CAP'N PHIN
What made life at Sunset Lane so delightful to Sidney was that she
never knew from one day to the next what she was going to do. Back at
Middletown everything was always arranged ahead--they did this on
Tuesday and this on Wednesday and always on Saturday there was the
League. At Sunset Lane she did not even know when it was Tuesday or
Thursday unless she stopped to think; jolly things happened as though
they popped out of the blue ether.
Like that Miss Letty dropped in one evening after supper.
"Do you want to ride over to Wellfleet with me enough to be ready at
six o'clock?" she asked Sidney very casually, as though it were nothing
at all to suggest. Sidney had longed to ride with Miss Letty in the
sideboard buggy behind King who, Mr. Dugald declared, had come off the
Ark with Noah. And to go to Wellfleet, perhaps see her friend Cap'n
Phin Davies!
"Can we call on Cap'n Davies?" she asked eagerly.
Miss Letty smiled. "I reckon I couldn't steer King away from Elizy
Davies' house. I thought I'd take you there and leave you while I give
my lessons and then I'd ride 'round and have a visit with Elizy and
Phin and maybe some of Elizy's gingerbread. Elizy and I went to school
together."
The next morning Sidney was ready and on her, way to Miss Letty's house
before six o'clock. She had been far too excited to eat any of the
breakfast Aunt Achsa had set out for her but Miss Letty, guessing this,
made her sit down and eat a bit of toast and a boiled egg.
"It's a long way between here and Wellfleet and King's slower than he
used to be."
Seated next to Miss Letty, jogging along through the misty morning,
Sidney could not speak for pure rapture of delight. She had never
ridden behind a horse in her life! She thought King a giant steed; with
every swish of his long tail her heart skipped a beat, the move of his
great muscles under his heavy flanks held her fascinated gaze. Miss
Letty talked to him as though he were human and the animal understood
and tossed his head. She said: "Now, King, we're going to Wellfleet and
we got to get there before noon." And then she let the reins slacken
and slip down between her knees as though she had no further care. One
certainly could not do that with an automobile! Sidney did not wonder
now that Miss Letty preferred King to a Ford.
She wished she dared ask Miss Letty how old King really was but she did
not think it polite anymore than if she asked Miss Letty how old she
was. King was not handsome, he was bony like his mistress, but he
certainly understood everything. Miss Letty said he knew they were
going to Elizy Davies' by the way he loped ahead; King, too, had a
strong liking for Elizy Davies' gingerbread.
"She feeds it to him in great hunks. And he won't eat anyone else's
gingerbread, either. Scornful as you please even when I offer him some.
Now I say that's discriminating for a horse. I suppose it's what folks
call horse-sense."
Sidney did not know which she liked better, watching the gleaming
marshes through which the highway wound or listening to Miss Letty's
spasmodic conversation. Miss Letty pointed out old landmarks to Sidney,
then told her something of the school at Truro to which she and Elizy
Davies had gone, then of the little girls to whom she was about to give
music lessons. She had taught their mothers. Then she lapsed into a
deep silence broken only by an occasional "cl-lk" to King which she
made with her tongue against her teeth and to which King paid no
attention except for a flick of his right ear.
Sidney, looking down at the great bony hands limply holding the reins,
thought it very funny to picture them on the keyboard of a piano. If
she had spoken her thoughts aloud Miss Letty would have told her, quite
calmly, that she couldn't play a note now, but that she knew when notes
were played right and she could still rap lagging fingers smartly
across the knuckles. Folks would have her, anyway. Sidney did not know,
of course, that Miss Letty was a tradition and that Cape Cod clings to
its traditions.
"You'll think Phin Davies' house the queerest thing you ever saw. It
isn't a house nor is it a boat; it's as much one as t'other and not
anything, I'd say, but what two crazy men getting their heads together
rigged up. Cap'n Davies said as long as he had to live ashore he wanted
his house to look like a boat, he didn't care what folks said, and he
hunted the Cape over to find a builder who wouldn't apply to have him
locked up in an asylum, straight off. He got a man from Falmouth, who'd
been a master once on a trader and sort of knew how Phin Davies felt.
But there was Elizy carrying on awful about it and saying _she'd_
always looked forward to the time when she could have a nice house--and
there the two of them were. And the house is as 'tis. Phin has the
front of it that's as like the bow of a ship without any rigging as
they could make it, and Elizy has the back that's got as up-to-date a
kitchen as any on Cape Cod."
A winding road, all sweet with wild primroses led up to the queer house
on the eminence. Sure enough, there was the front part like the forward
hull of a ship, deck-houses and all; and the back like any sensible New
England home. Sidney giggled delightedly.
"But there aren't two finer people on this Cape!" declared Miss Letty.
"And there's Phin coming to meet us. Reckon he spied King through his
glasses along beyond Wellfleet."
Cap'n Phin Davies was overjoyed to see Sidney. "Why, it's the little
gal I found on the train!" he repeated over and over. "Elizy," he
called lustily toward the kitchen door, "come and see! It's the little
gal I told you 'bout that I found on the train."
Elizy Davies came hurrying from the kitchen door. She was lean to
gauntness and tall and wore round, steel-rimmed glasses low on the
sharp bridge of her nose. Sidney immediately understood how she had
been able to hold out for her half of the house. But she greeted Sidney
with kindly interest and Miss Letty with real affection.
"I thought you'd be over this way today. Anne Matthews said Maida was
going to have a lesson. Got my gingerbread all mixed."
Miss Letty had not gotten out of the buggy. She turned King's head.
"Thought I'd leave Sidney here while I gave my lessons," she explained
briefly and then clucked to King.
Mrs. Davies took Sidney into her part of the house. It was cool and
dark and sweet-smelling and very, very neat. Sidney sat down in a stiff
rocker and answered Mrs. Davies' questions concerning her Aunt Achsa
and Lavender, while Cap'n Davies stumped restlessly about.
"Now I cal'late you've heard enough, Elizy, and I'm goin' to carry my
little shipmate off and show her _my_ part o' the old hull."
Elizy accepted his suggestion with a smile and admitted that she had to
finish up her work. Immensely relieved Sidney followed Cap'n Davies.
With the enthusiasm of a boy he took her to the front rooms of the
house and showed her his treasured possessions. There was not a corner
of the globe that had not contributed something to his collection of
mementoes. And each meant to the old seafarer, not its own intrinsic
value, but a certain voyage. "I got that when we took a cargo to
Shanghai. Roughest v'yage I ever ran into," and "I picked that up when
we had to lay to at Buenos Aires 'cause every man jack in the fo'castle
had small-pox," or "found that when Elizy shipped with me on the old
_Amanda L. Downs_. Forget just where--" and so on.
In the cupola on the roof that Cap'n Davies called his lookout and
where he spent most of his time, he had put the paraphernalia from the
_Viking_, his last boat. He had rigged up a bunk so that he could even
sleep there when he fancied. He explained that he never let Elizy "tidy
up." "When I get a notion I fix things shipshape myself, but I ain't
had a notion now in sometime." Sidney could see that. Yet the littered
room had an individuality that Elizy's own spotless quarters lacked.
"Now set down on that bunk and let me have a look at you," the Cap'n
commanded, seating himself in an old swivel chair that creaked and
trembled under his weight. "'Pears to me you've picked up quite a bit!"
He smiled his approval and nodded his great head. "Yes, they ain't
starvin' you and I'd say you'd been runnin' in the sun and there ain't
anything that can beat our Cape sun for bringin' out roses on bushes
and little gal's cheeks." He beamed with satisfaction over his long
speech. "Now, tell me, how's the pirates? Seen any?"
His question came so suddenly that Sidney started. She hesitated, then
answered slowly. "Yes, I have."
"Well, I'll be dumblasted!" exclaimed the captain, plainly astonished
by her answer. He had spoken only in pleasant chaff and had not thought
Sidney would take him seriously.
"At least--" Sidney amended, "I _think_ I've seen some. I told Lavender
and Mart they're pirates or--or something, and we're going to watch
every move Jed Starrow makes, at least every chance we get--"
The jovial expression suddenly left the Captain's genial face and a
heavy frown furrowed the leathery forehead.
"Jed Starrow! Now what in thunder would make you set on Jed Starrow--"
His frown alarmed Sidney. Perhaps she had made a dreadful mistake in
divulging their suspicions of Jed Starrow, suspicions which really
Lavender and Mart did not share, except as it helped their fun along--
"Oh, I shouldn't have said that it's Jed Starrow we suspect. I heard
Mr. Starrow and that--that man with the hook--say something that
sounded mysterious and I told the others, Mart and Lav, about it and
we're just pretending that we _think_ they're pirates! It's something
to do and makes it exciting when we're down on the wharves. And they
_do_ look like pirates--especially the wrecker man. But I ought not to
have said their names--as long as it's only a sort of game we're
playing, ought I? You won't tell anyone, will you?"
Cap'n Davies promised hastily and took Sidney off to see the new heifer
calf, just a week old. In the delight of fondling the pretty little
creature Sidney forgot her embarrassing break. She did not notice that
the Captain seemed deeply absorbed by some thought and that when he was
not talking he still frowned.
After she had visited the Cove and watched the waves dash against the
Head and explored the boathouse Miss Letty arrived with King and Mrs.
Davies summoned them to dinner. They ate dinner in the big kitchen that
stretched from one side of the house to the other so that a breeze, all
tangy with salt, stirred the heat of the room. Mrs. Elizy and Miss
Letty talked and Sidney ate and laughed as Cap'n Phin surreptitiously,
and with sly winks at her, fed the old Maltese cat under the table.
There were fried chicken and peas and mashed potatoes and the
gingerbread and cocoa and flaky cherry pie. And after dinner they all
went out to watch King eat the gingerbread of his choice.
Sidney and Miss Letty helped Mrs. Elizy clear up and then they joined
Cap'n Phin under the shade of the trees on the Head from where they
could see far out over the bay. Sidney stretched on the grass and
listened while the others talked, determining to put down every word
they said in "Dorothea" so that she could read it over when she was a
very old woman. She loved the way Miss Letty answered back to Cap'n
Davies when he teased her and she was not the least bit afraid of Mrs.
Davies, now. All in all, though it was a very quiet afternoon, it was
one Sidney long remembered.
When Miss Letty announced that they'd "have to be starting for home,"
Cap'n Davies recollected that there was something in the lookout he
wanted to show Sidney and had forgotten. But when they reached the
lookout it appeared that he had forgotten again for he sat down in the
swivel chair and faced her.
"Looky here," he commanded in a voice Sidney had not heard before in
their brief acquaintance, "don't know as it's any o' my affair but I
want you to keep off the wharves after dark. Off the beach, too. Play
your games in daylight. Things are shapin' to a sort o' head and there
may be mischief anytime and you'd best be at home come dark. If you
don't promise me I'll speak a word to Achsy Green--"
"Oh, I'll promise," cried Sidney anxiously. A warning to Aunt Achsa
would most likely curtail their precious freedom. But she could not
resist the temptation of questioning. "What mischief?" she asked,
eagerly.
Cap'n Davies hesitated. Then he drew a letter from his pocket and
tapped it with his finger.
"That's from the Custom House in Boston. Come last week. They're
sending secret service men down to comb the Cape. Been huntin' the hul
coast for a year and a half and they sort o' suspicion these parts
because a lot of 'em was shipped into Boston that--"
"Oh, _what_! You haven't said _what_--" broke in Sidney, aquiver.
"So I didn't. I'm sailin' stern first, I cal'late. Well, there's always
smuggling and smuggling and I guess there always will be, but when it
comes to _diamonds_ Uncle Sam sets up and takes notice. And they're
suspicionin' that they're comin' in somewheres along the Cape, and this
part of the Cape, too. And _this_--" he shook another sheet in Sidney's
face, "this is a notice of a reward offered by Wellfleet and Truro
counties for findin' the dog that's givin' this part of the Cape a bad
name! Five thousand dollars. In two weeks it'll be stuck on every post
hereabouts 's far as Provincetown. And Phin Davies ain't goin' to lay
to 'till I've found out whether it's someone on the Cape that's doing
it or not. Cape Cod's brung up a race of honest men who could sleep
with their doors wide open and if anybody is hurtin' the good name of
the Cape I want to know it. 'Taint the money I want."
[Illustration: CAPTAIN DAVIES DREW A LETTER FROM HIS POCKET AND TAPPED
IT WITH HIS FINGER]
Sidney was scarcely drawing a breath for excitement. The Captain,
suddenly subsiding, observed her tenseness. He laughed embarrassedly.
"Now there I go spillin' everything _I_ know like a ship that's sprung
a leak. I'll have to ask you to keep mum 'bout what I've told you,
mate, and remember your word to keep off the beach come night. Ain't no
place for a gal like you." And without another word he rose and led
Sidney down the narrow stairs.
On the homeward ride Miss Letty found Sidney an abstracted companion.
After a few attempts to keep up conversation she subsided into silence
herself. "It's good to find a young one who can keep her tongue still a
spell and enjoy her own thoughts."
But Sidney was not enjoying her thoughts, not at all. With the
realization that she could not share with Mart and Lavender the
astounding revelations Cap'n Phin Davies had made all joy in them had
fled. Had not she and Mart and Lavender agreed solemnly to tell one
another anything any one of them discovered? It would be so perfectly
thrilling to greet them the instant she reached home with "Hook!" They
would be so surprised. They wouldn't laugh if she told them what she
knew! But she couldn't.
Cap'n Phin Davies had said: "I'll have to ask you to keep mum" and that
was quite enough to seal Sidney's lips.