A VARIETY OF HAPPENINGS
Ralph remained at the lighthouse and did justice to the fishcakes. Miss
Heppy was "all in a stew," as Tobias said, over the sudden departure of
the boarder.
"I'm fair troubled that he wasn't satisfied with our table," the good
woman said. "Fishballs and brown loaf and clam chowder and johnnycake
and baked beans Saturday night and Sundays, is pretty tryin', I do
allow, to them as ain't used to it. We never do have a piece of fresh
meat."
"Oh, sugar!" chuckled Tobias. "Don't belittle your fodder, Heppy. You
air a mighty good cook as fur as you go. If you had all kinds of fancy
doo-dads you wouldn't know how to cook 'em, you know you wouldn't."
"What do you s'pose cookbooks was made for, Tobias Bassett?" demanded
Miss Heppy.
"I cal'late they make good pipe-lights," rejoined her brother, suiting
his action to his word as he stood at the mantel after supper and rolled
himself a spill of a page of the culinary guide in question. "Come,
Ralph, le's go up and see if the light is burning bright. 'You in your
small corner, an' I in mine.' That allus seemed a cheerful sort o' hymn
to me.
"Huh!" he added. "Got your own little packet of coffin-nails? That
Degger feller was always havin' one o' them things stuck in a corner of
his mouth."
Ralph promptly threw away the cigarette and filled his pipe from
Tobias's sack of tobacco. The lightkeeper led the way, chuckling. When
they reached the lamp room the old man turned a curious eye on his young
friend and bluntly demanded:
"Tell us all about it, Ralphie. I see the mention of our ex-boarder
stirred you up. What made him in such a hurry to leave us?"
"Don't tell Miss Heppy," begged Ralph, "but I guess it is my fault that
she's lost her boarder."
"You ought to have a leather medal for bringing it about," declared
Tobias. "I certain sure was glad to see him go. What happened? He and
Lorny got out in my boat while I was asleep. I can't be about and
stirrin' to watch the weather for 'em _all_ the time."
Ralph briefly narrated the adventure while Tobias listened, puffing at
his pipe and nodding his head.
"I cal'late Lorny's got something to thank you for, then?" he suggested.
Ralph laughed harshly.
"You saw how she acted when we came ashore. Did she seem overpoweringly
grateful?"
"Oh, sugar!" chuckled Tobias. "What chance did you give her to fall on
your neck and tell you how much she thought of you?"
"Now, Tobias Bassett! I don't want any girl to fall on my neck. Least
of all Lorna Nicholet."
"Ain't ready yet to sacrifice yourself' for the good of her family?"
"I won't see a fellow like Conway Degger fool her," growled Ralph. "I
will break up his game all right. But I tell you Lorna would not marry
me on a bet."
"Oh, sugar! She's something of a sport, Lorny is. I cal'late you ain't
ever made her that proposition?"
"Really, I don't have to wait for a ton of coal to fall on me to take a
hint," Ralph said, but looking away from the amused lightkeeper.
"No? I dunno 'bout that," muttered Tobias, who found his matchmaking
with this rather dense young fellow somewhat uphill work. "I'd like to
see Lorny get a good fellow with as much money as you've got, Ralph, and
almost as much sense."
"Huh!"
"And that Degger don't fill the bill."
"If he doesn't let her alone----"
"Yep. That's all right. But in removing him from the scene you don't
give Lorny no other play-toy. And she's been used to having a chap at
her beck an' call all of the time. You know that."
"But, Tobias! She doesn't want me. She has shown plainly enough that
she cares nothing for me."
"Oh, sugar! I don't see how it is that you young fellers understand so
little about womenfolks."
"To hear you talk! And you not even married!"
"That's why," rejoined Tobias slyly. "I cal'late I understand 'em too
well. Now, s'posin' Lorna was a gal you'd just met and you was stuck on
her? S'posin' you wanted to make a good impression on her--eh? How
would you go about it? S'posin' you was really fallin' in love with
Lorny?"
Ralph slowly flushed. The smoke from his pipe choked him--or seemed to.
He coughed and turned from Tobias again.
Actually he was seeing in his mind's vision a tiny, milk-white,
blue-veined foot sticking out of the leg of a pair of oilcloth overalls.
But Lorna Nicholet possessed dignity, too. Nor did she have always to
wait on the ruffling of her temper to show it.
Miss Ida chanced to suffer an infrequent headache on this evening and
there were guests at dinner, although it was quite an informal affair.
An hour after she had run barefooted and in Ralph's suit of oilskins,
along the beach and up the path to the house on Clay Head, Lorna, in a
perfect dinner toilet, slipped into the seat at the head of the table
after her father and his guests were seated.
There are raveled edges at every dinner to be hemmed. The perfectly
served meal is usually the one over which the hostess has worried her
nerves to the raw. There was a new maid--of the usual kind one gets at
the seashore--and Lorna was obliged to cover her deficiencies and carry
on at the same time a spirited conversation with the women guests.
The men were seated at her father's end of the table, and Lorna sensed
early in the meal that this was a semi-business gathering. The wives
had been brought along to make the occasion seem less like a board-room
wrangle.
Now and then Lorna heard a few words of the business discussion that
went steadily on from cherry-stone clams to black coffee, like an organ
accompaniment to the chatter of feminine voices.
"But we can't count on Endicott."
"What is the matter with the fellow? He was strong for the proposition
a year ago."
"Usually Henry Endicott will at least listen to plans for a public
improvement."
"Wrapped in some new invention, like enough."
"Those experiments of his must cost him a pretty penny."
"And they bring in no dividends," was the conclusion of John Nicholet.
It was these observations coming to her ear that caused Lorna to seek
her father in his den after the guests were gone. She rustled in and
perched herself upon the broad arm of his smoking chair and set, as
usual, a moist kiss upon the apex of his bald crown.
"A very satisfactory evening--yes, very satisfactory," said John
Nicholet. "Let me see. Where was your aunt, child?"
"Headache, daddy. I believe that is more often than not a feminine
excuse for escaping a dry-as-dust dinner. I don't blame Aunt Ida. I do
think that your business friends' wives are the most unentertaining
people!"
"Bless us! Are they? I had no idea. Really, pet, it was a business
conference."
"So I gathered," Lorna said. "What was it all about, daddy?"
"Just a scheme for making two dollars grow where only one grew before.
And I think it will succeed."
"Without Professor Endicott's cooperation?" she asked.
"Bless us! Do you--ah, you 'listened in,' rogue!" he accused, shaking
an admonishing finger at her. "Keep a still tongue about it, please,
for the present."
"Surely. But I was interested----"
"Of course. Of course," said her father. "Especially when you heard the
name of Endicott. If your Ralph had any money of his own (which he
hasn't, for it is all tied up in trust funds, I understand) I would let
him in on this instead of his Uncle Henry."
Lorna had gone red and looked vexed at his mention of "her Ralph." But
she was still curious.
"I suppose Professor Endicott really manages the whole Endicott estate,
daddy?"
"Oh, yes. It is all in his hands. And I do not understand when we
offer him such a bang-up investment why he doesn't come in."
"Could it be possible that he is short of funds, daddy?"
"Of ready cash, you mean? Why, I have always understood that the
Endicott securities were so placed that they brought in a continual
stream of dividends. Conservative in the extreme, yet safe investments.
Otherwise, how has Henry managed to run that family in such an
extravagant way and to pour money into his experiments as well?"
"Couldn't that be the very reason why he does not enter into this
investment that you have offered him?" ventured Lorna. "Perhaps the
Endicott fortune is depleted to such an extent that he has no surplus
for investment."
"Bless us! Do you know that to be a fact, daughter?"
"I do not know anything about it. It may be only gossip. But it is
reported that Professor Endicott has wasted the family fortune."
"Dear me! You don't mean that, Lorna? That would be a catastrophe.
What does Ralph say about it?"
"I have never spoken to Ralph about such matters," said Lorna, a little
stiffly.
"No, no. I presume not. Such a sordid thing as money does not interest
you youngsters. And in any case, if Ralph didn't have a penny to bless
himself with, we can be thankful that your money is well placed and you
and he need not worry."
Lorna got off the arm of the chair quickly. She stamped her foot.
"Daddy, I tell you I have no intention of marrying Ralph Endicott!"
"Bless us!" gasped her father. "If Henry has made ducks and drakes of
their money and Ralph hasn't a penny, who will marry the boy if you
don't?"
Amos Pickering waved a flabby hand to attract the attention of the
lightkeeper while yet the monster-headed horse was a long way from Miss
Heppy's flower-beds where Tobias was sunning himself with his pipe.
"Here comes the _Daily Bladder_," remarked Tobias, speaking to his
sister, who was inside the lighthouse. "Now we'll l'arn whose punkin is
the biggest."
He arose slowly from his seat and went down the sandy slope to the road.
Amos had a paper for the lightkeeper, but he was bursting with news
himself.
"Ye ain't got no boarder no more, I understand, Tobias," the rural mail
carrier began.
"You understand correct," agreed Tobias, biting on his pipe stem. "An'
I give it as my opinion that Heppy maybe just about broke even on his
board--if anybody should drive up and ax ye, Amos."
But the mail carrier brushed this financial consideration aside. There
was the canker of gossip eating on his inquiring mind, and he blurted
out the subject at once:
"I didn't just know whether you run that feller out, Tobe, or whether
'twas his fight with Ralph Endicott that sent him kitin'."
"His fight with Ralph?" questioned Tobias with pursed lips. "Did they
fight?"
"So I'm told. Didn't you hear about it?" asked the eager Amos.
"Not as I know of."
"Why, so they tell me down to Little Trillion. Over that Nicholet gal.
You know, Tobias, she's been playin' fast and loose with them two
fellers all summer."
"No. I didn't know that, neither," declared the lightkeeper, puffing
more rapidly on his pipe.
"Wal, now, you know, Tobe, she's got them two fellers on her string. It
come to a head, they tell me, an' Endicott licked this Degger to a
fare-ye-well, put him ashore at the Lower Trillion life saving station,
and sailed away with the gal on that motor-boat of his'n. They tell me
they was gone all night, nobody knows where--heh?"
For Tobias had dropped his pipe and his eyes suddenly blazed.
"I know all about that, Amos," he said sternly.
"Ye do? I thought ye didn't."
"I know it ain't so. Ralph went out after Lorna and that Degger in his
motor-boat when they was in danger of being drowned as dead as Pharaoh's
hosts. He put Degger ashore at Lower Trillion 'cause the feller was
scare't. He brought Lorna back here less'n an hour after Degger arrived
in Zeke Bassett's car. That's the truth on it. Who's tellin' this
dirty story about town, anyway?"
"Wal, now, Tobias, mebbe it is nothin' but a pack o' lies. They was
a-tellin' of it at the post-office. That Degger is stoppin' at the Inn.
He an' a feller named Lon Burtwell. Mebbe you've seed him about town,
off an' on, this summer?"
"Go on," said Tobias, ruefully scrutinizing the broken pipe he had
picked up.
"An' they said that Degger said he'd had a row with Endicott. He said
Endicott had sailed away with the gal. Intimated mebbe they'd
_e_-loped. Degger said Endicott did just that with another gal once,
when he was at college. There was a scandal about it."
"And I can see there's some scandal about this," Tobias rejoined
reflectively. "Wal, Amos, dates is dates, and you can't fool the clock.
I met Ralph and Lorny when they come ashore, and it was just in the
shanks of the evening, 'fore supper.
"I don't reckon Ralph ever laid his hand on that Degger yet; but if he
hears this story I shouldn't be surprised if there was a ruction. I
knowed that Degger didn't have no more morals than a clam worm."