Cy Whittaker's Place Part 16

"Come up by and by, Ase. I want to talk to you. Bring Bailey along, if you can do it without startin' divorce proceedings."

Later, when the trio gathered in the Whittaker sitting room, Captain Cy produced the "fas.h.i.+on books" and spoke concerning them.

"You see," he said, "I--I've been thinkin' that Bos'n--Emily, that is--wan't rigged exactly the way she ought to be. Have you fellers noticed it?"

His friends seemed surprised. Neither was ready with an immediate answer, so the captain went on.

"Course I don't mean she ain't got canvas enough to cover her spars," he explained; "but what she has got has seen consider'ble weather, and it seemed to me 'twas pretty nigh time to haul her into dry dock and refit.

That's why I borrowed these magazines of Ketury. I've been lookin' them over and there seems to be plenty of riggin' for small craft; the only thing is I don't know what's the right cut for her build. Bailey, you're a married man; you ought to know somethin' about women's clothes. What do you think of this, now?"

He opened one of the magazines and pointed to the picture of a young girl, with a waspy waist and Lilliputian feet, who, arrayed in flounces and furbelows, was toddling gingerly down a flight of marble steps. She carried a parasol in one hand, and the other held the end of a chain to which a long-haired dog was attached.

The town clerk and his companion inspected the young lady with deliberation and interest.

"Well, what do you say?" demanded Captain Cy.

"I don't care much for them kind of dogs," observed Asaph thoughtfully.

"Good land! you don't s'pose they heave the dog in with the clothes, for good measure, do you? Bailey, what's your opinion?"

Mr. Bangs looked wise.

"I should say--" he said, "yes, sir, I should say that was a real stylish rig-out. Only thing is, that girl is consider'ble less fleshy than Emily. This one looks to me as if she was breakin' in two amids.h.i.+ps. Still, I s'pose likely the duds don't come ready made, so they could be let out some, to fit. What's the price of a suit like that, Whit?"

The captain looked at the printed number beneath the fas.h.i.+on plate and then turned to the description in the text.

"'Afternoon gown for miss of sixteen,'" he read. "Humph! that settles that, first crack. Bos'n ain't but half of sixteen."

"Anyway," put in Asaph, "you need somethin' she could wear forenoons, if she wanted to. What's this one? She looks young enough."

The "one" referred to turned out to be a "coat for child of four."

It was therefore scornfully rejected. One after another the different magazines were examined and the pictures discussed. At length a "costume for miss of eight years" was p.r.o.nounced to be pretty nearly the thing.

"G.o.dfrey scissors!" exclaimed the admiring Mr. Tidditt. "That's mighty swell, ain't it? What's the stuff goes into that, Cy?"

"'Material, batiste, trimmed with embroidered batiste.' What in time is batiste?"

"I don't know. Do you, Bailey?"

"No; never heard of it. Ketury never had nothin' like that, I'm sure.

French, I shouldn't wonder. Well, Ketury's down on the French ever sence she read about Napoleon leavin' his fust wife to take up with another woman. Does it say any more?"

"Let's see. 'Makes a beautiful gown for evening or summer wear.' Summer!

Why, by the big dipper, we're aground again! Bos'n don't want summer clothes. It's comin' on winter."

He threw the magazine on the floor, rubbed his forehead, and then burst into a laugh.

"For goodness sake, don't tell anybody about this business, boys!" he said. "I guess I must be havin' an early spring of second childhood. But when I heard those women at the meetin' house goin' on about how pretty 'Licia Atkins was got up and how mean and shabby Bos'n looked, it made me bile. And, by the big dipper, I WILL show 'em somethin' afore I get through, too! Only, dressin' little girls is some off my usual course.

Bailey, does Ketury make her own duds?"

"Why, no! Course she helps and stands by for orders, but Effie Taylor comes and takes the wheel while the riggin's goin' on. Effie's a dressmaker and--"

"There! See, Ase? It IS some good to have a married man aboard, after all. A dressmaker's what we want. I'll hunt up Effie to-morrow."

And hunt her up he did, with the result that Miss Taylor came to the Whittaker place each day during the following week and Emily was, as the captain said, "rigged out fresh from main truck to keelson." In this "rigging" Captain Cy and his two partners--Josiah Dimick had already christened the pair "The Board of Strategy"--took a marked interest.

They were on hand when each new garment was tried on, and they approved or criticised as seemed to them best.

"Ain't that kind of sober lookin' for a young one like Bos'n?" asked the captain, referring to one of the new gowns. "I don't want her to look as if she was dressed cheap."

"Land sakes!" mumbled Miss Taylor, her mouth full of pins. "There ain't anything cheap about it, and you'll find it out when you get the bill.

That's a nice, rich, sensible suit."

"I know, but it's so everlastin' quiet! Don't you think a little yellow and black or some red strung along the yards would sort of liven it up? Why! you ought to see them Greaser girls down in South America of a Sunday afternoon. Color! and go! Jerushy! they'd pretty nigh knock your eye out."

The dressmaker sniffed disdain.

"Cap'n Whittaker," she retorted, "if you want this child to look like an Indian squaw or a barber's pole you'll have to get somebody else to do it. I'm used to dressing Christians, not yeller and black heathen women.

Red strung along a skirt like that! I never did!"

"There, there, Effie! Don't get the barometer fallin'. I was only suggestin', you know. What do you think, Bos'n?"

"Why, Uncle Cyrus, I don't believe I should like red very much; nor the other colors, either. I like this just as it is."

"So? Well, you're the doctor. Maybe you're right. I wouldn't want you to look like a barber's pole. Don't love Tad Simpson enough to want to advertise his business."

Miss Taylor's coming had other results besides the refitting of "Bos'n."

She found much fault with the captain's housekeeping. It developed that her sister Georgiana, who had been working in a Brockton shoe shop, was now at home and might be engaged to attend to the household duties at the Whittaker establishment, provided she was allowed to "go home nights." Georgiana was engaged, on trial, and did well. So that problem was solved.

School in Bayport opens the first week in October. Of late there has been a movement, headed by some of the townspeople who think city ways are best, to have the term begin in September. But this idea has little chance of success as long as cranberry picking continues to be our leading industry. So many of the children help out the family means by picking cranberries in the fall that school, until the picking season was over, would be slimly attended.

The last week in September found us all discussing the coming of the new downstairs teacher, Miss Phoebe Dawes. Since it was definitely settled that she was to come, the opposition had died down and was less openly expressed; but it was there, all the same, beneath the surface.

Congressman Atkins had accepted the surprising defiance of his wish with calm dignity and the philosophy of the truly great who are not troubled by trifles. His lieutenant, Tad Simpson, quoted him as saying that, of course, the will of the school committee was paramount, and he, as all good citizens should, bowed to their verdict. "Far be it from me," so the great man proclaimed, "to desire that my opinion should carry more weight than that of the humblest of my friends and neighbors. Speaking as one whose knowledge of the world was, perhaps--er--more extensive than--er--others, I favored the Normal School candidate. But the persons chosen to select thought--or appeared to think--otherwise. I therefore say nothing and await developments."

This att.i.tude was considered by most of us to reflect credit upon Mr.

Atkins. There were a few scoffers, however. When the proclamation was repeated to Captain Cy he smiled.

"Alpheus," he said to Mr. Smalley, his informant, "you didn't use to know Deacon Zeb Clark, who lived up by the salt works in my granddad's time, hey? No, course you didn't! Well, the deacon was a great believer in his own judgment. One time, it bein' Sat.u.r.day, his wife wanted him to pump the washtub full and take a bath. He said, no; said the cistern was awful low and 'twould use up all the water. She said no such thing; there was water a-plenty. To prove she was wrong he went and pried the cistern cover off to look, and fell in. Mrs. Clark peeked down and saw him there, standin' up to his neck.

"'Tabby,' says he, 'you would have your way and I'm takin' the bath.

But you can see for yourself that we'll have to cart water from now on.

However, _I_ ain't responsible; throw me down the soap and towel.'"

"Humph!" grunted Smalley, "I don't see what that's got to do with it.

Heman ain't takin' no bath."

"I don't know's it's got anything to do with it. But he kind of made me think of Zeb, all the same."

The first day of school was, of course, a Monday. On Sunday afternoon Captain Cy and Bos'n went for a walk. These walks had become a regular part of the Sabbath programme, the weather, of course, permitting. After church the pair came home for dinner. The meal being eaten, the captain would light a cigar--a pipe was now hardly "dressed-up" enough for Sunday--and, taking his small partner by the hand, would lead the way across the fields, through the pines and down by the meadow "short cut" to the cemetery. The cemetery is a favorite Sabbath resort for the natives of Bayport, who usually speak of it as the graveyard. It is a pleasant, shady spot, and to visit it is considered quite respectable and in keeping with the day and a due regard for decorum. The unG.o.dly, meaning the summer boarders and the village no-accounts, seem to prefer the beach and the fish houses, but the cemetery attracts the churchgoers. One may gossip concerning the probable cost of a new tombstone and still remain faithful to the most rigid creed.