That evening when the grey cottage had resumed its tranquillity; when
the sea flickered silver and a broad moonglade shimmered from the
doorway straight up to heaven, Asaph, seated on the rose-scented piazza
with his wife and Lemuel Gill, told Althea the story of the Dolphin. He
spun the yarn graphically with all a seafarer’s love of the dramatic,
and Althea laughed at its lights and shadows as she had not done in
years. Then, the tale finished, he went indoors and returned carrying a
cracked blue sugar-bowl from whose azure depths resounded the tinkle of
coins.
“Here’s what we’ve made,” announced he. “I’ve been too busy to figure
out what it comes to, but you’ll find it all in here.”
“How much do you reckon ’twill add up?” speculated Lemmy Gill, the
financial angle of the venture for the first time stirring his
interest. “We’d oughter counted it an’ found out. But we were so dead
beat when night come we didn’t care. Had we taken in a million dollars
I wouldn’t ’a’ turned my hand over for it. Still ’twill be amusin’ now
to find out. Let’s give a guess.”
“Twenty-five dollars,” hazarded Asaph.
“Nonsense!” jeered the more worldly-minded Captain. “It’s nearer
seventy-five.”
“Oh, it couldn’t be so much as that, Lemmy,” contradicted Althea.
“Have a look an’ see if ’tain’t,” urged Lemuel.
“Seventy-five dollars is a mint of money, Lemmy. It would never come to
that,” rejoined Asaph. “Tip it out, Althea, an’ give us the total. Then
we’ll know without doin’ more guessin’.”
Obediently his wife tumbled the disputed contents of the sugar-bowl
into her lap and while the men sat by and in antiphonal chorus repeated
the addition after her, she sorted the bills and counted the jingling
silver. Then in awed silence she looked down upon it.
Lemuel’s mad surmise of seventy-five dollars had been modest when
compared with the little fortune her apron contained.
“I don’t see how you contrived it,” murmured she at last. “Are you sure
you didn’t make mistakes in change?”
“Folks didn’t do no kickin’,” replied Lemuel.
“Maybe you haven’t paid for everything, Asaph. Ain’t there a bill at
the store needs settlin’?”
“Nope! I squared everythin’ with spot cash. I was afraid not to, lest
I get in deeper’n I knew. So, you see, what’s here is net profit--all
’cept Lemmy’s share of the plunder.”
“’Cept what?” piped Lemuel.
“’Cept your portion.”
“But I ain’t got no portion,” answered the little man simply.
“’Course you have. The lobsters were yours, warn’t they? An’ a good
part of the fish an’ clams, too. Besides, your services come to
somethin’.”
“Who ever heard of anythin’ so plumb ridic’lous!” guffawed the Captain
scornfully.
“Asaph is right, Lemmy. Part of the money belongs to you,” agreed
Althea.
“Nonsense, marm! Non--sense!”
“But you’ve earned it, an’ neither Asaph nor I will be happy unless you
take what’s yours,” insisted she firmly.
“An’ what would I be doin’ with a sugar-bowl full of money?” blustered
Lemuel derisively. “Buyin’ a diamond ring for myself?”
“What’s the matter with your gettin’ a new suit of clothes?” suggested
Asaph.
“Clothes? I’ve got all the clothes I want to sew buttons on already,”
objected Lemmy. “Had I more they’d keep me patchin’, darnin’ an’
tinkerin’ with ’em all the time an’ leave me not a minute for weedin’
an’ cultivatin’ my garden. No, siree! Folks that want closetfuls of
clothes are welcome to ’em. I wouldn’t be bothered riggin’ myself up
in white pants an’ silk shirts like some of the jackanapes do that
come here tea drinkin’. The more things you get the less peace you
have, in my opinion.”
“You could find a use for the money, I guess,” smiled Althea. “If worse
came to worst, Lemmy, you could lay it out in rose bushes.”
“I--I--s’pose I might do that,” faltered the horticulturist, tempted by
the artful suggestion.
“Of course you could,” went on Althea quickly. “Haven’t you been
wantin’ some white Killarneys for a long time? Now’s your chance to get
’em. ’Tain’t as if the money was a gift. It’s your own earnin’s.”
“You can hand me ten dollars, then--ten dollars--not another cent.
’Twill be like manna fallin’ from heaven it’s so unexpected. In fact,
’bout all the money I’ve ever had has descended upon me without
warnin’. When I’ve gone after it an’ tried to earn it, it’s been
as hard to lay a-holt of as the end of the rainbow. Durin’ my life
I’ll bet I’ve set out to get a job a hundred times--actually gone
nettin’ one--an’ ’twas never any use; but just you let me set down an’
put money as fur from my reckin’ as Mars is an’ ’twill drop like a
meteor at my feet.” Reminiscently he smiled. “I’ve ’bout come to the
conclusion that when you chase a thing too hard an’ vow you’ll have it
whether or no you seldom capture it.”
“An’ yet we’d have nothin’ in this world if we didn’t determine to get
it,” Althea remarked. “The Dolphin, now--hadn’t I aimed for it an’
worked for it I’d ’a’ been without it to this day.”
“I reckon you would,” Lemmy admitted. “Mebbe, though, you’d ’a’ been as
well off.”
Instantly the woman bristled.
“What do you mean?” demanded she. “Ain’t it turned out well? Ain’t
folks come to it?”
“Oh, folks have come right ’nough,” answered the little man. “They’ve
trooped in here like as if their eternal salvation depended on a cup
of tea. I’m afraid you’re goin’ to think so too when once you get the
place into your own hands.”
“Oh, no, I’m not,” was the assured retort. “Crowds of folks ain’t goin’
to bother me. Warn’t it for the sake of seein’ people I opened the
tea-room?”
“If that was your reason, Althea, you’ll have enough of ’em now to
content you,” drawled the Captain. “They’ll drift past you like so many
movin’ pictures--all sorts an’ kinds. There’ll be the woman in the
pink hat who carries away the lump sugar in her handkerchief; an’ the
sharp-nosed old maid from the Inn that drinks her tea so black you feel
guilty lettin’ her have it. Then you’ll see the girl that fixes up her
drink with lemon, cloves, ginger, an’ sugar like she was intendin’ to
make it into sweet pickle. I can’t imagine puttin’ such a mixture into
my tea. I’d as soon think of dishin’ spices into an oyster stew. Still,
if that’s what city folks want, they’re welcome to it.”
“That’s what I say,” rejoined Asaph. “They can doctor their beverage up
with Paris green if they have a mind to. I don’t care.”
“Oh, I do,” promptly averred Althea. “It all interests me--the folks,
what they wear, what they eat, how they eat it--everythin’. I shall
admire to watch ’em.”
“I’m afraid you won’t get much chance to do that, penned up in the
kitchen as you’ll be,” was Lemuel’s disheartening comment. “It’ll take
’bout all your time to dish up the food an’ keep things movin’.”
It was evident from the swift change in Althea’s expression that the
assertion dismayed her. “Didn’t Miss Davidson mingle round with the
people same’s you an’ Asaph?” she questioned. Lemmy shook his head.
“Peggy had her hands full behind the scenes,” was his reply. “She was
either bilin’ water, spreadin’ sandwiches, slicin’ lemon, fillin’
cake plates, makin’ tea, or doin’ somethin’ else. I’d a notion it was
because of her bein’ imprisoned in the kitchen Doctor Hollingsworth
kept goin’ out there for drinks of water. He was continually makin’
journeys to the pump. I’ll bet he swilled down a gallon of water every
afternoon he was here.”
Althea’s laughter rippled out upon the quiet air.
“Well, he can quit his drinkin’ now,” said she.
“What do you mean?” demanded Lemmy, a startled expression dilating his
eyes.
“Why, after this Miss Davidson won’t be a captive in our kitchen. She
won’t have to be. Certainly you an’ Asaph didn’t expect a girl young
an’ pretty as she to keep right on slavin’ here all summer. She’s away
on her vacation. What rest would she get to be cooped up in the house
day after day, washin’ dishes an’ cookin’?”
“I dunno.” The little man was silent. “I hadn’t thought of it that way.
She seemed so sorter contented--” His voice trailed off and died in a
murmur of disappointment.
“We mustn’t forget, Lemmy, Miss Peggy an’ the Doctor have been awful
kind,” interrupted Asaph. “They’ve come to our rescue like Trojans. But
as Althea says, they’re young, an’ ’twouldn’t be right for us to keep
’em from enjoyin’ themselves. They don’t have the ocean to look at all
the year round, same’s we do.”
“But I thought they were enjoyin’ themselves,” lamented the Captain,
with spirits at a low ebb. “It’s goin’ to make the Dolphin awful
different to have ’em gone. They were so pleasant an’ lively! There
won’t be no more jokin’ now, nor frosted cakes, nor--”
“Yes, there will, Lemmy,” cut in Althea briskly. “Can’t I make frosted
cakes well as Miss Davidson? Besides, ’tain’t as if she was goin’ away
for good. She’ll be at the hotel an’ will come droppin’ in here now an’
again of an afternoon. She promised she would. So don’t go mournin’ her
like as if she was dead an’ buried. Most likely when it’s rainy an’ she
can’t go ridin’, sailin’ or walkin’ she’ll come visitin’ us.”
“I shall pray for rain then,” was Lemmy’s instant answer. “I’m goin’ to
raise a petition to heaven right now that it rains forty days an’ forty
nights same’s it did in the time of Noah.”
“Don’t you do no such thing, Lemuel Gill,” cried Asaph. “If you was
to send up a prayer like that what do you s’pose would become of the
garden?”
“Sakes alive! I clean forgot the flowers,” gasped Lemuel. “I reckon
I’ll have to let the weather go its own gait an’ Peggy go hers. Still
that don’t alter the fact we’re goin’ to miss her somethin’ alarmin’.
However, we’ve got Althea back so t’ain’t all loss,” added he more
cheerily. “Now if them Tylers will only keep out of mischief an’ stay
right side up I guess we can manage--Peggy or no Peggy. All the same
you can’t deny girls like her are scarce as hen’s teeth.”
“I reckon that’s what the young Doctor thinks,” returned Althea with a
significant smile.
“Eh?” questioned Asaph.
“I just said I guessed Doctor Hollingsworth was of that opinion.”
“Pooh! Nonsense, Althea. Why, them young folks are only a boy an’
girl--nothin’ but children,” protested her husband.
“The Doctor’s thirty if he’s a day. An’ Miss Davidson--”
“I never thought of such a thing,” said Asaph slowly. “The idea of
there bein’ anythin’ ’twixt ’em never crossed my mind. ’Course there
was the water drinkin’ an’ the pleasant talk but--law!”
Dumbfounded, he halted.
“Asaph Holmes, you beat the Dutch,” laughed Althea. “Still, I wouldn’t
expect otherwise. You’re that innocent should Romeo an’ Juliet go to
love-makin’ under your very nose you’d never have an’ inklin’ they
entertained a partiality for one another.”
“I reckon men ain’t as quick at smellin’ out romances as women,” was
the mild defense.
“Lemmy warn’t so blind. He saw what was goin’ on, didn’t you, Lemmy?”
“I--well, it did seem as if the Doctor was takin’ aboard considerable
water,” confessed Lemuel with caution.
“I’m glad you got that far,” answered Althea, good-humoredly. “There’s
hope for you. Why, I didn’t have to do more’n glance at ’em to size
up the whole situation. He’s dead in love with her. That’s plain as
the nose on your face. She likes him, too, up to a certain point; but
she ain’t as sure of herself as he is. She’s kinder waverin’--tryin’
to make up her mind. It bothers him no end. That’s why he laughs that
nervous, uncertain way; an’ scowls when he thinks nobody’s lookin’.”
“For the land’s sake, Althea!” ejaculated Asaph with unconcealed
admiration. “How in goodness did you find all that out? You ain’t been
in the house more’n a couple of hours.”
“’Twarn’t difficult to see,” responded his wife with a shrug of her
shoulders. “A child could ’a’ read the story. All is, now I’ve told you
the state of affairs, you an’ Lemmy must on no account go blunderin’
in. You might upset the whole kettle of fish. Remember, love affairs
are delicate as cobwebs an’ easily spoiled.”
“Oh, neither Lemmy nor me would think of doin’ any meddlin’,” was the
reassuring answer. “Fallin’ in love ain’t in my line nor yet in his.”
Musing, he stroked his chin. “Wall, wall! Just to think of it! Peggy
an’ the Doctor! They’ll make a fine couple.” Then, after an interval of
thought he continued: “Mebbe, all things considered, it’s as well, they
won’t be comin’ here every day, from now on, for I’d be so took up
with watchin’ ’em, an’ worryin’ lest things warn’t goin’ right I’d get
nothin’ done.”
“That’s my feelin’ too,” echoed Lemuel. “I figger the turn affairs has
took is all for the best.”