skipper. “I don't care anything for them critters,” he added, assuming
brusqueness. “Don't want it hinted around that I'm getting simple in my
old age. But they give me an excuse to bingdoodle Rowley.”
“To carry out that plan I have outlined we need some kind of a packet,”
said Mayo.
“Sure! We'll go right to Rowley. He'll know. If there's anything in
this section that he 'ain't got his finger on some way--bill of sale,
mortgage, debt owed to him or expecting to be owed, then it ain't worth
noticing.”
Mr. Rowley listened in his back office. He stroked his beard contentedly
and beamed his pleasure when he saw the prospect of making another
profitable dicker with men who seemed to be reliable and energetic.
“I had a mortgage on the _Ethel and May_ when Captain Tebbets passed on
to the higher life,” he informed them. “Widder gave up the schooner when
I foreclosed, she not desiring to--er--bother with vessel proputty. So I
have it free and clear without it standing me such a terrible sum! Shall
be pleased to charter to you gents at a reasonable figure. Furthermore,
seeing that industry makes for righteousness, so we are told, your plan
of making those critters go to work may be a good one, providing you'll
use a club on 'em often enough.”
“From what I've heard of your talk in prayer-meeting I should think
you'd advise moral suasion,” suggested Captain Candage, plainly
relishing this opportunity to “bingdoodle.”
“I use common sense, whether it's in religion or politics or business,”
snapped Rowley, exhibiting a bit of un-Christian heat.
“It's advisable to ile up common sense with a little charity, and then
the machine won't squeak so bad.”
“I wouldn't undertake to trot a dogfish on my knee or sing him to sleep
with a pennyr'yal hymn, Captain Candage.”
“I think we can show results without the club,” interposed Mayo, with
mild intent to smooth the tone of this repartee.
The clerk called Mr. Rowley out into the store on some matter of special
importance, and the selectman departed, coming down rather hard on his
heels.
“The old Adam sort of torches up through his shell once in a while,”
commented Candage.
“We'd better settle the charter price, sir, before you lay aboard him
too much,” advised the young man.
“I just natch'ally can't help harpooning him,” confessed the skipper.
“He's a darned old hypocrite, cheating widders and orphans by choice
because they 'ain't got the spunk to razoo back, and I've allus enjoyed
fighting such as him. Him and me is due for a row. But I'll hold off the
best I can till we have got him beat down.”
Mayo's plan involved the modest venture of chartering a craft suitable
for fishing. There was no material for real Banksmen in the Hue and Cry
colony, but the run of the men would serve to go trawling for ground and
shack fish a few miles off the coast. It was the only scheme which
would afford employment for the whole body of dependents; older and more
decrepit men and the women and children could dig and shuck clams for
the trawl bait. In order to encourage ambition and independence among
the abler men of the colony, Mayo suggested that the fishermen be taken
on shares, and Captain Candage agreed.
When Mr. Rowley came back into the office he found his match waiting for
him in the person of Captain Candage, primed and ready to drive a sharp
bargain. At the end of an hour papers representing the charter of the
_Ethel and May_ were turned over.
“I reckon it's a good job,” affirmed the skipper, when he and Mayo
were outside the Rowley store. “I have made up my mind to let poor
old _Polly_ go to Davy Jones's locker. I wrote to the shippers and the
consignees of the lumber last night. If they want it they can go after
it. I may as well fish for the rest of this season!” He regarded Captain
Mayo with eyes in which query was almost wistftul. “Of course, you can
depend on me to see to it that you get your share, sir, just as if you
were aboard.”
“I'm going aboard, Captain Candage.”
The old man stopped stock still and stared.
“I haven't anything in sight just now. You need help in getting the
thing started right. I'm not going away and leave that gang on your
hands until I can see how the plan works out. I'll go as mate with you.”
“Not by a blame sight you won't go as no mate with me,” objected
Candage. “You'll go as skipper and I'll be proud to take orders from
you, sir.”
They were wrangling amiably on that point when they returned to the
widow's cottage. Polly Candage broke the deadlock.
“Why not have two captains? That will be something brand new along the
coast!”
“The rest of it is brand new enough without that,” blurted her father.
“But considering what kind of a crew we've got I guess two captains
ain't any too much! I'll be captain number two and I know enough to keep
my place.”
“I do not think you and I will ever do much quarreling again!” smiled
Captain Mayo, extending his hand and receiving Candage's mighty grip.
“I am going to start out a few letters, and I'll go now and write them.
Until those letters bring me something in the way of a job I am with
you, sir.”
Captain Candage walked down toward the fish-house with his daughter.
“Polly,” he declared, after an embarrassed silence, “I have been all
wrong in your case, girl. Here and now I give you clearance papers. Sail
for home just as soon as you want to. I'm asking no questions! It's none
of my business!”
“My little affairs must always be business of yours, father,” she
returned.. “I love you. I will obey you.”
“But I ain't giving off no more orders. I ain't fit to command in the
waters where you are sailing, Polly dear. So run along home and be my
good girl! I know you will be!”
“I have changed my mind about going home--just now!” Her eyes met his
frankly. “I have written to Aunt Zilpah to send me some of my clothes.
Father,” there was feminine, rather indignant amazement in her tones,
“do you know that there isn't a single woman from Hue and Cry who knows
how to use a needle?”
“I might have guessed it, judging from the way their young ones and men
folk go looking!”
“Do you realize that those children don't even know their A-B-C's?”
“Never heard of any college perfessers being raised on that island.”
“I am going to take a vacation from the millinery-shop, now that I am
down here. I'll show those women how to sew and cook, and I'll teach
those children how to read. It's only right--my duty! I couldn't go home
and be happy without doing it!”
“Calling that a vacation is putting a polite name to it, Polly.”
“If you could have seen their eyes, father, when I promised to help
them, you wouldn't wonder why I am staying.”
“I don't wonder, Polly, my girl! If you had gone away and--and left
us--Mayo and me--I should have been mighty disappointed in ye! But I
really never thought much about your going--'cause you wouldn't go, I
knew, till you had helped all you could.” He put his arm around her.
“I have been worrying about having brought you away. But I guess God had
it all figgered out for us. I didn't know my own girl the way I ought to
have knowed her. I'd been away too much. But now we're sort of growing
up--together--sort of that, ain't we, Polly dear?”
She put her arms about his neck and answered him with a kiss.
XIV ~ BEARINGS FOR A NEW COURSE
And now, my brave boys, comes the best of the fun,
It's hands about ship and reef topsails in one;
So it's lay aloft, topman, as the hellum goes down,
And clew down your topsails as the mainyard goes round.
--La Pique.
At the end of that week the _Ethel and May_ had delivered at market her
first fare of fish and her captains had divided her first shares. Mayo
decided that the results were but of proportion to the modest returns.
He was viewing the regeneration of the tribe of Hue and Cry. In their
case it had been the right touch at the right time. For years their
hopes had been hungry for a chance to make good. Now gratitude inspired
them and an almost insane desire to show that they were not worthless
drove them to supreme effort. The leaven of the psychology of
independence was getting in its work.
The people of Hue and Cry for three generations had been made to feel
that they were pariahs. When they had brought their fish or clams to the
mainland the buyers were both unjust and contemptuous, as if they were
dealing with begging children who must expect only a charitable gift
for their product instead of a real man's price. Prices suited the
fish-buyers' moods of the day. The islanders had never been admitted
to the plane of straight business like other fishermen. They had always
taken meekly what had been offered--whether coin or insults. Therefore,
their labor had never returned them full values.
They who bought made the poor wretches feel that it constituted a
special favor to take their fish at any price.
They seemed to come into their own that first day at market when the
_Ethel and May_ made her bigness in the dock at the city fish-house.
Masterful men represented them in the dealings with the buyers. The crew
hid their delighted grins behind rough palms when Captain Epps Candage
bawled out bidders who were under market quotations; they gazed with awe
on Captain Mayo when he read from printed sheets--print being a
mystery they had never mastered--and figured with ready pencil and even
corrected the buyer, who acknowledged his error and humbly apologized.
No more subservient paltering at the doors of fish-houses!
Back home the women and the children and the old folks had a good roof
over their heads; the fishers had the deck of a tidy schooner under
their feet. Shiftlessness departed from them. After years of oppression
they had found their opportunity. More experienced men would have
found this new fortune only modest; these men grasped it with juvenile
enthusiasm.
They were over the side of the schooner and out in their dories when
more cautious trawlsmen hugged the fo'c'sle. On their third trip,
because of this daring, they caught the city market bare on a Thursday
and made a clean-up.
“I'm told that Saint Peter started this Friday notion because he was
in the fish business,” stated Captain Candage, sorting money for the
shares. “All I've got to say is, he done a good job of it.”
Mr. Speed, sailing as mate, always found ready obedience.
Smut-nosed Dolph never listened before to such praise as was lavished by
the hungry men over the pannikins which he heaped.
Captain Mayo, casting up accounts one day, was honestly astonished to
find that almost a month had passed since he had landed at Maquoit.
“That goes to show how a man will get interested when he is picked up
and tossed into a thing,” he said to Polly Candage.
“You are making real men of them, Captain Mayo!” She added, with a
laugh, “And you told me you were no kind of a hand at making over human
nature!”
“They are doing it themselves.”
“I will say nothing to wound your modesty, sir.”
“Now I must wake up. I must! There's nothing worth while in the profit
for both your father and myself. I want him to have the proposition
alone. There'll be a fair make for him. I didn't intend to stay here so
long. I guess I sort of forgot myself.” He went on with his figures.
“But I knew you could not forget,” she ventured, after a pause.
He glanced up and found a queer expression on her countenance. There
were frank sympathy and friendliness in her eyes. He had revolved bitter
thoughts alone, struggling with a problem he could not master. In sudden
emotion--in an unpremeditated letting-go of himself--he reached out for
somebody in whom to confide. He needed counsel in a matter where no man
could help him. This girl was the only one who could understand.
“There may be letters waiting for me in the city--in the big city
where I may be expected,” he blurted. “I haven't dared to send any.” He
hesitated, and then gave way to his impulse. “Miss Polly, I haven't any
right to trouble you with my affairs. I may seem impertinent. But
you are a girl! Does a girl usually sit down and think over all the
difficulties--when she doesn't get letters--and then make allowances?”
“I'm sure she does--when she loves anybody.”
“And yet it may seem very strange. I am worried out of my senses. I
don't know what to do.”
She was silent for a long time, looking away from him and twisting
her hands in her lap; she was plainly searching her soul for
inspiration--and courage!
“You think she will understand the situation?” he insisted.
“She ought to.”
“But no word from me! Silence for weeks!”
Her voice was low, but she evidently had found courage. “I have not
heard one word--not a letter has come to me--since I left my aunt's
home.”
“Do you feel sure that he loves you just the same? You don't need
letters?”
“Oh no! I don't need letters.”
“But in my case?”
“I could see that she loves you very much. She stood out before them
all, Captain Mayo. That sort of a girl does not need letters.”
“You have put new courage in me. I believe you understand just how a
girl would feel. You know a Yankee! He expects to find a friend just
where he left him, in the matter of affection.”
“A girl does not need to be a Yankee to be that way in her love.”
“I can't sneak around to her by the back way--I can't do that!” he
cried. “I don't want to be ashamed of myself. I don't want to bring
more trouble to her. Don't you think she will wait for me until I can
come--and come right!”
“She will wait for you, sir. It's the nature of women to wait--when they
love.”
“But I cannot ask her to wait forever. That's why I must go away and
try to make good.” He set his teeth, and his jaw muscles were ridged.
“I believe a man can get what he goes after in the right spirit, Miss
Polly.” He swing off the porch and left her.
The fog was heavy on shore and sea that day, holding the _Ethel and May_
in port. He disappeared into the stifling mist, and the girl sat and
stared into that vacancy for a long time.
Mayo rowed out to the schooner, which was anchored in the harbor roads.
He was carrying his accounts to Captain Candage.
Standing and facing forward as he rowed, he came suddenly upon a big
steam-yacht which had stolen into the cove through the fog and was
anchored in his course. She was the _Sprite_, and he had formed a
'longshore acquaintance with her skipper that summer, meeting him
in harbors where the _Sprite_ and _Olenia_ had been neighbors in the
anchorage. He stopped rowing and allowed the dory to drift. He noted
that the blue flag was flying at the main starboard spreader, announcing
the absence of the owner, and he understood that he could call for the
skipper without embarrassing that gentleman. One of the crew was putting
covers on the brasswork forward.
“Compliments to Captain Trott, and tell him that Captain Mayo is at the
gangway.”
The skipper appeared promptly, replying to the hail before the sailor
had stirred. “Come aboard, sir.”
“I'll not bother you that much, captain. I can ask my question just as
well from here. Do you know of any good opening for a man of my size?”
The captain of the _Sprite_ came to the rail and did not reply promptly.
“I have left the _Olenia_ and I'm looking for something.”
Captain Trott started for the gangway. “Oh, you needn't trouble to come
down, sir.”
“I'd rather, Captain Mayo.” After he had descended he squatted on the
platform at the foot of the ladder and held the dory close, grasping the
gunwale. “What are you doing for yourself these days?”
Mayo had no relish for a long story. “I'm waiting to grab in on
something,” he replied.
Captain Trott did not show any alacrity in getting to the subject which
Mayo had broached. “It has set in pretty thick, hasn't it? I have been
ordered in here to wait for my folks; they're visiting at some big
estate up-river.”
“But about the chance for a job, captain!”
“Look here! What kind of a run-in did you have with the _Olenia_ owner?”
Mayo opened his mouth and then promptly closed it. He could not reveal
the nature of the trouble between himself and his former employer.
“We had words,” he said, stiffly.
“Yes, I reckon so! But the rest of it!”
“That's all.”
“You needn't tell me any more than you feel like doing, of course,” said
Captain Trott. “But I have to tell _you_ that Mr. Marston has come out
with some pretty fierce talk for an owner to make. He has made quite a
business of circulating that talk. I didn't realize that you are of so
much importance in the world, Mayo,” he added, dryly.
“I don't know what he is saying.”
“Didn't you leave him in the night--without notice, or something of the
kind?”
“It was an accident.”
“I hope you have a good story to back you up, Captain Mayo, for I have
liked you mighty well ever since meeting you first. What is behind it?”
“I can't tell you.”
“But you can tell somebody--somebody who can straighten the thing out
for you, can't you?”
“No, Captain Trott.”
“Well, you know what has happened in your case, don't you?” The skipper
of the _Sprite_ exhibited a little testiness at being barred out of
Mayo's confidence.
The young man shook his head.
“Marston claims that you mutinied and deserted him--slipped away in the
night--threw up your job on the high seas--left him to work to New York
with a short crew--the mate as captain.”
“That's an infernal lie!”
“Then come forward and show him up.”
“I cannot talk about the case. I have my reasons--good ones!”
“I'm sorry for you, Mayo. You are done in the yachting game, I'm afraid.
He'll blacklist you in every yacht club from Bar Harbor to Miami. I
have heard my folks talking about it. He seems to have a terrible
grudge--more than a big man usually bothers about in the case of a
skipper.”
Mayo set his oar against the edge of the platform and pushed off. The
skipper called after him, but he was instantly swallowed up by the fog
and did not reply.
On board the _Ethel and May_ his ragged but cheery crew were baiting up,
hooking clams upon the ganging hooks, and coiling lines into tubs. The
men grinned greeting when he swung over the rail. He scowled at them; he
even turned a glowering look on Captain Candage when he met the latter
on the quarter-deck.
“Yes, sir! I see how it is! You're getting cussed sick of this two-cent
game here,” said Candage, mournfully. “I don't blame ye. We ain't in
your class, here, Captain Mayo.” He took the papers which the young man
held out to him. “I suppose this is the last time we'll share, you and
me. I'll miss ye devilish bad. I'd rather go for nothing and let you
have it all than lose ye. But, of course, it ain't no use to argue or
coax.”
Mayo went and sat on the rail, folding his arms, and did not reply. The
old skipper trudged forward, his head bowed, his hands clutched behind
his back. When he returned Mayo stood up and put his hand on the old
man's shoulder.
“Captain Candage, please don't misunderstand me. Just at present I feel
that the only friends I have in the world are here. Don't mind the way
I acted just now when I came on board. I have had a lot of trouble--I'm
having more of it. I'm not going to leave you just yet. I want to stay
aboard until I can think it all over--can get my grip. That is, if
you're satisfied to have it that way!”
“Satisfied! Jumping Cicero!” exploded Captain Can-dage. He took the dory
and rowed ashore. He found his daughter gazing into the fog from the
porch of the widow's cottage. “He is going to stay a while longer,” he
informed her, rapturously. “Something has happened. Do you suppose that
girl has throwed him over?”
“Father, do you dare to chuckle because a friend is in trouble?”
“I'll laugh and slap my leg if he ever gets shet of that hity-tity
girl,” he rejoined, stoutly.
“I am astonished--I am ashamed of you, father!”
“Polly dear, be honest with your dad!” he pleaded. “Do you want to see
him married off to her?”
“I certainly do. I only wish I might help him.” Her lips were white, her
voice trembled. She got up and hurried into the house.
“I'll be cussed if I understand wimmen,” declared Captain Candage,
fiddling his finger under his nose. “That feller she has picked out for
herself must be the Emp'ror of Peeroo.”
Captain Mayo did not come ashore again before the _Ethel and May_
sailed.
The fog cleared that night and they smashed out to the fishing-grounds
ahead of a cracking breeze, and had their trawls down in the early dawn.
At sundown, trailed by a wavering banner of screaming gulls who gobbled
the “orts” tossed over by the busy crew cleaning their catch, they were
docking at the city fish-house.
“Lucky again,” commented Captain Candage, returning from his sharp
dicker with the buyer. “The city critters are all hungry for haddock,
and that's just what we hit to-day.” He surveyed his gloomy partner with
sympathetic concern. “Why don't you take a run uptown?” he suggested.
“You're sticking too close to this packet for a young man. Furthermore,
if you see a store open buy me a box of paper collars. Rowley hain't got
my size!”
Mayo, unreconciled and uneasy, hating that day the sound of the
flapping, sliding fish as they were pitchforked into the tubs for
hoisting, annoyed by the yawling of pulleys and realizing that his
nerves were not right at all, obeyed the suggestion. He had a
secret errand of his own, yielding to a half-hope; he went to the
general-delivery window of the post-office and asked for mail. He knew
that love makes keen guesses. The _Olenia_ had visited that harbor
frequently for mail. But there was nothing for him. He strolled about
the streets, nursing his melancholy, forgetting Captain Candage's
commission, envying the contentment shown by others.
In that mood he would have avoided Captain Zoradus Wass if he had spied
that boisterously cheerful mariner in season. But the captain had him by
the arm and was dancing him about the sidewalk, showing more affability
than was his wont.
“Heifers o' Herod! youngster,” shouted the grizzled master, “have you
come looking for me?”
“No,” faltered Mayo. “Did you want to see me?”
“Have worn taps off my boots to-day chasing from shipping commissioner's
office to every hole and corner along the water-front. Heard you had
quit aboard a yacht, and reckoned you had got sensible again and wanted
real work.”
“If you had asked down among the fish-houses you might have got on track
of me, sir.” Mayo's tone was somber.
“Fish! You fishing?” demanded Captain Wass, with incredulity.
“Yes, and on a chartered smack at that--shack-fishing on shares!” Mayo
was sourly resolved to paint his low estate in black colors. “And I have
concluded it's about all I'm fit for.”
“That's fine, seaman-like talk to come from a young chap I have trained
up to master's papers, giving him two years in my pilot-house. I was
afraid you were going astern, you young cuss, when I heard you'd gone
skipper of a yacht, but I didn't think it was as bad as all this.”
“My yachting business is done, sir.”
“Thank the bald-headed Nicodemus! There's hopes of you. Did anybody tell
you I've been looking for you?”
“No, sir!”
“Glad of it. Now I can tell you myself. Do you know where I am now?”
“I heard you were on a Vose line freighter, sir.”
“Don't know who told you that--but it wasn't Ananias. You're right.
She's the old _Nequasset_, handed back to me again because I'm the
only one who understands her cussed fool notions. First mate got drunk
yesterday and broke second mate's leg in the scuffle--one is in jail and
t'other in the hospital, and never neither of 'em will step aboard any
ship with me again. I sail at daybreak, bade to the Chesapeake for steel
rails. Got your papers?”
“Yes, sir!”
“Come along. You're first mate.”
“Do you really want me, sir?”
“Want you? Confound it all, I've got you! In about half a day I'll have
all the yacht notions shaken out of you and the fish-scales stripped
off, and then you'll be what you was when I let you go--the smartest
youngster I ever trained.”
Mayo obeyed the thrust of the jubilant master's arm and went along.
“I'll go and explain to Captain Can-dage, my partner.”
“All right. I'll go along, too, and help you make it short.”
As they walked along Captain Wass inspected his companion critically.
“High living aboard Marston's yacht make you dyspeptic, son? You look as
if your vittles hadn't been agreeing with you.”
“My health is all right, sir.”
“Heard you had trouble with Marston,” proceeded the old skipper, with
brutal frankness. “Anybody who has trouble with that damnation pirate
comes well recommended to me. He is trying to steal every steamboat line
on this coast. Thank Gawd, he can never get his claws on the old Vose
line. Some great doings in the steamboat business are ahead, Mayo.
Reckon it's a good line to be in if you like fight and want to make your
bigness.”