Chapter 13

“Yes,” says I. “Well, it's likewise to be supposed that the idea--the eventual idea--is marriage, straight marriage, hey?”

He jumped out of his chair. “Why, damn you!” he says. “I'll--”

“All right. Set down and be nice. I was fairly sure of my soundings, but it don't do no harm to heave the lead. I ask your pardon. Well, what you going to support a wife on--her kind of a wife? A summer waiter's job at twenty a month?”

He set down, but he looked more troubled than ever. I was sorry for him; I couldn't help liking the boy.

“Suppose she keeps her word and goes away,” says I. “What then?”

“I'll go after her.”

“Suppose she still sticks to her principles and won't have you? Where'll you go, then?”

“To the hereafter,” says he, naming the station at the end of the route.

“Oh, well, there's no hurry about that. Most of us are sure of a free one-way pass to that port some time or other, 'cording to the parson's tell. See here, Jones; let's look at this thing like a couple of men, not children. You don't want to keep chasing that girl from pillar to post, making her more miserable than she is now. And you ain't in no position to marry her. The way to show a young woman like her that you mean business and are going to be wuth cooking meals for is to get the best place you can and start in to earn a living and save money. Now, Mr. Brown's father-in-law is a man by the name of Dillaway, Dillaway of the Consolidated Cash Stores. He'll do things for me if I ask him to, and I happen to know that he's just started a branch up to Providence and is there now. Suppose I give you a note to him, asking him, as a favor to me, to give you the best job he can. He'll do it, I know. After that it's up to you. This is, of course, providing that you start for Providence to-morrer morning. What d'you say?”

He was thinking hard. “Suppose I don't make good?” he says. “I never worked in my life. And suppose she--”

“Oh, suppose your granny's pet hen hatched turkeys,” I says, getting impatient, “I'll risk your making good. I wa'n't a first mate, shipping fo'mast hands ten years, for nothing. I can generally tell beet greens from cabbage without waiting to smell 'em cooking. And as for her, it seems to me that a girl who thinks enough of a feller to run away from him so's he won't spile his future, won't like him no less for being willing to work and wait for her. You stay here and think it over. I'm going out for a spell.”

When I come back Jonesy was ready for me.

“Mr. Wingate,” says he, “it's a deal. I'm going to go you, though I think you're plunging on a hundred-to-one shot. Some day I'll tell you more about myself, maybe. But now I'm going to take your advice and the position. I'll do my best, and I must say you're a brick. Thanks awfully.”

“Good enough!” I says. “Now you go and tell her, and I'll write the letter to Dillaway.”

So the next forenoon Peter T. Brown was joyful all up one side because Mabel had said she'd stay, and mournful all down the other because his pet college giant had quit almost afore he started. I kept my mouth shut, that being the best play I know of, nine cases out of ten.

I went up to the depot with Jonesy to see him off.

“Good-by, old man,” he says, shaking hands. “You'll write me once in a while, telling me how she is, and--and so on?”

“Bet you!” says I. “I'll keep you posted up. And let's hear how you tackle the Consolidated Cash business.”

July and the first two weeks in August moped along and everything at the Old Home House kept about the same. Mabel was in mighty good spirits, for her, and she got prettier every day. I had a couple of letters from Jones, saying that he guessed he could get bookkeeping through his skull in time without a surgical operation, and old Dillaway was down over one Sunday and was preaching large concerning the “find” my candidate was for the Providence branch. So I guessed I hadn't made no mistake.

I had considerable fun with Cap'n Jonadab over his not landing a rich husband for the Seabury girl. Looked like the millionaire crop was going to be a failure that summer.

“Aw, belay!” says he, short as baker's pie crust. “The season ain't over yet. You better take a bath in the salt mack'rel kag; you're too fresh to keep this hot weather.”

Talking “husband” to him was like rubbing pain-killer on a scalded pup, so I had something to keep me interested dull days. But one morning he comes to me, excited as a mouse at a cat show, and says he:

“Ah, ha! what did I tell you? I've got one!”

“I see you have,” says I. “Want me to send for the doctor?”

“Stop your foolishing,” he says. “I mean I've got a millionaire. He's coming to-night, too. One of the biggest big-bugs there is in New York. Ah, ha! what did I tell you?”

He was fairly boiling over with gloat, but from between the bubbles I managed to find out that the new boarder was a big banker from New York, name of Van Wedderburn, with a barrel of cash and a hogshead of dyspepsy. He was a Wall Street “bear,” and a steady diet of lamb with mint sass had fetched him to where the doctors said 'twas lay off for two months or be laid out for keeps.

“And I've fixed it that he's to stop at your house, Barzilla,” crows Jonadab. “And when he sees Mabel--well, you know what she's done to the other men folks,” he says.

“Humph!” says I, “maybe he's got dyspepsy of the heart along with the other kind. She might disagree with him. What makes you so cock sartin?”

“'Cause he's a widower,” he says. “Them's the softest kind.”

“Well, you ought to know,” I told him. “You're one yourself. But, from what I've heard, soft things are scarce in Wall Street. Bet you seventy-five cents to a quarter it don't work.”

He wouldn't take me, having scruples against betting--except when he had the answer in his pocket. But he went away cackling joyful, and that night Van Wedderburn arrived.

Van was a substantial-looking old relic, built on the lines of the Boston State House, broad in the beam and with a shiny dome on top. But he could qualify for the nervous dyspepsy class all right, judging by his language to the depot-wagon driver. When he got through making remarks because one of his trunks had been forgot, that driver's quotation, according to Peter T., had “dropped to thirty cents, with a second assessment called.” I jedged the meals at our table would be as agreeable as a dog-fight.

However, 'twas up to me, and I towed him in and made him acquainted with Mabel. She wa'n't enthusiastic--having heard some of the driver sermon, I cal'late--until I mentioned his name. Then she gave a little gasp like. When Van had gone up to his rooms, puffing like a donkey-engyne and growling 'cause there wa'n't no elevators, she took me by the arm and says she:

“WHAT did you say his name was, Mr. Wingate?”

“Van Wedderburn,” says I. “The New York millionaire one.”

“Not of Van Wedderburn & Hamilton, the bankers?” she asks, eager.

“That's him,” says I. “Why? Do you know him? Did his ma used to do washing at your house?”

She laughed, but her face was all lit up and her eyes fairly shone. I could have--but there! never mind.

“Oh, no,” she says, “I don't know him, but I know of him--everybody does.”

Well, everybody did, that's a fact, and the way Marm Bounderby and Maizie was togged out at the supper-table was a sin and a shame. And the way they poured gush over that bald-headed broker was enough to make him slip out of his chair. Talk about “fishers of men”! them Bounderbys was a whole seiner's crew in themselves.

But what surprised me was Mabel Seabury. She was dressed up, too; not in the Bounderbys' style--collar-bones and diamonds--but in plain white with lace fuzz. If she wa'n't peaches and cream, then all you need is lettuce to make me a lobster salad.

And she was as nice to Van as if he was old Deuteronomy out of the Bible. He set down to that meal with a face on him like a pair of nutcrackers, and afore 'twas over he was laughing and eating apple pie and telling funny yarns about robbing his “friends” in the Street. I judged he'd be sorry for it afore morning, but I didn't care for that. I was kind of worried myself; didn't understand it.

And I understood it less and less as the days went by. If she'd been Maizie Bounderby, with two lines in each hand and one in her teeth, she couldn't have done more to hook that old stock-broker. She cooked little special dishes for his dyspepsy to play with, and set with him on the piazza evenings, and laughed at his jokes, and the land knows what. Inside of a fortni't he was a gone goose, which wa'n't surprising--every other man being in the same fix--but 'TWAS surprising to see her helping the goneness along. All hands was watching the game, of course, and it pretty nigh started a mutiny at the Old Home. The Bounderbys packed up and lit out in ten days, and none of the other women would speak to Mabel. They didn't blame poor Mr. Van, you understand. 'Twas all her--“low, designing thing!”

And Jonadab! he wa'n't fit to live with. The third forenoon after Van Wedderburn got there he come around and took the quarter bet. And the way he crowed over me made my hands itch for a rope's end. Finally I owned up to myself that I'd made a mistake; the girl was a whitewashed tombstone and the whitewash was rubbing thin. That night I dropped a line to poor Jonesy at Providence, telling him that, if he could get a day off, maybe he'd better come down to Wellmouth, and see to his fences; somebody was feeding cows in his pasture.

The next day was Labor Day, and what was left of the boarders was going for a final picnic over to Baker's Grove at Ostable. We went, three catboats full of us, and Van and Mabel Seabury was in the same boat. We made the grove all right, and me and Jonadab had our hands full, baking clams and chasing spiders out of the milk, and doing all the chores that makes a picnic so joyfully miserable. When the dinner dishes was washed I went off by myself to a quiet bunch of bayberry bushes half a mile from the grove and laid down to rest, being beat out.

I guess I fell asleep, and what woke me was somebody speaking close by. I was going to get up and clear out, not being in the habit of listening to other folks' affairs, but the very first words I heard showed me that 'twas best, for the feelings of all concerned, to lay still and keep on with my nap.

“Oh, no!” says Mabel Seabury, dreadful nervous and hurried-like; “oh, no! Mr. Van Wedderburn, please don't say any more. I can't listen to you, I'm so sorry.”

“Do you mean that--really mean it?” asks Van, his voice rather shaky and seemingly a good deal upset. “My dear young lady, I realize that I'm twice your age and more, and I suppose that I was an old fool to hope; but I've had trouble lately, and I've been very lonely, and you have been so kind that I thought--I did hope--I--Can't you?”

“No,” says she, more nervous than ever, and shaky, too, but decided. “No! Oh, NO! It's all my fault. I wanted you to like me; I wanted you to like me very much. But not this way. I'm--I'm--so sorry. Please forgive me.”

She walked on then, fast, and toward the grove, and he followed, slashing at the weeds with his cane, and acting a good deal as if he'd like to pick up his playthings and go home. When they was out of sight I set up and winked, large and comprehensive, at the scenery. It looked to me like I was going to collect Jonadab's quarter.

That night as I passed the lilac bushes by the gate, somebody steps out and grabs my arm. I jumped, looked up, and there, glaring down at me out of the clouds, was friend Jones from Providence, R. I.

“Wingate,” he whispers, fierce, “who is the man? And where is he?”

“Easy,” I begs. “Easy on that arm. I might want to use it again. What man?”

“That man you wrote me about. I've come down here to interview him. Confound him! Who is he?”

“Oh, it's all right now,” says I. “There was an old rooster from New York who was acting too skittish to suit me, but I guess it's all off. His being a millionaire and a stock-jobber was what scart me fust along. He's a hundred years old or so; name of Van Wedderburn.”

“WHAT?” he says, pinching my arm till I could all but feel his thumb and finger meet. “What? Stop joking. I'm not funny to-night.”

“It's no joke,” says I, trying to put my arm together again. “Van Wedderburn is his name. 'Course you've heard of him. Why! there he is now.”

Sure enough, there was Van, standing like a statue of misery on the front porch of the main hotel, the light from the winder shining full on him. Jonesy stared and stared.

“Is that the man?” he says, choking up. “Was HE sweet on Mabel?”

“Sweeter'n a molasses stopper,” says I. “But he's going away in a day or so. You don't need to worry.”

He commenced to laugh, and I thought he'd never stop.

“What's the joke?” I asks, after a year or so of this foolishness. “Let me in, won't you? Thought you wa'n't funny to-night.”

He stopped long enough to ask one more question. “Tell me, for the Lord's sake!” says he. “Did she know who he was?”

“Sartin,” says I. “So did every other woman round the place. You'd think so if--”

He walked off then, laughing himself into a fit. “Good night, old man,” he says, between spasms. “See you later. No, I don't think I shall worry much.”

If he hadn't been so big I cal'lated I'd have risked a kick. A man hates to be made a fool of and not know why.

A whole lot of the boarders had gone on the evening train, and at our house Van Wedderburn was the only one left. He and Mabel and me was the full crew at the breakfast-table the follering morning. The fruit season was a quiet one. I done all the talking there was; every time the broker and the housekeeper looked at each other they turned red.

Finally 'twas “chopped-hay” time, and in comes the waiter with the tray. And again we had a surprise, just like the one back in July. Percy wa'n't on hand, and Jonesy was.

But the other surprise wa'n't nothing to this one. The Seabury girl was mightily set back, but old Van was paralyzed. His eyes and mouth opened and kept on opening.

“Cereal, sir?” asks Jones, polite as ever.

“Why! why, you--you rascal!” hollers Van Wedderburn. “What are you doing here?”

“I have a few days' vacation from my position at Providence, sir,” answers Jones. “I'm a waiter at present.”

“Why, ROBERT!” exclaims Mabel Seabury.

Van swung around like he was on a pivot. “Do you know HIM?” he pants, wild as a coot, and pointing.

'Twas the waiter himself that answered.

“She knows me, father,” he says. “In fact she is the young lady I told you about last spring; the one I intend to marry.”

Did you ever see the tide go out over the flats? Well, that's the way the red slid down off old Van's bald head and across his cheeks. But it came back again like an earthquake wave. He turned to Mabel once more, and if ever there was a pleading “Don't tell” in a man's eyes, 'twas in his.

“Cereal, sir?” asks Robert Van Wedderburn, alias “Jonesy.”

Well, I guess that's about all. Van Senior took it enough sight more graceful than you'd expect, under the circumstances. He went straight up to his room and never showed up till suppertime. Then he marches to where Mabel and his son was, on the porch, and says he:

“Bob,” he says, “if you don't marry this young lady within a month I'll disown you, for good this time. You've got more sense than I thought. Blessed if I see who you inherit it from!” says he, kind of to himself.

Jonadab ain't paid me the quarter yet. He says the bet was that she'd land a millionaire, and a Van Wedderburn, afore the season ended, and she did; so he figgers that he won the bet. Him and me got wedding cards a week ago, so I suppose “Jonesy” and Mabel are on their honeymoon now. I wonder if she's ever told her husband about what I heard in the bayberry bushes. Being the gamest sport, for a woman, that ever I see, I'll gamble she ain't said a word about it.

THE END