters, he begged for interviews, he haunted each one of Mrs. Cole's “teas.” And, at last, he wrung from Jane a confession of her love, her promise to marry him. And that very week Miss Donaldson, the head of the school, discovered and read a package of the Senor's letters to her pupil.
Captain Zelotes happened to be at home from a voyage. Being summoned from South Harniss, he came to Boston and heard the tale from Miss Donaldson's agitated lips. Jane was his joy, his pride; her future was the great hope and dream of his life. WHEN she married—which was not to be thought of for an indefinite number of years to come—she would of course marry a—well, not a President of the United States, perhaps—but an admiral possibly, or a millionaire, or the owner of a fleet of steamships, or something like that. The idea that she should even think of marrying a play-actor was unbelievable. The captain had never attended the performance of an opera; what was more, he never expected to attend one. He had been given to understand that a “parcel of play-actin' men and women hollered and screamed to music for a couple of hours.” Olive, his wife, had attended an opera once and, according to her, it was more like a cat fight than anything else. Nobody but foreigners ever had anything to do with operas. And for foreigners of all kinds—but the Latin variety of foreigner in particular—Captain Zelotes Snow cherished a detest which was almost fanatic.
And now his daughter, his own Janie, was receiving ardent love letters from a play-acting foreigner, a Spaniard, a “Portygee,” a “macaroni-eater”! When finally convinced that it was true, that the letters had really been written to Jane, which took some time, he demanded first of all to be shown the “Portygee.” Miss Donaldson could not, of course, produce the latter forthwith, but she directed her irate visitor to the theater where the opera company was then performing. To the theater Captain Zelotes went. He did not find Speranza there, but from a frightened attendant he browbeat the information that the singer was staying at a certain hotel. So the captain went to the hotel. It was eleven o'clock in the morning, Senor Speranza was in bed and could not be disturbed. Couldn't, eh? By the great and everlasting et cetera and continued he was going to be disturbed then and there. And unless some of the hotel's “hired help” set about the disturbing it would be done for them. So, rather than summon the police, the hotel management summoned its guest, and the first, and only, interview between the father and lover of Jane Snow took place.
It was not a long interview, but it was spirited. Captain Zelotes began by being what he considered diplomatic. Having assured his wife before leaving home, and the alarmed Miss Donaldson subsequently, that there was to be no trouble whatever—everything would be settled as smooth and easy as slidin' downhill; “that feller won't make any fuss, you'll see”—having thus prophesied, the captain felt it incumbent upon himself to see to the fulfillment. So he began by condescendingly explaining that of course he was kind of sorry for the young man before him, young folks were young folks and of course he presumed likely 'twas natural enough, and the like of that, you understand. But of course also Mr. Speranza must realize that the thing could not go on any further. Jane was his daughter and her people were nice people, and naturally, that being the case, her mother and he would be pretty particular as to who she kept company with, to say nothing of marrying, which event was not to be thought of for ten years, anyway. Now he didn't want to be—er—personal or anything like that, and of course he wouldn't think of saying that Mr. Speranza wasn't a nice enough man for—well, for—for . . . You see, everybody wasn't as particular as he and Mrs. Snow were. But—
Here Senor Speranza interrupted. He politely desired to know if the person speaking was endeavoring to convey the idea that he, Miguel Carlos Speranza, was not of sufficient poseetion, goodness, standing, what it is? to be considered as suitor for that person's daughter's hand. Did Meester Snow comprehend to whom he addressed himself?
The interview terminated not long after. The captain's parting remark was in the nature of an ultimatum. It was to the effect that if Speranza, or any other condemned undesirable like him, dared to so much as look in the direction of Jane Olivia Snow, his daughter, he personally would see that the return for that look was a charge of buckshot. Speranza, white-faced and furiously gesticulative, commanded the astonished bellboy to put that “Bah! pig-idiot!” out into the hall and air the room immediately afterward.
Having, as he considered, satisfactorily attended to the presumptuous lover, Captain Zelotes returned to the school and to what he believed would be the comparatively easy task, the bringing of his daughter to reason. Jane had always been an obedient girl, she was devoted to her parents. Of course, although she might feel rather disappointed at first, she would soon get over it. The idea that she might flatly refuse to get over it, that she might have a will of her own, and a determination equal to that of the father from whom she inherited it, did not occur to the captain at all.
But his enlightenment was prompt and complete. Jane did not rage or become hysterical, she did not even weep in his presence. But, quietly, with a set of her square little chin, she informed Captain Zelotes that she loved Speranza, that she meant to marry him and that she should marry him, some day or other. The captain raged, commanded, pleaded, begged. What was the matter with her? What had come over her? Didn't she love her father and mother any more that she should set out to act this way? Yes, she declared that she loved them as much as ever, but that she loved her lover more than all the world, and no one—not even her parents—should separate them.
Captain Zelotes gave it up at last. That is, he gave up the appeal to reason and the pleadings. But he did not give up the idea of having his own way in the matter; being Zelotes Snow, he certainly did not give that up. Instead he took his daughter home with him to South Harniss, where a tearful and heart-broken Olive added her persuasions to his. But, when she found Jane obdurate, Mrs. Snow might have surrendered. Not her husband, however. Instead he conceived a brilliant idea. He was about to start on a voyage to Rio Janeiro; he would take his wife and daughter with him. Under their immediate observation and far removed from the influence of “that Portygee,” Jane would be in no danger and might forget.
Jane made no remonstrance. She went to Rio and returned. She was always calm, outwardly pleasant and quiet, never mentioned her lover unless in answer to a question; but she never once varied from her determination not to give him up. The Snows remained at home for a month. Then Zelotes, Jane accompanying him, sailed from Boston to Savannah. Olive did not go with them; she hated the sea and by this time both she and her husband were somewhat reassured. So far as they could learn by watchful observation of their daughter, the latter had not communicated with Speranza nor received communications from him. If she had not forgotten him it seemed likely that he had forgotten her. The thought made the captain furiously angry, but it comforted him, too.
During the voyage to Savannah this sense of comfort became stronger. Jane seemed in better spirits. She was always obedient, but now she began to seem almost cheerful, to speak, and even laugh occasionally just as she used to. Captain Zelotes patted himself on the back, figuratively. His scheme had been a good one.
And in Savannah, one afternoon, Jane managed to elude her father's observation, to leave the schooner and to disappear completely. And that night came a letter. She and Miguel Carlos Speranza had been in correspondence all the time, how or through whose connivance is a mystery never disclosed. He had come to Savannah, in accordance with mutual arrangement; they had met, were married, and had gone away together.
“I love you, Father,” Jane wrote in the letter. “I love you and Mother so very, VERY much. Oh, PLEASE believe that! But I love him, too. And I could not give him up. You will see why when you know him, really know him. If it were not for you I should be SO happy. I know you can't forgive me now, but some day I am sure you will forgive us both.”
Captain Zelotes was far, far from forgiveness as he read that letter. His first mate, who was beside him when he opened and read it, was actually frightened when he saw the look on the skipper's face. “He went white,” said the mate; “not pale, but white, same as a dead man, or—or the underside of a flatfish, or somethin'. 'For the Lord sakes, Cap'n,' says I, 'what's the matter?' He never answered me, stood starin' at the letter. Then he looked up, not at me, but as if somebody else was standin' there on t'other side of the cabin table. 'Forgive him!' he says, kind of slow and under his breath. 'I won't forgive his black soul in hell.' When I heard him say it I give you my word my hair riz under my cap. If ever there was killin' in a man's voice and in his looks 'twas in Cap'n Lote's that night. When I asked him again what was the matter he didn't answer any more than he had the first time. A few minutes afterwards he went into his stateroom and shut the door. I didn't see him again until the next mornin'.”
Captain Zelotes made no attempt to follow the runaway couple. He did take pains to ascertain that they were legally married, but that was all. He left his schooner in charge of the mate at Savannah and journeyed north to South Harniss and his wife. A week he remained at home with her, then returned to the Olive S. and took up his command and its duties as if nothing had happened. But what had happened changed his whole life. He became more taciturn, a trifle less charitable, a little harder and more worldly. Before the catastrophe he had been interested in business success and the making of money chiefly because of his plans for his daughter's future. Now he worked even harder because it helped him to forget. He became sole owner of the Olive S., then of other schooners. People spoke of him as one destined to become a wealthy man.
Jane lived only a few years after her marriage. She died at the birth of her second child, who died with her. Her first, a boy, was born a year after the elopement. She wrote her mother to tell that news and Olive answered the letter. She begged permission of her husband to invite Jane and the baby to visit the old home. At first Zelotes said no, flatly; the girl had made her bed, let her lie in it. But a year later he had so far relented as to give reluctant consent for Jane and the child to come, provided her condemned husband did not accompany them. “If that low-lived Portygee sets foot on my premises, so help me God, I'll kill him!” declared the captain. In his vernacular all foreigners were “Portygees.”
But Jane was as proud and stubborn as he. Where her husband was not welcome she would not go. And a little later she had gone on the longest of all journeys. Speranza did not notify her parents except to send a clipped newspaper account of her death and burial, which arrived a week after the latter had taken place. The news prostrated Olive, who was ill for a month. Captain Zelotes bore it, as he had borne the other great shock, with outward calm and quiet. Yet a year afterward he suddenly announced his determination of giving up the sea and his prosperous and growing shipping business and of spending the rest of his days on the Cape.
Olive was delighted, of course. Riches—that is, more than a comfortable competency—had no temptations for her. The old house, home of three generations of Snows, was painted, repaired and, to some extent, modernized. For another year Captain Zelotes “loafed,” as he called it, although others might have considered his activities about the place anything but that. At the end of that year he surprised every one by buying from the heirs of the estate the business equipment of the late Eben Raymond, hardware dealer and lumber merchant of South Harniss, said equipment comprising an office, a store and lumber yards near the railway station. “Got to have somethin' to keep me from gettin' barnacled,” declared Captain Lote. “There's enough old hulks rottin' at their moorin's down here as 'tis. I don't know anything about lumber and half as much about hardware, but I cal'late I can learn.” As an aid in the learning process he retained as bookkeeper Laban Keeler, who had acted in that capacity for the former proprietor.
The years slipped away, a dozen of them, as smoothly and lazily as South Harniss years have always slipped. Captain Zelotes was past sixty now, but as vigorous as when forty, stubborn as ever, fond of using quarter-deck methods on shore and especially in town-meeting, and very often in trouble in consequence. He was a member of the Board of Selectmen and was in the habit of characterizing those whose opinions differed from his as “narrow-minded.” They retorted by accusing him of being “pig-headed.” There was some truth on both sides. His detest of foreigners had not abated in the least.
And then, in this December of the year 1910, fell as from a clear sky the legacy of a grandson. From Senor Miguel Carlos Speranza the Snows had had no direct word, had received nothing save the newspaper clipping already mentioned. Olive had never seen him; her husband had seen him only on the occasion of the memorable interview in the hotel room. They never spoke of him, never mentioned him to each other. Occasionally, in the Boston newspapers, his likeness in costume had appeared amid the music notes or theatrical jottings. But these had not been as numerous of late. Of his son, their own daughter's child, they knew nothing; he might be alive or he might be dead. Sometimes Olive found herself speculating concerning him, wondering if he was alive, and if he resembled Jane. But she put the speculation from her thoughts; she could not bear to bring back memories of the old hopes and their bitter ending. Sometimes Captain Lote at his desk in the office of “Z. Snow & Co., Lumber and Builders' Hardware,” caught himself dreaming of his idolized daughter and thinking how different the future might have been for him had she married a “white man,” the kind of man he had meant for her to marry. There might be grandchildren growing up now, fine boys and girls, to visit the old home at South Harniss. “Ah hum! Well! . . . Labe, how long has this bill of Abner Parker's been hangin' on? For thunder sakes, why don't he pay up? He must think we're runnin' a meetin'-house Christmas tree.”
The letter from the lawyer had come first. It was written in New York, was addressed to “Captain Lotus Snow,” and began by taking for granted the fact that the recipient knew all about matters of which he knew nothing. Speranza was dead, so much was plain, and the inference was that he had been fatally injured in an automobile accident, “particulars of which you have of course read in the papers.” Neither Captain Lote nor his wife had read anything of the kind in the papers. The captain had been very busy of late and had read little except political news, and Mrs. Snow never read of murders and accidents, their details at least. She looked up from the letter, which her husband had hastened home from the office to bring her, with a startled face.
“Oh, Zelotes,” she cried, “he's dead!”
The captain nodded.
“Seems so,” he said. “That part's plain enough, but go on. The rest of it is what I can't get a hand-hold on. See what you make of the rest of it, Olive.”
The rest of it was to the effect that the writer, being Mr. Speranza's business adviser, “that is to say, as much or more so than any one else,” had been called in at the time of the accident, had conferred with the injured man, and had learned his last wishes. “He expressed himself coherently concerning his son,” went on the letter, “and it is in regard to that son that I am asking an interview with you. I should have written sooner, but have been engaged with matters pertaining to Mr. Speranza's estate and personal debts. The latter seem to be large—”
“I'LL bet you!” observed Captain Zelotes, sententiously, interrupting his wife's reading by pointing to this sentence with a big forefinger.
“'And the estate's affairs much tangled,'” went on Olive, reading aloud. “'It seems best that I should see you concerning the boy at once. I don't know whether or not you are aware that he is at school in ——, New York. I am inclined to think that the estate itself will scarcely warrant the expense of his remaining there. Could you make it convenient to come to New York and see me at once? Or, if not, I shall be in Boston on Friday of next week and can you meet me there? It seems almost impossible for me to come to you just now, and, of course, you will understand that I am acting as a sort of temporary executor merely because Mr. Speranza was formerly my friend and not because I have any pecuniary interest in the settlement of his affairs.
“'Very truly yours,
“'MARCUS W. WEISSMANN.'”
“Weissman! Another Portygee!” snorted Captain Lote.
“But—but what does it MEAN?” begged Mrs. Snow. “Why—why should he want to see you, Zelotes? And the boy—why—why, that's HER boy. It's Janie's boy he must mean, Zelotes.”
Her husband nodded.
“Hers and that blasted furriner's,” he muttered. “I suppose so.”
“Oh, DON'T speak that way, Zelotes! Don't! He's dead.”
Captain Lote's lips tightened. “If he'd died twenty years ago 'twould have been better for all hands,” he growled.
“Janie's boy!” repeated Olive slowly. “Why—why, he must be a big boy now. Almost grown up.”
Her husband did not speak. He was pacing the floor, his hands in his pockets.
“And this man wants to see you about him,” said Olive. Then, after a moment, she added timidly: “Are you goin', Zelotes?”
“Goin'? Where?”
“To New York? To see this lawyer man?”
“I? Not by a jugful! What in blazes should I go to see him for?”
“Well—well, he wants you to, you know. He wants to talk with you about the—the boy.”
“Humph!”
“It's her boy, Zelotes.”
“Humph! Young Portygee!”
“Don't, Zelotes! Please! . . . I know you can't forgive that—that man. We can't either of us forgive him; but—”
The captain stopped in his stride. “Forgive him!” he repeated. “Mother, don't talk like a fool. Didn't he take away the one thing that I was workin' for, that I was plannin' for, that I was LIVIN' for? I—”
She interrupted, putting a hand on his sleeve.
“Not the only thing, dear,” she said. “You had me, you know.”
His expression changed. He looked down at her and smiled.
“That's right, old lady,” he admitted. “I had you, and thank the Almighty for it. Yes, I had you . . . But,” his anger returning, “when I think how that damned scamp stole our girl from us and then neglected her and killed her—”
“ZELOTES! How you talk! He DIDN'T kill her. How can you!”
“Oh, I don't mean he murdered her, of course. But I'll bet all I've got that he made her miserable. Look here, Mother, you and she used to write back and forth once in a while. In any one of those letters did she ever say she was happy?”
Mrs. Snow's answer was somewhat equivocal. “She never said she was unhappy,” she replied. Her husband sniffed and resumed his pacing up and down.
After a little Olive spoke again.
“New York IS a good ways,” she said. “Maybe 'twould be better for you to meet this lawyer man in Boston. Don't you think so?”
“Bah!”
Another interval. Then: “Zelotes?”
“Yes,” impatiently. “What is it?”
“It's her boy, after all, isn't it? Our grandson, yours and mine. Don't you think—don't you think it's your duty to go, Zelotes?”
Captain Lote stamped his foot.
“For thunderation sakes, Olive, let up!” he commanded. “You ought to know by this time that there's one thing I hate worse than doin' my duty, that's bein' preached to about it. Let up! Don't you say another word.”
She did not, having learned much by years of experience. He said the next word on the subject himself. At noon, when he came home for dinner, he said, as they rose from the table: “Where's my suitcase, up attic?”
“Why, yes, I guess likely 'tis. Why?”
Instead of answering he turned to the housekeeper, Mrs. Ellis.
“Rachel,” he said, “go up and get that case and fetch it down to the bedroom, will you? Hurry up! Train leaves at half-past two and it's 'most one now.”
Both women stared at him. Mrs. Ellis spoke first.
“Why, Cap'n Lote,” she cried; “be you goin' away?”
Her employer's answer was crisp and very much to the point. “I am if I can get that case time enough to pack it and make the train,” he observed. “If you stand here askin' questions I probably shall stay to home.”
The housekeeper made a hasty exit by way of the back stairs. Mrs. Snow still gazed wonderingly at her husband.
“Zelotes,” she faltered, “are you—are you—”
“I'm goin' to New York on to-night's boat. I've telegraphed that—that Weiss—Weiss—what-do-you-call-it—that Portygee lawyer—that I'll be to his office to-morrow mornin'.”
“But, Zelotes, we haven't scarcely talked about it, you and I, at all. You might have waited till he came to Boston. Why do you go so SOON?”
The captain's heavy brows drew together.
“You went to the dentist's last Friday,” he said. “Why didn't you wait till next week?”
“Why—why, what a question! My tooth ached and I wanted to have it fixed quick as possible.”
“Um-m, yes. Well, this tooth aches and I want it fixed or hauled out, one or t'other. I want the thing off my mind. . . . Don't TALK to me?” he added, irritably. “I know I'm a fool. And,” with a peremptory wave of the hand, “don't you DARE say anything about DUTY!”
He was back again two days later. His wife did not question him, but waited for him to speak. Those years of experience already mentioned had taught her diplomacy. He looked at her and pulled his beard. “Well,” he observed, when they were alone together, “I saw him.”
“The—the boy?” eagerly.
“No, no! Course not! The boy's at school somewhere up in New York State; how could I see him! I saw that lawyer and I found out about—about the other scamp. He was killed in an auto accident, drunk at the time, I cal'late. Nigh's I can gather he's been drinkin' pretty heavy for the last six or seven years. Always lived high, same as his kind generally does, and spent money like water, I judge—but goin' down hill fast lately. His voice was givin' out on him and he realized it, I presume likely. Now he's dead and left nothin' but trunks full of stage clothes and photographs and,” contemptuously, “letters from fool women, and debts—Lord, yes! debts enough.”
“But the boy, Zelotes. Janie's boy?”
“He's been at this school place for pretty nigh ten years, so the lawyer feller said. That lawyer was a pretty decent chap, too, for a furriner. Seems he used to know this—Speranza rascal—when Speranza was younger and more decent—if he ever was really decent, which I doubt. But this lawyer man was his friend then and about the only one he really had when he was hurt. There was plenty of make-believe friends hangin' on, like pilot-fish to a shark, for what they could get by spongin' on him, but real friends were scarce.”
“And the boy—”
“For the Lord sakes, Mother, don't keep sayin' 'The boy,' 'the boy,' over and over again like a talkin' machine! Let me finish about the father first. This Weis—er—thingamajig—the lawyer, had quite a talk with Speranza afore he died, or while he was dyin'; he only lived a few hours after the accident and was out of his head part of that. But he said enough to let Weiss—er—er—Oh, why CAN'T I remember that Portygee's name?—to let him know that he'd like to have him settle up what was left of his affairs, and to send word to us about—about the boy. There! I hope you feel easier, Mother; I've got 'round to 'the boy' at last.”
“But why did he want word sent to us, Zelotes? He never wrote a line to us in his life.”
“You bet he didn't!” bitterly; “he knew better. Why did he want word sent now? The answer to that's easy enough. 'Cause he wanted to get somethin' out of us, that's the reason. From what that lawyer could gather, and from what he's found out since, there ain't money enough for the boy to stay another six weeks at that school, or anywhere else, unless the young feller earns it himself. And, leavin' us out of the count, there isn't a relation this side of the salt pond. There's probably a million or so over there in Portygee-land,” with a derisive sniff; “those foreigners breed like flies. But THEY don't count.”
“But did he want word sent to us about the—”
“Sshh! I'm tellin' you, Olive, I'm tellin' you. He wanted word sent because he was in hopes that we—you and I, Mother—would take that son of his in at our house here and give him a home. The cheek of it! After what he'd done to you and me, blast him! The solid brass nerve of it!”
He stormed up and down the room. His wife did not seem nearly so much disturbed as he at the thought of the Speranza presumption. She looked anxious—yes, but she looked eager, too, and her gaze was fixed upon her husband's face.
“Oh!” she said, softly. “Oh! . . . And—and what did you say, Zelotes?”
“What did I say? What do you suppose I said? I said no, and I said it good and loud, too.”
Olive made no comment. She turned away her head, and the captain, who now in his turn was watching her, saw a suspicious gleam, as of moisture, on her cheek. He stopped his pacing and laid a hand on her shoulder.
“There, there, Mother,” he said, gently. “Don't cry. He's comin'.”
“Comin'?” She turned pale. “Comin'?” she repeated. “Who?”
“That boy! . . . Sshh! shh!” impatiently. “Now don't go askin' me questions or tellin' me what I just said I said. I SAID the right thing, but—Well, hang it all, what else could I DO? I wrote the boy—Albert—a letter and I wrote the boss of the school another one. I sent a check along for expenses and—Well, he'll be here 'most any day now, I shouldn't wonder. And WHAT in the devil are we goin' to do with him?”
His wife did not reply to this outburst. She was trembling with excitement.
“Is—is his name Albert?” she faltered.
“Um-hm. Seems so.”
“Why, that's your middle name! Do you—do you s'pose Janie could have named him for—for you?”
“I don't know.”
“Of course,” with some hesitation, “it may be she didn't. If she'd named him Zelotes—”
“Good heavens, woman! Isn't one name like that enough in the family? Thank the Lord we're spared two of 'em! But there! he's comin'. And when he gets here—then what?”
Olive put her arm about her big husband.
“I hope—yes, I'm sure you did right, Zelotes, and that all's goin' to turn out to be for the best.”
“Are you? Well,Iain't sure, not by a thousand fathom.”
“He's Janie's boy.”
“Yes. And he's that play-actor's boy, too. One Speranza pretty nigh ruined your life and mine, Olive. What'll this one do? . . . Well, God knows, I suppose likely, but He won't tell. All we can do is wait and see. I tell you honest I ain't very hopeful.”
A brisk rap on the door; then a man's voice.
“Hello, there! Wake up.”
Albert rolled over, opened one eye, then the other and raised himself on his elbow.
“Eh? Wh-what?” he stammered.
“Seven o'clock! Time to turn out.”
The voice was his grandfather's. “Oh—oh, all right!” he answered.
“Understand me, do you?”
“Yes—yes, sir. I'll be right down.”
The stairs creaked as Captain Zelotes descended them. Albert yawned cavernously, stretched and slid one foot out of bed. He drew it back instantly, however, for the sensation was that of having thrust it into a bucket of cold water. The room had been cold the previous evening; plainly it was colder still now. The temptation was to turn back and go to sleep again, but he fought against it. Somehow he had a feeling that to disregard his grandfather's summons would be poor diplomacy.
He set his teeth and, tossing back the bed clothes, jumped to the floor. Then he jumped again, for the floor was like ice. The window was wide open and he closed it, but there was no warm radiator to cuddle against while dressing. He missed his compulsory morning shower, a miss which did not distress him greatly. He shook himself into his clothes, soused his head and neck in a basin of ice water poured from a pitcher, and, before brushing his hair, looked out of the window.
It was a sharp winter morning. The wind had gone down, but before subsiding it had blown every trace of mist or haze from the air, and from his window-sill to the horizon every detail was clean cut and distinct. He was looking out, it seemed, from the back of the house. The roof of the kitchen extension was below him and, to the right, the high roof of the barn. Over the kitchen roof and to the left he saw little rolling hills, valleys, cranberry swamps, a pond. A road wound in and out and, scattered along it, were houses, mostly white with green blinds, but occasionally varied by the gray of unpainted, weathered shingles. A long, low-spreading building a half mile off looked as if it might be a summer hotel, now closed and shuttered. Beyond it was a cluster of gray shanties and a gleam of water, evidently a wharf and a miniature harbor. And, beyond that, the deep, brilliant blue of the sea. Brown and blue were the prevailing colors, but, here and there, clumps and groves of pines gave splashes of green.
There was an exhilaration in the crisp air. He felt an unwonted liveliness and a desire to be active which would have surprised some of his teachers at the school he had just left. The depression of spirits of which he had been conscious the previous night had disappeared along with his premonitions of unpleasantness. He felt optimistic this morning. After giving his curls a rake with the comb, he opened the door and descended the steep stairs to the lower floor.
His grandmother was setting the breakfast table. He was a little surprised to see her doing it. What was the use of having servants if one did the work oneself? But perhaps the housekeeper was ill.
“Good morning,” he said.
Mrs. Snow, who had not heard him enter, turned and saw him. When he crossed the room, she kissed him on the cheek.
“Good morning, Albert,” she said. “I hope you slept well.”
Albert replied that he had slept very well indeed. He was a trifle disappointed that she made no comment on his promptness in answering his grandfather's summons. He felt such promptness deserved commendation. At school they rang two bells at ten minute intervals, thus giving a fellow a second chance. It had been a point of senior etiquette to accept nothing but that second chance. Here, apparently, he was expected to jump at the first. There was a matter of course about his grandmother's attitude which was disturbing.
She went on setting the table, talking as she did so.
“I'm real glad you did sleep,” she said. “Some folks can hardly ever sleep the first night in a strange room. Zelotes—I mean your grandpa—'s gone out to see to the horse and feed the hens and the pig. He'll be in pretty soon. Then we'll have breakfast. I suppose you're awful hungry.”
As a matter of fact he was not very hungry. Breakfast was always a more or less perfunctory meal with him. But he was surprised to see the variety of eatables upon that table. There were cookies there, and doughnuts, and even half an apple pie. Pie for breakfast! It had been a newspaper joke at which he had laughed many times. But it seemed not to be a joke here, rather a solemn reality.
The kitchen door opened and Mrs. Ellis put in her head. To Albert's astonishment the upper part of the head, beginning just above the brows, was swathed in a huge bandage. The lower part was a picture of hopeless misery.
“Has Cap'n Lote come in yet?” inquired the housekeeper, faintly.
“Not yet, Rachel,” replied Mrs. Snow. “He'll be here in a minute, though. Albert's down, so you can begin takin' up the things.”
The head disappeared. A sigh of complete wretchedness drifted in as the door closed. Albert looked at his grandmother in alarm.
“Is she sick?” he faltered.
“Who? Rachel? No, she ain't exactly sick . . . Dear me! Where did I put that clean napkin?”
The boy stared at the kitchen door. If his grandmother had said the housekeeper was not exactly dead he might have understood. But to say she was not exactly sick—
“But—but what makes her look so?” he stammered. “And—and what's she got that on her head for? And she groaned! Why, she MUST be sick!”
Mrs. Snow, having found the clean napkin, laid it beside her husband's plate.
“No,” she said calmly. “It's one of her sympathetic attacks; that's what she calls 'em, sympathetic attacks. She has 'em every time Laban Keeler starts in on one of his periodics. It's nerves, I suppose. Cap'n Zelotes—your grandfather—says it's everlastin' foolishness. Whatever 'tis, it's a nuisance. And she's so sensible other times, too.”
Albert was more puzzled than ever. Why in the world Mrs. Ellis should tie up her head and groan because the little Keeler person had gone on a spree was beyond his comprehension.
His grandmother enlightened him a trifle.
“You see,” she went on, “she and Laban have been engaged to be married ever since they were young folks. It's Laban's weakness for liquor that's kept 'em apart so long. She won't marry him while he drinks and he keeps swearin' off and then breaking down. He's a good man, too; an awful good man and capable as all get-out when he's sober. Lately that is, for the last seven or eight years, beginnin' with the time when that lecturer on mesmerism and telegraphy—no, telepathy—thought-transfers and such—was at the town hall—Rachel has been havin' these sympathetic attacks of hers. She declares that alcohol-takin' is a disease and that Laban suffers when he's tipsy and that she and he are so bound up together that she suffers just the same as he does. I must say I never noticed him sufferin' very much, not at the beginnin,' anyhow—acts more as he was havin' a good time—but she seems to. I don't wonder you smile,” she added. “'Tis funny, in a way, and it's queer that such a practical, common-sense woman as Rachel Ellis is, should have such a notion. It's hard on us, though. Don't say anything to her about it, and don't laugh at her, whatever you do.”
Albert wanted to laugh very much. “But, Mrs. Snow—” he began.
“Mercy sakes alive! You ain't goin' to call me 'Mrs. Snow,' I hope.”
“No, of course not. But, Grandmother why do you and Captain—you and Grandfather keep her and Keeler if they are so much trouble? Why don't you let them go and get someone else?”
“Let 'em go? Get someone else! Why, we COULDN'T get anybody else, anyone who would be like them. They're almost a part of our family; that is, Rachel is, she's been here since goodness knows when. And, when he's sober Laban almost runs the lumber business. Besides, they're nice folks—almost always.”
Plainly the ways of South Harniss were not the ways of the world he had known. Certainly these people were “Rubes” and queer Rubes, too. Then he remembered that two of them were his grandparents and that his immediate future was, so to speak, in their hands. The thought was not entirely comforting or delightful. He was still pondering upon it when his grandfather came in from the barn.
The captain said good morning in the same way he had said good night, that is, he and Albert shook hands and the boy was again conscious of the gaze which took him in from head to foot and of the quiet twinkle in the gray eyes.
“Sleep well, son?” inquired Captain Zelotes.
“Yes . . . Yes, sir.”
“That's good. I judged you was makin' a pretty good try at it when I thumped on your door this mornin'. Somethin' new for you to be turned out at seven, eh?”
“No, sir.”
“Eh? It wasn't?”
“No, sir. The rising bell rang at seven up at school. We were supposed to be down at breakfast at a quarter past.”
“Humph! You were, eh? Supposed to be? Does that mean that you were there?”
“Yes, sir.”
There was a surprised look in the gray eyes now, a fact which Albert noticed with inward delight. He had taken one “rise” out of his grandfather, at any rate. He waited, hoping for another opportunity, but it did not come. Instead they sat down to breakfast.
Breakfast, in spite of the morning sunshine at the windows, was somewhat gloomy. The homesickness, although not as acute as on the previous night, was still in evidence. Albert felt lost, out of his element, lonely. And, to add a touch of real miserableness, the housekeeper served and ate like a near relative of the deceased at a funeral feast. She moved slowly, she sighed heavily, and the bandage upon her forehead loomed large and portentous. When spoken to she seldom replied before the third attempt. Captain Zelotes lost patience.
“Have another egg?” he roared, brandishing the spoon containing it at arm's length and almost under her nose. “Egg! Egg! EGG! If you can't hear it, smell it. Only answer, for heaven sakes!”
The effect of this outburst was obviously not what he had hoped. Mrs. Ellis stared first at the egg quivering before her face, then at the captain. Then she rose and marched majestically to the kitchen. The door closed, but a heartrending sniff drifted in through the crack. Olive laid down her knife and fork.
“There!” she exclaimed, despairingly. “Now see what you've done. Oh, Zelotes, how many times have I told you you've got to treat her tactful when she's this way?”
Captain Lote put the egg back in the bowl.
“DAMN!” he observed, with intense enthusiasm.
His wife shook her head.
“Swearin' don't help it a mite, either,” she declared. “Besides I don't know what Albert here must think of you.” Albert, who, between astonishment and a wild desire to laugh, was in a critical condition, appeared rather embarrassed. His grandfather looked at him and smiled grimly.
“I cal'late one damn won't scare him to death,” he observed. “Maybe he's heard somethin' like it afore. Or do they say, 'Oh, sugar!' up at that school you come from?” he added.
Albert, not knowing how to reply, looked more embarrassed than ever. Olive seemed on the point of weeping.
“Oh, Zelotes, how CAN you!” she wailed. “And to-day, of all days! His very first mornin'!”
Captain Lote relented.
“There, there, Mother!” he said. “I'm sorry. Forget it. Sorry if I shocked you, Albert. There's times when salt-water language is the only thing that seems to help me out . . . Well, Mother, what next? What'll we do now?”
“You know just as well as I do, Zelotes. There's only one thing you can do. That's go out and beg her pardon this minute. There's a dozen places she could get right here in South Harniss without turnin' her hand over. And if she should leave I don't know WHAT I'd do.”
“Leave! She ain't goin' to leave any more'n than the ship's cat's goin' to jump overboard. She's been here so long she wouldn't know how to leave if she wanted to.”
“That don't make any difference. The pitcher that goes to the well—er—er—”
She had evidently forgotten the rest of the proverb. Her husband helped her out.
“Flocks together or gathers no moss, or somethin', eh? All right, Mother, don't fret. There ain't really any occasion to, considerin' we've been through somethin' like this at least once every six months for ten years.”
“Zelotes, won't you PLEASE go and ask her pardon?”
The captain pushed back his chair. “I'll be hanged if it ain't a healthy note,” he grumbled, “when the skipper has to go and apologize to the cook because the cook's made a fool of herself! I'd like to know what kind of rum Labe drinks. I never saw any but his kind that would go to somebody else's head. Two people gettin' tight and only one of 'em drinkin' is somethin'—”
He disappeared into the kitchen, still muttering. Mrs. Snow smiled feebly at her grandson.
“I guess you think we're funny folks, Albert,” she said. “But Rachel is one hired help in a thousand and she has to be treated just so.”
Five minutes later Cap'n 'Lote returned. He shrugged his shoulders and sat down at his place.
“All right, Mother, all right,” he observed. “I've been heavin' ile on the troubled waters and the sea's smoothin' down. She'll be kind and condescendin' enough to eat with us in a minute or so.”
She was. She came into the dining-room with the air of a saint going to martyrdom and the remainder of the meal was eaten by the quartet almost in silence. When it was over the captain said:
“Well, Al, feel like walkin', do you?”
“Why, why, yes, sir, I guess so.”
“Humph! You don't seem very wild at the prospect. Walkin' ain't much in your line, maybe. More used to autoin', perhaps?”
Mrs. Snow put in a word. “Don't talk so, Zelotes,” she said. “He'll think you're makin' fun of him.”
“Who? Me? Not a bit of it. Well, Al, do you want to walk down to the lumber yard with me?”
The boy hesitated. The quiet note of sarcasm in his grandfather's voice was making him furiously angry once more, just as it had done on the previous night.
“Do you want me to?” he asked, shortly.
“Why, yes, I cal'late I do.”
Albert, without another word, walked to the hat-rack in the hall and began putting on his coat. Captain Lote watched him for a moment and then put on his own.
“We'll be back to dinner, Mother,” he said. “Heave ahead, Al, if you're ready.”
There was little conversation between the pair during the half mile walk to the office and yards of “Z. Snow and Co., Lumber and Builders' Hardware.” Only once did the captain offer a remark. That was just as they came out by the big posts at the entrance to the driveway. Then he said:
“Al, I don't want you to get the idea from what happened at the table just now—that foolishness about Rachel Ellis—that your grandmother ain't a sensible woman. She is, and there's no better one on earth. Don't let that fact slip your mind.”
Albert, somewhat startled by the abruptness of the observation, looked up in surprise. He found the gray eyes looking down at him.
“I noticed you lookin' at her,” went on his grandfather, “as if you was kind of wonderin' whether to laugh at her or pity her. You needn't do either. She's kind-hearted and that makes her put up with Rachel's silliness. Then, besides, Rachel herself is common sense and practical nine-tenths of the time. It's always a good idea, son, to sail one v'yage along with a person before you decide whether to class 'em as A. B. or just roustabout.”
The blood rushed to the boy's face. He felt guilty and the feeling made him angrier than ever.
“I don't see why,” he burst out, indignantly, “you should say I was laughing at—at Mrs. Snow—”
“At your grandmother.”
“Well—yes—at my grandmother. I don't see why you should say that. I wasn't.”
“Wasn't you? Good! I'm glad of it. I wouldn't, anyhow. She's liable to be about the best friend you'll have in this world.”
To Albert's mind flashed the addition: “Better than you, that means,” but he kept it to himself.
The lumber yards were on a spur track not very far from the railway station where he had spent that miserable half hour the previous evening. The darkness then had prevented his seeing them. Not that he would have been greatly interested if he had seen them, nor was he more interested now, although his grandfather took him on a personally conducted tour between the piles of spruce and pine and hemlock and pointed out which was which and added further details. “Those are two by fours,” he said. Or, “Those are larger joist, different sizes.” “This is good, clear stock, as good a lot of white pine as we've got hold of for a long spell.” He gave particulars concerning the “handiest way to drive a team” to one or the other of the piles. Albert found it rather boring. He longed to speak concerning enormous lumber yards he had seen in New York or Chicago or elsewhere. He felt almost a pitying condescension toward this provincial grandparent who seemed to think his little piles of “two by fours” so important.
It was much the same, perhaps a little worse, when they entered the hardware shop and the office. The rows and rows of little drawers and boxes, each with samples of its contents—screws, or bolts, or hooks, or knobs—affixed to its front, were even more boring than the lumber piles. There was a countryfied, middle-aged person in overalls sweeping out the shop and Captain Zelotes introduced him.
“Albert,” he said, “this is Mr. Issachar Price, who works around the place here. Issy, let me make you acquainted with my grandson, Albert.”
Mr. Price, looking over his spectacles, extended a horny hand and observed: “Yus, yus. Pleased to meet you, Albert. I've heard tell of you.”
Albert's private appraisal of “Issy” was that the latter was another funny Rube. Whatever Issy's estimate of his employer's grandson might have been, he, also, kept it to himself.
Captain Zelotes looked about the shop and glanced into the office.
“Humph!” he grunted. “No sign or symptoms of Laban this mornin', I presume likely?”
Issachar went on with his sweeping.
“Nary one,” was his laconic reply.
“Humph! Heard anything about him?”
Mr. Price moistened his broom in a bucket of water. “I see Tim Kelley on my way down street,” he said. “Tim said he run afoul of Laban along about ten last night. Said he cal'lated Labe was on his way. He was singin' 'Hyannis on the Cape' and so Tim figgered he'd got a pretty fair start already.”
The captain shook his head. “Tut, tut, tut!” he muttered. “Well, that means I'll have to do office work for the next week or so. Humph! I declare it's too bad just now when I was countin' on him to—” He did not finish the sentence, but instead turned to his grandson and said: “Al, why don't you look around the hardware store here while I open the mail and the safe. If there's anything you see you don't understand Issy'll tell you about it.”
He went into the office. Albert sauntered listlessly to the window and looked out. So far as not understanding anything in the shop was concerned he was quite willing to remain in ignorance. It did not interest him in the least. A moment later he felt a touch on his elbow. He turned, to find Mr. Price standing beside him.
“I'm all ready to tell you about it now,” volunteered the unsmiling Issy. “Sweepin's all finished up.”
Albert was amused. “I guess I can get along,” he said.
“Don't worry.”
“Iain't worried none. I don't believe in worryin'; worryin' don't do folks no good, the way I look at it. But long's Cap'n Lote wants me to tell you about the hardware I'd ruther do it now, than any time. Henry Cahoon's team'll be here for a load of lath in about ten minutes or so, and then I'll have to leave you. This here's the shelf where we keep the butts—hinges, you understand. Brass along here, and iron here. Got quite a stock, ain't we.”
He took the visitor's arm in his mighty paw and led him from shelves to drawers and from drawers to boxes, talking all the time, so the boy thought, “like a catalogue.” Albert tried gently to break away several times and yawned often, but yawns and hints were quite lost on his guide, who was intent only upon the business—and victim—in hand. At the window looking across toward the main road Albert paused longest. There was a girl in sight—she looked, at that distance, as if she might be a rather pretty girl—and the young man was languidly interested. He had recently made the discovery that pretty girls may be quite interesting; and, moreover, one or two of them whom he had met at the school dances—when the young ladies from the Misses Bradshaws' seminary had come over, duly guarded and chaperoned, to one-step and fox-trot with the young gentlemen of the school—one or two of these young ladies had intimated a certain interest in him. So the feminine possibility across the road attracted his notice—only slightly, of course; the sophisticated metropolitan notice is not easily aroused—but still, slightly.
“Come on, come on,” urged Issachar Price. “I ain't begun to show ye the whole of it yet . . . Eh? Oh, Lord, there comes Cahoon's team now! Well, I got to go. Show you the rest some other time. So long . . . Eh? Cap'n Lote's callin' you, ain't he?”
Albert went into the office in response to his grandfather's call to find the latter seated at an old-fashioned roll-top desk, piled with papers.
“I've got to go down to the bank, Al,” he said. “Some business about a note that Laban ought to be here to see to, but ain't. I'll be back pretty soon. You just stay here and wait for me. You might be lookin' over the books, if you want to. I took 'em out of the safe and they're on Labe's desk there,” pointing to the high standing desk by the window. “They're worth lookin' at, if only to see how neat they're kept. A set of books like that is an example to any young man. You might be lookin' 'em over.”
He hurried out. Albert smiled condescendingly and, instead of looking over Mr. Keeler's books, walked over to the window and looked out of that. The girl was not in sight now, but she might be soon. At any rate watching for her was as exciting as any amusement he could think of about that dull hole. Ah hum! he wondered how the fellows were at school.
The girl did not reappear. Signs of animation along the main road were limited. One or two men went by, then a group of children obviously on their way to school. Albert yawned again, took the silver cigarette case from his pocket and looked longingly at its contents. He wondered what his grandfather's ideas might be on the tobacco question. But his grandfather was not there then . . . and he might not return for some time . . . and . . . He took a cigarette from the case, tapped, with careful carelessness, its end upon the case—he would not have dreamed of smoking without first going through the tapping process—lighted the cigarette and blew a large and satisfying cloud. Between puffs he sang: