Cape Cod Stories Part 27

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Stop your foolishing," he says. "I mean I've got a millionaire. He's coming to-night, too. One of the biggest big-bugs there is in New York.

Ah, ha! what did I tell you?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Van Wedderburn," says I. "The New York millionaire one."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And I understood it less and less as the days went by. If she'd been Maizie Bounderby, with two lines in each hand and one in her teeth, she couldn't have done more to hook that old stock-broker. She cooked little special dishes for his dyspepsy to play with, and set with him on the piazza evenings, and laughed at his jokes, and the land knows what.

Inside of a fortni't he was a gone goose, which wa'n't surprising--every other man being in the same fix--but 'TWAS surprising to see her helping the goneness along. All hands was watching the game, of course, and it pretty nigh started a mutiny at the Old Home. The Bounderbys packed up and lit out in ten days, and none of the other women would speak to Mabel. They didn't blame poor Mr. Van, you understand. 'Twas all her--"low, designing thing!"

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

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

I guess I fell asleep, and what woke me was somebody speaking close by.

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

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

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

"No," says she, more nervous than ever, and shaky, too, but decided.

"No! Oh, NO! It's all my fault. I wanted you to like me; I wanted you to like me very much. But not this way. I'm--I'm--so sorry. Please forgive me."

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

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

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

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

"That man you wrote me about. I've come down here to interview him.

Confound him! Who is he?"

"Oh, it's all right now," says I. "There was an old rooster from New York who was acting too skittish to suit me, but I guess it's all off.

His being a millionaire and a stock-jobber was what scart me fust along.

He's a hundred years old or so; name of Van Wedderburn."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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