THE MISTLETOE BOUGH
Until the day before Christmas, ushered in by the long-threatened gale,
nobody had seen Joe Helmford along the Shell Road since he had left
the Petty place. Cap'n Jonah had been unable to hunt up the young man
and learn, if he could, just why he had so abruptly departed from the
neighborhood.
In spite of the bustle attending the presence of the guests over Sunday
and the thorough cleaning up after them which followed, Pearl Holden
could not for a moment forget the young man. And her worry of mind was
advertised upon her pretty face. There were shadows under her eyes and
an unnatural pallor spread over her cheeks.
Cap'n Jonah had strong suspicions as to the reason for Pearl's changed
appearance, although she would admit nothing. He had watched the
intimacy growing day by day between the girl and Helmford, and, arrant
matchmaker that he was, he hoped to see its fruition in an acknowledged
engagement of the two young people.
Should Pearl marry a man like Helmford, one great burden would be
lifted from Cap'n Jonah's mind. He often felt that he had done a wrong,
a grievous wrong, to the girl in intimating that he had a fortune
and would will all or part of it to her. He presumed that Pearl bore
this half-promise he had made in mind, just as the Pettys bore it in
mind; and having nothing to give Pearl after all, the master mariner's
troubles were thereby added to. If the girl was only sure to marry a
smart young fellow like Joe Helmford----
Therefore he kept a sharp outlook for the man from the fish hatchery,
and even inquired for him at Cap'n Abe's store. But Helmford had not
been seen in the vicinity since the day of his departure from the Petty
house.
On this storm-pelted morning, however, when most wise folk kept
indoors--and glad to have such shelter--Joe Helmford could not
be content in his warm and cozy quarters at Mrs. Wetherel's. His
present boarding place was much more to his taste--barring Pearl's
absence--than the Pettys', save that it was farther from his work.
The Wetherels were urban folk, with the conveniences and the personal
requirements that go with such environment. The daughters were
strictly, however, what Pearl had once called "sour-cranberry old
maids"--otherwise spinsters as fixed in their orbits as the planets.
Even the presence of a young and marriageable man in the house caused
no flutter of their hearts. Their maiden affections had never been in
the least awakened.
Mrs. Wetherel made Joe very comfortable without any fuss about it, and
the "Wetherel girls," so-called, were not unpleasant associates at meal
time. Nevertheless, Helmford went around with a countenance almost the
equal of 'Liphalet Truitt's.
He could not remain indoors on this wretchedly stormy day. In the first
place, he was expecting something at the post-office which Noah Coffin
should have brought the night before on his stage, locally known, out
of compliment to Noah's name, as "the Ark."
Helmford had sent for the article in question as soon as Miss Sue had
asked him to help decorate the Mariner's Chapel for the Christmas
entertainment. Now he plodded through the beating storm in a very
different mood from that which he had expected to enjoy when his
purchase arrived.
"Yes!" and the post-master passed it out to Helmford with:
"Christmas gif, Mr. Helmford? They are just pouring in on us. But I
doubt if Noah'll make more'n one trip to-day, 'nless this storm breaks.
She's purty rough outside, ain't she?"
Helmford admitted that "she" was. Nevertheless he did not turn back
toward his boarding place; but instead, with the light but bulky box
under his arm, he faced the gale and forced his way through it, past
the Cardhaven Inn and around the corner into the highway that led to
the Shell Road neighborhood.
There was nobody on the road, nor did he see anybody at the
frost-covered windows as he plodded on. There was no sign of life about
the Ambrose cottage; but when he got to Eliphalet Truitt's he saw the
doctor's automobile stalled outside the fence.
"Can it be that 'Liphalet is ill?" thought Helmford.
He turned in at the gate and stamped his feet free of snow on the
ex-steward's steps. The kitchen door was unfastened as usual. He peered
in and saw the glowing stove and Bo'sun comfortably purring before it.
He shouted for 'Liphalet, receiving no answer.
Then, knowing as did everybody else in the community, where the chapel
key was kept, he ran his hand along the clapboards and found the nail.
The key was there. Then, thought Helmford, he was the first of the
decorating committee to arrive.
He took down the key and kept on to the vestry door. The dead chill of
the place struck him as he entered.
"Wonder what's happened to Mr. Truitt," Helmford thought; for he, like
everybody else, expected the taut little ex-steward to do all the
chores of the chapel as a matter of course.
The fire was laid in the Baltimore heater, and soon the young man had
it roaring and the heat radiating from the surface of the stove below
as well as rising through the register above, in the audience room.
The piles of greens were ready for the workers; but nobody arrived.
Helmford opened the box he had brought from the post-office. In it was
as fine a bough of mistletoe as he had ever seen. It had been sent to
him from Boston by parcel post.
When he had sent for this bit of Christmas decoration he had secretly
borne Pearl in mind. There was something more in the significance of
the mistletoe than a mere pleasantry. He thrilled even now at the
thought of pressing the girl's dewy lips with his own, under the
benison of the Christmas bough. How lovely Pearl was in her sweet
simplicity.
Joe Helmford, when he bought the mistletoe, had been playing with fire.
He knew it now. He had come to a full realization of it when Tom Petty
had attacked him on the Shell Road and he had struck that single blow
in Pearl Holden's and his own defense.
Bitter indeed had been his thoughts as he packed his things that night
after speaking his mind to the Pettys. He had allowed himself to go so
far with Pearl Holden that he felt he should never be at peace again.
She was the object of a growing and consuming passion, and he could not
put thought of her away.
Yet, there stood the specter of Cap'n Jonah's fortune between them!
He could not deliberately besiege the heart of this girl who had been
chosen to be the recipient of the old seaman's wealth. But how he now
desired to see Pearl again and to be with her!
He hid the mistletoe bough away in the sexton's closet under the
stairs. Then he went to the door to gaze out upon the storm. Nobody was
coming toward the chapel that he could see. It was past the hour Miss
Sue had set for the decorators to gather, and she was not here herself.
Nor was Pearl coming, it seemed.
The storm was increasing; but so disturbing were the young man's
thoughts that he scarcely noticed that fact as he stepped out into it
again and closed the vestry door behind him.
His mind and heart on fire with the passionate thoughts that had
assailed him for days past, Joe Helmford began, like 'Liphalet Truitt,
to challenge the storm; through the buffeting of the elements he sought
mental peace again.
* * * * *
Miss Sue, called to Suz Montevedo's on her charitable mission, had
depended upon Pearl to take the lead in the decoration of the chapel
for the next day's celebration. Unexpected events, however, barred
Pearl from going to the rendezvous at the hour appointed. Indeed, a
greater storm was destined to rage inside the Petty house on this day
than swept the Cape Cod coast.
There seemed to be a lull in the gale about mid-forenoon, and Cap'n
Jonah, who did not read much and had small means of self entertainment,
bundled up in oils and southwester and ventured forth, bound shoreward.
When he faced the full force of the gale on the open highway he was
really tempted to return.
"Whatever!" he muttered. "This ain't fittin' for a dog to be out in. If
it keeps up this way, it's goin' to spile all the fun to-morrow."
Although he observed nobody on the road, he found when he stumbled up
the steps of the store and lifted the doorlatch that Cap'n Abe was
not left even on this blusterous day without his company of habitual
loungers.
"Hi-mighty!" cried the storekeeper, as Cap'n Jonah staggered in and put
his back against the door which had been all but torn from his grasp by
the wind. "Hi-mighty, Cap'n Hand! can't you find no better weather to
bring 'long with you when you come visiting?
"Hear that sleet slammin' on the clapboards, will you?" he proceeded,
as Cap'n Joab and Washy Gallup made room for the newcomer at the
stove. "Must sound like the gale Peleg Fosdick, of the _Sarah
Truesdale_, weathered the time he run under the lee of the sand cliffs
at Barrows Neck.
"Peleg, they say, although he was the skipper of a haddocker for years
an' years, was always afraid of a capful of wind. A summer squall
looked as big to him as a hurricane; and if he had ever got into a
reg'lar no'theast snorter like this one, I reckon he'd died o' heart
failure.
"If it come on to blow and he could, he'd up hooks an' run for shelter,
no matter where, till he could see the end o' bad weather. And they do
tell about his holdin' an umbrella over himself in a thunder shower
when he was at the _Sarah Truesdale's_ wheel," and the storekeeper
broke into a mellow chuckle and tucked his silver-bowed spectacles
higher on his bald brow.
"Ord'narily he went below when it rained or blew. He was jest as techy
about gettin' wet as a cat. Come one time they tell of, and a brisk
gale come up while the _Sarah Truesdale_ was on the Dogfish Bank. Sun
goin' down as pretty as you could wish; but jest the same, Cap'n Peleg
Fosdick seen bad weather comin' in his mind's eye.
"So they run for it, he an' his mate an' the boy. Barrows Neck, where
is piled all the loose sand that was left over after they made the
Desert of Sairah, offered the nearest shelter. Peleg run in there and
droppd his mudhook just as a hand's breath of cloud spilt a shower on
him. It was near night and he dove below and didn't calc'late to go
aloft again while it rained.
"His mate asked him was he goin' to stop there, with the hold half full
o' fish, and Peleg made reply he was calc'latin' to. So the mate an'
the boy took the dory and rowed ashore to Barrowsport and Peleg stayed
under hatches listenin' to the rain slammin' on the deck and thinkin'
how smart he was to seek shelter as he'd done.
"Wal," pursued Cap'n Abe, "the rain didn't 'pear to stop, and Peleg
went to bed. He didn't know if the mate an' the boy come back or not.
But when he woke up in the morning the first thing he heard was the
rain still a-swishin' on the schooner's deck. He had his deadlights
curtained and 'twas dark below. The wind was still blowin' from the
same quarter.
"'Almighty stormy mornin','" says Peleg, and turns over in bed. Nobody
disturbed him, for his mate had got into a fight ashore and was in the
calaboose, and the boy'd got a chance to ship on a trawler at better
wages and had took French leave.
"So the _Sarah Truesdale_ lay there purty near all day, an' might ha'
laid there till the fish in her hold stank, if a feller hadn't come
along wantin' to borrer some bait.
"He opened the cabin door and Peleg sat up in bed to see the afternoon
sunshine streamin' over all. The _Sarah Truesdale_ had been there
twenty-four hours.
"'What's the matter here?' asked the feller after bait. 'You sick, or
somethin'?'
"Peleg's ears wagged like a houn' dog's. He could still hear the rain
(or so he supposed) patterin' on the deck.
"'If you don't git up your hook and warp out of here,' says the other
feller, 'your smack'll be sunk along o' the deckload o' sand that's
been blowin' on to ye from them sandcliffs all night It's ankle deep
out here right now.'"
For once Cap'n Abe got a laugh from most of the idlers. But Cap'n
Jonah was in a serious mood. He followed the storekeeper to the end of
the counter where he was tying up packages of sugar ready for prompt
delivery. It was dark at this end of the store, for the windows were
completely clouded by the frozen sleet.
"Wal, Cap'n Hand, how goes the battle?" asked the storekeeper, with
amusement written large on his genial face. "How does it seem to be a
millionaire, or thereabout?"
Cap'n Jonah took a huge pinch of snuff from his silver box, rapped
the cover with his knuckle, and sneezed softly. "Whatever!" he almost
groaned. "It ain't no laughin' matter, Mr. Silt, this here tryin' to
make folks think you air something you ain't."
"Sure-_ly_," interposed Cap'n Abe, "tain't no trick to fool Sarah and
Orrin Petty. They air only too willin' to fool themselves. If you _had_
a hundred thousan' dollars----"
"I'd give half of it to git out o' the mess I'm in," snapped Cap'n
Jonah. "You don't know what it means, Mr. Silt, to be foolin' your
friends, as well as those you don't keer a jasper for."
"Oh! _don't_ I?" ejaculated Cap'n Abe significantly, his memory stung
by thought of Cap'n Amazon.
"This foolin' Pearly an' young Helmford, an' even Cap'n Beecher and
Miss Sue and the Doc an' all, does go against the grain. If them bonds
and sheer certificates I showed that half-baked boy of Sarah Petty's
was real, instead of phony, and I was rich 'stead of scurcely havin' a
cent to bless myself with, I'd be the happiest man alive, I do guess.
But as 'tis----"
He spoke earnestly, and he meant it, did Cap'n Jonah. He was never cut
out for a deceitful man, and the strain of the hateful situation was
telling on him.
Cap'n Abe was called to the rear premises by Betty Gallup, the "Able
Seaman," before he could make reply to the troubled captain. The latter
drifted back into the radiance of the stove's warmth.
Then out of the dark pocket between soap boxes and sugar barrels at
the end of the counter rose up a figure, the presence of which neither
of the old men had suspected. There was a door into the side hall of
Cap'n Abe's house right here. The eavesdropper opened this softly and
passed through unobserved.
Once in the entry, he opened the outside door and slipped out into
the storm. So excited and enraged was he that he scarcely noticed
the buffeting of the snow and sleet. He plunged through it, his face
twitching violently, his hands clenched, rage and chagrin seething in
his breast.
For once Tom Petty, thick-headed though he was, was thoroughly aroused.