Mary-'Gusta awoke next morning to find the sun shining in at the window
of her bedroom. She had no means of knowing the time, but she was
certain it must be very late and, in consequence, was almost dressed
when Isaiah knocked at the door to tell her breakfast would be ready
pretty soon. A few minutes later she appeared in the kitchen bearing the
pitcher from the washstand in her room.
“What you doin' with that?” demanded Mr. Chase, who was leaning against
the door-post looking out into the yard.
“I was goin' to fill it,” said the child. “There wasn't any water to
wash with.”
Isaiah sniffed. “I ain't had no time to fill wash pitchers,” he
declared. “That one's been on my mind for more'n a fortni't but I've
had other things to do. You can wash yourself in that basin in the sink.
That's what the rest of us do.”
Mary-'Gusta obediently washed in the tin basin and rubbed her face and
hands dry upon the roller towel behind the closet door.
“Am I late for breakfast?” she asked, anxiously.
“No, I guess not. Ain't had breakfast yet. Cap'n Shad's out to the barn
'tendin' to the horse and Zoeth's feedin' the hens. They'll be in
pretty soon, if we have luck. Course it's TIME for breakfast, but that's
nothing. I'm the only one that has to think about time in this house.”
The girl regarded him thoughtfully.
“You have to work awful hard, don't you, Mr. Chase?” she said.
Isaiah looked at her suspiciously.
“Huh?” he grunted. “Who told you that?”
“Nobody. I just guessed it from what you said.”
“Humph! Well, you guessed right. I don't have many spare minutes.”
“Yes, sir. Are you a perfect slave?”
“Eh? What?”
“Mrs. Hobbs says she is a perfect slave when she has to work hard.”
“Who's Mrs. Hobbs?”
“She's--she keeps house--that is, she used to keep house for my father
over in Ostable. I don't suppose she will any more now he's dead. She'll
be glad, I guess. Perhaps she won't have to be a perfect slave now.
She used to wear aprons same as you do. I never saw a man wear an apron
before. Do you have to wear one?”
“Hey? Have to? No, course I don't have to unless I want to.”
Mary-'Gusta reflected.
“I suppose,” she went on, after a moment, “it saves your pants. You'd
get 'em all spotted up if you didn't wear the apron. Pneumonia is a good
thing to take out Spots.”
Isaiah was surprised.
“What is?” he asked.
“Pneumonia. . . . No, I don't think that's right. It's pneumonia that
makes you sick. Somethin' else takes out the spots. I know now; it's
am-monia. It's very good for spots but you mustn't smell the bottle. I
smelled the bottle once and it went right up into my head.”
“What on earth are you talkin' about? The bottle went up into your
head!”
“No, the ammonia smell did. It was awful; like--like--” she paused,
evidently in search of a simile; “like sneezin' backwards,” she added.
“It was terrible.”
Isaiah laughed. “I should think 'twould be,” he declared. “Sneezin'
backwards! Ho, ho! That's a good one!”
Mary-'Gusta's eyes were still fixed upon the apron.
“Mr.--I mean Cap'n Gould said you was the cook and steward,” she
observed. “I don't know as I know what a steward is, exactly. Is it the
one that stews things?”
“Ha, ha!” roared Isaiah. Mary-'Gusta's dignity was hurt. The color rose
in her cheeks.
“Was it funny?” she asked. “I didn't know. I know that a cook cooked
things, and a baker baked things, so I thought maybe a steward stewed
'em.”
Mr. Chase continued to chuckle. The girl considered.
“I see,” she said, with a solemn nod. “It was funny, I guess. I remember
now that a friar doesn't fry things. He is a--a kind of minister. Friar
Tuck was one in 'Robin Hood,' you know. Mrs. Bailey read about him to
me. Do you like 'Robin Hood,' Mr. Chase?”
Isaiah said he didn't cal'late that he knew anybody of that name. The
dialogue was interrupted here by the arrival of Zoeth and, a moment
later, Captain Shadrach. Breakfast was put upon the table in the
dining-room and the quartette sat down to eat.
Mary-'Gusta was quiet during the meal; she answered when spoken to but
the only questions she asked were concerning David.
“He's all right,” said Captain Shad. “Lively as can be. He'll have a
good time out in that barn; there's considerable many mice out there.
Likes mice, don't he?”
“Yes, sir. He's a good mouser. Did he look as if he missed me?”
“Eh? Well, I didn't notice. He never mentioned it if he did. You can
go see him after breakfast. What do you think she can find to do today,
Zoeth?”
Mr. Hamilton had evidently considered the problem.
“I thought maybe she'd like to go up to the store 'long of you and me,”
he suggested. “Would you, Mary'Gusta?”
Mary-'Gusta hesitated. “I'd like to very much,” she said, “only--”
“Only what?”
“Only I've got to see to David and the dolls first. Couldn't I come up
to the store afterwards?”
The Captain answered. “Why, I guess likely you could,” he said. “It's
straight up the road to the corner. You can see the store from the top
of the hill back here. Isaiah'll show you the way. But you can 'tend
to--what's that cat's name?--Oh, yes, David--you can 'tend to David
right off. Isaiah'll give the critter his breakfast, and the dolls can
wait 'til noontime, can't they?”
Mary-'Gusta's mind was evidently divided between inclination and duty.
Duty won.
“They ain't dressed yet,” she said, gravely. “And besides they might
think I'd gone off and left 'em and be frightened. This is a strange
place to them, same as it is to me and David, you know. None of us have
ever been visitin' before.”
So it was decided that she should wait until her family had been given
parental attention, and come to the store by herself. The partners left
for their place of business and she and Mr. Chase remained at the house.
Her first act, after leaving the table, was to go to the barn and return
bearing the cat in her arms. David ate a hearty breakfast and then,
after enduring a motherly lecture concerning prudence and the danger of
getting lost, was permitted to go out of doors.
Mary-'Gusta, standing in the doorway, gazed after her pet.
“I hope there's no dogs around here,” she said. “It would be dreadful if
there was a dog.”
Isaiah tried to reassure her. “Oh, I cal'late there ain't no dog nigh
enough to do any harm,” he said; “besides, most cats can run fast enough
to get out of the way.”
The child shook her head. “I didn't mean that,” she said. “I meant it
would be dreadful for the dog. David doesn't have a mite of patience
with dogs. He doesn't wait to see if they're nice ones or not, he just
goes for 'em and then--Oh! He most always goes for 'em. When he has
kittens he ALWAYS does.”
Mr. Chase's reply to this illuminating disclosure was that he wanted to
know.
“Yes,” said Mary-'Gusta, “David doesn't take to dogs, some way. Why
don't cats like dogs, Mr. Chase?”
Isaiah said that he cal'lated 'twas the nature of the critters not to.
Mary-'Gusta agreed with him.
“Natures are queer things, ain't they?” she said, solemnly. “I guess
everybody has a nature, cats and all. Mrs. Hobbs says my nature is a
contrary one. What's your kind, Mr. Chase?
“Do you suppose,” she said, a few moments later, when the cook and
steward had shown symptoms of doing something beside lean against the
sink and whistle, “do you suppose you could get along for a few minutes
while I went up and dressed my dolls?”
Isaiah turned to stare at her.
“Well,” he stammered, “I--I cal'late maybe I could if I tried hard.
If you don't beat anything ever I see! What are you doin' with that
pitcher?”
The girl was holding the wash pitcher under the pump.
“I'm fillin' it,” she answered. “Then you won't have to have it on your
mind any more. I'll hurry back just as fast as I can.”
She hastened out, bearing the brimming pitcher with both hands. Isaiah
gazed after her, muttering a word or two, and then set about clearing
the breakfast table.
She was down again shortly, the two favorites, Rose and Rosette, in her
arms. She placed them carefully in the kitchen chair and bade them be
nice girls and watch mother do the dishes.
“I left the others in the bedroom,” she explained. “Minnehaha ain't very
well this mornin'. I guess the excitement was too much for her. She is a
very nervous child.”
Isaiah's evident amusement caused her to make one of her odd changes
from childish make-believe to grown-up practicability.
“Of course,” she added, with gravity, “I know she ain't really nervous.
She's just full of sawdust, same as all dolls are, and she couldn't have
any nerves. But I like to play she's nervous and delicate. It's real
handy to say that when I don't want to take her with me. I'm a nervous,
excitable child myself; Mrs. Hobbs says so. That's why I've hardly ever
been anywhere before, I guess.”
She insisted upon wiping the dishes while Isaiah washed them. Also, she
reminded him that the tablecloth which had been so severely criticized
the previous evening had not as yet been changed. The steward was
inclined to treat the matter lightly.
“Never mind if 'tain't,” he said. “It's good enough for a spell longer.
Let it stay. Besides,” he added, “the washin' ain't been done this week
and there ain't another clean one aboard.”
Mary-'Gusta smiled cheerfully.
“Oh, yes, there is,” she said. “There's a real nice one in the bottom
drawer of the closet. I've been huntin' and I found it. Come and see.”
She led him into the dining-room and showed him the cloth she had found.
“It's a real pretty one, I think,” she said. “Shall we put it on, Mr.
Chase?”
“No, no, course not. That's the best tablecloth. Don't use that only
when there's company--or Sundays.”
Mary-'Gusta considered. She counted on her fingers.
“How long have we used this dirty one?” she asked.
“Eh? Oh, I don't know. Four or five days, maybe.” Then, evidently
feeling that the repetition of the “we” implied a sense of unwarranted
partnership in the household management, he added with dignity, “That
is, I'VE seen fit to use it that long.”
The sarcasm was wasted. The girl smiled and nodded.
“That makes it all right,” she declared. “If we put this one on now
it'll be Sunday long before it's time to change. And we can wash the
other one today or tomorrow.”
“Oh, WE can, eh?”
“Yes, sir”
Isaiah looked as if he wished to say something but was at a loss for
words. The Sunday cloth was spread upon the table while he was still
hunting for them.
“And now,” said Mary-'Gusta, “if you're sure you don't need me any more
just now I guess I'd like to go up and see the store. May I?”
Site found the store of Hamilton and Company an exceedingly interesting
place. Zoeth and his partner greeted her cordially and she sat down upon
a box at the end of the counter and inspected the establishment. It was
not very large, but there was an amazing variety in its stock. Muslin,
tape, calico, tacks, groceries, cases of shoes, a rack with spools of
thread, another containing a few pocket knives, barrels, half a dozen
salt codfish swinging from nails overhead, some suits of oilskins
hanging beside them, a tumbled heap of children's caps and hats, even a
glass-covered case containing boxes of candy with placards “1 c. each”
or “3 for 1 c.” displayed above them.
“Like candy, do you?” asked Mr. Hamilton, noticing her scrutiny of the
case and its contents.
“Yes, sir,” said Mary-'Gusta.
“How about sassafras lozengers? Like them?”
“Yes, sir.”
She was supplied with a roll of the lozenges and munched them gravely.
Captain Shad, who had been waiting on a customer, regarded her with an
amused twinkle.
“Sassafras lozengers are good enough for anybody, eh?” he observed.
“Yes, sir,” replied Mary-'Gusta. Then she added, politely: “Only I guess
these are wintergreen.”
She stayed at the store until noon. Then she walked home with the
Captain whose turn it was to dine first that day. The hiring of Annabel
had been an unusual break in the business routine. Ordinarily but one of
the partners left that store at a time.
“Well,” inquired the Captain, as they walked down the lane, “what do
you think of it? Pretty good store for a place like South Harniss, ain't
it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I bet you! Different from the Ostable stores, eh?”
“Yes, sir; I--I guess it is.”
“Um-hm. Well, how different?”
Mary-'Gusta took her usual interval for consideration.
“I guess there's more--more things in it with separate smells to 'em,”
she said.
Captain Shad had no remark to make for a moment. Mary-'Gusta, however,
was anxious to please.
“They're nice smells,” she hastened to add. “I like 'em; only I never
smelled 'em all at the same time before. And I like the lozengers VERY
much.”
The two or three days which Captain Shad had set as the limit of the
child's visit passed; as did the next two or three. She was busy and,
apparently, enjoying herself. She helped Isaiah with the housework, and
although he found the help not altogether unwelcome, he was inclined to
grumble a little at what he called her “pesterin' around.”
“I never see such a young-one,” he told his employers. “I don't ask her
to do dishes nor fill pitchers nor nothin'; she just does it on her own
hook.”
“Humph!” grunted Captain Shadrach. “So I judged from what I see. Does it
pretty well, too, don't she?”
“Um-hm. Well enough, I guess. Yes,” with a burst of candor, “for her
age, she does it mighty well.”
“Then what are you kickin' about?”
“I ain't kickin'. Who said I was kickin'? Only--well, all I say is let
her do dishes and such, if she wants to, only--only--”
“Only what?”
“Only I ain't goin' to have her heavin' out hints about what I ought
to do. There's two skippers aboard this craft now and that's enough.
By time!” with another burst, “that kid's a reg'lar born mother. She
mothers that cat and them dolls and the hens already, and I swan to
man I believe she'd like to adopt me. I ain't goin' to be mothered and
hinted at to do this and that and put to bed and tucked in by no kid.
I'll heave up my job first.”
He had been on the point of heaving up his job ever since the days when
he sailed as cook aboard Captain Shadrach's schooner. When the Captain
retired from the sea for the last time, and became partner and fellow
shopkeeper with Zoeth, Isaiah had retired with him and was engaged to
keep house for the two men. The Captain had balked at the idea of a
female housekeeper.
“Women aboard ship are a dum nuisance,” he declared. “I've carried 'em
cabin passage and I know. Isaiah Chase is a good cook, and, besides, if
the biscuits are more fit for cod sinkers than they are for grub, I
can tell him so in the right kind of language. We don't want no woman
steward, Zoeth; you hear ME!”
Zoeth, although the Captain's seafaring language was a trial to his
gentle, churchly soul, agreed with his partner on the main point. His
experience with the other sex had not been such as to warrant further
experiment. So Isaiah was hired and had been cook and steward at the
South Harniss home for many years. But he made it a practice to assert
his independence at frequent intervals, although, as a matter of fact,
he would no more have dreamed of really leaving than his friends and
employers would of discharging him. Mr. Chase was as permanent a fixture
in that house as the ship's chronometer in the dining-room; and that was
screwed to the wall.
And, in spite of his grumbling, he and Mary-'Gusta were rapidly becoming
fast friends. Shadrach and Zoeth also were beginning to enjoy her
company, her unexpected questions, her interest in the house and the
store, and shrewd, old-fashioned comments on persons and things. She was
a “queer young-one”; they, like the people of Ostable, agreed on that
point, but Mr. Hamilton was inclined to think her ways “sort of takin'”
and the Captain admitted that maybe they were. What he would not admit
was that the girl's visit, although already prolonged for a fortnight,
was anything but a visit.
“I presume likely,” hinted Zoeth, “you and me'll have to give the Judge
some sort of an answer pretty soon, won't we? He'll be wantin' to know
afore long.”
“Know? Know what?”
“Why--why whether we're goin' to say yes or no to what Marcellus asked
us in that letter.”
“He does know. Fur's I'm consarned, he knows. I spoke my mind plain
enough to pound through anybody's skull, I should think.”
“Yes--yes, I know you did. But, Shadrach, if she don't stay here for
good where will she stay? She ain't got anybody else to go to.”
“She is stayin', ain't she? She--she's makin' us a visit, same as I said
she could. What more do you want? Jumpin' fire! This fix is your doin'
anyway. 'Tain't mine. If you had paid attention to what I said, the
child wouldn't have been here at all.”
“Now, Shadrach! You know you was the one that would fetch her over that
very day.”
“Oh, blame it onto me, of course!”
“I ain't blamin' anybody. But she's here and we've got to decide whether
to send her away or not. Shall we?”
They were interrupted by Mary-'Gusta herself, who entered the barn,
where the discussion took place, a doll under one arm and a very serious
expression on her face.
“Hello!” hailed Zoeth. “What's the matter?”
Mary-'Gusta seated herself upon an empty cranberry crate. The partners
had a joint interest in a small cranberry bog and the crate was one of
several unused the previous fall.
“There's nothin' the matter,” she said, solemnly. “I've been thinkin',
that's all.”
“Want to know!” observed the Captain. “Well, what made you do anything
as risky as that?”
Mary-'Gusta's forehead puckered.
“I was playin' with Jimmie Bacheldor yesterday,” she said, “and he made
me think.”
Abner Bacheldor was the nearest neighbor. His ramshackle dwelling was an
eighth of a mile from the Gould-Hamilton place. Abner had the reputation
of being the meanest man in town; also he had a large family, of which
Jimmie, eight years old, was the youngest.
“Humph!” sniffed Captain Shad. “So Jimmie Bacheldor made you think, eh?
I never should have expected it from one of that tribe. How'd he do it?”
“He asked me about my relations,” said Mary-'Gusta, “and when I said I
hadn't got any he was awful surprised. He has ever so many, sisters and
brothers and aunts and cousins and--Oh, everything. He thought 'twas
dreadful funny my not havin' any. I think I'd ought to have some, don't
you?”
The partners, looking rather foolish, said nothing for a moment. Then
Zoeth muttered that he didn't know but she had.
“Yes,” said Mary-'Gusta, “I--I think so. You see I'm--I mean I was a
stepchild 'long as father was here. Now he's dead and I ain't even
that. And I ain't anybody's cousin nor nephew nor niece. I just
ain't anything. I'm different from everybody I know. And--and--” very
solemnly--“I don't like to be so different.”
Her lip quivered as she said it. Sitting there on the cranberry crate,
hugging her dolls, she was a pathetic little figure. Again the partners
found it hard to answer. Mr. Hamilton looked at the Captain and the
latter, his fingers fidgeting with his watchchain, avoided the look. The
girl went on.
“I was thinking,” she said, “how nice 'twould have been if I'd had a--a
brother or somebody of my very own. I've got children, of course, but
they're only dolls and a cat. They're nice, but they ain't real folks.
I wish I had some real folks. Do you suppose if--if I have to go to
the--the orphans' home, there'd be anybody there that would be my
relation? I didn't know but there might be another orphan there who
didn't have anybody, same as me, and then we could make believe we
was--was cousins or somethin'. That would be better than nothin',
wouldn't it?”
Zoeth stepped forward and, bending over, kissed her cheek. “Never you
mind, Mary-'Gusta,” he said. “You ain't gone there yet and afore you do
maybe Cap'n Shad and I can think up some relations for you.”
“Real relations?” asked Mary-'Gusta, eagerly.
“Well, no, not real ones; I'm afraid we couldn't do that. But when
it comes to make-believe, that might be different.” He hesitated an
instant, glanced at the Captain, and then added: “I tell you what
you do: you just pretend I'm your relation, a--well, an uncle, that's
better'n nothin'. You just call me 'Uncle Zoeth.' That'll be a start,
anyhow. Think you'd like to call me 'Uncle Zoeth'?”
Mary-'Gusta's eyes shone. “Oh, yes!” she cried. “Then I could tell that
Jimmie Bacheldor I had one relation, anyhow. And shall I call Cap'n
Gould 'Uncle Shadrach'?”
Zoeth turned to his companion. “Shall she, Shadrach?” he asked, with a
mischievous smile.
If it had not been for that smile the Captain's reply might have been
different. But the smile irritated him. He strode to the door.
“Zoeth Hamilton,” he snapped, “how long are you goin' to set here? If
you ain't got anything else to attend to, I have. I'm goin' up to the
store. It's pretty nigh eight o'clock in the mornin' and that store
ain't open yet.”
“Want to come along, Mary-'Gusta?” asked Zoeth. “She can come, can't
she, Shad?”
“Yes, yes, course she can,” more genially. “Cal'late there's some of
those sassafras--checkerberry lozengers left yet. Come on, Mary-'Gusta,
if you want to.”
But the child shook her head. She looked wistful and a trifle
disappointed.
“I--I guess maybe I'd better stay here,” she said. “I ought to see to
Minnehaha's sore throat. I'm goin' to put some red flannel 'round it;
Mr. Chase says he cal'lates he knows where there is some. Good-by, Uncle
Zoeth. Good-by--er--Cap'n Gould.”
The partners did not converse on the way to the store. Zoeth made an
attempt, but Shadrach refused to answer. He was silent and, for him,
grumpy all the forenoon. Another fortnight passed before the subject
of the decision which must, sooner or later, be given Judge Baxter was
mentioned by either of the pair.