_AT SHIPTON AGAIN._
"Nothing for me?"
"Nothing."
"Sure?"
"Well--"
The postmistress, in response to Dave Fletcher's anxious inquiry, looked
again at a package of letters she had been handling.
"Oh yes, here is something! I didn't see it the first time. Beg
pardon."
"All right. I wasn't really expecting anything, but it is so long since
I have had a letter that I was kind of hungry for one."
Dave took his letter from the postmistress and walked away.
"Postmarked Shipton!" said Dave, looking at the envelope. "Don't seem
to know the address. Let's break that and see what it says."
He glanced down at the name with which the letter closed.
"James Tolman; what does he want?" wondered Dave. He then returned to
the first line and began to read:--
"DEAR DAVID,--I have not forgotten that you were in my Sunday-school
class when in Shipton, and I felt that I knew you well enough to ask you
to take this into consideration, whether you wouldn't like to come and
be my clerk. I am in the ship-chandlery business, and have two clerks.
One of them is going away, and may leave me for good. I have promised
to keep his place open for him three months. At the end of that time he
may come back. Now, if I ask you to come for three months, I know--"
Dave crumpled the letter in his hand, thrust it into his pocket, and
springing into his waggon, cried, "Get up there, Jimmy! Don't know that
you and I will be travelling this road together much longer. Get up
there!"
"Jimmy" was urged at an unusual rate over the road, and pricked up his
ears in astonishment as his master cried, "Faster, faster!"
"There, mother!" said Dave, when he entered the Fletcher kitchen; "just
what I wanted has happened."
"What is that?" replied Mrs. Fletcher.
"Read this, mother, and you will see."
"For three months, Dave, and perhaps no longer, it means."
"Oh, well, it will be a stepping-stone to something, if I have to leave
it. Just get started in Shipton and I can go it."
"But you haven't read about the pay, Dave."
"Well, mother, the fact is I like the place--I mean Shipton. I love to
be near the salt water and where I can see the ships--"
"And the lighthouse--"
"Yes."
"And May Tolman," sang out a voice from the adjoining sitting-room, and
Annie Fletcher appeared at the kitchen door, asking, "How is it, Dave?"
Dave felt it to be the wisest course to keep still and blush.
In a few days he was ready to start for Shipton. He called one evening
to see some of his old acquaintances, and the next day started for
Shipton.
On arriving he reported for duty at the shop of "James Tolman,
Ship-chandler." He was now eighteen, and he felt that active life was
beginning in earnest. The shop was an old one, and before James
Tolman's business days it had been kept by his father. It was packed
with all kinds of goods available for ship-furnishings. As one opened
the door a scent of tar issued, strong enough to make the most
thorough-going old salt say, "This seems like home." There were coils
of rope of every size ranged on either side of the passage-way. There
were capstans and anchors and blocks and ring-bolts. There were all
kinds of shining tin and copper ware for the cook's galley. There were
compasses, and ship-lanterns, and speaking-trumpets, and sheath-knives,
and suits of oiled clothing, and slouching "tarpaulins." On stormy
days, when Dave from the back windows could see that the waves in the
river had stuck in their crests saucy feathers of foam, it seemed to him
as if he heard the coils of rope creak in the store and the suits of
sailors' clothing rustle; and what wonder if some old salt had waddled
forward in one of those stiff suits, and, seizing a trumpet, cried in
ringing tones to the pots and kettles hanging from the brown, dusty
beams, "Furl your top-sails." It was a pleasure to Dave when an old
Shipton sea-captain might heave in sight on stormy days, and, entering
the shop, take a seat by the crackling fire and tell of gales round Cape
Horn or in the Bay of Biscay.
"I believe I am cut out for this business," said Dave.
His former Shipton acquaintances were glad to see him back. Dick Pray
for six months had been in town, a clerk in his cousin's shop. He now
came to bring his congratulations to Dave.
"Glad to see you, Dave," he said.
"Thanks, Dick. How is business?"
"Oh, booming! booming!"
All business that Dick's magnificent abilities came in contact with
either had "boomed," or was "booming," or would "boom" very soon. No
tame word was fit to describe Dick's business ventures.
And the boy who came shyly, timidly after Dick was--Bart Trafton.
"You well, Bartie?" asked Dave.
"Oh, better!"
"Why?"
"Because you've got back," said the caller, with snapping eyes.
"That's encouraging. And granny, is she well?"
"Oh yes, when--"
He did not finish. If he had completed his sentence, he would have said
"when father isn't at home."
The same day two other people were in the shop whom Dave had met
previously, though he did not recognize them at once. There stood
before the counter a rather tall man, wearing a tall hat and closely
muffled about the face, for the day was one of cold blasts of storm.
"I want a good ship's lantern," said the customer.
"Yes, sir," replied Dave, ranging before the man an array of lantern
goods.
"You have come to be clerk?" asked the man.
Dave looked up more carefully, and saw that the man wore spectacles.
"Yes, sir," replied Dave.
The man inquired the price of the lanterns, selected one, and went out.
"Halloo! he has given me twopence too much!" exclaimed Dave.
"That doesn't matter," said a man who was watching through a window in
the door the storm driving without.
"Oh yes, it does," murmured Dave.--"Johnny!" he called aloud to a
younger clerk in the counting-room, "just look after things a moment
while I go out."
Johnny came out into the shop, and Dave seized his cap and ran after the
customer. The latter was a fast walker, and was hurrying round a corner
of the street when Dave overtook him.
"See here, sir! A mistake in the change. I counted it, and you gave me
too much."
"Oh--ah! Thank you! I see you don't know me."
The man slipped down a scarf wrapped about his face, took off his
spectacles, and there was--somebody, but Dave could not say who.
"Not so rough up here as down at the bar--in a schooner, say."
"O--Squire Sylvester!"
"That's it. I think I was too rough with you that day, for I found out
afterward you had nothing to do with it."
"Oh, well, sir--I--"
"I just wanted to say that, and am glad you think enough of another
man's property, though only two-pence, to chase after him and give it to
him."
Then the tall man tramped on.
"It shows," thought Dave, "that he hasn't forgotten what happened some
time ago, and I suppose he had been wanting to say what he got off to
me. I don't harbour it against you, Squire Sylvester. When a man's
property has been run off with, it would be a wonder if he didn't say
something."
When Dave returned to the store the man at the door still stood there,
looking out through the little window.
"I think I know that chap's face," thought Dave, "but I really can't say
who it is."
The man was disposed to talk. "Did you catch the squire?" he asked.
"Oh yes."
"Did he take the twopence?"
"Oh yes."
"Catch him not take it! The squire would hold on to a halfpenny till it
cankered if he could possibly git along without spendin' it. I don't
believe in worryin' yourself about sich people."
"Twopence didn't seem much, but then it wasn't mine."
"I see you don't mean to be rich?"
"I mean to be honest."
"And die poor?"
"That doesn't follow."
"Oh, it does 'em good--these rich fellers--to lose a little now and
then."
"But they ought not to lose it if we have it and it is theirs."
"Oh, you are too honest. Say, I see you don't know me."
"Well, yes, I ought to know your face."
"I've let my whiskers grow. I didn't have any the last time you saw me.
Cut all these off," said the man, lifting a big beard, "and it would
make a big difference. Don't you remember Timothy Waters, at the
lighthouse?"
"Why, yes. You Timothy?"
"Yes."
"And are you at the light now?"
"Just the same."
"How is Mr. Tolman?"
"Holdin' on. Oh, he likes it! You must come and see us."
Having given this invitation, Timothy left the store. Dave watched him
as he moved down the street, turning at last into a little lane leading
down to the wharves. Then he thought of Timothy rowing his dory down
the river, tossing on the uneasy tide, battling his way forward until he
halted at the foot of a great gray-stone tower in the sea. Looking up
at the doorway of the tower, Dave saw the keeper's familiar face.