In the meantime, the throng of neighbors Sylvia had precipitately left
in the village post office had received their mail and reached that
anticipated interval for gossip which never failed to be stimulating.
Clustered about the counter loitered the standbys.
Zenas Henry was speaking:
"A mighty fine little girl--that Sylvia," commented he. "A high stepper!
We'd oughter tie her down to Wilton so'st she won't go back West. She's
too pretty to be spared from the Cape."
"I figger you'd have trouble keepin' her here," rejoined Silas
Nickerson, the postmaster, sauntering out from his wicker cage. "She's
got a beau in her home town. Had a letter an' a box of candy from him
today. Same writin' an' same postmark on both of 'em, I noticed. She
blushed red as a peony when I passed 'em out to her."
"Didn't by any chance see the name, did you, Silas?" Eleazer Crocker
inquired.
"Wal, come to think of it, it did catch my eye. You know how such things
will. Fuller, he's called. Horatio Fuller."
"Horatio Fuller, eh?" Eleazer repeated. "Kinder high soundin'. Wonder
who he is? From Alton City, you say."
Silas nodded.
"That was the address."
"Never heard of the place," Captain Benjamin Todd put in.
"That don't in no way prevent its existin', Ben," answered Zenas Henry
with his customary drawl.
"If we had a map handy we might look it up," suggested Captain Phineas
Taylor. "I'd like to see just where it's located."
"I tried doin' that," the postmaster admitted. "I got out my map, but
the place warn't on it."
"No wonder I never heard of it!" blustered Benjamin Todd.
"That don't prove nothin', Benjamin," his friend Phineas Taylor
expostulated. "Silas's map was drawed before the flood. Even Wilton
ain't on it."
"It ain't?"
A simultaneous gasp rose from the assembly.
"Then all I can say is it's a darn poor map," Enoch Morton sniffed. "A
map that ain't got Wilton on it might as well be burned. 'Tain't worth
botherin' with."
"It's all the map I've got," Silas apologized.
"You'd oughter ask the government for another. Why don't you write to
Washington, explainin' that neither Wilton nor Alton City are on this
one an' ask 'em for a better one?"
"'Fore you start complainin', you might make sure Belleport's down,"
suggested Lemuel Gill, a resident of the adjoining village. "Last I
knew, that warn't on this map, neither."
"'Twarn't?"
"Who makes these maps, I wonder?" bristled Zenas Henry. "Some numskull
who ain't traveled none, I'll bet a hat. Why don't he go round an'
see what places there is 'fore he starts map-makin'? Why, any one of
us knows more 'bout the job already than he does. We know there's
Belleport, an' Wilton, an' Alton City."
"Bet you couldn't tell what state Alton City is in, though, Zenas
Henry," Silas challenged.
"Alton City? Let me think! Alton City!" Thoughtfully he stroked his
chin. "'Tain't my business to know where 'tis," he presently sputtered.
"If everybody knew where all the blasted places in the country were,
what use would they have for maps? 'Twould put the map-makin' folks
clean out of business."
"If map-makers don't know where Wilton an' Belleport are they'd better
be out of business, in my opinion," countered Benjamin Todd. "Say,
Ephraim," he exclaimed, inspired by a bright idea, "you're the mail
carrier. You'd oughter be primed on the location of places. Where's
Alton City?"
"Alton City? Hanged if I know. To hear you talk, anybody'd think 'twas
my job to tote round the country deliverin' letters in person at the
doors of every house in the United States."
"But you must have some notion 'bout geography. Ain't you got no pocket
atlas nor nothin'?"
"I may have a small map somewheres; I carry most everything," Ephraim
grinned. With deliberation, he began to disgorge upon the counter the
contents of his many pockets.
There was a tangle of pink string; two stumpy pencils without points;
a fragment of fish-line; a soiled scrap of court-plaster; a box
of matches; a plug of tobacco; a red bandanna handkerchief; three
cough-drops, moist and sticky; several screws; a worn tube of paste; a
jack-knife.
"My soul, Eph!" ejaculated Zenas Henry. "You're a reg'lar travelin' junk
shop, ain't you?"
"I have to have things by me."
"Was you Robinson Crusoe, you'd never have call for any such mess of
truck as this. Where's the map?"
"Must be in my breast pocket," replied the mail-carrier, thrusting his
hand inside his pea-coat. "My eye! If I ain't forgot that telegram!" he
abruptly exclaimed. "The station-master at Sawyer Falls gave it to me
when he handed out the mail. It clean went out of my mind."
"A telegram!" came in chorus from his audience. "Who for?"
"It's for that chap Heath who's stayin' over at The Widder's."
"Hadn't you been wool-gatherin' you might 'a' given it to Sylvia to take
back with her. She was here only a little while ago," Silas Nickerson
said.
"I know it."
"S'pose I was to take it over," Elisha Winslow suggested eagerly. "I'm
willin' to."
"Fur's that goes, I can carry it," Captain Phineas Taylor piped.
"Give it to me, Eph, an' I'll see it's landed there within half an
hour," proposed Benjamin Todd, elbowing his way forward.
"Now there's no use in all you fellers volunteerin'," Eleazer Crocker
asserted. "I'm goin' straight over to Marcia's, as it happens, soon's
I've et my dinner, an' I'll take the telegram."
With an air of authority, he held out his hand.
The crowd fell back.
Yet notwithstanding their acquiescence, Zenas Henry, not to be awed into
subjection, had the temerity to add:
"Remember, though, Eleazer, you ain't to go off the mainland without
leavin' the key to the engine-house where we can get it. We've no
hankerin' to be burnt alive while you're philanderin' at The Widder's."
"Hang it on the peg inside Benjamin Todd's fish shanty as you go by,"
called another voice.
"I'll do that," Eleazer agreed as he pocketed the telegram.
* * * * *
Early afternoon found Marcia alone in the Homestead sitting-room.
A driftwood fire flickered upon the hearth, for although spring was on
the way, the large, high-studded rooms were not yet entirely free of
winter's chill and dampness.
Sylvia had gone up the beach. Stanley Heath was asleep; and at last the
delicious interval of solitude which the woman coveted was here.
The basket at her elbow overflowed with mending, but she had not yet
taken up her needle.
Instead she sat motionless before the blaze, dreamily watching the vivid
blues and greens as they flared up into the glow of the flame there to
blend with its splendor, and afterwards melt into embers of scarlet and
orange.
She could not work.
Try as she would, her mind wandered off into by-ways too fascinating
to be resisted--by-ways which no matter how remote their windings,
invariably led her back to Stanley Heath.
In retrospect she lived over again every incident, every word, every
look that had passed between them until she came to the barrier of the
unknown which her fancy bridged with intricate rainbow-hued imaginings.
While the fire crackled and flashes of sapphire and emerald shot up and
died away, she twisted possible explanations this way and that and would
contentedly have continued the pastime had not Eleazer Crocker knocked
at the door.
Eleazer could not have chosen a more inopportune moment to drag her back
to earth.
With a frown and a deep sigh, Marcia went reluctantly to let him in.
"Wal, now ain't it nice to find you by yourself!" was his greeting. "The
kitchen looks cozy as can be. Spring may be comin' but for all that cool
weather still hangs on. Where was you settin'?"
"I was in the front room, but perhaps we better drop down here so I can
listen in case Mr. Heath should call."
"Anywhere you say. Wherever you are suits me."
"I'll just run in and put the screen round the fire and get my mending,"
Marcia replied a trifle uneasily.
"Let me go."
"No, indeed. You wait here. I'll be right back."
Left to himself, Eleazer smiled a smile of satisfaction.
The kitchen was warm, Marcia was alone and apparently not busy. Could
circumstances be more propitious? Fortune certainly was with him. Today,
this very afternoon, he would take his future in his hands and put to
her the question he had so often determined to put.
Times without number he had mentally rehearsed what he meant to say.
In fact he habitually fell into this intriguing dialogue whenever he
had nothing else to occupy him. It commenced with a few preliminary
observations concerning the weather, the springtime, the birds--the
birds who would soon be mating. That was the keynote--mating. The rest
followed very naturally. It was, Eleazer felt, a neat, in fact quite a
poetic proposal.
He cleared his throat in preparation.
When Marcia came back, he was primed and ready to begin his declaration.
"Weather's been fine, ain't it?" he started out.
Marcia took up her sewing.
"Do you think so?" questioned she, raising her brows. "Seems to me we've
had lots of rain and fog."
"Wal, yes, now you mention it I do recall a few thick days. Still,
spring is comin'."
"I'd like to shingle the south ell this spring," announced Marcia,
giving a disconcertingly practical twist to the conversation. "How many
shingles do you suppose it would take?"
Eleazer frowned.
The dialogue was not proceeding along the lines he had mapped out.
Determined to fetter it and bring it back into the prescribed channels,
he answered:
"I'd have to reckon that out. It's a good notion, though, to make the
ell tight. That's what the birds are doin'."
Astonished, Marcia glanced up from her work.
"I mean," floundered on Eleazer, "they're gettin' their nests built an'
kinder pickin' out their mates. Pickin' the right mate's quite a job for
some folks."
He saw Marcia turn scarlet. Mercy! What a slip! She thought he was
twitting her about Jason.
"What I set out to say was that when you get the wrong mate you know
it," he countered hastily.
No sooner, however, were the words out of his mouth than he saw they
were no better.
Perhaps it would be well to abandon the mating question and start on a
new tack. He had tried the spring. Suppose he took summer as his theme?
"Summer's a nice season, ain't it?" ventured he.
"Yes, although I never enjoy it as much as the other months. I don't
like the heat and I detest the summer boarders."
Eleazer swallowed hard. He would better have clung to the spring. He saw
that now. He would retrace his steps.
"Spring is nice," he agreed. "With the birds a-buildin' their nests,
an'--"
At last he was back on familiar ground.
"I did not realize you were so much interested in birds, Eleazer,"
Marcia exclaimed. "I have a fine bird book I must lend you. It's in the
other room. I'll fetch it."
Springing up, she disappeared.
"Drat it!" murmured Eleazer. "Could anything be more exasperatin'?
An' me neither knowin' nor carin' a hang whether a bird's a robin or
a sparrow. Just when I was gettin' the way paved so nice, too." He
wandered to the window. "Oh, heavens, who's this comin'? If it ain't
'Lish Winslow! Now what in thunder does he want, buttin' in? He's
walkin' like as if the evil one was at his heels."
Eleazer threw open the door.
Before he could speak, however, Elisha puffing and out of breath bawled:
"Where in the name of goodness did you put the engine-house key,
Eleazer? Whipple's hen house is afire an' we've hunted high an' low for
it."
Eleazer purpled.
"My soul an' body," he gasped. "I clean forgot to leave it. Must be here
in my pocket."
Wildly he began to search.
"You're a fine head of the fire department, you are!" roared Elisha. "If
you'd put your mind on town business 'stead of on Marcia Howe, we'd all
be better off. Traipsing over here to see her in the middle of the day,
palmin' off that telegram as an excuse--"
If Eleazer had been purple before, he was livid now.
"Well, you better go straight back to the village fast as you can leg
it an' carry the key with you," went on the accuser. "Don't wait for
nothin'. I'll explain matters to Marcia."
"But I've got to see her. I've got to speak to her private," protested
the wretched official.
"Private? Ain't you been talkin' to her private an' hour or more? What
else have you got to say to her?"
"I want to give her somethin'."
"Give it to me. I'll hand it to her."
Elisha's extended palm was not to be ignored.
"This--this--telegram," quavered Eleazer. "I ain't had a chance to--"
"Do you mean to say you ain't given her that telegram yet?"
"I was intendin' to. I was just about to when--"
"Wal, of all the--" words failed Elisha. "Here, give it to me," he
commanded. "I can be depended on to deliver messages if you can't. I'll
see she has it. In the meantime, the best thing you can do is to hoof
it to town quick's ever you can. If the whole place ain't burned to
the ground an' if they don't tar an' feather you when you put in your
appearance, you'll be lucky."
"Ain't you comin'?"
"I? No. Fire's ain't in my line. Long's Marcia's here by herself an'
ain't busy, I'm goin' to pay her a call," Elisha grinned. "I've got to
deliver the telegram."
"Still, you don't need to stay," pleaded Eleazer, facing his triumphant
rival.
"Mebbe I do," was Elisha's hectoring retort. "Mebbe this is the very
time for me to linger behind. The coast's clear. Why shouldn't I stay?"
"You might be needed at the fire."
"I shan't be," was the calm reply. "Not unless there's somethin'
criminal about it."
"It might be arson."
"I'll take a chance on it startin' from Dan Whipple's cigarette. In fact
he owned as much. Dan's terrible careless with his cigarettes. Now, hop
along, Eleazer, else the whole conflagration will be out 'fore you get
there."
The unlucky fire-chief had no choice.
"Drat it!" raged he, as he strode off across the sand. "Drat it! Ain't
that just my luck!"