Every Man for Himself Part 25

"They're clean, but-"

"Poor."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "YOU WAS FIXED ALL RIGHT?" PARSON JAUNT ASKED]

"Very, very poor! Frankly, Brother All, I was troubled. Yes, indeed! I was troubled. I knew they were poor, and I didn't know whether it was wise or right to put you there. I feared that you might fare rather badly. But there was nothing else to do. I sincerely hope-"

Parson All raised a hand in protest.

"You was fixed all right?" Parson Jaunt asked.

"Yes, brother," answered Parson All, in genuine appreciation of the hospitality he had received. "It was touching. Praise the Lord! I'm glad to know that such people _live_ in a selfish world like this. It was very, very touching."

Parson Jaunt's face expressed some surprise.

"Do you know what they did?" said Parson All, taking Parson Jaunt by the lapel of the coat and staring deep into his eyes. "_Do you know what they did?_"

Parson Jaunt wagged his head.

"Why, brother," Parson All declared, with genuinely grateful tears in his eyes, "when I told Skipper Jonathan that brewis soured on my stomach, he got me tinned beef, and b.u.t.ter, and canned peaches, and cheese. I'll never forget his goodness. Never!"

Parson Jaunt stared. "What a wonderful thing Christianity is!" he exclaimed. "What a wonderful, wonderful thing! By their fruits," he quoted, "ye shall know them."

The Black Bay clergy were called aboard. Parson Jaunt shook off the mild old Parson All and rushed to the Chairman of the District, his black coat-tails flying in the easterly wind, and wrung the Chairman's hand, and jovially laughed until his jolly little paunch shook like jelly....

That night, in the whitewashed cottage upon which the angry gale beat, Skipper Jonathan and Aunt Tibbie sat together by the kitchen fire.

Skipper Jonathan was hopelessly in from the sea-from the white waves thereof, and the wind, and the perilous night-and Aunt Tibbie had dressed the sores on his wrists. The twins and all the rest of the little crew were tucked away and sound asleep.

Skipper Jonathan sighed.

"What was you thinkin' about, Jonathan?" Aunt Tibbie asked.

"Jus' ponderin'," said he.

"Ay; but what upon?"

"Well, Tibbie," Jonathan answered, in embarra.s.sment, "I was jus'-ponderin'."

"What is it, Jonathan?"

"I was 'lowin', Tibbie," Jonathan admitted, "that it wouldn't be so easy-no, not so _easy_-t' do without that sweetness in my tea."

Aunt Tibbie sighed.

"What _you_ thinkin' about, dear?" Jonathan asked.

"I got a sinful hankerin'," Aunt Tibbie answered, repeating the sigh.

"Is you, dear?"

"I got a sinful hankerin'," said she, "for that there bottle o'

hair-restorer. For I don't _want_ t' go bald! G.o.d forgive me," she cried, in an agony of humiliation, "for this vanity!"

"Hush, dear!" Jonathan whispered, tenderly; "for I loves you, bald or not!"

But Aunt Tibbie burst out crying.

VII-"BY-AN'-BY" BROWN OF BLUNDER COVE

"By-an'-by" Brown he was called at Blunder Cove. And as "By-an'-by"

Brown he was known within its fishing radius: Grave Head to Blow-me-down Billy. Momentarily, on the wet night of his landing, he had been "Mister" Brown; then-just "By-an'-by" Brown.

There was no secret about the baby. Young Brown was a bachelor of the outports: even so, there was still no secret about the baby. Nonsense!

It was not "By-an'-by's." It never had been. Name? Tweak. Given name?

She. What! Well, then, _It_! Age? Recent-somewheres 'long about midsummer. Blunder Cove was amazed, but, being used to sudden peril, to misfortune, and strange chances, was not incredulous. Blunder Cove was sympathetic: so sympathetic, indeed, so quick to minister and to a.s.sist, that "By-an'-by" Brown, aged fifteen, having taken but transient shelter for the child, remained to rear it, forever proposing, however, to proceed-by-and-by. So there they were, "By-an'-by" Brown and the baby!

And the baby was not "By-an'-by's." Everybody knew it-even the baby: perhaps best of all.

"By-an'-by" Brown had adopted the baby at Back Yard Bight of the Labrador. There had been nothing else to do. It was quite out of the question, whatever the proprieties, whatever the requirements of babies and the inadequacy of bachelors-it was quite out of the question for "By-an'-by" Brown, being a bachelor of tender years and perceptions, to abandon even a baby at Back Yard Bight of the Labrador, having first a.s.sisted at the interment of the mother and then instantly lost trace of the delinquent father. The monstrous expedient had not even occurred to him; he made a hasty bundle of the baby and took flight for more populous neighborhoods, commanding advice, refuge, and infinitely more valuable a.s.sistance from the impoverished settlements by the way. And thereafter he remembered the bleak and lonely reaches of Back Yard Bight as a stretch of coast where he had been considerably alarmed.

It had been a wet night when "By-an'-by" Brown and the baby put into Blunder Cove-wind in the east, the sea in a tumble: a wet night, and late of it. All the windows were black; and the paths of the place-a water-side maze in the lee of great hills-were knee-deep in a flood of darkness. "By-an'-by" Brown was downcast: this because of his years. He was a lad of fifteen. Fifteen, mark you!-a gigantic fifteen: a wise and competent fifteen, too, having for seven years fended for itself in the turf huts of the Labrador and the forecastles of the lower coasts. But still, for the moment, he was downcast by the burden upon his youth. So he knocked diffidently at the first kitchen door; and presently he stood abashed in a burst of warm light from within.

Shelter? Oh, ay! T' be sure. But (in quick and resentful suspicion):

"B'y," Aunt Phoebe Luff demanded, "what ye got in them ile-skins? Pups?"

"By-an'-by" Brown observed that there were embers in the kitchen stove, that steam was faintly rising from the spout of the kettle.

"Baby," said he.

Aunt Phoebe jumped. "What!" cried she:

"Jus' a baby," said "By-an'-by" Brown. "_Well!_-you give that there baby here."

"I'll be glad t', ma'am," said young "By-an'-by" Brown, in childish tenderness, still withholding the bundle from the woman's extended arms, "but not for keeps."

"For keeps!" Aunt Phoebe snorted.

"No, ma'am; not for keeps. I'm 'lowin' t' fetch it up myself," said "By-an'-by" Brown, "by-an'-by."

"Dunderhead!" Aunt Phoebe whispered, softly.

And "By-an'-by" Brown, familiar with the exigency, obediently went in.