The marrying was done about eight o'clock and done with all the
trimmings. All hands manned the yards in the best parlor, and Peter and
Belle was hitched. Then they went away in a swell turnout--not like the
derelict hacks we'd seen stranded by the Cashmere depot--and Jonadab
pretty nigh took the driver's larboard ear off with a shoe Phil gave him
to heave after 'em.
After the wedding the folks was sitting under the palms and bushes that
was growing in tubs all over the house, and the stewards--there was
enough of 'em to man a four-master--was carting 'round punch and frozen
victuals. Everybody was togged up till Jonadab and me, in our new
cutaways, felt like a couple of moulting blackbirds at a blue-jay
camp-meeting. Ebenezer was so busy, flying 'round like a pullet with
its head off, that he'd hardly spoke to us sence we landed, but Phil
scarcely ever left us, so we wa'n't lonesome. Pretty soon he comes back
from a beat into the next room, and he says:
“There's a lady here that's just dying to know you gentlemen. Her name's
Granby. Tell her all about the Cape; she'll like it. And, by the way,
my dear feller,” he whispers to Jonadab “if you want to please
her--er--mightily, congratulate her upon her boy's success in the
laundry business. You understand,” he says, winking; “only son and
self-made man, don't you know.”
Mrs. Granby was roosting all by herself on a sofy in the parlor. She was
fleshy, but terrible stiff and proud, and when she moved the diamonds on
her shook till her head and neck looked like one of them “set pieces” at
the Fourth of July fireworks. She was deef, too, and used an ear-trumpet
pretty nigh as big as a steamer's ventilator.
Maybe she was “dying to know us,” but she didn't have a fit trying to
show it. Me and Jonadab felt we'd ought to be sociable, and so we set,
one on each side of her on the sofy, and bellered: “How d'ye do?” and
“Fine day, ain't it?” into that ear-trumpet. She didn't say much, but
she'd couple on the trumpet and turn to whichever one of us had hailed,
heeling over to that side as if her ballast had shifted. She acted to me
kind of uneasy, but everybody that come into that parlor--and they kept
piling in all the time--looked more'n middling joyful. They kept pretty
quiet, too, so that every yell we let out echoed, as you might say, all
'round. I begun to git shaky at the knees, as if I was preaching to a
big congregation.
After a spell, Jonadab not being able to think of anything more to say,
and remembering Phil's orders, leans over and whoops into the trumpet.
“I'm real glad your son done so well with his laundry,” he says.
Well, sir, Phil had give us to understand that them congratulations
would make a hit, and they done it. The women 'round the room turned red
and some of 'em covered their mouths with their handkerchiefs. The
men looked glad and set up and took notice. Ebenezer wa'n't in the
room--which was a mercy--but your old mess-mate, Catesby-Stuart, looked
solemn as ever and never turned a hair.
But as for old lady Granby--whew! She got redder'n she was afore,
which was a miracle, pretty nigh. She couldn't speak for a minute--just
cackled like a hen. Then she busts out with: “How dare you!” and
flounces out of that room like a hurricane. And it was still as could
be for a minute, and then two or three of the girls begun to squeal and
giggle behind their handkerchiefs.
Jonadab and me went away, too. We didn't flounce any to speak of. I
guess a “sneak” would come nearer to telling how we quit. I see the
cap'n heading for the stairs and I fell into his wake. Nobody said
good-night, and we didn't wait to give 'em a chance.
'Course we knew we'd put our foot in it somewheres, but we didn't see
just how. Even then we wa'n't really onto Phil's game. You see, when a
green city chap comes to the Old Home House--and the land knows there's
freaks enough do come--we always try to make things pleasant for him,
and the last thing we'd think of was making him a show afore folks.
So we couldn't b'lieve even now 'twas done a-purpose. But we was
suspicious, a little.
“Barzilla,” says Jonadab, getting ready to turn in, “'tain't possible
that that feller with the sprained last name is having fun with us, is
it?”
“Jonadab,” says I, “I've been wondering that myself.”
And we wondered for an hour, and finally decided to wait a while and
say nothing till we could ask Ebenezer. And the next morning one of the
stewards comes up to our room with some coffee and grub, and says
that Mr. Catesby-Stuart requested the pleasure of our comp'ny on a
afore-breakfast ice-boat sail, and would meet us at the pier in half
an hour. They didn't have breakfast at Ebenezer's till pretty close to
dinner time, eleven o'clock, so we had time enough for quite a trip.
Phil and the ice-boat met us on time. I s'pose it 'twas style, but, if I
hadn't known I'd have swore he'd run short of duds and had dressed up in
the bed-clothes. I felt of his coat when he wa'n't noticing, and if it
wa'n't made out of a blanket then I never slept under one. And it
made me think of my granddad to see what he had on his head--a reg'lar
nightcap, tassel and all. Phil said he was sorry we turned in so early
the night afore. Said he'd planned to entertain us all the evening. We
didn't hurrah much at this--being suspicious, as I said--and he changed
the subject to ice-boats.
That ice-boat was a bird. I cal'lated to know a boat when I sighted one,
but a flat-iron on skates was something bran-new. I didn't think much of
it, and I could see that Jonadab didn't neither.
But in about three shakes of a lamb's tail I was ready to take it all
back and say I never said it. I done enough praying in the next half
hour to square up for every Friday night meeting I'd missed sence I was
a boy. Phil got sail onto her, and we moved out kind of slow.
“Now, then,” says he, “we'll take a little jaunt up the river. 'Course
this isn't like one of your Cape Cod cats, but still--”
And then I dug my finger nails into the deck and commenced: “Now I lay
me.” Talk about going! 'Twas “F-s-s-s-t!” and we was a mile from home.
“Bu-z-z-z!” and we was just getting ready to climb a bank; but 'fore she
nosed the shore Phil would put the helm over and we'd whirl round like
a windmill, with me and Jonadab biting the planking, and hanging on for
dear life, and my heart, that had been up in my mouth knocking the
soles of my boots off. And Cap'n Catesby-Stuart would grin, and
drawl: “'Course, this ain't like a Orham cat-boat, but she does fairly
well--er--fairly. Now, for instance, how does this strike you?”
It struck us--I don't think any got away. I expected every minute to
land in the hereafter, and it got so that the prospect looked kind of
inviting, if only to get somewheres where 'twas warm. That February wind
went in at the top of my stiff hat and whizzed out through the legs of
my thin Sunday pants till I felt for all the world like the ventilating
pipe on an ice-chest. I could see why Phil was wearing the bed-clothes;
what I was suffering for just then was a feather mattress on each side
of me.
Well, me and Jonadab was “it” for quite a spell. Phil had all the fun,
and I guess he enjoyed it. If he'd stopped right then, when the fishing
was good, I cal'late he'd have fetched port with a full hold; but no,
he had to rub it in, so to speak, and that's where he slopped over. You
know how 'tis when you're eating mince-pie--it's the “one more slice”
that fetches the nightmare. Phil stopped to get that slice.
He kept whizzing up and down that river till Jonadab and me kind of got
over our variousness. We could manage to get along without spreading out
like porous plasters, and could set up for a minute or so on a stretch.
And twa'n't necessary for us to hold a special religious service every
time the flat-iron come about. Altogether, we was in that condition
where the doctor might have held out some hopes.
And, in spite of the cold, we was noticing how Phil was sailing that
three-cornered sneak-box--noticing and criticising; at least, I was, and
Cap'n Jonadab, being, as I've said, the best skipper of small craft
from Provincetown to Cohasset Narrows, must have had some ideas on the
subject. Your old chum, Catesby-Stuart, thought he was mast-high
so fur's sailing was concerned, anybody could see that, but he had
something to larn. He wasn't beginning to get out all there was in that
ice-boat. And just then along comes another feller in the same kind of
hooker and gives us a hail. There was two other chaps on the boat with
him.
“Hello, Phil!” he yells, rounding his flat-iron into the wind abreast of
ours and bobbing his night-cap. “I hoped you might be out. Are you game
for a race?”
“Archie,” answers our skipper, solemn as a setting hen, “permit me to
introduce to you Cap'n Jonadab Wixon and Admiral Barzilla Wingate, of
Orham, on the Cape.”
I wasn't expecting to fly an admiral's pennant quite so quick, but I
managed to shake out through my teeth--they was chattering like a box
of dice--that I was glad to know the feller. Jonadab, he rattled loose
something similar.
“The Cap'n and the Admiral,” says Phil, “having sailed the raging
main for lo! these many years, are now favoring me with their advice
concerning the navigation of ice-yachts. Archie, if you're willing to
enter against such a handicap of brains and barnacles, I'll race you on
a beat up to the point yonder, then on the ten mile run afore the wind
to the buoy opposite the Club, and back to the cove by Dillaway's. And
we'll make it a case of wine. Is it a go?”
Archie, he laughed and said it was, and, all at once, the race was on.
Now, Phil had lied when he said we was “favoring” him with advice,
'cause we hadn't said a word; but that beat up to the point wa'n't half
over afore Jonadab and me was dying to tell him a few things. He handled
that boat like a lobster. Archie gained on every tack and come about for
the run a full minute afore us.
And on that run afore the wind 'twas worse than ever. The way Phil
see-sawed that piece of pie back and forth over the river was a sin and
shame. He could have slacked off his mainsail and headed dead for the
buoy, but no, he jiggled around like an old woman crossing the road
ahead of a funeral.
Cap'n Jonadab was on edge. Racing was where he lived, as you might say,
and he fidgeted like he was setting on a pin-cushion. By and by he snaps
out:
“Keep her off! Keep her off afore the wind! Can't you see where you're
going?”
Phil looked at him as if he was a graven image, and all the answer he
made was; “Be calm, Barnacles, be calm!”
But pretty soon I couldn't stand it no longer, and I busts out with:
“Keep her off, Mr. What's-your name! For the Lord's sake, keep her off!
He'll beat the life out of you!”
And all the good that done was for me to get a stare that was colder
than the wind, if such a thing's possible.
But Jonadab got fidgetyer every minute, and when we come out into
the broadest part of the river, within a little ways of the buoy, he
couldn't stand it no longer.
“You're spilling half the wind!” he yells. “Pint' her for the buoy or
else you'll be licked to death! Jibe her so's she gits it full. Jibe
her, you lubber! Don't you know how? Here! let me show you!”
And the next thing I knew he fetched a hop like a frog, shoved Phil out
of the way, grabbed the tiller, and jammed it over.
She jibed--oh, yes, she jibed! If anybody says she didn't you send 'em
to me. I give you my word that that flat-iron jibed twice--once for
practice, I jedge, and then for business. She commenced by twisting and
squirming like an eel. I jest had sense enough to clamp my mittens
onto the little brass rail by the stern and hold on; then she jibed the
second time. She stood up on two legs, the boom come over with a slat
that pretty nigh took the mast with it, and the whole shebang whirled
around as if it had forgot something. I have a foggy kind of remembrance
of locking my mitten clamps fast onto that rail while the rest of me
streamed out in the air like a burgee. Next thing I knew we was scooting
back towards Dillaway's, with the sail catching every ounce that was
blowing. Jonadab was braced across the tiller, and there, behind us, was
the Honorable Philip Catesby-Stuart, flat on his back, with his blanket
legs looking like a pair of compasses, and skimming in whirligigs over
the slick ice towards Albany. HE hadn't had nothing to hold onto, you
understand. Well, if I hadn't seen it, I wouldn't have b'lieved that a
human being could spin so long or travel so fast on his back. His legs
made a kind of smoky circle in the air over him, and he'd got such a
start I thought he'd NEVER STOP a-going. He come to a place where some
snow had melted in the sun and there was a pond, as you might say,
on the ice, and he went through that, heaving spray like one of them
circular lawn sprinklers the summer folks have. He'd have been as pretty
as a fountain, if we'd had time to stop and look at him.
“For the land sakes, heave to!” I yelled, soon's I could get my breath.
“You've spilled the skipper!”
“Skipper be durned!” howls Jonadab, squeezing the tiller and keeping on
the course; “We'll come back for him by and by. It's our business to win
this race.”
And, by ginger! we DID win it. The way Jonadab coaxed that cocked hat on
runners over the ice was pretty--yes, sir, pretty! He nipped her close
enough to the wind'ard, and he took advantage of every single chance.
He always COULD sail; I'll say that for him. We walked up on Archie like
he'd set down to rest, and passed him afore he was within a half mile of
home. We run up abreast of Dillaway's, putting on all the fancy frills
of a liner coming into port, and there was Ebenezer and a whole crowd of
wedding company down by the landing.
“Gosh!” says Jonadab, tugging at his whiskers: “'Twas Cape Cod against
New York that time, and you can't beat the Cape when it comes to getting
over water, not even if the water's froze. Hey, Barzilla?”
Ebenezer came hopping over the ice towards us. He looked some surprised.
“Where's Phil?” he says.
Now, I'd clean forgot Phil and I guess Jonadab had, by the way he
colored up.
“Phil?” says he. “Phil? Oh, yes! We left him up the road a piece. Maybe
we'd better go after him now.”
But old Dillaway had something to say.
“Cap'n,” he says, looking round to make sure none of the comp'ny was
follering him out to the ice-boat. “I've wanted to speak to you afore,
but I haven't had the chance. You mustn't b'lieve too much of what Mr.
Catesby-Stuart says, nor you mustn't always do just what he suggests.
You see,” he says, “he's a dreadful practical joker.”
“Yes,” says Jonadab, beginning to look sick. I didn't say nothing, but I
guess I looked the same way.
“Yes,” said Ebenezer, kind of uneasy like; “Now, in that matter of Mrs.
Granby. I s'pose Phil put you up to asking her about her son's laundry.
Yes? Well, I thought so. You see, the fact is, her boy is a broker down
in Wall Street, and he's been caught making some of what they call 'wash
sales' of stock. It's against the rules of the Exchange to do that, and
the papers have been full of the row. You can see,” says Dillaway, “how
the laundry question kind of stirred the old lady up. But, Lord! it must
have been funny,” and he commenced to grin.
I looked at Jonadab, and he looked at me. I thought of Marm Granby, and
her being “dying to know us,” and I thought of the lies about the “hod
of change” and all the rest, and I give you my word _I_ didn't grin, not
enough to show my wisdom teeth, anyhow. A crack in the ice an inch wide
would have held me, with room to spare; I know that.
“Hum!” grunts Jonadab, kind of dry and bitter, as if he'd been taking
wormwood tea; “_I_ see. He's been having a good time making durn fools
out of us.”
“Well,” says Ebenezer, “not exactly that, p'raps, but--”
And then along comes Archie and his crowd in the other ice-boat.
“Hi!” he yells. “Who sailed that boat of yours? He knew his business all
right. I never saw anything better. Phil--why, where IS Phil?”