"Wal, thar now, Cap'n Pharo Kobbe! ain't Vesty Kirtland worthy?"
"Vesty!" said the captain, undismayed--"Vesty 's an amazin' gal, but
she ain't nowheres along o' major!"
"Wal, I must say! I wonder whatever put you in such a takin' to major."
He did not say.
We travelled vaguely, gazing from house to house, and then the road
over again, without discovering any sign of the basket.
"By clam! it 's almost enough to make an infidel of a man," said the
captain, furiously relighting his pipe.
"Cap'n Pharo Kobbe, you're all'as layin' everything either to women or
religion."
"Don't mention on 'em in the same breath," said the captain; "don't.
They hadn't never orter be classed together!"
Fortunately at this juncture we saw Mrs. Lester afar off at a fork of
the roads standing and waving her arms to us, and we hastened to join
her, but imagine the captain's feelings when from the circle-basket she
took out a large, plump blueberry pie, or "turnover," for each of us,
with a face all beaming with unconscious joy and good-will.
"How do you feel now, eatin' Miss Lester's turnover, after what you've
been and said?" said his wife.
"What'd I say?" said the captain boldly, immersed in the joys of his
blueberry pie; for a primitive, a generic appetite attaches to this
region: one is always hungry; no sooner has one eaten than he is
wholesomely hungry again.
"Do you want me to tell what you said, Cap'n Pharo Kobbe?"
"Poo! poo!" said the captain, wiping his mouth with a flourish.
[Illustration: Music fragment: 'Or as the morning flow'r, The blighting
wind sweeps o'er, she--'"]
"You'd ought to join a concert," said his wife, at the stinging height
of sarcasm, for the captain's singing was generally regarded as a
sacred subject.
But there was one calm spirit aboard, my companion, Mrs. Lester. Ah
me! if I might but drive with her again! Her weight was such, settling
the springs that side, that I, slender and uplifted, and tossed by the
roughness of the road, had continually to cling to the side bars, in
order to give a proper air of coolness to our relationship.
But when it came to the pie I had to give up the contest, and ate it
reclining, literally, upon her bosom.
"I'm glad I didn't wear my dead-lustre silk," said she tenderly; "it
might 'a' got spotted. I'm all'as a great hand to spot when I'm eatin'
blueberry pie."
Blessed soul! it was not she; it was my arm that was scattering the
contents of the pie.
"You know I board 'Blind Rodgers,'" she went on, still deeper to bury
my regret and confusion. I had heard of him; his sightless, gentle
ambition it was to live without making "spots."
"Wal, we had blueberry pie for dinner yesterday--and I wonder if them
rich parents in New York 't left him with me jest because he was blind,
and hain't for years took no notice of him 'cept to send his board--I
wonder if they could 'a' done what he done? I made it with a lot o'
sweet, rich juice, and I thought to myself, 'I know Blind Rodgers'll
slop a little on the table-cloth to-day,' and I put on a clean
table-cloth, jest hopin' he would. But where I set, with seein' eyes,
there was two or three great spots on the cloth; and he et his pie, but
on his place at table, when he got up, ye wouldn't 'a' known anybody'd
been settin' there, it was so clean and white!"
Some tears coursed down her cheeks at the pure recollection--we, who
have seeing eyes, make so many spots! I felt the tears coming to my
own eyes, for we were as close in sympathy as in other respects.
Meanwhile the ancient horse was taking quite an unusual pace over the
road.
"Another sail on ahead there somewhere," said Captain Pharo; "hoss is
chasin' another hoss. It 's Mis' Garrison's imported coachman, takin'
home some meal, 'cross kentry. He'll turn in to'ds the Neck by'n'by.
Poo! poo! Mis' Garrison wanted Fluke to coach for her; he was so
strong an' harnsome; an' she was tellin' him what she wanted him to do,
curchy here, and curchy there. 'Mis' Garrison,' says Fluke, 'I'll
drive ye 'round wherever ye wants me to, but I'll be d--d if I'll
curchy to ye!' So she fetched along an imported one."
Whatever the obsequious conduct of this individual toward Mrs.
Garrison, his manners to us were insolent to a degree. Having once
turned to look at us, he composed his hat on one side, grinned,
whistled, and would neither turn again nor give us room to pass, nor
drive out of a walk, on our account.
"Either fly yer sails, or cl'ar the ship's channel there," cried
Captain Pharo at last, snorting with indignation.
The wicked imported coachman continued the same.
It was now that our horse, who had been meanwhile going through what
quiet mental processes we knew not, solved the apparent difficulty of
the situation by a judicious selection of expedients. He lifted the
bag of meal bodily from the coachman's wagon with his teeth, and,
depositing it silently upon the ground by the roadside, paused of his
own accord and gravely waited for us to do the rest.
The coachman was pursuing his way, unconscious, insolent, whistling.
"She'll take it out o' yer wages; she 's dreadful close," chuckled
Captain Pharo, as we tucked the bag of meal away on the carriage floor.
"See when ye'll scoff in my sails, and block up the ship's channel
ag'in! Now then; touch and go is a good pilot," and we struck off on a
divergent road at a rattling pace.
But these adventures had exhausted so much time, when we arrived at
Crooked River it was high tide, and the bridge was already elevated for
the passage of a schooner approaching in the distance.
"See, now, what ye done, don't ye?" said Captain Pharo--I must say
it--with mean reproach, to his wife; "we've got to wait here an hour
an' a half."
"Wal, thar, Cap'n Pharo Kobbe, seems to me I wouldn't say nothin'
'g'inst Providence nor nobody else, for once, ef I'd jest got two
dollars' worth o' meal, jest for pickin' it up off'n the road."
Touched by this view of the case, the captain sang with great
cheerfulness that his days were as the grass or as the morning
flower--when an inspiration struck him.
"I don' know," said he, "why we hadn't just as well turn here and go up
Artichoke road, and git baited at Coffin's, 'stid er stoppin' to see
'em on the way home. I'm feelin' sharp as a meat-axe ag'in."
"I don' know whether the rest of ye are hungry or not," said plump
little Mrs. Kobbe; "but I'm gittin as long-waisted as a
knittin'-needle."
The language of vivid hyperbole being exhausted, Mrs. Lester and I
expressed ourselves simply to the same effect. We turned, heedful no
longer of the tides, and travelled delightfully along the Artichoke
road until we reached a brown dwelling that I knew could be none other
than theirs--Uncle Coffin's and Aunt Salomy's; they were in their sunny
yard, and before I knew them, I loved them.
"Dodrabbit ye!" cried Uncle Coffin Demmin, springing out at us in
hospitable ecstasy, Salomy beside him; "git out! git out quick! The
sight on ye makes me sick, in there. Git out, I say!" he roared.
"No-o; guess not, Coffin," said Captain Pharo, with gloomy observance
of formalities; "guess I ca-arnt; goin' up to the Point to git a nail
put in my hoss's shu-u."
But Uncle Coffin was already leading the horse and carriage on to the
barn floor.
"Dodrabbit ye!" he exclaimed, "git out, or I'll _shute_ ye out."
At this invitation we began to descend with cheerful alacrity.
As the horse walked into an evidently familiar stall, Uncle Coffin
seized Captain Pharo and whirled him about with admiring affection.
"Dodrabbit ye, Pharo!" he cried, struck with the new jacket; "ye've
been to Boston!"
"I hain't; hain't been nigh her for forty year," said Captain Pharo,
but he was unconscionably pleased.
"Dodrabbit ye, Pharo! ye've been a-junketin' around to Bar Harbor; that
's whar' ye been."
"I hain't, Coffin; honest I hain't been nigh her," chuckled Captain
Pharo.
"Dodrabbit ye, Pharo!" said Uncle Coffin, seizing the hat from his head
and regarding its bespattered surface with delight; "ye've been
a-whitewashin'!"
This Captain Pharo proudly did not deny. "Dodrabbit ye, Pharo!" said
our fond host, giving him another whirl, "yer hair 's pretty plumb
'fore, but she 's raked devilish well aft. Ye can't make no stand fer
yerself! Ye're hungry, Pharo; ye're wastin'; come along!"
Uncle Coffin seized me on the way, but in voiceless appreciation of my
physical meanness he supported me with one hand, while he
affectionately mauled and whirled me with the other.
"Dodrabbit ye! you young spark, you! whar' ye been all this time?" he
cried--though I had never gazed upon his face before!
His rough touch was a galvanic battery of human kindness. It thrilled
and electrified me. No; he had not even seen my pitiful presence. I
do not know where the people of the world get their manners; but these
Artichokes got theirs, rough-coated though they were, straight from the
blue above.
"Say! whar' ye been all this time? That 's what I want to know,"
sending a thrill of close human fellowship down my back. "Didn't ye
reckon as Salomy and me 'ud miss ye, dodrabbit ye! you young
lawn-tennis shu's, you!"
I glanced down at my feet. They were covered with a thick crust of
buttermilk and meal. I remembered now to have experienced a pleasant
sensation of coolness at my feet at one time, being too closely wedged
in with Mrs. Lester and the meal, however, to investigate.
We found, on searching the carriage, that the jug had capsized, and one
of the lobsters had extracted the cork, which he still grasped tightly
in his claw.
"Look at that, Coffin," said Captain Pharo sadly; "even our lobsters is
dry!"
"Wal, I'm cert'nly glad now," said Mrs. Lester, surveying the bottom of
her gown, "'t I didn't wear my dead-lustre silk."
"Why so, Mis' Lester; why so?" said Uncle Coffin, performing a waltz
with the small remaining contents of the buttermilk jug. "Ef it's a
beauty in her to have her lustre dead, why wouldn't she be still
harnsomer to have her lustre dedder!"
He drew me aside at this, and for some moments we stood helplessly
doubled over with laughter. For the climate serves one the same in
regard to jokes as in food. One is never satiated with them, and there
are no morbid, worn distinctions of taste--an old one, an exceedingly
mild one, have all the convulsive power of the keenest flash from less
healthy and rubicund intellects.
When we had recovered ourselves sufficiently to walk, we went into the
house, arm in arm. There Uncle Coffin seized Captain Pharo again and
threw him delightedly several feet off into a chair.
"Ye're weary, Pharo, dodrabbit ye! Set thar'. Repose. Repose. Wait
'tell the flapjacks is ready. They're fryin'. Smell 'em?"
We perceived their odor, and that of the wild strawberries and coffee
which Mrs. Lester had taken from her circle-basket.
"Why, father," said Aunt Salomy, as we sat at table, giving me a glance
indicative of a beaming conversance with elegant conventionalities; "ye
_shouldn't_ set the surrup cup right atop o' the loaf o' bread.'
"Never mind whar' she sets, mother," said Uncle Coffin gayly, "so long
as she 's squar' amidships."
He would pour out the treacle for us all--for that it was sweeter,
sweeter than any refined juices I ever tasted. No denials, no
protestations would avail to stay the utter generosity of his hand.
The griddle-cakes were of the apparent size of the moon when she is
full in the heavens.
"Come, Pharo, brace up. Eat somethin', dodrabbit ye! Ye're poorin'
away every minute ye're settin' there; ye hain't hauled yerself over
but two yit."
"By clam! Coffin, sure as I'm a livin' man, I've hauled myself over
fourteen," said Captain Pharo seriously.
"Come, come, major; ye're fadin' away to a shadder. Ye hain't hauled
yerself over nothin' yet."
"Oh, I have," I rejoined, with urgent truth and unction. "I can't,
honestly I can't, haul myself over anything more."
In spite of some suggestive winks directed on my behalf, not then
understood, I remained innocently with Mrs. Lester and Aunt Salomy
while they were doing the dishes. But presently through the open
window where I sat I felt a bean take me sharply in the nape of the
neck, and, turning, I discovered Captain Pharo outside. He winked at
me. I naïvely winked back again. He coughed low and meaningly; I
smiled and nodded.
He disappeared, and ere long I felt one of my ears tingling from the
blow of another bean. It was Uncle Coffin this time; his wink was
almost savage with excess of meaning. I returned it amiably. He
coughed low and hopelessly, and disappeared.
But soon after he came walking nonchalantly into the room.
"Dodrabbit ye, major!" said he, punching me with a vigorous hand,
"don't ye take no interest in a man's stock? Come along out and look
at the stock."
At that I rose and followed him. Captain Pharo was waiting for us.
They did not speak, but they led the way straight as the flight of an
arrow to the barn, walked undeviatingly across the floor, lifted me
solemnly ahead of them up the ladder to the hay-mow, stumbled across it
to the farthest and darkest corner, dived down into it and brought up
an ancient pea-jacket, unrolled it, and produced from the pocket a
bottle, labelled with what I at once knew to be Uncle Coffin's own
design:
"RAT PISON TO TOUCH HER IS DETH."
"Drink!" said Uncle Coffin.
All his former levity was gone. He had the look of bestowing, and
Captain Pharo of witnessing bestowed, upon another, a boon inestimable,
priceless, rare.
A temperate familiarity with the use of the cup informed me at once of
the nature of this liquid. It was whiskey of a very vile quality.
But even had it contained something akin to the dark sequel on its
label, I could not have refused it from Uncle Coffin's hand.
Slightly I drank. Captain Pharo drank. Uncle Coffin drank.
The bottle was replaced, and we as solemnly descended.
I had never been unwarily affected, even by a much larger quantity of
the pure article; perhaps by way of compensation an electric spark from
Uncle Coffin's own personality had entered into this compound. More
likely still, it was the radiant atmosphere.
But I remembered standing out leaning against the pig-pen, with Captain
Pharo and Uncle Coffin, of nudging and being nudged by them into
frequent excess of laughter over some fondly rambling anecdote or
confiding witticism, until Captain Pharo, "taking the sun," decided to
put off until some other day going to the Point to get a nail put in
the horse's shoe.
I remembered--well might I, for they were in my own too--the honest
tears in the eyes of Uncle Coffin and Aunt Salomy as we parted; of
being tucked in again under the Star, with new accessions to our store,
of dried smelts and summer savory, and three newly born kittens in a
bag, which I was instructed to hold so as to give them air without
allowing them to escape. Yes, and of the dying splendor of the sun,
the ineffable colors painting sea and sky; and of knowing that if I had
not already become a Basin, I should inevitably have joined the
Artichokes.