The Best Short Stories of 1919 Part 27

He came to a millinery store. There was a lot of black ribbon strewn around in the window. He stood and looked at it. Then he laughed. Just the thing!

"Cheer up, Myrt," said he, when he got back home and presented it to her. "You can mourn a _little_. For that matter, you've got a _little_ to mourn about."

Myrtie took it doubtfully--then wound it round her throat. She _liked_ it, and this made her father laugh. He laughed a long time--it was as if he didn't want to be left without the sound of his laughing.

"There's nothing so silly as to laugh when there's nothing to laugh at,"

his wife said finally.

"Oh, I don't know about that," said Joe Doane.

"And while it's very nice to make the children presents, in our circ.u.mstances it would be better to give them useful presents."

"But what's so useful as mourning?" demanded Doane. "Think of all Myrtie has got to mourn _about_. Poor, poor Myrtie--she's _got_ a father!"

You can say a thing until you think it's so. You can say a thing until you make other people think it's so. He joked about standing between them and a fireless cooker until he could see them _thinking_ about it.

All the time he hated his old job at the cold storage. A Doane had no business to be ash.o.r.e _freezing_ fish. It was the business of a Doane to go out to sea and come home with a full vessel.

One day he broke through that old notion that Doanes didn't work on other men's boats and half in a joke proposed to Captain Cook that he fire a ginnie or two and give him a berth on the _Elizabeth_. And Bill Cook was _rattled_. Finally he laughed and said, "Why, Joe, you ought to be on your own vessel"--which was a way of saying he didn't want him on _his_. Why didn't he? Did they think because he hadn't made a trip for so long that he wasn't good for one? Did they think a Doane couldn't take orders? Well, there weren't many boats he _would_ go on. Most of them in the harbor now were owned by Portuguese. He guessed it wouldn't come natural to him to take orders from a Portagee--not at sea. He was taking orders from one now at the cold storage--but as the cold storage wasn't where he belonged it didn't make so much difference who he took orders from.

At the close of that day Bill Cook told him he ought to be on his own vessel, Joe Doane sat at the top of those steps which led from his house down to the sea and his thoughts were like the sails coming round the Point--slowly, in a procession, and from a long way off. His father's boats used to come round that Point this same way. He was lonesome to-night. He felt half like an old man and half like a little boy.

Mrs. Cadara was standing over on the platform to the front of her house.

She too was looking at the sails to the far side of the breakwater--sails coming home. He wondered if she was thinking about Joe Cadara--wis.h.i.+ng he was on one of those boats. _Did_ she ever think about Joe Cadara? Did she ever wish he would come home? He'd like to ask her.

He'd like to know. When you went away and didn't come back home, was all they thought about how they'd get along? And if they were getting along all right, was it true they'd just as soon be without you?

He got up. He had a sudden crazy feeling he wanted to _fight_ for Joe Cadara. He wanted to go over there and say to that fireless cooker woman, "Trip after trip he made, in the cold and in the storm. He kept you warm and safe here at home. It was for you he went; it was to you he came back. _And you'll miss him yet._ Think this is going to keep up?

Think you're going to interest those rich folks as much next year as you did this? Five years from now you'll be on your knees with a _brush_ to keep those kids warm and fed."

He'd like to get the truth out of her! Somehow things wouldn't seem so _rotten_ if he could know that she sometimes lay in her bed at night and cried for Joe Cadara.

It was quiet to-night; all the Cadara children and all the Doanes were out looking for the government goat. The government goat was increasing her range. She seemed to know that, being a government goat, she was protected from harm. If a government goat comes in your yard, you are a little slow to fire a tin can at her--not knowing just how treasonous this may be. n.o.body in Cape's End knew the exact status of a government goat, and each one hesitated to ask for the very good reason that the person asked might know and you would then be exposed as one who knew less than some one else. So the government goat went about where she pleased, and to-night she had pleased to go far. It left the neighborhood quiet--the government goat having many guardians.

Joe Doane felt like saying something to Mrs. Cadara. Not the rough, wild thing he had wanted to say a moment before, but just say something to her. He and she were the only people around--children all away and his wife up-stairs with a headache. He felt lonesome and he thought she looked that way--standing there against the sea in light that was getting dim. She and Joe Cadara used to sit out on that bulkhead. She moved toward him, as if she were lonesome and wanted to speak. On his side of the fence, he moved a little nearer her. She said,

"My, I hope the goat's not lost!"

He said nothing.

"That goat, she's so tame," went on Joe Cadara's wife with pride and affection, "she'll follow anybody around like a dog."

Joe Doane got up and went in the house.

It got so he didn't talk much to anybody. He sometimes had jokes, for he'd laugh, but they were jokes he had all to himself and his laughing would come as a surprise and make others turn and stare at him. It made him seem off by himself, even when they were all sitting round the table. He laughed at things that weren't things to laugh at, as when Myrtie said, "Agnes Cadara had a letter from Mrs. MacCrea and a _mourning_ handkerchief." And after he'd laughed at a thing like that which n.o.body else saw as a thing to laugh at, he'd sit and stare out at the water. "Do be _cheerful_," his wife would say. He'd laugh at that.

But one day he burst out and said things. It was a Sunday afternoon and the Cadaras were all going to the cemetery. Every Sunday afternoon they went and took flowers to the stone that said, "Lost at Sea." Agnes would call, "Come, Tony! We dress now for the cemetery," in a way that made the Doane children feel that they had nothing at all to do. They filed out at the gate dressed in the best the Summer folk had left them and it seemed as if there were a fair, or a circus, and all the Doanes had to stay at home.

This afternoon he didn't know they were going until he saw Myrtie at the window. He wondered what she could be looking at as if she wanted it so much. When he saw, he had to laugh.

"Why, Myrt," said he, "_you_ can go to the cemetery if you want to.

There are lots of Doanes there. Go on and pay them a visit.

"I'm sure they'd be real glad to see you," he went on, as she stood there doubtfully. "I doubt if anybody has visited them for a long time.

You could visit your great-grandfather, Ebenezer Doane. Whales were so afraid of that man that they'd send word around from sea to sea that he was coming. And Lucy Doane is there--Ebenezer's wife. Lucy Doane was a woman who took what she wanted. Maybe the whales were afraid of Ebenezer--but Lucy wasn't. There was a dispute between her and her brother about a quilt of their mother's, and in the dead of night she went into his house and took it off him while he slept. s.p.u.n.k up! Be like the _old_ Doanes! _Go_ to the cemetery and wander around from grave to grave while the Cadaras are standin' by their one stone! My father--he'd be glad to see you. Why, if he was alive now--if Captain Silas Doane was here, he'd let the Cadaras know whether they could walk on the sidewalk or whether they were to go in the street!"

Myrtie was interested, but after a moment she turned away. "You only go for near relatives," she sighed.

He stood staring at the place where she had been. He laughed; stopped the laugh; stood there staring. "You only go for _near_ relatives."

Slowly he turned and walked out of the house. The government goat, left home alone, came up to him as if she thought she'd take a walk too.

"Go to h.e.l.l!" said Joe Doane, and his voice showed that inside he was crying.

Head down, he walked along the beach as far as the breakwater. He started out on it, not thinking of what he was doing. So the only thing he could do for Myrtie was give her a reason for going to the cemetery.

She _wanted_ him in the cemetery--so she'd have some place to go on Sunday afternoons! She could wear black then--_all_ black, not just a ribbon round her neck. Suddenly he stood still. Would she _have_ any black to wear? He had thought of a joke before which all other jokes he had ever thought of were small and sick. Suppose he were to take himself out of the way and then they didn't _get_ the things they thought they'd have in place of him? He walked on fast--fast and crafty, picking his way among the smaller stones in between the giant stones in a fast, sure way he never could have picked it had he been thinking of where he went.

He went along like a cat who is going to get a mouse. And in him grew this giant joke. Who'd _give_ them the fireless cooker? Would it come into anybody's head to give young Joe Doane a sail-boat just because his father was dead? They'd rather have a goat than a father. But suppose they were to lose the father and _get_ no goat? Myrtie'd be a mourner without any mourning. She'd be _ashamed_ to go to the cemetery.

He laughed so that he found himself down, sitting down on one of the smaller rocks between the giant rocks, on the side away from town, looking out to sea.

He forgot his joke and knew that he wanted to return to the sea. Doanes belonged at sea. Ash.o.r.e things struck you funny--then, after they'd once got to you, hurt. He thought about how he used to come round this Point when Myrtie was a baby. As he pa.s.sed this very spot and saw the town lying there in the sun he'd think about her, and how he'd see her now, and how she'd kick and crow. But now Myrtie wanted to go and visit him--_in the cemetery_. Oh, it was a joke all right. But he guessed he was tired of jokes. Except the one _great_ joke--joke that seemed to slap the whole of life right smack in the face.

The tide was coming in. In--Out--Doanes and Doanes. In--Out--Him too.

In--Out--He was getting wet. He'd have to move up higher. But--_why move?_ Perhaps this was as near as he could come to getting back to sea.

Caught in the breakwater. That was about it--wasn't it? Rocks were queer things. You could wedge yourself in where you couldn't get yourself out.

He hardly had to move. If he'd picked a place he couldn't have picked a better one. Wedge himself in--tide almost in now--too hard to get out--pounded to pieces, like the last vessel Doanes had owned. Near as he could come to getting back to sea. Near as he deserved to come--him freezing fish with ginnies. And there'd _be_ no fireless cooker!

He twisted his shoulders to wedge in where it wouldn't be easy to wedge out. Face turned up, he saw something move on the great flat rock above the jagged rocks. He pulled himself up a little; he rose; he swung up to the big rock above him. On one flat-topped boulder stood Joe Doane. On the other flat-topped boulder stood the government goat.

"Go to h.e.l.l!" said Joe Doane, and he was sobbing. "Go to _h.e.l.l_!"

The government goat nodded her head a little in a way that wagged her beard and shook her bag.

"Go home! Drown yourself! Let me be! Go 'way!" It was fast, and choked, and he was shaking.

The goat would do none of these things. He sat down, his back to the government goat, and tried to forget that she was there. But there are moments when a goat is not easy to forget. He was willing there should be _some_ joke to his death--like caught in the breakwater, but he wasn't going to die before a _goat_. After all, he'd amounted to a little more than _that_. He'd look around to see if perhaps she had started home. But she was always standing right there looking at him.

Finally he jumped up in a fury. "What'd you come for? What do you _want_ of me? How do you expect to get home?" Between each question he'd wait for an answer. None came.

He picked up a small rock and threw it at the government goat. She jumped, slipped, and would have fallen from the boulder if he hadn't caught at her hind legs. Having saved her, he yelled: "You needn't expect _me_ to save you. Don't expect anything from _me_!"

He'd have new gusts of fury at her. "What you out here for? Think you was a _mountain_ goat? Don't you know the tide's comin' in? Think you can get back easy as you got _out_?"

He kicked at her hind legs to make her move on. She stood and looked at the water which covered the in-between rocks on which she had picked her way out. "Course," said Joe Doane. "Tide's in--you fool! You d.a.m.ned _goat_!" With the strength of a man who is full of fury he picked her up and threw her to the next boulder. "Hope you kill yourself!" was his heartening word.

But the government goat did not kill herself. She only looked around for further help.

To get away from her, he had to get her ash.o.r.e. He guided and lifted, planted fore legs and shoved at hind legs, all the time telling her he hoped she'd kill herself. Once he stood still and looked all around and thought. After that he gave the government goat a shove that sent her in water above her knees. Then he had to get in too and help her to a higher rock.

It was after he had thus saved the government goat from the sea out of which the government goat had cheated him that he looked ahead to see there were watchers on the sh.o.r.e. Cadaras had returned from the cemetery. Cadaras and Doanes were watching him bring home the government goat.