Cape Cod Folks Part 7

The youth of the tuneful and birdlike name dealt his tormentor a hearty though affectionate cuff on the ears, and being thus suddenly thrust forward, he doffed his broad souwester, took the hand I held out to him, and, stooping down, kissed me, quite in a simple and audible manner, on the cheek.

It was done with such gentle, serious embarra.s.sment, and Luther Larkin Cradlebow was so boyish and quaint looking, withal, that I felt not the slightest inclination to blush, but I heard Harvey's saucy giggle.

"Gad!" said he; "hear the old women talk about Lute's being bashful and not knowin' how to act with the girls! Now I call them party easy manners, eh, Lovell? What do you think, Lovell?"

"Ahem, certainly,--" responded Lovell, smiling in vague sympathy with the laughing group. "_I_ call them so,--certainly,--_I_ do."

Only George Olver turned a sober, rea.s.suring face to the blus.h.i.+ng Cradlebow.

"Give us a tune, Lutie," said he. "Lord, _I'd_ laugh if I could get the music out o' them strings that you can."

The Cradlebow sat down, drew his bow across the strings with a full, quivering, premonitory touch, and, straightway, the fiddle began to talk to him as though they two were friends alone together in the room. How it played for him,--the fiddle--as though it were morning. How it shouted, laughed, ran with him in a world of suns.h.i.+ne and tossing blossoms!

How it hoped for him, swelling out in grander strains, wild with exultation, tremulous with pa.s.sion!

How it mourned for him, with dying, sweet despair, until one almost saw the night fall on the water, and the lone sea-birds flying, and heard the desolate shrieking of the wind along the sh.o.r.e.

I heard a real sob near me, and looking up saw the tears rolling down Harvey's rosy cheeks.

It was in the midst of a simple melody,--I think it was the "Sweet By-and-By"--the player stopped and turned suddenly pale.

"That was a new string, too!" he said; "and only half tight." Then he blushed violently, seeking to hide the irritation of his tone under a careless laugh.

"Oh, I don't mind the string," he went on; "that's easy mended, but I happened to think it's a bad sign, that's all--to break down so in the middle of a tune."

"Darn the sign!" exclaimed Harvey, "I wanted to hear that played through."

"You remember Willie Reene?" Luther turned his eyes, still unnaturally bright with excitement, towards George Olver.

"Ay, I remember," said George Olver. "I was goin' mackerellin' with ye myself that time, only I wrinched my wrist so."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Good Night"]

"We was out on deck together," Luther continued. "I was lying down,--it was a strange, warmish sort of a night--and Willie played. He played a long time. It was just in the middle of a tune he was playin', that--snap! the string went in just that way. I never thought anything about it. I tried to laugh him out of it, and he laughed, but says he, 'It's a bad sign, Lute.' Likely it had nothin' to do with it, but I think of it sometimes, and then it seems as though I must go to that same place and look for him again. I never done anything harder than when I left him there."

"You done the best you could," George Olver answered stoutly, "They said you dove for him long and long after it wasn't no use."

"No use," Luther repeated, shaking his head sadly and abstractedly; "no use."

"There's naught in a sign, anyway," George Olver affirmed.

"They don't worry me much, you can depend"--the player looked up at length with a singularly bright and gentle smile. "But Grannie, she believes in 'em, truly. She's got a sign in a dream for everything, Grannie has so I hear lots of it."

Harvey Dole had quite recovered by this time from his tearfully sentimental mood.

"Now it's strange," he began, with an air of mysterious solemnity; "there was three nights runnin' that I dreamed I found a thousand-dollar bill to the right hand corner of my bury drawer, and every mornin' when I woke up and went to git it--it wa'n't there, so I know the rats must 'a' carried it off in the night, and a pretty shabby trick to play on a feller, too--but then you can't blame the poor devils for wantin' a little pin money.

"Did I ever tell ye how Uncle Randal tried to clear 'em out 'o his barn?

Wall, he traded with Sim Peck up to West Wallen, a peck o' clams for an old cat o' hisn, that was about the size, Uncle Randal said, of a yearlin' calf, and he turned her into the barn along o' the rats, and shut the door, and the next mornin', he went out and there was a few little pieces of fur flyin' around and devil a--devil a cat! Uncle Randal said."

"You're the D--d--d--you're it, yourself, Harvey!" stammered Ned Vickery.

"You'd better look out, Ned," Harvey giggled, "we're all a little nearer'n second cousins down here to Wallencamp. Ned's mother didn't use to let him go to school much, teacher," Harvey added, turning to me; "it used to wear him out luggin' home his 'Reward o' merit' cards."

"I n-n-never got any," Ned retorted, blus.h.i.+ng desperately through his dark skin; "n-n-nor you either!"

"I guess that's so, Harvey," said Lovell Barlow, quite gravely; "I rather think that's so, Harvey--ahem, I guess it is."

When my visitors rose to depart they formed in line, with George Olver and Luther at the head. George Olver was the spokesman of the group. He offered me his strong brown hand in hearty corroboration of his words: "We're a roughish sort of a set down here, teacher, but whenever you want friends you'll know right whar' to find us; we mean that straight through and fair an' kindly."

I thanked him, and then Luther gave me his hand, but did not kiss me, in departing.

Each member of the phalanx gave me his hand in turn, with a hearty "Good night," and so they pa.s.sed out. The door closed behind them. I meditated a s.p.a.ce, and when I looked up, there was Lovell Barlow's pale face peering into the room.

"Ahem--Miss Hungerford!" he murmured, in awful accents: "Miss Hungerford!"

Could it be some telegram from my home thus mysteriously arrived? The thought flashed through my mind before reason could act.

"What is it?" I gasped, hastening to meet the informer.

Lovell Barlow handed me a picture; it was a small daguerreotype, in which the mild and beneficent features of that worthy being himself shone above his own unmistakable spade-shaped whiskers.

"Would you like it, Miss Hungerford?" said he, still with the same deeply impressive air; "would you, now, really, Miss Hungerford? would you like it, now?"

"Why, certainly," I exclaimed, with intense relief; and before I could fully appreciate the situation, Lovell Barlow cast a cautious glance about him, leaned his head forward, and whispered hoa.r.s.ely, "I've got some more, at home--ahem! I've got six, Miss Hungerford. Mother wants to keep two and she's promised Aunt Marcia one; but you can have one any time, Miss Hungerford. Ahem! ahem! _You_ can, you know."

"Thank you," I murmured, while it seemed as though my faculties were desperately searching for light on a hitherto unsounded sea. "I think this will do for the present."

Lovell nodded his head with a grave good-night and disappeared.

Meanwhile, Grandma and Grandpa Keeler and Madeline were absorbing this last impressive scene as they slowly emerged from that unknown quarter of the Ark whither they had retreated.

Grandpa looked at me with a peculiar twinkle in his eye.

"So Lovell came back to give ye his picter, eh, teacher?" said he.

I returned Grandpa's look with cheerful and unoffended alacrity; but Grandma interrupted, "Thar', now, pa! Thar', now! We mustn't inquire into everything we happen to get a little wind on. Ye see, teacher," she continued, in tones of the broadest gentleness, "we knew they'd be sorter bashful gettin' acquainted the first night, and so we thought it 'ud be easier for 'em if we should leave 'em to themselves, and we knew you was so--we knew you wouldn't care."

As Grandpa resumed his accustomed seat by the fire, an expansive grin still lingered on his features.

"Ah, he's a queer fellow, that Lovell," said he; "but he's quick to larn, they say, larns like a book. I'll tell ye what's the trouble with him, teacher. He's been tied too long to his mother's ap.r.o.n-strings. He don't know no more about the world than a chicken. He's thirty odd now, I guess, and I reckon he ain't never been further away from the beach than Sandwich te-own."

"I don't know as we'd ought to blame him," said Grandma Keeler; "though to be sure, Lovell's more quiet-natured than some that likes to be wanderin' off as young folks will, generally; but he was the only one they had, and Lovell's allus been a good boy. Pa and me, when we go to meetin', we most allus come across him a carryin' his Sunday School book under his arm, and may be," concluded Grandma Keeler, "there'll be a time when we shall more on us wish that thar' wan't nothin' wuss could be brought against us than being innocent."

We pondered these suggestive words a few moments in silence; then Grandpa Keeler boldly interposed:--

"That Lute Cradlebow--he's a handsome boy, teacher. Ah, he's a handsome one. They're a handsome family, them Cradlebows.