BOARD AND LODGING
"Take a seat, Mr. Parks!" said Mary Sands, hospitably. "Talk of angels!
Cousins and I were just speakin' of you, and sayin' you never told us
the rest of that nice story you began the first time you was here."
"What story?" asked Calvin Parks.
"Why, your own story, to be sure. You told us how you was displeased at
a woman's bein' owner of your schooner,--" her eyes twinkled
mischievously,--"and how you come ashore and set up your candy route;
but Cousins were just sayin' they didn't know where you lived, nor how
you was fixed anyways, except that you had that nice hoss and waggin."
"That so?" said Calvin, musing. "Well, I don't know as there's any
particklar story to the rest on't. I drive my route, you know; quite a
ways it is; takes me about a week to git round it all. 'Tis pleasant
doin's for the most part, only when it comes to gettin' in and out of
this shay; that gits me every time. But I see the country, you
know--pretty country it is; I never see a prettier,--and meet up with
folks and all,--"
"Where do you reside?" inquired Mr. Sam. He had moved his chair near the
door of Mr. Sim's sitting-room, where Calvin was, and now peered round
the doorjamb, his body invisible, his little wizen face appearing as if
hung in air.
"Great snakes, Sam!" exclaimed Calvin Parks. "Don't scare the life out
of us. Where's the rest of you? No use your pretendin' to be one of them
cherub articles, 'cause you don't look it, and don't let anyone deceive
you into thinkin' you do. I live--if you call it livin',--down Tinkham
way, about ten miles from here. I'm boardin' with Widder Marlin and her
daughter. Ever hear of Phrony Marlin? Well, she's a case, Phrony is, and
the old lady's another. Widder of a sea-cap'n that I sailed with in
former days. She has a little home, and she lets me have a room. I don't
know as the old lady is quite right in her mind--I don't know as either
one of 'em is, come to think of it; and she ain't much of a cook; but as
she says, it's only suppers and breakfasts, and it's all dust and ashes
anyway. It ain't worth while to make trouble, and I git on first-rate."
"I'm afraid they don't make you real comfortable, Mr. Parks!" said Mary
Sands. "I should think they might; I don't believe but what you do your
part and more too."
"Well, I dono!" said Calvin simply. "I try to help out, split the wood,
kerry water and like that; two lone women, ye know, no man belongin' to
'em; I wouldn't wish to let 'em feel forsaken any."
"Do they give you enough to eat?" inquired Mr. Sim.
"Oh, I guess so. They don't feed me any too high, but they don't live
any higher themselves. Phrony has the dyspepsy--I dono as it's
surprisin' that she should--and the old lady has an idee that eatin' is
a snare of the evil one, and she gits along on next door after nothin',
as you may say."
"The idea!" cried Mary Sands, indignantly. "Mr. Parks, why do you stay
there? I wouldn't if I was you, not another day."
"Oh! they don't mean no harm," said Calvin; "not a mite. I git on
first-rate so long as they do; it's only when they get to quarrellin'
that I mind. When they fall afoul of each other, it ain't real
agreeable; but there's where it comes in handy bein' a man. Hossy and
me can git out from under foot most times, and leave 'em to train by
themselves."
He paused, and shook his head with a reminiscent chuckle.
"Last week we had us quite a time!" he said. "Phrony got some kind of a
bee in her bunnet--I dono what it was! seemed to have a kind of idee
that she was goin' to git married, if only she had some money. I never
see no man round the house, nor yet heard none speak of her; and, too,
if she'd looked in the glass she'd have seen 'twarn't real reasonable to
expect it. However it was, so it was; she's got her eye on somebody, no
question about that. Well, it's a small farm, and the soil ain't any too
rich; they git along, but no more than, I expect; and yet they don't
spend a cent more'n they have to, you may resk your eye-teeth on that.
Well, anyways, here's what happened. I come in one night, and the old
lady was sittin' studyin' over a letter or like that. When she saw me,
'Cap'n,' she says (always calls me Cap'n, same as she did the old man),
'will you cast your eye over that,' she says, 'and tell me what you
think of it?'
"I looked it over, and you may call me a horn-pout, Miss Hands and boys,
if 'twarn't a bill from Phrony, drawed up in reg'lar style, chargin' her
mother three dollars a week wages for thirty years. Now, Miss Hands, I'd
like to know what you think of that."
"I think 'twas scandalous!" cried Mary Sands, emphatically. "I think she
ought to be ashamed of herself. The idea!"
"Well, it didn't seem to me real suitable," said Calvin; "I couldn't
_make_ it seem so, and so I said. 'What's got into her?' I said. 'You
and her belong together; and what's one's is 'tother's, ain't it, so far
as livin' goes?'
"The old lady looks at me kind o' queer. 'Phrony ain't satisfied,' she
says. 'She thinks the Lord designs her to be a helpmeet, and that He's
manifestin' Himself at present, or liable so to do.'
"Well, I studied over that a bit, but I didn't make nothin' out of it.
The old lady has spells, as I told you, when she ain't just right in her
head. Makes me laugh sometimes, the things she'll say. Take last night,
now! I didn't have no fork, and I asked her to please give me one.
Honest, if she didn't take and bring me a spoon! 'There, Cap'n!' she
says. 'It don't look like a fork,' she says, 'but I dono what's the
matter with it. The Lord'll provide!' she says. 'It's all dust and
ashes!' Other days, she'll be as wide awake as the next one, and talk
straight as a string. Well, about the bill! I told her she'd better let
it go, and Phrony'd come round and see she wa'n't actin' real sensible,
nor yet pretty. But not she! Next mornin' before I left she come out to
the barn and showed me another paper, and--Jerusalem crickets! if it
warn't a bill against Phrony for board and lodgin' for forty-seven
years! Haw! haw! That's where the old lady come out on top. There warn't
no bee in _her_ bunnet that time!"
"He! he!" cackled Mr. Sim.
"Ho! ho!" piped Mr. Sam.
But Mary Sands looked troubled. "Mr. Parks," she said; "you'll excuse
me, as am little more than a stranger to you; but yet I can't help but
say I do wish you was in a different kind of place. There must be lots
of nice places where you would be more than welcome."
"Mebbe so, and mebbe son't!" said Calvin Parks placidly. "Folks is real
friendly, all along the route. Yes, come to think of it, there's several
has said they would be pleased to take me in for a spell, if I should
be thinkin' of a change. But old Widder Marlin, she needs the board
money, and--well, here's where it is, Miss Hands; I don't know as she'd
be real likely to get another boarder. I knew the Cap'n, you see, and he
was always good to me aboard ship. But I'm full as much obliged to you,"
he added, with a very friendly look in his brown eyes, "for givin' it a
thought. Bless your heart, this old carcass don't need much attention;
it gets all it deserves, I presume likely, and more too.
"Well, I must be ramblin' along, I guess. I promised to pick up Miss
Phrony at the Corners. She's been visitin' there to-day, and she'll
think I'm lost for good. I tell you what it is, though, Miss Hands and
boys; it's easier to turn in at this gate than what it is to turn out
again, and I expect I shall be comin' in real often, if no objection is
made."
"So do, Calvin! so do!" cried both twins together. Calvin looked at
Mary Sands, and her eyes were as friendly as his own. "The oftener you
come, Mr. Parks," she said, "the better I shall be pleased, for certin."
* * * * *
"Gitty up, hossy!" said Calvin. "We're late for supper now, and it don't
do for me to get too sharp-set; there ain't likely to be more supper
than what I can get away with. There's the store now, and there's Miss
Phrony, sure enough, lookin' out for me. Now I put it to you, hossy;
what was the object, precisely, of makin' a woman look like that? The
ways is mysterious, sure enough. There's a plenty of material there for
a good-lookin' woman, take and spread it kind o' different."
A tall, scraggy woman, with pale green eyes seeking each other across a
formidable beak, and teeth like a twisted balustrade, greeted him with
a reproachful look as he drove up to the corner store.
"Good afternoon, Miss Phrony," he said comfortably. "I expect I'm just a
mite late, ain't I?"
"I should think you was!" replied the scraggy woman. "I've been waitin'
full two hours, Cap'n Parks."
"Have!" said Calvin affably. "Now ain't that a sight! But it's a good
thing you had such pleasant company to wait in; I'm glad of that. How
do, Si? how do, Eph?" he nodded to two men who were leaning against the
door-posts, chewing straws and observing the universe. "Any trade doin'
with little Calvin to-day?"
"Nothin' only a box of wintergreen lozenges, I guess," said Si, the
storekeeper. "Mebbe you might leave another box of broken," he added,
after a glance in at his showcase. "Trade hasn't been real smart this
week. You ain't goin' to charge me full price for them goods, are you,
Cal?"
"If I took off anything," replied Calvin, "'twould be because you were
so handsome, and that wouldn't be real good for your disposition, so I
expect I shall have to deny myself the pleasure. Three dollars and
ninety cents--thank you, sir! Now, Miss Phrony, if you're ready--these
your bundles? Why, you've been buyin' out the store, I expect! Let me
help you in; up she comes! So long, boys!"
"Think she'll get him?" said Si to Eph, as they watched the wagon
disappearing down the road.
"I--don't--know!" replied Si slowly. "Sometimes I think he's as simple
as he is appearin', and then again I have my doubts. But one thing's
sure; she's goin' to do her darndest towards it!"