Well, sir, even the Major’s guns was spiked for a minute. I cal’late
that, for once, he’d forgot all about his dietizin’ and only remembered
his appetite. He gurgled and choked and glared. Afore he could get his
artillery ready for a broadside I walked off and left him. He’d riled me
up a little and I saw a chance to rile him back.
I went around to the back part of the Crowell house and tried the
kitchen door. ’Twas locked, for a wonder, but the window side of it
wasn’t. I pushed up the sash and reached in fur enough to unhook the
door. Then I went into the house and begun to overhaul the supplies in
the galley. I found flour and sugar and salt and pepper and coffee and
butter and canned milk and salt pork—about everything I wanted. Jonathan
and I was friendly enough so’s I knew he wouldn’t care what I used so
long as I paid for it. If he had I’d have taken the risk, just then.
The wood-box was full and I got a fire goin’ in the cookstove, and put
on a couple of kettles of water to heat. Then I went out to the shed and
located a clam hoe and a bucket. There’s clams a-plenty ’most anywheres
along that beach and the tide was out fur enough for me to get a
bucket-full of small ones in no time. I fetched ’em up to the house and
set down on the back step to open 'em.
The Major and Shelton was watchin’ me all this time and they looked
interested—that is, the Congressman did, and Clark was doin’ his best
not to. Pretty soon Shelton walks over and asks a question. "What are
you doin’ with those things, Cap’n Snow?" says he, referrin’ to the
clams.
"Oh," says I, cheerful, "I’m figgerin’ on makin’ a chowder, if nothin’
busts."
"A chowder," he says, sort of eager. "A clam chowder? Can you?"
"I can. That is, I have made a good many and I cal’late to make this
one, unless I’m struck with paralysis."
"A clam chowder!" he says again, sort of eager but reverent. "By George!
that’s good—er—for you, I mean."
"I hope ’twill be good for you, too," says I. "I’m sorry that Major
Clark’s dyspepsy’s such that 'twon’t be good for him, but that’s his
misfortune, not my fault."
Shelton looked sort of queer and went away to jine his chum. The two of
’em did consider’ble talkin’ and the Major appeared to be deliverin’ a
sermon, at least I heard a good many orthodox words in the course of it.
I finished my clam openin’, went in and got my cookin’ started. The
flour and the butter made me think that some hot spider-bread would go
good with the chowder and I started to mix a batch. Then I got another
idea.
'Twas too late for huckleberries and such, but out back of the shed,
beyond the pines, was a little swampy place. I took a tin pail, went out
there and filled the pail with early wild cranberries in five minutes.
As I was comin’ back I noticed an onion patch in the garden. A chowder
without onions is like a camp-meetin’ Sunday without your best
girl—pretty flat and impersonal. Most of those left in the patch had
gone to seed, but I got a half dozen.
After a short spell that kitchen begun to get fragrant and folksy, as
you might say. The coffee was b’ilin’, the chowder was about ready,
there was a pan of red-hot spider-bread on the back of the stove and a
cranberry shortcake—’twould have been better with cream, but to skim
condensed milk is more exercise than profit—in the oven. I’d opened all
the windows and the door, so the smell drifted out and livened up the
surroundin’ scenery. Clark and Shelton were settin’ on a sand hummock a
little ways off and I could see ’em wrinklin’ their noses.
When the table was set and everything was ready I put my head out of the
window and hollered:
"Dinner!" I sung out.
There wa’n’t any answer. The pair on the hummock stirred and acted
uneasy, but they didn’t move. I ladled out some of the chowder and the
perfume of it got more pervadin’ and extensive. Then I rattled the
dishes and tried again.
"Dinner!" I hollered. "Come on; chowder’s gettin’ cold."
Still they didn’t move and I begun to think my fun had been all for
myself. I was disappointed, but I set down to the table and commenced to
eat. Then I heard a noise. The pair of ’em had drifted over to the
doorway and was lookin’ in.
"Hello!" says I, blowin’ a spoonful of chowder to cool it. "Am I givin’
a good imitation of a hungry man? If I ain’t, appearances are
deceitful."
"_Hog!_" snarls Clark, with enthusiasm.
"Not at all," says I. "There’s plenty of everything and Mr. Shelton’s
welcome. So would you be, Major, if there was anything aboard you could
eat. I’m awful sorry about them prunes and nutmeats. I only wish Crowell
had laid in a supply—I do so."
The Major’s mouth was waterin’ so he had to swallow afore he could
answer. When he did I realized what he was at his best. Shelton didn’t
say a word, but the looks of him was enough.
"My, my!" says I, "I’m glad I made a whole kettleful of this stuff; I
can use a grown man’s share of it."
Shelton looked at Clark and Clark looked at him. Then the Major yelps at
him like a sore pup.
"Go ahead!" he shouts. "Go ahead in! Don’t stand starin’ at me like a
cannibal. Go in and eat, why don’t you?"
You could see the Congressman was divided in his feelin’s. He wanted
dinner worse than the Old Harry wanted the backslidin’ deacon, but he
hated to desert his friend.
"You’re sure—" he stammered. "It seems mean to leave you, but.... Sure
you wouldn’t mind? If it wasn’t that you are on a diet and _can’t_ eat I
shouldn’t think of it, but—"
"Shut up!" The Major fairly whooped it to Jericho. "If you talk diet to
me again I’ll kill you. Go in and eat. Eat, you idiot! I’d just as soon
watch two pigs as one. Go in!"
So Shelton came in and I had a plate of chowder waitin’ for him. He
grabbed up his spoon and didn’t speak until he’d finished the whole of
it. Then he fetched a long breath, passed the plate for more, and says
he:
"By George, Cap’n, that is the best stuff I ever tasted. You’re a
wonderful cook."
"Much obliged," says I. "But you ain’t competent to judge until after
the third helpin’. And now you try a slab of that spider-bread and a cup
of coffee. And don’t forget to leave room for the shortcake because....
Well, I swan to man! Why, Major Clark, are you crazy?"
For, as sure as I’m settin’ here, old Clark had come bustin’ into that
kitchen, yanked a chair up to that table, grabbed a plate and the ladle
and was helpin’ himself to chowder.
"Major!" says I.
"Why, _Cobden_!" says Shelton.
"Shut up!" roars the Major. "If either of you say a word I won’t be
responsible for the consequences."
We didn’t say anything and neither did he. Judgin’ by the silence ’twas
a mighty solemn occasion. Everybody ate chowder and just thought, I
guess.
"Pass me that bread," snaps Clark.
"But Cobden," says Shelton again.
"It’s hot," says I, "and it’s fried, and—"
"Give it to me! If you don’t I shall know it’s because you’re too
rip-slap stingy to part with it."
After that, there was nothin’ to be done but the one thing. He got the
bread and he ate it—not one slice, but two. And he drank coffee and ate
a three-inch slab of shortcake. When the meal was over there wa’n’t
enough left to feed a healthy canary.
"Now," growls the Major, turnin’ to Shelton, "have you a cigar in your
pocket? If you have, hand it over."
The Congressman fairly gasped. "A cigar!" he sings out. "You—goin’ to
_smoke_? _You?_"
"Yes—me. I’m goin’ to die anyway. This murderer here," p’intin’ to me,
"laid his plans to kill me and he’s succeeded. But I’ll die happy. Give
me that cigar! If you had a drink about you I’d take that."
He bit the end off his cigar, lit it, and slammed out of that kitchen,
puffin’ like a soft-coal tug. Shelton shook his head at me and I shook
mine back.
"Do you s’pose he _will_ die?" he asked. "He’s eaten enough to kill
anybody. And with his stomach! And to smoke!"
"The dear land knows," says I. To tell you the truth I was a little
conscience-struck and worried. My idea had been to play a joke on
Clark—tantalize him by eatin’ a square meal that he couldn’t touch—and
get even for some of the names he’d called me. But now I wa’n’t sure
that my fun wouldn’t turn out serious. When a man with a lame digestion
eats enough to satisfy an elephant nobody can be sure what’ll come of
it.
The Congressman and I washed the dishes and 'twas a pretty average
sorrowful job. Only once, when I happened to glance at him and caught a
queer look in his eyes, was the ceremony any more joyful than a funeral.
Then the funny side of it struck me and I commenced to laugh. He joined
in and the pair of us haw-hawed like loons. Then we was sorry for it.
Shelton went out when the dish-washin’ was over. I cleaned up
everything, left a note and some money on Jonathan’s table and locked up
the house. When I got outside there was a fair to middlin’ breeze
springin’ up. Shelton was settin’ on the hummock waitin’ for me.
"Where—where’s the Major?" I asked, pretty fearful.
"He’s over there in the shade—asleep," he whispered.
"Asleep!" says I. "Sure he ain’t dead?"
"Listen," says he.
I listened. If the Major was dead he was a mighty noisy remains.
He woke up, after an hour or so, and come trampin’ over to where we was.
"Well," he snaps, "it’s blowin’ hard enough now, ain’t it? Why don’t you
take us home?"
"How about the auto?" I asked.
The auto could stay where it was until the horses came to pull it out.
As for him he wanted to be took home.
"But—but are you able to go?" asked Shelton, anxious.
What in the sulphur blazes did we mean by that? Course he was able to
go! And had Shelton got another cigar in his clothes?
All of the sail home I was expectin’ to see that military man keel over
and begin his digestion torments. But he didn’t keel. He smoked and
talked and was better-natured than ever I’d seen him. He didn’t mention
his stomach once and you can be sure and sartin that I didn’t. As we was
comin’ up to the moorin’s in Ostable I’m blessed if he didn’t begin to
sing, a kind of a fool tune about "Down where the somethin’-or-other
runs." Then I _was_ scared, because I judged that his attack had started
and delirium was settin’ in.
Shelton shook hands with me at the landin’.
"You’re all right, Cap’n Snow," he says. "That was the best meal I ever
tasted and nobody but you could have conjured it up in the middle of a
howlin’ wilderness. If there’s anything I can do for you at any time
just let me know."
There was one thing he could do, of course, but I wouldn’t be mean
enough to mention it then. The Major and I had, generally speakin’,
fought fair, and I wouldn’t take advantage of a delirious invalid. And
just then up comes the invalid himself.
"See here, Snow," says he, pretty gruff; "I’ll probably be dead afore
mornin’, but afore I die I want to tell you that I’m much obliged to you
for bringin’ us home. Yes, and—and, by the great and mighty, I’m obliged
to you for that chowder and the rest of it! It’ll be my death, but
nothin’ ever tasted so good to me afore. There!"
"That’s all right," says I.
"No, it ain’t all right. I’m much obliged, I tell you. You’re a
stubborn, obstinate, unreasonable old hayseed, but you’re the most
competent person in this town just the same. Of course though," he adds,
sharp, "you understand that this don’t affect our post-office fight in
the least. That Blaisdell woman don’t get it."
"Who said it did affect it?" I asked, just as snappy as he was. That’s
the way we parted and I wondered if I’d ever see him alive again.
I didn’t see him for quite a spell, but I heard about him. I woke up
nights expectin’ to be jailed for murder, but I wa’n’t; and when, three
days later, Shelton started for Washin’ton, the Major went away on the
train with him. Abubus and his wife shut up the house and went off, too,
and nobody seemed to know where they’d gone. All’s could be found out
was that Abubus acted pretty ugly and wouldn’t talk to anybody. This was
comfortin’ in a way, though, most likely, it didn’t mean anything at
all.
But at the end of two weeks a thing happened that meant somethin’. I got
two letters in the mail, one in a big, long envelope postmarked from the
Post-Office Department at Washington and the other a letter from Shelton
himself. I don’t suppose I’ll ever forget that letter to my dyin’ day.
"Dear Captain Snow," it begun. "You may be interested to know
that our mutual friend, Major Clark, has suffered no ill effects
from our picnic at the beach. In fact, he is better than he ever
was and has been enjoying the comforts of city life to an extent
which I should not dare attempt. Whether his long respite from
such comforts helped, or whether the celebrated Doctor Conquest
was responsible, I know not. The Major, however, declares Doctor
Payne to be a fraud and to have been, as he says, ’working him
for a sucker.’ Therefore he has discharged the doctor and
discharged the cousin with the odd name—your fellow townsman,
Abubus Payne. The mishap with the auto was the beginning of
Abubus’s finish and the fact that no indigestion followed our
chowder party completed it. And also—which may interest you
still more—Major Clark has withdrawn his support of Payne’s
candidacy for the post-office and urged the appointment of
another person, one whom he declares to be the only able,
common-sense, honest _man_ in the village. As I have long felt
the appointment of a compromise candidate to be the sole
solution of the problem, I was very happy to agree with him,
particularly as I thoroughly approve of his choice. When you
learn the new postmaster’s name I trust you may agree with us
both. I know the citizens of Ostable will do so.
"Yours sincerely,
"_William A. Shelton._
"P.S. I am coming down next summer and shall expect another one
of your chowders."
My hands shook as I ripped open the other envelope. I knew what was
comin’—somethin’ inside me warned me what to expect. And there it was.
Me—_me_—Zebulon Snow, was app’inted postmaster of Ostable!
Was I mad? I was crazy! I fairly hopped up and down. What in thunder did
I want of the postmastership? And if I wanted it ever so much did they
think I was a traitor? Was it likely that I’d take it, after workin’
tooth and nail for Mary Blaisdell? What would Mary say to me? By time,
_I’d_ show ’em! It should go back that minute and my free and frank
opinion with it. I’d kicked one chair to pieces already, and was
beginnin’ on another, when Jim Henry Jacobs come runnin’ in and stopped
me.
No use to goin’ into particulars of the argument we had. It lasted till
after one o’clock next mornin’. Jim Henry argued and coaxed and proved
and I ripped and vowed I wouldn’t. He was tickled to death. The
post-office was the greatest thing to bring trade that the store could
have, and so on. I _must_ take the job. If I didn’t somebody else would,
somebody that, more’n likely, we wouldn’t like any better than we did
Abubus.
"No," says I. "_No!_ Mary Blaisdell shall have—"
"She won’t get it anyway," says he. "She’s out of it—Shelton as much as
says so—whatever happens. And she don’t want the title anyway. All she
needs or cares for is the pay and I’ve thought of a way to fix that. You
listen."
I listened—under protest, and the upshot of it was that the next day I
went up to see Mary. She’d heard that I was likely to get the
appointment—old Clark had been doin’ some hintin’ afore he left town, I
cal’late—and she congratulated me as hearty as if ’twas what she’d
wanted all along. But I wa’n’t huntin’ congratulations. I felt as mean
as if I’d been took up by the constable for bein’ a chicken thief, and I
told her so.
"Mary," says I, "I wa’n’t after the postmastership. I swear by all that
is good and great I wa’n’t. I don’t know what you must think of me."
"What I’ve always thought," says she, "and what poor Henry thought
before he died. My opinion is like Major Clark’s," with a kind of half
smile, "that the appointment has gone to the best man in Ostable."
"My, my!" says I. "_Your_ digestion ain’t given you delirium, has it? No
sir-ee! I’m no more fit to be postmaster than a ship’s goat is to teach
school."
"You mustn’t talk so," she says, earnest. "You will take the position,
won’t you?"
"I’ll take it," says I, "under one condition." Then I told her what the
condition was. She argued against it at fust, but after I’d said
flat-footed that ’twas either that or the government could take its
appointment and make paper boats of it, and she’d seen that I meant it,
she give in.
"But," says she, chokin’ up a little, "I know you’re doin’ this just to
help me. How I can ever repay your kindness I don’t—"
I cut in quick. My deadlights was more misty than I like to have ’em.
"Rubbish!" says I, "I’m doin’ it to win my bet with old Clark. I’d do
anything to beat out that old critter."
So it happened that when, along in November, the Major came back to
Ostable to look over his place, afore leavin’ for Florida, and come into
the store, I was ready for him. He grinned and asked me if he had any
mail.
"While you’re about it," he says, chucklin’, "you can pay me that bet."
Now the very sound of the word "bet" hit me on a sore place. I’d lost
one hat to Mr. Pike and the letter I’d got from him rubbed me across the
grain every time I thought of it.
"What bet?" says I.
"Why, the bet you made that the Blaisdell woman would be postmistress
here."
"I didn’t bet that," I says.
"You didn’t?" he roared. "You did, too! You bet—"
"I bet that Mary would handle the mail, that’s all. So she will; fact
is, she’s handlin’ it now. She’s my assistant in the post-office here.
If you don’t believe it, go back to the mail window and look in. No,
Major, _I_ win the bet."
Maybe I did, but he wouldn’t pay it. He vowed I was a low down swindler
and a "welsher," whatever that is. He blew out of that store like a toy
typhoon and I didn’t see him again until the next summer. However, I had
a feelin’ that Major Cobden Clark wa’n’t the wust friend I had, by a
consider’ble sight.
You see, that was Jim Henry’s great scheme—to hire Mary to run the
office as my assistant. He didn’t say what salary I was to pay her, and,
if I chose to hand over three-quarters of the postmaster’s pay to her,
what business was it of his? I told him that plain, and, to do him
justice, he didn’t seem to care.
But he did rub it in about my declarin’ I’d never go into politics.
In a little while the mail department was as much a part of the "Ostable
Grocery, Dry Goods, Boots and Shoes and Fancy Goods Store" as the calico
and dress goods counter. We bought the Blaisdell letter-box rack and
fixin’s and set ’em up and they done fust-rate for the time bein’. I was
postmaster, so fur as name goes, but ’twas Mary that really run that end
of the ship. It seemed as natural to have her come in mornin’s, as it
did for the sun to rise; and, if she was late, which didn’t happen
often, it seemed almost as if the sun hadn’t rose. The old store needed
somethin’ like her to keep it clean and sweet and even Jim Henry give in
that she was the best investment the business had made yet.
As for business it kept on good, even though the summer folks had gone
and winter had set in. Our order carts kept runnin’ and they _took_
orders, too. The store was doin’ well by us both and I certainly owed
old Pullet a debt of thanks for workin’ on my sympathies until I put my
cash into it. There was consider’ble buildin’ goin’ on in town and, when
spring begun to show symptoms of makin’ Ostable harbor, Jim Henry got
possessed of a new idea. I didn’t pay much attention at fust. He was
always as full of notions as a peddler’s cart and if I took every one of
’em serious we’d either been Rockefellers or star boarders at the
poorhouse, one or t’other. ’Twa’n’t till that day in April when old
Ebenezer Taylor came in after his mail and went out after the constable
that I realized somethin’ had to be done.
You see, Ebenezer’s eyes was failin’ on him and, to make things worse,
he’d forgot his nigh-to specs and had on his far-off pair. Consequently,
when he headed for the after end of the store, he wa’n’t in no condition
to keep clear of the rocks and shoals in the channel. Fust thing he run
into was a couple of dress-forms with some bargain calico gowns on 'em.
While he was beggin’ pardon of them forms, under the impression that
they was women customers, he backed into a roll of barbed wire fencin’
that was leanin’ against the candy and cigar counter. His clothes was
sort of thin and if that barbed wire had been somebody tryin’ to borrer
a quarter of him he couldn’t have jumped higher or been more emphatic in
his remarks. The third jump landed him against the gunwale of a bushel
basket of eggs that Jacobs was makin’ a special run on and had set out
prominent in the aisle. Maybe Ebenezer was tired from the jumpin’ or
maybe the excitement had gone to his head and he thought he was a hen.
Anyhow he set on them eggs, and in two shakes of a heifer’s tail he was
the messiest lookin’ omelet ever I see. Jacobs and me and the clerk
scraped him off best we could with pieces of barrel hoop and the cheese
knife, and Mary come out from behind the letter boxes and helped along
with the floor mop, but when we’d finished with him he was consider’ble
more like somethin’ for breakfast than he was human.
And mad! An April fool chocolate cream couldn’t have been more peppery
than he was. He distributed his commentaries around pretty general—Mary
got some and so did Jacobs—but the heft was fired at me. He hated me
anyhow, ’count of my bein’ made postmaster and for some other reasons.
"You—you thunderin’ murderer!" he hollered, shakin’ his old fist in my
face. "’Twas all your fault. You done it a-purpose. Look at me! Look! my
legs punched full of holes like a skimmer, and—and my clothes! Just look
at my clothes! A whole suit ruined! A suit I paid ten dollars and a half
for—"
"Ten year and a half ago," I put in, involuntary, as you might say.
"It’s a lie. ’Twon’t be nine year till next September. You think you’re
funny, don’t you? Ever since this consarned, robbin’ Black Republican
administration made you postmaster! Postmaster! You’re a healthy
postmaster! I’ll have you arrested! I’ll march straight out and have you
took up. I will!"
He headed for the door. I didn’t say nothin’. I was sorry about the
clothes and I’d have paid for 'em willin’ly, but arguin’ just then was a
waste of time, as the feller said when the deef and dumb man caught him
stealin’ apples. Ebenezer stamped as fur as the door and then turned
around.
"I may not have you took up," he says; "but I’ll get even with you, Zeb
Snow, yet. You wait."
After he’d gone and we’d made the place look a little less like an
egg-nog, I took Jim Henry by the sleeve and led him into the back room
where we could be alone. Even there the surroundin’s was so cluttered up
with goods and bales and boxes that we had to stand edgeways and talk
out of the sides of our mouths.
"Jim," says I, "this place of ours ain’t big enough. We’ve got to have
more room."
He pretended to be dreadful surprised.
"Why, why, Skipper!" he says. "You shock me. This is so sudden. What put
such an idea as that in your head? Seems to me I have a vague
remembrance of handin’ you that suggestion no less than twenty-five
times since the last change of the moon, but I hope _that_ didn’t
influence you."
"Aw, dry up," says I. "You was right. Let it go at that. Afore I got the
postmastership this buildin’ was big enough. Now it ain’t. We’ve got to
build on or move or somethin’. Have you got any definite plan?"
He smiled, superior and top-lofty, and reached over to pat me on the
back; but reachin’ in that crowded junk-shop was bad judgment, ’cause
his elbow hit against the corner of a tea chest and his next set of
remarks was as explosive and fiery as a box of ship rockets.
"Never mind the blessin’," I says. "Go ahead with the fust course. Have
you got anything up your sleeve? anything besides that bump, I mean."
Well, it seems he had. Seems he’d thought it all out. We’d ought to buy
Philander Foster’s buildin’, which was on the next lot to ours, move it
close up, cut doors through, and use it for the post-office department.
"Humph!" says I, after I’d turned the notion over in my mind. "That
ain’t so bad, considerin’ where it come from. I can only sight one
possible objection in the offin’."
"What’s that, you confounded Jezebel?" he says.
"Jezebel?" says I. "What on airth do you call me that for?"
"’Cause you’re him all over," he says. "He was the feller I used to hear
about in Sunday School, the prophet chap that was always croakin’ and
believed everything was goin’ to the dogs. That was Jezebel, wasn’t it?"
"No," says I, "that was Jeremiah; Jezebel was the one the dogs _went_
to. And she was a woman, at that."
"Well, all right," he says. "Whatever he or she was they didn’t have
anything on you when it comes to croaks. What’s the objection?"
"Nothin’ much. Only I don’t know’s you’ve happened to think that
Philander might not care to sell his buildin’, to us or to anybody
else."
That was all right. We could go and see, couldn’t we? Well, we could of
course—and we did.