"I've been shut up with the most onreasonable feller I ever see in all
my life," said the Captain to the unasked question in the minister's
eyes. "I cal'late I'll keep my thoughts to myself to-night, Mack, and
sleep on them. The way I feel wouldn't be conducive to prayer-meeting
language. Good night, son."
It was scarcely daylight when Miss Pipkin began work in the kitchen on
the following morning. Shortly afterward the Captain descended.
"Morning, Clemmie." He held the kitchen door ajar, and his voice wavered
as he spoke.
Miss Pipkin did not reply. The Captain, to reinforce his courage,
stepped back into the dining-room. Miss Pipkin walked over and closed
the door. This spurred the seaman to action. He cautiously pushed the
door open again, and peeped through a narrow crack.
"Clemmie, be you in there?"
"Where else do you think I'd be, down the well?"
"Can't I talk to you, Clemmie?"
"No. I don't want you to come sneaking into my kitchen at this hour in
the morning. You ought to be in bed."
A note of friendliness in her voice led him to open the door a little
wider.
"You're up too early, Clemmie."
"I've got a lot of work to do."
"If you ain't too busy, I'd like awful well to speak to you about
something."
"Well, I am busy, leastwise too busy to be bothered with your
nonsense."
"It ain't foolishness this time."
Something in his tone made her look up into the face framed in the crack
of the door.
"Josiah!" she cried at sight of the drawn features.
He threw open the door and entered.
"Mr. McGowan ain't sick this morning, is he?" she asked.
"No. Leastwise he wa'n't when I passed the time of night or early
morning with him on my way to bed."
"Are you sick, Josiah?"
"What I got might be called that, Clemmie. I'm sick of the hull damn
round of life," he said, despondently.
"Josiah Pott! How you do talk! What do you mean by it, anyhow?"
"Purty much as I say. I'm always bungling things of late. I--well----"
"Now, you set down in that chair, and stop staring at me for all the
world like an old wood-owl, 'most scaring the wits out of me. One would
think you'd gone clean out of your head. I never heard you talk so in
all my born days. If you ain't sick, you're in a heap of trouble. Now,
do as I tell you and set down. Tell me what's wrong, that is if that's
what you come down for."
"That's why I come down, Clemmie," he said, slouching into one of the
kitchen chairs. "I heerd you come down-stairs, and I just had to follow.
Fust of all, I want to tell you how bad I feel about them things I said
yesterday morning that hurt your feelings so."
"For the lan' sakes! Be that what's ailing you? I thought it was
something that amounted to something," she declared, the color rising
into her faded cheeks.
"That does amount to something. It means a lot to me. That ain't all,
but I wanted to get it off my chest fust. I was never intending less to
hurt nobody than when I said that to you. I thought 'twould cheer you
and Mack up a little; you was both looking a mite blue. You're a good
woman, Clemmie, and any man that'd insult you would have me to settle
with purty tolerable quick. You know how much I think of you."
"Be you beginning to propose again?" she asked, her arms akimbo. "If
that's what's ailing you, and you're asking my pardon just to get ready
to ask me----"
"Don't get mad, Clemmie. No, I ain't going to get down on my old
prayer-bones, they're a mite too squeaky, though I'd be willing enough
to do it if I thought it would do any good. I ain't going to pester you
any more about that. You know your mind, and it ain't right for me to be
disturbing it at my time of life."
"Then, Josiah, if you ain't love-sick, what is it?"
"Maybe that's a part of what's ailing me. But what I want you to say
this morning is that you ain't got nothing against me for what I said
yesterday about you taking to sea in my dory."
"Josiah, that was awful foolish in me. You'd best forgive me, too, for
the way I acted."
"Thanks, Clemmie. You've sartinly done me many a good turn, and it would
be a wonder if I wa'n't in love with you. You've always been mighty good
and kind to me. But, there, don't you get excited again, I ain't going
to say nothing more about it."
"Tell me about your trouble, Josiah."
The old seaman pulled hard at the ends of his ragged moustache, and his
voice grew husky. "I felt just like I had to tell somebody. I was going
to tell Mack last night when I see a light in his study, but when I went
in I see he had all he could tote, so I just went on up to my room
without telling him.... You know I've been out of a job for quite a
spell."
"It has been long for you," nodded Miss Pipkin as she drew another chair
opposite. "But you've got the church to look after."
"That ain't my trade, and it comes hard. I feel all the time like I'd
clumb onto the wrong deck. I'd hoped to get a ship afore now. Jim
promised me one, and----"
"Do you mean you've been expecting to get a ship through Jim Fox? Why,
Josiah Pott! He'd not give you a splinter to hang on if you was
drowning. Depending on him! Pooh! I thought you had more sense than
that."
"But I ain't. I'm just what I've told you afore, an old fool. I cal'late
I know how you feel about Jim. I'd always felt that way, too, till he
come honeying round me this spring. You called me once an old fool with
good intentions. I cal'late you ain't far off in your soundings."
"I never said that!" she rejoined. "Anyhow, I didn't mean it like
that."
"You don't need to excuse what you said. It's God's truth. That's
exactly what I be."
"You ain't, neither, and I don't see why you want to talk that way. What
I don't see, neither, is why you want to go hanging round, waiting for
that man to give you a ship. There's plenty of others that would be glad
to get you."
"I ain't sartin 'bout that last p'int. You see, I ain't so young no
more. I'm getting up in years, and ship-owners ain't hiring none but
young men."
"Nonsense! There you go again. As long as you think and talk like
Methuselah there ain't no owner going to take a chance on you for fear
you'd forget the name of the port he'd ordered you to. You get that idea
out of your head along with the notion that Jim Fox is going to help
you, and you'll get a ship. The very best there is afloat, too."
"It's mighty kind of you to say that, Clemmie. I cal'late the notion
about Jim is purty well shook out. That's one thing I wanted to talk to
you about. You know the old place here had been sort of run down for a
good many year. I'd always held to the idea that some day I'd come back
here after I'd got rich, remodel the home, and get the best woman in all
the world to ship side by side with me as best mate. I've told you all
that afore, many the time, Clemmie."
Miss Pipkin barely nodded. The suggestion of moisture gathered in her
eyes as she gazed at the tragic face before her.
"Well, I'm back, and it looks like it was for good and all, but I ain't
got no money, and I don't see no way to get any unless I rob somebody.
And the law won't let me do that. The trouble is that I'm up to my
gunwales in debt."
"In debt!" To Miss Pipkin's mind there was no greater calamity in the
world than to be in debt. She, too, had suffered a like fate many years
ago.
"Yes. In bad, too. Jim come up to my house last spring just afore the
minister took up his new quarters here, and he says to me: 'Here's some
money to repair your place with. There'll be no interest on it. It's
because of my civic pride in the affairs of Little River that I make
you this liberal offer.' Well, it did look too good to be true, but I
couldn't see nothing wrong, and he promised me on his word to see that I
got a ship, the very next one his company was to send out. I ain't much
up on them legal papers. I ain't had nothing to do with any kind of
papers for years 'cepting owners' orders. I took his word for 'em being
straight. I wouldn't have took a cent of the money if them papers had
been straight as the Bible, but he promised me so fair and square to
place me that I fell for him hard. You know he's one of the owners of
the Atlantic Coastwise Trading Company. Well, I went right down to the
city next day, and for several days I hung round. Then, they told me
another feller got in ahead of me. When I was going out I see Jim in one
of them little glass rooms talking earnest-like to some of his partners,
and I heerd him speak my name. I knew right off that there was something
up the mizzenmast. I come home, and waited. It was then I found Mack in
the house. Mrs. Beaver put him in here while I was away. I also found
the painters all over the place. I knew right off that Jim had me on
the hip, but I couldn't make out what his game was. Yesterday the thing
come tumbling down on my head; a lawyer brought it. Them papers I signed
up has turned out to be a mortgage on my old home."
Miss Pipkin gasped. "A mortgage and a lawyer was here to see you
yesterday?"
"They sure was. One of 'em brung the other, and I had to meet 'em both
alone. They seemed real glad to see me, but I wa'n't none too friendly
with either of 'em."
"Josiah, stop your joking. You say there was a lawyer here to see you,
and he brought a mortgage on your place?"
The old man looked away and cleared his throat. "The feller come from
the city. He showed me how them papers called for a settlement afore the
fust of November. I ain't got a chance in the hull world to get hold of
any money afore then. He said something about a foreclosure, too, and he
said that meant I was to lose my place. He see how hard I took it, and
was real kind. He said he'd come all the way from the city just to let
me know."
"Kind! Pooh! You'd better have showed him the door like you told me you
did Harry Beaver."
"It wa'n't his fault, Clemmie. He was real sorry. He was just doing his
duty. He offered to buy the place after I'd showed him about. What he
said he'd give wa'n't what it's wuth by a heap, but it would pay Jim off
and leave me a mite."
"Offered to buy it, did he? Well, you didn't tell him you'd sell, did
you?"
"Not for sartin, I didn't. I told him I'd think it over a spell and let
him know."
"Let him know! Pooh! I should say you will think it over, and for a
purty long spell, too. You ain't going to sell a foot of it! That feller
wasn't here for himself. He was playing one of Jim Fox's tricks on
you."
"But, Clemmie,----"
"Josiah, you mark my word, that lawyer feller was here to buy this place
for Jim Fox. It's as plain as the nose on your face, and I don't need
to look twice to see that. Don't you dare to sell one inch of this
place."
The Captain rubbed the organ to which Miss Pipkin referred, and thought
for some time. "Suppose your guess is right, and he did come for Jim,
there ain't nothing left for me but to sell. That's better than losing
everything." He tried to clear his husky voice. "It's kind of hard. I've
got you and the minister here now, and I'm sort of obligated to you
both. It's kind of hard."
"Obligated, fiddlesticks! I ain't so young that I can't take care of
myself, nor so old, neither. I'll get on all right, and the minister,
too, for that matter." Her voice dropped with an unsteady quality. "But
what you're going to do, I can't see."
He shook his head wearily. "I've been trying to see some way all night
long, but I can't, 'cepting to sell."
"Josiah,"--she crossed over and laid her hand on his shoulder,--"there's
a picture in the setting-room that says beneath it something like this:
'Don't Give Up the Ship.' I was looking at it yesterday after I'd been
so silly about what you said to me. I must have been sent to the
picture for a purpose in this hour of our trial. We ain't going to give
up the ship, not till we have to."
"But he's got the law on his side, and I ain't got nothing on mine."
"You've got a clear conscience, and that's more than all the law with
which he's clothing his guilty mind. And, then,"--she eyed him
closely,--"you've got me. Does that help? We ain't going to run up the
white flag till we have to, and I don't care if he's got the whole
creation on his side."
He rose and laid his rough palm over the bony fingers on his shoulder.
"Do you mean that you're going to stick by me, Clemmie?"
She nodded.
"I cal'late that'll help a heap, even if things go dead against me. It's
purty nigh three weeks afore he can close up on me," he faltered, as
though he dared not hope even in the presence of this unexpected aid
that had come to him. "What are we going to do?"
"The fust thing you're going to do is to see Jim Fox himself, and you're
going to tell him that you're going to see a good lawyer, the best you
can find. If them papers ain't straight he'll show plain that he's
worried." She drew her hand from his. "Josiah, I'm going to show you
something I ain't ever showed to a living soul. It ain't much, but it
might start you along the right way of finding something out."
She went to her room, and soon returned with a piece of paper. It was
yellow with age, and had to be handled with care to keep it from falling
apart at the creases. She handed it to the Captain, indicating a section
for him to read. He nearly tumbled from his chair as the truth it
conveyed concerning the past life of Jim Fox flashed into his mind.
"Holy mackerel!"
The entrance of the minister prevented further comment, except for the
Captain to whisper:
"Thanks, Clemmie. 'Twill help, I cal'late. You're a good woman," he
finished, taking her hand between both of his. "You're smart, too.
You've helped me more than you know, and God bless you!"