Читать книгу Head Tide - Joseph Crosby Lincoln - Страница 4

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Helen Dodson, in the sitting room of the little house on the South Side road, heard the click of the latch as the gate opened. She rose from the rocker, put the library book she had been reading on the center table and, going into the little entry—it was not large enough to be called a hall—opened the door leading to the yard. This was the “side door” of course: Elisha Dodson would no more have dreamed of entering his house by the front door than he would of sitting in the best parlor in his everyday clothes.

Helen opened the side door. “Father,” she called, “is that you?”

There was no reply. The clump of ancient lilacs blocked the bend in the path and she had left the lamp on the table in the sitting room.

“Father,” she said again, peering out into the darkness, “it is you, isn’t it?”

“It’s me,” she heard him call. “Comin’, Nellie.”

“And high time, I should think. Do you realize it is half-past ten? You’ll get yourself talked about if you aren’t careful.”

Then she realized that her father was not alone; he was speaking once more, but this time not to her.

“Steady as you go, Mr. Cobb,” she heard him say. “Blacker’n a nigger’s pocket in amongst these bushes, that’s a fact. Right this way.”

She could see him now. He was holding back one of the lilac branches which had grown across the path. A moment later a second figure brushed by the branch and, carrying a traveling bag, approached the doorway. A stranger, that was plain, even though she could not as yet see his face.

“Nellie,” said Elisha, limping to the front, “I guess you’re surprised to see me bringin’ company home with me, but—well, I’ll tell you about it in a minute. Mr. Cobb, let me make you acquainted with my daughter. Nellie, this is Mr. Cobb; he’s goin’ to stay with us to-night.”

Helen was surprised, there was no doubt of that, but she said that she was glad to meet Mr. Cobb.

“Come in,” she said. “Father, don’t forget to shut the door.”

She led the way to the sitting room. Seen by the lamplight the stranger was a good-looking young fellow, with dark hair and eyes, an easy manner and an attractive smile.

“You are wondering what on earth I’m doing here at this hour, Miss Dodson,” he observed. “Of course you are. Well, I hardly know myself. Your father is responsible. I asked him how to get to the hotel and he said there wasn’t any.”

“And that’s so too,” put in Elisha. “I told him there was a boardin’ house a mile or so off but that it was shut up and gone to bed long ago. Couldn’t very well leave him hangin’ onto Cap’n Gideon’s gate, so I brought him here.... All right, ain’t it, Nellie?” anxiously.

There was but one thing to say, of course, and Helen said it. It was perfectly all right, no trouble at all. Nevertheless she was more than a little annoyed. A lifetime of experience had taught her that one could never be sure of what Elisha Dodson might do, except that it would probably be what no one else would do under similar circumstances. She made a hasty mental review of the condition of the larder and the spare bedroom.

“You see, ’twas this way, Nellie.” Mr. Dodson’s conscience was troubling him, and he hurried to explain. “Mr. Cobb, he’s a stranger in town, and he’s come all the way from out West—”

“Only from Cleveland,” interjected Cobb.

“That sounds pretty far to me. Anyhow, Nellie, the train went off and left him over to Bayport and he hired a livery stable rig to fetch him over here and then—”

“Wait a minute, Father. Don’t you think you and Mr. Cobb might as well sit down? It would make us all a little more comfortable.”

She sat and so did Elisha, but their visitor hesitated. His eyes had been busy, looking his young hostess over from head to foot, and the inspection seemed to embarrass him a trifle. One might have surmised that this calm, self-possessed, distinctly good-looking young woman was not precisely the sort of person he had expected Elisha Dodson’s daughter to be.

“Why now, see here,” he blurted. “Let’s get this straight. My shoving myself in this way is a confounded imposition, and I know it. Why don’t you pitch me out again, Miss Dodson? I would if I were you.”

He laughed as he said it and Helen laughed too. “I told you it was all right and it is,” she said. “Sit down a minute, please. I suppose you are tired and would like to go to bed, but Father seems to have something he wants to say first. What is it, Father?”

“I—why, I wanted to tell you how he and I came across each other, that’s all. You see—”

He went on to give Mr. Cobb’s explanation of his belated arrival at the Four Corners and of their meeting by the Bates driveway.

“So there ’twas,” he said, in conclusion. “No place to sleep and not a mouthful to eat since noontime. Sounded pretty lonesome to me, so I says: ‘You come right along, Mr. Cobb. We’ve got an extra room and as for eatin’—well, we’ll see what the neighbors have brought in.’ He didn’t want to do it, of course—”

“Strange,” interrupted the young man. “I’m odd that way, Miss Dodson. No, I didn’t want to do it, of course. All I wanted to do was to find that boarding house, or whatever it is. If your father had only—”

He paused, for Helen had risen from her chair. “We mustn’t waste time,” she said, “or your supper will be breakfast. Father, take Mr. Cobb’s bag to the spare room. Make sure there is soap in the dish and that the wash pitcher is full. Oh, yes, and that there are clean towels on the rack. Mr. Cobb, if you’ll go with him I’ll run out to the kitchen and see what sort of a picnic meal I can get together.”

“Now see here—please! I’m not hungry.”

“I don’t believe it. Go now, both of you.”

Elisha came hobbling to the kitchen a few minutes later. The teakettle was on the stove, and she was hurriedly setting a place for their guest at the corner of the pine table.

“Goin’ to feed him out here?” asked Dodson, doubtfully. “He don’t look to me like a fellow who’s used to eatin’ in the kitchen. Think we’re kind of funny folks, won’t he?”

She shrugged. “He ought to think himself lucky to be fed anywhere—in Wellmouth at eleven o’clock at night. Father, you—well, I think you must have been born without any faculty of time at all. I told you the other day, when you were three-quarters of an hour late for dinner, that this house ought to put up a sign ‘Meals at All Hours’... Oh, never mind, don’t bother me. I’m planning to make an omelet, if there are eggs enough. Mercy me, where is everything?”

Mr. Dodson ran his fingers through his thistle-top hair.

“I know I make you lots of trouble, Nellie,” he faltered, contritely. “I don’t mean to, honest.”

“Why, of course you do and of course you don’t mean to. There, there, dear, don’t look so distressed, I shall live through it. Whether he does or not”—with a jerk of her head in the direction of the sitting room—“will depend on what I put into this omelet. Where is he now?”

“Washin’ up. Anyhow that’s what he was gettin’ ready to do when I left him.”

“Let’s hope he is doing it yet, and not prowling around the house filling that bag of his with our spoons or anything else that takes his fancy. Who is he, anyway?”

“Why, I told you. His name is Cobb—Franklin Cobb.”

“Good gracious, I know that. At least I know he told you his name was Cobb and that he came from Cleveland. And you told me you found him looking in at Cap’n Gideon’s gate. What was he doin’ there, figuring on their spoons?”

“Why, the idea! He ain’t that kind.”

“How do you know he isn’t? I don’t believe you know a single thing about him—really.”

Elisha had been leaning against the table; now he stood erect. His tone was hurt and indignant.

“I know everything about him,” he proclaimed stoutly. “Certain I do. His name is Franklin Cobb and he’s Beriah Higham’s nephew. His mother was Beriah’s sister. She’s dead now, and he’s come into all Beriah’s property—every single thing, the Eagle and all.”

Helen, the mixing spoon in one hand and the frying pan in the other, swung about to face him.

“Father,” she cried, “what are you saying? Did he tell you that?”

“He didn’t need to tell me. Joel Dean was into the Eagle office this very night—about half-past seven ’twas when he came—and he stayed till ’most nine. He told me all about it. Course he didn’t know Cobb was in town, didn’t know where he was, hadn’t heard a word from the letter he wrote him. But—oh, and say, Nellie, he told me a lot more. Somethin’ you’ll hardly believe when you hear it. He told me—”

“Sshh!” Helen lifted a warning hand. Footsteps in the dining room warned them of their guest’s approach. Helen was too amazed and disturbed by the news she had just heard to greet him, but Elisha was brimming with nervous cordiality.

“Sit right down here, Mr. Cobb,” he urged, “here at the end of the table. Hope you don’t mind eating in the kitchen. We don’t usually do it, but ’twas the handiest place just now, so—”

Helen interrupted. “I imagine,” she said, briskly, “that Mr. Cobb isn’t so particular about where he eats as that he does eat pretty soon. There is bread and butter to begin with, Mr. Cobb, and I am hoping there may be an omelet, though goodness knows what kind of one. Father, look after him, will you, please?”

The tea was hot and the bread light and homemade. The omelet, when ready, was a success. Franklin Cobb had declared that he was not hungry, but he ate as if he were. As he ate Elisha watched him anxiously. Helen’s regard seemed to be a sort of appraising scrutiny. Happening to look up, he caught her eye.

“Of course you are wondering who in the deuce I am and what I’m doing in this neck of the woods,” he said, with a smile. “That’s it, isn’t it?”

She shook her head. “Father says you are Mr. Higham’s nephew. I was thinking about that. You see, we didn’t know he had any relations.”

“And I didn’t know I had an uncle, to say nothing of one who would remember me in his will. I don’t really believe the whole of it myself yet. Shan’t until I see this what’s-his-name—the lawyer fellow who telegraphed and wrote to me.”

“Judge Joel R. Dean,” prompted Elisha, solemnly.

“That’s it. All I could think of was ‘Sardine.’ Hope I don’t call him that by mistake.”

He chuckled. Mr. Dodson laughed, although he was obviously shocked. Helen’s smile was faint and somewhat vague. Her mind was busy trying to grasp this astonishing development. If what her father said was true—that this man was Beriah Higham’s sole heir—what might it mean to the Dodson family?

“No,” went on their guest, cheerfully, helping himself to a second section of the omelet, “I don’t believe it. Why should I? I remember hearing Mother speak of having—or having had—a brother with some ungodly name like Beriah, or Josiah, or Maria, something like that, but she never told me anything about him and I took it for granted he had been dead a long while. Mother died about four years ago and I went to Chicago where I had a job in a bank. It wasn’t much of a job and I hated the work, but it paid me a salary, such as it was, so I hung on hoping to find something I liked better. About a month ago the cashier and I had a little difference of opinion—he told me what sort of a bank clerk he thought I was and I told him what sort of a man I knew he was—and so—well, I resigned by ‘mutual consent’ as the Irishman said.”

He seemed to regard the loss of his position as a good joke. Neither of his hearers spoke, and he went on with his story.

He had hung about Chicago for a fortnight, trying to find some other opportunity, but business was bad there and he had no luck. So he returned to Cleveland, where he had friends and where he hoped for better success. Dean’s letter, which had been forwarded to Chicago, was reforwarded to him in the Ohio city. Its contents were a complete surprise to him.

“I didn’t answer the letter,” he said, “because it seemed to me that I should have to come on here anyhow, and I might as well come at once. As a matter of fact I was too excited to waste time in writing. I came and—well, here I am. Now you know as much about the affair as I do. More, I imagine, for you probably know what sort of property, and how much, this uncle of mine owned. I know nothing whatever.”

Helen drew a long breath. “It sounds like a fairy story to me,” she mused. “I have often wondered how it must feel to have some one leave you money and things in a will. How does it feel, Mr. Cobb?”

“I am too numb from the shock to feel much of anything yet. And I don’t dare count on it. More than likely, when the estate—if there is one—is settled and the debts paid I shall find that about all this long-lost uncle of mine left me are his kind regards.”

The prospect did not seem to trouble him greatly. Elisha gasped.

“Why, don’t you know—” he cried, but his daughter did not let him finish.

“Of course you haven’t made any plans yet?” she suggested. “You can’t, I suppose, until you know what Mr. Higham has left you.”

“Not a plan. What has he left me? Do you know?”

Again Mr. Dodson’s mouth opened and again Helen spoke first.

“Father hasn’t told you anything about—about anything?” she asked.

Elisha seized the opportunity. “How could I?” he protested. “Didn’t I promise the judge I wouldn’t tell a soul except you?”

“Oh, did you? When?”

“Why, just to-night. I told you he’d been into the office and—”

“Yes, yes, so you did. Well, if you promised you mustn’t tell.”

Franklin Cobb looked from one to the other.

“Getting more mysterious every minute,” he observed. “Look here, is there anything—anything really worth while, I mean?”

“It would seem worth while to Father and me. But you will see Judge Dean to-morrow and then you will know all about it.”

“You bet I’ll see him—and as soon as possible. Miss Dodson, your father didn’t say much, but he dropped a hint about some sort of business—printing, I believe it was—and—yes—a newspaper. Wasn’t that it, Mr. Dodson?”

Elisha looked guilty. “I—I didn’t know I said anything about the Eagle,” he faltered. “I didn’t mean to, but—but I thought you must know about that.”

“I don’t know anything. Oh well, don’t break your word to the Sardine. A printing business and a paper, eh? That sounds interesting.”

Helen had given her father a reproachful look.

“Father worked for Mr. Higham,” she said. “I’m sure he told you that, too.... Do you know anything about printing or running a paper, Mr. Cobb?”

“Not a thing.”

“Then—then, supposing they have been left to you, what will you do with them?”

“Eh? Sell the whole outfit, probably. That is, if I can find a customer. I wouldn’t know what to do with a printing press, but I do know what to do with money—live on it until I find another job, which may take some time.... Oh, well, we’ll know more to-morrow.”

He pushed back his chair and rose to his feet.

“There!” he exclaimed. “As they say in the books I’m a new man again. That was the best omelet I’ve eaten since Mother used to make them for me, Miss Dodson. You’ve saved my life and I’m more obliged to you and your father than I can tell you. Just now I’m not going to try. It’s high time you kind people were in bed. The word now is—good night.”

Elisha would have protested, but Helen, looking over their guest’s shoulder, shook her head.

“Father will go with you to your room,” she said. “You’re sure you have towels and soap and everything? Good night, Mr. Cobb. We have breakfast about half-past seven.”

When Elisha returned to the kitchen his eyes were shining.

“You heard him, Nellie?” he cried, exultantly. “You heard him say it? He’ll sell out quick as ever he can, and Joel and Cap’n Gideon and the rest are all set to buy. And I’m goin’ to be editor of the Eagle—the judge said so. I am!”

Helen put her hands on his shoulders and pushed him into a chair. “Now, Father,” she ordered, “stop running in circles, and tell me what the judge said. That is, if you can without breaking your promise.”

“Oh, he told me I could tell you. He said you was a smart girl. Yes, he did.”

“That was nice of him, although I don’t know how he knew.”

“Why, everybody knows it.”

“Hum! Then they’ve kept it to themselves. Now tell me.”

He told her, his voice cracking shrilly with excitement as he related the marvelous tale of Dean’s disclosures and confidences. When, at last, he finished, she bent over and kissed him.

“It sounds perfectly splendid,” she declared. “If it really proves to be as good as it sounds I shall feel like hugging them all, Cap’n Gideon and everybody.”

“Eh? Hug Gideon Bates? I’d like to see you or anybody try it!”

“Perhaps he would like it, too. I don’t believe he has been hugged for a long time—unless it was by Victoria when she wanted a new piano or something.... Yes, yes, Father, I am as happy as you are, only—”

“Only what? I don’t see any ‘only’ in it.”

“You wouldn’t. But we must remember that it hasn’t happened yet. Judge Dean’s people don’t own the Eagle and this Cobb man does. He says now that he wants to sell, but he hasn’t sold. So until he does we mustn’t count our chickens, must we?... Now you go straight to bed. I shall go, too, as soon as I finish these dishes. Run along. Yes, and don’t lie awake all night—or what’s left of the night—writing editorials.”

Next morning, after breakfast, their guest announced that he was off to see Dean without losing a minute. Elisha suggested that they walk up to the Corners together.

“Leave your valise right here,” he urged. “You can come back and get it any time. Nellie’ll be at home all day, and if she wasn’t you could get it just the same. Nobody ever locks doors around here, do they, Nellie?”

“Not as a usual thing, Father, but every one with common sense will lock them to-night. Remember, before you go to bed, to take off the front gate and bring it into the house. That is, unless you want to find it hung up in one of Cap’n Gideon’s silver leaf trees as you did last year.”

Her father whistled. “By gorry,” he exclaimed, “to-morrow is Fourth of July day; that’s so, ’tis. I’ve been so—so sort of worked up by what’s happened since yesterday that I forgot all about it. There’ll be doin’s around town this night, that’s a fact. They tell me there’s no less than three mackerel boats and one of the Blake coddin’ schooners in port down to the South Side and with that gang of wild Indians loose the night before the Fourth nothin’s safe. Yes, sir, Mr. Cobb, I spent half the forenoon huntin’ for our gate and when I found it in that tree I couldn’t get it without a ladder and almost every ladder at the Corners had been stole and burnt up in the bonfire. Well, boys’ll be boys, I presume likely.”

Helen sniffed. “Yes, and whisky will be whisky,” she observed. “Mix up a jug or two of whisky with a fishing crew ashore and you don’t need any matches for your bonfire, Mr. Cobb.”

When Dodson and his companion reached the Four Corners they saw a crowd of men and boys surrounding the rear entrance of Manasseh Eldredge’s store. This entrance was on the Bayport road and almost opposite the junction of the South Side road and the main road. Elisha suggested that they go across and see what was going on. They did so and Dodson hailed a stout man, with a perspiring and troubled countenance, who was rushing about shouting orders.

“What’s up, Manasseh?” he asked.

Mr. Eldredge turned petulantly. “Don’t bother me,” he snapped. “Oh, it’s you, ’Lish. We’re tryin’ to get them guns into my back room and it’s a healthy job. Cussed things weigh more’n a hundred pound apiece.... Easy there, Seth! Easy! Do you want to smash my steps all to thunder?”

He pushed through the crowd, roaring protests. Cobb, standing on tiptoe, could see over the shoulders of the onlookers.

“Why, they’re cannon, aren’t they?” he exclaimed, in surprise. “Two old cannon. What on earth—”

Elisha was busy questioning others in the crowd. Cobb pressed closer to the center of action. Each cannon—they were small ones, rusty, and, by their look, of ancient pattern—was slung in ropes which a half dozen husky young fellows had across their shoulders. The weight was considerable and the bearers moved slowly.

“What are they doing with those things?” he asked of a boy next him. The youngster looked up and grinned.

“Goin’ to lock ’em up in Manasseh’s back room till to-morrow mornin’,” he explained excitedly. “Ain’t goin’ to let the South Side gang cart ’em down there and fire ’em off same as they done last Fourth of July. No sir-eee, we’ll do the firin’ up here to the Corners this year, you bet you!”

Dodson had finished his questioning by this time, and as they walked together toward the Dean office, he offered hurried explanations. The two cannon, he said, were Wellmouth institutions, so to speak. They were very old, as old as the Revolutionary War, having come originally from a British frigate wrecked on the bars below East Wellmouth in 1778, or thereabouts. Brought ashore by the wreckers, they were presented to the town and, up to a year ago, had stood on crude mountings at each side of the little grass plot bordering the property of the First Meeting House around the corner on the Bayport road.

“It’s only last Fourth that the trouble started,” he explained. “You see, Mr. Cobb, there’s a whole lot of jealousy nowadays between the South Side and the Four Corners. Up to a few years ago there wasn’t any doubt that the Corners was the real head center of Wellmouth township. The town hall was here—it’s down yonder beyond the printin’ shop—and Cap’n Gideon Bates’s big place and the old First Meetin’ House and Judge Dean’s office and Manasseh’s store and the Eagle and—well, about everything that was any account. But, beginnin’ about the end of war time, the South Side has been growin’ and gettin’ more and more important. The wharves are down there and the fish boats come in there, and mackerelin’ and coddin’ have got to be big things in Wellmouth. There are some mighty prosperous firms at the South Side now: the Blakes—Abiathar Blake is a shrewd trader and well off, and his younger brother, Cap’n Carmi, is one of the smartest fishin’ skippers that ever hailed from this neighborhood. Then there’s the Rogerses and Sylvanus Oaks and Co., and one or two more. And four years ago there was a split in the Congregational society and the South Side part, most of it, pulled out and built a church of their own. That made feelin’, of course, and—”

“But about the cannon?” put in Cobb.

“I’m comin’ to them. Politics are mixed up in this jealousy business too. For a long spell the crowd that run things in the Republican party—there’s precious few Democrats nowadays—was Judge Dean and Manasseh Eldredge—the fellow I was talkin’ to a minute ago—and Cornelius Haven, the bank cashier, and Beriah Higham, your uncle, and a few like them, with Cap’n Gideon as a sort of head adviser, as you might say.”

Franklin Cobb grinned. The habitual tone of reverence in which his new acquaintance mentioned the Bates name had not escaped his notice.

“This Bates chap must be quite the cheese around here, I should imagine,” he said.

“Eh? Oh, he’s a big man, Cap’n Gideon is. Worth a million of money, they say; been to the State Legislature, got the finest home in the county and always doin’ things to help the town. Yes, yes; Cap’n Gideon is the most looked-up-to citizen we’ve got.

“I see.”

“Now about those cannon: it ain’t so much who is to fire ’em on the Fourth; that isn’t it, really. It’s what’s behind the whole thing. The South Siders, so the Corner folks think, are gettin’ too big for their boots. If they came and asked for the privilege of firin’ a salute down at their end of the town, they would probably get it. The truth is they don’t intend to ask. They figure they’re more important than the Corners nowadays, and they mean to have what they want without askin’. Last year a gang of Southers sneaked up here in the middle of the night, loaded those cannon onto a cart and hauled ’em away. When Manasseh and the Corners crowd went out in the mornin’ to get ready for the salute they heard ’em goin’ ‘Bang, bang’ down to the South Side. Then, of course, the committee in charge had to hitch up their cart and go after ’em. And how those Southers did laugh when they saw ’em comin’! That’s the yarn and that’s why Manasseh—he’s head of the Fourth committee—don’t intend to lose ’em this year.... Well, here’s Judge Dean’s place and here’s where you and I part company for a spell, Mr. Cobb. Hope when he tells you what’s comin’ to you it’ll prove better even than you expect.... Why—what’s that paper stuck up for?”

They were opposite the classic Grecian portals of Joel Dean’s office and the “paper” was a business card tacked, wrong side outward, on the closed door. They moved toward it together. It read: “Out. Back at 10 a.m. July 5.” and was signed “Joel R. Dean.”

Elisha Dodson whistled. He thumped the lawyer’s step with his cane. He was staring at the card with disappointment written large upon his face.

“If that ain’t a shame then I don’t know,” he groaned. “He’s gone over to spend the Fourth of July day with his niece’s folks at Ostable, I bet you. He pretty often does that on holidays. Sho, sho! Now what’ll you do, Mr. Cobb?”

His companion shrugged. “Wait for him to come back, I suppose,” he replied. “What else is there to do?”

“You could telegraph him, sayin’ you was here. Perhaps he’d come right back if you did.”

“Well, I shan’t. No use spoiling his outing. My fault for not letting him know I was coming. Too bad, though.”

“You—you won’t go away again?”

“Where could I go? No, I’ll spend the glorious Fourth in your—er—metropolis, Mr. Dodson. That is,” with a dubious glance up and down the main road where, except for the group at the Eldredge corner, not a soul save themselves was visible, “if you think I can stand the excitement.”

The sarcasm was not wasted. Elisha nodded, grimly. “You stick around until twelve o’clock to-night,” he said, “and you may find somethin’ to keep you awake. There was a Boston drummer down here last night before the Fourth and he didn’t sleep much, I shouldn’t wonder.... Well, I must be gettin’ over to work. Want to come along with me, Mr. Cobb?”

Cobb fell into step with him as they crossed the road. “What disturbed the Boston man’s rest?” he inquired. “Roosters crow too early?”

“I doubt if he paid much attention to roosters. He was down to the South Side—been to see a girl there, I understand—and a parcel of tough boys off the fish boats met him. They had a jug along—wasn’t much left in it by that time—and they asked him to have a drink.”

“Generous.”

“Um-hm, seems so. Trouble was he didn’t appreciate the generosity and said no. So, judgin’ he liked water better, they pumped the horse-trough full and set him in it.”

“Whew! That sounds more chilling than exciting.”

“Little of both, I guess likely. They said they didn’t want to spoil his nice clothes, so they undressed him before they put him in the trough. When they left, they took his clothes with ’em. No, no, they didn’t steal ’em, they hung ’em on a scarecrow in the minister’s back garden.”

“Hmph! I hope the drummer found them.”

“He did, along about daylight. So did the minister’s old maid sister; they both found ’em at the same time. That’s the way the story goes, but there’s nobody to swear to it. The drummer left town on the first train, and the minister’s sister don’t seem to care to talk on the subject.... Here we are, Mr. Cobb. Come in, will you?”

They were standing before the late B. Higham’s place of business. Franklin Cobb looked at the little building, at the sign above the door, and the specimens of printing hung in the windows. Then he followed his companion inside. Elisha did the honors. He proudly displayed the two presses, the type cases, the working paraphernalia.

“Pretty well found shop, of its size, don’t you think?” he asked hopefully.

Cobb nodded. “Shouldn’t wonder,” he agreed, “if you know what it’s all about. What do you keep in here?”

He indicated the little editorial sanctum, the door of which was open. Mr. Dodson waxed eloquent.

“Here’s where we turn out the Wellmouth Eagle,” he announced, with pride. “This was where Mr. Higham—your uncle—spent the heft of his time. This was his private room, when he wrote editorials and the like of that. It’s seemed odd enough, this past week or so, not to see him sittin’ at that desk.”

The young man glanced about the little room. He stepped to the window and looked out at the cemetery.

“Bright prospect,” he observed.

Elisha was at his elbow. “That’s your uncle’s grave over yonder,” he said, pointing.

“Indeed?” Then, as the thought occurred to him, “I suppose the paper goes on even though he—er—doesn’t? Who is carrying the load?”

“Eh?... Why—well, I suppose you might say I am. You’re right, Mr. Cobb; the Eagle has to be out on time. That’s one thing about a paper—it can’t stop. Folks that pay their two dollars a year expect it to keep goin’—and it has to. I’ve been doin’ my best. Oh, that reminds me,” he added; “last night I wrote a—er—sort of memorial piece about Mr. Higham to go on the editorial page. Set in a mournin’ frame, ’twill be, you understand. Maybe you’d like to read it, he havin’ been your uncle. So I’d like to know if you think it’s all right,” anxiously.

Franklin Cobb took the sheets of manuscript and regarded them doubtfully.

“Why, as far as that goes, I’m sure it is all right if you did it, Mr. Dodson. You knew my uncle well and I never knew him at all.... Oh well, I’ll read it, if you wish. Glad to, of course.”

“That’s fine. Sit right down. Oh, and I’ll get you some copies of the Eagle. Maybe you’d like to look them over, too.”

He went out and tiptoed in a moment later to lay the copies of the Eagle on the desk. Cobb read the tribute, at first with a sort of condescending amusement, and then with a curious feeling—almost of respect. This uncle of his must have been a good deal of a personage in the community and his country weekly a very real influence, not only in Wellmouth but in the towns adjacent. Dodson’s flowing sentences and spasms of “fine writing” were funny, but behind the stilted phrasing was sincerity, there was no doubt of that. A man could live a worth while life even in a place like this, apparently; yes, and find it interesting—if he were built that way.

He took up a copy of the Eagle and began to read that. The “local jottings” from the towns and villages and hamlets were full of unconscious humor, and he chuckled over them. Obviously, everybody knew everybody else in these places and nothing was too inconsequential to miss being recorded. And the way they were recorded! An East Harniss man did not merely whitewash his fence, he “treated it to a fresh coat of kalsomine.” When Mrs. Sarah Tidditt of Bayport spent a Sunday with her married daughter at Wellmouth South Side she “sojourned” there. Mr. Theophilus Snow was “our esteemed fellow townsman” when the Trumet correspondent wrote of his having bought a cow of Philander Bearse, who was “our flourishing undertaker and paper hanger.” The young man could not help wondering if these people really were as complimentary to one another in private life as they seemed to be in the public print.

The news from Wellmouth South Side interested him particularly. This, apparently, was, as his new acquaintance, Dodson, had said, a growing and pushing place. The record of schooners unloading fish there, or departing for the mackerel grounds or the Banks for more fish, was a long one. And building was going on. “Blake Brothers are adding a new shed to the upper end of their wharf.” Captain Carmi Blake was at home again. His vessel, the Flyaway, had made another record trip. “The South Side is proud of Captain Carmi and all the men alongshore are eager to sail with him.”

Then and there Franklin Cobb made up his mind to spend a part of his day of waiting at the South Side. He believed he would find the experience novel and interesting.

The Four Corners items were much more florid and dignified in their wording.

Miss Victoria Bates is at home from the Middleboro Academy on her summer vacation. The Four Corners welcomes Miss Bates as its most charming daughter.

Captain Gideon Bates has purchased a new dogcart. Miss Victoria Bates’s appearance in it behind her dashing roan created a sensation on our streets.

Miss Victoria Bates is, so we understand, planning to spend the Fourth and a day or two following with her friend and classmate, Miss Maisie Rogers, who is at home again with her father, Captain Zenas Rogers, at his residence on the main road at the South Side.

Captain Gideon Bates expresses himself as greatly interested in the district choice for State congressman. This township will not, of course, nominate its representative until a year from this fall, but Captain Bates feels that it is not too early for the town to be considering its nominee.

Franklin Cobb decided that Wellmouth Four Corners should have been named “Batesville.” Doubtless there were other well-known citizens as Dodson had said, but, if so, they were only “seconds.”

When a half-hour later he finished his reading and came out of the editorial office to the print shop, he found Mr. Dodson busy setting type at one of the cases. In the outer office a long-legged, carroty-haired youth was making a pretense of sweeping and dusting. Elisha abandoned his typesetting long enough to introduce this individual.

“Mr. Cobb,” he said, “let me make you acquainted with Ben Cahoon. His name’s Benjamin Harrison, but we generally call him ‘Tip,’ short for ‘Tippecanoe.’ ”

“ ‘Tippecanoe and Tyler too,’ ” recited Cahoon, with a broad grin. “Yes sir, that’s me. Pleased to meet you, Mr. Cobb. Any relation to Ezra Cobb’s folks over to Bayport?”

“Sorry, but if I am I don’t know it.”

“Thought maybe you might be. I know them Cobbs first rate. Been to dances with Letitia Cobb a whole lot of times. ‘Lettie J.’ most folks call her. She’s quite a girl, Lettie J. is. Ezra’s her old man. You ain’t no relation then?”

“Tip is a great fellow for the girls,” was Elisha’s comment. “You might not think it to look at him, but he is.”

“My red hair’s what gets ’em, I guess likely,” observed Tip with cheerful candor. “That and my dancin’. I can shake a mean leg, if I do say it. Like dancin’, do you, Mr. Cobb? I go to about every dance there is around here. Yes sir, I—”

Dodson interrupted. “There, there,” he broke in. “You dance that broom a little livelier if you cal’late to get this place cleaned up before ten o’clock.... Oh, goin’ out, are you, Mr. Cobb?”

Franklin Cobb announced his intention of going for a walk. “I may go as far as the—what do you call it?—the South Side,” he added, “i have been reading the Eagle and that end of your town has got me interested, Mr. Dodson.”

Tip Cahoon snorted.

“Don’t waste your time,” he counseled scornfully. “Nothin’ down to the South Side but fish scales. You hang around up here to the Corners, and you’re liable to see somethin’. Say, ’Lish, I had a good look at that new dogcart of Victoria’s yesterday. That’s a wagon. Cost money, that did; I wisht I was the lucky dog to ride in it.”

“You’ll be back to the house by noontime, won’t you, Mr. Cobb?” was the Dodson query. “Nellie’s expectin’ you.”

Cobb shook his head. “Please tell her not to wait dinner for me. I’ll be back some time before the afternoon is over; that is, unless your South Side friends treat me as they did the Boston drummer. See you later.”

He walked out of the shop and the building. Cahoon watched him from the front windows.

“He’s a city fellow, ain’t he, ’Lish?” he asked. “Can always tell ’em, can’t you? Swing themselves along as if they owned about everything worth while in all creation. They don’t though,” rebelliously.

Elisha Dodson sighed. “This one does,” he muttered, under his breath. Then, ordering his assistant to stop talking and get to sweeping, he limped back to the editorial office.