Mary-'Gusta Part 15

Chase?"

"No, no, course not. That's the best tablecloth. Don't use that only when there's company--or Sundays."

Mary-'Gusta considered. She counted on her fingers.

"How long have we used this dirty one?" she asked.

"Eh? Oh, I don't know. Four or five days, maybe." Then, evidently feeling that the repet.i.tion of the "we" implied a sense of unwarranted partners.h.i.+p in the household management, he added with dignity, "That is, I'VE seen fit to use it that long."

The sarcasm was wasted. The girl smiled and nodded.

"That makes it all right," she declared. "If we put this one on now it'll be Sunday long before it's time to change. And we can wash the other one today or tomorrow."

"Oh, WE can, eh?"

"Yes, sir"

Isaiah looked as if he wished to say something but was at a loss for words. The Sunday cloth was spread upon the table while he was still hunting for them.

"And now," said Mary-'Gusta, "if you're sure you don't need me any more just now I guess I'd like to go up and see the store. May I?"

Site found the store of Hamilton and Company an exceedingly interesting place. Zoeth and his partner greeted her cordially and she sat down upon a box at the end of the counter and inspected the establishment. It was not very large, but there was an amazing variety in its stock. Muslin, tape, calico, tacks, groceries, cases of shoes, a rack with spools of thread, another containing a few pocket knives, barrels, half a dozen salt codfish swinging from nails overhead, some suits of oilskins hanging beside them, a tumbled heap of children's caps and hats, even a gla.s.s-covered case containing boxes of candy with placards "1 c. each"

or "3 for 1 c." displayed above them.

"Like candy, do you?" asked Mr. Hamilton, noticing her scrutiny of the case and its contents.

"Yes, sir," said Mary-'Gusta.

"How about sa.s.safras lozengers? Like them?"

"Yes, sir."

She was supplied with a roll of the lozenges and munched them gravely.

Captain Shad, who had been waiting on a customer, regarded her with an amused twinkle.

"Sa.s.safras lozengers are good enough for anybody, eh?" he observed.

"Yes, sir," replied Mary-'Gusta. Then she added, politely: "Only I guess these are wintergreen."

She stayed at the store until noon. Then she walked home with the Captain whose turn it was to dine first that day. The hiring of Annabel had been an unusual break in the business routine. Ordinarily but one of the partners left that store at a time.

"Well," inquired the Captain, as they walked down the lane, "what do you think of it? Pretty good store for a place like South Harniss, ain't it?"

"Yes, sir."

"I bet you! Different from the Ostable stores, eh?"

"Yes, sir; I--I guess it is."

"Um-hm. Well, how different?"

Mary-'Gusta took her usual interval for consideration.

"I guess there's more--more things in it with separate smells to 'em,"

she said.

Captain Shad had no remark to make for a moment. Mary-'Gusta, however, was anxious to please.

"They're nice smells," she hastened to add. "I like 'em; only I never smelled 'em all at the same time before. And I like the lozengers VERY much."

The two or three days which Captain Shad had set as the limit of the child's visit pa.s.sed; as did the next two or three. She was busy and, apparently, enjoying herself. She helped Isaiah with the housework, and although he found the help not altogether unwelcome, he was inclined to grumble a little at what he called her "pesterin' around."

"I never see such a young-one," he told his employers. "I don't ask her to do dishes nor fill pitchers nor nothin'; she just does it on her own hook."

"Humph!" grunted Captain Shadrach. "So I judged from what I see. Does it pretty well, too, don't she?"

"Um-hm. Well enough, I guess. Yes," with a burst of candor, "for her age, she does it mighty well."

"Then what are you kickin' about?"

"I ain't kickin'. Who said I was kickin'? Only--well, all I say is let her do dishes and such, if she wants to, only--only--"

"Only what?"

"Only I ain't goin' to have her heavin' out hints about what I ought to do. There's two skippers aboard this craft now and that's enough.

By time!" with another burst, "that kid's a reg'lar born mother. She mothers that cat and them dolls and the hens already, and I swan to man I believe she'd like to adopt me. I ain't goin' to be mothered and hinted at to do this and that and put to bed and tucked in by no kid.

I'll heave up my job first."

He had been on the point of heaving up his job ever since the days when he sailed as cook aboard Captain Shadrach's schooner. When the Captain retired from the sea for the last time, and became partner and fellow shopkeeper with Zoeth, Isaiah had retired with him and was engaged to keep house for the two men. The Captain had balked at the idea of a female housekeeper.

"Women aboard s.h.i.+p are a dum nuisance," he declared. "I've carried 'em cabin pa.s.sage and I know. Isaiah Chase is a good cook, and, besides, if the biscuits are more fit for cod sinkers than they are for grub, I can tell him so in the right kind of language. We don't want no woman steward, Zoeth; you hear ME!"

Zoeth, although the Captain's seafaring language was a trial to his gentle, churchly soul, agreed with his partner on the main point. His experience with the other s.e.x had not been such as to warrant further experiment. So Isaiah was hired and had been cook and steward at the South Harniss home for many years. But he made it a practice to a.s.sert his independence at frequent intervals, although, as a matter of fact, he would no more have dreamed of really leaving than his friends and employers would of discharging him. Mr. Chase was as permanent a fixture in that house as the s.h.i.+p's chronometer in the dining-room; and that was screwed to the wall.

And, in spite of his grumbling, he and Mary-'Gusta were rapidly becoming fast friends. Shadrach and Zoeth also were beginning to enjoy her company, her unexpected questions, her interest in the house and the store, and shrewd, old-fas.h.i.+oned comments on persons and things. She was a "queer young-one"; they, like the people of Ostable, agreed on that point, but Mr. Hamilton was inclined to think her ways "sort of takin'"

and the Captain admitted that maybe they were. What he would not admit was that the girl's visit, although already prolonged for a fortnight, was anything but a visit.

"I presume likely," hinted Zoeth, "you and me'll have to give the Judge some sort of an answer pretty soon, won't we? He'll be wantin' to know afore long."

"Know? Know what?"

"Why--why whether we're goin' to say yes or no to what Marcellus asked us in that letter."

"He does know. Fur's I'm consarned, he knows. I spoke my mind plain enough to pound through anybody's skull, I should think."

"Yes--yes, I know you did. But, Shadrach, if she don't stay here for good where will she stay? She ain't got anybody else to go to."

"She is stayin', ain't she? She--she's makin' us a visit, same as I said she could. What more do you want? Jumpin' fire! This fix is your doin'

anyway. 'Tain't mine. If you had paid attention to what I said, the child wouldn't have been here at all."