Chapter 2

Hatchardson's proved to be a place of great delight. As you entered there were counters for magazines and post-cards, popular music, and best-selling novels, while in the rear of the shop tables and shelves were stocked with ancient volumes, and on the wall surrounding them hung engravings, prints and woodcuts of even the eighteenth century. Just as the drugstore on the corner seemed to be a waiting station for those of New Bedford who used the trolley-cars, so for those who moved in automobiles, or still clung to the family carriage, Hatchardson's appeared to be less a shop than a public meeting-place. I noticed that the clerks, most of whom were women, were with the customers on a most friendly footing, addressing them, and by them being addressed by name. Finding I was free to wander where I pleased, I walked to the rear of the shop and from one of the tables picked up a much-worn volume. It was entitled “The Log of the JOLLY POLLY”, and was illustrated with wood cuts showing square-rigged ships and whales Spouting. For five minutes, lost to my Surroundings, I turned the pages; and then became conscious that across the table some one was watching me. I raised my eyes and beheld a face of most surprising charm, intelligence and beauty. It was so lovely that it made me wince. The face was the fortune, and judging from the fact that in her hand she held a salesbook, the sole fortune, of a tall young girl who apparently had approached to wait on me. She was looking toward the street, so that, with the book-shelves for a back-ground, her face was in profile, and I determined swiftly that if she were to wait on me she would be kept waiting as long as my money lasted. I did not want “The Log of the JOLLY POLLY,” but I did want to hear the lovely lady speak, and especially I desired that the one to whom she spoke should be myself.

“What is the price of this?” I asked. With magnificent self-control I kept my eyes on the book, but the lovely lady was so long silent that I raised them. To my surprise, I found on her face an expression of alarm and distress. With reluctance, and yet within her voice a certain hopefulness, she said, “Fifty dollars.”

Fifty dollars was a death blow. I had planned to keep the young lady selling books throughout the entire morning, but at fifty dollars a book, I would soon be owing her money. I attempted to gain time.

“It must be very rare!” I said. I was afraid to look at her lest my admiration should give offense, so I pretended to admire the book.

“It is the only one in existence,” said the young lady. “At least, it is the only one for sale!”

We were interrupted by the approach of a tall man who, from his playing the polite host and from his not wearing a hat, I guessed was Mr. Hatchardson himself. He looked from the book in my hand to the lovely lady and said smiling, “Have you lost it?”

The girl did not smile. To her, apparently, it was no laughing matter. “I don't know--yet,” she said. Her voice was charming, and genuinely troubled.

Mr. Hatchardson, for later I learned it was he, took the book and showed me the title-page.

“This was privately printed in 1830,” he said, “by Captain Noah Briggs. He distributed a hundred presentation copies among his family and friends here in New Bedford. It is a most interesting volume.”

I did not find it so. For even as he spoke the young girl, still with a troubled countenance, glided away. Inwardly I cursed Captain Briggs and associated with him in my curse the polite Mr. Hatchardson. But, at his next words my interest returned. Still smiling, he lowered his voice.

“Miss Briggs, the young lady who just left us,” he said, “is the granddaughter of Captain Briggs, and she does not want the book to go out of the family; she wants it for herself.” I interrupted eagerly.

“But it is for sale?” Mr. Hatchardson reluctantly assented.

“Then I will take it,” I said.

Fifty dollars is a great deal of money, but the face of the young lady had been very sad. Besides being sad, had it been aged, plain, and ill-tempered, that I still would have bought the book, is a question I have never determined.

To Mr. Hatchardson, of my purpose to give the book to Miss Briggs, I said nothing. Instead I planned to send it to her anonymously by mail. She would receive it the next morning when I was arriving in New York, and, as she did not know my name, she could not possibly return it. At the post-office I addressed the “Log” to “Miss Briggs, care of Hatchardson's Bookstore,” and then I returned to the store. I felt I had earned that pleasure. This time, Miss Briggs was in charge of the post-card counter, and as now a post-card was the only thing I could afford to buy, at seeing her there I was doubly pleased. But she was not pleased to see me. Evidently Mr. Hatchardson had told her I had purchased the “Log” and at her loss her very lovely face still showed disappointment. Toward me her manner was distinctly aggrieved.

But of the “Log” I said nothing, and began recklessly purchasing post-cards that pictured the show places of New Bedford. Almost the first one I picked up was labelled “Harbor Castle. Residence of Fletcher Farrell.” I need not say that I studied it intently. According to the post-card, Harbor Castle stood on a rocky point with water on both sides. It was an enormous, wide-spreading structure, as large as a fort. It exuded prosperity, opulence, extravagance, great wealth. I felt suddenly a filial impulse to visit the home of my would-be forefathers.

“Is this place near here?” I asked.

Miss Briggs told me that in order to reach it I should take the ferry to Fairharbor, and then cross that town to the Buzzards Bay side.

“You can't miss it,” she said. “It's a big stone house, with red and white awnings. If you see anything like a jail in ruffles, that's it.”

It was evident that with the home I had rejected Miss Briggs was unimpressed; but seeing me add the post-card to my collection, she offered me another.

“This,” she explained, “is Harbor Castle from the bay. That is their yacht in the foreground.”

The post-card showed a very beautiful yacht of not less than two thousand tons. Beneath it was printed “HARBOR LIGHTS; steam yacht owned by Fletcher Farrell.” I always had dreamed of owning a steam yacht, and seeing it stated in cold type that one was owned by “Fletcher Farrell,” even though I was not that Fletcher Farrell, gave me a thrill of guilty pleasure. I gazed upon the post-card with envy.

“HARBOR LIGHTS is a strange name for a yacht,” I ventured. Miss Briggs smiled.

“Not for that yacht,” she said. “She never leaves it.”

I wished to learn more of my would-be parents, and I wished to keep on talking with the lovely Miss Briggs, so, as an excuse for both, I pretended I was interested in the Farrells because I had something I wanted to sell them.

“This Fletcher Farrell must be very rich,” I said. “I wonder,” I asked, “if I could sell him an automobile?” The moment I spoke I noticed that the manner of Miss Briggs toward Me perceptibly softened. Perhaps, from my buying offhand a fifty-dollar book she had thought me one of the rich, and had begun to suspect I was keeping her waiting on me only because I found her extremely easy to look at. Many times before, in a similar manner, other youths must have imposed upon her, and perhaps, also, in concealing my admiration, I had not entirely succeeded.

But, when she believed that, like herself, I was working for my living, she became more human.

“What car are you selling?” she asked. “I am TRYING to sell,” I corrected her, “the Blue Bird, six cylinder.”

“I never heard of it,” said Miss Briggs.

“Nor has any one else,” I answered, with truth. “That is one reason why I can't sell it. I arrived here this morning, and,” I added with pathos, “I haven't sold a car yet!”

Miss Briggs raised her beautiful eyebrows skeptically. “Have you tried?” she said.

A brilliant idea came to me. In a side street I had passed a garage where Photaix cars were advertised for hire. I owned a Phoenix, and I thought I saw a way by which, for a happy hour, I might secure the society of Miss Briggs.

“I am an agent and demonstrator for the Phoenix also,” I said glibly; “maybe I could show you one?”

“Show me one?” exclaimed Miss Briggs. “One sees them everywhere! They are always under your feet!”

“I mean,” I explained, “might I take you for a drive in one?”

It was as though I had completely vanished. So far as the lovely Miss Briggs was concerned I had ceased to exist. She turned toward a nice old lady.

“What can I show you, Mrs. Scudder?” she asked cheerily; “and how is that wonderful baby?”

I felt as though I had been lifted by the collar, thrown out upon a hard sidewalk, and my hat tossed after me. Greatly shaken, and mentally brushing the dust from my hands and knees, I hastened to the ferry and crossed to Fairharbor. I was extremely angry. By an utter stranger I had been misjudged, snubbed and cast into outer darkness. For myself I readily found excuses. If a young woman was so attractive that at the first sight of her men could not resist buying her fifty-dollar books and hiring automobiles in which to take her driving, the fault was hers. I assured myself that girls as lovely as Miss Briggs were a menace to the public. They should not be at large. An ordinance should require them to go masked. For Miss Briggs also I was able to make excuses. Why should she not protect herself from the advances of strange young men? If a popular novelist, and especially an ex-popular one, chose to go about disguised as a drummer for the Blue Bird automobile and behaved as such, and was treated as such, what right had he to complain? So I persuaded myself I had been punished as I deserved. But to salve my injured pride I assured myself also that any one who read my novels ought to know my attitude toward any lovely lady could be only respectful, protecting, and chivalrous. But with this consoling thought the trouble was that nobody read my novels.

In finding Harbor Castle I had no difficulty. It stood upon a rocky point that jutted into Buzzards Bay. Five acres of artificial lawn and flower-beds of the cemetery and railroad-station school of horticulture surrounded it, and from the highroad it was protected by a stone wall so low that to the passerby, of the beauties of Harbor Castle nothing was left to the imagination. Over this wall roses under conflicting banners of pink and red fought fiercely. One could almost hear the shrieks of the wounded. Upon the least thorny of these I seated myself and in tender melancholy gazed upon the home of my childhood. That is, upon the home that might-have-been.

When surveying a completed country home, to make the owner thoroughly incensed the correct thing to say is, “This place has great possibilities!”

Harbor Castle had more possibilities than any other castle I ever visited. But in five minutes I had altered it to suit myself. I had ploughed up the flower-beds, dug a sunken garden, planted a wind screen of fir, spruce, and Pine, and with a huge brick wall secured warmth and privacy. So pleased was I with my changes, that when I departed I was sad and downcast. The boat-house of which Mrs. Farrell had spoken was certainly an ideal work-shop, the tennis-courts made those at the Newport Casino look like a ploughed field, and the swimming-pool, guarded by white pillars and overhung with grape-vines, was a cool and refreshing picture. As, hot and perspiring, I trudged back through Fairharbor, the memory of these haunted me. That they also tempted me, it is impossible to deny. But not for long. For, after passing through the elm-shaded streets to that side of the village that faced the harbor, I came upon the cottages I had seen from the New Bedford shore. At close range they appeared even more attractive than when pointed out to me by the mate of the steamboat. They were very old, very weather-stained and covered with honeysuckle. Flat stones in a setting of grass led from the gates to the arched doorways, hollyhocks rose above hedges of box, and from the verandas one could look out upon the busy harbor and the houses of New Bedford rising in steps up the sloping hills to a sky-line of tree-tops and church spires. The mate had told me that for what he had rented a flat in New York he had secured one of these charming old world homes. And as I passed them I began to pick out the one in which when I retired from the world I would settle down. This time I made no alterations. How much the near presence of Miss Briggs had to do with my determination to settle down in Fairharbor, I cannot now remember. But, certainly as I crossed the bridge toward New Bedford, thoughts of her entirely filled my mind. I assured my self this was so only because she was beautiful. I was sure her outward loveliness advertised a nature equally lovely, but for my sudden and extreme interest I had other excuses. Her in dependence in earning her living, her choice in earning it among books and pictures, her pride of family as shown by her efforts to buy the family heirloom, all these justified my admiration. And her refusing to go joy-riding with an impertinent stranger, even though the impertinent stranger was myself, was an act I applauded. The more I thought of Miss Briggs the more was I disinclined to go away leaving with her an impression of myself so unpleasant as the one she then held. I determined to remove it. At least, until I had redeemed myself, I would remain in New Bedford. The determination gave me the greatest satisfaction. With a light heart I returned to the office of the steamboat line and retrieving my suit-case started with it toward the Parker House. It was now past five o'clock, the stores were closed, and all the people who had not gone to the baseball game with Fall River were in the streets. In consequence, as I was passing the post-office, Miss Briggs came down the steps, and we were face to face.

In her lovely eyes was an expression of mingled doubt and indignation and in her hand freshly torn from the papers in which I had wrapped it, was “The Log of the JOLLY POLLY.” In action Miss Briggs was as direct as a submarine. At sight of me she attacked. “Did you send me this?” she asked.

I lowered my bag to the sidewalk and prepared for battle. “I didn't think of your going to the post-office,” I said. “I planned you'd get it to-morrow after I'd left. When I sent it, I thought I would never see you again.”

“Then you did send it!” exclaimed Miss Briggs. As though the book were a hot plate she dropped it into my hand. She looked straight at me, but her expression suggested she was removing a caterpillar from her pet rosebush.

“You had no right,” she said. “You may not have meant to be impertinent, but you were!”

Again, as though I had disappeared from the face of the earth, Miss Briggs gazed coldly about her, and with dignity started to cross the street. Her dignity was so great that she glanced neither to the left nor right. In consequence she did not see an automobile that swung recklessly around a trolley-car and dived at her. But other people saw it and shrieked. I also shrieked, and dropping the suit-case and the “Log,” jumped into the street, grabbed Miss Briggs by both arms, and flung her back to the sidewalk. That left me where she had been, and the car caught me up and slammed me head first against a telegraph pole. The pole was hard, and if any one counted me out I did not stay awake to hear him. When I came to I was conscious that I was lying on a sidewalk; but to open my eyes, I was much too tired. A voice was saying, “Do you know who he is, Miss?”

The voice that replied was the voice of the lovely Miss Briggs. But now I hardly recognized it. It was full of distress, of tenderness and pity.

“No, I don't know him,” it stammered. “He's a salesman--he was in the store this morning--he's selling motor-cars.” The first voice laughed.

“Motor-cars!” he exclaimed. “That's why he ain't scared of 'em. He certainly saved you from that one! I seen him, Miss Briggs, and he most certainly saved your life!”

In response to this astonishing statement I was delighted to hear a well-trained male chorus exclaim in assent.

The voices differed; some spoke in the accents of Harvard, pure and undefiled, some in a “down East” dialect, others suggested Italian peanut venders and Portuguese sailors, but all agreed that the life of Miss Briggs had been saved by myself. I had intended coming to, but on hearing the chorus working so harmoniously I decided I had better continue unconscious.

Then a new voice said importantly: “The marks on his suitcase are 'F. F., New York.”

I appreciated instantly that to be identified as Fletcher Farrell meant humiliation and disaster. The other Fletcher Farrells would soon return to New Bedford. They would learn that in their absence I had been spying upon the home I had haughtily rejected. Besides, one of the chorus might remember that three years back Fletcher Farrell had been a popular novelist and might recognize me, and Miss Briggs would discover I was not an automobile agent and that I had lied to her. I saw that I must continue to lie to her. I thought of names beginning with “F,” and selected “Frederick Fitzgibbon.” To christen yourself while your eyes are shut and your head rests on a curb-stone is not easy, and later I was sorry I had not called myself Fairchild as being more aristocratic. But then it was too late. As Fitzgibbon I had come back to life, and as Fitzgibbon I must remain.

When I opened my eyes I found the first voice belonged to a policeman who helped me to my feet and held in check the male chorus. The object of each was to lead me to a drink. But instead I turned dizzily to Miss Briggs. She was holding my hat and she handed it to me. Her lovely eyes were filled with relief and her charming voice with remorse.

“I--I can't possibly thank you,” she stammered. “Are you badly hurt?”

I felt I had never listened to words so original and well chosen. In comparison, the brilliant and graceful speeches I had placed on the lips of my heroines became flat and unconvincing.

I assured her I was not at all hurt and endeavored, jauntily, to replace my hat. But where my head had hit the telegraph pole a large bump had risen which made my hat too small. So I hung it on the bump. It gave me a rakish air. One of the chorus returned my bag and another the “Log.” Not wishing to remind Miss Briggs of my past impertinences; I guiltily concealed it.

Then the policeman asked my name and I gave the one I had just invented, and inquired my way to the Parker House. Half the chorus volunteered to act as my escort, and as I departed, I stole a last look at Miss Briggs. She and the policeman were taking down the pedigree of the chauffeur of the car that had hit me. He was trying to persuade them he was not intoxicated, and with each speech was furnishing evidence to the contrary.

After I had given a cold bath to the bump on my head and to the rest of my body which for the moment seemed the lesser of the two, I got into dry things and seated myself on the veranda of the hotel. With a cigar to soothe my jangling nerves, I considered the position of Miss Briggs and myself. I was happy in believing it had improved. On the morrow there was no law to prevent me from visiting Hatchardson's Bookstore, and in view of what had happened since last I left it, I had reason to hope Miss Briggs would receive me more, kindly. Of the correctness of this diagnosis I was at once assured. In front of the hotel a district messenger-boy fell off his bicycle and with unerring instinct picked me out as Mr. Fitzgibbon of New York. The note he carried was from Miss Briggs. It stated that in the presence of so many people it had been impossible for her to thank me as she wished for the service I had rendered her, and that Mrs. Cutler, with whom she boarded, and herself, would be glad if after supper I would call upon them. I gave the messenger-boy enough gold to enable him to buy a new bicycle and in my room executed a dance symbolizing joy. I then kicked my suit-case under the bed. I would not soon need it. Now that Miss Briggs had forgiven me, I was determined to live and die in New Bedford.

The home of Mrs. Cutler, where Miss Briggs lodged and boarded, was in a side street of respectable and distinguished antiquity. The street itself was arched with the branches of giant elms, and each house was an island surrounded by grass, and over the porches climbed roses. It was too warm to remain indoors, so we sat on the steps of the porch, and through the leaves of the elms the electric light globe served us as a moon. For an automobile salesman I was very shy, very humble.

Twice before I had given offense and I was determined if it lay with me, it would not happen again. I did not hope to interest Miss Briggs in myself, nor did I let it appear how tremendously I was interested in her. For the moment I was only a stranger in a strange land making a social call. I asked Miss Briggs about New Bedford and the whaling, about the books she sold, and the books she liked. It was she who talked. When I found we looked at things in the same way and that the same things gave us pleasure I did not comment on that astonishing fact, but as an asset more precious than gold, stored it away. When I returned to the hotel I found that concerning Miss Briggs I had made important discoveries. I had learned that her name was Polly, that the JOLLY POLLY had been christened after her grandmother, that she was an orphan, that there were relatives with whom she did not “hit it off,” that she was very well read, possessed of a most charming sense of humor, and that I found her the most attractive girl I had ever met.

The next morning I awoke in an exalted frame of mind. I was in love with life, with New Bedford, and with Polly Briggs. I had been in love before but never with a young lady who worked in a shop, and I found that loving a lady so occupied gives one a tremendous advantage. For when you call she must always be at home, nor can she plead another engagement. So, before noon, knowing she could not deny herself, I was again at Hatchardson's, purchasing more postal-cards. But Miss Briggs was not deceived. Nor apparently was any one else. The BEDFORD MERCURY had told how, the previous evening, Frederick Fitzgibbon, an automobile salesman from New York, had been knocked out by an automobile while saving Miss Polly Briggs from a similar fate; and Mr. Hatchardson and all the old ladies who were in the bookstore making purchases congratulated me. It was evident that in Miss Briggs they took much more than a perfunctory interest. They were very fond of her. She was an institution; and I could see that as such to visitors she would be pointed out with pride, as was the new bronze statue of the Whaleman in Court House Square. Nor did they cease discussing her until they had made it quite clear to me that in being knocked out in her service I was a very lucky man. I did not need to be told that, especially as I noted that Miss Briggs was anxious lest I should not be properly modest. Indeed, her wish that in the eyes of the old ladies I should appear to advantage was so evident, and her interest in me so proprietary, that I was far from unhappy.

The afternoon I spent in Fairharbor. From a real estate agent I obtained keys to those cottages on the water-front that were for rent, and I busied myself exploring them. The one I most liked I pretended I had rented, and I imagined myself at work among the flower-beds, or with my telescope scanning the shipping in the harbor, or at night seated in front of the open fire watching the green and blue flames of the driftwood. Later, irresolutely, I wandered across town to Harbor Castle, this time walking entirely around it and coming upon a sign that read, “Visitors Welcome. Do not pick the flowers.”