Chapter 3

"It didn't ring; I walked in," said the Captain. And Mrs. North came down-stairs, perhaps a little stiffly, but as pretty an old lady as you ever saw. Her white curls lay against faintly pink cheeks, and her lace cap had a pink bow on it. But she looked anxious and uncomfortable.

("Oh," she was saying to herself, "I do hope Mary's out!)--Well, Alfred?" she said; but her voice was frightened.

The Captain stumped along in front of her into the parlor, and motioned her to a seat. "Mrs. North," he said, his face red, his eye hard, "some jack-donkeys have been poking their noses (of course they're females) into our affairs; and--"

"Oh, Alfred, isn't it horrid in them?" said the old lady.

"Darn 'em!" said the Captain.

"It makes me mad!" cried Mrs. North; then her spirit wavered. "Mary is so foolish; she says she'll--she'll take me away from Old Chester. I laughed at first, it was so foolish. But when she said that--oh _dear_!"

"Well, but, my dear madam, say you won't go. Ain't you skipper?"

"No, I'm not," she said, dolefully. "Mary brought me here, and she'll take me away, if she thinks it best. Best for _me_, you know. Mary is a good daughter, Alfred. I don't want you to think she isn't. But she's foolish. Unmarried women are apt to be foolish."

The Captain thought of Gussie, and sighed. "Well," he said, with the simple candor of the sea, "I guess there ain't much difference in 'em, married or unmarried."

"It's the interference makes me mad," Mrs. North declared, hotly.

"Damn the whole crew!" said the Captain; and the old lady laughed delightedly.

"Thank you, Alfred!"

"My daughter-in-law is crying her eyes out," the Captain sighed.

"Tck!" said Mrs. North; "Alfred, you have no sense. Let her cry. It's good for her!"

"Oh no," said the Captain, shocked.

"You're a perfect slave to her," cried Mrs. North.

"No more than you are to your daughter," Captain Price defended himself; and Mrs. North sighed.

"We are just real foolish, Alfred, to listen to 'em. As if we didn't know what was good for us."

"People have interfered with us a good deal, first and last," the Captain said, grimly.

The faint color in Mrs. North's cheeks suddenly deepened. "So they have," she said.

The Captain shook his head in a discouraged way; he took his pipe out of his pocket and looked at it absent-mindedly. "I suppose I can stay at home, and let 'em get over it?"

"Stay at home? Why, you'd far better--"

"What?" said the Captain.

"Come oftener!" cried the old lady. "Let 'em get over it by getting used to it."

Captain Price looked doubtful. "But how about your daughter?"

Mrs. North quailed. "I forgot Mary," she admitted.

"I don't bother you, coming to see you, do I?" the Captain said, anxiously.

"Why, Alfred, I love to see you. If our children would just let us alone!"

"First it was our parents," said Captain Price. He frowned heavily. "According to other people, first we were too young to have sense; and now we're too old." He took out his worn old pouch, plugged some shag into his pipe, and struck a match under the mantel-piece. He sighed, with deep discouragement.

Mrs. North sighed too. Neither of them spoke for a moment; then the little old lady drew a quick breath and flashed a look at him; opened her lips; closed them with a snap; then regarded the toe of her slipper fixedly. The color flooded up to her soft white hair.

The Captain, staring hopelessly, suddenly blinked; then his honest red face slowly broadened into beaming astonishment and satisfaction. "_Mrs. North_--"

"Captain Price!" she parried, breathlessly.

"So long as our affectionate children have suggested it!"

"Suggested--what?"

"Let's give 'em something to cry about!"

"Alfred!"

"Look here: we are two old fools; so they say, anyway. Let's live up to their opinion. I'll get a house for Cyrus and Gussie--and your girl can live with 'em, if she wants to!" The Captain's bitterness showed then.

"She could live here," murmured Mrs. North.

"What do you say?"

The little old lady laughed excitedly, and shook her head; the tears stood in her eyes.

"Do you want to leave Old Chester?" the Captain demanded.

"You know I don't," she said, sighing.

"She'd take you away to-morrow," he threatened, "if she knew I had--I had--"

"She sha'n't know it."

"Well, then, we've got to get spliced to-morrow."

"Oh, Alfred, no! I don't believe Dr. Lavendar would--"

"I'll have no dealings with Lavendar," the Captain said, with sudden stiffness; "he's like all the rest of 'em. I'll get a license in Upper Chester, and we'll go to some parson there."

Mrs. North's eyes snapped. "Oh, no, no!" she protested; but in another minute they were shaking hands on it.

"Cyrus and Gussie can go and live by themselves," said the Captain, joyously, "and I'll get that hold cleaned out; she's kept the ports shut ever since she married Cyrus."

"And I'll make a cake! And I'll take care of your clothes; you really are dreadfully shabby"; she turned him round to the light, and brushed off some ashes. The Captain beamed. "Poor Alfred! and there's a button gone! that daughter-in-law of yours can't sew any more than a cat (and she _is_ a cat!). But I love to mend. Mary has saved me all that. She's such a good daughter--poor Mary. But she's unmarried, poor child."

* * * * *

However, it was not to-morrow. It was two or three days later that Dr. Lavendar and Danny, jogging along behind Goliath under the buttonwoods on the road to Upper Chester, were somewhat inconvenienced by the dust of a buggy that crawled up and down the hills just a little ahead. The hood of this buggy was up, upon which fact--it being a May morning of rollicking wind and sunshine--Dr. Lavendar speculated to his companion: "Daniel, the man in that vehicle is either blind and deaf, or else he has something on his conscience; in either case he won't mind our dust, so we'll cut in ahead at the watering-trough. G'on, Goliath!"

But Goliath had views of his own about the watering-trough, and instead of passing the hooded buggy, which had stopped there, he insisted upon drawing up beside it. "Now, look here," Dr. Lavendar remonstrated, "you know you're not thirsty." But Goliath plunged his nose down into the cool depths of the great iron caldron, into which, from a hollow log, ran a musical drip of water. Dr. Lavendar and Danny, awaiting his pleasure, could hear a murmur of voices from the depths of the eccentric vehicle which put up a hood on such a day; when suddenly Dr. Lavendar's eye fell on the hind legs of the other horse. "That's Cipher's trotter," he said to himself, and leaning out, cried: "Hi! Cy?" At which the other horse was drawn in with a jerk, and Captain Price's agitated face peered out from under the hood.

"Where! Where's Cyrus?" Then he caught sight of Dr. Lavendar. "'_The devil and Tom Walker!_'" said the Captain, with a groan. The buggy backed erratically.

"Look out!" said Dr. Lavendar--but the wheels locked.

Of course there was nothing for Dr. Lavendar to do but get out and take Goliath by the head, grumbling, as he did so, that Cyrus "shouldn't own such a spirited beast."

"I am somewhat hurried," said Captain Price, stiffly.

The old minister looked at him over his spectacles; then he glanced at the small, embarrassed figure shrinking into the depths of the buggy.

("Hullo, hullo, hullo!" he said, softly. "Well, Gussie's done it.) You'd better back a little, Captain," he advised.

"I can manage," said the Captain.

"I didn't say 'go back,'" Dr. Lavendar said, mildly.

"Oh!" murmured a small voice from within the buggy.

"I expect you need me, don't you, Alfred?" said Dr. Lavendar.

"What?" said the Captain, frowning.

"Captain," said Dr. Lavendar, simply, "if I can be of any service to you and Mrs. North, I shall be glad."

Captain Price looked at him. "Now, look here, Lavendar, we're going to do it this time, if all the parsons in--well, in the church, try to stop us!"

"I'm not going to try to stop you."

"But Gussie said you said--"

"Alfred, at your time of life, are you beginning to quote Gussie?"

"But she said you said it would be--"

"Captain Price, I do not express my opinion of your conduct to your daughter-in-law. You ought to have sense enough to know that."

"Well, why did you talk to her about it?"

"I didn't talk to her about it. But," said Dr. Lavendar, thrusting out his lower lip, "I should like to."

"We were going to hunt up a parson in Upper Chester," said the Captain, sheepishly.

Dr. Lavendar looked about, up and down the silent, shady road, then through the bordering elder-berries into an orchard. "If you have your license," he said, "I have my prayer-book. Let's go into the orchard. There are two men working there we can get for witnesses--Danny isn't quite enough, I suppose."

The Captain turned to Mrs. North. "What do you say, ma'am?" he said. She nodded, and gathered up her skirts to get out of the buggy. The two old men led their horses to the side of the road and hitched them to the rail fence; then the Captain helped Mrs. North through the elder-bushes, and shouted out to the men ploughing at the other side of the orchard. They came--big, kindly young fellows, and stood gaping at the three old people standing under the apple-tree in the sunshine. Dr. Lavendar explained that they were to be witnesses, and the boys took off their hats.

There was a little silence, and then, in the white shadows and perfume of the orchard, with its sunshine, and drift of petals falling in the gay wind, Dr. Lavendar began.... When he came to "Let no man put asunder--" Captain Price growled in his grizzled red beard, "Nor woman, either!" But only Mrs. North smiled.

When it was over, Captain Price drew a deep breath of relief. "Well, this time we made a sure thing of it, Mrs. North!"

"_Mrs. North?_" said Dr. Lavendar; and then he did chuckle.

"Oh--" said Captain Price, and roared at the joke.

"You'll have to call me Letty," said the pretty old lady, smiling and blushing.

"Oh," said the Captain; then he hesitated. "Well, now, if you don't mind, I--I guess I won't call you Letty. I'll call you Letitia."

"Call me anything you want to," said Mrs. Price, gayly.

Then they all shook hands with one another and with the witnesses, who found something left in their palms that gave them great satisfaction, and went back to climb into their respective buggies.

"We have shore leave," the Captain explained; "we won't go back to Old Chester for a few days. You may tell 'em, Lavendar."

"Oh, may I?" said Dr. Lavender, blankly. "Well, good-bye, and good luck!"

He watched the other buggy tug on ahead, and then he leaned down to catch Danny by the scruff of the neck.

"Well, Daniel," he said, "'_if at first you don't succeed_'--"

And Danny was pulled into the buggy.

THE END

Transcriber's Note:

Both Lavender and Lavendar have been retained as they appear in the original publication.