into the front yard. Hens fled before her approach but such funny
looking hens; they all had more or less tags flying from their bills.
They had swallowed the corn but the strings and tags were beyond
their ability to masticate and they blew out defiantly in the breeze.
One tag had become loosened and Mrs. Brown picked it up and read the
scribbled words. While she was thinking just what she ought to do to
Willie, Mrs. Baker came across the yard, bristling like a frightened
porcupine.
"What have you been doing to my hens?" she demanded.
Mrs. Brown, like the efficient woman she was, saw her opportunity
and rose to the occasion.
"Your hens, Mrs. Baker, why nothing. I have been in the kitchen all
the morning until I just came out to call Willie to dinner. Willie
has been keeping the hens out of my garden, not your hens, you know
you have assured me your hens never come over here."
Thinking discretion the better part of valor Mrs. Baker suddenly
remembered something that needed immediate attention and she
hastened to attend to it.
Mrs. Brown watched her out of sight, smiling in appreciation of the
genius she had raised, then she turned and confronted Mrs. Jones,
coldly angry.
"What do you mean, Mrs. Brown, by tagging my hens until they look
like a mark down sale?"
"What are you talking about, Mrs. Jones? Your hens couldn't have
been over here could they? I am sure neither Willie nor I have been
out of the yard."
"I smell something burning."
In spite of the fact that the Jones homestead was quite a distance
and the wind in the direction to blow all odors in the opposite
direction Mrs. Brown did not try to detain her. Neither did she
punish Willie, in fact she gave him an extra piece of pie for dinner.
* * * * *
The Browns, Joneses and Bakers are still on the best of terms, but
Mr. Brown never put the wire netting up and yet Mrs. Brown plants
her garden with never a thought of neighbors' hens.
Incidentally Willie and Ned have developed into first class fishermen.
BY HEART
LILLIAN E. ANDREWS
Captain Enoch Burgess went down Mapleville's main street at a rate
of speed that threatened to break all records. The tails of his
linen coat stood out like the sails of a Gloucester fisherman
homeward bound with a "full bin fare." He stamped up Abner Crowell's
walk, and slammed the kitchen door.
Abner was weeding onions. He stared after the captain curiously.
"Looks like squally weather," he commented. "I wonder what's sent
Enoch on his beam ends like that."
As Abner bent with a grunt to his task, his wife came hurrying
toward him, her apron strings flying like distress signals.
"Abner," she demanded excitedly, "did you ever hear of Captain
Enoch's havin' fits?"
"No, I dunno's I ever did," replied Abner, twitching up an
enterprising wild mustard.
"Well, he's havin' one now," insisted Mrs. Crowell. "He come trampin'
in an' says, 'Git right out o' my way, Mis' Crowell,' an' now he's a
pacin' up an' down his room like a caged hyeny. You leave them
onions, an' go an see what under the canopy ails him. I'll stand at
the foot of the stairs ready to run for help, if he should be
dangerous."
Abner groaned. Reluctantly he brushed the dirt from his knees, and
went into the house. Captain Enoch's heavy steps jarred the floor of
his little room. Three times Abner knocked. Growing wrathful at
being ignored, he applied his lips to the key-hole.
"Hey, there," he bellowed. "You gone clean crazy, Enoch? It's only
me--Abner--open the door!"
Captain Enoch opened the door so suddenly Abner nearly fell over the
threshold.
"I didn't hear you," apologized Captain Enoch. "I dunno's I'd heard
a fog horn. I'm going loony, I guess."
Despondency suddenly overcame him. He sat down abruptly. "I'm afraid
I'm love cracked," he groaned despairingly.
"Love cracked!" repeated Abner in blank astonishment. "Wall, I snum!
Love cracked!"
Captain Enoch glared at him ferociously. "Stop that parrotin'," he
commanded. "If you dare to grin, I'll larnbast you good an' plenty."
As Abner appeared properly subdued, he went on explanatorily.
"I've be'n callin' on M'lissy Macy reg'lar whenever I've be'n ashore
for the last ten years. M'lissy makes the best doughnuts I ever e't,
an' I calculated we'd be married sometime, though I ain't never
mentioned it special. But when I went to call on M'lissy this
afternoon, there set Tom Peters in the big rockin' chair holdin'
M'lissy's yeller cat an' lookin' as cheerful as a rat in a shipload
of cheese. It come over me all at once what a marryin' critter he is.
The old punkin'-head's had two wives already, ain't he?"
"Three," corrected Abner. "He's be'n a widower once an' a grass
widower twice. Mebbe he's gittin' lonesome again. You'll have to git
up your spunk and do some courtin'. Why don't you pop the question?
It hadn't orter be so awful hard after you be'n goin' to see M'lissy
ten years."
"You talk like a nincompoop," snapped Captain Enoch. "I never asked
a woman to marry me in my life. How be I goin' to know what to say?
S'pose you tell me how you asked Mis' Crowell."
Abner's face turned as red as Captain Enoch's. "Wall, I--er--er," he
stammered.
"That's about what I expected," said the captain sarcastically.
"I s'pose Mis' Crowell did the askin' and you didn't dare to say 'No.'"
Abner glanced toward the door where a board had creaked faintly.
"She--she didn't really ask," he remarked hastily, "but she was
pretty good at understandin' what I was thinkin' about."
"If M'lissy understands, she's careful not to let me know it," said
Captain Enoch sadly. "Mebbe she's afraid of being bold. Just to
think of proposin' makes me feel as if somebody was pourin' cold
water down the back of my neck."
Abner had a sudden flash of memory. "Why don't you learn a regular
proposal that nobody can find any fault with an' say it right off
like sayin' a piece?" he asked. "Pegleg Brierly used to have a book
in his dunnage that had all kinds of proposals printed in it. 'Guide
to Courtship and Matrimony' was the name of it. Pegleg said he
didn't have any notion of fallin' in love, but if he should happen to,
he didn't cal'late to be caught nappin'. He's livin' down on the
back road now, and he's still an old bach. If he's kept the book,
mebbe he'd sell it, or lend it to you."
The change from despair to hope brought the captain to his feet.
"Abner, if you'll git me that book, I'll give you twenty-five dollars,"
he promised earnestly. "But mind you don't tell what you want it for."
"I won't tell anybody that don't know about it already," declared
Abner with perfect truthfulness. "I'll have to be awful di-plo-mat-ic,"
he went on, "or Pegleg will be sure to suspect something. And I pity
you an' M'lissy if he got hold of the real reason why you wanted it.
Pegleg can scatter news faster than a pea dropper can drop peas."
With his clam hoe and bucket under his arm, Abner appeared at the
door of Pegleg's shanty the next afternoon.
"Thought I'd dig a mess o' clams for supper," he explained casually,
"an' seeing's I was passin', I dropped in. Some time since you an'
me crossed the line on the old Almeda, ain't it?"
"A matter of twenty year," agreed Pegleg.
"Them was great days," reminiscenced Abner. "Do you remember how we
used to read your 'Guide to Courtship and Matrimony'? I was thinkin'
about it only yesterday."
Pegleg grinned. "I paid fifty cents for that book," he remarked.
"An' I ain't never had any real use for it. I've got it now in my
old dunnage bag."
"I'd kind o' like to see it, if it's handy," suggested Abner.
"The tide's risin', but I guess I've got a few minutes to spare."
Pegleg disappeared into the shanty and returned after some time with
a dog-eared volume, minus a portion of its pages, and with the edges
of the remainder strangely scalloped.
"Th' pesky rats has be'n chewin' it," he complained loudly.
"They've clean e't up the first chapter."
Abner drew a secret breath of relief. The "How to Propose" chapter
was not the first one. Eagerly he turned the battered volume over.
"If you 'll sell it, I'd like to have it," he remarked carelessly.
"Half of the pages is e't up, so I s'pose you'll sell it for half
price."
"Make it thirty-five cents an' you can have it," bargained Pegleg.
"The rats ain't gnawed into the readin' so awful bad, only in the
first chapter."
"Wall, thirty-five then, as you're an old shipmate," conceded Abner.
Pegleg looked at him shrewdly, as he laid down three dimes and a
nickel.
"I didn't know but mebbe you was buyin' it for Captain Burgess," he
hazarded. "He's boardin' to your house, an' folks say he's courtin'
M'lissy Macy."
"Folks is always sayin' things," responded Abner. "Mebbe Enoch might
know a 'Guide to Courtship and Matrimony' from a last year's pill
almanac, if somebody showed him."
Once around the corner of the beach from Pegleg's shanty, Abner
danced a hornpipe, shocking a flock of gulls.
"Thirty-five cents from twenty-five dollars leaves twenty-four
dollars and sixty-five cents," he calculated swiftly. "And I'll get
a mess of clams beside. The papers will be mentionin' me as a
financier pretty soon."
"Did Pegleg suspect anything?" was Captain Enoch's first question
when Abner returned in triumph.
"Oh, he suspected," replied Abner jubilantly. "He wouldn't be Pegleg
if he didn't. But I didn't help him any, and he looked dreadful
disappointed. You can eat your chowder in peace, if you ain't so
love sick you've lost your appetite."
"It ain't hurt my appetite a mite," retorted the Captain. "And I
ain't goin' to let it. Let's see that book. I want to find out how
much I've be'n cheated."
With trembling fingers Captain Enoch turned to the chapter of
proposals. "'How to Propose to a Fat Lady,'" he read. "Humph!
M'lissy ain't fat. 'How to Propose to a Lady of Dignity and
Refinement. 'That sounds more like it. But the big words are thicker
than a school of mummychogs."
"Read it out loud," urged Abner.
Captain Enoch put a long forefinger on the first line and cleared
his throat.
"'Dear and esteemed lady,'" he began, "'it is with deep respect that
I venture to introduce the subject of matrimony in your presence.
You are my ideal of womanhood and your smile is more precious to me
than the Kohinoor.' What's the Kohinoor?" he asked, pausing.
"Skip it," suggested Abner. "I ain't no 'cyclopedia. Go on."
"'It is with painful trep-trep-trepidation that I bring my suit
before you.'"
Captain Enoch paused again. "'Suit?'" he repeated. "I don't see how
that fits in. What's a suit got to do with a proposal?"
"Mebbe it's a hint that you might want your clo's mended after you
was married," decided Abner. "Anyway, it sounds all right the way
it's wrote. Stop a stoppin'. You never'll git it read, if you don't
keep goin'."
Thus adjured the captain proceeded. "'Oh, dear one, beloved lady of
my dreams, my own--' There's a blank place. It says under it, 'name
of lady.'"
"Wall, say M'lissy," interjected Abner.
Captain Enoch's bronzed countenance was the color of a tomato on a
tin can, but he went on valiantly, "'My own M'lissy, come to my arms,
and fill my measure of happiness to overflowing by promising to
become my wife, and I will shield and protect you from all the
storms of life.' It ends like an advertisement for umbrellas," he
complained.
"It don't do no such thing," contended Abner vigorously. "It's a
real high-toned proposal and any woman ought to be satisfied with it.
The man that wrote that must have known an awful lot about women.
Now you go ahead and learn that proposal and there you be all ready
for the parson."
"Yes, 'there I be,'" mimicked the captain ungratefully. "It would
take a college professor to say them words fast, and I'm only a
plain sailor man."
But in spite of his sarcasm the captain attacked his self-appointed
task with the grim determination that had made him respected in
every port wherever the big deep water tramp, of which he was the
proud master, had dropped her huge mudhook.
The steamer was laid up at Boston, having a splendid collection of
tropical barnacles scraped from her stout hull. If it had not been
for the barnacles, the captain would not have been ashore.
For a week the captain studied strenuously, hardly allowing himself
time to sleep. Abner offered to assist him at rehearsals and every
afternoon he drilled Captain Enoch diligently. He was a firm
disciplinarian and insisted upon his pupil's being letter perfect.
Book in hand, he corrected the captain vigorously.
"It's 'es-teemed lady'" he admonished the captain. "You said 'steamed.'
M'lissy ain't cooked. An' you stutter yet when you come to that word
right after painful. Can't you say it plainer?"
"'Trep-trep-trepidation,'" stammered the captain again. "Say it
yourself," he dared Abner. "I'll bet you can't do no better."
"I ain't tryin' to say it," Abner reminded him with dignity.
"If I was I'd make it out someway. I wouldn't be beat by any word
ever put in a dictionary. You're doin' better," he complimented the
captain, after the sixth recital. "Mebbe you'll git it after awhile."
But when Captain Enoch felt that his monitor was most needed and had
begun to look hopefully forward to a one hundred per cent rehearsal,
Abner took a sudden notion to go sword fishing.
"The time to go sword fishin' is when sword fish are due," he
insisted with Solomonic wisdom. "I'm going to be off Nantucket
shoals by daybreak to-morrow."
"But how be I goin' to git along without you to boost me on that
proposal?" demanded the captain. "If you had any feelin' at all, you
wouldn't leave me just when I need you most."
Abner considered the situation for some moments.
"I got it," he declared joyfully. "Buy a phonygraft an' some blank
records an' keep sayin' that proposal just the same as you do to me.
You can hear yourself poppin' as plain as you can hear a bell buoy
ring-in'. It takes me to plan things," he added with becoming pride.
Captain Enoch went to Boston and visited his vessel, as he told
Mrs. Crowell when he returned. Also, he visited the "phonygraft man,"
a circumstance he failed to relate.
When Mapleville's express agent delivered at the Crowell home a
large bundle addressed to Captain Enoch Burgess, the captain
smuggled it surreptitiously upstairs, closed the windows of his room
and stuffed the key hole with a wad of paper.
It was some hours before he succeeded in mastering the various
adjustments of the phonograph, and ventured to hear himself
"pop." Listening with critical intentness, he discovered that two
sentences were missing. Grimly he tried again. The word that had
been so long his stumbling block suddenly showed its vindictiveness
once more.
"'It is with painful trep-trep-' darn it!" repeated the phonograph
with startling distinctness.
Wrathfully the captain snatched the record and hurled it under the
bed. A number of others soon kept it company. The next day the
captain went to Boston again. This time even the phonograph dealer
was astonished at the number of blank records Captain Enoch demanded.
With reckless abandon the captain proceeded to use the new supply of
records. Dripping with perspiration from the heat of his
closely-shut room and from his strenuous mental exertion, he finally
came to the last one, and word by word and sentence by sentence
heard himself make an absolutely correct and flawless proposal to
Miss Macy.
Solemnly the captain wiped his brow. "I declare I wish Abner could
hear it," he remarked proudly. "There ain't a single mistake, big
words an' all. It ought to please M'lissy, if anything will."
At the thought of Melissa Captain Enoch's honest heart began to beat
faster. He threw open his window with all the eagerness of a lover,
and looked over toward Melissa's old-fashioned house with its
comfortable veranda and wide chimney.
His bronzed face turned suddenly white and he gripped the window
sill with all the strength of his powerful hands. Two men were
turning in at Melissa's gate. The short fat man was Thomas Peters,
the tall thin one the village clergyman. To Captain Enoch the fact
that Peters and the minister were calling upon Melissa together
could mean but one thing. Hours and years of the captain's life
seemed to pass, as he watched the two men go slowly up Melissa's
gravel walk. When the door closed behind them, he turned about,
dazed and trembling. He was breathing hard like a man at the end of
a race. Half an hour later he had packed his bag and paid his board
bill, leaving Mrs. Crowell in a state of bewilderment and curiosity
that was sufficient to disturb her peace of mind for many a day.
From Boston the tramp had wallowed her way around the Horn to San
Francisco and back again as far as Rio Janiero when Captain Enoch
received his first mail from home. A travel-stained letter, bearing
Abner Crowell's cramped handwriting, threw the captain into a sudden
panic.
"I don't know whether to open it, or not," he debated nervously.
"I want to know what's in it, an' I'm scared to find out. I'm a good
mind to throw it overboard and forget I ever got it."
Curiosity finally overcame his dread. The letter was encouragingly
brief.
"'Dere Enoch,'" he read. "'I'd like to know what you blowed up an'
went off the way you did for. Abner Crowell." "P.S. Mrs. Crowell
sends her respecks, and Miss Melissa Macy her regards, if you want
'em. A.C." "P.S. Number two. All you need, Enoch Burgess, is about
ten inches more on your ears. A.C.'"
"'Miss Melissa Macy,'" repeated Captain Enoch. "He would have said
Mrs. Peters, if she was married."
The captain leaped to his feet and rushed on deck. A boat was just
leaving the steamer's side, the mate sitting placidly under an awning.
"Hey, wait," roared the captain wildly. "I'm goin' to git our
clearance papers," he shouted, as the astonished mate ordered the
boat back. "I ain't goin' to hang around here waitin' for a lazy
planter to git a cargo of coffee aboard. I don't care if there ain't
any more coffee in the world; folks can drink tea. I'm goin' home as
quick as steam can take me."
Lights were beginning to shine in the homes of Mapleville when the
captain came to the end of his long journey. A shining path
stretched temptingly from Melissa's windows to the gate and the
captain followed it eagerly.
Back of the crimson geraniums and the canary's cage he could see
Melissa sitting at a low table. The yellow cat occupied the big
rocker. It was all so pleasant and home-like a lump rose in the
captain's throat. He decided to steal quietly in and surprise Melissa.
But at the door he stopped as suddenly as if he had been shot. A
deep bass voice was uttering words that sounded strangely familiar.
"'Dear and esteemed lady,'" he heard. Cautiously he tip-toed across
the hall. A phonograph was on the table in front of Melissa. As he
bent forward the proposal "to a dignified and refined lady" came to
an end. Tenderly Melissa put both arms about the shining horn of the
phonograph and kissed it!
The sight was too much for the captain. With one bound, he cleared
the threshold and entered the cosy sitting room.
"M'lissy Macy," he declared boldly, "I ain't goin' to have you
wastin' kisses on an old phonograph when I'm right here. Where'd you
find that record, M'lissy?" he asked at last.
Melissa blushed delightfully. "Mis' Crowell heard you and told me
you was practisin' how to propose and, after you went away, I went
and got every single one of them records," confessed Melissa.
"I've played 'em over and over, even the 'darn it!' one. I know that
proposal by heart."
"So do I," responded Captain Enoch grimly, as he salvaged another
kiss. "I've be'n a reg'lar old putty-head," he admitted with
unsparing honesty, "but if you'll promise to teach me, I'd like to
learn a whole lot more by heart."
"I'll do my best," promised Melissa mischievously.
BY TELEPHONE
E.M. CHASE
Time--Very recently.
Place--A flat in Back Bay.
"Bessie Lane, where in the world did you drop from?"
"The station just now and I'm famished."
"I haven't a thing for lunch but you take off your wraps while I
attend to things."
"There, I've ordered a delicious lunch and it will be here in
fifteen or twenty minutes. What a handy thing a telephone is."
"Oh, yes, very handy indeed."
"Why the sarcasm, my dear Bessie?"
"You seem to forget that I live in the country."
"But not out of reach of 'phones, Bessie."
"No, but we are on a sixteen-party line with eighteen other
subscribers. Not long ago I went to the dentist and had a tooth
treated. The next morning I awoke with a toothache. About the middle
of the forenoon, nine-thirty to be exact, I thought I would call up
the dentist to find out if the treatment ought to make my tooth ache.
I gave the bell a vigorous ring--"
"Why should you ring a bell to telephone?"
"My dear citified Annie, we do not run our universe by electricity
as you do in the city, and it is our only means of attracting
'central.' I rang the bell, put the receiver to my ear and heard, 'I
am using the line.'
"I mumbled an apology, waited a few minutes and tried again. It is
unpleasant to have the bell ring in your ear, so out of courtesy to
the other subscribers I gently lifted off the receiver, put it to my
ear and heard, 'That cottage by the shore will suit--'
"Fifteen minutes later I tried again and please remember my tooth
was paining all the time. I listened, the line was quiet, I called
central and asked 'One nine ring two four please.'
"'That line is busy.'
"Well, I thanked my lucky stars that I have a good supply of patience.
After five minutes I tried again. I listened to see if the line was
busy and heard, 'Killed by an automobile, all mangled to pieces.' Too
horror stricken to realize I was listening to conversation not
intended for my ears I listened on. The details fairly made my blood
run cold and the unknown speaker had the most tragic voice I ever
heard. She continued, 'It was terrible, I almost fainted, it was one
of my best roosters, too!'
"Just then a neighbor brought in my mail and I spent a few minutes
reading letters and looking over the morning Post but the
persistent tooth reminded me and I tried again. Wonder of wonders I
got the dentist's office and asked if the dentist was there. 'No, he
is not here just now but he will be back in a few minutes, shall I
tell him to call you?'
"'If you will, please, this is--'
"'I knew your voice instantly, Bessie, and I'll tell him.'
"I waited and waited, then waited some more, then I tried again.
'Get off the line, somebody else wants a chance to use it. You there,
Jim?'
"I was almost in despair. When I was sure my snappy friend had had
time enough to transact all the affairs of the Nation I made another
attempt but I listened once more, rather than butt in again,
listened and heard, 'Just the sweetest shade of green, you know--'
Trials of Job, I was getting out of patience, to put it mildly. I
gave the crank a vicious turn but the same party was still talking,
she said sweetly, 'I guess someone wants the line.' I assured her I
did, it was a case of life and death. 'Someone dead, oh dear, is it
any one I know?'
"Thoroughly exasperated I called central and demanded, 'one nine
ring two four.'
"'Line busy.'
"I made up my mind never to use a 'phone again, or try to when my
own number rang. I grabbed the receiver off the hook and thought my
trial was over, for of course I knew it was the dentist at last. 'Is
this you, Bessie? Did you know Jennie Knowles has broken her ankle?'
"'No, I didn't, and I don't care if she has broken her neck, I want
the line.'
"Of course my rudeness lost me a friend for a while, until I saw her
and made ample apologies, but I made my last attempt and was
connected with the dentist. I told him about the toothache; it took
some time as I had to explain three times that I was using the line
but I did it. 'Does it ache very badly? Can't you stand it until
to-morrow? Then the treatment will desensitize it sufficiently and I
can work on it without hurting you at all.'
"'Oh, no, it doesn't ache at all, I called you up to hear your voice,
certainly I can stand it, I've stood much worse trials.' I slammed
up the receiver, looked at the clock and it was two-fifteen. Too late
to attend the lecture in the library so I went out and called on
Alice, yes, indeed, I repeat, telephones are very handy and save
lots of time."
"Here is our lunch, we're in the city now, come on, Bessie."
FALMOUTH INNER HARBOR
Twelve years ago on May 11, 1910, the H.W. Miller, the first
two-masted schooner came into the harbor, then known as Deacon's Pond,
now Falmouth Inner Harbor. Other smaller vessels had been in, but
this was the first which marked the commercial use of the basin.