“Takin' other folks' advice about your own affairs,” began Cap'n Obed,
“is like a feller readin' patent medicine circulars to find somethin'
to cure a cold. Afore he gets through his symptoms have developed into
bronchitis and pneumony, with gallopin' consumption dead ahead. You
never can tell what'll happen.
“You noticed how Hannah Parker sort of riz up when Kenelm started
smokin' yesterday? Yes, I know you did, 'cause you spoke of it. And you
notice, too, how meek and lowly she laid down and give in when he
kept right on doin' it. That ain't her usual way with Kenelm by a
consider'ble sight. I told you there was quite a yarn hitched to that
smokin' business. So there is.
“Kenelm's an old bach, you know. One time he used to work, or pretend
to, because he needed the money; but his Aunt Phoebe up to Brockton died
and left him four or five thousand dollars and he ain't worked of any
account since. He's a gentleman now, livin' on his income--and his
sister.
“Hannah ain't got but precious little money of her own, but she knows
how to take care of it, which her brother don't. She was housekeepin'
for some folks at Wapatomac, but when the inheritances landed she headed
straight for East Wellmouth, rented that little house they're in now,
and took charge of Kenelm. He wa'n't overanxious to have her do it, but
that didn't make any difference. One of her pet bugaboos was that, now
her brother was well-off--'cordin' to her idea of well-offness--some
designin' woman or other would marry him for his money. Down she
come, first train, and she's been all hands and the cook, yes, and
paymaster--with Kenelm a sort of steerage passenger, ever since. She
keeps watch over him same as the sewin' circle does over the minister's
wife, and it's 'No Anchorage for Females' around that house, I can tell
you.
“Another of her special despisin's--next to old maids and young
widows--used to be tobacco smoke. We had a revival preacher in East
Wellmouth that first winter and he stirred up things like a stick in a
mudhole. He was young and kind of good-lookin', with a voice like the
Skakit foghorn, and he took the sins of the world in his mouth, one
after the other, as you might say, and shook 'em same's a pup would a
Sunday bunnit. He laid into rum and rum sellin', and folks fairly got in
line to sign the pledge. 'Twas 'Come early and avoid the rush.' Got so
that Chris Badger hardly dast to use alcohol in his cigar-lighter.
“Then, havin' dried us up, that revival feller begun to smoke us out. He
preached six sermons on the evils of tobacco, and every one was hotter'n
the last. Accordin' to him, if you smoked now you'd burn later on. Lots
of the men folks threw their pipes away, and took to chewin' slipp'ry
ellum.
“Now, Kenelm smoked like a peat fire. He lit up after breakfast and
puffed steadily until bedtime, only puttin' his pipe down to eat, or to
rummage in his pocket for more tobacco. Hannah got him to go to one of
the anti-tobacco meetin's. He set through the whole of it, interested as
could be. Then, when 'twas over, he stopped in the church entry to
load up his pipe, and walked home with his sister, blowin' rings and
scratchin' matches and talkin' loud about how fine the sermon was.
He talked all next day about that sermon; said he'd go every night if
they'd let you smoke in there.
“So Hannah was set back a couple of rows, but she wa'n't
discouraged--not by a forty fathom. She got after her brother mornin',
noon and night about the smokin' habit. The most provokin' part of it,
so she said, was that he always agreed with her.
“'It's ruinin' your health,' she'd say.
“'Yes,' says Kenelm, lookin' solemn, 'I cal'late that's so. I've been
feelin' poorly for over a year now. Worries me consider'ble. Pass me
that plug on the top of the clock, won't you, Hannah?'
“Now what can you do with a feller like that?
“She couldn't start him with fussin' about HIS health, so she swung over
on a new tack and tried her own. She said so much smoke in the house
was drivin' her into consumption, and she worked up a cough that was
a reg'lar graveyard quickstep. I heard her practicin' it once, and, I
swan, there was harps and halos all through it!
“That cough made Kenelm set up and take notice; and no wonder. He
listened to a hundred or so of Hannah's earthquakes, and then he got up
and pranced out of the house. When he came back the doctor was with him.
“Now, this wa'n't exactly what his sister was lookin' for. She didn't
want to see the doctor. But Kenelm said she'd got to have her lungs
sounded right off, and he guessed they'd have to use a deep-sea lead,
'cause that cough seemed to come from the foundations. He waylaid the
doctor after the examination was over and asked all kinds of questions.
The doctor tried to keep a straight face, but I guess Kenelm smelt a
rat.
“Anyway, Hannah coughed for a day or two more, and then her brother come
totin' in a big bottle of med'cine.
“'There!' he says. 'That'll fix you!'
“'Where'd you get it?' says she.
“'Down to Henry Tubman's,' he says.
“'Henry Tubman! What on earth! Why, Henry Tubman's a horse doctor!'
“'I know he is,' says Kenelm, solemn as a roostin' pullet, 'but we've
been fishin' with the wrong bait. 'Tain't consumption that's ailin' you,
Hannah; you've got the heaves.'
“So Hannah didn't cough much more, 'cause, when she did, Kenelm would
trot out the bottle of horse med'cine, and chuck overboard a couple of
barrels of sarcasm. She tried openin' all the windows, sayin' she needed
fresh air, but he locked himself up in the kitchen and filled that so
full of smoke that you had to navigate it by dead reckonin'--couldn't
see to steer. So she was about ready to give up; somethin' that anybody
but a stubborn critter like her would have done long afore.
“But one afternoon she was down to the sewin' circle, and the women
folks there, havin' finished pickin' to pieces the characters of the
members not on hand, started in to go on about the revivals and how
much good they was doin'. 'Most everybody had some relation, if
'twa'n't nothin' more'n a husband, that had stopped smokin' and chewin'.
Everybody had some brand from the burnin' to brag about--everybody but
Hannah; she could only set there and say she'd done her best, but that
Kenelm still herded with the goats.
“They was all sorry for her, but the only one that had any advice to
give was Abbie Larkin, she that was Abbie Dillin'ham 'fore she married
old man Larkin. Larkin had one foot in the grave when she married him,
and she managed to crowd the other one in inside of a couple of years
afterward. Abbie is a widow, of course, and she is middlin' good-lookin'
and dresses pretty gay. Larkin left her a little money, but I guess
she's run through most of it by this time. The circle folks was dyin'
to talk about her, but she was always on hand so early that they hardly
ever got a chance.
“Well, after supper was over, Abbie gets Hannah over in a corner, and
says she:
“'Miss Parker,' says she, 'here's an advertisement I cut out of the
paper and saved a-purpose for you. I want you to look at it, but you
mustn't tell anybody I gave it to you.'
“So Hannah unfurls the piece of newspaper, and 'twas an advertisement of
'Kill-Smudge,' the sure cure for the tobacco habit. You could give it to
the suff'rer unbeknownst to him, in his tea or soup or somethin', and
in a couple of shakes he'd no more smoke than he'd lend money to his
brother-in-law, or do any other ridic'lous thing. There was testimonials
from half a dozen women that had tried it, and everyone showed a clean
bill.
“Hannah read the advertisement through twice. 'Well, I never!' says she.
“'Yes,' says Abbie, and smiles.
“'Of course,' says Hannah, lookin' scornful, 'I wouldn't think of
tryin' the stuff, but I'll just take this home and read it over. It's so
curious,' she says.
“'Ain't it?' says Abbie, and smiles some more.
“So that night, when Kenelm sat by the stove, turnin' the air blue, his
sister set at the other side of the table with that advertisement hid
behind the Wellmouth Advocate readin' and thinkin'. She wrote a letter
afore she went to bed and bought a dollar's worth of stamps at the
postoffice next day. And for a week she watched the mails the way one of
these city girls does when the summer's 'most over and eight or nine of
her fellers have finished their vacations and gone back to work.
“About ten days after that Kenelm begins to feel kind of off his feed,
so's to speak. Somethin' seemed to ail him and he couldn't make out what
'twas. They'd had a good many cranberries on their bog that year and
Hannah'd been cookin' 'em up fast so's they wouldn't spile. But one
night she brings on a cranberry pie, and Kenelm turned up his nose at
it.
“'More of that everlastin' sour stuff!' he snorts. 'I've et cranb'ries
till my stomach's puckered up as if it worked with a gath'rin' string.
Take it away! I don't want it!'
“'But, Kenelm, you're always so fond of cranb'ry pie.'
“'Me? It makes me shrivel just to look at it. Pass that sugar bowl, so's
I can sweeten ship.'
“Next day 'twas salt fish and potatoes that wa'n't good. He'd been
teasin' for a salt-fish dinner for ever so long, so Hannah'd fixed up
this one just to please him, but he swallered two or three knifefuls and
then looked at her kind of sad and mournful.
“'To think,' says he, 'that I've lived all these years to be p'isoned
fin'lly! And by my own sister, too! Well, that's what comes of bein'
wuth money. Give me my pipe and let me forget my troubles.'
“'Course this kind of talk made Hannah mad, but she argued that 'twas
the Kill-Smudge gettin' in its work, so she put a double dose into his
teacup that night, and trusted in Providence.
“And the next day she noticed that he swallered hard between every pull
at his pipe, and when, at last, he jumped out of his chair, let out
a swear word and hove his pipe at the cat, she felt consider'ble
encouraged. She thought 'twas her duty, however, to warn him against
profane language, but the answer she got was so much more prayerful than
his first remarks, that she come about and headed for the sittin'-room
quick.
“Well, to make a long yarn short, the Kill-Smudge done the bus'ness.
Kenelm stuck to smokin' till he couldn't read a cigar sign without his
ballast shiftin', and then he give it up. And--as you might expect from
that kind of a man--he was more down on tobacco than the Come-Outer
parson himself. He even got up in revival meetin' and laid into it
hammer and tongs. He was the best 'horrible example' they had, and
Hannah was so proud of him that she couldn't sleep nights. She still
stuck to the Kill-Smudge, though--layin' in a fresh stock every once in
a while--and she dosed the tea about every other day, so's her brother
wouldn't run no danger of relapse. I'm 'fraid Kenelm didn't get any too
much joy out of his meals.
“And so everything was all right--'cordin' to Hannah's reckonin'--and it
might have stayed all right if she hadn't took that trip to Washington.
Etta Ellis was goin' on a three weeks' cut-rate excursion, and she
talked so much about it, that Hannah got reckless and fin'lly said she'd
go, too.
“The only thing that worried her was leavin' Kenelm. She hated to do it
dreadful, but he seemed tame enough and promised to change his flannels
if it got cold, and to feed the cat reg'lar, and to stay to home, and
one thing and another, so she thought 'twas safe to chance it. She
cooked up a lot of pie and frosted cake, and wrote out a kind of
time-table for him to eat and sleep by, and then cried and kissed him
good-by.
“The first three days after she was gone Kenelm stayed 'round the house
and turned in early. He was feelin' fine, but 'twas awful lonesome.
The fourth day, after breakfast, he had a cravin' to smoke. Told me
afterward it seemed to him as if he MUST smoke or die of the fidgets. At
last he couldn't stand it no longer, but turned Hannah's time-table to
the wall and went out for a walk. He walked and walked and walked. It
got 'most dinner time and he had an appetite that he hadn't had afore
for months.
“Just as he was turnin' into the road by the schoolhouse who should come
out on the piazza of the house on the corner but Abbie Larkin. She'd
left the door open, and the smell of dinner that blew through it was
tantalizin'. Abbie was dressed in her Sunday togs and her hair was
frizzed till she couldn't wrinkle her forehead. If the truth was known,
I cal'late she'd seen Kenelm go past her house on the way downtown and
was layin' for him when he come back, but she acted dreadful surprised.
“'Why, Mr. Parker!' says she, 'how DO you do? Seems's if I hadn't
seen you for an age! Ain't it dreadful lonesome at your house now your
sister's away?'
“Kenelm colored up some--he always h'isted danger signals when women
heave in sight--and agreed that 'twas kind of poky bein' all alone. Then
they talked about the weather, and about the price of coal, and about
the new plush coat Cap'n Jabez Bailey's wife had just got, and how folks
didn't see how she could afford it with Jabez out of work, and so
on. And all the time the smell of things cookin' drifted through the
doorway. Fin'lly Abbie says, says she:
“'Was you goin' home, Mr. Parker?'
“'Yes, ma'am,' says Kenelm. 'I was cal'latin' to go home and cook
somethin' for dinner.'
“'Well, there, now!' says Abbie. 'I wonder why I didn't think of it
afore! Why don't you come right in and have dinner with me? It's ALL
ready and there's plenty for two. DO come, Mr. Parker, to please ME!'
“'Course Kenelm said he couldn't, and, likewise, of course, he did.
'Twas a smashin' dinner--chicken and mashed potatoes and mince pie, and
the land knows what. He ate till he was full clear to the hatches,
and it seemed to him that nothin' ever tasted quite so good. The widow
smiled and purred and colored up and said it seemed SO good to have a
man at the table; seemed like the old days when Dan'l--meanin' the late
lamented--was on deck, and so forth.
“Then, when the eatin' was over, she says, 'I was expectin' my cousin
Benjamin down for a week or so, but he can't come. He's a great smoker,
and I bought these cigars for him. You might as well use them afore they
dry up.'
“Afore Kenelm could stop her she rummaged a handful of cigars out of the
table drawer in the settin'-room.
“'There!' she says. 'Light right up and be comfortable. It'll seem just
like old times. Dan'l was such a 'smoker! Oh, my!' and she gave a little
squeal; 'I forgot you've stopped smokin'.'
“Well, there was the cigars, lookin' as temptin' as a squid to a
codfish; and there was Kenelm hankerin' for 'em so his fingers twitched;
and there was Abbie lookin' dreadful disapp'inted, but tryin' to make
believe she wasn't. You don't need a spyglass to see what happened.
“'I'd like to,' says Kenelm, pickin' up one of the cigars. 'I'd like to
mighty well, but'--here he bites off the end--''twouldn't hardly do, now
would it? You see--'
“'I see,' says Abbie, scratchin' a match; 'but WE'LL never tell. We'll
have it for our secret; won't we, Mr. Parker?'
“So that's how Kenelm took his first tumble from grace. He told me all
about it one day a good while afterward. He smoked three of the cigars
afore he went home, and promised to come to supper the next afternoon.
“'You DO look so comfortable, Mr. Parker,' purrs Abbie, as sweet and
syrupy as a molasses stopper. 'It must be SUCH a comfort to a man to
smoke. I don't care WHAT the minister says, you can smoke here just as
much as you want to! It must be pretty hard to live in a house where you
can't enjoy yourself. I shouldn't think it would seem like home. A man
like you NEEDS a good home. Why, how I do run on!'
“Oh, there ain't really nothin' the matter with the Widow Larkin--so
fur's smartness is concerned, there ain't.
“And for five days more Kenelm ate his meals at Abbie's and smoked and
was happy, happier'n he'd been for months.
“Meantime, Hannah and Etta was visitin' the President--that is to say,
they was lookin' over the White House fence and sayin' 'My stars!' and
'Ain't it elegant!' Nights, when the sightseein' was over, what they did
mostly was to gloat over how mean and jealous they'd make the untraveled
common tribe at sewin' circle feel when they got back home. They could
just see themselves workin' on the log-cabin quilt for the next sale,
and slingin' out little reminders like, 'Land sakes! What we're
talkin' about reminds me of what Etta and me saw when we was in the
Congressional Libr'ry. YOU remember that, Etta?' And that would be
Etta's hint to look cute and giggle and say, 'Well! I should say I DID!'
And all the rest of the circlers would smile kind of unhealthy smiles
and try to look as if trips to Washington wa'n't nothin'; THEY wouldn't
go if you hired 'em to. You know the game if you've ever been to sewin'
circle.
“But all this plannin' was knocked in the head by a letter that Hannah
got on an afternoon about a week after she left home. It was short but
there was meat in it. It said: 'If you want to keep your brother from
marryin' Abbie Larkin you had better come home quick!' 'Twas signed 'A
Friend.'
“Did Hannah come home? Well, didn't she! She landed at Orham the next
night. And she done some thinkin' on the way, too. She kept out of the
way of everybody and went straight up to the house. 'Twas dark and shut
up, but the back door key was under the mat, as usual, so she got in all
right. The plants hadn't been watered for two days, at least; the clock
had stopped; the cat's saucer was licked dry as a contribution box, and
the critter itself was underfoot every second, whoopin' for somethin'
to eat. The whole thing pretty nigh broke Hannah's heart, but she wa'n't
the kind to give up while there was a shot in the locker.
“She went to the closet and found that Kenelm's Sunday hat and coat was
gone. Then she locked the back door again and cut acrost the lots down
to Abbie's. She crept round the back way and peeked under the curtain
at the settin'-room window. There set Abbie, lookin' sweet and sugary.
Likewise, there was Kenelm, lookin' mighty comfortable, with a big
cigar in his mouth and more on the table side of him. Hannah gritted her
teeth, but she kept quiet.
“About ten minutes after that Chris Badger was consider'ble surprised to
hear a knock at the back door of his store and to find that 'twas Hannah
that had knocked.
“'Mr. Badger,' says Hannah, polite and smilin', 'I want to buy a box of
the best cigars you've got.'
“'Ma'am!' says Chris, thinkin' 'twas about time to send for the
constable or the doctor--one or t'other.
“'Yes,' says Hannah; 'if you please. Oh! and, Mr. Badger, please don't
tell anyone I bought 'em. PLEASE don't, to oblige me.'
“So Chris trotted out the cigars--ten cents straight, they was--and said
nothin' to nobody, which is a faculty he has when it pays to have it.
“When Kenelm came home that night he was knocked pretty nigh off his
pins to find his sister waitin' for him. He commenced a long rigmarole
about where he'd been, but Hannah didn't ask no questions. She said that
Washington was mighty fine, but home and Kenelm was good enough for her.
Said the thoughts of him alone had been with her every minute, and she
just HAD to cut the trip short. Kenelm wa'n't any too enthusiastic to
hear it.
“Breakfast next mornin' was a dream. Hannah had been up since five
o'clock gettin' it ready. There was everything on that table that Kenelm
liked 'special. And it all tasted fine, and he ate enough for four. When
'twas over Hannah went to the closet and brought out a bundle.
“'Kenelm,' she says, 'here's somethin' I brought you that'll
surprise you. I've noticed since I've been away that about everybody
smokes--senators and judges, and even Smithsonian Institute folks. And
when I see how much comfort they get out of it, my conscience hurt me
to think that I'd deprived my brother of what he got such a sight of
pleasure from. Kenelm, you can begin smokin' again right off. Here's
a box of cigars I bought on purpose for you; they're the kind the
President smokes.'
“Which wa'n't a bad yarn for a church member that hadn't had any more
practice than Hannah had.
“Well, Kenelm was paralyzed, but he lit up one of the cigars and found
'twas better than Abbie's brand. He asked Hannah what she thought the
church folks would say, but she said she didn't care what they said;
her travels had broadened her mind and she couldn't cramp herself to the
ideas of a little narrow place like East Wellmouth.
“Dinner that day was a bigger meal than breakfast, and two of the cigars
went fine after it. Kenelm hemmed and hawed and fin'lly said that he
wouldn't be home to supper; said he'd got to go downtown and would get a
bite at the Trav'lers' Rest or somewheres. It surprised him to find that
Hannah didn't raise objections, but she didn't, not a one. Just smiled
and said, 'All right,' and told him to have a good time. And Abbie's
supper didn't seem so good to him that night, and her cigars--bein' five
centers--wa'n't in it with that Washington box.
“Hannah didn't have dinner the next day until two o'clock, but 'twas
worth waitin' for. Turkey was twenty-three cents a pound, but she had
one, and plum puddin', too. She kept pressin' Kenelm to have a little
more, so 'twas after three when they got up from the table.
“'Twas a rainy, drizzly afternoon and the stove felt mighty homey and
cozy. So did the big rocker that Hannah transplanted from the parlor to
the settin'-room. That chair had been a kind of sacred throne afore, and
to set in it had been sort of sacrilegious, but there 'twas, and Kenelm
didn't object. And those President cigars certainly filled the bill.
“About half-past five Kenelm got up and looked out of the window. The
rain come spattin' against the pane and the wind whined and sounded
mean. Kenelm went back to the chair again. Then he got up and took
another observation. At last he goes back to the chair, stretches
himself out, puts his feet against the stove, pulls at the cigar, and
says he:
“'I was cal'latin' to go downtown on a bus'ness trip, same's I did last
night. But I guess,' he says--'I guess I won't. It's too comfort'ble
here,' says he.
“And I cal'late,” said Captain Obed, in conclusion, “that afore Hannah
turned in that night she gave herself three cheers. She'd gained a
tack on Abbie Larkin that had put Abbie out of the race, for that time,
anyhow.”
“But who sent the 'friend' letter?” asked Thankful, whose thoughts had
been diverted from her own troubles by hearing those of Miss Parker.
The captain laughed.
“That's a mystery, even yet,” he said. “I'm pretty sure Hannah thinks
'twas Elvira Paine. Elvira lives acrost the road from Abbie Larkin and,
bein' a single woman with mighty little hopes of recovery, naturally
might be expected to enjoy upsettin' anybody else's chance. But, at
any rate, Mrs. Barnes, the whole thing bears out what I said at the
beginnin': takin' other folks' advice about your own affairs is mighty
risky. I hope, if you do go ahead with your boardin'-house plan, it
won't be because I called it a good one.”
Thankful smiled and then sighed. “No,” she said, “if I go ahead with
it it'll be because I've made up my mind to, not on account of anybody
else's advice. I've steered my own course for quite a long spell and I
sha'n't signal for a pilot now. Well, here we are home again--or at East
Wellmouth anyhow.”
“So we be. Better come right to Hannah's along with me, hadn't you? You
must have had enough of the Holt Waldorf-Astory by this time.”
But Thankful insisted upon going to the hotel and there her new
friend--for she had begun to think of him as that--left her. She
informed him of her intention to remain in East Wellmouth for another
day and a half and he announced his intention of seeing her again before
she left.
“Just want to keep an eye on you,” he said. “With all of Mrs. Holt's
temptin' meals set afore you you may get gout or somethin' from
overeatin'. Either that or Winnie S.'ll talk you deef. I feel a kind
of responsibility, bein' as I'm liable to be your next-door neighbor
if that boardin'-house does start up, and I want you to set sail with a
clean bill of health. If you sight a suspicious-lookin' craft, kind
of antique in build, broad in the beam and makin' heavy weather up the
hills--if you sight that kind of craft beatin' down in this direction
tomorrow you'll know it's me. Good day.”
Thankful lay awake for hours that night, thinking, planning and
replanning. More than once she decided that she had been too hasty, that
her scheme involved too great a risk and that, after all, she had better
abandon it. But each time she changed her mind and at last fell asleep
determining not to think any more about it, but to wait until Mr. Cobb
came to accept or decline the mortgage. Then she would make a final
decision.
The next day passed somehow, though it seemed to her as if it never
would, and early the following forenoon came Solomon himself. The man of
business was driving an elderly horse which bore a faint resemblance
to its owner, being small and thin and badly in need of a hairdresser's
services. If the animal had possessed whiskers and could have tugged at
them Thankful was sure it would have done it.
Solomon tugged at his own whiskers almost constantly during that
forenoon. He and Mrs. Barnes visited the “Captain Abner place” and
Solomon inspected every inch of its exterior. For some reason or
other he absolutely refused to go inside. His conversation during the
inspection was, for the most part, sniffs and grunts, and it was not
until it was ended and they stood together at the gate, that he spoke to
the point, and then only because his companion insisted.
“Well!” said Thankful.
Mr. Cobb “weeded.”
“Eh?” he said.
“That's what I say--eh? What are you goin' to do about that mortgage,
Mr. Cobb?”
More weeding. Then: “Waal, I--I don't cal'late to want to be
unreasonable nor nothin', but I ain't real keen about takin' no mortgage
on that property; not myself, I ain't.”
“Well, it is yourself I'm askin' to take it. So you won't, hey? All
right; that's all I wanted to know.”
“Now--now--now, hold on! Hold on! I ain't sayin' I WON'T take it. I--I'd
like to be accommodatin', 'specially to a relation. But--”
“Never mind the relation business. I found out what you think
of relations afore you found out I was one. And I ain't askin'
accommodation. This is just plain business, seems to me. Will you let me
have two thousand dollars on a mortgage on this place?”
Mr. Cobb fidgeted. “I couldn't let you have that much,” he said. “I
couldn't. I--I--” he wrenched the next sentence loose after what seemed
a violent effort, “I might let you have half of it--a thousand, say.”
But Thankful refused to say a thousand. That was ridiculous, she
declared. By degrees, and a hundred at a time, Solomon raised his offer
to fifteen hundred. This being the sum Mrs. Barnes had considered in the
first place--and having asked for the two thousand merely because of her
judgment of human nature--she announced that she would think over the
offer. Then came the question of time. Here Mr. Cobb was firm. Three
years--two years--he would not consider. At last he announced that
he would take a one-year mortgage on the Barnes property for fifteen
hundred dollars; and that was all he would do.
“And I wouldn't do that for nobody else,” he declared. “You bein' my
relation I don't know's it ain't my duty as a perfessin' Christian
to--to help you out. I hadn't ought to afford it, but I'm willin' to go
so far.”
Thankful shook her head. “I'm glad you said, 'PROFESSIN' Christian.'”
she observed. “Well,” drawing a long breath, “then I suppose I've got
to say yes or no. . . . And I'll say yes,” she added firmly. “And we'll
call it settled.”
They parted before the hotel. She was to return to South Middleboro that
afternoon. Mr. Cobb was to prepare the papers and forward them for her
signature, after which, upon receipt of them duly signed, he would send
her the fifteen hundred dollar check.
Solomon climbed into the buggy. “Well, good-by,” he said. “I hope you'll
do fust-rate. The interest'll be paid regular, of course. I'm real
pleased to meet you--er--Cousin Thankful. Be sure you sign them papers
in the right place. Good-by. Oh--er--er--sometimes I'll be droppin'
in to see you after you get your boardin'-house goin'. I come to East
Wellmouth once in a while. Yes--yes--I'll come and see you. You can tell
me more about Captain Abner, you know. I'd--I'd like to hear what he
said to you about me. Good-by.”
That afternoon, once more in the depot-wagon, which had been refitted
with its fourth wheel, Thankful, on her way to the Wellmouth railway
station, passed her “property.” The old house, its weather-beaten
shingles a cold gray in the half-light of the mist-shrouded, sinking
sun, looked lonely and deserted. A chill wind came from the sea and the
surf at the foot of the bluff moaned and splashed and sighed.
Thankful sighed also.
“What's the matter?” asked Winnie S.
“Oh, nothin' much. I wish I was a prophet, that's all. I'd like to be
able to look ahead a year.”
Winnie S. whistled. “Judas priest!” he said. “So'd I. But if I'd see
myself drivin' this everlastin' rig-out I'd wished I hadn't looked. I
don't know's I'd want to see ahead as fur's that, after all.”
Thankful sighed again. “I don't know as I do, either,” she admitted.