CY WHITTAKER'S PLACE
By Joseph C. Lincoln
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I.-- THE PERFECT BOARDING HOUSE
II.-- THE WANDERER'S RETURN
III.-- “FIXIN' OVER”
IV.-- BAILEY BANGS'S EXPERIMENT
V.-- A FRONT DOOR CALLER
VI.-- ICICLES AND DUST
VII.-- CAPTAIN CY PROVES DELINQUENT
VIII.-- THE “COW LADY”
IX.-- POLITICS AND BIRTHDAYS
X.-- A LETTER AND A VISITOR
XI.-- A BARGAIN OFF
XII.-- “TOWN MEETIN'”
XIII.-- THE REPULSE
XIV.-- A CLEW
XV.-- DEBBY BEASLEY TO THE RESCUE
XVI.-- A REMARKABLE DRIVE AND WHAT FOLLOWED
XVII.-- THE CAPTAIN REMEMBERS HIS AGE
XVIII.-- CONGRESSMAN EVERDEAN
XIX.-- THE TOPPLING OF A MONUMENT
XX.-- DIVIDED HONORS
XXI.-- CAPTAIN CY'S “PICTURE”
CY WHITTAKER'S PLACE
CHAPTER I
THE PERFECT BOARDING HOUSE
It is queer, but Captain Cy himself doesn't remember whether the day was
Tuesday or Wednesday. Asaph Tidditt's records ought to settle it, for
there was a meeting of the board of selectmen that day, and Asaph has
been town clerk in Bayport since the summer before the Baptist meeting
house burned. But on the record the date, in Asaph's handwriting, stands
“Tuesday, May 10, 189-” and, as it happens, May 10 of that year fell on
Wednesday, not Tuesday at all.
Keturah Bangs, who keeps “the perfect boarding house,” says it was
Tuesday, because she remembers they had fried cod cheeks and cabbage
that day--as they have every Tuesday--and neither Mr. Tidditt nor Bailey
Bangs, Keturah's husband, was on hand when the dinner bell rang. Keturah
says she is certain it was Tuesday, because she remembers smelling the
boiled cabbage as she stood at the side door, looking up the road to
see if either Asaph or Bailey was coming. As for Bailey, he says he
remembers being late to dinner and his wife's “startin' to heave a
broadsides into him” because of it, but he doesn't remember what day it
was. This isn't surprising; Keturah's verbal cannonades are likely to
make one forgetful of trifles.
At any rate, whether Tuesday or Wednesday, it is certain that it was
quarter past twelve, according to the clock presented to the Methodist
Society by the Honorable Heman Atkins, when Asaph Tidditt came down the
steps of the townhall, after the selectmen's meeting, and saw Bailey
Bangs waiting for him on the opposite side of the road.
“Hello, Ase!” hailed Mr. Bangs. “You'll be late to dinner, if you don't
hurry. I was headin' for home, all sail sot, when I see you. What kept
you?”
“Town business, of course,” replied Mr. Tidditt, with the importance
pertaining to his official position. “What kept YOU, for the land sakes?
Won't Ketury be in your wool?”
Bailey hasn't any “wool” worth mentioning now, and he had very little
more then, but he mopped his forehead, or the extension above it, taking
off his cap to do so.
“I cal'late she will,” he said, uneasily. “Tell you the truth, Ase,
I was up to the store, and Cap'n Josiah Dimick and some more of
'em drifted in and we got talkin' about the chances of the harbor
appropriation, and one thing or 'nother, and 'twas later'n I thought
'twas 'fore I knew it.”
The appropriation from the government, which was to deepen and widen our
harbor here at Bayport, was a very vital topic among us just then. Heman
Atkins, the congressman from our district, had promised to do his best
for the appropriation, and had for a time been very sanguine of securing
it. Recently, however, he had not been quite as hopeful.
“What's Cap'n Josiah think about the chances?” asked Asaph eagerly.
“Well, sometimes he thinks 'Yes' and then again he thinks 'No,'” replied
Bailey. “He says, of course, if Heman is able to get it he will, but if
he ain't able to, he--he--”
“He won't, I s'pose. Well, _I_ can think that myself, and I don't set
up to be no inspired know-it-all, like Joe Dimick. He ain't heard from
Heman lately, has he?”
“No, he ain't. Neither's anybody else, so fur as I can find out.”
“Oh, yes, they have. _I_ have, for one.”
Mr. Bangs stopped short in his double-quick march for home and dinner,
and looked his companion in the face.
“Ase Tidditt!” he cried. “Do you mean to tell me you've had a letter
from Heman Atkins, from Washin'ton?”
Asaph nodded portentously.
“Yes, sir,” he declared. “A letter from the Honorable Heman G. Atkins,
of Washin'ton, D. C., come to me last night. I read it afore I turned
in.”
“You did! And never said nothin' about it?”
“Why should I say anything about it? 'Twas addressed to me as town
clerk, and was concernin' a matter to be took up with the board of
s'lectmen. I ain't in the habit of hollerin' town affairs through a
speakin' trumpet. Folks that vote for me town-meetin' day know that, I
guess. Angie Phinney says to me only yesterday, 'Mr. Tidditt,' says she,
'there's one thing I'll say for you--you don't talk.'”
Miss Phinney boarded with the Bangses, and Bailey was acquainted with
her personal peculiarities; for that matter so were most of Bayport's
permanent residents.
“Humph!” he snorted indignantly. “She thought 'twas a good thing not
to talk, hey? SHE did? Well, by mighty! you never get no CHANCE to talk
when she's around. Angie Phinney! Why, when that poll parrot of hers
died, Alph'us Smalley declared up and down that what killed it was
jealousy and disapp'inted ambition; he said it broke its heart tryin' to
keep up with Angie. Her ma was the same breed of cats. I remember--”
The talking proclivities of females is the one topic upon which
Keturah's husband is touchiest. Asaph knew this, but he delighted to
stir up his chum occasionally. He chuckled as he interrupted the flow of
reminiscence.
“There, there, Bailey!” he exclaimed. “I know as much about Angie's
tribe as you do, I cal'late. Ain't we a little mite off the course?
Seems to me we was talkin' about Heman's letter.”
“Is that so? I judged from what you said we wa'n't goin' to talk about
it. Aw, don't be so mean, Ase! Showin' off your importance like a young
one! What did Heman say about the appropriation? Is he goin' to get it?”
Mr. Tidditt paused before replying. Then, bending over, he whispered in
his chum's ear:
“He never said one word about the appropriation, Bailey; not one word.
He wanted to know if we'd got this year's taxes on the Whittaker place.
And, if we hadn't, what was we goin' to do about it? Bailey, between you
and me and the mizzenmast, Heman Atkins wants to get ahold of that place
the worst way.”
“He does? He DOES? For the land sakes, ain't he got property enough
already? Ain't a--a palace like that enough for one man, without wantin'
to buy a rattletrap like THAT?”
The first “that” was emphasized by a brandished but reverent left hand;
the second by a derisively pointing right. The two friends had reached
the crest of the long slope leading up from the townhall. On one side
of the road stretched the imposing frontage of the “Atkins estate,” with
its iron fence and stone posts; on the other slouched the weed-grown,
tumble-down desolation of the “Cy Whittaker place.” The contrast was
that of opulent prosperity and poverty-stricken neglect.
If our village boasted one of those horseless juggernauts, such as are
used to carry sightseers in Boston from the old North Church to the
Public Library and other points of interest--that is, if there was a
“seeing Bayport” car, it is from this hill that its occupants would be
given their finest view of the village and its surroundings. As Captain
Josiah Dimick always says: “Bayport is all north and south, like a
codfish line. It puts me in mind of Seth Higgins's oldest boy. He was so
tall and thin that when they bought a suit of clothes for him, they used
to take reefs in the sides of the jacket and use the cloth to piece onto
the bottoms of the trousers' legs.” What Captain Joe means is that
the houses in the village are all built beside three roads running
longitudinally. There is the “main road” and the “upper road”--or
“Woodchuck Lane,” just as you prefer--and the “lower road,” otherwise
known as “Bassett's Holler.”
The “upper road” is sometimes called the “depot road,” because the
railroad station is conveniently located thereon--convenient for the
railroad, that is--the station being a full mile from Simmons's “general
store,” which is considered the center of the town. The upper road
enters the main road at the corner by the store, and there also are
the Methodist meetinghouse and the schoolhouse. The townhall is in the
hollow farther on. Then comes the big hill--
“Whittaker's Hill”--and from the top of this hill you can, on a clear
day, see for miles across the salt marshes and over the bay to the
eastward, and west as far as the church steeple in Orham. If there
happens to be a fog, with a strong easterly wind, you cannot see the
marshes or the bay, but you can smell them, wet and salty and sweet. It
is a smell that the born Bayporter never forgets, but carries with him
in memory wherever he goes; and that, in the palmy days of the merchant
marine, was likely, to be far, for every male baby in the village was
born with web feet, so people said, and was predestined to be a sailor.
When Heman Atkins came back from the South Seas early in the '60's,
“rich as dock mud,” though still a young man, he promptly tore down his
father's old house, which stood on the crest of Whittaker's Hill, and
built in its place a big imposing residence. It was by far the finest
house in Bayport, and Heman made it finer as the years passed. There
were imitation brownstone pillars supporting its front porch, iron dogs
and scroll work iron benches bordering its front walk, and a pair of
stone urns, in summer filled with flowers, beside its big iron front
gate.
Heman was our leading citizen, our representative in Washington, and the
town's philanthropist. He gave the Atkins memorial window and the Atkins
tower clock to the Methodist Church. The Atkins town pump, also his
gift, stood before the townhall. The Atkins portrait in the Bayport
Ladies' Library was much admired; and the size of the Atkins fortune was
the principal subject of conversation at sewing circle, at the table of
“the perfect boarding house,” around the stove in Simmons's store, or
wherever Bayporters were used to gather. We never exactly worshipped
Heman Atkins, perhaps, but we figuratively doffed our hats when his name
was mentioned.
The “Cy Whittaker place” faced the Atkins estate from the opposite side
of the main road, but it was the general opinion that it ought to be
ashamed to face it. Almost everybody called it “the Cy Whittaker place,”
although some of the younger set spoke of it as the “Sea Sight House.”
It was a big, old-fashioned dwelling, gambrel-roofed and brown and
dilapidated. Originally it had enjoyed the dignified seclusion afforded
by a white picket fence with square gateposts, and the path to its
seldom-used front door had been guarded by rigid lines of box hedge.
This, however, was years ago, before the second Captain Cy Whittaker
died, and before the Howes family turned it into the “Sea Sight House,”
a hotel for summer boarders.
The Howeses “improved” the house and grounds. They tore down the picket
fence, uprooted the box hedges, hung a sign over the sacred front door,
and built a wide veranda under the parlor windows.
They took boarders for five consecutive summers; then they gave up the
unprofitable undertaking, returned to Concord, New Hampshire, their
native city, and left the Cy Whittaker place to bear the ravages of
Bayport winters and Bayport small boys as best it might.
For years it stood empty. The weeds grew high about its foundations; the
sparrows built nests behind such of its shutters as had not been ripped
from their hinges by February no'theasters; its roof grew bald in spots
as the shingles loosened and were blown away; the swallows flew in and
out of its stone-broken windowpanes. Year by year it became more of a
disgrace in the eyes of Bayport's neat and thrifty inhabitants--for neat
and thrifty we are, if we do say it. The selectmen would have liked
to tear it down, but they could not, because it was private property,
having been purchased from the Howes heirs by the third Cy Whittaker,
Captain Cy's only son, who ran away to sea when he was sixteen years
old, and was disinherited and cast off by the proud old skipper in
consequence. Each March, Asaph Tidditt, in his official capacity as town
clerk, had been accustomed to receive an envelope with a South American
postmark, and in that envelope was a draft on a Boston banking house for
the sum due as taxes on the “Cy Whittaker place.” The drafts were signed
“Cyrus M. Whittaker.”
But this particular year--the year in which this chronicle begins--no
draft had been received. Asaph waited a few weeks and then wrote to the
address indicated by the postmark. His letter was unanswered. The taxes
were due in March and it was now May. Mr. Tidditt wrote again; then he
laid the case before the board of selectmen, and Captain Eben Salters,
chairman of that august body, also wrote. But even Captain Eben's
authoritative demand was ignored. Next to the harbor appropriation, the
question of what should be done about the “Cy Whittaker place” filled
Bayport's thoughts that spring. No one, however, had supposed that
the Honorable Heman might wish to buy it. Bailey Bangs's surprise was
excusable.
“What in the world,” repeated Bailey, “does Heman want of a shebang like
that? Ain't he got enough already?”
His friend shook his head.
“'Pears not,” he said. “I judge it's this way, Bailey: Heman, he's a
proud man--”
“Well, ain't he got a right to be proud?” broke in Mr. Bangs, hastening
to resent any criticism of the popular idol. “Cal'late you and me'd be
proud if we was able to carry as much sail as he does, wouldn't we?”
“Yes, I guess like we would. But you needn't get red in the face and
strain your biler just because I said that. I ain't finding fault with
Heman; I'm only tellin' you. He's proud, as I said, and his wife--”
“She's dead this four year. What are you resurrectin' her for?”
“Land! you're peppery as a West Injy omelet this mornin'. Let me alone
till I've finished. His wife, when she was alive, she was proud, too.
And his daughter, Alicia, she's eight year old now, and by and by she'll
be grown up into a high-toned young woman. Well, Heman is fur-sighted,
and I s'pose likely he's thinkin' of the days when there'll be young
rich fellers--senators and--and--well, counts and lords, maybe--cruisin'
down here courtin' her. By that time the Whittaker place'll be a worse
disgrace than 'tis now. I presume he don't want those swells to sit on
his front piazza and see the crows buildin' nests in the ruins acrost
the road. So--”
“Crows! Did you ever see a crow build a nest in a house? I never did!”
“Oh, belay! Crows or canary birds, what difference does it make?
SOMETHIN' 'll nest there, if it's only A'nt Sophrony Hallett's hens.
So Heman he writes to the board, askin' if the taxes is paid, if we've
heard any reason why they ain't paid, and what we're goin' to do about
it. If there's a sale for taxes he wants to be fust bidder. Then, when
the place is his, he can tear down or rebuild, just as he sees fit.
See?”
“Yes, I see. Well, I feel about that the way Joe Dimick felt when he
heard the doctor had told Elviry Pepper she must stop singin' in
the choir or lose her voice altogether. 'Whichever happens 'll be an
improvement,' says Cap'n Joe; and whatever Heman does 'll help the
Whittaker place. What did you decide at the meetin'?”
“Nothin'. We can't decide yet. We ain't sure about the law and we want
to wait a spell, anyhow. But I know how 'twill end: Atkins 'll get the
place. He always gets what he wants, Heman does.”
Bailey turned and looked back at the old house, forlorn amidst
its huddle of blackberry briers and weeds, and with the ubiquitous
“silver-leaf” saplings springing up in clusters everywhere about it and
closing in on its defenseless walls like squads of victorious soldiery
making the final charge upon a conquered fort.
“Well,” sighed Mr. Bangs, “so that 'll be the end of the old Whittaker
place, hey? Sho! things change in a feller's lifetime, don't they? You
and me can remember, Ase, when Cap'n Cy Whittaker was one of the biggest
men we had in this town. So was his dad afore him, the Cap'n Cy that
built the house. I wonder the looks of things here now don't bring them
two up out of their graves. Do you remember young Cy--'Whit' we used to
call him--or 'Reddy Whit,' 'count of his red hair? I don't know's you
do, though; guess you'd gone to sea when he run away from home.”
Mr. Tidditt shook his head.
“No, no!” he said. “I was to home that year. Remember 'Whit'? Well, I
should say I did. He was a holy terror--yes, sir! Wan't no monkey shines
or didos cut up in this town that young Cy wan't into. Fur's that goes,
you and me was in 'em, too, Bailey. We was all holy terrors then. Young
ones nowadays ain't got the spunk we used to have.”
His friend chuckled.
“That's so,” he declared. “That's so. Whit was a good-hearted boy, too,
but full of the Old Scratch and as sot in his ways as his dad, and if
Cap'n Cy wan't sot, then there ain't no sotness. 'You'll go to college
and be a parson,' says the Cap'n. 'I'll go to sea and be a sailor, same
as you done,' says Whit. And he did, too; run away one night, took the
packet to Boston, and shipped aboard an Australian clipper. Cap'n Cy
didn't go after him to fetch him home. No, sir--ee! not a fetch. Sent
him a letter plumb to Melbourne and, says he: 'You've made your bed; now
lay in it. Don't you never dast to come back to me or your ma,' he says.
And Whit didn't, he wan't that kind.”
“Pretty nigh killed the old lady--Whit's ma--that did,” mused Asaph.
“She died a little spell afterwards. And the old man pined away, too,
but he never give in or asked the boy to come back. Stubborn as all
get-out to the end, he was, and willed the place, all he had left, to
them Howes folks. And a nice mess THEY made of it. Young Cy, he--”
“Young Cy!” interrupted Bailey. “We're always callin' him 'young Cy,'
and yet, when you come to think of it, he must be pretty nigh fifty-five
now; 'most as old as you and I be. Wonder if he'll ever come back here.”
“You bet he won't!” was the oracular reply. “You bet he won't! From what
I hear he got to be a sea cap'n himself and settled down there in Buenos
Ayres. He's made all kinds of money, they say, out of hides and such.
What he ever bought his dad's old place for, _I_ can't see. He'll never
come back to these common, one-horse latitudes, now you mark my word on
that!”
It was a prophecy Mr. Tidditt was accustomed to make each year to the
crowd at the post office, when the receipt for the draft for taxes
caused him to wax reminiscent. The younger generation here in Bayport
regard their town clerk as something of an oracle, and this regard has
made Asaph a trifle vain and positive.
Bailey chuckled again.
“We WAS a spunky, dare-devil lot in the old days, wan't we, Ase?” he
said. “Spunk was kind of born in us, as you might say. And even now
we're--”
The Atkins tower clock boomed once--a solemn, dignified stroke. Mr.
Tidditt and his companion started and looked at each other.
“Godfrey scissors!” gasped Asaph. “Is that half past twelve?”
Mr. Bangs pulled a big worn silver watch from his pocket and glanced at
the dial.
“It is!” he moaned. “As sure's you're born, it is! We've kept Ketury's
dinner waitin' twenty minutes. You and me are in for it now, Ase
Tidditt! Twenty minutes late! She'll skin us alive.”
Mr. Tidditt did not pause to answer, but plunged headlong down the
hill at a race-horse gait, Bailey pounding at his heels. For “born
dare-devils,” self-confessed, they were a nervous and apprehensive pair.
The “perfect boarding house” is situated a quarter of a mile beyond
“Whittaker's Hill,” nearly opposite the Salters homestead. The sign,
hung on the pole by the front gate, reads, “Bayport Hotel. Bailey Bangs,
Proprietor,” but no one except the stranger in Bayport accepts that sign
seriously. When, owing to an unexpected change in the administration
at Washington, Mr. Bangs was obliged to relinquish his position as our
village postmaster, his wife came to the rescue with the proposal that
they open a boarding house. “'Whatsoe'er you find to do,' quoted Keturah
at sewing-circle meeting, 'do it then with all your might!' That's a
good Sabbath-school hymn tune and it's good sense besides. I intend to
make it my life work to run just as complete a--a eatin' and lodgin'
establishment as I can. If, when I'm laid to rest, they can put onto my
gravestone, 'She run the perfect boardin' house,' I'LL be satisfied.”
This remark, and subsequent similar declarations, were widely quoted,
and, therefore, though casual visitors may refer to the “Bayport Hotel,”
to us natives the Bangs residence is always “Keturah's perfect boarding
house.” As for the sign's affirmation of Mr. Bangs proprietorship,
that is considered the cream of the joke. The idea of meek, bald-headed
little Bailey posing as proprietor of anything while his wife is on
deck, tickles Bayport's sense of humor.
The perspiring delinquents panted into the yard of the perfect boarding
house and tremblingly opened the door leading to the dining room. Dinner
was well under way, and Mrs. Bangs, enthroned at the end of the long
table, behind the silver-plated teapot, was waiting to receive them. The
silence was appalling.
“Sorry to be a little behindhand, Ketury,” stammered Asaph hurriedly.
“Town affairs are important, of course, and can't be neglected. I--”
“Yes, yes; that's so, Ketury,” cut in Mr. Bangs.
“You see--”
“Hum! Yes, I see.” Keturah's tone was several degrees below freezing.
“Hum! I s'pose 'twas town affairs kept you, too, hey?”
“Well, well--er--not exactly, as you might say, but--” Bailey squeezed
himself into the armchair at the end of the table opposite his wife, the
end which, with sarcasm not the less keen for being unintentional, was
called the “head.” “Not exactly town affairs, 'twan't that kept me,
Ketury, but--My! don't them cod cheeks smell good? You always could cook
cod cheeks, if I do say it.”
The compliment was wasted. Mrs. Bangs had a sermon to deliver, and its
text was not “cod cheeks.”
“Bailey Bangs,” she began, “when I was brought to realize that my
husband, although apparently an able-bodied man, couldn't support me as
I'd been used to be supported, and when I was forced to support HIM
by keepin' boarders, I says, 'If there's one thing that my house shall
stand for it's punctual promptness at meal times. I say nothing,' I
says, 'about the inconvenience of gettin' on with only one hired help
when we ought to have three. If Providence, in its unscrutable wisdom,'
I says, 'has seen fit to lay this burden onto me, the burden of a
household of boarders and a husband whom--'”
And just then the power referred to by Mrs. Bangs intervened to spare
her husband the remainder of the preachment. From the driveway of the
yard, beside the dining-room windows, came the rattle of wheels and
the tramp of a horse's feet. Mrs. Matilda Tripp, who sat nearest the
windows, on that side, rose and peered out.
“It's the depot wagon, Ketury,” she said. “There's somebody inside it. I
wonder if they're comin' here.”
“Transients” were almost unknown quantities at the Bayport Hotel in May.
Consequently, all the boarders and the landlady herself crowded to the
windows. The “depot wagon” had drawn up by the steps, and Gabe Lumley,
the driver, had descended from his seat and was doing his best to open
the door of the ancient vehicle. It stuck, of course; the doors of all
depot wagons stick.
“Hold on a shake!” commanded some one inside the carriage. “Wait till
I get a purchase on her. Now, then! All hands to the ropes! Heave--ho!
THERE she comes!”
The door flew back with a bang. A man sprang out upon the lower step of
the porch. The eye of every inmate of the perfect boarding house was on
him. Even the “hired help” peered from the kitchen door.
“He's a stranger,” whispered Mrs. Tripp. “I never see him before, did
you, Mr. Tidditt?”
The town clerk did not answer. He was staring at the depot wagon's
passenger, staring with a face the interested expression of which was
changing to that of surprise and amazed incredulity. Mrs. Tripp turned
to Mr. Bangs; he also was staring, open-mouthed.
“Godfrey scissors!” gasped Asaph, under his breath. “Godfrey--SCISSORS!
Bailey, I--I believe--I swan to man, I believe--”
“Ase Tidditt!” exclaimed Mr. Bangs, “am I goin' looney, or is that--is
that--”
Neither finished his sentence. There are times when language seems so
pitifully inadequate.