Cape Cod Stories Part 22

"Mr. Small," stammered Mr. Rogers, "I'm sorry you feel bad about not buying them dishes. I--I thought I'd ought to tell you--that is to say, I--Well, if you want another set, I cal'late I can get it for you--that is, if you won't tell n.o.body."

"ANOTHER set?" hollers Eddie, wide-eyed. "Anoth--Do you mean to say you've got MORE?"

"Why, I ain't exactly got 'em now, but my nephew John keeps a furniture store in South Boston, and he has lots of sets like that. I bought that one off him."

Peter T. Brown jumps to his feet.

"Why, you outrageous robber!" he hollers. "Didn't you say those dishes were old?"

"I never said nothing, except that they were like the plate that feller had on the piazza. And they was, too. YOU folks said they was old, and I thought you'd ought to know, so--"

Eddie Small threw up both hands. "Fakes!" he hollers. "Fakes! AND THOMPSON PAID ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-THREE DOLLARS FOR 'EM! Boys, there's times when life's worth living. Have a drink."

We went into the billard-room and took something; that is, Peter and Eddie took that kind of something. Me and Jonadab took cigars.

"Fellers," said Eddie, "drink hearty. I'm going in to tell my wife. Fake dishes! And I beat Thompson on the davenport."

He went away bubbling like a biling spring. After he was gone Rogers looked thoughtful.

"That's funny, too, ain't it?" he says.

"What's funny?" we asked.

"Why, about that sofy he calls a davenport. You see, I bought that off John, too," says Adoniram.

HIS NATIVE HEATH

I never could quite understand why the folks at Wellmouth made me selectman. I s'pose likely 'twas on account of Jonadab and me and Peter Brown making such a go of the Old Home House and turning Wellmouth Port from a sand fleas' paradise into a hospital where city folks could have their bank accounts amputated and not suffer more'n was necessary.

Anyway, I was elected unanimous at town meeting, and Peter was mighty anxious for me to take the job.

"Barzilla," says Peter, "I jedge that a selectman is a sort of dwarf alderman. Now, I've had friends who've been aldermen, and they say it's a sure thing, like shaking with your own dice. If you're straight, there's the honor and the advertis.e.m.e.nt; if you're crooked, there's the graft. Either way the house wins. Go in, and glory be with you."

So I finally agreed to serve, and the very first meeting I went to, the question of Asaph Blueworthy and the poorhouse comes up. Zoeth Tiddit--he was town clerk--he puts it this way:

"Gentlemen," he says, "we have here the usual application from Asaph Blueworthy for aid from the town. I don't know's there's much use for me to read it--it's tolerable familiar. 'Suffering from lumbago and rheumatiz'--um, yes. 'Out of work'--um, just so. 'Respectfully begs that the board will'--etcetery and so forth. Well, gentlemen, what's your pleasure?"

Darius Gott, he speaks first, and dry and drawling as ever. "Out of work, hey?" says Darius. "Mr. Chairman, I should like to ask if anybody here remembers the time when Ase was IN work?"

n.o.body did, and Cap'n Benijah Poundberry--he was chairman at that time--he fetches the table a welt with his starboard fist and comes out emphatic.

"Feller members," says he, "I don't know how the rest of you feel, but it's my opinion that this board has done too much for that lazy loafer already. Long's his sister, Thankful, lived, we couldn't say nothing, of course. If she wanted to slave and work so's her brother could live in idleness and sloth, why, that was her business. There ain't any law against a body's making a fool of herself, more's the pity. But she's been dead a year, and he's done nothing since but live on those that'll trust him, and ask help from the town. He ain't sick--except sick of work. Now, it's my idea that, long's he's bound to be a pauper, he might's well be treated as a pauper. Let's send him to the poorhouse."

"But," says I, "he owns his place down there by the sh.o.r.e, don't he?"

All hands laughed--that is, all but Cap'n Benijah. "Own nothing," says the cap'n. "The whole rat trap, from the keel to maintruck, ain't worth more'n three hundred dollars, and I loaned Thankful four hundred on it years ago, and the mortgage fell due last September. Not a cent of princ.i.p.al, interest, nor rent have I got since. Whether he goes to the poorhouse or not, he goes out of that house of mine to-morrer. A man can smite me on one cheek and maybe I'll turn t'other, but when, after I HAVE turned it, he finds fault 'cause my face hurts his hand, then I rise up and quit; you hear ME!"

n.o.body could help hearing him, unless they was deefer than the feller that fell out of the balloon and couldn't hear himself strike, so all hands agreed that sending Asaph Blueworthy to the poorhouse would be a good thing. 'Twould be a lesson to Ase, and would give the poorhouse one more excuse for being on earth. Wellmouth's a fairly prosperous town, and the paupers had died, one after the other, and no new ones had come, until all there was left in the poorhouse was old Betsy Mullen, who was down with creeping palsy, and Deborah Badger, who'd been keeper ever since her husband died.

The poorhouse property was valuable, too, specially for a summer cottage, being out on the end of Robbin's Point, away from the town, and having a fine view right across the bay. Zoeth Tiddit was a committee of one with power from the town to sell the place, but he hadn't found a customer yet. And if he did sell it, what to do with Debby was more or less of a question. She'd kept poorhouse for years, and had no other home nor no relations to go to. Everybody liked her, too--that is, everybody but Cap'n Benijah. He was down on her 'cause she was a Spiritualist and believed in fortune tellers and such. The cap'n, bein'

a deacon of the Come-Outer persuasion, was naturally down on folks who wasn't broad-minded enough to see that his partic'lar crack in the roof was the only way to crawl through to glory.

Well, we voted to send Asaph to the poorhouse, and then I was appointed a delegate to see him and tell him he'd got to go. I wasn't enthusiastic over the job, but everybody said I was exactly the feller for the place.

"To tell you the truth," drawls Darius, "you, being a stranger, are the only one that Ase couldn't talk over. He's got a tongue that's b.u.t.tered on both sides and runs on ball bearings. If I should see him he'd work on my sympathies till I'd lend him the last two-cent piece in my baby's bank."

So, as there wa'n't no way out of it, I drove down to Asaph's that afternoon. He lived off on a side road by the sh.o.r.e, in a little, run-down shanty that was as no account as he was. When I moored my horse to the "heavenly-wood" tree by what was left of the fence, I would have bet my sou'wester that I caught a glimpse of Brother Blueworthy, peeking round the corner of the house. But when I turned that corner there was n.o.body in sight, although the bu'sted wash-bench, with a cranberry crate propping up its lame end, was shaking a little, as if some one had set on it recent.

I knocked on the door, but n.o.body answered. After knocking three or four times, I tried kicking, and the second kick raised, from somewheres inside, a groan that was as lonesome a sound as ever I heard. No human noise in my experience come within a mile of it for dead, downright misery--unless, maybe, it's Cap'n Jonadab trying to sing in meeting Sundays.

"Who's that?" wails Ase from 'tother side of the door. "Did anybody knock?"

"Knock!" says I. "I all but kicked your everlasting derelict out of water. It's me, Wingate--one of the selectmen. Tumble up, there! I want to talk to you."

Blueworthy didn't exactly tumble, so's to speak, but the door opened, and he comes shuffling and groaning into sight. His face was twisted up and he had one hand spread-fingered on the small of his back.

"Dear, dear!" says he. "I'm dreadful sorry to have kept you waiting, Mr.

Wingate. I've been wrastling with this turrible lumbago, and I'm 'fraid it's affecting my hearing. I'll tell you--"

"Yes--well, you needn't mind," I says; "'cordin' to common tell, you was born with that same kind of lumbago, and it's been getting no better fast ever since. Jest drag your sufferings out onto this bench and come to anchor. I've got considerable to say, and I'm in a hurry."

Well, he grunted, and groaned, and scuffled along. When he'd got planted on the bench he didn't let up any--kept on with the misery.

"Look here," says I, losing patience, "when you get through with the Job business I'll heave ahead and talk. Don't let me interrupt the lamentations on no account. Finished? All right. Now, you listen to me."

And then I told him just how matters stood. His house was to be seized on the mortgage, and he was to move to the poorhouse next day. You never see a man more surprised or worse cut up. Him to the poorhouse? HIM--one of the oldest families on the Cape? You'd think he was the Grand Panjandrum. Well, the dignity didn't work, so he commenced on the lumbago; and that didn't work, neither. But do you think he give up the s.h.i.+p? Not much; he commenced to explain why he hadn't been able to earn a living and the reasons why he'd ought to have another chance. Talk!

Well, if I hadn't been warned he'd have landed ME, all right. I never heard a better sermon nor one with more long words in it.

I actually pitied him. It seemed a shame that a feller who could argue like that should have to go to the poorhouse; he'd ought to run a summer hotel--when the boarders kicked 'cause there was yeller-eyed beans in the coffee he would be the one to explain that they was lucky to get beans like that without paying extra for 'em. Thinks I, "I'm an idiot, but I'll make him one more offer."

So I says: "See here, Mr. Blueworthy, I could use another man in the stable at the Old Home House. If you want the job you can have it. ONLY, you'll have to work, and work hard."

Well, sir, would you believe it?--his face fell like a cook-book cake.

That kind of chance wa'n't what he was looking for. He shuffled and hitched around, and finally he says: "I'll--Ill consider your offer," he says.

That was too many for me. "Well, I'll be yardarmed!" says I, and went off and left him "considering." I don't know what his considerations amounted to. All I know is that next day they took him to the poorhouse.

And from now on this yarn has got to be more or less hearsay. I'll have to put this and that together, like the woman that made the mince meat.

Some of the facts I got from a cousin of Deborah Badger's, some of them I wormed out of Asaph himself one time when he'd had a jug come down from the city and was feeling toler'ble philanthropic and conversationy.

But I guess they're straight enough.

Seems that, while I was down notifying Blueworthy, Cap'n Poundberry had gone over to the poorhouse to tell the Widow Badger about her new boarder. The widow was glad to hear the news.

"He'll be somebody to talk to, at any rate," says she. "Poor old Betsy Mullen ain't exactly what you'd call company for a sociable body. But I'll mind what you say, Cap'n Benijah. It takes more than a slick tongue to come it over me. I'll make that lazy man work or know the reason why."