“FIXIN' OVER”
Miss Angeline Phinney made no less than nine calls that afternoon.
Before bedtime it was known, from the last house in Woodchuck Lane to
the fish shanties at West Bayport, that “young Cy” Whittaker had come
back; that he had come back “for good”; that he was staying temporarily
at the perfect boarding house; that he was “awful well off”--having made
lots of money down in South America; that he intended to “fix over”
the Whittaker place, and that it was to be fixed over, not in a modern
manner, with plush parlor sets--a la Sylvanus Cahoon--nor with onyx
tables and blue and gold chairs like those adorning the Atkins mansion.
It was to be, as near as possible, a reproduction of what it had been in
the time of the late “Cap'n Cy,” young Cy's father.
“_I_ think he's out of his head,” declared Miss Phinney, in confidence,
to each of the nine females whom she favored with her calls. “Not crazy,
you understand, but sort of touched in the upper story. I says so to
Matildy Tripp, said it right out, too: 'Matildy,' I says, 'he's got a
screw loose up aloft just as sure as you're a born woman!' 'What makes
you think so?' says she. 'Well,' says I, 'do you s'pose anybody that
wan't foolish would be for spendin' good money on an old house to
make it OLDER?' I says. Goin' to tear down the piazza the fust thing!
Perfectly good piazza that cost ninety-eight dollars and sixty cents to
build; I know, because I see the bill when the Howeses had it done. And
he's goin' to set out box hedges, somethin' that ain't been the style
in this town sence Congressman Atkins pulled up his. 'What in the world,
Cap'n Whittaker,' says I to him, 'do you want of box hedges? Homely
and stiff and funeral lookin'! I might have 'em around my grave in the
buryin' ground,' I says, 'but nowheres else.' 'All right, Angie,' says
he, 'you shall have 'em there; I'll cut some slips purpose for you.
It'll be a pleasure,' he says. Now ain't that crazy talk for a grown
man?”
Miss Phinney was not the only one in our village to question Captain
Cy Whittaker's sanity during the next few months. The majority of
our people didn't understand him at all. He was generally liked, for
although he had money, he did not put on airs, but he had his own way of
doing things, and they were not Bayport ways.
True to his promise, he had a squad of carpenters busy, on the
day following his arrival, tearing down the loathed piazza. These
carpenters, and more, were kept busy throughout that entire spring
and well into the summer. Then came painters and gardeners. The piazza
disappeared; a new picket fence, exactly like the old one torn down by
the Howeses, was erected; new shutters were hung; new windowpanes were
set; the roof was newly shingled. Captain Cy, Senior, had, in his day,
cherished a New England fondness for white and green paint; therefore
the new fence was white and the house was white and the blinds a
brilliant green. Rows of box hedge, the plants brought from Boston, were
set out on each side of the front walk. The Howes front-door bell--a
clamorous gong--was removed, and a glass knob attached to a spring bell
of the old-fashioned “jingle” variety took its place. An old-fashioned
flower garden--Cap'n Cy's mother had loved posies--was laid out on
the west lawn beyond the pear trees. All these changes the captain
superintended; when they were complete he turned his attention to
interior decoration.
And now Captain Cy proceeded to, literally, astonish the natives. Among
the Howes “improvements” were gilt wall papers and modern furniture for
the lower floor of the house. The furniture they had taken with them;
the wall paper had perforce been left behind. And the captain had every
scrap of that paper stripped from the walls, and the latter re-covered
with quaint, ugly, old-fashioned patterns, stripes and roses and
flowered sprays with impossible birds flitting among them. The Bassett
decorators has pasted the gilt improvement over the old Whittaker paper,
and it was the Whittaker paper that the captain did his best to match,
sending samples here, there, and everywhere in the effort. Then, upon
the walls he hung old-fashioned pictures, such as Bayport dwellers had
long ago relegated to their attics, pictures like “From Shore to Shore,”
“Christian Viewing the City Beautiful,” and “Signing the Declaration.”
To these he added, bringing them from the crowded garret of the
homestead, oil paintings of ships commanded by his father and
grandfather, and family portraits, executed--which is a peculiarly
fitting word--by deceased local artists in oil and crayon.
He boarded up the fireplace in the sitting room and installed a
base-burner stove, resurrected from the tinsmith's barn. He purchased
a full “haircloth set” of parlor furniture from old Mrs. Penniman, who
never had been known to sell any of her hoarded belongings before, even
to the “antiquers,” and wouldn't have done so now, had it not been that
the captain's offer was too princely to be real, and the old lady feared
she might be dreaming and would wake up before she received the money.
And from Trumet to Ostable he journeyed, buying a chair here and a table
there, braided rag mats from this one, and corded bedsteads and “rising
sun” quilts from that. At least half of Bayport believed with Gabe
Lumley and Miss Phinney that, if Captain Cy had not escaped from a home
for the insane, he was a likely candidate for such an institution.
At the table of the perfect boarding house the captain was not inclined
to be communicative regarding his reasons and his intentions. He was a
prime favorite there, praising Keturah's cooking, joking with Angeline
concerning what he was pleased to call her “giddy” manner of dressing
and wearing “side curls,” and telling yarns of South American dress
and behavior, which would probably have shocked Mrs. Tripp--she having
recently left the Methodist church to join the “Come-Outers,” because
the Sunday services of the former were, with the organ and a paid choir,
altogether “too play-actin'”--if they had not been so interesting, and
if Captain Cy had not always concluded them with the observation: “But
there! you can't expect nothin' more from ignorant critters denied
the privileges of congregational singin' and experience meetin's; hey,
Matilda?”
Mrs. Tripp would sigh and admit that she supposed not.
“Only I do wish Mr. Daniels, OUR minister, might have a chance to preach
over 'em, poor things!”
“So do I,” with a covert wink at Mrs. Bangs, who was a stanch adherent
of the regular faith. “South America 'd be just the place for him; ain't
that so, Keturah?”
He evaded all personal questions put to him by the boarders, explaining
that he was renovating the old place just for fun--he always had had a
gang of men working for him, and it seemed natural somehow. But to the
friends of his boyhood, Asaph Tidditt and Bailey Bangs, he told the real
truth.
“I swan to man!” exclaimed Bailey, almost tearfully, as the trio
wandered through the rooms of the Cy Whittaker place, dodging paper
hangers and plasterers; “I swan to man, Whit, if it don't almost seem as
though I was a boy again. Why! it's your dad's house come back alive,
it is so! Look at this settin' room! Seem's if I could see him now
a-settin' by that ere stove, and Mrs. Whittaker, your ma, over there
a-sewin', and old Cap'n Cy--your granddad--snoozin' in that big
armchair--Why! why, whit! it's the very image of the chair he always set
in!”
Captain Cy laughed aloud.
“It's more n' that, Bailey,” he said; “it's THE chair. 'Twas up attic,
all busted and crippled, but I had it made over like new. And there's
granddad's picture, lookin' just as I remember him--only he wan't quite
so much of a frozen wax image as he's painted there. I'm goin' to hang
it where it always hung, over the mantelpiece, next to the lookin'
glass.
“Great land of love, boys!” he went on, “you fellers don't know what
this means to me. Many and many's the time I've had this old house and
this old room in my mind. I've seen 'em aboard ship in a howlin' gale
off the Horn. I've seen 'em down in Surinam of a hot night, when
there wan't a breath scurcely and the Caribs went around dressed in a
handkerchief and a paper cigar, and it made you wish you could. I've
seen 'em--but there! every time I've seen 'em I've swore that some day
I'd come back and LIVE 'em, and now, by the big dipper! here I am. Oh, I
tell you, chummies, you want to be fired OUT of a home and out of a town
to appreciate 'em! Not that I blame the old man; he and I was too
much alike to cruise in company. But Bayport I was born in, and in the
Bayport graveyard they can plant me when I'm ready for the scrap heap.
It's in the blood and--Why, see here! Don't I TALK like a Bayporter?”
“You sartin do!” replied Asaph emphatically.
“A body 'd think you'd been diggin' clams and pickin' cranberries in
Bassett's Holler all your life long, to hear you.”
“You bet! Well, that's pride; that's what that is. I prided myself
on hangin' to the Bayport twang through thick and thin. Among all the
Spanish 'Carambas' and 'Madre de Dioses' it did me good to come out with
a good old Yankee 'darn' once in a while. Kept me feelin' like a white
man. Oh, I'm a Whittaker! _I_ know it. And I've got all the Whittaker
pig-headedness, I guess. And because the old man--bless his heart, I
say now--told me I shouldn't BE a Whittaker no more, nor live like a
Whittaker, I simply swore up and down I would be one and come back here,
when I'd made my pile, to heave anchor and stay one till I die. Maybe
that's foolishness, but it's me.”
He puffed vigorously at the pipe which had taken the place of the
Snowflake cigar, and added:
“Take this old settin' room--why, here it is; see! Here's dad in his
chair and ma in hers, and, if you go back far enough, granddad in his,
just as you say, Bailey. And here's me, a little shaver, squattin' on
the floor by the stove, lookin' at the pictures in a heap of Godey's
Lady's Book. And says dad, 'Bos'n,' he says--he used to call me 'Bos'n'
in those days--'Bos'n,' says dad, 'run down cellar and fetch me up a
pitcher of cider, that's a good feller.' Yes, yes; that's this room as
I've seen it in my mind ever since I tiptoed through it the night I
run away, with my duds in a bundle under my arm. Do you wonder I was
fightin' mad when I saw what that Howes tribe had done to it?”
Superintending the making over of the old home occupied most of Captain
Cy's daylight time that summer. His evenings were spent at Simmons's
store. We have no clubs in Bayport, strictly speaking, for the sewing
circle and the Shakespeare Reading Society are exclusively feminine in
membership; therefore Simmons's store is the gathering place of those
males who are bachelors or widowers or who are sufficiently free from
petticoat government to risk an occasional evening out. Asaph Tidditt
was a regular sojourner at the store. Bailey Bangs, happening in to
purchase fifty cents' worth of sugar or to have the molasses jug filled,
lingered occasionally, but not often. Captain Cy explained Bailey's
absence in characteristic fashion.
“Variety,” observed the captain, “is the spice of life. Bailey gets talk
enough to home. What's the use of his comin' up here to get more?”
“Oh, I don't know,” said Josiah Dimick, with a grin, “we let him do some
of the talkin' himself up here. Down at the boardin' house Keturah and
Angie Phinney do it all.”
“Yes. Still, if a feller was condemned to live over a biler factory he
wouldn't hanker to get a job IN it, would he? When Bailey was a delegate
to the Methodist Conference up in Boston, him and a crowd visited the
deef and dumb asylum. When 'twas time to go, he was missin', and they
found him in the female ward lookin' at the inmates. Said that the sight
of all them women, every one of 'em not able to say a word, was the
most wonderful thing ever he laid eyes on. Said it made him feel kind of
reverent and holy, almost as if he was in Paradise. So Ase Tidditt says,
anyway; it's his yarn.”
“'Tain't nuther, Cy Whittaker!” declared the indignant Asaph. “If you
expect I'm goin' to father all your lies, you're mistaken.”
The crowd at Simmons's discuss politics, as a general thing; state
and national politics in their seasons, but county politics and local
affairs always. The question in Bayport that summer, aside from that of
the harbor appropriation, was who should be hired as downstairs teacher.
Our schoolhouse is a two-story building, with a schoolroom on each
floor. The lower room, where the little tots begin with their “C--A--T
Cat,” and progress until they have mastered the Fourth Reader, is called
“downstairs.” “Upstairs” is, of course, the second story, where the
older children are taught. To handle some of the “big boys” upstairs
is a task for a healthy man, and such a one usually fills the teacher's
position there. Downstairs being, in theory, at least, less strenuous,
is presided over by a woman.
Miss Seabury, who had been downstairs teacher for one lively term, had
resigned that spring in tears and humiliation. Her scholars had enjoyed
themselves and would have liked her to continue, but the committee and
the townspeople thought otherwise. There was a general feeling that
enjoyment was not the whole aim of education.
“Betty,” said Captain Dimick, referring to his small granddaughter, “has
done fust rate so fur's marksmanship and lung trainin' goes. I cal'late
she can hit a nail head ten foot off with a spitball three times out of
four, and she can whisper loud enough to be understood in Jericho. But,
not wishing to be unreasonable, still I should like to have her spell
'door' without an 'e.' I've always been used to seein' it spelled that
way and--well, I'm kind of old-fashioned, anyway.”
There was a difference of opinion concerning Miss Seabury's successor.
A portion of the townspeople were for hiring a graduate of the State
Normal School, a young woman with modern training. Others, remembering
that Miss Seabury had graduated from that school, were for proved
ability and less up-to-date methods. These latter had selected a
candidate in the person of a Miss Phoebe Dawes, a resident of Wellmouth,
and teacher of the Wellmouth “downstairs” for some years. The arguments
at Simmons's were hot ones.
“What's the use of hirin' somebody from right next door to us, as you
might say?” demanded Alpheus Smalley, clerk at the store. “Don't we want
our teachin' to be abreast of the times, and is Wellmouth abreast of
ANYthing?”
“It's abreast of the bay, that's about all, I will give in,” replied Mr.
Tidditt. “But, the way I look at it, we need disCIPline more 'n anything
else, and Phoebe Dawes has had the best disCIPline in her school, that's
been known in these latitudes. Order? Why, say! Eben Salters told me
that when he visited her room over there 'twas so still that he didn't
dast to rub one shoe against t'other, it sounded up so. He had to set
still and bear his chilblains best he could. And POPULAR! Why, when she
hinted that she might leave in May, her scholars more 'n ha'f of 'em,
bust out cryin'. Now you hear me, I--”
“It seems to me,” put in Thaddeus Simpson, who ran the barber shop
and was something of a politician, “it seems to me, fellers, that we'd
better wait and hear what Mr. Atkins has to say in this matter. I
guess that's what the committee 'll do, anyhow. We wouldn't want to go
contrary to Heman, none of us; hey?”
“Tad” Simpson was known to be deep in Congressman Atkins's confidence.
The mention of the great man's name was received with reverence and nods
of approval.
“That's right. We mustn't do nothin' to displease Heman,” was the
general opinion.
Captain Cy did not join the chorus. He refilled his pipe and crossed his
legs.
“Humph!” he grunted. “Heman Atkins seems to be--Give me a match, Ase,
won't you? Thanks. I understand there's a special prayer meetin' at the
church to-morrow night, Alpheus. What's it for?”
“For?” Mr. Smalley seemed surprised. “It's to pray for rain, that's
what. You know it, Cap'n, as well's I do. Ain't everybody's garden
dryin' up and the ponds so low that we shan't be able to get water
for the cranberry ditches pretty soon? There's need to pray, I should
think!”
“Humph! Seems a roundabout way of gettin' a thing, don't it? Why don't
you telegraph to Heman and ask him to fix it for you? Save time.”
This remark was received in horrified silence. Tad Simpson was the first
to recover.
“Cap'n,” he said, “you ain't met Mr. Atkins yet. When you do, you'll
feel same as the rest of us. He's comin' home next week; then you'll
see.”
A part at least of Mr. Simpson's prophecy proved true. The Honorable
Atkins did come to Bayport the following week, accompanied by his little
daughter Alicia, the housekeeper, and the Atkins servants. The Honorable
and his daughter had been, since the adjournment of Congress, on a
pleasure trip to the Yosemite and Yellowstone Park, and now they were
to remain in the mansion on the hill for some time. The big house was
opened, the stone urns burst into refulgent bloom, the iron dogs were
refreshed with a coat of black paint, and the big iron gate was swung
wide. Bayport sat up and took notice. Angeline Phinney was in her glory.
The meeting between Captain Cy and Mr. Atkins took place the morning
after the latter's return. The captain and his two chums had been
inspecting the progress made by the carpenters and were leaning over the
new fence, then just erected, but not yet painted. Down the gravel walk
of the mansion across the road came strolling its owner, silk-hatted,
side-whiskered, benignant.
“Godfrey!” exclaimed Asaph. “There's Heman. See him, Whit?”
“Yup, I see him. Seems to be headin' this way.”
“I--I do believe he's comin' across,” whispered Mr. Bangs. “Yes, he is.
He's real everyday, Cy. HE won't mind if you ain't dressed up.”
“Won't he? That's comfortin'. Well, I'll do the best I can without
stimulants, as the doctor says. If you hear my knees rattle just nudge
me, will you, Bailey?”
Mr. Tidditt removed his hat. Bailey touched his. Captain Cy looked
provokingly indifferent; he even whistled.
“Good mornin', Mr. Atkins,” hailed the town clerk, raising his voice
because of the whistle. “I'm proud to see you back among us, sir. Hope
you and Alicia had a nice time out West. How is she--pretty smart?”
Mr. Atkins smiled a bland, congressional smile. He approached the group
by the fence and extended his hand.
“Ah, Asaph!” he said; “it is you then? I thought so. And Bailey, too. It
is certainly delightful to see you both again. Yes, my daughter is well,
I thank you. She, like her father, is glad to be back in the old
home nest after the round of hotel life and gayety which we
have--er--recently undergone. Yes.”
“Mr. Atkins,” said Bailey, glancing nervously at Captain Cy, who had
stopped whistling and was regarding the Atkins hat and whiskers with an
interested air, “I want to make you acquainted with your new neighbor.
You used to know him when you was a boy, but--but--er--Mr. Atkins, this
is Captain Cyrus Whittaker. Cy, this is Congressman Atkins. You've heard
us speak of him.”
The great man started.
“Is it possible!” he exclaimed. “Is it possible that this is really my
old playmate Cyrus Whittaker?”
“Yup,” replied the captain calmly. “How are you, Heman? Fatter'n you
used to be, ain't you? Washin'ton must agree with you.”
Bailey and Asaph were scandalized. Mr. Atkins himself seemed a trifle
taken aback. Comments on his personal appearance were not usual in
Bayport. But he rallied bravely.
“Well, well!” he cried. “Cyrus, I am delighted to welcome you back among
us. I should scarcely have known you. You are older--yes, much older.”
“Well, forty year more or less, added to what you started with, is apt
to make a feller some older. Don't need any Normal School graduate to do
that sum for us. I'm within seven or eight year of bein' as old as you
are, Heman, and that's too antique to be sold for veal.”
Mr. Atkins changed the subject.
“I had heard of your return, Cyrus,” he said. “It gave me much pleasure
to learn that you were rebuilding and--er--renovating the--er--the
ancestral--er--”
“The old home nest? Yup, I'm puttin' back a few feathers. Old birds like
to roost comf'table. You've got a fairly roomy coop yourself.”
“Hum! Isn't it--er--I should suppose you would find it rather expensive.
Can you--do you--”
“Yes, I can afford it, thank you. Maybe there'll be enough left in the
stockin' to buy a few knickknacks for the yard. You can't tell.”
The captain glanced at the iron dogs guarding the Atkins gate. His tone
was rather sharp.
“Yes, yes, certainly; certainly; of course. It gives me much pleasure to
have you as a neighbor. I have always felt a fondness for the old place,
even when you allowed it--even when it was most--er--run down, if you'll
excuse the term. I always felt a liking for it and--”
“Yes,” was the significant interruption. “I judged you must have, from
what I heard.”
This was steering dangerously close to the selectmen and the
contemplated “sale for taxes.” The town clerk broke in nervously.
“Mr. Atkins,” he said, “there's been consider'ble talk in town about
who's to be teacher downstairs this comin' year. We've sort of chawed it
over among us, but naturally we wanted your opinion. What do you think?
I'm kind of leanin' toward the Dawes woman, myself.”
The Congressman cleared his throat.
“Far be it from me,” he said, “to speak except as a mere member of our
little community, an ordinary member, but, AS such a member, with the
welfare of my birthplace very near and dear to me, I confess that I
am inclined to favor a modern teacher, one educated and trained in the
institution provided for the purpose by our great commonwealth.
The Dawes--er--person is undoubtedly worthy and capable in her way,
but--well--er--we know that Wellmouth is not Bayport.”
The reference to “our great commonwealth” had been given in the voice
and the manner wont to thrill us at our Fourth-of-July celebrations and
October “rallies.” Two of his hearers, at least, were visibly impressed.
Asaph looked somewhat crestfallen, but he surrendered gracefully to
superior wisdom.
“That's so,” he said. “That's so, ain't it, Cy? I hadn't thought of
that.”
“What's so?” asked the captain.
“Why--why, that Wellmouth ain't Bayport.”
“No doubt of it. They're twenty miles apart.”
“Yes. Well, I'm glad to hear you put it so conclusive, Mr. Atkins. I can
see now that Phoebe wouldn't do. Hum! Yes.”
Mr. Atkins buttoned the frock coat and turned to go.
“Good day, gentlemen,” he said. “Cyrus, permit me once more to welcome
you heartily to our village. We--my daughter and myself--will probably
remain at home until the fall. I trust you will be a frequent caller.
Run in on us at any time. Pray do not stand upon ceremony.”
“No,” said Captain Cy shortly, “I won't.”
“That's right. That's right. Good morning.”
He walked briskly down the hill. The trio gazed after him.
“Well,” sighed Mr. Tidditt. “That's settled. And it's a comfort to know
'tis settled. Still I did kind of want Phoebe Dawes; but of course Heman
knows best.”
“Course he knows best!” snapped Bailey. “Ain't he the biggest gun in
this county, pretty nigh? I'd like to know who is if he ain't. The
committee 'll call the Normal School girl now, and a good thing, too.”
Captain Cy was still gazing at the dignified form of the “biggest gun in
the county.”
“Let's see,” he asked. “Who's on the school committee? Eben Salters, of
course, and--”
“Yes. Eben's chairman and he'll vote Phoebe, anyhow; he's that
pig-headed that nobody--not even a United States Representative--could
change him. But Darius Ellis 'll be for Heman's way and so 'll Lemuel
Myrick.
“Lemuel Myrick? Lem Myrick, the painter?”
“Sartin. There ain't but one Myrick in town.”
“Hum!” murmured the captain and was silent for some minutes.
The school committee met on the following Wednesday evening. On Thursday
morning a startling rumor spread throughout Bayport. Phoebe Dawes had
been called, by a vote of two to one, to teach the downstairs school.
Asaph, aghast, rushed out of Simmons's store and up to the hill to the
Cy Whittaker place. He found Captain Cy in the front yard. Mr. Myrick,
school committeeman and house painter, was with him.
“Hello, Ase!” hailed the captain. “What's the matter? Hasn't the tide
come in this mornin'?”
Asaph, somewhat embarrassed by the presence of Mr. Myrick, hesitated
over his news. Lemuel came to his rescue.
“Ase has just heard that we called Phoebe,” he said. “What of it? I
voted for her, and I ain't ashamed of it.”
“But--but Mr. Atkins, he--”
“Well, Heman ain't on the committee, is he? I vote the way I think
right, and no one in this town can change me. Anyway,” he added, “I'm
going to resign next spring. Yes, Cap'n Whittaker, I think three coats
of white 'll do on the sides here.”
“Lem's goin' to do my paintin' jobs,” explained Captain Cy. “His price
was a little higher than some of the other fellers, but I like his
work.”
Mr. Tidditt pondered deeply until dinner time. Then he cornered the
captain behind the Bangs barn and spoke with conviction.
“Whit,” he said, “you're the one responsible for the committee's hirin'
Phoebe Dawes. You offered Lem the paintin' job if he'd vote for her.
What did you do it for? You don't know her, do you?”
“Never set eyes on her in my life.”
“Then--then--You heard Heman say he wanted the other one. What made you
do it?”
Captain Cy grinned.
“Ase,” he said, “I've always been a great hand for tryin' experiments.
Had one of my cooks aboard put raisins in the flapjacks once, just to
see what they tasted like. I judged Heman had had his own way in this
town for thirty odd year. I kind of wanted to see what would happen if
he didn't have it.”