THE POSTMASTER
BY JOSEPH C. LINCOLN
Author of "The Depot Master," "Cap’n Warrens Wards,"
"Cap’n Eri," "Mr. Pratt," etc.
_With Four Illustrations_
_By_ HOWARD HEATH
A. L. BURT COMPANY
_Publishers New York_
_Copyright, 1912, by_
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
Copyright, 1911, 1912, by the Curtis Publishing Company
Copyright, 1911, 1912, by the Ainslee Magazine Company
Copyright, 1912, by the Ridgeway Company
Published, April, 1912
Printed in the United States of America
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[Illustration: _Seems to me I never saw her look prettier._]
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CONTENTS
CHAPTER I—I MAKE TWO BETS—AND LOSE ONE OF ’EM
CHAPTER II—WHAT A "PULLET" DID TO A PEDIGREE
CHAPTER III—I GET INTO POLITICS
CHAPTER IV—HOW I MADE A CLAM CHOWDER; AND WHAT A CLAM CHOWDER MADE
OF ME
CHAPTER V—A TRAP AND WHAT THE "RAT" CAUGHT IN IT
CHAPTER VI—I RUN AFOUL OF COUSIN LEMUEL
CHAPTER VII—THE FORCE AND THE OBJECT
CHAPTER VIII—ARMENIANS AND INJUNS; LIKEWISE BY-PRODUCTS
CHAPTER IX—ROSES—BY ANOTHER NAME
CHAPTER X—THE SIGN OF THE WINDMILL
CHAPTER XI—COOKS AND CROOKS
CHAPTER XII—JIM HENRY STARTS SCREENIN’
CHAPTER XIII—WHAT CAME THROUGH THE SCREEN
CHAPTER XIV—THE EPISTLE TO ICHABOD
CHAPTER XV—HOW IKE’S LOSS TURNED OUT TO BE MY GAIN
CHAPTER XVI—I PAY MY OTHER BET
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THE POSTMASTER
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CHAPTER I—I MAKE TWO BETS—AND LOSE ONE OF ’EM
"So you’re through with the sea for good, are you, Cap’n Zeb," says Mr.
Pike.
"You bet!" says I. "Through for good is just _what_ I am."
"Well, I’m sorry, for the firm’s sake," he says. "It won’t seem natural
for the _Fair Breeze_ to make port without you in command. Cap’n, you’re
goin’ to miss the old schooner."
"Cal’late I shall—some—along at fust," I told him. "But I’ll get over
it, same as the cat got over missin’ the canary bird’s singin’; and I’ll
have the cat’s consolation—that I done what seemed best for me."
He laughed. He and I were good friends, even though he was ship-owner
and I was only skipper, just retired.
"So you’re goin’ back to Ostable?" he says. "What are you goin’ to do
after you get there?"
"Nothin’; thank you very much," says I, prompt.
"No work at _all_?" he says, surprised. "Not a hand’s turn? Goin’ to be
a gentleman of leisure, hey?"
"Nigh as I can, with my trainin’. The ’leisure’ part’ll be all right,
anyway."
He shook his head and laughed again.
"I think I see you," says he. "Cap’n, you’ve been too busy all your life
even to get married, and—"
"Humph!" I cut in. "Most married men I’ve met have been a good deal
busier than ever I was. And a good deal more worried when business was
dull. No, sir-ee! ’twa’n’t that that kept me from gettin’ married. I’ve
been figgerin’ on the day when I could go home and settle down. If I’d
had a wife all these years I’d have been figgerin’ on bein’ able to
settle up. I ain’t goin’ to Ostable to get married."
"I’ll bet you do, just the same," says he. "And I’ll bet you somethin’
else: I’ll bet a new hat, the best one I can buy, that inside of a year
you’ll be head over heels in some sort of hard work. It may not be
seafarin’, but it’ll be somethin’ to keep you busy. You’re too good a
man to rust in the scrap heap. Come! I’ll bet the hat. What do you say?"
"Take you," says I, quick. "And if you want to risk another on my
marryin’, I’ll take that, too."
"Go you," says he. "You’ll be married inside of three years—or five,
anyway."
"One year that I’ll be at work—steady work—and five that I’m married.
You’re shipped, both ways. And I wear a seven and a quarter, soft hat,
black preferred."
"If I don’t win the first bet I will the second, sure," he says,
confident. "’Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands,’ you know.
Well, good-by, and good luck. Come in and see us whenever you get to New
York."
We shook hands, and I walked out of that office, the office that had
been my home port ever since I graduated from fust mate to skipper. And
on the way to the Fall River boat I vowed my vow over and over again.
"Zebulon Snow," I says to myself—not out loud, you understand; for,
accordin’ to Scriptur’ or the Old Farmers’ Almanac or somethin’, a
feller who talks to himself is either rich or crazy and, though I was
well enough fixed to keep the wolf from the door, I wa’n’t by no means
so crazy as to leave the door open and take chances—"Zebulon Snow," says
I, "you’re forty-eight year old and blessedly single. All your life
you’ve been haulin’ ropes, or bossin’ fo’mast hands, or tryin’ to make
harbor in a fog. Now that you’ve got an anchor to wind’ard—now that the
one talent you put under the stock exchange napkin has spread out so
that you have to have a tablecloth to tote it home in, don’t you be a
fool. Don’t plant it again, cal’latin’ to fill a mains’l next time,
’cause you won’t do it. Take what you’ve got and be thankful—and
careful. You go ashore at Ostable, where you was born, and settle down
and be somebody."
That’s about what I said to myself, and that’s what I started to do. I
made Ostable on the next mornin’s train. The town had changed a whole
lot since I left it, mainly on account of so many summer folks buyin’
and buildin’ everywhere, especially along the water front. The few
reg’lar inhabitants that I knew seemed to be glad to see me, which I
took as a sort of compliment, for it don’t always foller by a
consider’ble sight. I got into the depot wagon—the same horse was
drawin’ it, I judged, that Eben Hendricks had bought when I was a
boy—and asked to be carted to the Travelers’ Inn. It appeared that there
wa’n’t any Travelers’ Inn now, that is to say, the name of it had been
changed to the Poquit House; "Poquit" bein’ Injun or Portygee or
somethin’ foreign.
But the name was the only thing about that hotel that was changed. The
grub was the same and the wallpaper on the rooms they showed to me
looked about the same age as I was, and wa’n’t enough handsomer to
count, either. I hired a couple of them rooms, one to sleep in and smoke
in, and t’other to entertain the parson in, if he should call,
which—unless the profession had changed, too—I judged he would do pretty
quick. I had the rooms cleaned and papered, bought some dyspepsy
medicine to offset the meals I was likely to have, and settled down to
be what Mr. Pike had called a "gentleman of leisure."
Fust three months ’twas fine. At the end of the second three it
commenced to get a little mite dull. In about two more I found my mind
was shrinkin’ so that the little mean cat-talks at the breakfast table
was beginnin’ to seem interestin’ and important. Then I knew ’twas time
to doctor up with somethin’ besides dyspepsy pills. Ossification was
settin’ in and I’d got to do somethin’ to keep me interested, even if I
paid for Pike’s hats for the next generation.
You see, there was such a sameness to the programme. Turn out in the
mornin’, eat and listen to gossip, go out and take a walk, smoke, talk
with folks I met—more gossip—come back and eat again, go over and watch
the carpenters on the latest summer cottage, smoke some more, eat some
more, and then go down to the Ostable Grocery, Dry Goods, Boots and
Shoes and Fancy Goods Store, or to the post-office, and set around with
the gang till bedtime. That may be an excitin’ life for a jellyfish, or
a reg’lar Ostable loafer—but it didn’t suit me.
I was feelin’ that way, and pretty desperate, the night when Winthrop
Adams Beanblossom—which wa’n’t the critter’s name but is nigh enough to
the real one for him to cruise under in this yarn—told me the story of
his life and started me on the v’yage that come to mean so much to me. I
didn’t know 'twas goin’ to mean much of anything when I started in. But
that night Winthrop got me to paddlin’, so’s to speak, and, later on,
come Jim Henry Jacobs to coax me into deeper water; and, after that, the
combination of them two and Miss Letitia Lee Pendlebury shoved me in all
under, so ’twas a case of stickin’ to it or swimmin’ or drownin’.
I was in the Ostable Store that evenin’, as usual. 'Twas almost nine
o’clock and the rest of the bunch around the stove had gone home. I was
fillin’ my pipe and cal’latin’ to go, too—if you can call a tavern like
the Poquit House a home. Beanblossom was in behind the desk, his funny
little grizzly-gray head down over a pile of account books and papers,
his specs roostin’ on the end of his thin nose, and his pen scratchin’
away like a stray hen in a flower bed.
"Well, Beanblossom," says I, gettin’ up and stretchin’, "I cal’late it’s
time to shed the partin’ tear. I’ll leave you to figger out whether to
spend this week’s profits in government bonds or trips to Europe and go
and lay my weary bones in the tomb, meanin’ my private vault on the
second floor of the Poquit. Adieu, Beanblossom," I says; "remember me at
my best, won’t you?"
He didn’t seem to sense what I was drivin’ at. He lifted his head out of
the books and papers, heaved a sigh that must have started somewheres
down along his keelson, and says, sorrowful but polite—he was always
polite—"Er—yes? You were addressin’ me, Cap’n Snow?"
"Nothin’ in particular," I says. "I was just askin’ if you intended
spendin’ your profits on a trip to Europe this summer."
Would you believe it, that little storekeepin’ man looked at me through
his specs, his pale face twitchin’ and workin’ like a youngster’s when
he’s tryin’ not to cry, and then, all to once, he broke right down,
leaned his head on his hands and sobbed out loud.
I looked at him. "For the dear land sakes," I sung out, soon’s I could
collect sense enough to say anything, "what is the matter? Is anybody
dead or—"
He groaned. "Dead?" he interrupted. "I wish to heaven, I was dead."
"Well!" I gasps. "_Well!_"
"Oh, why," says he, "was I ever born?"
That bein’ a question that I didn’t feel competent to answer, I didn’t
try. My remark about goin’ to Europe was intended for a joke, but if my
jokes made grown-up folks cry I cal’lated ’twas time I turned serious.
"What _is_ the matter, Beanblossom?" I says. "Are you in trouble?"
For a spell he wouldn’t answer, just kept on sobbin’ and wringin’ his
thin hands, but, after consider’ble of such, and a good many
unsatisfyin’ remarks, he give in and told me the whole yarn, told me all
his troubles. They were complicated and various.
Picked over and b’iled down they amounted to this: He used to have an
income and he lived on it—in bachelor quarters up to Boston. Nigh as I
could gather he never did any real work except to putter in libraries
and collect books and such. Then, somehow or other, the bank the heft of
his money was in broke up and his health broke down. The doctors said he
must go away into the country. He couldn’t afford to go and do nothin’,
so he has a wonderful inspiration—he’ll buy a little store in what he
called a "rural community" and go into business. He advertises, "Country
Store Wanted Cheap," or words to that effect. Abial Beasley’s widow had
the "Ostable Grocery, Dry Goods, Boots and Shoes and Fancy Goods Store"
on her hands. She answers the ad and they make a dicker. Said dicker
took about all the cash Beanblossom had left. For a year he had been
fightin’ along tryin’ to make both ends meet, but now they was so fur
apart they was likely to meet on the back stretch. He owed 'most a
thousand dollars, his trade was fallin’ off, he hadn’t a cent and nobody
to turn to. What should he do? _What_ should he do?
That was another question I couldn’t answer off hand. It was plain
enough why he was in the hole he was, but how to get him out was
different. I set down on the edge of the counter, swung my legs and
tried to think.
"Hum," says I, "you don’t know much about keepin’ store, do you,
Beanblossom? Didn’t know nothin’ about it when you started in?"
He shook his head. "I’m afraid not, Cap’n Snow," he says. "Why should I?
I never was obliged to labor. I was not interested in trade. I never
supposed I should be brought to this. I am a man of family, Cap’n Snow."
"Yes," I says, "so’m I. Number eight in a family of thirteen. But that
never helped me none. My experience is that you can’t count much on your
relations."
Would I pardon him, but that was not the sense in which he had used the
word "family." He meant that he came of the best blood in New England.
His ancestors had made their marks and—
"Made their marks!" I put in. "Why? Couldn’t they write their names?"
He was dreadful shocked, but he explained. The Beanblossoms and their
gang were big-bugs, fine folks. He was terrible proud of his family.
During the latter part of his life in Boston he had become interested in
genealogy. He had begun a "family tree"—whatever that was—but he never
finished it. The smash came and shook him out of the branches; that
wa’n’t what he said, but ’twas the way I sensed it. And now he had come
to this. His money was gone; he couldn’t pay his debts; he couldn’t have
any more credit. He must fail; he was bankrupt. Oh, the disgrace! and
likewise oh, the poorhouse!
"But," says I, considerin’, "it can’t be so turrible bad. You don’t owe
but a thousand dollars, this store’s the only one in town and Abial used
to do pretty well with it. If your debts was paid, and you had a little
cash to stock up with, seems to me you might make a decent v’yage yet.
Couldn’t you?"
He didn’t know. Perhaps he could. But what was the use of talkin’ that
way? For him to pick up a thousand would be about as easy as for a
paralyzed man with boxin’ gloves on to pick up a flea, or words to that
effect. No, no, ’twas no use! he must go to the poorhouse! and so forth
and so on.
"You hold on," I says. "Don’t you engage your poorhouse berth yet. You
keep mum and say nothin’ to nobody and let me think this over a spell. I
need somethin’ to keep me interested and ... I’ll see you to-morrow
sometime. Good night."
I went home thinkin’ and I thought till pretty nigh one o’clock. Then I
decided I was a fool even to think for five minutes. Hadn’t I sworn to
be careful and never take another risk? I was sorry for poor old
Winthrop, but I couldn’t afford to mix pity and good legal tender; that
was the sort of blue and yeller drink that filled the poor-debtors’
courts. And, besides, wasn’t I pridin’ myself on bein’ a gentleman of
leisure. If I got mixed up in this, no tellin’ what I might be led into.
Hadn’t I bragged to Pike about—Oh, I _was_ a fool!
Which was all right, only, after listenin’ to the breakfast conversation
at the Poquit House, down I goes to the store and afore the forenoon was
over I was Winthrop Adams Beanblossom’s silent partner to the extent of
twenty-five hundred dollars. I was busy once more and glad of it, even
though Pike _was_ goin’ to get a hat free.
This was in January. By early March I was twice as busy and not half as
glad. You see I’d cal’lated that the store was all right, all it needed
was financin’. Trade was just asleep, taking a nap, and I could wake it
up. I was wrong. Trade was dead, and, barrin’ the comin’ of a prophet or
some miracle worker to fetch it to life, what that shop was really
sufferin’ for was an undertaker. My twenty-five hundred was funeral
expenses, that’s all.
But the prophet came. Yes, sir, he came and fetched his miracle with
him. One evenin’, after all the reg’lar customers, who set around in
chairs borrowin’ our genuine tobacco and payin’ for it with counterfeit
funny stories, had gone—after everybody, as we cal’lated, had cleared
out—Beanblossom and I set down to hold our usual autopsy over the
remains of the fortni’t’s trade. ’Twas a small corpse and didn’t take
long to dissect. We’d lost twenty-one dollars and sixty-eight cents, and
the only comfort in that was that ’twas seventy-six cents less than the
two weeks previous. The weather had been some cooler and less stuff had
sp’iled on our hands; that accounted for the savin’.
Beanblossom—I’d got into the habit of callin’ him "Pullet" ’cause his
general build was so similar to a moultin’ chicken—he vowed he couldn’t
understand it.
"I think I shall give up buyin’ so liberally, Cap’n Snow," says he. "If
we didn’t keep on buyin’ we shouldn’t lose half so much," he says.
"Yes," says I, "that’s logic. And if we give up sellin’ we shouldn’t
lose the other half. You and me are all right as fur as we go, Pullet,
and I guess we’ve gone about as fur as we can."
"Please don’t call me ’Pullet,’" he says, dignified. "When I think of
what I once was, it—"
"S-sh-h!" I broke in. "It’s what I am that troubles me. I don’t dare
think of that when the minister’s around—he might be a mind-reader. No,
Pul—Beanblossom, I mean—it’s no use. I imagined because I could run a
three-masted schooner I could navigate this craft. I can’t. I know twice
as much as you do about keepin’ store, but the trouble with that example
is the answer, which is that you don’t know nothin’. We might just
exactly as well shut up shop now, while there’s enough left to square
the outstandin’ debts."
He turned white and began the hand-wringin’ exercise.
"Think of the disgrace!" he says.
"Think of my twenty-five hundred," says I.
"Excuse me, gentlemen," says a voice astern of us; "excuse me for
buttin’ in; but I judge that what you need is a butter."
Pullet and I jumped and turned round. We’d supposed we was alone and to
say we was surprised is puttin’ it mild. For a second I couldn’t make
out what had happened, or where the voice came from, or who ’twas that
had spoke—then, as he come across into the lamplight I recognized him.
’Twas Jim Henry Jacobs, the livin’ mystery.
[Illustration: _As he come across into the lamplight I recognized him._]
Jim Henry was middlin’-sized, sharp-faced, dressed like a ready-tailored
advertisement, and as smooth and slick as an eel in a barrel of sweet
ile. Accordin’ to his entry on the books of the Poquit House he hailed
from Chicago. He’d been in Ostable for pretty nigh a month and nobody
had been able to find out any more about him than just that, which is a
some miracle of itself—if you know Ostable. He was always ready to
talk—talkin’ was one of his main holts—but when you got through talkin’
with him all you had to remember was a smile and a flow of words. He was
at the seashore for his health, that he always give you to understand.
You could believe it if you wanted to.
He’d got into the habit of spendin’ his evenin’s at Pullet’s store,
settin’ around listenin’ and smilin’ and agreein’ with folks. He was the
only feller I ever met who could say no and agree with you at the same
time. Solon Saunders tried to borrow fifty cents of him once and when
the pair of ’em parted, Saunders was scratchin’ his head and lookin’
puzzled. "I can’t understand it," says Solon. "I would have swore he’d
lent it to me. ’Twas just as if I had the fifty in my hand. I—I thanked
him for it and all that, but—but now he’s gone I don’t seem to be no
richer than when I started. I can’t understand it."
Pullet and I had seen him settin’ abaft the stove early in the evenin’,
but, somehow or other, we got the notion that he’d cleared out with the
other loafers. However, he hadn’t, and he’d heard all we’d been sayin’.
He walked across to where we was, pulled a shoe box from under the
counter, come to anchor on it and crossed his legs.
"Gentlemen," he says again, "you need a butter."
Poor old Pullet was so set back his brains was sort of scrambled, like a
pan of eggs.
"Er-er, Mr. Jacobs," he says, "I am very sorry, extremely sorry, but we
are all out just at this minute. I fully intended to order some to-day,
but I—I guess I must have forgotten it."
Jacobs couldn’t seem to make any more out of this than I did.
"Out?" he says, wonderin’. "Out? Who’s out? What’s out? I guess I’ve
dropped the key or lost the combination. What’s the answer?"
"Why, butter," says Pullet, apologizin’. "You asked for butter, didn’t
you? As I was sayin’, I should have ordered some to-day, but—"
Jim Henry waved his hands. "Sh-h," he says, "don’t mention it. Forget
it. If I’d wanted butter in this emporium I should have asked for
somethin’ else. I’ve been givin’ this mart of trade some attention for
the past three weeks and I judge that its specialty is bein’ able to
supply what ain’t wanted. I hinted that you two needed a butter-in. All
right. I’m the goat. Now if you’ll kindly give me your attention, I’ll
elucidate."
We give the attention. After he’d "elucidated" for five minutes we’d
have given him our clothes. You never heard such a mess of language as
that Chicago man turned loose. He talked and talked and talked. He knew
all about the store and the business, and what he didn’t know he guessed
and guessed right. He knew about Pullet and his buyin’ the place, about
my goin’ in as silent partner—though _that_ nobody was supposed to know.
He knew the shebang wa’n’t payin’ and, also and moreover, he knew why.
And he had the remedy buttoned up in his jacket—the name of it was James
Henry Jacobs.
"Gentlemen," he says, "I’m a specialist. I’m a doctor of sick business.
Ever since my medicine man ordered me to quit the giddy metropolis and
the Grand Central Department Store, where I was third assistant manager,
I’ve been driftin’ about seekin’ a nice, quiet hamlet and an
opportunity. Here’s the ham and, if you say the word, here’s the
opportunity. This shop is in a decline; it’s got creepin’ paralysis and
locomotive hang-back-tia. There’s only one thing that can change the
funeral to a silver weddin’—that’s to call in Old Doctor Jacobs. Here he
is, with his pocket full of testimonials. Now you listen."
We’d been listenin’—’twas by long odds the easiest thing to do—and we
kept right on. He had testimonials—he showed ’em to us—and they took
oath to his bein’ honest and the eighth business wonder of the world. He
went on to elaborate. He had a thousand to invest and he’d invest it
provided we’d take him in as manager and give him full swing. He’d
guarantee—etcetery and so on, unlimited and eternal.
"But," says I, when he stopped to eat a throat lozenge, "sellin’ goods
is one thing; gettin’ the right goods to sell is another. Me and
Pullet—Mr. Beanblossom here—have tried to keep a pretty fair-sized
stock, but it’s the kind of stock that keeps better’n it sells."
"Sell!" he puts in. "You can sell anything, if you know how. See here,
let me prove it to you. You think this over to-night and to-morrow
forenoon I’ll be on hand and demonstrate. Just put on your smoked
glasses and watch me. _I’ll_ show you."
He did. Next mornin’ old Aunt Sarah Oliver came in to buy a hank of
black yarn to darn stockin’s with. With diplomacy and patience the
average feller could conclude that dicker in an hour and a quarter—if he
had the yarn. Pullet was just out of black, of course, but that Jim
Henry Jacobs stepped alongside and within twenty minutes he sold Aunt
Sarah two packages of needles, a brass thimble and a half dozen pair of
blue and yellow striped stockin’s that had been on the shelves since
Abial Beasley’s time, and was so loud that a sane person wouldn’t dare
wear ’em except when it thundered. She went out of the store with her
bundles in one hand and holdin’ her head with the other. Then that Jim
Henry man turned to Pullet and me.
"Well?" he says, serene and smilin’.
It was well, all right. At just quarter to twelve that night the
arrangements was made. Jacobs was partner in and manager of the "Ostable
Grocery, Dry Goods, Boots and Shoes and Fancy Goods Store."