SHORTY HEARS FROM PEMAQUID
It was mostly my fault. I'd left the Physical Culture Studio and was
swingin' east across 42d-st. absentminded, when I takes a sudden notion
to have lunch at my favorite chophouse joint on Broadway, and it was the
quick turn I made that causes the collision.
I must have hit him kind of solid too; for his steel-rimmed glasses are
jarred off, and before I can pick 'em up they've been stepped on.
"Sorry, old scout," says I. "Didn't know you'd dodged in behind. And
it's my buy on the eyeglasses."
"Sho!" says he. "No great harm done, young man. But them specs did cost
me a quarter in Portland, and if you feel like you----"
"Sure thing!" says I. "Here's a half--get a good pair this time."
"No, Son," says he, "a quarter's all they cost, and Jim Isham never
takes more'n his due. Just wait till I git out the change."
So I stands there lookin' him over while he unwraps about four yards of
fishline from around the neck of a leather money pouch. Odd old Rube he
was, straight and lean, and smoked up like a dried herring.
"There you be," says he, countin' out two tens and a five.
Course, I'd felt better if he'd kept the half. The kale pouch wa'n't so
heavy, and from the seedy blue suit and the faded old cap I judged he
could use that extra quarter. But somehow I couldn't insist.
"All right, Cap," says I. "Next time I turn sudden I'll stick my hand
out." I was movin' off when I notices him still standin' sort of
hesitatin'. "Well?" I adds. "Can I help?"
"You don't happen to know," says he, "of a good eatin' house where it
don't cost too all-fired much to git a square meal, do you?"
"Why," says I, "I expect over on Eighth-ave., you could----" And then I
gets this rash notion of squarin' the account by blowin' him to a real
feed. Course, I might be sorry; but he looks so sort of lonesome and
helpless that I decides on takin' a chance. "Say, you come with me,"
says I, "and lemme stack you up against the real thing in Canadian
mutton chops."
"If it don't cost over twenty-five cents," says he.
"It won't," says I, smotherin' a grin. He wa'n't a grafter, anyway, and
the only way I could ease his mind on the expense question was to let
him hand me a quarter before we went in, and make him think that covered
his share. Max, the head waiter, winks humorous as he sees who I'm
towin' in; but he gives us a table by a Broadway window and surprises
the old boy by pullin' out his chair respectful.
"Much obliged, Mister," says Jim Isham. "Much obliged."
With that he hangs his old cap careful on the candle shade. It's one of
these oldtime blizzard headpieces, with sides that you can turn down
over your ears and neck. Must have worn that some constant; for from the
bushy eyebrows up he's as white as a piece of chalk, and with the rest
of his face so coppery it gives him an odd, skewbald look.
I expected a place like Collins's, with all its pictures and rugs and
fancy silverware, would surprise him some; but he don't seem at all
fussed. He tucks his napkin under his chin natural and gazes around
int'rested. He glances suspicious at a wine cooler that's carted by, and
when the two gents at the next table are served with tall glasses of ale
he looks around as if he was locatin' an exit. Next he digs into an
inside pocket, hauls out a paper, spreads it on the table, and remarks:
"Let's see, Mister--jest about where are we now?"
I gives him the cross street and the Broadway number, and he begins
tracin' eager with his finger. Fin'lly he says:
"All correct. Right in the best of the water."
"Eh?" says I. "What's that you've got there?"
"Sailin' directions," says he, smilin' apologetic. "You mustn't mind;
but for a minute there, seein' all the liquor bein' passed around, I
didn't know but what I'd got among the rocks and shoals. But it's all
right. Full ten fathom, and plenty of sea room."
"Too tarry for me," says I. "Meanin' what, now?"
He chuckles easy. "Why, it's this way," says he: "You see, before I
starts from home I talks it over with Cap'n Bill Logan. 'Jim,' says he,
'if you're goin' to cruise around New York you need a chart.'--'Guess
you're right, Cap'n Bill,' says I. 'Fix me up one, won't ye?' And that's
what he done. You see, Cap'n Bill knows New York like a book. Used to
sail down here with ice from the Kennebec, and sometimes, while he was
dischargin' cargo, he'd lay in here for a week at a time. Great hand to
knock around too, Cap'n Bill is, and mighty observin'."
"So he made a map for you, did he?" says I.
"Not exactly," says Mr. Isham. "Found one in an old guide book and fixed
it up like a chart, markin' off the reefs and shoals in red ink, and the
main channels in black fathom figures. Now here's Front and South-sts.,
very shoal, dangerous passin' at any tide. There's a channel up the
Bowery; but it's crooked and full of buoys and beacons. I ain't tackled
that yet. I've stuck to Broadway and Fifth-ave. All clear sailin'
there."
"Think so?" says I. "Let's see that chart?"
He passes it over willin' enough. And, say, for a sailor's guide to New
York, that was a peach! Cap'n Bill Logan's idea seems to have been to
indicate all the crooked joints, gamblin' halls, and such with red
daggers. Must have been some investigator too; for in spots they was
sprinkled thick, with the names written alongside. When I begun readin'
some of 'em, though, I snickers.
"What's this on the Bowery?" says I. "Suicide Hall?"
"You bet!" says he. "Cap'n Bill warned me about that special."
"Did, eh?" says I. "Well, he needn't; for it's been out of business for
years. So has Honest John Kelly's, and Theiss's, and Stevenson's. What
vintage is this, anyway? When was it your friend took in the sights
last?"
"Wall, I guess it's been quite awhile," says Jim Isham, rubbin' his
chin. "Let's see, Bill opened the store in '95, and for a couple of
years before that he was runnin' the shingle mill. Yes, it must have
been nigh twenty years ago."
"Back in the days of the Parkhurst crusade," says I. "Yes, I expect all
them dives was runnin' full blast once. But there ain't one of 'em
left."
"Sho!" says he. "You don't say! Gov'ment been improvin' the channels,
same as they done in Hell Gate?"
"Something like that," says I. "Only not quite the same; for when them
Hell Gate rocks was blown up that was the end of 'em. But we get a fresh
crop of red light joints every season. You tell Cap'n Bill when you get
back that his wickedness chart needs revisin'."
"I'll write him that, b'gum!" says Mr. Isham. "Maybe that's why I
couldn't locate this reservoir he said I ought to see, the one I was
huntin' for when we fouled. See, it says corner of 42d and Fifth-ave.,
plain as day; but all I could find was that big white buildin' with the
stone lions in front."
"Naturally," says I; "for they tore the old reservoir down years ago and
built the new city lib'ry on the spot. But how was it your friend put in
so many warnin's against them old dives? You didn't come on to cultivate
a late crop of wild oats, did you?"
"Nary an oat," says he, shakin' his head solemn. "I ain't much of a
churchgoer; but I've always been a moderate, steady-goin' man. It was on
account of my havin' this money to invest."
"Oh!" says I. "Much?"
"Fifty thousand dollars," says he.
I glances at him puzzled. Was it a case of loose wirin', or was this old
jay tryin' to hand me the end of the twine ball? Just then, though,
along comes Hermann with a couple of three-inch combination chops and a
dish of baked potatoes all broke open and decorated with butter and
paprika; and for the next half-hour Mr. Isham's conversation works are
clogged for fair. Not that he's one of these human sausage machines; but
he has a good hearty Down East appetite and a habit of attendin'
strictly to business at mealtime.
But when he's finished off with a section of deep-dish apple pie and a
big cup of coffee he sighs satisfied, unhooks the napkin, lights up a
perfecto I've ordered for him, and resumes where he left off.
"It's a heap of money ain't it?" says he. "I didn't know at first
whether or no I ought to take it. That's one thing I come on for."
"Ye-e-es?" says I, a little sarcastic maybe. "Had to be urged, did you?"
"Wall," says he, "I wa'n't sure the fam'ly could afford it exactly."
"It was a gift, then?" says I.
"Willed to me," says he. "Kind of curious too. Shucks! when I took them
folks off the yacht that time I wa'n't thinkin' of anything like this.
Course, the young feller did offer me some bills at the time; but he did
it like he thought I was expectin' to be paid, and I--well, I couldn't
take it that way. So I didn't git a cent. I thought the whole thing had
been forgotten too, when that letter from the lawyers comes sayin' how
this Mr. Fowler had----"
"Not Roswell K.?" I breaks in.
"Yes, that's the man," says he.
"Why, I remember now," says I. "It was the yacht his son and his new
wife was takin' a honeymoon trip on. And she went on some rocks up on
the coast of Maine durin' a storm. The papers was full of it at the
time. And how they was all rescued by an old lobsterman who made two
trips in a leaky tub of a motorboat out through a howlin' northeaster.
And--why, say, you don't mean to tell me you're Uncle Jimmy Isham, the
hero?"
"Sho!" says he. "Don't you begin all that nonsense again. I was pestered
enough by the summer folks that next season. You ought to see them
schoolma'ams takin' snapshots of me every time I turned around. And
gushin'! Why, it was enough to make a dog laugh! Course I ain't no
hero."
"But that must have been some risky stunt of yours, just the same," I
insists.
"Wall," he admits, "it wa'n't just the weather I'd pick to take the old
Curlew out in; but when I see through the glasses what the white thing
was that's poundin' around on Razor Back Ledges, and seen the distress
signal run up--why, I couldn't stay ashore. There was others would have
gone, I guess, if I hadn't. But there I was, an old bach, and not much
good to anybody anyway, you know."
"Come, come!" says I. "Why wa'n't you as good as the next?"
"I dun'no," says he, sighin' a little. "Only--only you know the kind of
a chap that everybody calls Uncle Jimmy? That--that's me."
"But you went out and got 'em!" I goes on.
"Yes," says he. "It wa'n't so much, though. You know how the papers run
on?"
I didn't say yes or no to that. I was sittin' there starin' across the
table, tryin' to size up this leather-faced old party with the bashful
ways and the simple look in his steady eyes. The grizzled mustache
curlin' close around his mouth corners, the heavy eyebrows, and the
thick head of gray hair somehow reminds me of Mark Twain, as we used to
see him a few years back walkin' up Fifth-ave. Only Uncle Jimmy was a
little softer around the chin.
"Let's see," says I, "something like three summers ago, that was, wa'n't
it?"
"Four," says he, "the eighteenth of September."
"And since then?" says I.
"Just the same as before," says he. "I've been right at Pemaquid."
"At what?" says I.
"Pemaquid," he repeats, leanin' hard on the "quid." "I've been there
goin' on forty years, now."
"Doin' what?" says I.
"Oh, lobsterin' mostly," says he. "But late years they've been runnin'
so scurce that summers I've been usin' the Curlew as a party boat.
Ain't much money in it, though."
"How much, for instance?" says I.
"Wall, this season I cleaned up about one hundred and twenty dollars
from the Fourth to Labor Day," says he. "But there was lots of good days
when I didn't git any parties at all. You see, I look kind of old and
shabby. So does the Curlew; and the spruce young fellers with the new
boats gits the cream of the trade. But it don't take much to keep me."
"I should say not," says I, "if you can winter on that!"
"Oh, I can pick up a few dollars now and then lobsterin' and fishin',"
says he. "But it's rough work in the winter time."
"And then all of a sudden, you say," says I, "you get fifty thousand."
"I couldn't believe it at fust," says he. "Neither did Cap'n Bill Logan.
He was the only one I showed the letter to. 'Mebbe it's just some fake,'
says he, 'gittin' you on there to sign papers. Tell 'em to send twenty
dollars for travelin' expenses.' Wall, I did, and what do you think?
They sends back two hundred, b'gum! Yes, Sir, Cap'n Bill took the check
up to Wiscasset and got the money on it from the bank. Two hundred
dollars! Why, say, that would take me putty nigh round the world, I
guess. I left part of it with the Cap'n, and made him promise not to
tell a soul. You see, I didn't want Cynthy to git wind of it."
"Oh-ho!" says I. "Some relation, is she?"
"Cynthy? Land, no!" says he. "She's just the Widow Allen, over to the
Neck--Cynthy Hamill that was. I've known her ever since she taught
school at Bristol Mills. She's been a widow goin' on twenty years now,
and most of that time we've been--well, I ain't missed goin' across the
bay once or twice a week in all that time. You see, Cynthy not havin'
any man, I kind of putter around for her, see that she has plenty of
stovewood and kindlin' chopped, and so on. She's real good company,
Cynthy is,--plays hymns on the organ, knits socks for me, and hanged if
she can't make the best fish chowder I ever e't! Course, I know the
neighbors laugh some about Cynthy and me; but they're welcome. Always
askin' me when the weddin's comin' off. But sho! They know well enough I
never had the money to git married on."
"Got enough now, though, ain't you, Uncle Jimmy?" says I, winkin'.
"Too blamed much," says he. "Cap'n Bill showed me that plain at our last
talk. 'Why, you old fool,' says he, 'if it turns out true, then you're a
mighty rich man, 'most a millionaire! You can't stay on livin' here in
your old shack at Pemaquid. You got to have the luxuries and the
refinements of life now,' says he, 'and you got to go to the city to git
'em. Boston might do for some; but if it was me I'd camp right down in
New York at one of them swell hotels, and just enjoy myself to the end
of my days.' Wall, here I be, and I'm gittin' used to the luxuries
gradual."
"How hard have you splurged?" says I.
"Had two sodas yesterday," says he, "and maybe I'll tackle one of them
movin' picture shows to-morrow. I been aimin' to. It'd be all right,
wouldn't it?"
"Yes, I wouldn't call that any wild extravagance, with fifty thousand to
draw on," says I. "How have you got it?"
He fishes out an old wallet, unstraps it careful, and shoves over a
cashier's check. No bluff about it. He had the goods.
"Said you was goin' to invest it, didn't you?" I suggests cautious.
"That's what's botherin' me most about this whole business," says Uncle
Jimmy. "It's an awful lot of money for an old codger like me to handle.
I tried to git young Mr. Fowler to take half of it back; but he only
laughs and says he couldn't do that, and guessed how he and the wife was
worth that much, anyway. Besides, I expect he don't need it."
"I should say that was a safe bet," says I. "If I remember right, his
share of the estate was ten or twelve millions."
"Gorry!" says Uncle Jimmy. "No wonder he couldn't tell me what to put it
into, either. Maybe you could give me an idea, though."
"Me?" says I. "Why, you don't know me, Uncle Jimmy. You wouldn't want
to take a stranger's advice about investin' your money."
"Sho!" says he. "Why not? I've asked most everybody I've had a chance to
talk with ever since I got here, and most of 'em has been mighty
accommodatin'. Why, there was one young man that followed me out of the
lawyer's office just to tell me of some gold mine stock he knew about
that inside of six months was goin' to be worth ten times what it's
sellin' for now. Offered to buy me a controllin' interest too."
"You don't mean it!" says I.
"Yes, Sir. Nice, bright feller that didn't know me from Adam," says
Uncle Jimmy. "Took me ridin' in one of these here taxicabs and bought me
a bang-up hotel dinner. And if it hadn't been that I knew of a Methodist
minister once who lost twenty dollars in gold mine stocks, hanged if I
wouldn't have invested heavy! But somehow, ever since hearin' of that,
I've had an idea gold mines was sort of risky."
"Which ain't such a fool hunch, either," says I.
"Then only this mornin'," goes on Uncle Jimmy enthusiastic, "I runs
across a mighty friendly, spruce-dressed pair,--big Pittsburgh
fi-nanciers, they said they was,--who was makin' money hand over fist
bettin' on hoss races somewheres."
"Well, well!" says I. "Had an operator who'd tapped a poolroom wire and
could hold up returns, didn't they?"
"That's it!" says Uncle Jimmy. "They explained just how it was done; but
I'm a little slow understandin' such things. Anyway, they took me to a
place where I saw one of 'em win two thousand inside of ten minutes; and
b'gum, if I'd been a bettin' man, I could have made a heap! I did let
one of 'em put up fifty cents for me, and he brought back five dollars
in no time. They seemed real put out too when I wouldn't take the chance
of a lifetime and bet a thousand on the next race. But somehow I
couldn't bring myself to it. What would Cynthy think if she knew I was
down here in New York, bettin' on hoss races? No, Sir, I couldn't."
"And you got away with the five, did you?" says I.
"Don't tell," says Uncle Jimmy, "but I slipped it in an envelope and
sent it to that shiftless Hank Tuttle, over at the point. You see, Hank
guzzles hard cider, and plays penny ante, and is always hard up. He
won't know where it come from, and won't care. The fine cigars them two
handed out so free I'm keepin' to smoke Sunday afternoons."
"Huh!" says I. "That's a good record so far, Uncle Jimmy. Anything more
along that line?"
"Wall," says he, "there was one chance I expect I shouldn't have let
slip. Got to talkin' with a feller in the hotel, sort of a hook-nosed,
foreign-speakin' man, who's in the show business. He says his
brother-in-law, by the name of Goldberg, has got an idea for a musical
comedy that would just set Broadway wild and make a mint of money. All
he needed to start it was twenty or thirty thousand, and he figured it
would bring in four times that the first season. And he was willin' to
let me have a half interest in his scheme. I'd gone in too, only from
what he said I thought it must be one of these pieces where they have a
lot of girls in tights, and--well, I thought of Cynthy again. What would
she say to me bein' mixed up with a show of that kind? So I had to drop
it."
"Any taxi rides or cigars in that?" says I.
"Just cigars," says Uncle Jimmy.
"But you mean to invest that fifty thousand sooner or later, don't you?"
says I.
"Cap'n Bill said I ought to," says he, "and live off'm the interest.
He's a mighty smart business man, Cap'n Bill is. And I guess I'll find
something before long."
"You can't miss it," says I, "specially if you keep on as you've
started. But see here, Uncle Jimmy, while I ain't got any wonderful deal
of my own for you to put your money in, I might throw out a useful hint
or two as to other folk's plans. Suppose you just take my card, and
before you tie up with any accommodatin' financiers drop in at the
studio, and talk it over with me."
"Why, much obliged, Mr.--er--Professor McCabe," says he, readin' the
name off the card. "Mebbe I will."
"Better make it a promise," says I. "I hate to knock our fair village;
but now and then you might find a crook in New York."
"So I've heard," says he; "but I kind of think I'd know one if he run
afoul of me. And everybody I've met so far has been mighty nice."
Well, what else was there for me to say? There wa'n't any more suspicion
in them gentle blue eyes of his than in a baby's. Forty years in
Pemaquid! Must be some moss-grown, peaceful spot, where a man can grow
up so innocent and simple, and yet have the stuff in him Uncle Jimmy
must have had. So I tows him back to 42d-st., points him towards the new
lib'ry again, and turns him loose; him in his old blue suit and faded
cap, with Cap'n Bill's antique dive chart and certified check for fifty
thousand in his inside pocket.
I thought he might show up at the studio in a day or so, to submit some
get-rich-quick fake to me. But he didn't. A couple of weeks goes by.
Still no Uncle Jimmy. I was beginnin' to look for accounts in the papers
of how an old jay from the coast of Maine had been bunkoed and gone to
the police with his tale of woe; but nothin' of the kind appears. They
don't always squeal, you know. Maybe he was that kind.
Then here the other day in that big storm we had, as I'm standin' in the
doorway hesitatin' about dodgin' out into them slantwise sheets of rain,
who should come paddlin' along, his coat collar turned up and his cap
pulled down, but Uncle Jimmy Isham.
"Well, well!" says I, makin' room for him in the hallway. "Still here,
eh? Gettin' to be a reg'lar Broadway rounder, I expect?"
"No," says he, shakin' the water off of him like a terrier, "I--I can't
seem to get used to bein' a city man. Fact is, McCabe, I guess I begun
too late. I don't like it at all."
"Homesick for Pemaquid?" says I.
"That's it," says he. "I stove it off until this mornin'. I'd been doin'
fust rate too, goin' to picture shows reg'lar, takin' in the sights, and
tryin' to make myself believe I was enjoyin' all the luxuries and
refinements of life, like Cap'n Bill said I ought to. But when I woke up
at daylight and heard this nor'easter snortin' through the streets I
couldn't stand it a mite longer. I dun'no's I can make it plain to you,
but--well, this ain't no place to be in a storm. Never saw the surf pile
up on Pemaquid Point, did you? Then you ought to once. And I bet it's
rollin' in some there now. Yes, Sir! The old graybacks are jest
thunderin' in on them rocks with a roar you can hear three miles back in
the woods. Roarin' and smashin', they are, grand and mighty and awful.
And I want to be there to see and hear. I got to, that's all. What's
shows and museums and ridin' in the subway, compared to a storm on
Pemaquid? No, Sir, I can't stand it any longer. I'm goin' back on the
Boston boat to-night, and before it's calmed down at the point I'll be
there. I'm goin' to stay there too; that is, if I don't move over to the
Neck."
"With Cynthy?" says I.
"If she'll let me," says he.
"Got the fifty thousand invested yet?" says I.
"No," says he, droppin' his chin guilty, "I ain't. And I expect Cap'n
Bill will call me an old fool. But I couldn't jest seem to find the
right thing to put it into. So I'm goin' to stop at Wiscasset and leave
it at the bank and git 'em to buy me some gover'ment bonds or something.
That won't bring me in much; but it'll be more'n I'll know what to do
with. Then I got to see Cynthy. If she says she'll have me, I suppose
I'll have to break it to her about the money. I dun'no what she's goin'
to say, either. That's what's botherin' me."
"Yes, Uncle Jimmy," says I, givin' him a farewell grip. "Like the cat in
the bird store--you should worry!"
Pemaquid, eh? Say, I'm goin' to hire a guide in Portland and discover
that place sometime. I'd like to see Uncle Jimmy again.