Peter had a notion she was trying to save his money, and he liked her
for it, but he wasn't looking to save money. He pointed out various
things on the other side of the bill, picking out always the
high-priced ones, but Sarah shook her head. She always preferred the
"tarble dote" to ordering à la carte.
The waiter approached.
"What to drink?" he asked briskly.
"Nothing to drink," answered Peter, and, pointing out the caption,
Table D'Hôte $1.50, said "Two."
"Two what?" asked the waiter.
"Why, two of what it says--two tarble dotes."
"And what drinks did you say?" The waiter bent a confidential ear and
scratched his head with his pencil while he waited. Peter looked up at
the ear; then he stretched up and whispered into it:
"Ever hear of the _Boundin' Biller_, Captain Hanks?"
"The _Boundin' Biller_?" Well, all kinds of queer ones blow into
restaurants--the waiter slewed his head round, looked at Peter, put his
ear down, and whispered back: "What about it?"
And Peter whispered up into the waiting ear:
"The _Boundin' Biller_, Captain Hanks,
She was hove flat down on th' Western Banks."
"Huh!" The waiter slewed his head round again to have another look,
which pulled his ear out of position and forced Peter to raise his
voice.
"He had the greatest ear, that Captain Hanks," explained Peter. "He
could hear a sound when no other mortal ever sailed a vessel could. He
heard a steamer's whistle in a gale o' wind and fog one time,
and--runnin' fair before the wind at the time he was--he jibed her
over, and o' course you know what happens to a vessel that's runnin'
with her main sheet to the knot an' somebody jibes her over all
standin'?"
The waiter stared with increasing doubt at Peter.
"Captain Hanks had nothing on you for hearing," explained Peter. "I
said no drinks."
"Oh, oh, excuse me! I begin to get yuh now. No drinks," and the
waiter retreated and returned in silence, but with the food.
Two women on a platform, one very stout and one very thin, danced and
sang; and then they half-wiggled and half-danced in and out among the
tables. Here and there they chucked a chin or kissed a bald head, and
one, on invitation, sat on a man's knee and had a sip of wine with him.
Sarah herself was knots prettier than either of the singing
girls--Peter could see that--and she was dressed pretty, too. He
didn't know what kind of stuff it was she was wearing, except that it
was a kind of slaty sea-gray color and fitted snug. And she had a hat
that was shaped like a little capsized dory and listed to starboard,
just about the same list a vessel takes when she puts her scuppers
under to a light breeze.
Peter, by and by, began to have a notion that Sarah wasn't enjoying
herself. There was a party in one of the booths--Peter could not see
them without turning, but he had a feeling in the back of his head that
they were paying more attention to Sarah than she liked. But perhaps
he was wrong about it. What with the lights and the music and the
dancing, he was beginning to feel like rolling out a little song
himself--a little more maybe about the _Boundin' Biller_--but Sarah
suddenly started to draw on her gloves. And she looked tired; and
Peter hurried to pay the bill and tip the waiter--fifty cents. The
waiter thanked him with more respect than Peter would have thought was
in him.
Peter was jumping up to put Sarah's coat on her before his waiter could
do it, when a strange waiter came over with a glass of champagne and
set it on the table before Sarah.
"The gentleman wishes to know if the young lady will have a glass of
wine with him."
Some joker, of course. Peter smiled till he saw that Sarah was looking
frightened.
"Who sent it?" asked Peter.
The waiter looked over to the booth which Peter had had in mind
earlier. Peter looked over that way. A head darted out and back into
the corner of the booth. Peter's eyebrows lowered and his eyes
narrowed. It looked like a familiar sail.
"Did he say anything about a drink for me?" asked Peter.
The waiter started to smile and then said "No, sir," very quickly.
Peter picked up the glass delicately.
"Do you want to drink this wine, Sarah?"
"Oh, Peter!"
"It's all right--I knew you didn't," assured Peter.
He stepped over to the booth. He was right about the man in the
corner--it was Henston.
More than the shipping of goods was discussed in the shipping-room, and
there was more than that glass of wine in Peter's mind when he looked
in on Henston in the booth. There was a sales-girl who had lost her
job in Pentle's. It was Henston who had taken advantage of his
position to start her on the wrong road.
"The young lady," said Peter to Henston, "don't want to drink your
health."
"Too bad--she drank it before," said Henston.
Peter had hard work to keep the wine from spilling.
"If you don't believe me, ask her," said Henston.
"What's that?" Peter said that to gain time to get his balance.
"I said, Ask her."
"You--you squid, you!"
Peter whipped the glass of wine into Henston's face and with that
reached across for him. The two men nearest to Peter in the booth
stood up to stop him. Peter reached a hand to the collar of each,
stepped back, and brought their faces crashing together.
"It's my fight and his--keep out, you!" said Peter, and swept them back
and down into their seats.
A waiter attacked Peter from behind. It took Peter a few seconds to
wiggle round, get the heel of his hand under the waiter's chin, and
jolt him down to where, falling backward on his heels all the while, he
hit solidly with the back of his head between the plump shoulders of
the fat one of the singing ladies who was fervidly warbling:
"Mem-moh-reez--mem-moh-reez!"
to an elderly male with a proud smile on his face.
A little cloud of powder flew into the air above the singer; an
ejaculation of shocked surprise from her lips. Peter felt sorry, but
didn't see how he could help her just then.
It was Henston Peter wanted, and all the waiters tugging from behind
warn't going to stop him. He reached across the table and took a good
hold and hauled. It was like hauling a two-hundred-pound halibut over
the gunnel of a dory, only he had nothing against any halibut that ever
he hauled into a dory. He braced and heaved, and Henston came out of
his corner and over the table, and kept on coming till he was clear
over the table behind Peter and flat into the aisle beyond.
"You'll have to excuse me," said Peter to the diners at that table--all
men; but they spoke right up, three of them, to say hurriedly:
"It's all right; it's all right." And the other, as if to himself:
"And they're scourin' the country for White Hopes!"
"Stop him, some of you, before he smashes the place up!" roared a
frantic man who came running up then; and two, four, six waiters piled
onto Peter, who, having no quarrel with them, gently shoved them off
and went over to get Sarah.
A pugnacious-looking, prematurely gray-haired man stood at the café
door as they were passing out. Peter was wondering if he would have to
fight him, too.
The man's face--it was the cafe bouncer--broke into a sudden grin.
"You're all right," he said. "I been watchin' that fuhler an' his
crowd. An' you leave it to the manager to stick the damages onto him.
You're all right, and that young lady--you take it from me, young
fuhler--she's all right, too."
Sarah felt grateful to the bouncer for that tribute. She hoped that it
would bring a smile to Peter's face. But all the way home in the
trolley there was no smile from Peter; he clung grimly to his strap and
stared straight at the advertising cards. At her door he only spoke to
say "Good night."
"Good night, Peter." And then, with a little clutch at his sleeve:
"You're not mad with me, Peter?"
"I'm mad with myself for makin' the show o' you that I did to-night;
but when he said you'd drunk wine with him there--said it with a bunch
o' people like himself listenin'--when he said that----"
Sarah's curling little hand had been reaching out for his. It came
back flat to her side again.
"I got a bad temper, Sarah. It don't come out often, but it's there.
And to-night, Sarah, when he lied about you like that, and his crowd,
and maybe others round, believin' him maybe----"
Sarah shivered. She knew now that in Peter's good opinion of her lay
much of what she cared for in this world. In the good opinion of some
man or other lay most of what the other girls in the store cared for.
Always with them was the undying note--to hold and keep men's good
opinion, to keep it at no matter what sacrifice of everything else.
"What they don't know will never hurt them. A man is no better off
because he knows things!" She had heard that so often; and no girl is
spending eight hours a day for two years with other girls without
soaking in something of what they believe--not and be human, that is.
But she had never met a man like Peter. He held her in such respect,
he held all girls in such respect, that it was solemn. Only the night
before she had thought one time he was going to kiss her, and she had
surged toward him, with her lips soft for him, but he had only said
"Good night" suddenly and had run off--almost--up the street.
But Peter was speaking.
"Men have to go out to fight for a living in places where the fighting,
Sarah, is sometimes pretty fierce. And sometimes that kind o' fighting
makes 'em rough, and maybe cruel in spots. But that don't mean they're
bad men. Men c'n be rough sometimes, but I never knew a man--that was
any good, Sarah--that wanted women to have any o' men's badness.
Aboard a vessel we just nacherally expect every man in her will 'tend
to his part o' the work, even if he loses his life sometimes 'tendin'
to it. That's a man's part, an' it's what he owes to the other men
aboard. An' every man has that, an' it's as much a part of him as the
beard on his face. And so when there's a woman somewhere a man's
countin' on, he expects just nacherally she'll hold out against all the
world for him. That's her part. And when to-night, Sarah, that
fat-faced, lyin' brute said you'd drunk wine with him, 'twas just as
much as if you'd said you liked him once--liked his kind."
Sarah sat down on the step. Pretty soon--she couldn't help it--Peter
heard her sobbing.
He lifted her up.
"Sarah, Sarah; what is it?"
She drew away from him; for, of course, when she told him, he, that was
so good himself, would never care for her again.
"It was true what he said, Peter! I did drink wine with him, and in
that same place!"
Peter stood very still. And then he moved out to the curbstone, and
with little tugs at his collar kept looking up at the sky. By and by
he came back to the doorway.
"I wish you hadn't, Sarah; I wish you hadn't," he said, but came no
nearer.
"Wish I hadn't told you?"
"No, no; I'm glad you told me. And I know what it meant for you to
tell me. I'd rather take a chance going over the side--redjacks,
oilskins, and all--in a high sea after a shipmate than have to tell a
girl something about myself that I know she don't want to hear.
Specially when I care for her--not that I'm thinkin' you care for me so
much, Sarah."
The blood came back to Sarah's heart. She hurried to tell him the rest.
"I've been wanting to tell you, Peter; you mustn't think me worse than
I am. He used to come down to my counter and talk to me; and after a
few days of that he asked me to go out with him. I was a little proud
at first--to be noticed by the manager above the other girls. Girls
like to be made much of, Peter; if it's only by a lost dog that licks
their hand, they like it. I went to that place with him, after he'd
asked me a dozen times, and the third time there with him I drank a
glass of champagne. I wanted to know for myself what it tasted like.
But I never took it with him again--nor went out with him again,
because coming home in the taxi that night he tried to get fresh. A
lot of men, Peter, think that if a girl isn't cold and stiff in her
ways she must be bad. And I kicked the door of the taxi open and left
him and came home alone."
"I'm glad you told me that. And Sarah?"
"Yes, Peter?"
"Good night, Sarah."
"You're not mad with me any more, Peter?"
"I could never stay mad with you."
"Then you must tell me you're not, Peter. A girl wants to be told
these things."
Her eyes were smiling up like stars through the dark of the doorway at
him. He drew back her head to him and kissed her. She lay very still
against him. He patted her head.
"You'll marry me, won't you, Sarah, some day?"
"I'll ask mother. And whenever she says--will that do, Peter?"
Late every winter Mrs. Pentle took a month's trip South. She had
returned from that trip South and was making the rounds of the store.
She came to the shipping-room, looked round, asked Flaxley a few
questions about things; and then, as she was about to go:
"I don't see Captain Crudden. He is not sick?"
"Peter's gone, ma'am," said Flaxley. "Mr. Henston and Peter had words,
ma'am, and Peter put on his coat and walked out."
"What!"
"Yes'm. But before he put on his coat he threw Mr. Henston into the
passageway. Then he went and got married," he added.
"Peter married!"
"Yes, ma'am. He surprised us, too--that is, gettin' married so quick."
"Whom did he marry?"
"Miss Hern, from the notions counter."
"Hern? Notions? Oh--I remember her now."
Flaxley saw her cross the passageway to the rest-room and sit down on a
couch. After a time she went up-stairs.
It was after two o'clock--Flaxley remembered the time very well--when
Mrs. Pentle left the rest-room; so she must have ordered her car and
gone to Gloucester right away, for she was in Duncan's store, according
to the minutes of Fred Lichens, the old bookkeeper, before four o'clock.
"Is Captain Crudden here?" was her first question.
"He is. He's down the wharf--ready to sail in your vessel," said Mr.
Duncan. "Shall I call him up?"
"Please do."
Mr. Duncan hailed from the steps of the store, and Peter came; but no
smiling shipper's helper who looked like a boy was this Peter.
He was smiling enough, but there was already the hint in the set jaws,
the wary, far-looking eyes of the master mariner, the ocean battler.
Her confidence ebbed; she was in an atmosphere of men's work that she
could never get away from in Duncan's store, and almost timidly she
heard herself asking:
"Will you tell me, Captain Crudden, what was wrong with the work in the
store? I thought you liked it."
"Nothing wrong, Mrs. Pentle."
"Then what, please?"
"M-m-m." Peter revolved his cloth cap on one finger but said nothing.
"One day in the shipping-room, Captain Crudden, you told me what a
comfort it was for a man to be home--of the joy of the easy slippers
and the warm fire, of children climbing all over you--of the warm bed
every night."
"That's right; I did."
"No more danger, no more hardship, your sure pay every week!"
"I know; I know."
"Then why? Was it the work?"
"The work?" Peter clearly smiled now.
"Haddockin' in South Channel, Mrs. Pentle, workin' fourteen tubs--eight
thousand hooks to a dory a day, an' dressin' our deckload o' fish on
top o' that--three, four, yes an' five days an' nights runnin'
sometimes, with no lookin' at our bunks till we filled her up--! Work?
I cal'late I've done more work in South Channel fishin' many a day than
in any ten days I ever saw in your store, Mrs. Pentle."
"Then why, please, Captain Crudden, why?"
"Why? When you went South, Mrs. Pentle, you left a man in your place
to give orders."
"Mr. Henston? What of him?"
"Him!" Peter looked down at his cap, twirled it on a finger, looked at
Mrs. Pentle, and then: "Him! Honest, Mrs. Pentle, if we had him out on
the fishin'-grounds we wouldn't cut him up for bait!"
Peter went back to his vessel and Mrs. Pentle to her car.
"I ordered my house opened to-day. I'll run over there," she told Mr.
Duncan.
It was a clear day with a fresh breeze from the west. She must have
seen, when she looked, the whitecaps in the harbor as her car rolled
over the road.
John Ferguson, up in his lookout, saw her car roll up to her gate.
John could also see the reflection of the fresh fire in the grate in
her den, the fresh pot of tea beside the window-seat. And no doubt she
could see, as she sipped her tea, John Ferguson through an air-port of
his aerie.
However, the _Celia Pentle_ was sailing out to sea and John was
entering her--_Celia Pentle_, Peter Crudden, Master, with the date, in
his book--and was reading the entry over to himself when Mrs. Pentle
came in.
The harbor had grown whiter under the little crests of the tossing
seas, and outside the point they were rolling yet higher and higher.
"Isn't it rough weather to be sailing, John?" she asked.
"Rough? For an able fisherman and an able master and crew? No, Mrs.
Pentle. The wind's fair, ma'am, as a man'd want for a run offshore--a
great chance for Peter to try the new vessel out. This time to-morrow,
ma'am, and if you could listen to Peter I'll bet you'd be proud to have
such a wonderful vessel named after you. A new, able vessel and a new,
lovely young wife--he oughter be the happy man sailin' to sea this
night."
"But his wife--won't she be lonesome, John?"
"For her own good and Peter's, I cert'nly hope so, ma'am. But she
won't be lonesome for too long, ma'am. Their age--an' healthy an'
lovin'--they're the kind, ma'am, to have a houseful o' children. An'
that'll be a good thing. Many's the day an' night, out on the wide
ocean there, Peter'll be drivin' his vessel, thinkin' o' them children
an' the mother to home, an' plannin' how he's ever goin' to kill fish
enough to pay for the shoes an' their clothes an' their schoolin' an'
the house rent, an' all the rest of it. Many a hard night out to sea
he'll be thinkin' o' that, an' it'll be that'll hold him to his work
an' make a full man o' him. And the mother she'll be keepin' the home,
lovin' the children an' lovin' Peter that's workin' night an' day to
keep 'em. I tell you, ma'am, they're the wise ones that lay their
courses so that by 'n' by, whether they will or no, they got to go on
with the steady drivin'."
"Look at her now, ma'am, down to the rail already an' whalin' away
through it! An' there's Peter--look at him--in the oilskins up by the
wind'ard bitt! An'-- But there's some one callin' you, ma'am."
It was her maid, who came running over to say that there was an urgent
telephone message.
"It is from Mr. Henston, madam."
Mrs. Pentle nodded that she heard, but continued to look through the
glasses at the _Celia_ sailing out to sea.
The maid coughed. She was at the foot of the tower, looking up.
"He says, madam, that the silk-buyer wishes him to go to New York for
that stock of pongees, and that he is waiting for an answer to his
letter before he goes."
Mrs. Pentle stood at the hatch of the tower, looking down.
"Fishermen are pretty careful of what they use for bait, aren't they,
John?"
John, after consideration, said:
"Bank fishermen are maybe more careful than most, ma'am; though, when
we was hard put to it, I've seen some pretty poor quality o' stuff cut
up for bait."
Mrs. Pentle looked down the ladder to the maid.
"Tell Mr. Henston there is no answer. Tell him to go to New York and
that, hereafter, he had better stay there and look after the silks
exclusively."
For as long as the falling darkness would allow, John saw Mrs. Pentle
picking out the plunging course of Peter's vessel through the
green-white waters. And then, turning to him, she said:
"I've been thinking that I ought to take more interest in my young
girls when they marry. On the day the Cruddens have a baby born to
them I shall make over the _Celia Pentle_ to the baby."
For all she smiled when she said that--and in John's opinion she should
'a' been a happy woman to be able to say things like that--for all that
there was what John called a melancholy in her voice and a sort of
vapor in her eyes when she said it; and, looking after her making her
lonesome way over to the big house with all the lighted windows, he
couldn't help thinking that for all they said she was such a boss of a
woman--for all that--there ought to be somebody more than a lot of
butlers and maids and cooks to meet her at the door.
There is the story of Peter's stop ashore, as old man Flaxley, John
Ferguson, and Fred Lichens know it. Fred had to add that he couldn't
see where Peter's stop ashore ever hurt him any.
"Certainly," said Fred, "since the baby came, he has been making
fishing history in the _Celia_!" He looked over to Mr. Duncan when he
said that.
Mr. Duncan wasn't deaf.
"A little stop ashore never harmed anybody," retorted Mr. Duncan--"it's
the stopping ashore too long!"