Читать книгу Captain Pott's Minister - Francis L. Cooper - Страница 3

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The sound of voices suddenly arrested Captain Pott’s fork in mid-air, and the morsel of untasted salt-mackerel dangled uncertainly from the points of the dingy tines as he swung about to face the open door. Fork and mackerel fell to the floor as the seaman abruptly rose and stalked outside. The stern features of the rugged old face sagged with astonishment as he blinked at the small army of men swarming over his littered yard.

“’Mornin’, Cap’n,” cheerily called Hank Simpson, the village storekeeper, as he approached the irate man on the stoop.

Captain Pott was so completely jarred out of his usual complacency that for once he had nothing to say. He forgot even to swear. As the significance of the movements of the intruders suddenly dawned upon him he 10 mutely glared at Hank from beneath blackened and swollen eyelids.

“The women-folks said that you’d be wantin’ to make your place look peart, bein’ as the new minister is goin’ to stay here with you,” explained Hank, who was apparently the leader of the group. “When we men-folks heard that they was goin’ to clean up on the inside we thought it wouldn’t be no more than neighborly for us to pitch in and give you a hand with the outside.”

It was evident that the Captain did not relish the explanation, for he bristled with dangerous hostility as he took a step forward. But before he could refer Hank Simpson and his entire male army to a certain warm climate where he thought they might go with mutual advantage to himself and them, the morning breeze carried within earshot another note, higher in the scale, but unmistakable in significance. Silently the old man stood and dumbly watched a procession of petticoats march up to his gate and turn into the cinder path.

The female army took possession of the 11 house even as the men had taken possession of the yard, and he who had commanded mutinous crews on the briny deep fled and took refuge in the shade of a spreading elm near the well. Mrs. Eadie Beaver, the Captain’s next-door neighbor, approached him, requested that he pitch in and help, and then as quickly beat a retreat before the fierce glare. Hank Simpson once asked where they might burn the accumulated trash. The answer was unsatisfactory though forceful. Hank declared, “Them instructions is wuth a heap, Cap’n, but unless you’ve got a trap-door to them parts hereabout, I reckon we’ll have to do the crematin’ some other way.”

All the shutters on the old house were thrown wide open, and sunshine and air were allowed to penetrate corners where dust and cobwebs had held undisputed sway for years. Through the open windows came the sound of tack-hammer and puller, the moving of tables, sideboards, and chairs, and of every other article of furniture that was not actually built into the walls. From his place beneath the elm the Captain heard all these sounds, and 12 watched his old pieces being piled in a confused mass about the front yard. He was smoking incessantly, and swearing no less frequently.

From up the road came the sharp thud of beating hoofs. As horse and rider came into view he deliberately turned in the opposite direction. At the gate the rider drew rein and swung lithely to the ground. Many young admirers gathered quickly about the hitching-post, but the girl was too swift for them. With a friendly nod and smile she tossed her reins to a bashful youngster, and tripped up the path to where the seaman was standing.

The daughter of the senior Elder of the Little River church had always been fond of Captain Pott. When but an infant she had looked up into the clear blue eyes, adoration and love in her own. During childhood she had sat contentedly on his knee, or on a stool at his feet, listening with rapt interest to his stories of adventure by land and sea. The Captain had never been able to spin the wild yarns commonly known to be his habit when 13 Elizabeth Fox was his only audience. This was not due to any fear that she would have detected fraud in his impossible tales, but to the fact that he could not lie when the gaze of her big blue eyes was fastened on him.

To-day she edged near and waited for recognition. Locks of her fair hair, shaken loose by her ride, went straying bewitchingly over her face and forehead. The smile in her eyes crept down to the corners of her mouth as she sought the averted face above her. But all she could glimpse were violent motions of one ragged point of his moustache as it kept imperfect time with the unseen end which was being viciously chewed.

At length, the irresistible little attraction at his side proved too strong for the Captain’s stubbornness, and he looked down into her big blue eyes. At sight of his own blackened and swollen lids Elizabeth uttered a sharp cry. She took the roughened hand in hers and gave it a gentle squeeze. But her deep concern was quickly followed by a ripple of laughter. Hers was a laugh that was as good to see as to hear. The Captain smiled a wholly unintentional 14 smile and returned the pressure of her hand.

“Dear me, Uncle Josiah!” she exclaimed. “You look so like a terrible old storm-cloud! And those awful eyes! Where on earth did you get them?”

“Cal’late I feel a heap sight worse than I look, Beth. That set of females–––”

“But your black eyes!” she interrupted. “Who made them like that? Has some one been fighting you?”

“A feller handed ’em out to me last night, and I didn’t happen to be in a position to refuse ’em,” he replied, his grisly weather-browned features lighting up with a wry smile.

“Who dared strike you like that!”

“Now, don’t you worry, Beth. It ain’t as bad as it looks. You see, I was on my way over from the station last night from the late city train. When I got to the top of the hill I sot down for a spell, and while I was thinking, I looked down on my place. I see a light in the pantry window flicker up, die down, and then settle into a steady glow. I cal’lated it 15 must be pirates aboard the old craft, so I tore down the hill like blazes and busted into the house. Something struck me like a ton of brick, and I went down. I never see so many stars in all my life. The next thing I heard was a voice asking if I was hurt, and saying, ‘You’ll pardon me, sir.’” He chuckled with his first sign of mirth. “When I got my senses back there was a big feller sitting on me, nearly choking off my wind. He brung out one of them lightning-bug flashlights and turned it full on me, and then shouted like a maniac, ‘Why, it’s Cap’n Pott!’ ‘That’s me, but who in hell be you?’ I’m telling you just as I said it. He told me his name was Mack McGowan. Well, I was real glad to see him till he told me he was the new preacher and was going to live with me. Eadie Beaver had put him up in my house a week ago. I was mad as hops when he told me that, and I was going to throw him out, but,”––again he chuckled,––“well, I didn’t.”

“You thought caution was the better part of valor, is that it?” questioned Elizabeth.

“Something like that, Beth. I cal’late 16 we’d best say nothing to a soul about this. There’d be some who wouldn’t understand the details of the transaction. It was sort of confidential, as you might say, and there’d be them who’d blame Mr. McGowan for what he wa’n’t exactly responsible for.”

“Oh! Can’t I tell it? It’s really too good to keep. And then,” she added seriously, “people might think you have been really fighting. Don’t you think it would be best to tell what actually happened?”

“Mighty little any of them would care how I got my shine. But I cal’late it would be best for the parson if we’d keep it quiet.”

“Very well, Uncle Josiah. He is really going to live with you, isn’t he?”

“Don’t that look like it?” he asked, pointing his pipe-stem toward the house.

“But that is for you, too.”

“For me? You’d see that set of females getting down on their prayer-bones for an old sinner like me, except to ask God A’mighty to strike me dead. I ain’t that popular, not yet.”

“Captain Pott, I don’t like that one bit! I 17 canceled all my engagements in the city when Father told me the other day what the ladies of the church were planning to do for you. I did it just to help you, and now–––”

“There, there, Beth.” The old man reached out and touched her arm. “Excuse me, Beth. I feel like a cantankerous old sore-headed bear this morning. Of course, you come home to help me. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

“They mean well, too,” she loyally defended her neighbors.

“It was awful nice of you,” he replied, ignoring her reference to those at work in the house. “It’s worth it to put up with that whole pack inside just to have you come.”

“There, now, I have my good old Uncle back again.” She had always called him Uncle. “But tell me, why do you feel so badly?”

“About them in there?” He jerked his thumb toward the house.

“No-o. I think I can understand your feelings about them. I feel the same way sometimes. If I were the minister it would 18 take all of my religion during the week so I’d have nothing to preach on Sunday. But, there! Father must never hear of my saying that.”

“He ain’t likely to hear it from me.”

“Have you quarreled with Father again?” She stared apprehensively.

Denial sprang to the Captain’s lips, but when he looked into her eyes and saw there the expression of eagerness, he turned away.

“You have!” she averred. “I thought so! And after Father was so kind as to let you have the money to repair and paint your house!”

“Beth, we ain’t exactly quarreled. Leastwise, he ain’t,” he finished lamely.

“Uncle Josiah, why will you and Father never understand each other? Father is so kind and good, and so are you, and yet you are never able to agree. Why is it?” she implored.

“Too much alike, I cal’late. But honest, Beth, I ain’t got nothing particular against your father, and if I had I’d sink my feelings to Davy’s locker for your sake. The trouble 19 is, I’ve been expecting too much, and I ain’t got any right to ask your father to put himself out for an old hulk like me.”

“What sheer nonsense! I’ve half a mind to scold you. Of course, Father is willing to put himself out for you. Only this morning he said he would do all in his power to get a ship for you to command.”

“He’s said something like that to me, too, several times.”

“Then he’ll do it, if you will only be patient. Father always keeps his word.”

“You ain’t seen the new parson yet, have you?” asked the seaman, anxious to change a dangerous subject.

“How could I, when I’ve just reached home? Father tells me he is a real Prince Charming,” she finished, with a wicked little laugh.

“Humph!”

“Is he, really, Uncle Josiah?”

“He ain’t so bad on looks, if that’s what you’re driving at.”

“Father says he must be very strong, too.”

“I cal’late he ain’t lacking on that p’int, 20 neither,” agreed the Captain, blinking his swollen eyelids.

Elizabeth laughed heartily.

“Oh! By the way, what did you and your handsome minister do to Father last night?”

“Is your pa ailing, too?”

“He says he is quite lame, and when I asked him what the matter was, he only smiled, and told me to find out from you. Did your minister take him for a burglar, too?”

“Is that all your father said about it?”

“Yes, except that it was his own fault.”

Captain Pott chuckled. “I feared he wa’n’t going to see it that way last night. Eadie Beaver put the parson in here while I was in the city on a special trip. She came over the day I left last week, and said it would be real nice if he could live with me and eat with her. I told her I’d see about shipping a parson in my house, meaning I’d have nothing to do with him. Well, she went ahead and bunked him here, thinking I’d meant it was all right. It ’pears she done it against your father’s ideas, too. So he come over last night and tried to get Mr. McGowan to move out. 21 That made me madder than what Eadie had done, so I asked him right then if he was willing to stay. He said he was. Your pa got sore, and started real dignified to go home. The candle that Mr. McGowan had been using was on the floor, and your pa’s heel hit it. His cane went up and he went down. His high hat took a swim in a bucket of soapy water that the parson had been using to swab decks with.”

“Father is so very dignified! It must have been quite funny,” she commented, between paroxysms of laughter. “I wish I could have seen him!”

“’Twas a mite funny. I fished his beaver out the pail, and he made off holding it away from him like it was p’ison.”

Sudden seriousness on the part of the girl caused the Captain to look in the direction of her gaze. A tall young man had emerged from the back door of the house, pail in hand. He came hurriedly toward the well.

“That’s him,” confirmed the seaman in answer to a look from Elizabeth.

“He? A minister?”

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“You see now why I wa’n’t strong enough to throw him out, don’t you? I cal’late Eadie Beaver would say the Lord took my strength away, but the Lord don’t need to give that feller a hand. He’s a hull host to himself.”

“He doesn’t look in the least like one,” declared Elizabeth.

“He doesn’t? Why, his arm is as big–––”

“No, no! I mean he doesn’t look like a minister.”

“He ain’t like none I ever see. He used to ship with me during the summer months when he was in school, and he’s man clean to the ground. I can’t see why in tarnation a big feller like him wants to take up such a sissy’s job of piloting a lot of women to heaven.”

“But it isn’t that kind of work, unless one makes it such,” she defended.

Mr. McGowan came to a halt on the opposite edge of the well-curbing. It was very unladylike, and Elizabeth knew it, but in spite of herself she continued to stare.

“Let me interduce you,” suggested the Captain.

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“Thank you, I’d better run along and help those in the house.”

But she failed to suit the action to the word, and for the simple reason that the gaze of two perfectly normal young people became normally entangled. At length, a flood of color crept slowly into the girl’s cheeks, and she smiled.

“I––I beg your pardon for–––” began the minister.

“Here, young feller,” cut in the Captain as Mr. McGowan turned away, “I want to interduce you to my best friend, Miss Elizabeth Fox. This here is the new minister, Beth, Mack McGowan.”

Elizabeth cordially extended her hand. “I’ve been hearing very interesting stories about your prowess, Mr. McGowan.”

“I trust they are true.”

“Indeed, they are. Captain Pott told me.”

“I did make quite an impression on him,” replied Mr. McGowan as he looked at the seaman’s swollen eyelids. “I fear you’ve heard prejudiced accounts of me.”

“I don’t like them that way one bit,” 24 laughed Elizabeth, “even if a clergyman did do it.”

“See here! I ain’t going to stand this insinuating any longer,” interposed the Captain, his good humor fully restored. “I cal’late they might want a hand to help swab decks, so I’ll be going.”

“But, Uncle Josiah,–––”

“I know, Beth. I’ve been unpleasant, but being as you have come from the city to help me clean up the old craft, I’d otter show my appreciation by bossing the crew.”

He seized the pail from the not unwilling minister, filled it from the well-bucket, and went to the kitchen to report for duty.

“Do you think you’ll like Little River well enough to wish to remain?” asked Elizabeth.

“Yes, I think I shall. Mr. Simpson has been telling me about your brother, and about his far-sightedness in organizing the Athletic Club.”

“Did Mr. Simpson tell you how the club came to be formed in the first place?”

“No, but I think it a splendid idea. I hope the boys will let me be one of them.”

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She eyed him curiously. “Father sees no good in the organization. I do. Most of the boys are Harold’s friends,––Harold is my brother,––but there are some who are not friendly to any one except the Innkeeper. I think you ought to know that the decent ones were one time in the Sunday school, but because some of your church members would not try to understand them, they were forced to go to the Inn to set up their gymnasium.”

“Isn’t the Inn as good a place as any?”

“I prefer not to say. You’ll doubtless find that out for yourself.”

“That is one thing I intend to find out. I’ve an invitation to visit the rooms.”

“Indeed, so soon? And do you really mean to go?”

“Certainly. Why not?”

“I suppose there is no reason why you should not. But–––” she paused.

“I’ve heard that sort of statement several times to-day, and invariably with the little ‘but’ at the end. I’m curious to know why my presence at the Inn will cause any disturbance. Is that the inference?”

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“Other ministers have tried to get hold of the boys, but they went at it wrong, and failed,” she said.

“I’ll try to go at the matter from the right end,” he replied, smiling.

“Will you go if you find yourself opposed?”

“I think I can interest the boys sufficiently to overcome any opposition from the Innkeeper, if that is what you mean.”

“What if the opposition comes from other sources?”

“From the members of the church?”

“Yes.”

“Why should they interfere with me?”

“But suppose they do?”

“I’ll go, anyway,” he answered decidedly.

“I’m glad to hear you say that, and I trust you will be able to help the members of the club,” she said quietly. “But, there! I really must be going. The ladies will think I have deserted them.”

Elizabeth smiled, and the minister followed the smile down from her eyes to the corners of her mouth. He made the mental observation 27 that he had never seen a more beautiful face. As she ran lightly up the path, he watched her, unmindful of several pairs of observing eyes focused knowingly in his direction.

When the day was over, and the furniture restored where the greater part belonged, the “Cleaning Bee” gradually broke up. Captain Pott declared to Elizabeth: “It wa’n’t half so bad a day as I cal’lated it would be, and it’s many a year since the old craft has looked so neat and togged up.”

That evening the Captain sat on his back doorstep, smoking his pipe, and thinking. He thought about the transformation wrought by the hand of women inside the house. He heaved a sigh, and thought of Clemmie Pipkin. If she were only able to forget all the past and consent to his oft-repeated proposal, but–––He had thought that all out before, and had brought all his persuasive powers against the citadel of her heart, but to no avail. A new light dawned upon him. Perhaps–––

Mr. McGowan came round the corner of the house. The Captain rose to meet him.

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“Mack, how’d you like to go out to the Jennie P. with me? That’s the name of my power-boat out there in the harbor. I thought it might be sort of restful to take a little cruise after this house-cleaning typhoon.”

“That’s a splendid idea, Cap’n. It will seem like old times to get aboard a vessel with you, though it is only a power-boat.”

“And, Mack, if there’s any time I can step in and help you pilot the salvation craft you’ve signed up with, just you let me know. It ain’t likely I’ll be much good to you, but–––”

The two men gripped hands. Little did they know that night as they peacefully sailed round the inlet just what the future was to demand in the way of a fulfilment of that promise.

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