Chapter 12

“I want to stow those poor people in there till I can arrange further for them, either show the matter up to the state, or get work for them, or something! Will you let me have it?”

“No, sir!” declared the selectman, with vigor.

“It's only monthly lease, I repeat. You can prevent them from getting pauper residence here, in case none of my plans work.”

“Don't want 'em here--won't have 'em! I consider taxpayers first!”

“Don't ye ever consider common, ordinary, human decency?” roared Captain Epps Candage.

It was astonishing interruption. Its violence made it startling. Mayo whirled and stared amazedly at this new recruit.

Captain Candage yanked his fat wallet from his pocket and dammed it down on the counter with a bang which made the selectman's eyes snap.

“You know _me_, Rowley! We've got the money to pay for what we order and contract for. Them folks ain't paupers so long as we stand be-hind 'em. We are bringing 'em ashore, here, because it's right to help 'em get onto their feet. Hold on, Captain Mayo; you let me talk to Rowley! Him and me know how to get sociable in a business talk!”

However, Captain Candage seemed to be seeking sociability by bellowing ferociously, thudding his hard fist on the counter. Mayo was not easily surprised by the temperamental vagaries of queer old 'longcoast crabs like Captain Candage, but this sudden conversion did take away his breath.

“When a close and partickler friend of mine, like this one I've just introduced, comes to you all polite and asks a favor, I want general politeness all around or I'll know the reason why,” shouted the intermediary. “Look-a-here, Rowley, you pretend to be a terrible Christian sort of a man. When I have been fog-bound here I've tended out on prayer-meetings, and I have heard you holler like a good one about dying grace and salvation is free. I've never heard you say much about living charity that costs something!”

“I claim to be a Christian man,” faltered Rowley, backing away from the banging fist.

“Then act like one. If you don't do it, blast your pelt, I'll post you for a heathen from West Quoddy to Kittery!”

“God bless you, my dad!” whispered the girl, snuggling close to the skipper's shoulder.

“Furthermore, Rowley, besides paying you a fair rental for that old fish-house we'll buy grub for them poor devils out of your store.”

Mr. Rowley caressed his beard and blinked.

“They're like empty nail-kags, and they'll eat a lot of vittles and we've got the money to pay!”

“I have a wallet of my own,” stated Captain Mayo. He had not recovered from his amazement at the sudden shift about of Captain Candage. After all the sullen growling he had been tempted to ask the old skipper to stop tagging him about on his errand of mercy.

“Hear that, Rowley? This is the best friend I've got in the whole world! Brought him in here! Introduced him to you! Here's my daughter! Interested, too! Now, whatever you say, you'd better be sure that you pick the right words.”

“Well, I'm always ready to help friends,” stated Mr. Rowley.

“Yes, and do business in a slack time,” added Captain Candage.

“I'm willing to show Christian charity to them that's poor and oppressed. But what's the sense in doing it in this case?”

“A great many folks in this life need a hard jolt before they turn to and make anything of themselves,” said Captain Mayo. “The people on Hue and Cry have had their jolt. I do believe, with the right advice and management, they can be made self-supporting. They have been allowed to run loose until now, sir. I have been pulled into the thing all of a sudden, and now that I'm in I'm willing to give up a little time and effort to start 'em off. I haven't much of anything else to do just now,” he added, bitterly.

“Come into my back office,” invited Mr. Rowley.

“Much obleeged--we'll do so,” said Captain Candage. “You're a bright man, Rowley, and I knowed you'd see the p'int when it was put up to you right and polite.”

The business in the back office was soon settled satisfactorily, and a busy day followed on the heels of that momentous morning. When night fell the men, women, and children whom a benevolent state--through its “straight-business” agent--had turned loose upon the world to shift for themselves, were located in a single colony in the spacious fish-house.

A few second-hand stoves, hired from Rowley, served to cook the food bought from Rowley, and the families grouped themselves in rooms and behind partitions and arranged the poor belongings they had salvaged from their homes. Even the citizen who had at first resolved to go floating on the bosom of the deep joined the colony.

“It's more sociable,” he explained, “and my wife don't like to give up her neighbors. Furthermore, I know the whole bunch, root and branch, whims, notions, and all, and they can't fool me. I'll help boss 'em!” He became a lieutenant of value.

This community life under a better roof than had ever sheltered them before in their lives seemed to delight the refugees. Old and young, they enjoyed the new surroundings with the zest of children. They had never taken thought of the morrow in their existence on Hue and Cry. Given food and shelter in this new abode, they did not worry about the problems of the future. They roamed about their domain with the satisfaction of princes in a palace. They did not show any curiosity regarding what was to be done with them. They did not ask Captain Mayo and his associates any questions. They surveyed him with a dumb and sort of canine thankfulness when he moved among them. He himself tried questions on a few of the more intelligent men, hoping that they would show some initiative. They told him with bland serenity that they would leave it all to him.

“But what are you going to do for yourselves?”

“Just what you say. You're the boss. Show us the job!”

It was borne in upon him that he had taken a larger contract than he had planned on. Rowley and the taxpayers on the main looked to him on one side, and his dependents on the other.

“It seems to be up to me--to us, I mean,” he told the girl, ruefully, when they were on their way to the widow's cottage that evening. “It's up to me most of all, however, for I'm the guilty party--I have pulled you and your father in. I'm pegged in here till I can think up some sort of a scheme.”

She had been working all day faithfully by his side, a tactful and indefatigable helper. He would have been all at sea regarding the women and children without her aid, and he told her so gratefully.

“Both my hands and my heart are with you in this thing, Captain Mayo. And I know you'll think of some way out for them--just as you helped us out of the schooner after we had given up all hope.”

“Getting out of the schooner was merely a sailor's trick of the hands, Miss Candage. I don't believe I'll be much of a hand at making over human nature. I have too much of it myself, and the material down in that fish-house would puzzle even a doctor of divinity.”

“Oh, you will think of some plan,” she assured him-with fine loyalty. “If you will allow me to help in my poor way I'll be proud.”

“I'll not tell you what I think of your help; it might sound like soft talk. But let me tell you that you have one grand old dad!” he declared, earnestly; but although he tried to keep his face straight and his tones steady he looked down at her and immediately lost control of himself. Merriment was mingled with tears in her eyes.

“Isn't he funny?” she gasped, and they halted in their tracks and laughed in chorus with the whole-hearted fervor of youth; that laughter relieved the strain of that anxious day.

“I am not laughing _at_ your father--you understand that!” he assured her.

“Of course, you are not! I know. But you are getting to understand him, just as I understand him. He is only a big child under all his bluster. But he does make me so angry sometimes!”

“You can't tell much about a Yankee till he comes out of his shell, and I agree with you as to the aggravating qualities in Captain Candage. I'm not very patient myself, when I'm provoked! But after this he and I will get along all right.”

They walked on to the cottage.

“Good night,” he said at the door.

“And you have no plan as yet?”

“Maybe something will come to me in a dream.”

The dream did not come to him, for his sleep was the profound slumber of exhaustion. He went down in the early dawn and plunged into the sea, and while he was walking back toward the cottage an idea and a conviction presented themselves, hand in hand. The conviction had been with him before--that he could not back out just then and leave those poor people to shift for themselves, as anxious as he was to be off about his own affairs; his undertaking was quixotic, but if he abandoned it at that juncture a queer story would chase him alongcoast, and he knew what sort of esteem mariners entertained for quitters.

However, deep in his heart, he confessed that it was not merely sailor pride that spurred him. The pathetic helplessness of the tribe of Hue and Cry appealed with an insistence he could not deny. He understood them as he understood similar colonies along the coast--children whom an indifferent world classed as man and treated with thoughtless injustice! Work was prescribed for them, as for others! But, they did not know how to work or how to make their work pay them.

The idea which came to him with the conviction that he must help these folks concerned work for them.

After breakfast he took Captain Candage into his confidence, much to the skipper's bland delight at being considered.

“I hope it's something where we can fetch Rowley in,” confessed the skipper. “I don't care anything for them critters,” he added, assuming brusqueness. “Don't want it hinted around that I'm getting simple in my old age. But they give me an excuse to bingdoodle Rowley.”

“To carry out that plan I have outlined we need some kind of a packet,” said Mayo.

“Sure! We'll go right to Rowley. He'll know. If there's anything in this section that he 'ain't got his finger on some way--bill of sale, mortgage, debt owed to him or expecting to be owed, then it ain't worth noticing.”

Mr. Rowley listened in his back office. He stroked his beard contentedly and beamed his pleasure when he saw the prospect of making another profitable dicker with men who seemed to be reliable and energetic.

“I had a mortgage on the _Ethel and May_ when Captain Tebbets passed on to the higher life,” he informed them. “Widder gave up the schooner when I foreclosed, she not desiring to--er--bother with vessel proputty. So I have it free and clear without it standing me such a terrible sum! Shall be pleased to charter to you gents at a reasonable figure. Furthermore, seeing that industry makes for righteousness, so we are told, your plan of making those critters go to work may be a good one, providing you'll use a club on 'em often enough.”

“From what I've heard of your talk in prayer-meeting I should think you'd advise moral suasion,” suggested Captain Candage, plainly relishing this opportunity to “bingdoodle.”

“I use common sense, whether it's in religion or politics or business,” snapped Rowley, exhibiting a bit of un-Christian heat.

“It's advisable to ile up common sense with a little charity, and then the machine won't squeak so bad.”

“I wouldn't undertake to trot a dogfish on my knee or sing him to sleep with a pennyr'yal hymn, Captain Candage.”

“I think we can show results without the club,” interposed Mayo, with mild intent to smooth the tone of this repartee.

The clerk called Mr. Rowley out into the store on some matter of special importance, and the selectman departed, coming down rather hard on his heels.

“The old Adam sort of torches up through his shell once in a while,” commented Candage.

“We'd better settle the charter price, sir, before you lay aboard him too much,” advised the young man.

“I just natch'ally can't help harpooning him,” confessed the skipper. “He's a darned old hypocrite, cheating widders and orphans by choice because they 'ain't got the spunk to razoo back, and I've allus enjoyed fighting such as him. Him and me is due for a row. But I'll hold off the best I can till we have got him beat down.”

Mayo's plan involved the modest venture of chartering a craft suitable for fishing. There was no material for real Banksmen in the Hue and Cry colony, but the run of the men would serve to go trawling for ground and shack fish a few miles off the coast. It was the only scheme which would afford employment for the whole body of dependents; older and more decrepit men and the women and children could dig and shuck clams for the trawl bait. In order to encourage ambition and independence among the abler men of the colony, Mayo suggested that the fishermen be taken on shares, and Captain Candage agreed.

When Mr. Rowley came back into the office he found his match waiting for him in the person of Captain Candage, primed and ready to drive a sharp bargain. At the end of an hour papers representing the charter of the _Ethel and May_ were turned over.

“I reckon it's a good job,” affirmed the skipper, when he and Mayo were outside the Rowley store. “I have made up my mind to let poor old _Polly_ go to Davy Jones's locker. I wrote to the shippers and the consignees of the lumber last night. If they want it they can go after it. I may as well fish for the rest of this season!” He regarded Captain Mayo with eyes in which query was almost wistftul. “Of course, you can depend on me to see to it that you get your share, sir, just as if you were aboard.”

“I'm going aboard, Captain Candage.”

The old man stopped stock still and stared.

“I haven't anything in sight just now. You need help in getting the thing started right. I'm not going away and leave that gang on your hands until I can see how the plan works out. I'll go as mate with you.”

“Not by a blame sight you won't go as no mate with me,” objected Candage. “You'll go as skipper and I'll be proud to take orders from you, sir.”

They were wrangling amiably on that point when they returned to the widow's cottage. Polly Candage broke the deadlock.

“Why not have two captains? That will be something brand new along the coast!”

“The rest of it is brand new enough without that,” blurted her father. “But considering what kind of a crew we've got I guess two captains ain't any too much! I'll be captain number two and I know enough to keep my place.”

“I do not think you and I will ever do much quarreling again!” smiled Captain Mayo, extending his hand and receiving Candage's mighty grip. “I am going to start out a few letters, and I'll go now and write them. Until those letters bring me something in the way of a job I am with you, sir.”

Captain Candage walked down toward the fish-house with his daughter. “Polly,” he declared, after an embarrassed silence, “I have been all wrong in your case, girl. Here and now I give you clearance papers. Sail for home just as soon as you want to. I'm asking no questions! It's none of my business!”

“My little affairs must always be business of yours, father,” she returned.. “I love you. I will obey you.”

“But I ain't giving off no more orders. I ain't fit to command in the waters where you are sailing, Polly dear. So run along home and be my good girl! I know you will be!”

“I have changed my mind about going home--just now!” Her eyes met his frankly. “I have written to Aunt Zilpah to send me some of my clothes. Father,” there was feminine, rather indignant amazement in her tones, “do you know that there isn't a single woman from Hue and Cry who knows how to use a needle?”

“I might have guessed it, judging from the way their young ones and men folk go looking!”

“Do you realize that those children don't even know their A-B-C's?”

“Never heard of any college perfessers being raised on that island.”

“I am going to take a vacation from the millinery-shop, now that I am down here. I'll show those women how to sew and cook, and I'll teach those children how to read. It's only right--my duty! I couldn't go home and be happy without doing it!”

“Calling that a vacation is putting a polite name to it, Polly.”

“If you could have seen their eyes, father, when I promised to help them, you wouldn't wonder why I am staying.”

“I don't wonder, Polly, my girl! If you had gone away and--and left us--Mayo and me--I should have been mighty disappointed in ye! But I really never thought much about your going--'cause you wouldn't go, I knew, till you had helped all you could.” He put his arm around her. “I have been worrying about having brought you away. But I guess God had it all figgered out for us. I didn't know my own girl the way I ought to have knowed her. I'd been away too much. But now we're sort of growing up--together--sort of that, ain't we, Polly dear?”

She put her arms about his neck and answered him with a kiss.

XIV ~ BEARINGS FOR A NEW COURSE

And now, my brave boys, comes the best of the fun, It's hands about ship and reef topsails in one; So it's lay aloft, topman, as the hellum goes down, And clew down your topsails as the mainyard goes round. --La Pique.

At the end of that week the _Ethel and May_ had delivered at market her first fare of fish and her captains had divided her first shares. Mayo decided that the results were but of proportion to the modest returns. He was viewing the regeneration of the tribe of Hue and Cry. In their case it had been the right touch at the right time. For years their hopes had been hungry for a chance to make good. Now gratitude inspired them and an almost insane desire to show that they were not worthless drove them to supreme effort. The leaven of the psychology of independence was getting in its work.

The people of Hue and Cry for three generations had been made to feel that they were pariahs. When they had brought their fish or clams to the mainland the buyers were both unjust and contemptuous, as if they were dealing with begging children who must expect only a charitable gift for their product instead of a real man's price. Prices suited the fish-buyers' moods of the day. The islanders had never been admitted to the plane of straight business like other fishermen. They had always taken meekly what had been offered--whether coin or insults. Therefore, their labor had never returned them full values.

They who bought made the poor wretches feel that it constituted a special favor to take their fish at any price.

They seemed to come into their own that first day at market when the _Ethel and May_ made her bigness in the dock at the city fish-house. Masterful men represented them in the dealings with the buyers. The crew hid their delighted grins behind rough palms when Captain Epps Candage bawled out bidders who were under market quotations; they gazed with awe on Captain Mayo when he read from printed sheets--print being a mystery they had never mastered--and figured with ready pencil and even corrected the buyer, who acknowledged his error and humbly apologized. No more subservient paltering at the doors of fish-houses!

Back home the women and the children and the old folks had a good roof over their heads; the fishers had the deck of a tidy schooner under their feet. Shiftlessness departed from them. After years of oppression they had found their opportunity. More experienced men would have found this new fortune only modest; these men grasped it with juvenile enthusiasm.

They were over the side of the schooner and out in their dories when more cautious trawlsmen hugged the fo'c'sle. On their third trip, because of this daring, they caught the city market bare on a Thursday and made a clean-up.

“I'm told that Saint Peter started this Friday notion because he was in the fish business,” stated Captain Candage, sorting money for the shares. “All I've got to say is, he done a good job of it.”

Mr. Speed, sailing as mate, always found ready obedience.

Smut-nosed Dolph never listened before to such praise as was lavished by the hungry men over the pannikins which he heaped.

Captain Mayo, casting up accounts one day, was honestly astonished to find that almost a month had passed since he had landed at Maquoit.

“That goes to show how a man will get interested when he is picked up and tossed into a thing,” he said to Polly Candage.

“You are making real men of them, Captain Mayo!” She added, with a laugh, “And you told me you were no kind of a hand at making over human nature!”

“They are doing it themselves.”

“I will say nothing to wound your modesty, sir.”

“Now I must wake up. I must! There's nothing worth while in the profit for both your father and myself. I want him to have the proposition alone. There'll be a fair make for him. I didn't intend to stay here so long. I guess I sort of forgot myself.” He went on with his figures.

“But I knew you could not forget,” she ventured, after a pause.

He glanced up and found a queer expression on her countenance. There were frank sympathy and friendliness in her eyes. He had revolved bitter thoughts alone, struggling with a problem he could not master. In sudden emotion--in an unpremeditated letting-go of himself--he reached out for somebody in whom to confide. He needed counsel in a matter where no man could help him. This girl was the only one who could understand.

“There may be letters waiting for me in the city--in the big city where I may be expected,” he blurted. “I haven't dared to send any.” He hesitated, and then gave way to his impulse. “Miss Polly, I haven't any right to trouble you with my affairs. I may seem impertinent. But you are a girl! Does a girl usually sit down and think over all the difficulties--when she doesn't get letters--and then make allowances?”

“I'm sure she does--when she loves anybody.”

“And yet it may seem very strange. I am worried out of my senses. I don't know what to do.”

She was silent for a long time, looking away from him and twisting her hands in her lap; she was plainly searching her soul for inspiration--and courage!

“You think she will understand the situation?” he insisted.

“She ought to.”

“But no word from me! Silence for weeks!”

Her voice was low, but she evidently had found courage. “I have not heard one word--not a letter has come to me--since I left my aunt's home.”

“Do you feel sure that he loves you just the same? You don't need letters?”

“Oh no! I don't need letters.”

“But in my case?”

“I could see that she loves you very much. She stood out before them all, Captain Mayo. That sort of a girl does not need letters.”

“You have put new courage in me. I believe you understand just how a girl would feel. You know a Yankee! He expects to find a friend just where he left him, in the matter of affection.”

“A girl does not need to be a Yankee to be that way in her love.”

“I can't sneak around to her by the back way--I can't do that!” he cried. “I don't want to be ashamed of myself. I don't want to bring more trouble to her. Don't you think she will wait for me until I can come--and come right!”

“She will wait for you, sir. It's the nature of women to wait--when they love.”

“But I cannot ask her to wait forever. That's why I must go away and try to make good.” He set his teeth, and his jaw muscles were ridged. “I believe a man can get what he goes after in the right spirit, Miss Polly.” He swing off the porch and left her.

The fog was heavy on shore and sea that day, holding the _Ethel and May_ in port. He disappeared into the stifling mist, and the girl sat and stared into that vacancy for a long time.

Mayo rowed out to the schooner, which was anchored in the harbor roads. He was carrying his accounts to Captain Candage.