to her berth at the ice-house wharf.
The castaways went ashore.
Maquoit was a straggling hamlet at the head of a cove which nicked the
coast-line.
Captain Candage, an Apple-treer, who knew every hole alongshore where
refuge from stress of weather was afforded, led his party through the
village with confidence.
“There's a widder here who will put us up for what time we want to
stay--and be glad of the money. I knowed her husband in the coasting
trade. I like to get into a place like this that 'ain't been sp'iled
by them cussed rusticators and the prices they are willing to pay,”
he confided to Mayo. He slyly exhibited a wallet that was stuffed with
paper money. “I ain't busted, but there's no sense in paying more 'n
five dollars a week anywhere for vittles and bed. She will make plenty
off'n us at that rate. You just let me do the dickering.”
The widow proved to be a kindly soul who, in the first excitement of
her sympathetic nature, resolutely refused to consider the matter of any
payment whatever.
“You are shipwrecked, and my poor husband's body wouldn't rest quiet
wherever it is in the Atlantic Ocean if I grabbed money from shipwrecked
folks.”
However, in the end, Captain Candage worked her up from three dollars
to five per week, and she took Polly Candage into her heart and into the
best chamber.
Captain Mayo came back to supper after a moody stroll about the village.
Skipper Candage was patrolling the widow's front yard and was exhibiting
more cheerfulness.
“It's God's Proverdunce and your grit that has saved us, sir. I have
come out of my numb condition and sense it all. What's your plans?”
“I don't seem to be able to make any just yet.”
“I'm going to stay right here for a spell, and shall keep Dolph and Otie
with me. We shall be here on the coast where we can hear of something
to grab in on. As soon as Polly gets straightened around I'll let her go
home to her aunt. But, of course, hanging around here doesn't offer you
any attractions, sir. You're looking for bigger game than we are.”
“I have about made up my mind to leave in the morning on the stage. I'll
go somewhere.”
The widow tapped her knuckles on the glass of a near-by window.
“Supper!” she announced. “Hurry in whilst it's hot!”
“I always do my best pondering on a full stomach,” said Captain Candage.
“And I smell cream-o'-tartar biskits and I saw her hulling field
strorb'ries. Better look on the bright side of things along with me,
Captain Mayo.”
Captain Mayo failed to find any bright side as he turned his affairs
over in his mind. He had only a meager stock of money. He had used his
modest earnings in settling the debts of the family estate. The outlook
for employment was vague--he could not estimate to what extent the
hostility of Julius Marston might block his efforts, provided the
magnate troubled himself to descend to meddle with the affairs of such
an inconspicuous person. His poor little romance with Alma Marston had
been left in a shocking condition. He did not talk at the supper-table,
and the widow's wholesome food was like ashes in his mouth. He went out
and sat on the porch of the widow's cottage and looked into the sunset
and saw nothing in its rosy hues to give him encouragement for his own
future.
Polly Candage came timidly and sat down beside him. “Father says you
think of leaving in the morning!”
“There's nothing for me here.”
“Probably not.”
A long silence followed.
“I suppose you don't care to have me talk to you, Captain Mayo?”
“I'll listen to you gratefully, any time.”
“I'm only a country girl. I don't know how to say it--how to tell you
I'm so sorry for you!”
“That one little pat on my hand to-day, it was better than words.”
“It's all I can think about--your unhappiness.”
“That touches me because I know that you have enough sorrow of your
own.”
“Sorrow!” She opened her eyes wide.
“Perhaps I have no business speaking of it,” he returned, with
considerable embarrassment.
“And yet I have been so bold as to speak to you!”
There was a touch of reproach in her voice, and therefore he ventured:
“Your father told me--I tried to stop him, but he went on and
said--Well, I understand! But I have some consolation for you and I'm
going to speak out. He says he is going to allow you to marry your young
man.”
“Did he dare to talk such matters over with you?”
“He insisted on doing it--on asking my advice. So I advised in a way to
help you. I am glad, for your sake, that he is coming to his senses.”
“I thank you for your help,” she said, stiffly.
“Of course it's none of my business. I'm sorry he told me. But I wish
you all happiness.”
She rose as if to go away. Then she stamped her foot and sat down. “My
father ought to be muzzled!”
She realized that he might misinterpret her indignation, for he said:
“I'm ashamed because I meddled in your affairs. But from what you saw
to-day in my case, I felt that I ought to help others who are in the
same trouble.”
“But my father has mistaken my--” She broke off in much confusion, not
understanding the queer look he gave her. “I--I am glad my father is
coming to his senses and will allow me to--to--marry the young man,” she
stammered. “And now I think I may be allowed to say that I hope you may
have the girl you love, some day. Would you like to have me talk to you
about her--how dear and pretty I think she is?”
“No, it hurts! But I do want you to know, Miss Can-dage, that I'm not
out fortune-hunting. I love her for herself--just herself--nothing
more!”
“I know it must be so.”
“And I know that a young man you would choose is worthy of you. I told
your father--”
“No matter. _That_ hurts, too! We both understand. We'll leave it
there!”
After the declaration of that truce they were frankly at ease and began
to chat with friendly freedom. The dusk came shading into the west, the
evening star dripped silver light.
“It's a peaceful spot here,” she suggested. “Everybody seems to be
contented.”
“Contentment--in a rut--that may be the best way of passing this life,
after all.”
“But if you were in the rut, Captain Mayo, you might find that
contentment would not agree to come and live with you.”
“Probably it wouldn't! I'd have to be born to the life here like this
chap who is coming up the hill. You can see that he isn't worrying about
himself or the world outside.”
The man was clumping slowly along in his rubber boots; an old cap was
slewed awry on his head, its peak drawn down over one ear. He cocked up
the other ear at sound of voices on the porch and loafed up and sat down
on the edge of the boarding. Captain Mayo and the girl, accustomed to
bland indifference to formality in rural neighborhoods, accepted this
interruption without surprise or protest.
“'Tain't a bad night as nights go,” stated the caller.
“It's a beautiful night,” said Polly Candage.
“I reckon it seems so to you, after what you went through. I've been
harking to your father telling the yarn down to the store.”
They did not reply, having their own ideas as to Captain Candage's
loquacity.
The caller hauled a plug of tobacco from his pocket, gnawed off a chew,
and began slow wagging of his jaws. “This world is full of trouble,” he
observed,
“It seems to be,” agreed Captain Mayo.
“Them what's down get kicked further down.”
“Also true, in many cases.”
“Take your case! It's bad. But our'n is worse!” The caller pointed to
the dim bulk of a small island which the cove held between the bold jaws
of its headland. “The old sir who named that Hue and Cry Island must
have smelt into the future so as to know what was going to happen there
some day--and this is the day!” He chewed on, and his silence became
irritating.
“Well, what has happened?” demanded the captain.
“It hasn't happened just yet--it's going to.”
Further silence.
“Tell us what's going to happen, can't you?”
“Of course I can, now that you have asked me. I ain't no hand to butt
in. I ain't no hand to do things unless I'm asked. There's seventeen
fam'lies of us on Hue and Cry and they've told us to get off.”
“Who told you?”
“The state! Some big bugs come along and said the Governor sent 'em, and
they showed papers and we've got to go.”
“But I know about Hue and Cry!” protested Mayo. “You people have lived
there for years!”
“Sure have! My grandfather was one of the first settlers. Most all of us
who live there had grandfathers who settled the place. But according to
what is told us, some heirs have found papers what say that they own
the island. The state bought out the heirs. Now the state says get off.
We're only squatters, state says.”
“But, good Caesar, man, you have squatter rights after all these years.
Hire a lawyer. Fight the case!”
“We ain't fighters. 'Ain't got no money--'ain't got no friends. Might
have fit plain heirs, but you can't fight the state--leastways, poor
cusses like us can't.”
“Where are you going?”
“Well, there's the problem! That's what made me say that this world is
full of trouble. You see, we have taken town help in years past--had to
do it or starve winters. And we have had state aid, too. They say that
makes paupers of us. Every town round about has served notice that we
can't settle there and gain pauper residence. Hue and Cry 'ain't ever
been admitted to any town. Towns say, seeing that the state has ordered
us off, now let the state take care of us.”
“And men have been here, representing the state?”
“You bet they have.”
“What do they say?”
“Say get off! But they won't let us settle on the main. Looks like they
wanted us to go up in balloons. But we hain't got no balloons. Got to
move, though.”
“I never heard of such a thing!”
“Nor I, neither,” admitted this man, with a sort of calm numbness of
discouragement. “But that ain't anyways surprising. We don't hear much
about anything on Hue and Cry till they come and tell us. Speaking for
myself, I ain't so awful much fussed up. I've got a house-bo't to
take my wife and young ones on, and we'll keep on digging clams for
trawlers--sixty cents a bucket, shucked, and we can dig and shuck a
bucket a day, all hands turning to. We won't starve. But I pity the poor
critters that 'ain't got a house-bo't. Looks like they'd need wings. I
ain't worrying a mite, I say. I had the best house on the island, and
the state has allowed a hundred and fifty dollars for it. I consider I'm
well fixed.”
The plutocrat of the unhappy tribe of Hue and Cry rose and stretched
with a comfortable grunt.
“If it ain't one thing it's another,” he said, as he started off. “We've
got to have about so much trouble, anyway, and it might just as well be
this as anything else.” %
“Why, that's an awful thing to happen to those people!” declared the
girl. “I must say, he takes it calmly.”
“He is a fair sample of some of the human jellyfish I have found hidden
away in odd corners on this coast,” stated Captain Mayo. “Not enough
mind or spirit left to fight for his own protection. But this thing is
almost unbelievable. It can't be possible that the state is gunning an
affair like this! I'll find somebody who knows more about it than that
clam-digging machine!”
A little later a man strolled past, hands behind his back. He was
placidly smoking a cigar, and, though the dusk had deepened, Mayo could
perceive that he was attired with some pretensions to city smartness.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” called the young man. “But do you know
anything about the inwardness of this business on Hue and Cry Island?”
“I can tell you _all_ about it,” stated the person who had been hailed.
He sauntered up and sat down on the edge of the porch. He showed the air
of a man who was killing time. “I'm in charge of it.”
“Not of putting those people off the island?”
“Sure! That's what I'm here for. I'm state agent on pauper affairs,
acting for the Governor and Council.”
“You say the state is back of this?” demanded Mayo, incredulously.
“Certainly! It's a matter that the state was obliged to take up. State
has bought that island from the real heirs, has ordered off those
squatters, and we shall burn down their shacks and clear the land up.
Of course, we allow heads of families some cash for their houses, if
you can call 'em houses. That's under the law regulating squatter
improvements. But improvements is a polite word for the buildings on
that island. It is going to cost us good money to clear up for that New
York party who has made an offer to the state--he's going to use the
island for a summer estate.”
He flicked the ashes from his cigar and broke in on Mayo's indignant
retort.
“It had to be done, sir. They have intermarried till a good many of the
children are fools. The men are breaking into summer cottages, after the
owners leave in the fall. They steal everything on the main that isn't
nailed down. They have set false beacons in the winter, and have wrecked
coasters. Every little while some city newspaper has written them up as
wild men, and it has given the state a bad name. We're going to break up
the nest.”
“But where will they go?”
“Fools to the state school for the feeble-minded, cripples to the
poorhouse. The able-bodied will have to get out and go to work at
something honest.”
“But, look here, my dear sir! Those poor devils are starting out with
too much of a handicap. After three generations on that island they
don't know how to get a living on the main.”
“That's their own lookout, not the state's! State doesn't guarantee to
give shiftless folks a living.”
“How about using a little common sense in the case of such people?”
“You are not making this affair your business, are you?” asked the
commissioner, with acerbity.
“No.”
“Better not; and you'd better not say too much to _me!_” He rose and
dusted off his trousers. “I have investigated for the Governor and
Council and they are acting on my recommendations. You might just as
well advise nursing and coddling a nest of brown-tail moths--and we are
spending good money to kill off moths. We don't propose to encourage the
breeding of thieves. We are not keeping show places of this sort along
the coast for city folks to talk about and run down the state after they
go back home. It hurts state business!” He marched away.
Captain Mayo strode up and down the porch and muttered some emphatic
opinions in regard to the intellects and doings of rulers.
“You see, I know the sort of people who live on that island, Miss
Candage. I have seen other cases alongshore. They are blamed for what
they don't know--and what they are led into. Amateur missionaries will
load them down in a spasm of summer generosity with a lot of truck
and make them think that the world owes them a living. The poor
devils haven't wit enough to look ahead. When it comes winter they are
starving--and when children are hungry and cold a man will tackle a
proposition that is more dangerous than a summer cottage locked up for
the winter. Next comes along some chap like that state agent, who prides
himself on being straight business and no favors! He puts the screws to
'em! There's nobody to help those folks in the real and the right way. I
pity them!”
“I live in the country and I know how unfeeling the boards of selectmen
are in many of the pauper cases. When it's a matter of saving money for
the voters and making a good town record, they don't care much how poor
folks get along.”
Mayo continued to patrol the porch. “I'm in a rather rebellious state of
mind just now, I reckon,” he admitted. “Seems to me that a lot of
folks, including myself, are getting kicked. I'm smarting! I have
a fellow-feeling for the oppressed.” He laughed, but there was no
merriment in his tones. “It's the little children who will suffer most
in this, Miss Candage,” he went on. “They are not to blame--they don't
understand.”
“And of course nothing can be done.”
“Nothing sensible, I'm afraid.” He walked to and fro for many minutes.
“You see, it's none of my business,” he commented, when he came and sat
down beside her.
“I suppose there's not one man in the world to step forward and say a
good word for them,” said the girl, softly, uttering her thoughts.
“Words wouldn't amount to anything--with the machinery of the state
grinding away so merrily as it is. But this matter is stirring my
curiosity a little, Miss Candage. That's because I am one of the
oppressed myself, I reckon.” Again his mirthless chuckle. “I intended to
take the stage out of here in the morning, but I have an idea that I'll
stay over and see what happens when that gentleman who represents our
grand old state proceeds to scatter those folks to the four winds.”
“I was hoping you would stay over, Captain Mayo.” She declared that with
frank delight.
“But you don't expect me to do anything, of course!”
“It's not that. You see, I'd like to go down to the island and--and
father is so odd he might not be willing to escort me,” she explained,
trying to be matter-of-fact, her air showing that she regretted her
outburst.
“I volunteer, here and now.”
She rose and put out her hand to him. “I have not thanked you for saving
my life--saving us all, Captain Mayo. It is too holy a matter to be
profaned by any words. But here is my hand--like a friend--like a
sister--no”--she held herself straight and looked him full in the face
through the gloom and tightened her hold on his fingers--“like a man!”
He returned her earnest finger-clasp and released her hand when her
pressure slackened. That sudden spirit, the suggestion that she desired
to assume the attitude of man to man with him, seemed to vanish from her
with the release of her fingers.
She quavered her “Good night!” There was even a hint of a sob. Then she
ran into the house.
Mayo stared after her, wrinkling his forehead for a moment, as if he had
discovered some new vagary in femininity to puzzle him. Then he resumed
his patrol with the slow stride of the master mariner. Hue and Cry
raised dim bulk in the harbor jaws, showing no glimmer of light. It was
barren, treeless, a lump of land which towns had thrust from them and
which county boundaries had not taken in. He admitted that the state had
good reasons for desiring to change conditions on Hue and Cry, but this
callous, brutal uprooting of helpless folks who had been attached to
that soil through three generations was so senselessly radical that
his resentment was stirred. It was swinging from the extreme of
ill-considered indulgence to that of utter cruelty, and the poor devils
could not in the least understand!
“There seem to be other things than a spiked martingale which can pick
a man up and keep him away from his own business,” he mused. “What
fool notion possesses me to go out there to-morrow I cannot understand.
However, I can go and look on without butting into stuff that's no
affair of mine.”
Two men were shuffling past in the road. In the utter silence of that
summer night their conversation carried far.
“Yes, sir, as I was saying, there he lays dead! When I was with him on
the _Luther Briggs_ he fell from the main crosstrees, broke both legs
and one arm, and made a dent in the deck, and he got well. And a week
ago, come to-morrow, he got a sliver under his thumb, and there he lays
dead.”
“It's the way it often is in life. Whilst a man is looking up into the
sky so as to see the big things and dodge 'em, he goes to work and stubs
his toe over a knitting-needle.”
“That's right,” Captain Mayo informed himself; “but I can't seem to help
myself, somehow!”
XII ~ NO PLACE POR THE SOLES OP THEIR FEET
Don't you hear the old man roaring, Johnny,
One more day? Don't you hear that pilot bawling,
One more day? Only one more day, my Johnny,
One more day! O come rock and roll me over,
One more day.
--Windlass Song.
When the subject of the proposed expedition to Hue and Cry was broached
at the breakfast-table, Captain Epps Candage displayed prompt interest.
“It's going to be a good thing for the section round about here--roust
'em off! Heard 'em talking it over down to Rowley's store last evening.
I'll go along with you and see it done.”
Mayo and Polly Candage exchanged looks and refrained from comment.
It was evident that Captain Candage reflected the utilitarian view of
Maquoit.
Mayo had put off that hateful uniform of Marston's yacht, and the girl
gave him approving survey when he appeared that morning in his shore
suit of quiet gray. With the widow's ready aid Polly Candage had made
her own attire presentable once more. When they walked down to the shore
she smiled archly at Mayo from under the brim of a very fetching straw
poke.
“I ran down to the general store early and bought a boy's hat,” she
explained. “I trimmed it myself. You know, I'm a milliner's apprentice.
Does it do my training credit?”
He was somewhat warm in his assurances that it did.
“I ought to be pleased by your praise,” she said, demurely, “because
women wear hats for men's approval, and if my customers go home and hear
such nice words from their husbands my business career is sure to be a
success.”
“Your business career?”
“Certainly, sir!” She bobbed a little courtesy. “I have money, sir!
Money of my own. Five thousand dollars in the bank, if you please! Oh,
you need not stare at me. I did not earn it. My dear mother's sister
left it to me in her will. And some day when you are walking down the
city street you'll see a little brass sign--very bright, very neat--and
there'll be 'Polly' on it. Then you may come up and call on the great
milliner--that will be this person, now so humble.”
“But that young man!” he protested, smiling at her gaiety.
“Oh, that young man?” She wrinkled her nose. Then she flushed, conscious
that he was a bit surprised at her tone of disdain. “Why, he will wear a
frock-coat and a flower in the buttonhole and will bow in my customers.
You didn't think my young man was a farmer-boy, did you?”
She hurried ahead of him to the beach, where her father was waiting with
his men. Captain Candage had borrowed a dory for the trip. He installed
himself in the stern with the steer-oar, and the young man and the girl
sat together on the midship seat. The skipper listened to their chat
with bland content.
“There's a fellow that's one of our kind, and he ain't trying to court
my girl,” he had confided to Mr. Speed. “He is spoke for and she knows
it. And under them circumstances I believe in encouraging young folks to
be sociable.”
It was still early morning when they arrived at the island, but the
state agent was there ahead of them. They saw him walking briskly about
among the scattered houses, puffing on his cigar.
He was making domiciliary visits and was transacting business in a loud
tone of voice. That business was paying over the money which the state
had allowed for “squatter improvements.” In the case of the settlers on
Hue and Cry the sums were mere pittances; their improvements consisted
of tottering shacks, erected from salvaged flotsam of the ocean and
patched over and over with tarred paper.
There was only one building on the island which deserved
the name of dwelling; from this their communicative caller of the
preceding evening was removing his scant belongings. His wife and
children were helping. He set down a battered table when he met Mayo and
his party.
“I'm the only citizen who can get away early and--as you might call
it--respectable, gents. I took my hundred and fifty and bought that
house-bo't out there.” It was an ancient scow, housed over, and
evidently had grown venerable in service as a floating fish-market.
“They can't drive me off'n the Atlantic Ocean! The others 'ain't woke
up to a reelizing sense that they have got to go and that this all means
business! I'm getting away early or else they'd all be trying to climb
aboard my bo't like the folks wanted to do to Noah's ark when they see
that the flood wasn't just a shower.” He lifted his table upon his head
and marched on, leading his flock.
All the population of the island was out of doors. The women and the
children were idling in groups; the men were listlessly following the
commissioner on his rounds. No spirit of rebelliousness was evident. The
men acted more like inquisitive sheep. They were of that abject variety
of poor whites who accept the rains from heaven and bow to the reign of
authority with the same unquestioning resignation.
But Mayo discovered promptly an especial reason for the calmness
exhibited by these men. Their slow minds had not wakened to full
comprehension.
“What do you men propose to do?” demanded Captain Mayo of a group which
had abandoned the commissioner and had strolled over to inspect the
new-comers.
“There ain't nothing we can do,” stated a spokesman.