Chapter 13

"Genelmen," he said, when at last he had somewhat recovered, "you've listened to our _h_orders, and I'll _h_only remind you that them that _h_ain't with us is agin us, as Saint Paul says. Back-sliders and goats may return to the bar, but me and the fleecy sheep is agoing to see this thing through, and do our dooty _h_under the regilations by Board of Trade _h_appointed. Goats, as I said afore, will kindly rise and step out!"

"We ain't no blooming quitters," spoke up Billy Dutton. "Goats, nothing, you wall-eyed old ram! You want to cinch all the texes for yesself, and make a running with our lovely president. But we are on to you, Bob Fletcher, and I voice the sentimomgs of the whole band when I says with Saint John, in the forty-first epistle to the Proosians, 'Wot you put your fist to, that do it with all yer might!'"

"Aye, aye!" chorused the band with boisterous approval.

"Then _h_up and work, you devils!" exclaimed the vice president. "Pull out that table, Mack; and you, there, bear a 'and to 'elp 'im, 'Enery. Set _h_up the little chair, Williams! Easy with Saint Paul, you, Tommy, or you'll crack him sure--and lay the whole caboodlum on the shelf, _h_out of 'arm's way! Lively, lads--lively!"

Bob lifted Daisy in his arms, and carrying her to the table, installed her comfortably in the little chair.

"Captain's bridge," he said; "and if anything ain't right, or just _h_according to your _h_idears, you sing out to the lower deck, loud and 'earty; only mind you don't get _h_excited and spill orf!"

Daisy's eyes danced, and her timidity all vanished as she saw the jovial and obedient band grouping together and hotly discussing the proposed decorations. Distances were measured with tarry thumbs. A party of six was told off to climb the cocoa palms across the road; while another, shouting and hallooing like schoolboys, was dispatched to Holderson's station to get sinnet. There was a noisy wrangle over spelling. "I never seed it like that," said one, squinting over Billy's slate, "and I don't believe nobody else ever did neither." "For the love of Mike," roared another, "let's stick to them words we're all agreed on, and keep off of that thorological grass!" "Man and boy, I've been to sea this thirty years," exclaimed Mr. Bob with crushing vehemence, "and there warn't no T in Christmas then, and there ain't now! C-R-I-S-S-M-A-S, you son of a sea cook, and I know _h_every letter of it like the palm of me 'and!"

In a corner, dispassionately aloof from all the bustle and argument, Papa Benson, that venerable dandy of the pink pajamas, pumped up the concertina, and drew melodiously on his ancient repertoire. To the inspiring strains of "In Her Hair She Wore a White Camellia," "Oh, Buffalo Gals, Won't You Come Out To-night?" and the "Mulligatawny Guards," the good work progressed with sailorlike speed and system. The bare, dreary room grew gay with greenery. Stitched to the matting walls with sinnet there appeared letters, words, and finally complete inscriptions: PEAS ON ERTH AND GOODWILL TOWARDS MAN; DAISY KIRKE, THE SEAMAN'S STAR; MERRY CRISSMAS, and GOD BLESS OUR HOM.

Daisy clapped her hands with delight, and did not stint her praise or approval. Occasionally she would stand up on the "bridge" to anxiously point out a crooked letter, or call attention to a doubtful spelling; and her little heart overflowed with satisfaction at the brisk "Aye, aye, Miss!" that greeted her smallest criticism. Mr. Bob worked like a horse, and not only made things jump, but kept a sharp watch as well on the unguarded utterances of his mates. Once, at some remark of Mr. Tod's, he flared up like a lion, and stepping close to Mr. Tod, with his fist clenched, said, "Drop that, Toddy--d'ye 'ear--drop it!" and stared at him so fierce and splendid, that Mr. Tod fell back and mumbled something about "No offense," and "It kinder ripped out unbeknownst, Bob, old cock!"

By the time it was all finished dusk was falling. The room had been beautifully swept out, and likewise the porch, and Mr. Bell was in the act of dancing a fascinating clog to Papa Benson's "Soldier's Joy" on the concertina, when Nantok rushed in, shouting that Mr. Kirke was coming. And, indeed, she had no sooner given the news than it was confirmed by the whaler's crew, whose voices could be heard far across the water, lustily singing at their paddles.

A sort of consternation descended on the Band of Hope. "Hell!" exclaimed Mr. Dutton, and dropped his broom with a crash. There was a mad scurry to escape. The little president was forgotten in the pellmell rush, and from the height of her table she perceived her friends flying away without a word of farewell. No, not all. The faithful Mr. Bob, quiet and masterful even in that panicky moment of the missionary's return, came up to her, and taking her hand in both his own, nuzzled it long and lovingly against his cheek.

"Little Daisy," he said, and his voice sounded kind of strange and different, "I want you to give a message to your pa--a message from me, you say to 'im--and that is, 'e'll never 'ave no more trouble with the boys down the shore. And if any of them gets fresh, or gives 'im any lip, or 'oots--you tell 'im this, Daisy--I'll break every bone of 'is body, so 'elp me, Moses. And it _h_ain't because of 'im, or anythink the like of that, but because he's the father of the darlingest little gal that _h_ever breathed, and the sweetest and the dearest."

Daisy flung her arms around his neck and kissed him; and as her face pressed his, rough as mahogany and hairy as a mat, she felt it all wet with tears.

Daisy was still wondering what it was that could make Mr. Bob cry, when he suddenly let her go, and walked out of the door in his funny, heavy, lurching sea walk, looking straight before him, and unheeding the "Happy Noo Year, Mr. Bob!" she called after him in a pitiful little voice.

"Poor Mr. Bob!" said Daisy to herself; and then, happening to put her hand to her hair, she discovered that the red ribbon was gone!

"He must have stole it for a keepsake when I was kissing him!" she exclaimed. "Oh, you bad, bad Mr. Bob!"

But her eyes sparkled nevertheless, as she ran out to greet papa and mamma.

OLD DIBS

His beginnings was a mystery, where he come from a conjecture, and his business in Manihiki Island one of them things that bothered a fellow in his sleep and yapped at his heels when he was awake. Captain Corker had picked him up at Penrhyn, and the trader there said he had been landed from a barkentine, lumber laden, from Portland, and from there back there was a haze on his past thicker than Bobby Carter's. Leastways, with Bobby there was his forty-five different stories to account for the leg-iron scars on his ankles, but with Old Dibs you hadn't even that to chew on. Nothing but five large new trunks and the clothes he stood in. Remarkable clothes, too, they were, for a coral island in the mid Pacific, being invariably a stovepipe hat and a Prince Albert coat, with trousers changing from pearl gray to lead color, with stripes, till you'd think he'd melt!

He was a fine man to look at, about sixty years of age, very portly and pleasant spoken, and everything he said sounded important, even if it was only about the weather or why cocoanut milk always gave him cramps. He said his name was Smith. People who change their names seem always to change it to Smith, till you wonder sometimes they don't choose Jones, or maybe Patterson, or Wilkins. But you'll notice it is Smith every time, though we always called him Old Dibs, because of the money that he had and threw around so regardless.

My first sight of him was on the front porch, mopping his forehead, and asking whether he might have board and lodging by the week. I told him that we hardly carried style enough for a gentleman like him, but all we had he was welcome to--and if not too long--for nothing. He seemed pleased at this, and more pleased still when he looked over our big bedroom and noticed my wife's smiling, comely face. She's only a Kanaka girl, but I wouldn't trade her for a million. And he laid down a shining twenty-dollar gold piece and asked if that would do every Tuesday?

Now I am as fond of money as any man, but I'm not a pirate, and so I said it was too much. But he wouldn't take no denial, and flung it down on the trade-room counter again, saying he counted it settled. Then I turned to with his trunks, told my wife to bundle out into the boatshed, and opened beer.

"Making a long stay, sir?" said I.

"I hardly know, Bill," he said. (I had told him my name was Bill.) "I hardly know, Bill," and with that he heaved a tremendous sigh.

"We don't often have visitors here," I said. "The last was eighteen men of the British bark _Wolverine_, in boats, from French Frigate Shoals, where they were cast away."

"I'm looking for a quiet place to end my days in," he says.

"Well, I guess you've found it," I says.

"It looks as though I had, Bill," he answers, gazing seaward where the palms was bending in the trade breeze and there was nothing but the speck of Captain Corker's schooner beating out. I could see he was pretty downhearted, and though I set the music box going to cheer him and asked if he fancied a nice mess of gulls' eggs for supper, it wasn't no good, and finally he went into his room and set out the rest of the day on one of the trunks.

I went along the same evening to talk it over with Tom Riley, the other trader in Manihiki, who, in spite of our being in opposition and all that, was more like my own born brother than a rival in business. We never let down the price of shell or copra on each other, and lined up shoulder to shoulder if a third party tried to break in, and so we had enough for both of us and a tidy bit over. Tom was afire to hear all about Old Dibs, and had been getting bulletins the whole afternoon from the Kanakas, down to the twenty dollars and the five trunks, and even the way he sighed.

Tom knew right away he was a defaulter, and said we were in powerful luck to have got him. It was fine of Tom to take it like that, for what luck there was was mine, and he said he'd help out with chickens and fresh fish and some extra superior canned stuff he had, so that Old Dibs would be comfortable and want to stay. Tom was a good deal like that professor who could make a prehistoric animal out of one prehistoric bone, and then, when later on they discovered the whole beast entire, it was head and tail with the one he had drawn on the blackboard. And by the time the square-face had made a second round, Tom's fancy had flown higher than a yellow-back novel, Old Dibs being dead, blessing me with his last breath and making me the heir of all his riches!

Tom walked home with me, still talking, for we had now bought a ninety-ton schooner with my legacy, me captain and him supercargo, and we had taken out French naturalization papers so we might be free of the Paumotu and Tubuai groups. When we said good night, whispering so as not to disturb Old Dibs, who was snoring out serene, it had grown to be a fleet, with headquarters at Papiete, and a steam service to 'Frisco! We were a pair of boys, both of us, and could make squid taste like lamb chops just by telling ourselves it was so!

I reckon Old Dibs was a little suspicious of me and Tom, and small blame to him for that, the Islands being pretty full of tough customers, with never no law nor order nor nobody to appeal to in trouble unless it was your gun. He made me put a stout bolt on his door and chicken wire over the windows, and always slept with the lamp burning in his room; and it was noticeable, too, that he never cared to wander far away from the house. He was given to playing the flute in the stern of an old whaleboat, which was drawn up near the station with a cocoanut shelter over it. He never went anywhere, except to the native pastor's (Iosefo his name was). I suppose he felt a kind of protection in him--Iosefo being the nearest thing to an official in the island--and he made himself very solid in that quarter, giving to the church lavish and going there every Sunday. He always come back from them visits with a ruminating look in his eye, and the first thing he did was to make a bee line for his room, like somebody might have been tampering with his trunks.

Finally one day he took me aside and said: "Bill, that Iosefo is a very agreeable man, and if it would be the same to you, I'd like to have him a little about the house."

"Why, Mr. Smith," I said, "you needn't have troubled to ask me that; any friend of yours is welcome, I am sure, and I never saw no harm in Iosefo, even if he is a missionary."

I thought he meant to have the fellow in to talk with him or play checkers, to while away the time that hung so heavy on his hands. But it wasn't this at all--except for a halfway pretense at the beginning. No; he paid Iosefo ten dollars a week, for what do you think? To sit on one of his trunks (_the_ trunk, I reckon) from seven in the morning till six at night, barring service time Sundays. Yes, sir; nothing else than a squatting sentry, mounting guard over the boodle inside the trunk and protecting it from me! I wonder what the home missionary society would have said to see Brother Iosefo yawning all day on the top of a trunk, or writing his sermon on his knee, Saturdays!

At first I felt pretty hot about it, for it smacked too much of setting a thief to catch a thief, or at least offsetting the pastor and me like the compensating idea of a ship's chronometer; but my wife liked the respectability it give us before the natives; and Tom said my resenting it would be like putting the cap on my head. So I acted like I didn't give a whoop, the one way or the other.

And then it wasn't easy to be anything but fond of Old Dibs, for he was a nice man to live with, never turning up his nose at the poor food we give him, and always so kind and polite to Sarah, my wife, that she fairly idolized him. He was a real gentleman through and through, and if his money (he called it his "papers," his valuable "papers") weighed heavy on his mind, I guess I'd have been no better in his shoes, having to trust to strangers who might cut your throat. He had the whole island to roam over now, instead of being cooped up like a chicken in a coop, and we all noticed what a change in him it made for the better, throwing off flesh, and not panting so heavy between the spells of his flute, and walking with his head in the air like the island belonged to him.

He wasn't much of a fluter, playing mostly from notes, and often picking them out so slow that you'd forget what the tune began like. He despised simple things like "Way Down Upon the Suwanee River," and the difficult things seemed to despise _him!_ But he stuck at it indefatiguable, and blew enough wind through his flute to have sailed a ship. After breakfast in the morning, which he took in his panjammers like me, he would dress himself up nice in his Prince Albert, give his topper a wipe, and start away with the flute and a roll of music in a natty little case, like he was off to the Bank for the day. The only thing that ruffled him any was the children, about eighty of them, who always went along, too, and set in a circle around him when he played. I told him they'd soon tire of tagging after him, which he said he was mighty glad to hear; but if it was flies, they couldn't have been more pertinacious. I spoke to the king about it, and Old Dibs he complained to Iosefo, but it only seemed to whoop it up and add to the procession. The king said if he'd just flute in one place, he would put a taboo around it which neither children nor grown-ups would cross; but Old Dibs said that the looking on, even from a distance, would be quite as disturbing as being sprawled all over; and so the children followed him unabated.

Then I had a happy thought, and suggested the graveyard! This was a walled-in inclosure, perhaps a hundred feet each way, on the weather side of the island, and on a windy day, with the surf thundering in, it was the lonesomest spot where a man could find himself. The natives left it alone at all times, except to bury somebody, and none of them came nearer to it than they could help. The Kanakas have a powerful dread of spirits, and even in the daytime they'd give the place a wide berth. The walls, too, being about seven feet high, prevented the children from peeking in, except at the gateway, which was so narrow that it was easy to get out of view.

Old Dibs perked up at this and cottoned to the idea tremendous; and the graveyard soon become his regular stamping ground, except when there was a funeral. He rigged up a little shelter for himself in the center, with a music stand I made for him out of scantling; and often he took his lunch in his pocket and spent the whole day. Not a child ventured to show himself, and he had it as much to himself as though he owned it; and he could lay his stovepipe down now without any fear of its being greased up or sat on. It led to his asking a raft of questions about the natives and their superstitions, and how none of them ventured to go near the place unless in a big party. He came back to that again and again, and always with the same interest. I ought to have suspected what was running in his head, but I didn't. In fack, we had all settled down now like we had always lived together, and I didn't bother any more about him, or what he said or did, than if he had been my wife's father! It was a good deal like having a rich uncle to stay with you, and after the first excitement you took it all as a matter of course.

Even Iosefo, sitting on the trunk in the bedroom, became one of them things that ran into habit; and in some ways it was a good idea, too, for it brought custom to the store, what with the deacons coming over to talk about church affairs, and the Committee on Ways and Means meeting there regular. Even the gold twenty every week settled down in the same channel of routine, and I didn't bite it any more, as I used to do, nor hold it in my hand wondering where it come from. I just put it away with the rest and thought no more about it. The only concern of me and Sarah was to feed up the old fellow to the best of our ability and try and make him pleased.

We had been running along like this for I don't know how long, when one night, toward the small hours, a singular thing happened. I was sleeping very light, and I woke up all of a sudden and saw Old Dibs standing in the doorway! He had a candle in his hand and bulked up enormous in his red silk dressing gown, and there was a wild look on his unshaved face.

I held my breath and watched him through my half-shut eyes--watched him for quite a spell, till he softly tiptoed away again in his naked feet, and I heard the door close behind him in the house. I waited a long while wondering what to do, and what there could be in the boatshed to bring him out at such an unlikely hour. At first I was for getting my rifle and sitting up the balance of the night; but then, as I waked up more and tried to think it out, it seemed that he had a better right to be afraid of me than me of _him_. It couldn't be to do me no harm, I reckoned, but probably to assure himself that I was asleep.

He was plainly up to something, and it was equally plain he didn't want me to know it. So I got out of bed--if you can call a stack of mats and a schooner's topsail a bed--and lit out to see what was doing. It was no good trying to get into the house, for Old Dibs had nailed the keys and handed them out every morning through the winder when I went to take him his shaving water. But the curtains of the bedroom weren't extra close, and if I could get up on the veranda without too much of a creaking I knew I could see in all right. There's a lot of cat in a sailor, even to the nine lives and the dislike of getting wet, and I was soon on my knees at the sill, taking in the performance.

The room was lit up as usual, and all the big five trunks were open, with Old Dibs diving into them like he was packing for the morning train. Leastways, that was my first thought; the second was, that something stranger than that was up, and that people didn't usually go traveling with an outfit of pinkish paper cut into shavings. You've seen them, haven't you?--the kind of packing they put into music boxes, fine toys, and the like, flummoxy twisted paper ravelings that protect the varnish and have no weight to speak of. Well, that was what was in them trunks, and Old Dibs was pawing it out till it stuck up in the room, yards high, like a mountain. Occasionally he seemed to strike something harder than paper--something that would take both his hands to lift--and it was only a little clinking canvas bag that big.

Money? Of course it was money! And he was stacking it in a leather dress-suit case laid on the floor next his bed.

You could see he was nervous by the way he kept looking behind him; and once, when a rat ran across the attic, he jumped awful and the whole floor shook. It was a queer sensation to look right into a man's eyes and him not see you, which I did with Old Dibs again and again as he'd stop and listen. I ought to have said that one of the trunks was clothes all right, but even here there was three or four bags of coin, which he got out and added to the others.

Then he counted the bags and tried to turn the top of the suit case on them, but couldn't manage it. He arranged them first this way and then that way, but there was always about a dozen outstanding. The canvas itself was very coarse, and there was lots to spare, the slack being turned over and over, and tied with heavy twine extra. Then he took them all out, and slitting them open, just let the stuff rip naked.

Lord! but it was a dandy sight, a dazzle of double eagles cascading like a river, and so swift that you couldn't pretend to count them! He seemed satisfied to go on like that, cutting one open after the other, till the suit case brimmed up solid. There was fifty-eight bags in all, and the Lord only knows how much in each; but, as I said, it took both his hands to lift a single one. I reckon I didn't know there was so much money in all the world, and it came over me afresh how fond I was of Old Dibs, and how good I was going to be to him.

When the last bag was emptied he thought he'd put back the suit case into one of the trunks, never recollecting that he might as well have tried to lift a locomotive. Then he laid hands on just the handle at one end, and he couldn't even shift it. You disremember how heavy gold is, seeing so little of it, and counting a hundred dollars a fortune. But he had there, considering the trunks weighed the usual amount, say about a hundred and fifty pounds each, and gold at nearly twenty dollars an ounce--well, the next day Tom worked it out to about two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

Think of it! With nothing between it and me but some chicken wire and an old gentleman in a dressing gown! It would have seemed a snap to some people, but I never made a dishonest dollar in my life--except in the way of trade, and then it was to natives (who water copra on you and square the difference); and he was in no more danger of harm than if it had been Lima beans.