The Best Short Stories of 1919 Part 25

They didn't know until the _Lillie-Bennie_ came in that afternoon just how many of her men she was bringing back with her. They were all out on Long Wharf to watch her come in and to see who would come ash.o.r.e--and who wouldn't. Women were there, and lots of children. Some of these sets of a woman and children went away with a man, holding on to him and laughing, or perhaps looking foolish to think they had ever supposed he could be dead. Others went away as they had come--maybe very still, maybe crying. There were old men who came away carrying things that had belonged to sons who weren't coming ash.o.r.e. It was all a good deal like a movie--only it didn't rest you.

So he _needed_ sleep, he petulantly told things as he rubbed the back of his neck, wondered why lounges were made like that, and turned over. But instead of sleeping, he thought about Joe Cadara. They were friendly thoughts he had about Joe Cadara; much more friendly than the thoughts he was having about Ignace Silva. For one thing, Joe wasn't making any noise. Even when he was alive, Joe had made little noise. He always had his job on a vessel; he'd come up the Front street in his oilskins, turn in at his little red house, come out after a while and hoe in his garden or patch his wood-shed, sit out on the wharf and listen to what Ignace Silva and other loud-mouthed Portuguese had to say--back to his little red house. He--well, he was a good deal like the sea. It came in, it went out. On Joe Cadara's last trip in, Joe Doane met him just as he was starting out. "Well, Joe," says Joe Doane, "off again?" "Off again,"

said Joe Cadara, and that was about all there seemed to be to it. He could see him going down the street--short, stocky, slow, _dumb_. By dumb he meant--oh, dumb like the sea was dumb--just going on doing it.

And now--

All of a sudden he couldn't _stand_ Ignace Silva. "_h.e.l.l!_" roared Joe Doane from the window, "don't you know a man's _dead_?" In an instant the only thing you could hear was the sea. In--Out--

Then he went back to his bedroom. "I'm not sleeping either," said his wife--the way people are quick to make it plain they're as bad off as the next one.

At first it seemed to be still at the Cadaras. The children had gone to sleep--so had the friends. Only one sound now where there had been many before. And that seemed to come out of the sea. You got it after a wave broke--as it was dying out. In that little let-up between an in, an out, you knew that Mrs. Cadara had not gone to sleep, you knew that Mrs.

Cadara was crying because Joe Cadara was dead in the sea.

So Joe Doane and his wife Mary lay there and listened to Annie Cadara crying for her husband, Joe Cadara.

Finally Mrs. Doane raised on her pillow and sighed. "Well, I suppose she wonders what she'll do now--those four children."

He could see Joe Cadara's back going down the Front street--broad, slow, _dumb_. "And I suppose," he said, as if speaking for something that had perhaps never spoken for itself, "that she feels bad because she'll never see him again."

"Why, of course she does," said his wife impatiently, as if he had contradicted something she had said.

But after usurping his thought she went right back to her own. "I don't see how she will get along. I suppose we'll have to help them some."

Joe Doane lay there still. He couldn't help anybody much--more was the pity. He had his own three children--and you could be a Doane without having money to help with--though some people didn't get that through their heads. Things used to be different with the Doanes. When the tide's in and you awake at three in the morning it all gets a good deal like the sea--at least with Joe Doane it did now. His grandfather, Ebenezer Doane, the whaling captain--In--Out--Silas Doane--a fleet of vessels off the Grand Banks--In--Out--All the Doanes. They had helped make the Cape, but--In--Out--Suddenly Joe laughed.

"What are you _laughing_ at?" demanded his wife.

"I was just laughing," said Joe, "to think what those _old_ Doanes would say if they could see us."

"Well, it's not anything to laugh at," said Mrs. Doane.

"Why, I think it is," good-humoredly insisted her husband, "it's such a _joke_ on them."

"If it's a joke," said Mrs. Doane firmly, "it's not on _them_."

He wasn't sure just _who_ the joke was on. He lay thinking about it. At three in the morning, when you can't sleep and the tide's in, you might get it mixed--who the joke was on.

But, no, the joke _was_ on them, that they'd had their long slow deep _In_--_Out_--their whaling and their fleets, and that what came after was _him_--a tinkerer with other men's boats, a s.h.i.+p's carpenter who'd even work on _houses_. "Get Joe Doane to do it for you." And glad enough was Joe Doane to do it. And a Portagee livin' to either side of him!

He laughed. "You've got a funny idea of what's a _joke_," his wife said indignantly.

That seemed to be so. Things he saw as jokes weren't jokes to anybody else. Maybe that was why he sometimes seemed to be all by himself. He was beginning to get lost in an _In_--_Out_. Faintly he could hear Mrs.

Cadara crying--Joe Cadara was in the sea, and faintly he heard his wife saying, "I suppose Agnes Cadara could wear Myrtie's shoes, only--the way things are, seems Myrtie's got to wear out her _own_ shoes."

Next day when he came home at noon--he was at work then helping Ed.

Davis put a new coat on Still's store--he found his two boys--the boys were younger than Myrtie--pressed against the picket fence that separated Doanes from Cadaras.

"What those kids up to?" he asked his wife, while he washed up for dinner.

"Oh, they just want to see," she answered, speaking into the oven.

"See _what_?" he demanded; but this Mrs. Doane regarded as either too obvious or too difficult to answer, so he went to the door and called, "Joe! Edgar!"

"What you kids rubberin' at?" he demanded.

Young Joe dug with his toe. "The Cadaras have got a lot of company,"

said he.

"They're _crying_!" triumphantly announced the younger and more truthful Edgar.

"Well, suppose they are? They got a right to cry in their own house, ain't they? Let the Cadaras be. Find some fun at home."

The boys didn't seem to think this funny, nor did Mrs. Doane, but the father was chuckling to himself as they sat down to their baked flounder.

But to let the Cadaras be and find some fun at home became harder and harder to do. The _Lillie-Bennie_ had lost her men in early Summer and the town was as full of Summer folk as the harbor was of whiting. There had never been a great deal for Summer folk to do in Cape's End, and so the Disaster was no disaster to the Summer's entertainment. In other words, Summer folk called upon the Cadaras. The young Doanes spent much of their time against the picket fence; sometimes young Cadaras would come out and graciously enlighten them. "A woman she brought my mother a black dress." Or, "A lady and two little boys came in automobile and brought me kiddie-car and white pants." One day Joe Doane came home from work and found his youngest child crying because Tony Cadara wouldn't lend him the kiddie-car. This was a reversal of things; heretofore Cadaras had cried for the belongings of the Doanes. Joe laughed about it, and told Edgar to cheer up, and maybe he'd have a kiddie-car himself some day--and meanwhile he had a pa.

Agnes Cadara and Myrtie Doane were about of an age. They were in the same cla.s.s in high school. One day when Joe Doane was pulling in his dory after being out doing some repairs on the _Lillie-Bennie_ he saw a beautiful young lady standing on the Cadaras' bulkhead. Her back was to him, but you were sure she was beautiful. She had the look of some one from away, but not like the usual run of Summer folk. Myrtie was standing looking over at this distinguished person.

"Who's that?" Joe asked of her.

"Why," said Myrtie, in an awed whisper, "it's Agnes Cadara--in her _mourning_."

Until she turned around, he wouldn't believe it. "Well," said he to Myrtie, "it's a pity more women haven't got something to mourn about."

"Yes," breathed Myrtie, "isn't she _wonderful_?"

Agnes's mourning had been given her by young Mrs. MacCrea who lived up on the hill and was herself just finis.h.i.+ng mourning. It seemed Mrs.

MacCrea and Agnes were built a good deal alike--though you never would have suspected it before Agnes began to mourn. Mrs. MacCrea was from New York, and these clothes had been made by a woman Mrs. MacCrea called by her first name. Well, maybe she was a woman you'd call by her first name, but she certainly did have a way of making you look as if you weren't native to the place you were born in. Before Agnes Cadara had anything to mourn about she was simply "one of those good-looking Portuguese girls." There were too many of them in Cape's End to get excited about any of them. One day he heard some women on the beach talking about how these clothes had "found" Agnes--as if she had been lost.

Mrs. MacCrea showed Agnes how to do her hair in a way that went with her clothes. One noon when Joe got home early because it rained and he couldn't paint, when he went up-stairs he saw Myrtie trying to do this to _her_ hair. Well, it just couldn't be _done_ to Myrtie's hair. Myrtie didn't have hair you could do what you pleased with. She was all red in the face with trying, and being upset because she couldn't do it. He had to laugh--and that didn't help things a bit. So he said:

"Never mind, Myrtie, we can't all go into mourning."

"Well, I don't care," said Myrtie, sniffling, "it's not fair."

He had to laugh again and as she didn't see what there was to laugh at, he had to try to console again. "Never mind, Myrt," said he, "you've got _one_ thing Agnes Cadara's not got."

"I'd like to know what," said Myrtie, jerking at her hair.

He waited; funny she didn't think of it herself. "Why--a father," said he.

"Oh," said Myrtie--the way you do when you don't know _what_ to say. And then, "_Well_,----"

Again he waited--then laughed; waited again, then turned away.

Somebody gave Mrs. Cadara a fireless cooker. Mrs. Doane had no fireless cooker. So she had to stand all day over her hot stove--and this she spoke of often. "My supper's in the fireless cooker," Mrs. Cadara would say, and stay out in the cool yard, weeding her flowerbed bed. "It certainly would be nice to have one of those fireless cookers," Mrs.

Doane would say, as she put a meal on the table and wiped her brow with her ap.r.o.n.

"Well, why don't you kill your husband?" Joe Doane would retort. "Now, if only you didn't have a _husband_--you could have a fireless cooker."