AT THE LATHAM HOUSE
The Latham house stood in the middle of the shallow valley behind
Wreckers' Head. The fields surrounding it were arable and well kept.
The house was not as old as the Ball house and was of an entirely
different style of architecture. Whereas the Ball house was
low-roofed and sprawling, squatting like a huge and ugly toad on the
gale-swept Head, the house Tunis Latham's grandfather had built was
three-story, including the mansard roof, painted a tobacco brown,
and it was surrounded by wry-limbed cedars which could grow here
because they were sheltered from the gales.
It was a gloomy-looking house even in midsummer, standing like a
grim figure menaced by the tortured limbs of the trees surrounding
it, stark and alone. No other human habitation was in view from its
site. The Latham who had built the twelve-room house had built on
hope. He desired and expected to fill the great house with a breed
of Lathams that would do honor to the Cape on sea and on land. But
his young wife had died the next year, after giving birth to her
second child.
Tunis Latham's father, Randall Latham, had been the elder Latham's
sole hope of perpetuating the family name and filling the big, ugly
brown house behind Wreckers' Head with tow-headed little Lathams,
for the other child was a girl.
It was said that Medford Latham had seldom spoken to or of his
daughter, Lucretia. She must have led a very lonely and repressed
life while she was a little girl. Medford Latham did not go to sea,
for he had business that kept him on shore.
Medford Latham lived long enough to see Randall grow up, walk his
own quarter-deck, and marry a maiden from the port who promised to
be able to fulfill his hopes of a flourishing houseful of children.
She bore Tunis while young Captain Randall Latham was away, and he
came back in time to christen the boy with the name of the most
colorful city he had touched on the trip, not an uncommon practice
of seagoing fathers on the Cape. But Mrs. Randall Latham, watching
her husband's ship bear off to seaward in the face of a keen gale,
caught a severe cold, and when Captain Randall returned the next
time he came not to a cradle in the great living room of the big,
brown house, but to an already-sodden grave in the family plot on
the west side of the saucerlike valley.
Lucretia Latham had grown to be a tall, large-boned, silent, and
quick-stepping woman--a woman of understanding and infinite
tenderness, although this tenderness was exhibited in deeds, not
words.
The big, quiet-faced woman, who had never had a lover and on whom no
man had ever looked with admiration, seemed to the casual observer
cold and uncompromising. She might speak to the dog, call the fowls
to their meals, but she never otherwise spoke unless she was forced
to. When he was little, Tunis had found in her arms and against her
breast a refuge from all hurt and fear, but it was a wordless
comfort Aunt Lucretia gave him.
When he walked over from the cove that afternoon, after seeing the
anchor of the _Seamew_ over-side for the first time in this
roadstead, Tunis found his Aunt Lucretia much as usual. She watched
him approach from the side porch, a warm smile of greeting on her
rather gaunt face. He knew that she must have watched the _Seamew_
skim by, making for the channel into the cove; for he had written
her when to expect him. But she would say nothing about it unless he
forced the gates of her silence by some direct question which
demanded more than a "yes" or a "no."
Lucretia folded him in her arms, however, and patted his broad
shoulder with little love pats as he put his arms about her. Her
kiss for him was as warm on his lips as a girl's. They understood
each other pretty well, these two; for Tunis had caught something of
her muteness, living so long alone with her.
He went to wash and change his shirt. Then he sat down in one of the
huge porch chairs and rocked quietly, waiting for supper. He could
see into the kitchen, which was the family dining room as well, and
when he saw his Aunt Lucretia take the coffee-pot from the stove and
put it on the square Dutch tile by her own place, Tunis knew it was
the only call to supper there would be.
He rose and went in, taking his place at the head of the table. His
aunt's head was bowed and her lips moved soundlessly. He respected
her whispered grace and always felt that he could add nothing to it
in thankfulness or reverence if he uttered an orison himself. During
the cheerful and plentiful meal the young captain of the _Seamew_
related certain matters he thought would interest the woman
regarding his purchase of the schooner and the voyage down to the
Cape. He told her he was sure the _Seamew_ was fast enough for a
Boston market boat.
"Speed is what is wanted now to compete with the Old Colony," Tunis
declared. "We've got fish and clams and cranberries in season, and
some vegetables, that have to be shaken up and jounced together and
squashed on those jolting steam trains. I'll lay down a crate of
lobsters at the T-wharf without a hair being ruffled. I know how to
stow a cargo."
She nodded both her understanding and her belief that Tunis was
right. The legacy he had received from the estate of Peleg Latham,
Medford Latham's brother, had enabled Tunis to buy this beautiful
schooner. Undoubtedly an eye for the beauty of the craft had more
than a little drawn the young man into her purchase. Yet there was a
foundation of solid sense under his streak of romance.
In this day a man must serve a long apprenticeship before he gets a
command unless he owns the craft on which he is skipper. To own a
schooner of the size of the _Seamew_ is not enough. One must be a
good merchant as well as a good skipper.
The coast trade from port to port along the North Atlantic shore
must be fostered and coaxed like a stumbling baby. The tentacles of
the hated railroad reach to many of the Cape ports. Yet everybody
knows that a cargo properly stowed in a seaworthy craft reaches
market in much the better condition than by rail, though perhaps it
is some hours longer on the way.
There were docks, too, at which Tunis Latham could pick up
well-paying freights which would have to be carted over bad roads to
the nearest railway station. And there were always full or part
cargoes to be had at Boston for certain single consignees along the
Cape, which would pay a fair profit on the upkeep of the schooner.
Medford Latham had lost almost all his fortune before he died so
unhappily, leaving only the homestead and small farm to his son. The
son, Captain Randall Latham, had lost the ship _Ada May_ and every
cent he possessed. Tunis had only his great uncle's legacy to begin
on, and he had waited for that until he was thirty.
In the morning the young man arose early, for the tide was then low,
and started forth with basket and clam hoe on his arm. Aunt Lucretia
had promised him, by a smiling nod, a mess of fritters for dinner if
he would supply the necessary clams. Alongshore the soft clam is the
only clam used for fritters; the tough, long-keeping quahog is
shipped to the less-enlightened "city trade."
It was not yet sunrise, but as Tunis walked down through one of
those cuts in the edge of the headland, following a well-defined
cart track, he saw the rose-glow of the sun's round face staining
the mist on the eastern horizon.
He came down upon the hard sand of the beach and walked toward a
tiny cove into which the mud flats extended and on which he knew the
clams were plentiful and ripe. Glistening pools of black water,
showing where other diggers had raided the flat, were interspersed
with trembling patches of black sand. When Tunis began to cross the
flat the sand before his boots became alive with tiny, shooting
geysers of clean water. He set to work.
And while he was thus engaged he heard suddenly a shrill outcry and
a most mysterious sound up in one of the gullies toward the summit
of Wreckers' Head. Here thousands of tons of sand had run out of the
cut in the steep bank and formed a dykelike way to the beach itself.
More and more sand was slipping down this way all the time. A strong
man could scarcely make his way up the incline, the sand was so
unstable.
Tunis stood and stared up the slope. There shot into view, carried
rapidly upon the forefront of the avalanche, a white-haired old man
who waved a stick in one hand and a cocked pistol in the other,
while from his mouth came shrill cries of excitement, if not of
alarm.
But it was what followed Cap'n Ira Ball--whom Tunis immediately
recognized--that caused the captain of the _Seamew_ such utter
surprise. Sitting on her rump, pawing at the sliding sand with her
front hoofs, and whistling her terror and amazement, the Queen of
Sheba appeared flying after the harassed old man.
It was a scene to surprise more than to entertain the beholder. The
avalanche promised disaster to the participants in it. Tons upon
tons of sand, undulating and sinuous in appearance, traveled faster
and yet faster behind the old gray mare and the gray old sea
captain. The smoke of the slide hid all that lay behind them, and
these wreaths of sand dust threatened a higher wave that might, at
any moment, entirely overwhelm both the equine and the human victim
of the catastrophe.
Tunis dropped his clam hoe and started for the dyke of sand on the
crest of which the old man and the old mare were sliding like
naughty children down a woodshed roof.
"Hey, Tunis! Tunis!" bawled the captain. "Take her off'n me! She'll
be afoul my hawser in another second, I do believe."
It was evident that he spoke of the Queen of Sheba, but Tunis could
not see how the mare was intentionally threatening Cap'n Ira's peace
of mind or safety of body. She was, however, "close aboard" Cap'n
Ira as he tobogganed down the sandy way.
"Stern all!" shouted the old man, throwing another startled,
backward glance at the Queen of Sheba. "Drat the derned old critter!
Don't she know nothin' at all? Tunis! Do you see what's goin' to
happen?"
While the young man had been running toward the ridge of sand, the
avalanche bearing Cap'n Ira and the Queen of Sheba on its bosom
swept down the slope of the huge windrow, but not altogether along
its spine. The mass slid over one pitch of the ridge, and suddenly,
following on the heels of Cap'n Ira's final question, the old man
was shot to the beach, several tons of loose sand and the snorting
mare almost on top of him.
In fact, he would have been overwhelmed, and perhaps seriously hurt,
had not Tunis Latham arrived at the spot at just the time Cap'n Ira
did, and suddenly pulled out the old man.
"What are you doing? Trying to run a race with Queenie?" demanded
the captain of the _Seamew_.
The mare had come down right side up, more by good luck than by good
management. She stood deep in the sand, her naturally surprised
expression vastly enhanced. In all her twenty-two years Queenie had
never before gone through such an experience.
"I swan!" ejaculated Cap'n Ira. "Ain't this the beatenest you ever
heard of, Tunis?"
Tunis stared from the old mare to the old mariner, especially at the
cocked revolver in the captain's hand. He pointed at the tightly
gripped weapon.
"What's that for, Cap'n Ira?" he asked.
"I--I--well, I swan!" stammered Cap'n Ira, now looking, himself, at
the old seven-chambered revolver as though he had never seen it
before. "I cal'late it does look sort o' funny to you, Tunis, to
see me come sailing down this way, armed like a pirate."
"I wouldn't call it exactly funny. But it is surprising," admitted
Tunis. "And Queenie looks as surprised as anybody."
"Yes, she does, for a fact," agreed Cap'n Ira, squinting across the
heap of loose sand at the gray mare. "I kind o' wonder what she's
thinking about."
"I'm wondering hard enough myself," put in Tunis pointedly.
"I swan!" murmured Cap'n Ira reflectively.
He carefully lowered the hammer of the pistol, his cane stuck
upright in the sand before him. Then he put the weapon back in the
inside pocket of his coat. He tapped the knob of his cane for a
pinch of snuff before he said another word. His mighty "A-choon!"
startled the Queen of Sheba almost as it startled Prudence.
"Avast!" exclaimed Cap'n Ira. "Did you ever see such a scary old
lubber, Tunis?"
"But what's it all about?" again demanded the younger man, seizing
the rope halter and aiding the mare to flounder out upon the firmer
sand below high-water mark. "What are you doing up so early? And
what were you going to do with Queenie?"
"I swan!" groaned Cap'n Ira again. "I don't wonder that you ask me
that. It don't really seem reasonable that a sane man would get in
such a jam, does it? Me and the Queen of Sheby sailin' down that
sand pile. Tunis! We'll never be able to get up it in this world."
"No. You must come along to our road, and get up that way," his
young friend told him. "It is longer, but easier. But tell me how
you came down that gully, you and Queenie?"
"I'm sort of ashamed to tell you, Tunis, and that's a fact," the old
captain said, wagging his head. "And don't you ever tell Prudence."
"I'll not say a word to Aunt Prue," promised the captain of the
_Seamew_.
"Yet," grumbled the old man, "that dratted Queen of Sheby is too
much for Prudence. You see yourself only yesterday how she is like
to come to her death because of the mare."
"I know that you should have somebody living with you, Cap'n Ira,"
urged Tunis. "But what does _this_ mean?"
"I--I can't scurcely tell you, Tunis. I swan! I was goin' to murder
the old critter."
"What do you mean?" gasped Tunis in apparent horror. "Not Aunt
Prue?"
"What's the matter with you?" snapped Cap'n Ira. "I mean that old
mare. I was going to murder her in cold blood, only the sand slide
wrecked my plans."
"If you had killed her, Aunt Prue would have had hard work to
forgive you. Come on now. I'll lead Queenie up to our barn. Let her
stay there for a spell. I tell you, Cap'n Ira, you and Aunt Prue
must have somebody to live with you."
"Who?"
"Get a girl from the port."
"Huh! One o' them Portygees? They're as dirty and useless in the
kitchen as their men folks are aboard ship."
"Oh, they are not all like that!" objected the captain of the
_Seamew_. "I've got a good crew of 'em aboard my schooner."
"You think so. Wait till you get in a jam. And the men ain't so bad
as the gals. All hussies."
"I don't know, then, what you'll do."
"I do," interrupted the old man, hobbling along the hard sand beside
Tunis and the horse. "It's just like I told Prudence yesterday. I
know just what we've got to do whether you or Prue or anybody else
knows," and he was very emphatic.
"Let's hear your plan, Cap'n," said Tunis.
"It's like this," went on Cap'n Ira. "Prudence ain't got but one
living relative, a grandniece, that's kin to her. That Ida May
Bostwick we must have come and live with us, and that's all there is
about it."
Tunis stared. He said:
"Never heard of her. She doesn't live anywhere around here, does
she?"
"No, no! Lives to Boston."
"Boston!"
Why was it Tunis Latham felt that his heart skipped a beat? Memory
of that pale, violet-eyed girl who worked in the restaurant on
Scollay Square flashed across his mind like a shooting star. Indeed,
he was so confused that he heard only a little at first of Cap'n
Ira's rambling explanation. Then he caught:
"And if you will go to that address--Prue's got the street and
number--and see Ida May Bostwick and tell her about us, you'd be
doing us a kindness, Tunis."
"Me?" exclaimed the startled captain of the _Seamew_.
"Yes, you. The gal won't bite you. You're going to Boston next week,
you say. Will you do it?"
"Sure I will, Cap'n Ira," said the young man heartily. "It's a good
move, and I'll say all I can to get the girl to come down here."
"That's the boy! You're going on an errand of mercy; that's as sure
as sure. Prue and me need that gal. And maybe she needs us. I don't
know what sort of a place she works at, but no city job for a gal
can be the equal of living down here on the Cape, with her own
folks, as you might say. Yes, Tunis, you'll be doing an errand of
mercy mebbe both ways."