CAP'N JONAH SETTLES DOWN
"Well, Uncle!" exclaimed Sarah Petty, meeting the old man at the door
with outstretched hand and a sharp smile upon her sharper face. "You
_air_ a stranger! You come clean across the world to see us."
"Wal, I was in the China trade last," admitted Cap'n Jonah; "so
naturally I had to come a fur ways to get to Cardhaven. I come through
the canal. Whatever! that's a snorting big job. I got to Boston on a
fruit steamer; and then I caught a trawler goin' down to Chatham and me
an' my chist come up from there on the freightin' schooner."
He had entered the kitchen now and released Sarah's hand to take
Orrin's. The latter said in lieu of too warm a greeting, for Orrin's
was a cautious soul: "Why didn't you come down from Boston by rail?
The steam cars bring ye a sight quicker, even if the fare is somethin'
more."
"No," said Cap'n Jonah. "I never go nowhere by these railroads if I
can help it. Ye never know when the b'iler's like to bust or the hull
contraption run off the track."
"Hoh!" snorted Tom in the background. "Marm said you'd sailed master o'
steam vessels. Warn't you afraid of the boiler's bustin' on them?"
"Now, Tom!" fluttered his mother.
"I could keep away from the b'ilers on them iron pots I was master of,"
said Cap'n Jonah, dryly. "And there's plenty of leeway in the open sea.
Wal, Orrin, I see the Haven's much as it looked aforetime, when I was
here. I liked the look of it then."
"Do you calc'late on stayin' quite a spell?" queried the anxious Mr.
Petty.
"I'm a-goin' to settle down. Yes, sir! I got enough sea-goin'. The
rheumatiz has got a grip on me anyway. And I want to stretch my old
bones in a bed that ain't forever pitchin' an' tossin'. I was took with
Cardhaven when I saw it years ago--when this feller was a baby," and he
jerked a forefinger, as hard as a spike, into the soft muscles covering
the surprised Tom's ribs.
"Hoh!" ejaculated Tom. "What you doin'?"
"Now, Tom," came the admonitory voice of his mother again. Then she
hastened to say: "Pull right up, Uncle Jonah. Never mind your pipe,
Orrin. Sit down and eat first. Pearly will finish these cakes."
She sat down herself behind an enormous teapot. Orrin drank quantities
of tea. It was filling, he said, and cheap.
Pearl had taken the captain's hardshell hat and his cane. He smiled at
her, and she dimpled in return. There was already a bond of sympathy
between the two.
"That there ox of Silas Peebles' we seen at the fair to-day was a
master big one," observed Orrin, already gulping down with gusto the
hot tea from a deep saucer.
Tom's face immediately fell again on this reminder of the fair. Pearl
eyed the young fellow suspiciously from her station at the stove.
Something had gone all wrong with Tom on this outing.
"I did admire the way your Cousin Ida was dressed, Orrin," said Sarah
Petty. "That orange and blue certainly did set her off."
"Huh!" returned her husband, "she looked like a lapstreak sloop goin'
to a regatta. What you women see in sech folderols is beyond me. I
can't make head nor tail of the fashions."
"A woman, like a ship, I reckon, ought to put her best foot for'ard. I
like to see 'em flyin' their pretty duds an' duffel."
"I can see you 'preciate the sect," said Sarah Petty, preening. "You
ain't too old, Uncle Jonah, to marry and have a home of your own again."
She said it with hidden anxiety. What Orrin had suggested about the old
mariner's possible wealth had begun to work like yeast in Sarah Petty's
mind.
"No. I guess not," Cap'n Jonah said thoughtfully. "I was married once,
and she was a good woman. If there is a next world, as the preachers
say there is (and they ought to know, considerin' as they're always
studyin' the chart of them waters an' can box the heavenly compass
so slick), why," continued the captain, "I wouldn't want to mix two
women in my mind. They say heaven's a place where the wicked cease
from troubling and the weary air at rest. But it's borne in on my mind
that two good women, let alone wicked ones, could make a feller a lot
of trouble, even in the heavenly pastures. I don't want to run no sech
risk. I will stay single for the rest of my natural life, I guess.
"Ye-as, Pearly. I don't care if I do take another heap o' them griddle
cakes. They're lickin' good."
Cap'n Jonah Hand was an old-fashioned seaman. No matter how long he had
sailed master of passenger or merchant ships, the Cape Cod tang clung
to his speech. Especially did he clip his words and use provincial
turns of speech now that he was among those who habitually took such
liberties with academic English.
"I suppose," began Sarah Petty, trying to drive a conversational wedge
in the right direction, "that well-to-do widowers do have to dodge the
wiles of designing females. We've got some along the Shell Road that
you'll ha'f to keep your sails trimmed for, Uncle Jonah."
"Oh, pshaw!" ejaculated the captain, rather sheepishly, "I guess
the women'll leave me alone--'specially when they l'arn I ain't no
millionaire."
The flashed glances between Sarah Petty and her husband were laden with
suspicion. Sarah's sharp voice punctured the following silence as a
needle might prick a toy balloon.
"I presume you've got aplenty saved up after all these years for your
board and keep, Uncle? You was the forehandedest of all the Hands, I
guess."
"Oh," said the captain dryly, "I can pay my way for quite a spell yet,
before I ha'f to look up lodgin's at the poor farm. And that brings up
a leetle matter we might's well discuss right now at the start, Niece
Sarah.
"O' course," the old man went on placidly, "you air my only livin'
relative, Sarah. If I should drag my anchor to-night you'd stand to git
sech prop'ty as I might die possessed of. But a straight out and out
understanding, even betwixt kith and kin, is the only way to fend off
friction. I want, if I won't be crowdin' you an' your folks, Sarah, to
stop along o' you instead of tryin' to bach it as so many of us old
salts have to when we leave the sea for good and all. I ain't never
been used to doin' for myself, and I shouldn't know how to tackle the
job. I sh'd be jest as awkward about housework as a whale."
"Well, now, Uncle!" ejaculated Sarah in much perturbation.
"Belay there!" interrupted Cap'n Jonah. "I ain't finished payin' out
my line yet. What I want to know is, will you board an' lodge me,
and do for me as the sayin' is, an' for how much a month? I ain't no
millionaire, as I tell you, but I have always paid my shot an' I allus
calc'late to while there's any shot left in the locker."
Sarah's smile fairly dripped honey again. Orrin's expression of
countenance changed so suddenly that it must have hurt him. Tom looked
relieved.
"Well, now, Uncle!" his niece again ejaculated as though the subject of
money was quite a painful one.
And it was. She was in a nervous flutter for fear she would not tax the
old sea captain all that he would possibly stand. The thought of fixing
his monthly stipend below the figure Uncle Jonah might be willing to
pay was positively torturing to Sarah's mind.
Yet, for a very good reason, she wished to appear generous to her
relative. Not only might it be true that Cap'n Jonah was wealthy, but
that old note given by her father for two thousand dollars might still
be in existence. She must show herself liberal to her uncle, for she
might yet have to plead for mercy. It was true that she was Cap'n
Jonah's natural heiress, but he possibly had not made his will in her
favor (she determined to find that out immediately) and it would never
do to display a nature too grasping in the interim.
"I don't expect you to cramp yourself none, Sarah," Cap'n Jonah said.
"That's a mighty nice room Pearly give me."
"She done jest what I would have done myself if I'd been to home,"
murmured Sarah Petty.
"I like it 'cause it's nothin' at all like the close quarters of a
ship's cabin."
"It's our very best room, Uncle Jonah," she added. "I'm glad you like
it."
Secretly she could have shaken Pearl Holden for ever putting the old
man in that chamber. There was one over the kitchen, in the ell, that
would have been good enough for him, and probably pleased him quite as
well. What did an old sailor like him want of such nice quarters?
"Well, I tell you how 'tis, Uncle Jonah," she said aloud and at length.
"Orrin and me ain't none too rich, as you can see. We have to stretch
ends sometimes to make 'em meet. In the summer when I let out that best
chamber I get six dollars a week for it from city folks that come down
here to the Cape. It's quite a help. That's six dollars a week with
board, of course. I should have to charge extry for wash and mendin'
and the like----"
"Whatever!" exploded Cap'n Jonah, and he would have changed color had
his countenance not been burned so deeply that a surge of blood into
it made little difference in its hue.
"But if you don't mind sleepin' in another room, Uncle Jonah, supposin'
I had a chance to let that best one at a good price, I'd be only too
glad to take you in for two dollars less a week--say twenty dollars
a month," Sarah hastened to say. "The wash and mendin' we'd consider
later. I wouldn't want it to seem at all like I was gouging a relative,
Uncle Jonah. But ev'rything does cost so much nowadays that I tell you,
free and frank, we have to figger even what it costs to keep a cat."
"Have to depend on mousetraps, I do suppose," murmured the old mariner.
"I can see it's close sailin' for you to get along, Sarah. Wal! if
that's the best you can do, I'll agree. Twenty dollars a month it is."
"And washin' extry," added Sarah, her little green eyes sparking. She
was not after all altogether sure that she had not underrated what
Cap'n Jonah would have paid. Still, she was getting a five-week month's
board out of him at the price she had set; and he certainly must be
good for fifty cents a week wash money.
She saw that his blue suit, though wrinkled and well worn, was of an
excellent quality of cloth. His hat was a good one, too, and his stick
was a fine Malacca cane with a gold top to it. He wore a heavy cable
watchchain of gold, and when he drew, out the timepiece it proved to
be a valuable, if ancient, one.
"Now, I reckon I'll turn in, if it's all the same to you folks," Cap'n
Jonah said, seeing the lateness of the hour. "I sha'n't need no rockin'
to put me to sleep. We'll talk more to-morrow," and he started for the
front of the house.
Sarah had been taking sharp note of his footgear.
"I'm sartain pleased to see that you wear middlin' light boots, Uncle
Jonah," she said pointedly. "I never let Orrin nor Tom go through the
house 'cept in their stockin' feet or their slippers. Men's boots is
that trackin'."
"Oh, I'll take heed of your decks when you've jest holystoned 'em,
Sarah," Cap'n Jonah rejoined easily.
This pleased Pearl. It seemed that the old captain was not to be easily
nagged. He went off cheerfully after bidding them good-night.
"Well," said Sarah, "we'll get something out of him, anyway. He can't
be an absolute pauper. And I'll soon have him out o' that best room and
into where he belongs."
"Have a care, Sarah. Have a care," advised Orrin Petty. "He's a
quiet-talkin' man. Mebbe he's got more cash than he's willin' to tell
about. We don't want to rile him."
"If he was rich as cream I wouldn't have him messin' up my best
bedroom for long. I tell you that, now, Orrin Petty!" Then she turned
on Tom with one of her sudden, birdlike motions. "Where's that Ladies
Aid money I give you, Tom, to buy that lamp with at the Harwich
Emporium, and you never done it? I sartain sure thought you could do
that for me while I was visitin' with your A'nt Poley Heath."
"I tell you they didn't have no more of the kind you women picked out
for the chapel," growled Tom, stuffing his pipe from his father's
tobacco pouch. "Have 'em in again next month."
"Well, gi'me the money."
"Let a feller light his pipe, won't you?" growled Tom, getting up to
take a spill from the vase on the mantelpiece, and proceeding to ignite
it at the lamp. Then as his mother's attention was diverted by some
household matter, he slipped out of the door.
* * * * *
The captain did not go directly to bed. He sat by his window, of which
he had opened wide the blinds, much to his niece's rage and disgust. He
looked out into the soft darkness that had now settled down on sea and
land.
A red light sparked, went out, sparked again. That was the revolving
lamp at the lighthouse on The Neck, the narrow strip of land which
stretched a defense between the Haven and the open sea. Nearer were
the lamps of other dwellings. The surf sighed along the Beaches, beyond
Cap'n Abe's store.
"It does seem," murmured Cap'n Jonah, rather enigmatically, "that the
sea and the air and the peaceful land air more to be depended on than
folks. Most folks, at least. Howsomever, that there Pearly gal----"
He heard her voice on the porch below his window. She must have come
outside to rest and cool off after washing the supper dishes. The
incense of burning tobacco rose to his nostrils, and then Tom Petty
said:
"Well, you needn't blame me, Pearly. _I_ didn't keep you from going
along of us to that blamed cattle show. You didn't miss much. I wish I
hadn't gone myself."
"Why, didn't you have a good time?" Pearl Holden asked. There was
weariness in her tone and not much curiosity.
"By hokey!" exclaimed Tom, "there warn't nothin' there but silly gals,
an' silly cows an' such, and--and cheatin' plays."
"What do you mean? What kind of plays?"
"All kinds of games--an' there warn't none of 'em square, I don't
guess. Pop won a _se_-gar battin' a spike on the head with a maul, to
show how strong he was. But when he tried to smoke the _se_-gar he
mighty near smothered me and Marm and she made him throw it away," and
Tom suddenly chuckled at the remembrance of his father's indignation.
"But there! Considerin' some of 'em, I reckon that test-your-muscle
machine was fair, _se_-gar and all. Others! Well! I made a tarnal fool of
myself, Pearly, and I dunno how I'm goin' to square myself about it,"
he added desperately.
"What did you do, Tom?" the girl asked with more interest.
"Well, there was a feller in an alley there, 'twixt two buildings, and
he'd got a crowd in front of him. The alley was clear behind him and
had a gate at the end; but we didn't notice that at the start. Oh, he
was a slick one!
"Well, he had a little foldin' table, and on it he had three little
tin cups and a pea. He was an awful quick movin' feller--or 'peared
to be--and he told us his hands could move quicker than the eye could
foller."
"So can my hands," interposed Pearl. "I can count beans faster than I
can see 'em."
"Hoh! Listen here!" growled Tom. "It didn't look at first as though
that feller could do what he said. He made some passes with his hands
and said some hocus-pocus over them three cups and the pea, and then he
dared any feller to say under which of the cups the pea was. A feller
in a white hat and them gaiter things they wear over their shoes now,
said right away he knew where it was.
"'How much'll you bet?' says the feller. 'You're a sport, I can
see--and you think you're smart. Say what you'll bet.'
"And after a little urging the feller in the white hat bet two dollars
against the other feller's two dollars, an' sure enough, he did point
out the right cup where the pea was."
"And won two dollars?" gasped Pearl. "Why, Tom! That's gambling--and
it's wicked!"
"It's wicked all right when you lose," grumbled Tom. "But we didn't
lose much first along."
"'We?'" cried Pearl. "You didn't bet, too, Tom?"
"Sh! Don't let the old lady hear you," snapped Tom. "Course I tried it.
I won two dollars, and then I won three. The white-hatted feller was
skinnin' that feller with the cups and the pea every time. You could
see he felt pretty meachin' about it Got all red and flustered-like.
Why, I could spot where he hid that pea just as _e-easy_!"
"And then?" Cap'n Jonah, grinning widely in the dark, heard the girl
gasp.
"Why, we all got excited. There was a dozen or more of us bettin'. That
pea-and-cup feller had a slather of money.
"'You got to give me a chance, boys,' he says. 'Give me a show for my
white alley. This time I'm a-goin' to fool you.'
"And he kep' on like that, urgin' us to bet our pile against his pile.
Why, I could see where he put that pea just as plain! So I went with
the rest. I bet twenty-five dollars--all I'd won and all I had."
"Oh, Tommy Petty!"
"Now, don't you begin," cried Tom hoarsely. "I warn't the only fool.
The feller bet us two to one, and it looked like a sure thing. Some bet
on one cup and some on another; but I knowed just where the pea went,
and I bet on the right one."
"Then you didn't lose, Tom?" murmured Pearl with a relieved sigh.
"I didn't lose honest," growled the young fellow. "That feller with the
pea and the tin cups had been foolin' us all along. He got a heap of
money piled up in front of him--a stack big enough to choke a cow! And
then he just whipped all three of the cups off the table and the pea
warn't under airy one of 'em!
"The white-hatted feller just then saw Dave Milliken, the constable,
comin' and he yelled: 'Cheese it! We'll all get arrested!' and he beat
it down the alley with the pea-and-cup man, who grabbed all the money
and the cups and the foldin' table and stuffed the whole b'ilin' into a
suit case he had ready.
"Why, Pearly! them fellers was through the alley gate and locked it
after 'em before we any of us 'woke up to it that they was in cahoots
and was a couple of sharks. An' we couldn't do a thing!"
"Tom!" gasped the girl. "You lost all your money?"
"Hoh! That wouldn't figger too much," said the young fellow hoarsely.
"But I did more than that. _I lost all the money I had._"
"My goodness, Tom! The Ladies Aid money for the chapel lamp?" Pearl
emitted in horrified staccato.