Captain Pott's Minister Part 25

"No. Leastwise he wa'n't when I pa.s.sed the time of night or early morning with him on my way to bed."

"Are you sick, Josiah?"

"What I got might be called that, Clemmie. I'm sick of the hull d.a.m.n round of life," he said, despondently.

"Josiah Pott! How you do talk! What do you mean by it, anyhow?"

"Purty much as I say. I'm always bungling things of late. I--well----"

"Now, you set down in that chair, and stop staring at me for all the world like an old wood-owl, 'most scaring the wits out of me. One would think you'd gone clean out of your head. I never heard you talk so in all my born days. If you ain't sick, you're in a heap of trouble. Now, do as I tell you and set down. Tell me what's wrong, that is if that's what you come down for."

"That's why I come down, Clemmie," he said, slouching into one of the kitchen chairs. "I heerd you come down-stairs, and I just had to follow.

Fust of all, I want to tell you how bad I feel about them things I said yesterday morning that hurt your feelings so."

"For the lan' sakes! Be that what's ailing you? I thought it was something that amounted to something," she declared, the color rising into her faded cheeks.

"That does amount to something. It means a lot to me. That ain't all, but I wanted to get it off my chest fust. I was never intending less to hurt n.o.body than when I said that to you. I thought 'twould cheer you and Mack up a little; you was both looking a mite blue. You're a good woman, Clemmie, and any man that'd insult you would have me to settle with purty tolerable quick. You know how much I think of you."

"Be you beginning to propose again?" she asked, her arms akimbo. "If that's what's ailing you, and you're asking my pardon just to get ready to ask me----"

"Don't get mad, Clemmie. No, I ain't going to get down on my old prayer-bones, they're a mite too squeaky, though I'd be willing enough to do it if I thought it would do any good. I ain't going to pester you any more about that. You know your mind, and it ain't right for me to be disturbing it at my time of life."

"Then, Josiah, if you ain't love-sick, what is it?"

"Maybe that's a part of what's ailing me. But what I want you to say this morning is that you ain't got nothing against me for what I said yesterday about you taking to sea in my dory."

"Josiah, that was awful foolish in me. You'd best forgive me, too, for the way I acted."

"Thanks, Clemmie. You've sartinly done me many a good turn, and it would be a wonder if I wa'n't in love with you. You've always been mighty good and kind to me. But, there, don't you get excited again, I ain't going to say nothing more about it."

"Tell me about your trouble, Josiah."

The old seaman pulled hard at the ends of his ragged moustache, and his voice grew husky. "I felt just like I had to tell somebody. I was going to tell Mack last night when I see a light in his study, but when I went in I see he had all he could tote, so I just went on up to my room without telling him.... You know I've been out of a job for quite a spell."

"It has been long for you," nodded Miss Pipkin as she drew another chair opposite. "But you've got the church to look after."

"That ain't my trade, and it comes hard. I feel all the time like I'd clumb onto the wrong deck. I'd hoped to get a ship afore now. Jim promised me one, and----"

"Do you mean you've been expecting to get a ship through Jim Fox? Why, Josiah Pott! He'd not give you a splinter to hang on if you was drowning. Depending on him! Pooh! I thought you had more sense than that."

"But I ain't. I'm just what I've told you afore, an old fool. I cal'late I know how you feel about Jim. I'd always felt that way, too, till he come honeying round me this spring. You called me once an old fool with good intentions. I cal'late you ain't far off in your soundings."

"I never said that!" she rejoined. "Anyhow, I didn't mean it like that."

"You don't need to excuse what you said. It's G.o.d's truth. That's exactly what I be."

"You ain't, neither, and I don't see why you want to talk that way. What I don't see, neither, is why you want to go hanging round, waiting for that man to give you a ship. There's plenty of others that would be glad to get you."

"I ain't sartin 'bout that last p'int. You see, I ain't so young no more. I'm getting up in years, and ship-owners ain't hiring none but young men."

"Nonsense! There you go again. As long as you think and talk like Methuselah there ain't no owner going to take a chance on you for fear you'd forget the name of the port he'd ordered you to. You get that idea out of your head along with the notion that Jim Fox is going to help you, and you'll get a ship. The very best there is afloat, too."

"It's mighty kind of you to say that, Clemmie. I cal'late the notion about Jim is purty well shook out. That's one thing I wanted to talk to you about. You know the old place here had been sort of run down for a good many year. I'd always held to the idea that some day I'd come back here after I'd got rich, remodel the home, and get the best woman in all the world to ship side by side with me as best mate. I've told you all that afore, many the time, Clemmie."

Miss Pipkin barely nodded. The suggestion of moisture gathered in her eyes as she gazed at the tragic face before her.

"Well, I'm back, and it looks like it was for good and all, but I ain't got no money, and I don't see no way to get any unless I rob somebody.

And the law won't let me do that. The trouble is that I'm up to my gunwales in debt."

"In debt!" To Miss Pipkin's mind there was no greater calamity in the world than to be in debt. She, too, had suffered a like fate many years ago.

"Yes. In bad, too. Jim come up to my house last spring just afore the minister took up his new quarters here, and he says to me: 'Here's some money to repair your place with. There'll be no interest on it. It's because of my civic pride in the affairs of Little River that I make you this liberal offer.' Well, it did look too good to be true, but I couldn't see nothing wrong, and he promised me on his word to see that I got a ship, the very next one his company was to send out. I ain't much up on them legal papers. I ain't had nothing to do with any kind of papers for years 'cepting owners' orders. I took his word for 'em being straight. I wouldn't have took a cent of the money if them papers had been straight as the Bible, but he promised me so fair and square to place me that I fell for him hard. You know he's one of the owners of the Atlantic Coastwise Trading Company. Well, I went right down to the city next day, and for several days I hung round. Then, they told me another feller got in ahead of me. When I was going out I see Jim in one of them little gla.s.s rooms talking earnest-like to some of his partners, and I heerd him speak my name. I knew right off that there was something up the mizzenmast. I come home, and waited. It was then I found Mack in the house. Mrs. Beaver put him in here while I was away. I also found the painters all over the place. I knew right off that Jim had me on the hip, but I couldn't make out what his game was. Yesterday the thing come tumbling down on my head; a lawyer brought it. Them papers I signed up has turned out to be a mortgage on my old home."

Miss Pipkin gasped. "A mortgage and a lawyer was here to see you yesterday?"

"They sure was. One of 'em brung the other, and I had to meet 'em both alone. They seemed real glad to see me, but I wa'n't none too friendly with either of 'em."

"Josiah, stop your joking. You say there was a lawyer here to see you, and he brought a mortgage on your place?"

The old man looked away and cleared his throat. "The feller come from the city. He showed me how them papers called for a settlement afore the fust of November. I ain't got a chance in the hull world to get hold of any money afore then. He said something about a foreclosure, too, and he said that meant I was to lose my place. He see how hard I took it, and was real kind. He said he'd come all the way from the city just to let me know."

"Kind! Pooh! You'd better have showed him the door like you told me you did Harry Beaver."

"It wa'n't his fault, Clemmie. He was real sorry. He was just doing his duty. He offered to buy the place after I'd showed him about. What he said he'd give wa'n't what it's wuth by a heap, but it would pay Jim off and leave me a mite."

"Offered to buy it, did he? Well, you didn't tell him you'd sell, did you?"

"Not for sartin, I didn't. I told him I'd think it over a spell and let him know."

"Let him know! Pooh! I should say you will think it over, and for a purty long spell, too. You ain't going to sell a foot of it! That feller wasn't here for himself. He was playing one of Jim Fox's tricks on you."

"But, Clemmie,----"

"Josiah, you mark my word, that lawyer feller was here to buy this place for Jim Fox. It's as plain as the nose on your face, and I don't need to look twice to see that. Don't you dare to sell one inch of this place."

The Captain rubbed the organ to which Miss Pipkin referred, and thought for some time. "Suppose your guess is right, and he did come for Jim, there ain't nothing left for me but to sell. That's better than losing everything." He tried to clear his husky voice. "It's kind of hard. I've got you and the minister here now, and I'm sort of obligated to you both. It's kind of hard."

"Obligated, fiddlesticks! I ain't so young that I can't take care of myself, nor so old, neither. I'll get on all right, and the minister, too, for that matter." Her voice dropped with an unsteady quality. "But what you're going to do, I can't see."

He shook his head wearily. "I've been trying to see some way all night long, but I can't, 'cepting to sell."

"Josiah,"--she crossed over and laid her hand on his shoulder,--"there's a picture in the setting-room that says beneath it something like this: 'Don't Give Up the Ship.' I was looking at it yesterday after I'd been so silly about what you said to me. I must have been sent to the picture for a purpose in this hour of our trial. We ain't going to give up the ship, not till we have to."

"But he's got the law on his side, and I ain't got nothing on mine."

"You've got a clear conscience, and that's more than all the law with which he's clothing his guilty mind. And, then,"--she eyed him closely,--"you've got me. Does that help? We ain't going to run up the white flag till we have to, and I don't care if he's got the whole creation on his side."

He rose and laid his rough palm over the bony fingers on his shoulder.