Eben George Edgar Edwin Delmonico Frank went out, dabbin’ at his
forehead with the red and yellow handkerchief. Jacobs kept his clove
hitch on my arm and led me out to the settee on the front platform.
"Set down, Skipper," he says, cheerful and more’n extra friendly, seemed
to me. "Set down," he says, "and enjoy the December ozone."
We come to anchor on the settee and there we set and shivered for much
as five minutes, each of us waitin’ for the other to begin. Finally Jim
Henry says, without lookin’ at me:
"Well, Skipper," he says, "that chap’s sharp all right, ain’t he?"
"Seems to be," says I, not too enthusiastic.
"Yes, he is. If I’m any judge of human nature—and I hand myself _that_
bouquet any day in the week—he knows his business. Don’t you think so?"
"Maybe," I says. "But what business of ours his business is I don’t
see—yet. If you do, bein’ as you and me are supposed to be partners,
perhaps you wouldn’t mind soundin’ the fog whistle for my benefit. I
seem to have lost my reckonin’ on this v’yage. Why should we be
interested in this Frank man and his eatin’-house?"
He laughed, louder’n was necessary, I thought, and slapped me on the
shoulder.
"You don’t see where we come in, hey?" he says. "Well, I do. A
dinin’-room like that one of his will need a good many supplies, won’t
it? And, if I can mesmerize him into patronizin’ the home market, the
Ostable Grocery, Dry Goods, Boots and Shoes and Fancy Goods Emporium
will gain some, I shouldn’t wonder. Hey, pard! How about that?" And he
slapped my shoulder again.
I turned this over in my mind. "Humph!" I says. "I begin to see."
"You bet you do!" he says, laughin’. "The amount of stuff I can sell
that restaurant will—"
But I broke in here. I remembered that wink and I didn’t believe I was
clear of the choppin’-block yet.
"Hold on!" says I. "Heave to! And never mind poundin’ my starboard
shoulder to pieces, either. I said I _begun_ to see; I don’t see clear
yet. How did you and he come to get together in the fust place? Did you
go and hunt him up? or did he come in here to see you?"
He kind of hesitated. "Why," he says, "he come into the store, and—"
"Did he happen in, or did he come to see you a-purpose?"
"He—I believe he came to see me. Then he and I—"
"Heave to again! He didn’t come to see you to beg the favor of buyin’
goods of you, ’tain’t likely. Jim Jacobs, answer me straight. There’s
somethin’ else. That feller wants somethin’ of you—or of us. Now what is
it?"
He hesitated some more. Then he upset the woodpile and let out the
darky.
"Well," he says, "I’ll tell you. I was goin’ to tell you, anyway.
Frank’s all right. He’s got a good idea and he’s got the experience to
put it into practice; but he’s somethin’ the way old Beanblossom was
afore you took a share in this store—he needs a little more capital."
I swung round on the settee and looked him square in the eye.
"I—see," I says, slow. "Now—I see! He’s after money and he wants us to
lend it to him. I might have guessed it. Well, did you say no right off?
or was you waitin’ to have me say it? You might have said it yourself.
You knew I’d back you up."
Would you believe it? he got as red as a beet.
"I didn’t say anything," he says. "Don’t go off half-cocked like that.
What’s the matter with you this mornin’? He don’t want to borrer money.
He wants more capital in the proposition—wants to float it right. And
he’s been inquirin’ around and has found that you and me are the two
leadin’ business men in the place and has come to us first. It’s more a
favor on his part than anything else. He offers to let us have a third
interest between us; you put in a thousand and I do the same. Why, man,
it’s a cinch! It’s a chance that don’t come every day. As I told you,
I’ve had the same notion in my head for a long time. A summer
dinin’-room like that in this town is—"
"Wait!" I interrupted. "What do you know about this Frank critter?
Where’d he come from? Who is he?"
"He comes from Pittsburg. That’s the last place he was in. And he’s got
his pockets full of references and testimonials."
"Humph! Anybody can get testimonials. Write ’em himself, if there wa’n’t
any other way. I had a second mate once with more testimonials than
shirts, enough sight, and he—"
"Oh, cut it out! Besides, I don’t care where he comes from. He’s sharp
as a steel trap; that much I can tell with one eye shut. And he’s run
dinin’-rooms and hotels; that I’ll bet my hat on. That’s all we need to
know. A road-house in this town is a twenty per cent proposition durin’
the summer months. It’s the chance of a lifetime, I tell you."
"Maybe so. But how do you know the feller’s honest?"
"I don’t care whether he’s honest or not. It doesn’t make any
difference. If I wa’n’t here to keep my eye peeled, it might be; but
I’ll be here and if he gets ahead of me, he’ll be movin’ to some extent.
Someone else’ll grab the chance if we don’t. I’m for it. What do you
say?"
I shook my head. "Jim," says I, "I can see where you stand. You’re so
dead sartin that an eatin’-house of that kind’ll pay big, that you’re
blind to the rest of it. Now I don’t pretend to be a judge of human
nature like you—leavin’ out Injun and Rosenstein human nature, of
course—nor a doctor of sick businesses, which is your profession. But my
experience is—"
He stood up and sniffed impatient.
"Cut it out, I tell you!" he says, again. "This ain’t an experience
meetin’. Will you take a flyer with me in that road-house, or won’t
you?"
"Way I feel now, I won’t," says I, prompt.
He turned on his heel, took a step towards the door and then stopped.
"Well," he says, "you think it over till to-morrer mornin’ and then let
me know. Only, you mark my words, it’s a chance. And, with me to keep my
eye on it, there’s no risk at all."
So that’s the way it ended that day. And half that night I laid awake,
feelin’ meaner’n dirt to say no to as good a partner as I had, and yet
pretty average sure I was right, just the same.
In the mornin’ my mind was still betwixt and between. I went down to the
store and walked back to the post-office department. I looked in through
the little window and saw Mary Blaisdell inside, sortin’ the outgoin’
letters. The sunshine, streamin’ in from outside, lit up her hair till
it looked like one of them halos in a church picture. Seems to me I
never saw her look prettier; but then, every time I saw her I thought
the same thing. A good-lookin’ woman and a good woman—yes, and capable.
That she’d lived so many years without gettin’ married, was one of the
things that made a feller lose confidence in the good-sense of humans.
The chap that got her would be lucky. Then I caught a glimpse of myself
in the lookin’-glass where customers tried on hats, and decided I’d
better stop thinkin’ foolishness or somebody would catch me at it and
send me to the comic papers.
"Mornin’, Mary," says I. "Has Mr. Jacobs come aboard yet?"
She turned and came to her side of the window.
"Yes," she says, "he was here. He’s gone out now with that Mr. Frank. I
believe they’ve gone up to the old Higgins Place."
"Um-hm," says I. "Well, Mary, just between friends, I’d like to ask you
somethin’. Do you like that Frank man’s looks?"
She wa’n’t expectin’ that and she didn’t know how to answer for a jiffy.
Then she kind of half laughed, and says: "No, Cap’n Zeb, since you ask
me, I—I don’t. I don’t like him. And I haven’t any good reason, either."
I nodded. "Much obliged, Mary," says I. "And, since you ain’t asked me,
I’ll tell you that _I_ don’t like him. And my reason’s about as good as
yours. Maybe it’s his clothes. A man, ’cordin’ to my notion, has a right
to look like a horse jockey, if he wants to; and he’s got a right to
look like an undertaker. But when he looks like a combination of the
two, I—well, I get skittish and begin to shy, that’s all. It’s too much
as if he was baited to trap you dead or alive."
Then Jim Henry come in and when, an hour or so later, he got me one side
and asked me if I’d made up my mind about investin’ in Frank’s
road-house, I answered prompt that my mind was made up and the answer
was still no. He was disapp’inted, I could see that, and pretty mad.
"Humph!" says he. "Skipper, you’re all right except for one fault—you’re
as ’country’ as they make ’em, and they make ’em pretty narrer
sometimes. Well, you’ve had the chance. Don’t ever tell me you haven’t."
"I won’t," says I, and we didn’t mention the subject for a long time.
Then—but that comes later. However, I judged that Frank had found folks
in Ostable who wa’n’t as narrer and "country" as I was, for, inside of a
week, the carpenters was busy on the Higgins Place. They built on great,
wide piazzas; they knocked out partitions between rooms; they made the
house pretty much over. In March loads of fancy furniture came from
Boston. At last a windmill three feet high—made to look like a little
copy of the old Cape windmills our great-granddads used to grind grist
in, with sails that turned—was set up in the front yard, and on a post
by the big gate was swingin’ a fancy notice board, with a gilt windmill
painted on that, and the words in big letters:
THE SIGN OF THE WINDMILL.
MEALS AT ALL HOURS.
_Steaks, Chops, Game, Etc._
_Table D’hote Dinner Each Day at 1.15._
_Special Accommodations for Auto Parties._
That was it, you see. "The Sign of the Windmill" was the name of the new
road-house.
But that wa’n’t all the advertisin’, by a consider’ble sight. There was
signs all up and down the main roads, with hands p’intin’ in the
"Windmill" direction. And there was ads in the Cape papers and in the
Boston papers, too. I swan, I didn’t believe anybody but Jim Henry
Jacobs could have engineered such advertisin’! And there was a
black-lookin’ critter with the ends of his mustache waxed so sharp you
could have sewed canvas with 'em—he was the French chef—and three
foreign waiters, and a dark-complected fleshy woman who seemed to be a
sort of general assistant manager and stewardess, and—and—goodness knows
what there wa’n’t. There was so many kinds of hired help that I couldn’t
see where Frank himself come in—unless he was the spare "windmill,"
which, judgin’ by his gift of gab, I cal’late might be the fact.
"The Sign of the Windmill" bought all its groceries and general supplies
at the store, which, considerin’ that we’d turned down the "chance" to
be part owners, seemed sort of odd to me, ’cause Frank didn’t look like
a feller who’d forgive a slight like that. But I judged Jim Henry had
hypnotized him, as he done other difficult customers, and so I said
nothin’. The auto season opened and our weekly bills with that
road-house was big ones, but they was paid every week, and I hadn’t any
kick there, either.
As for the business that dinin’-room done, it was surprisin’,
particularly Saturdays and Sundays, when there’d be twenty or more autos
in the front yard and more a-comin’. The table d’hote dinner at 1.15 was
so well patronized that folks had to wait their turns at table and
later, on moonlight nights, the old house was all lighted up and you
could hear the noise of dishes rattlin’ and the laughin’ and singin’
till after eleven o’clock. And our bills with the "Sign of the Windmill"
kept gettin’ bigger and bigger.
But though the auto parties was thick and the patronage good, still
there was some dissatisfaction, I found out. One big car stopped at the
store on a Saturday afternoon and the boss of it talked with me while
the women folks was inside buyin’ postcards and such.
"Well," says I, to the owner of the car, a big, fleshy, good-natured
chap he was, "well," says I, "I cal’late you’ve all had a good dinner.
Feed you fust-class up there at the Windmill place, don’t they?"
He sniffed. "Humph!" says he, "the food’s all right. It ought to be, at
the price. Is the proprietor of that hotel named Allie Baby?"
"Allie which?" I says, laughin’. "No, no, his name’s Frank. Edwin George
Eben etcetery Frank. What made you think ’twas Allie?"
"’Cause he’s a close connection of the Forty Thieves," he says, sharp.
"He’d take a prize in the hog class at a county fair, that chap would.
What’s the matter with him? Does he think he’s runnin’ a get-rich-quick
shop? Two weeks ago I paid a dollar and a half for a dinner there, and
that was seventy-five cents too much. Now he’s jumped to two-fifty and
the feed ain’t a bit better."
"Two dollars and a half for a _dinner_!" says I. "Whew! The cost of
livin’ _is_ goin’ up, ain’t it? What do they give you? Canary birds’
tongues on toast? Any shore dinner ever I see could be cooked for—"
He interrupted. "Shore dinner nothin’!" he snorts. "I wouldn’t kick at
the price if I got a good shore dinner. But what we got here is a poor
imitation of a country Waldorf. Everybody’s kickin’, but we all go there
because it’s the best we can find for twenty miles. However, I hear
another place is to be started in Denboro and if _that_ makes good, your
Forty Thief friend will have to haul in his horns. He’ll never get
another cent from me, or a hundred others I know, who have been his best
customers. We’re all waitin’ to give him the shake and it looks as if we
should be able to do it. We motorin’ fellers stick together and, if the
word’s passed along the line, the "Sign of the Windmill" will be a dead
one, mark my words."
I marked ’em, and when, by and by, I heard that the Denboro dinin’-room
was open and doin’ a good business, I underscored the mark.
This was about the middle of June. A week later Jim Henry got the
telegram about his younger brother out in Colorado bein’ sick and
wantin’ to see him bad. He hated to go, but he felt he had to, so he
went.
I said good-by to him up at the depot and told him not to worry a mite.
"I’ll look out for everything," I says. "Course I’ll miss you at the
store, but I’ll write you every day or so and keep you posted, and you
can give me business prescriptions by mail."
"That’s all right, Skipper," says he, "I know the store’ll be took care
of. But there’s one thing that—that—"
"What’s the one thing?" I asked. "Overboard with it. My shoulders are
broad and I won’t mind totin’ another hogshead or so."
He hesitated and it seemed to me that he looked troubled. But finally he
said he’d guessed ’twas nothin’ that amounted to nothin’ anyway and he’d
be back in a couple of weeks sure. So off he went and I had a sort of
Robinson Crusoe desert island feelin’ that lasted all that day and
night.
It lasted longer than that, too. I didn’t hear from him for ten days.
Then I got a note sayin’ his brother had scarlet fever—which seemed a
fool disease for a grown-up man to have—and was pretty sick. I wrote to
him for the land sakes to be careful he didn’t get it himself, and the
next news I heard was from a doctor sayin’ he _had_ got it. After that
the bulletins was infrequent and alarmin’.
I’d have put for Colorado in a minute, but I couldn’t; that store was on
my shoulders and I couldn’t leave. I telegraphed not to spare no expense
and to write or wire every day. ’Twas all I could do, but I never spent
such a worried time afore nor since. I was worried, not only about my
partner, but about the business he’d put in my charge. There was new
developments in that business and they kept on developin’.
'Twas the "Sign of the Windmill" that was troublin’ me. As I told you,
the weekly bills for that eatin’-house was big ones, but the fust three
or four had been paid on the dot. Now, however, they wa’n’t paid and
they was just as big. Frank’s account on our books kept gettin’ larger
and larger and, not only that, but anybody could see that the Windmill
wa’n’t doin’ half the trade it begun with. There was more auto parties
than ever, but the heft of ’em went right on by to the new road-house in
Denboro. I remembered what the fleshy man told me and I judged that the
word had been passed to the motorin’ crew, just as he prophesied.
I went up to see Frank and had a talk with him. I found him in his
office, settin’ at a fine new roll-top desk, with the dark-complected
stewardess alongside of him. She seemed to be helpin’ him with his
letters and accounts, which looked odd to me, and she glowered at me
when I come in like a cat at a stray poodle. She didn’t get up and go
out, neither, till he hinted p’raps she’d better, and even then she
whispered to him mighty confidential afore she went. 'Twas a queer way
for hired help to act, but ’twa’n’t none of my affairs, of course.
He was cordial enough till he found out what I was after and then he
chilled up like a freezer full of cream. He was in the habit of payin’
his bills, he give me to understand, and he’d pay this one when 'twas
convenient. If I didn’t care to sell the Windmill goods, that was my
affair, of course, but his relations with my partner had been so
pleasant that—and so forth and so on. I sneaked out of that office,
feelin’ like a henroost-thief instead of an honest man tryin’ to collect
an honest debt. I’d bungled things again. Instead of makin’ matters
better, I’d made ’em worse; come nigh losin’ a good customer and all
that. What business had an old salt herrin’ like me to be in business,
anyhow? That’s how I felt when I was talkin’ to him, and how I felt when
I shut that office door and come out into the dinin’-room.
But the sight of that dinin’-room, tables all vacant, and two waiters
where there had been four, fetched all my uneasiness back again. If ever
a place had "Goin’ down" marked on it ’twas the "Sign of the Windmill."
I stewed and fretted all the way to the store and when I got there I
found that another big order of groceries and canned goods had been
delivered to the eatin’ house while I was gone.
The next week’ll stick in my mind till doomsday, I cal’late. Every
blessed mornin’ found me vowin’ I’d stop sellin’ that Windmill, and
every night found more dollars added to the bill. You see, I didn’t know
what to do. If I’d been sole owner and sailin’ master, I’d have set my
foot down, I guess; but there was Jim Henry to be considered. I wrote a
note to the Frank man, but he didn’t even trouble to answer it.
Saturday noon came round and, after the mail was sorted, I wandered out
to the front platform and set there, blue as a whetstone. The gang of
summer boarders and natives, that’s always around mail times, melted
away fast and I was pretty nigh alone. Not quite alone; Alpheus Perkins,
the fish man, was occupyin’ moorin’s at t’other end of the platform and
he didn’t seem to be in any hurry. By and by over he comes and sets down
alongside of me.
"Cap’n Zeb," he says, fidgety like, "I s’pose likely you’ve been
wonderin’ why I don’t pay your bill here at the store, ain’t you?"
I hadn’t, havin’ more important things to think about, but now I
remembered that he did owe consider’ble and had owed it for some time.
Alpheus is as straight as they make ’em and usually pays his debts
prompt.
"I know you must have," he went on, not waitin’ for me to answer. "Well,
I intended to pay long afore this, and I will pay pretty soon. But I’ve
had trouble collectin’ my own debts and it’s held me back. If I could
only get my hands on one account that’s owin’ me, I’d be all right.
Say," says he, tryin’ hard to act careless and as if ’twa’n’t important
one way or t’other: "Say," he says, "you know Mr. Frank, up here at the
hotel, pretty well, don’t you?"
For a minute or so I didn’t answer. Then I knocked the ashes out of my
pipe and says I, "Why, yes. I know him. What of it?"
"Oh, nothin’ much," he says. "Only I was told he was a partic’lar friend
of yours and Mr. Jacobs’s and—and—"
"Who told you he was our partic’lar friend?" I asked.
"Why, he did. I was up there yesterday, just hintin’ I could use a check
on account. Not pressin’ the matter nor tryin’ to be hard on him, you
understand; course he’s all right; but I was mighty short of ready cash
and so—"
"Hold on, Al!" I said, quick. "Wait! Does the ’Sign of the Windmill’ owe
you a bill?"
"Pretty nigh a hundred dollars," says he. "I’ve supplied ’em with fish
and lobsters and clams and such ever since they started. Fust month they
paid me by the week. After that—"
"Good heavens and earth!" I sung out. "My soul and body! And—and, when
you asked for it, this—this Frank man told you he’d pay you when 'twas
convenient, same as he paid Jacobs and me, who was his friends and was
quite ready to do business that way."
He actually jumped, I’d surprised him so.
"Hey?" he sung out. "Zeb Snow, be you a second-sighter? How did you know
he told me that?"
I drew a long breath. "It didn’t take second sight for that," I says. "I
was up there last Monday and he told me the same thing, only ’twas you
and Ed Cahoon who was his friends then."
He let that sink in slow.
"My godfreys domino!" he groaned. "My godfreys! He—he told—Why! why, he
must be workin’ the same game on all hands!"
"Looks like it," says I, and, thinkin’ of Jim Henry, poor feller, sick
as he could be, and the business he’d left me to look out for, my heart
went down into my boots.
Perkins set thinkin’ for a jiffy. Then he got up off the settee.
"The son of a gun!" he says. "I’ll fix him! I’ll put my bill in a
lawyer’s hands to-night."
"No, you won’t," I sung out, grabbin’ him by the arm. "You mustn’t. He
owes the Ostable Store four times what he owes you, and it’s likely he
owes Cahoon and a lot more. The rest of us can’t afford to let you upset
the calabash that way. You might get yours, though I’m pretty doubtful,
but where would the rest of us come in. You set down, Alpheus. Set down,
and let me think. Set down, I tell you!"
When I talk that way—it’s an old seafarin’ habit—most folks usually obey
orders. Alpheus set. He started to talk, but I hushed him up and, havin’
filled my pipe and got it to goin’, I smoked and thought for much as
five minutes.
"Hum!" says I, after the spell was over, "the way I sense it is like
this: This ain’t any fo’mast hand’s job; and it ain’t a skipper’s job
neither. It’s a case for all hands and the ship’s cat, workin’ together
and standin’ by each other. We’ve got to find out who’s who and what’s
what, make up our minds and then all read the lesson in concert, like
young ones in school. This Frank Windmill critter owes you and he owes
me; we’re sartin of that. More’n likely he owes Ed Cahoon for chickens
and fowls and eggs, and Bill Bangs for milk, and Henry Hall for ice, and
land knows how many more. S’pose you skirmish around and find out who he
does owe and fetch all the creditors to the store here to-morrer mornin’
at eleven o’clock. It’ll be church time, I know, but even the parson
will excuse us for this once, ’specially as the ’Sign of the Windmill’
is supposed to sell liquor and he’s down on it."
We had consider’ble more talk, but that was the way it ended, finally. I
went to bed that night, but it didn’t take; I might as well have set up,
so fur’s sleep was concerned. All I could think of was poor, sick Jim
Henry and the trust he put in me.