SOMETHING ABOUT SALT WATER TAFFY
During the day Cap'n Amazon and Amiel Perdue carried Louise's trunks
upstairs and into the storeroom, handy to her own chamber. It seems
Cap'n Amazon had not brought his own sea chest; only a "dunnage bag,"
as he called it.
"But there's plenty of Abe's duds about," he said; "and we're about of
a size."
When Louise went to unpack her trunks she found a number of things in
the storeroom more interesting even than her own pretty summer frocks.
There were shells, corals, sea-ivory--curios, such as are collected by
seamen the world over. Cap'n Abe was an indefatigable gatherer of such
wares. There was a green sea chest standing with its lid wide open,
tarred rope handles on its ends, that may have been around the world a
score of times. It was half filled with old books.
All the dusty, musty volumes in the chest seemed to deal with the sea
and sea-going. Many of them, long since out of print and forgotten,
recounted strange and almost unbelievable romances of nautical
life--stories of wrecks, fires, battles with savages and pirates,
discoveries of lone islands and marvelous explorations in lands which,
since the date of publication, have become semi-civilized or altogether
so.
Here were narratives of men who had sailed around the world in tiny
craft like Captain Slocum; stories of seamen who had become chiefs of
cannibal tribes, like the famous Larry O'Brien; several supposedly
veracious narratives of the survivors of the Bounty; stories of Arctic
and Antarctic discovery and privation. There were also several
scrapbooks filled with newspaper clippings of nautical wonders--many of
these clipped from New Bedford and Newport papers which at one time
were particularly rich in whalers' yarns.
Interested in skimming these wonderful stories, Lou Grayling spent most
of the afternoon. Here was a fund of entertainment for rainy days--or
wakeful nights, if she chanced to suffer such. She carried one of the
scrapbooks into her bedroom that it might be under her hand if she
desired such amusement.
In arranging her possessions in closet and bureau, she found no time on
this first day at Cap'n Abe's store to stroll even as far as The
Beaches; but the next morning she got up betimes, as soon as Cap'n
Amazon himself was astir, dressed, and ran down and out of the open
back door while her uncle was sweeping the store.
The sun was but then opening a red eye above the horizon. The ocean,
away out to this line demarcating sea and sky, was perfectly flat.
Unlike the previous dawn, this was as clear as a bell's note.
Louise had been wise enough to wear high shoes, so the sands above
high-water mark did not bother her. The waves lapped in softly,
spreading over the dimpling gray beach, their voice reduced to a
whispering murmur.
Along the crescent of the sands, above on the bluffs, were set the
homes of the summer residents--those whom Gusty Durgin, the waitress at
the hotel, termed "the big bugs." On the farthest point visible in
this direction was a sprawling, ornate villa with private dock and
boathouses, and a small breakwater behind which floated a fleet of
small craft. Louise heard the "put-put-a-put" of a motor and descried
a swift craft coming from this anchorage.
She saw, by sweeping it with her glance, that not a soul but herself
was on the shore--neither in the direction of the summer colony nor on
the other hand where the beach curved sharply out to the lighthouse at
the end of the Neck. The motor boat was fast approaching the spot
where Louise stood.
It being the single moving object on the scene, save the gulls, she
began to watch it. There was but one person in the motor boat. He was
hatless and was dressed in soiled flannels. It was the young man,
Lawford Tapp, of whom Cap'n Abe did not altogether approve.
"He must work for those people over there," Louise Grayling thought.
"He is nice looking."
It could not be possible that Lawford Tapp had descried and recognized
the figure of the girl from the Tapp anchorage!
He no longer wore his hip boots. After shutting off his engine, he
guided the sharp prow of the launch right up into the sand and leaped
into shallow water, bringing ashore the bight of the painter to throw
over a stub sunk above high-water mark.
"Good-morning! What do you think of it?" he asked Louise, with a
cordial smile that belonged to him.
"It is lovely!" she said. "Really wonderful! I suppose you have lived
here so long it does not appeal to you as strongly as to the
new-beholder?"
"I don't know about that. It's the finest place in the world; I think.
There's no prettier shore along the Atlantic coast than The Beaches."
"Perhaps you are right. I do not know much about the New England
coast," she confessed. "And that--where the spray dashes up so high,
even on this calm morning?"
"Gull Rocks. The danger spot of all danger spots along the outer line
of the Cape. In rough weather all one can see out there is a cauldron
of foam."
Before she could express herself again the purr of a swiftly moving
motor car attracted her attention, and she turned to see a low gray
roadster coming toward them from the north. The Shell Road, before
reaching the shore, swerved northward and ran along the bluffs on which
the bungalows and summer cottages were built. These dwellings faced
the smooth white road, the sea being behind them.
As Louise looked the car slowed down and stopped, the engine still
throbbing. A girl was at the wheel. She was perhaps fifteen, without
a hat and with two plaits of yellow hair lying over her slim shoulders.
"Hey, Ford!" she shouted to the young man, "haven't you been up to
Cap'n Abe's yet? Daddy's down at the dock now and he's in a tearing
hurry."
She gazed upon Lou Grayling frankly but made no sign of greeting. She
did not wait, indeed, for a reply from the young man but threw in the
clutch and the car shot away.
"I've got to go up to the store," he said. "L'Enfant Terrible is
evidently going to Paulmouth to meet the early train. Must be somebody
coming."
Louise looked at him quickly, her expression one of perplexity. She
supposed this child in the car was the daughter of Lawford's employer.
But whoever before heard a fisherman speak just as he did? Had Cap'n
Abe been at home she certainly would have tapped that fount of local
knowledge for information regarding Lawford. He did not look so much
the fisherman type without his jersey and high boots.
"How do you like the old fellow up at the store?" Lawford asked, as
they strolled along together. "Isn't he a curious old bird?"
"You mean my Uncle Amazon?"
"Goodness! He _is_ your uncle, too, isn't he?" and a flush of
embarrassment came into his bronzed cheek. "I had forgotten he was
Cap'n Abe's brother. He is so different!"
"Isn't he?" responded Louise demurely. "He doesn't look anything like
Uncle Abram, at least."
"I should say not!" ejaculated Lawford. "Do you know, he's an
awfully--er--romantic looking old fellow. Looks just as though he had
stepped out of an old print"
"The frontispiece of a book about buccaneers, for instance?" she
suggested gleefully.
"Well," and he smiled down upon her from his superior height, "I wasn't
sure you would see it that way."
"Do you know," she told him, still laughing, "that Betty Gallup calls
him nothing but 'that old pirate.' She has taken a decided dislike to
him and I have to keep smoothing her ruffled feathers. And, really,
Cap'n Amazon is the nicest man."
"I bet he's seen some rough times," Lawford rejoined with vigor. "We
used to think Cap'n Abe told some stretchers about his brother; but
Cap'n Amazon looks as though he had been through all that Cap'n Abe
ever told about--and more."
"Oh, he's not so very terrible, I assure you," Louise said, much amused.
"Did you notice the scar along his jaw? Looks like a cutlass stroke to
me. I'd like to know how he came by it. It must have been some fight!"
"You will make him out a much more terrible character than he can
possibly be."
"Never mind. If he's anything at all like Cap'n Abe, we'll get it all
out of him. I bet he can tell us some hair-raisers."
"I tell you he's a nice old man, and I won't have you talk so about
him," Louise declared. "We must change the subject."
"We'll talk about _you_," said Lawford quickly. "I'm awfully curious.
When does your--er--work begin down here?"
"My work?" Then she understood him and dimpled. "Oh, just now is my
playtime."
"Making pictures must be interesting."
"I presume it looks so to the outsider," she admitted. It amused her
immensely that he should think her a motion picture actress.
"Your coming here and Cap'n Amazon exchanging jobs with his brother
have caused more excitement than Cardhaven and the vicinity have seen
in a decade. Or at least since _I_ have lived here."
"Oh! Then are you not native to the soil?"
"No, not exactly," he replied. And then after a moment he added: "It's
a great old place, even in winter."
"Not dull at all?"
"Never dull," he reassured her. "Too much going on, on sea and shore,
to ever be dull. Not for me, at least. I love it."
They reached the store. Louise bade the young man good-morning and
went around to the back door to greet Betty.
Lawford made his purchases in rather serious mood and returned to his
motor boat. His mind was fixed upon the way Louise Grayling had looked
as he stepped ashore and greeted her.
He had been close enough to her now, and for time enough as well, to be
sure that there was nothing artificial about this girl. She was as
natural as a flower--and just as sweet! There was a softness to her
cheek and to the curve of her neck like rich velvet. Her eyes were
mild yet sparkling when she became at all animated. And that demure
smile! And her dimples!
When a young man gets to making an accounting of a girl's charms in
this way, he is far gone indeed. Lawford Tapp was very seriously
smitten.
He saw his youngest sister, Cicely, whom the family always called
L'Enfant Terrible, speeding back to the villa in the automobile. She
had not gone as far as Paulmouth, after all, and she reached home long
before he docked the launch. Lawford did not pay much attention to
what went on in the big villa. His mother and sisters lived a social
life of their own. He merely slept there, spending most of his days on
the water.
The Salt Water Taffy King was not at the private dock when Lawford
arrived. Mr. Israel Tapp was an irritable and impatient man. He "flew
off the handle" at the slightest provocation. Many times a day he lost
his temper and, as Lawford phlegmatically expressed it, "blew up."
These exhibitions meant nothing particularly to Mr. Tapp. They were
escape-valves for a nervous irritability that had grown during his
years of idleness. Born of a poor Cape family, but with a dislike for
fish-seines and lobster-pots, he had turned his attention from the
first to the summer visitors, even in his youth beginning to flock to
the old-fashioned ports of the Cape. Catering to their wants was a
gold mine but little worked at that time.
He began to sell candy at one of the more popular resorts. Then he
began to make candy. His Salt Water Taffy became locally famous. He
learned that a good many of the wealthier people who visited the Cape
in summer played all the year around. They went to Atlantic City or to
the Florida beaches in the winter.
So Israel Tapp branched out and established salt water taffy kitchens
all up and down the coast. "I. Tapp, the Salt Water Taffy King" became
a catch-word. It was then but a step to incorporating a company and
establishing huge candy factories. I. Tapp went on by leaps and
bounds. While yet a comparatively young man he found himself a
multi-millionaire. Even a rather expensive family could not spend his
income fast enough.
He built the ornate villa at The Beaches and, like Lawford, preferred
to live there rather than elsewhere. His wife and the older girls
insisted upon having a town house in Boston and in traveling at certain
times to more or less exclusive resorts and to Europe. Their one
ambition was to get into that exclusive social set in which they felt
their money should rightfully place them. But a house on the Back Bay
does not always assure one's entrance to the circles of the "gilded
codfish."
Mr. Tapp went down to the dock again after a time. Lawford had the
_Merry Andrew_ all ready to set out on the proposed fishing trip. The
sloop was a pretty craft, clinker built, and about the fastest sailing
boat within miles of Cardhaven. Lawford was proud of her.
"So you're back at last, are you?" snapped the Salt Water Taffy King.
He was a portly little man with a red face and a bald brow. His very
strut pronounced him a self-made man. He glared at his son, whose cool
nonchalance he often declared was impudence.
"I've been waiting some time for you, dad. Hop aboard," Lawford calmly
said.
"You took your time in getting back here," responded his father, by no
means mollified. "And you knew I was waiting. But you had to stand
and talk to a girl over there. Cicely says it is that picture actress
who is staying at Cap'n Abe's. Is that so?"
"I presume Cicely is right," his son answered. "There is no other here
at present to my knowledge."
"Of all things!" ejaculated Mr. Tapp. "You are always making some kind
of a fool of yourself, Lawford. Don't, for pity's sake, be _that_ kind
of a fool."
"What do you mean, dad?" and now the young man's eyes flashed. It was
seldom that Lawford turned upon his father in anger.
"You know very well what I mean. Keep away from such women. Don't get
messed up with actor people. I won't have it, I tell you! I am
determined that at least _one_ rich man's son shall not be the victim
of the wiles of any of these stage women."
The flush remained in Lawford's cheek. It hurt him to hear his father
speak so in referring to Louise Grayling. He, too, possessed some of
the insular prejudice of his kind against those who win their
livelihood in the glare of the theatrical spotlight. This gentle,
well-bred, delightful girl staying at Cap'n Abe's store was a
revelation to him. He held his tongue, however, and held his temper in
check as well.
"I don't see," stormed I. Tapp, "why you can't take up with a nice girl
and marry. Why, at your age I was married and we had Marian!"
"Don't you think that should discourage me, dad?" Lawford put in.
"Marian is nobody to brag of, I should say."
"Hah!" ejaculated his father. "She's a fool, too. But there are nice
girls. I was talking to your mother about your case last night. Of
course, I don't want you to say anything to her about what I'm going to
tell you now. She's got the silliest notions," pursued Mr. Tapp who
labored under the belief that all the wisdom of the ages had lodged
under his own hat. "Expects her daughters to marry dukes and you to
catch a princess or the like."
"There are no such fish in these waters," laughed Lawford. "At least,
none has so much as nibbled at my hook."
"And no nice girl will nibble at it if you don't come ashore once in a
while and get into something besides fisherman's duds."
"Now, dad, clothes do not make the man."
"Who told you such a fool thing as that? Some fool philosopher with
only one shirt to his back said it. Bill Johnson proved how wrong that
was to my satisfaction years and years ago. Good old Bill! I wanted
to branch out. We had just that one little candy factory and I worked
in it myself every day.
"I got the idea," continued I. Tapp, launched on a favorite subject
now, "that my balance sheet and outlook for trade might impress the
bank people. I wanted to build a bigger factory. So I took off my
apron one day and walked over to the bank. I saw the president. He
looked like a fashion plate himself and he swung a pair of dinky
glasses on a cord as he listened to me and looked me over. Then he
turned me down--flat!
"I told Bill about it. Bill was kind of tied up just then himself.
That was before he made his big strike. But he was a different fellow
from me. Bill always looked like ready money.
"'Isra,' he says to me, 'I'll tell you how to get that money from the
bank.'
"'It can't be done, Bill,' I told him. 'The president of the bank
showed me that my business was too weak to stand such spread-eagling.
"'Nonsense!' says Bill. 'It isn't your business, it's your nerve that
you've got to hire money on--and your clothes. You do what I tell you.
Come to my tailor's in the morning.'
"Well, to cut a long story short, I did it. I rigged up to beat that
bank president himself. When he saw me in about two hundred dollars'
worth of good clothes he considered the case again and recommended the
loan to his board. 'You put your facts much more lucidly to-day, Mr.
Tapp,' is the way he expressed himself. But take it from me, Lawford,
it was my clothes that made the impression.
"So!" ruminated Mr. Tapp, "that is one thing Bill Johnson did for me.
And later, as you know, he came into the candy business with me and his
money helped make I. Tapp, the Salt Water Taffy King. Lawford, Bill is
like a brother to me. His girl, Dorothy, is one of the nicest girls
who ever stepped in a slipper."
"Dorothy Johnson is a really sweet girl, dad," Lawford agreed. "I like
her."
"There!" ejaculated I. Tapp. "You let that liking become something
stronger. Dorothy's just the girl for you to marry."
"_What_?" gasped the skipper of the _Merry Andrew_, almost losing his
grip on the steering wheel.
"You get my meaning," said his father, scowling. "I've always meant
you should marry Bill's daughter. I had your mother write her last
night inviting her down here. Of course, your mother and the girls
think Bill Johnson's folks are too plain. But I'm boss once in a while
in my own house."
"And you call mother a matchmaker!"
"I know what I want and I'm going to get it," said I. Tapp doggedly.
"Dorothy is the girl for you. Don't you get entangled with anybody
else. Not a penny of my money will you ever handle if you don't do as
I say, young man!"
"You needn't holler till you're hit, dad," Lawford said, trying to
speak carelessly.
"Oh! _I_ sha'n't holler," snarled the Taffy King. "I warn you. One
such play as that and I'm through with you. I'm willing to support an
idle, ne'er-do-well; but he sha'n't saddle himself with one of those
theatrical creatures and bring scandal upon the family. Do you know
what I was doing when I was your age? I had a booth at 'Gansett, two
at Newport, a big one at Atlantic City, and was beginning to branch
out. I worked like a dog, too."
"That's why I think I don't have to work, dad," said Lawford coolly.