Martha Phipps and her lodger, to say nothing of Lulie Hallett, were
fearful of the effect which the eventful seance might have upon the
light keeper. It was with considerable foreboding that Martha called
Lulie up on the telephone the next morning. But the news she received
in answer to her call was reassuring. Captain Jethro, so Lulie said, was
apparently quite himself again, a little tired and a trifle irritable,
but otherwise all right.
“The only unusual thing about him,” said his daughter, “is that he has
not once mentioned the seance or anything that happened there. If
it wasn't too ridiculous to be possible I should almost think he had
forgotten it.”
“Then for the land sakes don't remind him,” urged Martha, eagerly.
“So long as HE is willin' not to remember you ought to be. Yes, and
thankful,” she added.
“I guess likely he hasn't forgotten,” she said afterwards, in
conversation with her lodger. “I imagine he is a good deal upset in his
mind; your bouncin' in and claimin' to be the 'evil influence' put him
'way off his course and he hasn't got his bearin's yet. He's probably
tryin' to think his way through the fog and he won't talk till he sees
a light, or thinks he sees one. I wish to goodness the light would be so
strong that he'd see through Marietta Hoag and all her foolishness, but
I'm afraid that's too much to expect.”
Her surmise was correct, for a few days later the captain met Galusha on
the road leading to the village and, taking the little man by the arm,
became confidential.
“Mr. Bangs,” he said, “I cal'late you must think it's kind of queer my
not sayin' a word to you about what happened t'other night over to the
house.”
Galusha, who had been thinking of something else and was mentally
thousands of miles away--on the banks of the Nile, in fact--regarded him
rather vacantly.
“Eh? Oh--um--yes, of course,” he stammered. “I beg your pardon.”
“No reason why you should beg my pardon. I don't blame you for thinkin'
so. It's natural.”
“Yes--yes, of course, of course. But I don't know that I quite
comprehend. Of what were you speaking, Captain Hallett?”
The captain explained. “Of course you think it's queer that I haven't
said a word about what Julia told us,” he went on. “Eh? Don't you?”
“What--ah--what Miss Hoag said, you mean?”
“Plague take Marietta!” impatiently. “She wan't nothin' but the
go-between. 'Twas my wife that said it. You understand 'twas Julia, my
wife, talkin', don't you?”
“Why--ah--why--I suppose--”
“Suppose? Don't you KNOW 'twas?”
“Why--ah--no doubt, no doubt.”
“Course there ain't any doubt. Well then, Julia said there was a dark
man heavin' a sort of evil influence over Lulie.”
“She said a SMALL dark man, a stranger. And she said he was present
among us. So far as I can see I was the only small dark stranger.”
“But you ain't an evil influence, are you?”
“Well, I--ah--hope not. Dear me, no!”
“I hope not, too, and I don't believe you are. No, there is some mistake
somewheres. 'Twas Nelson Howard she must have meant.”
“But, Captain Hallett, Mr. Howard is not small.”
“No, and he wan't there that evenin', neither. But I'm bettin' 'twas him
she meant just the same. Just the same.”
“Do you think that is quite fair to Mr. Howard? If he isn't small, nor
very dark, and if he was not in your house that evening, how--”
“I don't know--I don't know. Anyhow, I don't believe she meant you, Mr.
Bangs. She couldn't have.”
“But--ah--why not?”
“Because--well, because you couldn't be an evil influence if you tried,
you wouldn't know how. THAT much I'll bet on. There, there, don't let's
talk no more about it. Julia and me'll have another talk pretty soon and
then I'll find out more, maybe.”
So that was the end of this portion of the conversation. The light
keeper positively refused to mention the subject again. Galusha was left
with the uneasy feeling that his brilliant idea of claiming to be
the small, dark influence for evil had not been as productive of good
results as he had hoped. Certainly it had not in the least shaken the
captain's firm belief in his spirit messages, nor had it, apparently,
greatly abated his prejudice against young Howard. On the other hand,
Lulie found comfort in the fact that in all other respects her father
seemed as rational and as keen as he had ever been. The exciting evening
with the Hoag spook had worked no lasting harm. For so much she and her
friends were grateful.
The autumn gales blew themselves out and blew in their successors, the
howling blasts of winter. Winter at Gould's Bluffs, so Galusha Bangs
discovered, was no light jest of the weather bureau. His first January
no'theaster taught him that. Lying in his bed at one o'clock in the
morning, feeling that bed tremble beneath him as the wind gripped the
sturdy gables of the old house, while the snow beat in hissing tumult
against the panes, and the great breakers raved and roared at the foot
of the bluff--this was an experience for Galusha. The gray dawn of the
morning brought another, for, although it was no longer snowing, the
wind was, if anything, stronger than ever and the seaward view from his
bedroom window was a picture of frothing gray and white, of flying spray
and leaping waves, and on the landward side the pines were bending and
threshing as if they were being torn in pieces. He came downstairs,
somewhat nervous and a trifle excited, to find Mr. Bloomer, garbed in
oilskins and sou'wester, standing upon the mat just inside the dining
room door. Zacheus, it developed, had come over to borrow some coffee,
the supply at the light having run short. As Galusha entered, a more
than usually savage blast rushed shrieking over the house, threatening,
so it seemed to Mr. Bangs, to tear every shingle from the roof.
“Goodness gracious!” exclaimed Galusha. “Dear me, what a terrible storm
this is!”
Zacheus regarded him calmly. “Commenced about ten last night,” he
observed. “Been breezin' on steady ever since. Be quite consider'ble
gale if it keeps up.”
Mr. Bangs looked at him with amazement.
“If it keeps up!” he repeated. “Isn't it a gale now?”
Zach shook his head.
“Not a reg'lar gale, 'tain't,” he said. “Alongside of some gales I've
seen this one ain't nothin' but a tops'l breeze. Do you remember the
storm the night the Portland was lost, Martha?”
Miss Phipps, who had come in from the kitchen with a can of coffee in
her hand, shuddered.
“Indeed I do, Zacheus,” she said; “don't remind me of it.”
“Why, dear me, was it worse than this one?” asked Galusha.
Martha smiled. “It blew the roof off the barn here,” she said, “and blew
down both chimneys on the house and both over at Cap'n Jeth's. So far
as that goes we had plenty of company, for there were nineteen chimneys
down along the main road in Wellmouth. And trees--mercy! how the poor
trees suffered! East Wellmouth lost thirty-two big silver-leafs and
the only two elms it had. Set out over a hundred years ago, those elms
were.”
“Spray from the breakers flew clear over the top of the bank here,” said
Zach. “That's some h'ist for spray, hundred and odd feet. I wan't here
to see it, myself, but Cap'n Jeth told me.”
“You were in a more comfortable place, I hope,” observed Galusha.
“Um--we-ell, that's accordin' to what you call comf'table. I was aboard
the Hog's Back lightship, that's where I was.”
“Dear, dear! Is it possible?”
“Um-hm. Possible enough that I was there, and one spell it looked
impossible that I'd ever be anywheres else. Godfreys, what a night that
was! Whew! Godfreys domino!”
Primmie, who had also come in from the kitchen, was listening,
open-mouthed.
“I bet you that lightship pitched up and down somethin' terrible, didn't
it, Zach?” she asked.
Zacheus looked at her solemnly. “Pitched?” he repeated, after a moment's
contemplation. “No, no, she didn't pitch none.”
“Didn't? Didn't pitch up and down in such a gale's that? And with waves
a hundred foot high? What kind of talk's that, Zach Bloomer! How could
that lightship help pitchin', I'd like to know?”
Mr. Bloomer adjusted the tin cover on the can in which Martha had put
the coffee, then he put the can in the pocket of his slicker.
“We-ll, I tell you, Primmie,” he drawled. “You see, we had pretty
toler'ble long anchor chains on that craft and when the captain see how
'twas blowin' he let them chains out full length. The wind blowed so
strong it lifted the lightship right out of the water up to the ends of
them chains and kept her there. Course there was a dreadful sea runnin'
underneath us, but we never felt it a mite; that gale was holdin' us up
twenty foot clear of it!”
“Zacheus Bloomer, do you mean to say--”
“Um-hm. Twenty foot in the air we was all that night and part of next
day. When it slacked off and we settled down again we was leakin' like a
sieve; you see, while we was up there that no'thwester had blowed 'most
all the copper off the vessel's bottom. Some storm that was, Posy,
some storm.... Well, so long, all hands. Much obliged for the coffee,
Martha.”
He tugged his sou'wester tighter on his head, glanced at Miss Cash's
face, where incredulity and indignation were written large and
struggling for expression, turned his head in Mr. Bangs' direction,
winked solemnly, and departed. The wind obligingly and enthusiastically
saved him the trouble of closing the door.
Galusha was not called upon to endure any such experiences as those
described by the veracious Mr. Bloomer in his record-breaking gale, but
during that winter he learned a little of what New England coast weather
could be and often was. And he learned, also, that that weather was,
like most blusterers, not nearly as savage when met squarely face to
face. He learned to put on layer after layer of garments, topping off
with oilskins, sou'wester and mittens, and tramp down to the village for
the mail or to do the household errands. He was growing stronger all
the time and if the doctor could have seen him plowing through drifts or
shouldering his way through a driving rain he would have realized that
his patient was certainly obeying the order to “keep out of doors.”
Martha Phipps was perfectly certain that her lodger was keeping out of
doors altogether too much.
“You aren't goin' out to-day, Mr. Bangs, are you?” she exclaimed. “It's
as cold as the North Pole. You'll freeze.”
Galusha smiled beneath his cap visor and between the ear-laps.
“Oh, no, indeed,” he declared. “It's brisk and--ah--snappy, that's all.
A smart walk will do me good. I am accustomed to walking. In Egypt I
walk a GREAT deal.”
“I don't doubt it; but you don't have much of this sort of weather in
Egypt, if what I've heard is true.”
Mr. Bangs' smile broadened. “I fear I shall have to admit that,” he
said; “but my--ah--physician told me that a change would be good for me.
And this IS a change, now isn't it?”
“I should say it was. About as much change as a plate of ice cream after
a cup of hot coffee. Well, if you're bound to go, do keep walkin' fast.
Don't forget that it's down to zero or thereabouts; don't forget that
and wander over to the old cemetery and kneel down in front of a slate
tombstone and freeze to death.”
“Oh, I shall be all right, Miss Phipps. Really I shall. Don't worry, I
beg of you.”
He had begged her not to worry on many other occasions and she had been
accustomed to answer him in a manner half joking and half serious. But
this time she did not answer at all for a moment, and when she did there
was no hint of a joke in her tone.
“No,” she said, slowly. “I won't. I couldn't, I guess. Don't seem as if
I could carry any more worries just now, any more than I am carryin', I
mean.”
She sighed as she said it and he looked at her in troubled alarm.
“Oh, dear me!” he exclaimed. “I--I'm so sorry. Sorry that you are
worried, I mean. Is there anything I can do to--to--I should be very
glad to help in any way if--”
He was hesitating, trying to say the right thing and very fearful
of saying too much, of seeming to be curious concerning her personal
affairs, when she interrupted him. She was standing by the kitchen door,
with one hand upon the knob, and she spoke without looking at him.
“There is nothin' you or anybody can do,” she said. “And there isn't a
single bit of use talkin' about it. Trot along and have your walk,
Mr. Bangs. And don't pay any attention to what I said. It was just
silliness. I get a little nervous, sometimes, but that's no reason for
my makin' other people that way. Have a good walk.”
He did not have a very good walk and his thoughts while walking were not
as closely centered about ancient inscriptions, either Egyptian or East
Wellmouthian, as was usually the case upon such excursions. Miss Martha
Phipps was worried, she had said so, herself. Yes, and now that he
thought of it, she looked worried. She was in trouble of some sort. A
dreadful surmise entered his mind. Was it possible that he, his presence
in her house, was the cause of her worry? He had been very insistent
that she take him as boarder and lodger. The sum he paid each week
was ridiculously small. Was it possible that, having consented to the
agreement, she had found it a losing one and was too kind-hearted and
conscientious to suggest a change? He remembered agreements which he had
made, and having made, had hesitated to break, even though they turned
out to be decidedly unprofitable and unpleasant. He had often been
talked into doing things he did not want to do, like buying the yellow
cap at Beebe's store. Perhaps he had talked Miss Phipps into taking him
as boarder and lodger and now she was sorry.
By the time Galusha returned from his walk he was in what might be
described as a state of mind.
As he entered the Phipps' gate he met some one coming down the path
toward it. That some one, it developed, was no less a person than Mr.
Horatio Pulcifer. Raish and Galusha had not encountered each other for
some time, weeks, in fact, and Mr. Bangs expected the former's greeting
to be exuberant and effusive. His shoulders and his spirit were alike
shrinking in anticipation.
But Raish did not shout when he saw him, did not even shake hands, to
say nothing of thumping the little man upon the back. The broad and
rubicund face of East Wellmouth's leading politician and dealer in
real estate wore not a grin but a frown, and when he and Galusha came
together at the gate he did not speak. Galusha spoke first, which was
unusual; very few people meeting Mr. Horatio Pulcifer were afforded the
opportunity of speaking first.
“Ah--good-morning, Mr. Pulcifer,” said Galusha, endeavoring to open the
gate.
“Huh!” grunted Raish, jerking the gate from Mr. Bangs' hand and pushing
it somewhat violently into the Bangs' waistcoat. “Mornin'.”
“It is a nice--ah--cool day, isn't it?” observed Galusha, backing from
the gateway in order to give Horatio egress. Mr. Pulcifer's answer was
irrelevant and surprising.
“Say,” he demanded, turning truculently upon the speaker, “ain't women
hell?”
Galusha was, naturally, somewhat startled.
“I--I beg your pardon?” he stammered.
“I say ain't women hell? Hey? Ain't they, now?”
Galusha rubbed his chin.
“Well,” he said, doubtfully, “I presume in--ah--certain instances
they--My experience has been limited, but--”
“Humph! Say, they make me sick, most of 'em. They haven't any more
business sense than a hen, the heft of 'em ain't. Go into a deal with
their eyes open and then, when it don't turn out to suit 'em, lay down
and squeal. Yes, sir, squeal.”
“Ah--I see. Yes, yes, of course. Squeal--yes. The--the hens, you mean.”
“HENS? No, women. They make me sick, I tell you.... And now a lot of dum
fools are goin' to give 'em the right to vote! Gosh!”
He strode off along the road to the village. Galusha wonderingly gazed
after him, shook his head, and then moved slowly up the path to the
house. Primmie opened the door for him. Her eyes were snapping.
“Hello, Mr. Bangs!” she said. “I 'most wisht he'd drop down dead and
then freeze to death in a snowbank, that's what I wish.”
Galusha blinked.
“Why, bless my soul!” he exclaimed. “Of whom are you speaking?”
“That everlastin' Raish Pulcifer. I never did like him, and now if he's
comin' around here makin' her cry.”
“Eh? Making her cry?”
“Sshh! She'll hear you. Makin' Miss Martha cry. She's up in her room
cryin' now, I'll bet you on it. And he's responsible.... Yes'm, I'm
comin'. Don't say nothin' to her that I told you, will you, Mr. Bangs?”
She hurried away in response to her mistress' hail. Galusha said nothing
to Miss Phipps nor to any one else, but during the rest of that day
he did a great deal of thinking. Martha Phipps was worried, she was
troubled, she had been crying; according to Primmie Horatio Pulcifer was
responsible for her tears. Galusha had never fancied Mr. Pulcifer, now
he was conscious of a most extraordinary dislike for the man. He had
never disliked any one so much in all his life, he was sure of that.
Also he was conscious of a great desire to help Martha in her trouble.
Of course there was a certain measure of relief in learning that
Pulcifer and not he was responsible for that trouble, but the relief was
a small matter in comparison with the desire to help.
He could think of but one way in which Horatio Pulcifer could cause
worry for Martha Phipps and that was in connection with some business
matter. Certain fragments of conversations occurred to him, certain
things she had said to him or to Captain Hallett in his hearing which
were of themselves sufficient to warrant the surmise that her trouble
was a financial one. He remembered them now, although at the time they
had made little impression upon his mind. But Raish Pulcifer's name was
not mentioned in any of those conversations; Captain Jethro's had been,
but not Raish's. Yet Primmie vowed that the latter had made Miss Martha
cry. He determined to seek Primmie and ask for more particulars that
very evening.
But Primmie saved him the trouble of seeking her. Miss Phipps and her
maid left him alone in the sitting room as soon as supper was over and
neither came back. He could hear the murmur of voices in the kitchen,
but, although he sat up until ten o'clock, neither Primmie nor her
mistress joined him. So he reluctantly went up to his room, but had
scarcely reached it when a knock sounded on the door. He opened it, lamp
in hand.
“Why, Primmie!” he exclaimed.
Primmie waved both hands in frantic expostulation.
“Sshh! shh! shh!” she breathed. “Don't say nothin'. I don't want her
to hear you. PLEASE don't let her hear you, Mr. Bangs. And PLEASE come
right downstairs again. I want to talk to you. I've GOT to talk with
you.”
More bewildered than he had before been, even on that bewildering day,
Galusha followed Miss Cash down the stairs, through sitting room and
dining room to the kitchen. Then Primmie put down the lamp, which she
had taken from his hand, carefully closed the door behind them, turned
to her companion and burst out crying.
“Why--why, Primmie!” exclaimed Galusha. “Oh, dear me! What is it?”
Primmie did not answer. She merely waved her hands up and down and stood
there, dripping like a wet umbrella.
“But--my soul, Primmie!” cried Mr. Bangs. “Don't! You--you mustn't, you
know.”
But Primmie did, nevertheless. Galusha in desperation turned toward the
door.
“I'm going to call Miss Phipps,” he declared. Primmie, the tears still
pouring down her cheeks, seized him by the arm.
“Don't you do it!” she commanded. “Don't you dast to do it! I'll--I'll
stop cryin'. I--I'm goin' to if you'll only wait and give me a chance.
There! There! See, I'm--I'm stoppin' now.”
And, with one tremendous sniff and a violent rub of her hand across her
nose, stop she did. But she was still the complete picture of misery.
“Why, what IS the matter?” demanded Galusha.
Primmie sniffed once more, gulped, and then blurted forth the
explanation.
“She--she's canned me,” she said.
Galusha looked at her uncomprehendingly. Primmie's equipment of Cape Cod
slang and idiom, rather full and complete of itself, had of late been
amplified and complicated by a growing acquaintance with the new driver
of the grocery cart, a young man of the world who had spent two hectic
years in Brockton, where, for a portion of the time, he worked in a shoe
factory. But Galusha Bangs, not being a man of the world, was not up in
slang; he did not understand.
“What?” he asked.
“I say she's canned me. Miss Martha has, I mean. Oh, ain't it awful!”
“Canned you? Really, I--”
“Yes, yes, yes! Canned me, fired me. Oh, DON'T stand there owlin' at
me like that! Can't you see, I--Oh, please, Mr. Bangs, excuse me for
talkin' so. I--I didn't mean to be sassy. I'm just kind of loony, I
guess. Please excuse me, Mr. Bangs.”
“Yes, yes, Primmie, of course--of course. Don't cry, that's all.
But what is this? Do I understand you to say that Miss Phipps
has--ah--DISCHARGED you?”
“Um-hm. That's what she's done. I'm canned. And I don't know where to go
and--and I don't want to go anywheres else. I want to stay here along of
her.”
She burst into tears again. It was some time before Galusha could calm
her sufficiently to get the story of what had happened. When told,
flavored with the usual amount of Primmieisms, it amounted to this:
Martha had helped her with the supper dishes and then, instead of going
into the sitting room, had asked her to sit down as she had something
particular to say to her. Primmie obediently sat and her mistress did
likewise.
“But she didn't begin to say it right off,” said Primmie. “She started
four or five times afore she really got a-goin'. She said that what
she'd got to say was dreadful unpleasant and was just as hard for her to
say as 'twould be for me to hear. And she said I could be sartin' sure
she'd never say it if 'twan't absolutely necessary and that she hadn't
made up her mind to say it until she'd laid awake night after night
tryin' to think of some other way out, but that, try as she could, she
didn't see no other way. And so then--so then she said it. Oh, my savin'
soul! I declare I never thought--”
“Hush, hush, Primmie. Ah--control yourself, please. You promised not to
cry, you know.”
“Cry! Well, ain't I tryin' not to cry, for mercy sakes? She was cryin',
too, I tell you, afore she finished. If you'd seen the pair of us
settin' there bellerin' like a couple of young ones I cal'late you'd a
thought so.”
“Bellowing? Miss Phipps?”
“Oh, I don't mean bellerin' out loud like a--like a heifer. I guess
likely I was doin' that, but she wan't. She was just cryin' quiet, you
know, but anybody could see how terrible bad she was feelin'. And then
she said it--oh, dear, dear! How CAN I tell it? How CAN I?”
Galusha groaned, in harassed desperation.
“I don't know,” he admitted, “But I--really I wish you would.”
Miss Phipps had, it seemed, told her maidservant that, owing to the
steadily increasing cost of living, of food and clothes and every item
of daily expense, she was finding it more and more hard to get along.
She said her income was very small and her bills continually growing
larger. She had cut and scrimped in every possible way, hoping against
hope, but at last she had been driven to the point where even the small
wage she was paying Primmie seemed more than she could afford. Much as
she hated to do it, she felt compelled to let the girl go.
“She said she'd help me get another place,” said Primmie, “and that I
could stay here until I did get one, and all sorts of things like that.
I told her I didn't want no other place and I didn't care a bit about
the wages. I said I'd rather work here without a cent of wages. She said
no, she wouldn't let me do that. If she couldn't pay me I couldn't work
here. I said I could and I should and she said I couldn't and shouldn't.
And--and we both cried and--and that's the way it ended. And that's why
I come to you, Mr. Bangs. I CAN'T go away and leave her. I CAN'T, Mr.
Bangs. She can't keep this whole house a-goin' without somebody to help.
I've GOT to stay. You make her keep me, Mr. Bangs. I don't want no pay
for it. I never was no hand to care for money, anyhow. Pa used to say I
wan't. None of our folks was. Matter of that, we never had none to care
for. But you make her keep me, Mr. Bangs.”
She began to sob once more. Poor Galusha was very much distressed. The
cause of Martha Phipps' worry was plain enough now. And her financial
stress must be very keen indeed to cause her to take such drastic action
as the discharge of Primmie the faithful.
“You'll make her keep me, won't you, Mr. Bangs?” pleaded Primmie, once
more.
Galusha rubbed his chin. “Dear me,” he said, perplexedly, “I--Well, I
shall be glad to do all I can, of course, but how I can make her keep
you when she has made up her mind not to, I--really, I don't see.
You don't think, do you,” he added, “that my being here is in any way
responsible for a portion of Miss Phipps' financial trouble? You don't
think it might be--ah--easier for her if I was to--ah--go?”
Primmie shook her head. “Oh, no, no,” she declared, with decision, “You
ain't a mite of bother, Mr. Bangs. I've heard Miss Martha say more'n a
dozen times what a nice man you was and how easy 'twas to provide
for you. She likes you, Miss Martha does, and I do, too. Even when we
thought you was an undertaker huntin' 'round for remains we liked you
just the same.”
Galusha could not help feeling a certain satisfaction in this
whole-hearted declaration. It was pleasant to learn that he was liked
and that his hostess considered him a nice man.
“Thank you, Primmie,” he said. “But what I meant was--was--Well, I
pay what seems to me a ridiculously small sum for board and lodging. I
begged to be allowed to pay more, but Miss Phipps wouldn't permit it.
Now I am sure she must be losing money in the transaction and if I were
to go--ah--elsewhere perhaps it might be--ah--easier for her. Candidly,
don't you think so, Primmie?”
Miss Cash appeared to consider. Then she shook her head again. “No,” she
said, “I don't. You pay your board and I've heard her say more'n once
that she felt as if you was payin' too much. No, 'tain't that. It's
more'n that. It ain't anything to do really with you or me, Mr. Bangs.
Miss Martha's lost some money somehow, I believe. She ain't got enough
to get along on, 'cause she told me she hadn't. Now, she used to have
and I believe she's lost some of it somewheres. And I believe that--”
Galusha felt it his duty to interrupt.
“Primmie,” he continued, “you mustn't tell me anything which Miss Phipps
wouldn't wish told. I wouldn't for the world have you think that I am
unduly curious concerning her personal affairs. If there is any trait
which I--ah--detest above others it is that of unwarranted curiosity
concerning the--ah--private affairs of one's acquaintances. I... Why do
you look at me like that? Were you about to speak?”
Primmie was staring at him in what seemed to be awe-stricken admiration.
She drew a long breath.
“My Lord of Isrul!” she exclaimed, fervently, “I never heard anybody
string talk along the way you can in all my born days, Mr. Bangs. I bet
you've said as many as seven words already that I never heard afore,
never heard ary one of 'em, I ain't. Education's wonderful, ain't it? Pa
used to say 'twas, but all he had he picked up off fishin' and clammin'
and cranberrin' and around. All our family had a kind of picked-up
education, seemed so.”
“Yes, yes, Primmie, but--”
“But why don't I mind my own business and stick to what I was goin' to
say, you mean? All right, I will. I was goin' to say that I believe Miss
Martha's lost money somehow and I believe that dressed-up stuffed image
of a Raish Pulcifer is responsible for her losin' it, that's what I
believe.”
“Mr. Pulcifer! Why, Primmie, why do you say that? What proof have you?”
“Ain't got no proof. If folks could get proof on Raish Pulcifer he'd
have been in jail long ago. Zach Bloomer said that only the other day.
But a body can guess, can't they, even if they ain't got proof, and
that's what I'm doin'--guessin'. Every once in a while Miss Martha goes
up to the village to see this Pulcifer thing, don't she? Yes, she does.
Went up twice inside of a fortni't that I know of. Does she go 'cause
she likes him? I cal'late she don't. She likes him about the way I do
and I ain't got no more use for him than a hen has for a toothbrush. And
t'other day she sent for him and asked him to come here and see her. How
do I know she did? 'Cause she telephoned him and I heard her doin' it,
that's how. And he didn't want to come and she just begged him to, said
she would try not to bother him again if he would come that once. And he
came and after he went away she cried, same as I told you she did.”
“But, Primmie, all that may be and yet Mr. Pulcifer's visit may have no
connection with Miss Martha's monetary trouble.”
“I want to know! Well, if that's so, why was she and him talkin' so hard
when he was here this afternoon? And why was she askin' him to please
see if he couldn't get some sort of an offer? I heard her ask that.”
“Offer for what?”
“Search me! For somethin' she wanted to sell, I presume likely. And he
says to her, 'No, I can't,' he says. 'I've told you so a dozen times.
If I could get anybody to buy I'd sell my own, wouldn't I? You bet your
life I would!' And she waited a minute and then she says, kind of low
and more as if she was talkin' to herself than to him, 'What SHALL I
do?' she says. And he heard her and says he--I'd like to have chopped
his head off with the kindlin' hatchet when I heard him say it--says he,
'_I_ don't know. How do you s'pose _I_ know what you'll do? I don't know
what I'll do, myself, do I?' And she answered right off, and kind of
sharp, 'You was sure enough what was goin' to be done when you got
father into this thing.' And he just swore and stomped out of the house.
So THAT sounds as if he had somethin' to do with it, don't it?”
Galusha was obliged to admit that it did so sound. And when he
remembered Mr. Pulcifer's remark at the gate, that concerning women
and business, the evidence was still more convincing. He did not tell
Primmie that he was convinced, however. He swore her to secrecy, made
her promise that she would tell no one else what she had told him or
even that she had told him, and in return promised to do what he could
to bring about her retention in the Phipps' home.
“Although, as I said, Primmie,” he added, “I'm sure I can't at present
see what I can do.”
Another person might have found little encouragement in this, but
Primmie apparently found a good deal.
“You'll see a way, I'll bet you you will, Mr. Bangs,” she declared.
“Anybody that's been through the kind of times you have, livin' along
with critters that steal the shirt off your back, ain't goin' to let
a blowed-up gas balloon like Raish Pulcifer stump you. My savin' soul,
no!”
Mr. Bangs smiled faintly.
“The shirt wasn't on my back when it was stolen,” he said.
Primmie sniffed. “It didn't have no chance to be,” she declared. “That
camel thing got it onto HIS back first. But, anyhow, I feel better. I
think now we're goin' to come out all right, Miss Martha and me. I don't
know why I feel so, but I do.”
Galusha was by no means as confident. He went back to his room and to
bed, but it was long before he fell asleep. Just why the thought of
Martha Phipps' trouble should trouble him so greatly he still did
not understand, exactly. Of course he was always sorry for any one in
trouble, and would have gone far out of his way to help such a person,
had the latter appealed to him. But Martha had not appealed to him; as a
matter of fact, it was evident that she was trying to keep knowledge
of her difficulty from him and every one else. Plainly it was not his
business at all. And yet he was filled with an intense desire, even a
determination, to make it his business. He could not understand why, but
he wasted no time trying to understand. The determination to help was
strong when at last he did fall asleep and it was just as strong when he
awoke the next morning.