“YE don’t say?”
“I do though.”
“Wa’al, I never.”
“Nuther did I—adzackly.”
“Don’t be provokin’, Ephr’m—what makes you talk in that dou’fle way?”
“Wa’al, ma, the world hain’t all squeezed into this yere little town of
Crankett. I’ve been elsewheres, some, an’ I’ve seed some funny things,
and likewise some that wuzn’t so funny ez they might be.”
“P’r’aps ye hev, but ye needn’t allus be a-settin’ other folks down.
Mebbe Crankett ain’t the whole world, but it’s seed that awful case of
Molly Capins, and the shipwreck of thirty-four, when the awful
nor’easter wuz, an’——”
“Wa’al, wa’al, ma—don’t let’s fight ’bout it,” said Ephr’m, with a sigh,
as he tenderly scraped down a new ax-helve with a piece of glass, while
his wife made the churn-dasher hurry up and down as if the innocent
cream was Ephr’m’s back, and she was avenging thereon Ephr’m’s insults
to Crankett and its people.
Deacon Ephraim Crankett was a descendant of the founder of the village,
and although now a sixty-year old farmer, he had in his lifetime seen
considerable of the world. He had been to the fishing-banks a dozen
times, been whaling twice, had carried a cargo of wheat up the
Mediterranean, and had been second officer of a ship which had picked up
a miscellaneous cargo in the heathen ports of Eastern Asia.
[Illustration:
JIM HOCKSON’S REVENGE—“HE HELD IT UNDER THE LIGHT, AND EXAMINED IT
CLOSELY.”
]
He had picked up a great many ideas, too, wherever he had been, and his
wife was immensely proud of him and them, whenever she could compare
them with the men and ideas which existed at Crankett; but when Ephr’m
displayed his memories and knowledge to her alone—oh, that was a very
different thing.
“Anyhow,” resumed Mrs. Crankett, raising the lid of the churn to see if
there were any signs of butter, “it’s an everlastin’ shame. Jim
Hockson’s a young feller in good standin’ in the Church, an’ Millie
Botayne’s an unbeliever—they say her father’s a reg’lar infidel.”
“Easy, ma, easy,” gently remonstrated Ephr’m. “When he seed you lookin’
at his pet rose-bush on yer way to church las’ Sunday, didn’t he hurry
an’ pull two or three an’ han’ ’em to ye?”
“Yes, an’ what did he hev’ in t’other han’?—a Boasting paper, an’ not a
Sunday one, nuther! Millicent ain’t a Christian name, nohow ye can fix
it—it amounts to jest ’bout’s much ez she does, an’ that’s nothing.
She’s got a soft face, an’ purty hair—ef it’s all her own, which I
powerfully doubt—an’ after that ther’s nothin’ to her. She’s never been
to sewin’ meetin’, an’ she’s off a boatin’ with that New York chap every
Saturday afternoon, instead of goin’ to the young people’s
prayer-meetin’s.”
“She’s most supported Sam Ransom’s wife an’ young uns since Sam’s smack
was lost,” suggested Ephr’m.
“That’s you, Deac’n Crankett,” replied his wife, “always stick up for
sinners. P’r’aps you’d make better use of your time ef you’d examine yer
own evidences.”
“Wa’al, wife,” said the deacon, “she’s engaged to that New York feller,
ez you call Mr. Brown, so there’s no danger of Jim bein’ onequally yoked
with an onbeliever. An’ I wish her well, from the bottom of my heart.”
“_I_ don’t,” cried Mrs. Crankett, giving the dasher a vicious push,
which sent the cream flying frantically up to the top of the churn; “I
hope he’ll turn out bad, an’ her pride’ll be tuk down ez——”
The deacon had been long enough at sea to know the signs of a long
storm, and to know that prudence suggested a prompt sailing out of the
course of such a storm, when possible; so he started for the door,
carrying the glass and ax-helve with him. Suddenly the door opened, and
a female figure ran so violently against the ax-helve, that the said
figure was instantly tumbled to the floor, and seemed an irregular mass
of faded pink calico, and subdued plaid shawl.
“Miss Peekin!” exclaimed Mrs. Crankett, dropping the churn-dasher and
opening her eyes.
“Like to ha’ not been,” whined the figure, slowly arising and giving the
offending ax-helve a glance which would have set it on fire had it not
been of green hickory; “but—_hev_ you heerd?”
“What?” asked Mrs. Crankett, hastily setting a chair for the newcomer,
while Ephr’m, deacon and sixty though he was, paused in his almost
completed exit.
“_He’s_ gone!” exclaimed Miss Peekin.
“Oh, I heerd Jim hed gone to Califor——”
“Pshaw!” said Miss Peekin, contemptuously; “that was days ago! I mean
Brown—the New York chap—Millie Botayne’s lover!”
“Ye don’t?”
“But I do; an’ what’s more, he _had_ to. Ther wuz men come after him in
the nighttime, but he must hev heard ’em, fur they didn’t find him in
his room, an’ this mornin’ they found that his sailboat was gone, too.
An’ what’s more, ther’s a printed notice up about him, an’ he’s a
defaulter, and there’s five thousand dollars for whoever catches him,
an’ he’s stole _twenty-five_, an’ he’s all described in the notice, as
p’ticular as if he was a full-blood Alderney cow.”
“Poor fellow,” sighed the deacon, for which interruption he received a
withering glance from Miss Peekin.
“They say Millie’s a-goin’ on awful, and that she sez she’ll marry him
now if he’ll come back. But it ain’t likely he’ll be such a fool; now
he’s got so much money, he don’t need hern. Reckon her an’ her father
won’t be so high an’ mighty an’ stuck up now. It’s powerful discouragin’
to the righteous to see the ungodly flourishin’ so, an’ a-rollin’ in
ther wealth, when ther betters has to be on needles all year fur fear
the next mack’ril catch won’t ‘mount to much. The idee of her bein’
willin’ to marry a defaulter! I can’t understand it.”
“Poor girl!” sighed Mrs. Crankett, wiping one eye with the corner of her
apron. “I’d do it myself, ef I was her?”
The deacon dropped the ax-helve, and gave his wife a tender kiss on each
eye.