Leafless and brown are the trees, but the Basin has diviner glories
than at midsummer, in colors unspeakable of sea and sky, of
wild-sailing cloud, of sunset and of moon.
There come great news of Notely. In pursuance of which, "Did ye ever
notice," said Captain Leezur, sitting on the log in the late sunshine,
ambrosially sucking a nervine lozenge; "did ye ever notice, major, how
't all the great folks, or them 't 's risin' tew be great--how 't they
all comes from a squantum place like this?"
"Yes," I said, "I've heard it as a remarkable fact."
"I don't mean t' say 't _everybody_ in a squantum place is beound and
destined tew be great or die!" said Captain Leezur, with whole-souled
disparagement of such a thought: "no, no; they can't carry it on us so
fur as that. 'Forced-to-go,' ye know."
"No, indeed!" I consented.
I accepted a nervine lozenge, and we braced ourselves firmly on the
log, placid, but set, against all resistance, not to be great!
"What is this rewmer abeout Notely, major? I heered how 't you took a
lot o' noos-sheets."
"It is fine. He is making for himself a name in your politics, and at
the same time there 's the old fire in him, flashing out over
conventions; one can almost hear him laugh. He rings out, clear, amid
any false notes; it is a grand satire; sometimes the dry bones quake."
"Lord sakes!" said Captain Leezur, turning on me with deep-smitten
dismay; "I heered how't he was bein' successful!"
"His financial speculations seem touched with magic, they say; he is
courted, feared, praised, maligned; he laughs and rings out, the true
note! His health is not strong, never since that fall. There; you
have all I know, Captain Leezur."
Captain Leezur meditated. "There _be_ times--I sh'd never want this
said except between you an' me, major--when I'm glad 't Notely Garrison
didn't marry Vesty, after all! Notely 'n' me was great mates, all'as.
But I'll tell ye this, when Notely got everythin' he wanted he'd carry
sail enough to sink the boat, all'as; couldn't never jump rough enough
or fast enough on a high sea; kept the rest on us bailin' water: that
was Note, when he had all the wind he wanted; that was Note,
all'as--but I all'as loved him better 'n them 't was more keerful
sailors."
The sun saw itself globed in a tear that fell on Captain Leezur's felts.
"Moderation in all things, ye know," he added, beaming, not to distress
me; "even in passnips."
I mused with him in silent sympathy. "Oiling the saw again, I see," I
said at last glancing with reverent admiration of such benign industry
at the oil-can.
"No," said Captain Leezur kindly; "I wa'n't, I was a-goin' deown, by
'n' by, to the cove, to ca'm the water deown, 'n' see ef I c'd spear up
a few fleounders; but I ain't in no hurry. I'd jest as soon set
areound on the int'rust o' my money!"
This was a joke insatiable between us, always bubbling over, always
enough of it left for next rime. At its utterance Captain Leezur's
countenance was accustomed to break up entirely, while I laughed with
an appreciation that never fainted or palled.
We felt that there was never aught sparkling enough to be said after
it, but parted in succulent silence, Captain Leezur with his oil-can,
going down to compose the waters, while I pursued my less omnipotent
way to the Basin "post-office."
"Ef there 's anything trying," said Lunette, though with the peculiarly
official air she always wore on post days, "it is dressin' sand-peeps.
But thar! Tyson come home with a harf-bushel, an' what are ye goin' to
do? Onct a year, Ty says, he wants ter jest stuff himself to the
collar-bone on sand-peep pie, an' then he don't want to see nary one,
nor hear 'em mentioned in his sight--not for another year."
It might have troubled the casual observer at first to discover, in the
variety of Lunette's official capacity, which was post-office and which
was sand-peeps, so agreeably and informally did these two elements
combine in her surroundings.
"Mis' Pharo Kobbe!" she called.
That lady, thus summarily summoned, sprang forward from a cloud of
witnesses, as choice and flattered assistant.
"Won't you take them letters 't Major Henry's jest brought in, and
deface the stamps on 'em? Turn the ink enter them pictur's o' George
Washin'ton so 't his own mother's son wouldn't know him. I don't
calk'late to have no stamps 't 's sent out from the Basin post-office
washed out an' used over ag'in. The defacement they gets here is for
everlastin' an' for aye."
I watched helplessly a full discharge of this command on the part of
Mrs. Pharo Kobbe, and proceeded to pluck one of the sand-peeps
meanwhile, along with the rest, waiting the arrival of the post bag.
"Some o' the rusticators 't was here in the summer," continued Lunette,
sneezing over a culinary preparation of pepper, "though 't we ought to
have two mails a week! Ef I was so dyin' crazy for news 's that, I'd
go an' live to Machias!"
"That does seem dissipated and unreasonable, certainly," I assented,
interested in the endeavor to extract the minutest pin-feathers from
the tail of the sand-peep.
"Ef they was all like Major Henry, I told 'em, the post-office 'ud be
easy runnin', an' I don't care if I do say it afore his face. I'd say
it afore the meet'n-house--ef there was one. The very first time 't
Major Henry ever stepped inter this post-office he come up to me an'
handed me a five-dollar bill, 'n' says he:
"'Mardam, could you kin'ly put my mail t' one side, me not all'as bein'
convienent to be here at its openin', maybe; an' all the mail that
ain't called for at its openin' bein' thrun up onter the top pantry
shelf,' says he, ''nd everybody 't comes in lookin' it over t' see ef
they've got anything, is a most beautiful compliment to human natur','
says he, 'an' one that I wish I could interduce everywhere; but me not
bein' vary tall,' he says, 'an' kind o' near-sighted, I'm afeered as I
might git somethin' 't didn't belong to me. Have ye got anythin' like
a dror, or anythin' 't ye could lock up?' says he.
"'No,' says I, 'I hain't, but I'll tell ye what I can do. I can put
'em inter th' old Gran'mother Tyson soup-turreen, 't I don't believe
the led of it 's been lifted this ten year; they'll be as safe as ef
they was buried an' in their graves,' says I. An' so I thought, but ye
know how things is all'as sartin to happen.
"What, in the name o' ructions, did Ty do but come home that afternoon
with a bag o' ches'nits, which he knows I won't have in the pantry on
account o' breedin' worms; but me bein' over to Mis' Kobbe's, what does
he do, manlike, but dump them letters inter the churn, an' go an' sneak
his ches'nits inter th' old Granm'er Tyson soup-turreen.
"Wal, I all'as churn my butter Friday mornin', come hail, come wind: so
I gits up--an' 'twas kind o' dark yit--an' in I pours the pail o' cream
an' begins to churn, an' thinks I, 'This spatters onaccountable this
mornin',' an' took off the cover to see what the ructions was!
"Wal, the verdick of it was, after I'd laid into Ty, I went down to
major with the five-dollar bill an' another atop of it, all I had in
this livin' world--'An' ef that 's any objec', major,' says I, a-wipin'
of my eyes, 'it's all I c'n do.'
"Wall, what think you, but major laughs, an' wouldn't tetch ary cent of
it, but took 'is letters, an' says he, 'They've ackired a peculiar
richness,' says he, 'an' I'd orter be up there mail-openin' an' not
make a lady so much trouble,' says he. That's the kind o' poppolation
's I, for one, sh'd like to fill up the Basin with!" said Lunette,
flourishing her rolling-pin.
A murmur of approval ran through the room.
Blushing, embarrassed, but swollen with pride, I picked up another
sand-peep to pluck.
At that instant "Snipe," the household and post-office dog, ran across
the floor with high-careering head, holding a huge envelope in his
teeth.
"Stop him! stop him!" cries arose: "it's Elvine's registered letter, 't
's goin' to Boston for a tea-set!"
A rush followed Snipe into the bedroom, the door of which stood open;
the evil dog ran under the bed and into the farthest corner, where,
with his jaws formed into the semblance of a menace and a mocking
laugh, he assumed an attack upon that potential tea-set.
Lunette rushed in after him. Now the bed, in default, for some unknown
though doubtless wise Basin reasons, of other stanchions, was set up on
four chairs, one at each corner, and as Lunette rushed under it, she
displaced the outermost chair; whereat the bed at that source collapsed
with a crash, imprisoning both her and the dog.
"I've been a-threatenin' to have that bed fixed," said Tyson, with
politic zeal, as his wife and dog were delivered.
Lunette with voiceless indignation seized one of a buttress of
birch-switches behind the door, and began applying it to the
consciously ruined Snipe, at the arising of whose howls the
post-carrier drove up, and, entering, threw the bag, in loud token of
his arrival, upon the floor.
Snipe, of all places, ran and entrenched himself behind my feeble legs!
Whereat, "Don't whip him any more," I pleaded, being already flattered,
in one way and another, as high as mortal could sustain.
Lunette turned unwillingly to the post. The post-driver stood about
seven feet in his boots, with a handsome face, all mud-bespattered.
Many voices beset him familiarly.
"Say, Will, did ye bring down my molasses?" "Say, Will, did ye match
that ribbin f'r me?" "Say, Will," etc., etc.
"You bet I did, every time!" he answered jovially, showing his white
teeth. Interest in the post was comparatively moribund; a general
parcel-distributing and hand-shaking followed--until we were startled
by a cry from Lunette:
"Look a' this, Will Hunson!" said she; "look a' this, will ye? A whole
pot o' strawberry jam soaked right plumb inter the middle o' the United
States Governmunt!"
It was only too true. The pile of letters and papers which she had
emptied onto the moulding table were red and glowing as the summer rose.
Will hung his dismayed head.
"Be them ructions, or ain't they?" coldly demanded Lunette, pointing to
the awful pile.
"I didn't mean to," said Will.
"Didn't mean to!" cried Lunette. "Didn't mean to, lived in a lean-to!"
Blasted by terror and sarcasm, we all hung our heads. Snipe grovelled
in still farther behind my legs.
"There 's got to be something done!" cried Lunette. "Folks's got to
learn 't the United States Governmunt is a awful an' a solemn an' a
turrible thing. What ef it sh'd be told 't we hadn't no more respec'
for her down here to the Basin 'n to soak her through with strawberry
jam an' molarsses! These here ructions have been a-goin' on too long
with the Basin post-office. I'm a-goin' to fill out a blank an' send
it to Washin'ton!"
Snipe howled. Lively apprehension, none the less poignant for being
vague, sat on every pale brow.
"Here," continued Lunette, "'s major's business letters, looks as
though they'd been a-settin' in the dentist's chair, havin' all the old
stumps extracted for a whole set of uppers and unders!"
Lunette's comparison, though tragic, was not inapt.
"Here"--blind terror yielded to curiosity on many features--"here is
Jennie Cossey's letter from her beau, down to New London, with a
cardboard dagarrier in it. Yes," said Lunette, manipulating the
envelope curiously and holding it to the light; "I knew 't the next
thing he'd be sendin' his pictur'. How 'd you feel, Will Hunson, ef
you was stan'in' in his shoes an' had gone an' combed yer hair 'tell
yer arm ached, an' stuck the end o' yer hankercher outer yer pocket,
an' had yer pictur' took, an' then sot down an' wrote a lot o'
sweetness to wrop around it--an' when she took it out have it look like
Injuns a-yellin' on the warpath!"
"Say, Lunette," said honest Will, his handsome face redder than any of
the lively imageries she had called up to terrorize his conscience; "I
got that front hair fascinater ye wanted, an' I sold the spruce gum for
two dollars for ye. Look a' here!"
"Will Hunson, don't ye ride no more strawberry jam an' molarsses down
here in the middle o' the United States Governmunt ag'in, will ye?"
said Lunette, determined to fall gently.
But it appeared then that no blank was to be filled out and sent to
Washington!
With a sharp yelp of joy Snipe sprang from behind the impregnable
covert of my legs, and rushed out into the free and gladsome elements.
I gathered up my portion of matter from the illuminated heap of
"government," beside the sand-peep pie on the table, and with a fond
smile at Lunette I also departed.