"Now, ain't you a pair to look at, and you to give your sermon this
morning, Mr. McGowan! You look a heap sight worse than Edna Splinter,
and she's been raving with a fever all night."
Miss Pipkin made this observation while the three of them sat at
breakfast Sunday morning.
The minister absent-mindedly asked concerning the condition of Miss
Splinter.
"She 'peared to be a trifle easier this morning. But what's ailing the
both of you? Look as if you'd been setting up all night like two owls."
"Cal'late we're on our uppers, Clemmie. But we'll be fit as fiddles when
we get some of them cakes stowed amidships, and ballast 'em down with a
few swallers of that coffee. There ain't everybody that can b'ile coffee
like you, Clemmie."
"Don't be foolish, Josiah."
After a very light breakfast, Mr. McGowan excused himself from the
table, saying he must do some work on his sermon before the church hour.
As the door to the study closed the Captain pushed back his plate and
chair. He slid the latter round the end of the table, and placed it by
Miss Pipkin.
"For the lan' sakes, Josiah! You ain't going to make love to me this
morning, be you?"
"I ain't sartin, Clemmie. It depends on your partic'lar frame of mind,"
he replied slowly, a quiet kindness in his old eyes.
"I don't know as I feel like being made love-sick," she said, but
without the old spirit of stubbornness.
"All right, Clemmie," he said resignedly. "I cal'late you know best. I'm
going to spin you a yarn about what took place round these premises last
night. That is, if you're willing to listen."
"Why, of course I'm willing to listen. Did that lawyer show up here
again with his old mortgage?"
"No, you bet he didn't. And what's more, he won't come prowling round
again, either."
The Captain told his housekeeper the whole story. He passed as lightly
as he could over the part where Adoniah had married the trader's
daughter. Miss Pipkin gave no sign that she cared in the least, or that
the news had shocked her. But when the Captain rehearsed the treachery
of Mr. James Fox, she grew rigid. She dabbed her apron into the corners
of her eyes as he unfolded the story of the suffering of the little
family. The old man paused to wipe the tears from his own eyes as he
recounted the finding of the lad in the doorway with a pile of morning
papers in his lap. For some time after he had finished neither spoke.
The Captain dangled his bandanna at the end of his nose, and Miss Pipkin
dabbed her checked apron against her wet cheeks.
"Josiah," she whispered eagerly, "have you found the boy yet? Is he
still alive?"
"Yes." A prolonged blow followed.
She laid her hand in his. "Where is he? Do you think I could see him?"
"He's in there." He pointed toward the study door.
"In that study with Mr. McGowan? Is that what you said?"
He nodded.
"You brought him here from the city yesterday?"
The seaman shook his head. "He come long afore that."
"Where've you been keeping him? Ain't you going to fetch him out?" she
cried, rising. "I'll go get him."
"Wait, Clemmie. It's been nigh onto twenty-five year since he was born,
so he ain't a baby. Let Mack fetch him. Mack!" called the Captain
sharply. A slight twinkle in his eyes offset the assumed severity of his
command.
The door opened and Mr. McGowan stood on the threshold. Miss Pipkin
stared from the one to the other.
"Be the both of you clean crazy?" she demanded, as the men grinned
rather foolishly at each other.
"No, Clemmie. We've just woke up to our senses, that's all."
"If you think this a good joke,----"
"It ain't no joke," said the Captain, motioning Mr. McGowan to come
nearer. "I give you my word, it ain't, Clemmie. There's Adoniah
Phillips' son."
With a smothered exclamation Miss Pipkin dropped back against the table.
"You--you----" But she ended with a gasp for breath and words.
"The Cap'n is telling you the truth," confirmed the minister.
"You--and you let me tell you all that nonsense about him and me!"
"You're doing me an injustice, Miss Pipkin. I did not know one thing
about all this till last night."
Captain Pott had risen. In his eagerness he stretched out his arms to
the confused housekeeper. She turned from staring at the minister, and
like a bewildered animal fled blindly in the direction of the kitchen.
She found herself, instead, in the seaman's arms. Here she stuck, and
with hysterical sobs clung to the old man. Mr. McGowan came nearer. At
sight of him she fled to his arms. For the next few minutes the
practical, every-day Miss Pipkin did things of which no one had ever
imagined her capable. The Captain's voice roused her.
"Here, young feller, you go loving where you're wanted. I've been
waiting for this too many years to be cheated out by a young rascal like
you." He seized the not unwilling Miss Pipkin, and pushed the minister
in the direction of the kitchen.
"Clemmie, ain't this grand?" asked the old man.
"It's really been you all these years, Josiah."
"Been me? You mean you've loved me all the time, Clemmie?"
"Um-hm," she nodded vigorously. "But I was that stubborn that I wouldn't
give in. I always looked forward to your proposing. You ain't proposed
to me for a long time, Josiah."
"But, Clemmie, are you sartin sure it'll be all right now? If you get
your rest, are you sartin you won't feel different? Don't you think
you'd otter wait?"
"Josiah, ask me right now, so I can't back out, or get on another
stubborn streak. I thought it all out 'longside Edna's bed last night.
She was raving, and calling for some one, poor thing, who she'd refused
to marry when she was young. I said then and there that I wasn't going
to my grave with that kind of thing hanging over me. That is, if you
ever asked me again."
"You say you made up your mind last night, Clemmie? You sure it wa'n't
what I told you about Adoniah being married?"
"That had nothing to do with my decision."
"Then, you mean we're going to get married?"
"You ain't asked me yet."
"Miss Clemmie Pipkin," he began, bending his knees in the direction of
the floor, and upsetting the table as he went down with a thud, "will
you ship aboard this here old craft as fust mate with a rough old
skipper like me?"
"Lan' sakes! Get up off that floor. You look awful silly. Get up this
minute, or I'll say no."
The Captain got up with more alacrity than he had gone down.
"Will you marry me, honest, Clemmie?"
"Yes. You see, I kind of wanted to hear myself say it, because I'd made
up my mind that way."
An exclamation from the kitchen interrupted what the seaman was doing.
The minister had retired thither to clear the mist from his eyes which
had gathered there at signs of spring-time in the fall of these dear old
lives. He now stood in the door, holding a dripping coffee-pot.
"Oh, my coffee!" cried the housekeeper. "It's boiled all over the
place."
"Drat the coffee. Let her b'ile!"
Boil it certainly had, over the stove, on to the floor, and had
collected in a puddle at the threshold.
"That's what comes of not attending to your cooking," observed the
practical Miss Pipkin. The other Miss Pipkin, who had been sleeping for
years in the living sepulcher of her heart, was saying and doing many
things quite different.
From the cross-roads came the sound of the church-bell, calling the
people of Little River Parish to worship.
"There's the bell!" exclaimed Miss Pipkin. "It's only a half-hour before
service. If you'll excuse me, Mack, I don't think I'll go this morning.
You don't mind if I call you Mack here at home, do you?"
"I want you to call me that, Aunt Clemmie." He gave her a hurried kiss,
and started toward his room. At the corner of the upset table he paused.
"If I didn't have to preach this morning I'd stay home, too."
"You mean you'd go walking down 'long the beach," corrected the
Captain.
Miss Pipkin looked oddly at her lover. "Be they engaged?"
"They was, but I guess they ain't."
"What do you mean?"
"Jim came nigh sp'iling things last night. Mack said they'd call it all
off till he found out more about his people. He was 'feared from what
Jim had said to him that he had no right to love Beth. I cal'late he see
that it was right enough to go ahead afore I got through with him this
morning."
"Josiah, he'll marry us, won't he?"
"You just bet he will!"
"Ain't it funny he never said nothing about being glad we was engaged?"
"We ain't told him."
"But he saw."
"Script're says something about having eyes and seeing not, and having
ears and hearing not. Mack's as nigh to obeying the sayings of Script're
as any one I know."
"That's so, Josiah. He is so good without trying to be," declared Miss
Pipkin. She lifted a hand to each of the old man's shoulders, and he put
his arms about her. "Do you believe in the care of Providence, Josiah,
and in the guiding hand of God?"
The Captain tightened his embrace, and one of the bony hands of the
housekeeper slipped into the knotty fingers about her waist.
"I'm larning to, Clemmie, but I'm going to need a heap of help. I ain't
used to these religious channels, and I cal'late you'll have to take
the helm right often."
They had not heard the sound of footsteps in the outer room. It was Mrs.
Beaver's voice that caused them to start.
"I thought I'd come over to borrow some----"
Mrs. Beaver stopped short on the threshold, looked at the Captain and
the housekeeper, and began to retreat. The practical Miss Pipkin was the
first to recover speech.
"Come on right in, Mrs. Beaver. That's a silly thing for me to say,
seeing you're already in. But what is it you'd like to borrow?"
Mrs. Beaver continued to retreat and stare. She saw the puddle of coffee
on the floor. She eyed with interest the upset table. She saw that the
Captain was undetermined what he ought to do with his hands. She watched
him as he stumbled backward into the cupboard. Her face was a study.
"What was it you was going to ask for, Eadie?" asked the seaman, trying
to appear unconcerned in his decided embarrassment.
"Well, I never!" exclaimed Mrs. Beaver.
"We're engaged," announced Miss Pipkin in matter-of-fact tones.
"Engaged! You and----"
"Yes, she and me," finished the Captain eagerly.
Mrs. Beaver's hands dropped helplessly to her sides.
"Is there anything more you'd like to know?" asked Miss Pipkin kindly,
as she crossed the room and put an arm about the spare figure of her
neighbor. "We're that happy that I wanted you to know, and I'm real glad
you come over when you did."
"Anything else I want to know?" she asked. "I should say there is. What
has happened to Harry? He come home last night all different, talking
for the minister till I couldn't get a word in edgewise. It was awful
late, too. And he told me that Sim Hicks had left town, or was going
this morning."
"I cal'late some one's clothed Harry in his right mind. You know, Eadie,
that's Script're. Sim has took a trip for his health."
"And Harry tells me that Mr. Fox is for the minister, too. Something
must have happened."
"Yes, something has happened. Eadie, you rec'lect that time when you
fust spoke to me about the minister staying in my house you said I'd be
in the way of the Lord if I'd do it. I wa'n't very pleasant to you for
going ahead and doing it while I was away, but you sartin did what
Providence wanted that time."
Mrs. Beaver did not attempt to reply.
"What was it you wanted to borrow?"
She looked from the one to the other, and made this comment: "I'm mighty
glad for the both of you. You're good, and you both deserve what you've
got." She kissed Miss Pipkin on the cheek, and turned toward the door.
"Eadie, what was it you come for?" asked the housekeeper in a strange
voice.
"I come over for a pinch of salt, but----"
"Give her the hull sack, dear," ordered the Captain.
"I guess--I think----I really don't need the salt," stammered Mrs.
Beaver.
"Here, Eadie, don't go off mad. I didn't mean anything by what I said.
I'd give half what I own this morning to a hobo if he'd ask for a crust
of bread."
"Thanks, Josiah. But I guess I got what I really come for. God bless you
both!"
With that she was gone.
"Now, ain't that the strangest you ever see?" observed the Captain.
He was cut short by the sound of a familiar toot out in the harbor. He
stared at the housekeeper in dumb amazement.
"Clemmie, did you hear that? What in tarnation was it?"
"It sounded like your power-boat."
"But it ain't round here."
Together they went outside. Together they stood on the stoop and watched
a boat nose its way to the old mooring of the _Jennie P._
"It's her!" whispered the seaman hoarsely. "It's my _Jennie P._!"
He did not move from his place beside Miss Pipkin, but held tightly to
her hand as John Peters came up from the wharf.
"Here's a paper for you, Josiah. A girl come into my place about noon
yesterday and made me sign it."
Captain Pott was too surprised to even reach out for the piece of paper
offered him.
Miss Pipkin took it, and unfolded it carefully.
"Read it for me, Clemmie."
"It only says that the _Jennie P._ was bought back by Josiah Pott."
"But I never----"
"That girl said she'd come to represent you, and paid cash."
Without a word the three went down to the wharf, and John Peters rowed
the dory, with two passengers aboard, out to the _Jennie P._
* * * * *
It was late in the afternoon when Mr. McGowan left the house. Fall
permeated the air with an invigorating twang. Here and there the
landscape showed the touch of frost. The marsh grass was turning brown.
Among the trees and shrubbery color ran riot. The Fox knoll was a blend
of beauty. As the minister passed the estate he sought for a glimpse of
the Elder's daughter among the trees, or in the garden. But she was not
to be seen.
For a long way he kept his course up the beach. He was thinking. How
could he explain to Elizabeth the meaning of his actions last night?
Would she listen after he had refused to give heed to her explanation?
Suddenly, he became aware that he stood on the spot where he had turned
his ankle the night she had come to him from the water's edge, and his
thoughts were choked in the furrows of his brain. He seemed to hear her
voice again as she had spoken that night of the impossibility of his
love. He looked about. Far up the peninsula he recognized her. She was
coming to him as straight as the line of the beach permitted. He started
in her direction. She waved him back. He waited. On she came. Neither
attempted to speak till she had reached his side.
"I've been waiting for you," she said. "I thought you would never
come."
"You still want to see me after the way I treated you last night?"
"Please, don't speak of that. I knew Uncle Josiah would tell you
everything."
"He did tell me all. I want you to forgive me for not taking your word
that there was nothing in my past which would prevent our love, or mar
it. I didn't realize that you knew what you were saying. I feared that I
had no right to love you after your father had spoken as he did of my
parentage."
With intense anticipation he held out his hands, but she drew away.
"Not now. I did not understand what Father's obligation to you would
involve."
"Elizabeth, dear, do you mean you won't forgive me?"
"I have nothing to forgive in you, Mack." In her eyes was a return of
the warmth of love she felt, but her attitude was one of firm resolve.
"I have come to you to-day because I want to tell you that just for the
present we must be only good friends. I've been thinking all night long
about you, and now that you know who you are, and what my father has
done against your father----"
"But that is all past!"
"Not for me. Father ruined your father, and has grown rich on your
money. Not till every cent of that is paid back can I think of marrying
you." There was the weight of dead finality in every word.
"But, Elizabeth----"
"Please, Mack, don't make it harder for me than you must. This is not
easy, but you will see where it is best, when you have taken time to
think it over."
"You have not talked this over with your father, or with Harold?"
"No. Father was ill last night, and Harold was so tired that he has been
sleeping all day. It would make no difference what either of them might
say. I am doing this because it is right."
"You do not know of the arrangements that are to be made?"
"All I know is that Father owes you the money, and that it is yours and
must be paid back to you."
"Elizabeth, there are papers to be drawn up, and----"
"Mack, please don't! I'm tired, and can't stand much. Don't try to
change my decision."
"But those papers which Harold is to draw up must alter that decision.
That is the only ground on which I shall accept the terms. Your father
is to be given all the time he needs to pay me back. At first I flatly
refused. I didn't want to take any of his money. But Uncle Josiah made
me see that it was the only thing to do."
"Of course, it is the only thing to do. You are going to let Harold
draft those papers because Father must give up what does not belong to
him."
"I'll not permit one stroke of the pen unless----"
"But, Mack, you must! This is your duty to make Father----"
"Elizabeth, dear, it is not your father's money I want. All that means
nothing to me. I am consenting to the arrangement simply because I
believe it will be best for him to pay it back. It's you I want!"
She turned from him to look out over Long Island Sound. The sun was
completing its daily journey by tossing up glorious hues of gold,
splashing the western sky without stint from its unseen pot of blending
colors. Her face seemed to catch and hold the glory of the sky.
"Beth, we must not sacrifice the love which God has given us. That is
something which all the money in the world cannot buy."
She turned about to face him. Her eyes were filled with the reflection
of the fire that glowed on the inner shrine of her heart.
"You are right, Mack. Our love is God's gift."
THE END.
Transcriber's Notes:
Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved as printed in the
original book except as indicated in the list below.
One period/comma and one single-quote/double-quote transpositions were
silently corrected. Ending punctuation was added to the List of
Illustrations. Otherwise, punctuation has not been changed to comply
with modern conventions.
Passages in italics indicated by _underscores_.
Passages in bold indicated by =equal signs=.
The following changes were made to the text.
Page 25: "spelling standardized" (but because some of your =church
members= would not try to understand them)
Page 43: "hyphenation standardized" (Very gently stroking his
=side-whiskers=, he continued:)
Page 46: Was "exclaimd" (Some =exclaimed= for, and others declaimed
against, the candidate.)
Page 56: Was "Baalam's" (here he was, the king of them all, a genuine
descendant of =Balaam's= mount)
Page 103: Was "medding" ("Are you ready to call quits and stop your
damned =meddling= in my affairs?")
Page 159: "spelling standardized" (The time has come when the church
must cut the =shore lines= that have been binding us to the
past.)
Page 186: Was "Pipin" ("You must have hit your funny-bone, or
something," hinted Miss =Pipkin=.)
Page 212: "spelling standardized" (He was roused at last by the
opening of his =study door=.)
Page 285: Was "outaw" (The fact is, he is an =outlaw= and is hiding
from justice.)
Page 351: "spelling standardized" ("Then, =good night=. Come, Beth.")
End of Project Gutenberg's Captain Pott's Minister, by Francis L. Cooper