THE WISE MEN OUT OF THE SOUTH
The two members of the Petty household who, after all, were to be the
more affected by the abrupt departure of Joe Helmford, knew nothing
about it until the expressman came for the young man's baggage and his
books. His absence at breakfast and dinner chanced to draw no comment
or question from Cap'n Jonah; and Pearl, after the incident on the road
coming from chapel, dreaded meeting the man from the fish hatchery.
Tom's brutality and his insulting words had utterly overpowered her.
Again, because of her excitement, she had scarcely noted the reference
to Cap'n Jonah's threatened disposal of his fortune. Of all the
inhabitants of this longshore community Pearl Holden probably was the
least interested in money, either in large or small sums.
But she owned now to a deep and abiding interest in Joe Helmford.
For the moment she was in his arms as he steadied her against the
wind squall, she found herself giving in utterly to the thrill of his
embrace. Had Tom not burst so unexpectedly upon them what might not
have happened?
The contact of Pearl and Helmford at that exciting instant was as
innocent as that of two children. Yet she had lain awake for hours
after it, living over again the sweet significance of their coming
together through grace of the wind.
She shrank from meeting Helmford because of what Tom Petty had blurted
out. She would feel shamefaced she knew; and yet she could scarcely
wait to see him.
When he did not appear at breakfast and dinner she wondered. Sarah
Petty looked grim indeed. She had forced Tom to tell the truth about
his trouble with Helmford--or as near the truth as the lout ever
spoke--and she realized that there was nothing to be made by quarreling
with Pearl.
Helmford had stated an incontrovertible fact: Her son was "impossible,"
and Sarah knew it.
They were giving the lower part of the house a thorough cleaning on
this day in preparation for the coming of the expected guests. The
chambers were left until after dinner. So Pearl did not discover the
condition of Helmford's room. Sarah refrained from ordering no plate
set for the young man at dinner. For once the woman shrank from telling
her mind outright.
When Perry Baker came for Helmford's goods the truth came out.
Amazement sat upon Cap'n Jonah's mahogany countenance. Pearl was
bewildered.
Had Helmford gone without a word--without saying good-bye? Grim-lipped,
Sarah Petty would not explain, and both Orrin and Tom had been ordered
to keep their mouths closed. There had been a contest in the kitchen
the night before, and for once Sarah Petty was worsted by her husband
and son. Orrin, as he had previously promised Tom, had backed the lout
in his determination to get rid of the boarder.
Pearl could not ask anybody to solve the mystery of Helmford's brusk
departure, and all Sarah would vouchsafe her uncle was:
"It didn't suit for him to be here no longer."
"Something fishy 'bout that--something very fishy," whispered Cap'n
Jonah to Pearl. "Wonder what 'tis?"
"Oh, Cap'n Jonah!"
"What do you know 'bout it, my gal? Joe Helmford was a good friend of
yours."
"He--he's gone without a word!" sobbed Pearl.
"You dunno no reason?"
"He didn't say anything to me about leaving," she replied, shrinking
from telling anybody of the incident on the road the previous evening.
"Nor to me. And he's usually a mighty open-spoken, friendly chap. I
don't understand it," declared Cap'n Jonah. "I'm going to look him up
and find out what it means."
But this was poor comfort for Pearl. To her mind a great gulf had
opened between Joe Helmford and herself. He had gone away without one
word--or look--or handclasp! Had Tom's rude speech the night before
warned him from the dangerous salient into which he and Pearl had
ventured? Unsophisticated as was Pearl Holden she had felt, her woman's
intuition told her, that the young man, too, had experienced the same
pulsation she herself had known as they stood together on the wintry
road.
Had he run away from her? The thought one moment stung her pride; the
next she was deep in despair because Helmford's abrupt departure did
not seem to conform to his unfailing courtesy.
She knew, of course, that Tom's ugliness was the spring from which all
this trouble flowed. The actual cause of Helmford's departure must be
his brief struggle with the lout.
Pearl had felt some primal passion stir within her when Helmford had
so easily overcome the lout. It seemed almost a miracle that one man
with only his bare hands could beat another who held the advantage of
a stout club. And a studious, seemingly gentle man, like Joe Helmford!
Pearl knew nothing about the athletic training our American youth gain
at college; nor did she dream that the lanky, apparently "loose hung"
man from the fish hatchery was the acclaimed champion boxer of his
class.
But she knew she had been glad, _glad_ when Helmford struck the blow
that knocked Tom Petty to the ground.
She saw the swollen and inflamed spot upon the side of the lout's neck
which advertised the blow, and she was glad again.
Nevertheless she could not bring herself to explain to Cap'n Jonah what
had happened, or discuss in any way the disappearance of Joe Helmford.
She was relieved that there was so much to do in preparing for the
coming of the guests from the "south." One cannot entirely give way to
sorrow where one's time is so fully occupied with work. Pearl Holden
sought her bed that night so tired that she would have slept soundly in
any case.
The four families represented by the four wise men from out of the
south and their wives, lived near Harwich. They came by train to
Paulmouth, from whence Willy Peebles and another driver of an auto car
brought them over to the Petty place on the Shell Road.
It was a crisp, delightfully cold day, and the extra fires indoors made
most of the house comfortable. Still, the visiting women sat around the
sitting-room stove with knit shawls over their shoulders and gossiped
with Sarah Petty while the men made the usual pilgrimage to the barn to
look over Orrin's stock and to swap stories and tobacco.
In spite of the fact that Solon Petty was one of the legislators of
the Commonwealth, and Enoch, his cousin, carried a large section of the
politics of Harwich in his vest pocket, as the saying went, they were
longshore born and longshore bred, and would never be anything under
their skins save a combination of farmer and fisherman.
'Poley and Perseus Heath were storekeepers. All their long lives (they
were now upward of sixty) they had looked, talked, and dressed just
alike. So much alike were they that if you addressed, as you supposed,
Uncle 'Poley, more than likely you would be answered by Uncle Perse. It
was gossip that the twins' wives had certain marks of identification by
which they could tell with precision "which was which"; but nobody else
had such omniscience regarding the Heath twins.
"Ye haven't even got as much chance," said Cap'n Abe, discussing the
wonder at the Shell Road store, "as they had with them twins, Bill and
Tom, they tell about down to Chatham. Bill fin'ly lost all his teeth;
so if anybody wanted to distinguish 'twixt them two brothers he'd stick
his finger into Bill's mouth, an' if he bit ye, 'twas Tom!"
To see the Heath twins sitting in the sun on Orrin Petty's barnyard
fence, chewing tobacco in unison, reminded one of a couple of ancient
billygoats--for their sparse chin whiskers moved up and down, and back
and forth, just like a goat chewing a particularly succulent mouthful
of food.
Naturally Solon and Enoch Petty were looked upon as wise men because
of the political prominence they had gained; but the Heath twins had
gained an equal reputation for wisdom by keeping still tongues in their
heads. Nothing "got by" Apollo and Perseus Heath; but they seldom gave
a verbal opinion on any point.
"A pair of quahogs with the lockjaw ain't got nothin' on 'Poley and
Perse for dead silence," Orrin Petty observed to Sarah.
"You'd better take example by them," she snapped. "They've made money
keepin' their mouths shet."
Cap'n Jonah was down at the store when the "Wise Men from the South"
arrived. So there was plenty of opportunity to discuss him and his
fortune, both in the sitting-room and on the sheltered panel of the
barnyard fence, before the old seaman returned.
"Ye see, he's re'l old," Sarah Petty explained, "and he don't re'lly
know how broken he is. The rheumatism has settled on him, an'--well,
you know how these deep bottom sailors be when they finally come back
to the Cape and settle down. They ain't long in anybody's way."
"But ye say he's well fixed, Sarah?" said Uncle 'Poley Heath's wife--a
massive woman with well-developed chin whiskers.
"Why, he don't talk none of his money, Uncle Jonah don't," confessed
Sarah Petty, as though she thought this was a fault and should be
excused. "Putting the best foot forward" was almost a religion with
her. "He's a Hand," she explained, "and they was always tight-mouthed.
But when he had his strong box over from the Paulmouth Bank the other
day he showed Tom some securities. You know how boys be," hesitated
Tom's mother. "Tom was curious and he took note. Uncle Jonah had him
tot up the amounts of some of his sheers an' such, and Tom says it
comes to more than a hundred thousand dollars."
"A hundred thousand!" gasped Mrs. Enoch Petty.
"For the good land's sake!" wheezed Mrs. Perseus Heath, who was little,
and fat, and asthmatic.
"I sh'd say he was well fixed!" said Solon Petty's wife, who was almost
as sharp of tongue and feature as Sarah herself. "A hundred thousand
dollars! My!"
Mrs. Enoch Petty was the only one that expressed suspicion: "I s'pose
you are _sure_ he's got all this money, Sarah? He might be foolin' you.
And if he does it just to work on your sympathies, and you took care of
him----"
"Oh! Indeed!" sniffed Sarah Petty. "Uncle Jonah Hand is one that pays
his way wherever he goes. Of course, I give him our front room and we
have to get along as best we can without a parlor. But he insists on
paying his shot."
"Oh!" said Mrs. Enoch.
"That's what I call proper," said Mrs. 'Poley in her heavy voice.
"How nice!" panted Mrs. Perse.
"_That's_ an uncle wuth havin'," admitted Mrs. Solon.
On the barnyard barrier it was the same:
"This here uncle of your wife's a pretty far-seeing man, Orrin?" asked
Enoch Petty. "The boy that drove us over here said 'twas all around the
neighborhood that Cap'n Jonah Hand had come back from China with his
pockets full of cash."
"_My_ driver," said Solon, who was a ponderous man, "said the cap'n
brought home more than his pockets full. Said he had a safe here at
the house stuffed full of gold and silver, and that Perry Baker, the
expressman, who brought it over from the bank, was so scare't of being
robbed on the way that he was threatened with nervous prostration--er,
haw! haw! haw!"
"Hoh!" snorted Tom, in echo, and with disgust.
"No," said Orrin coolly. "That strong box has gone back to the bank. I
guess Cap'n Jonah is a pretty careful man."
"But he _has_ got money?" queried Enoch.
"Some," said the cautious Orrin.
"Think we could get him interested in that Short Line 'twixt Harwich
and Beanport, Enoch?" suggested Solon slyly.
The twins' jaws wagged more swiftly. As one man they opened their lips
and together cried:
"Ye might let us in on that!"
"No, boys," said Enoch, shaking his head. "This is not a family matter.
We don't let the family in on nothin' but sure things. This here
Harwich and Beanport Line is a sort of gamble."
"Huh!" ejaculated Orrin. "Ain't Uncle Jonah one of the fam'ly, I'd like
to know?"
"Not exactly," drawled Enoch.
"Er-haw! haw! haw!" laughed Solon loudly. "Cap'n Hand's a sort
of step-child in this case. We need money for that Short Line
development----"
"You seine for some other man's money," Orrin said shortly. "Uncle
Jonah's too old to go in with you boys in any onsartain scheme. He
may not be a Petty; but we don't propose he shall lose any of his
hard-airned money that may in time _come_ to a Petty."
"Well said!" chorused the twins, with vigorous approval.
"Never take no risks," added Uncle 'Poley.
"Penny saved is a penny airned," said Uncle Perse.
They were full of old saws and sayings, were the Heath twins. Solon
Petty burst out with his rumbling laugh.
"Those are the tight-lipped and tight-fisted boys. They ought to be
bankers instead of storekeepers. It's taking chances that makes Big
Business."
"Ye-as. Mebbe," said Orrin. "But Cap'n Jonah Hand has taken all the
chances he's ever goin' to take if _I_ have any influence with him. We
know what he's _got_; we don't know how much less he might have if he
fooled with these gambling games. Why, there ain't any of 'em square!"
"Ain't it so?" agreed Tom, with a vivid remembrance of his experience
at the cattle show.