Fair Harbor Part 12

"Oh, Sally Brown was a bright mulatter, Way, oh, roll and go!

She drinks rum and chews terbacker, Spend my money on Sally Brown.

Whee--_yip_!"

Miss Elvira's thin figure stiffened to an exclamation point of disapproval. Captain Kendrick turned uneasily in the direction of the singer. Mrs. Chase, aware that something was going on and not wishing to miss it, cupped her ear with her hand. And Judah began the second verse.

"Oh, Sally Brown, I'll surely miss you, Way, oh, roll and go!

How I'd love to hug and kiss you!

Spend my money on Sally Brown.

Whee--_yip_!"

"Judah!" roared the captain, who was suffering acute apprehension.

"Judah!"

"Oh, Sally Brown----"

"_Judah!"_

"Eh? What is it, Cap'n Sears?"

"Shut up."

"Eh! Shut up what? What's open?"

"Stop that noise."

"What noise?"

"That noise of yours. That singin'."

"Eh? Oh, all right, sir. Aye, aye, Cap'n, just as you say."

Captain Sears, relieved, turned again to his visitors. But the visitors were rapidly retreating along the path, the lines of Miss Elvira's back indicating disgust and outraged gentility. Mrs. Chase, however, looked back. Obviously she still did not know what it was all about.

Sears, although he chuckled a good deal over the affair, was a trifle annoyed, nevertheless. It was a good joke, of course, and he certainly cared little for the approval or disapproval of Miss Elvira Snowden. But when he considered what the prim spinster's version of the happening was likely to be and the reputation her story was sure to confer, inside the Fair Harbor fences at least, upon him and his household companion, he was tempted to wish that that companion's musical talent had been hidden under a napkin, or, better still, a feather bed. He--Kendrick--was to live, for a time indefinite, next door to the Fair Harborites, and it is always pleasant to be on good terms with one's neighbors. True, those neighbors might be, the majority of them, what Mr. Cahoon called them--which was whatever term of approbrium he happened to think of at the moment, "pack of old hens" being the mildest--but the captain knew that one, at least, was not an "old hen." "That Berry girl," which was his way of thinking of her, was attractive and kind and a lady. They had met but once, it is true, but she had made a most favorable impression upon him. He had caught glimpses of her on two occasions, in the Fair Harbor grounds, and once she had waved a greeting. She was a nice girl, he was sure of it. If she thought at all of the cripple next door he would like her to think of him in a kindly way, as a decent sort of hulk, so to speak. It was provoking to feel that she would next hear of him as a dissipated ruffian, friend and defender of another ruffian who howled ribald songs in the presence--or at least in the hearing--of ladies.

He questioned Judah concerning the Fair Harbor, its founder and the dwellers within its gates. Judah told him what he knew of the story, which was very little more than the captain already knew, his knowledge gained from his sister's letters. Captain Sylva.n.u.s Seymour had had but one child, his daughter Lobelia. At his death she, of course, inherited all his property. According to Bayport gossip, as reported by Mr.

Cahoon, the old man had died worth anywhere from one half a million to three or five millions. "Richer'n dock mud, I cal'late he was," declared Judah. "Made a lot of money out of his Boston shippin' business and a lot more out of stocks and city real estate and one thing or 'nother."

For years after Captain Sylva.n.u.s died Lobelia lived alone in the big house. Then she had married. Judah could tell little about the man she married.

"He was a music teacher that come to town here one winter, that's about all I can swear to," said Judah. "Down here for his health, so he said, and taught singin' school while he was gittin' healthy. His last name was Phillips, which is all right, but he had the craziest fust name ever _I_ heard. Egbert 'twas. Hoppin', creepin' Henry! Did you ever _hear_ such a name? _Egbert!_ Jumpin' prophets! Boys round town, they tell me, used to call him 'Eg' behind his back. Some of 'em, them that didn't like him, called him 'Soft biled.' Haw, haw! See what they meant, don't you, Cap'n Sears? Egbert, you know, that's 'Eg' for short, and then 'Soft biled' meanin' a soft biled egg.... Hey? Yes, I cal'lated you'd see it, you're pretty sharp at a joke, Cap'n, but there _has_ been them I've told that to that never.... Hey? Aye, aye, sir, I was just goin' to tell the rest of it."

According to Judah's report, which was a second or third hand report of course, Egbert Phillips had not been too popular among the males in Bayport. But with the females--ah, there it was different.

"He was one of them kind, they tell me," said Judah. "One of them smooth, slick, b.u.t.tery kind of fellers that draws womenfolks same as mola.s.ses draws flies. Hailed from Philadelphy he did. I used to know a good many Philadelphy folks myself once. Why, one time----"

The captain broke in to head off the Philadelphia reminiscence. Brought back to Bayport and Egbert and Lobelia, Judah went on to tell what more he knew of the Fair Harbor beginnings. Sears gathered that after the marriage Egbert who, it seemed, was not in love with the Cape as a place of residence, would have liked his wife to sell the old house and move away. But there was a clause in the will of Captain Sylva.n.u.s which prevented this. Under that will the property could not be sold while his daughter lived. It was then that Lobelia was seized with her great idea.

She, a mariner's daughter, had--until the Providential appearance of the peerless Egbert--faced a lonely old age. But she had at least a comfortable home. There were so many women--sea-captains' widows and sisters--who faced their lonely future without a home. Why not turn the Seymour property into a home for them--a limited number of them?

"So she done it," said Judah. "And that's how the Fair Harbor got off the ways."

"But you called it a home," objected Captain Sears. "The other day that Snowden woman, the thin one, gave the other, the stout one--what's her name?--Northern lights--Aurora, that's it--she gave Aurora fits for speakin' of the place as a home. She declared it wasn't a home."

Mr. Caboon chuckled. "Did, eh?" he observed. "Well, you might call a mackerel gull a canary bird, I presume likely, but 'twouldn't make the thing sing no better. That Elviry critter likes to make believe she's the Queen of Sheby. _She_ wouldn't live in no home--no sir-ee! 'Cordin'

to her the Fair Harbor ain't a home because they only take six or eight pa.s.sengers, or visitors, or patients, or jailbirds--whatever you might to call 'em, and it costs four hundred dollars to pay your way in and a hundred a year to keep you there. So 'tain't a home, you see. It's a--a genteel henhouse, I'd say. That Elviry Snowden she----"

Then the captain asked the question to which he had been leading since the beginning.

"That Berry girl's mother runs the place, doesn't she?" he asked.

Judah snorted. "Yeah," he drawled, "she runs it about the way the skipper's poll parrot runs the vessel. The poll parrot talks a barrel a minute and the skipper goes right along navigatin'. That's about the way 'tis over yonder," with a jerk of the head in the general direction of the Fair Harbor.

His lodger was a trifle surprised.

"Why, I understood Mrs. Berry--Cap'n Isaac Berry's widow--was manager there," he said.

"Um-hm. So she is, the poll parrot manager. But it's that girl of hers, that 'Lizabeth Berry, that really handles the ropes. There's a capable little craft, if you want to know," declared Judah, with emphasis.

He whittled a pipe full of tobacco from the mutilated remnant of a plug, and continued to expatiate on the capabilities of Miss Berry. According to him whatever was as it should be within the Fair Harbor boundaries was due to the young woman's efforts, not to those of her mother.

"It's kind of queer, ain't it, Cap'n Sears," he observed, "how things average up sometimes. Seems if whoever 'tis works out the course up aloft sort of fixed 'em that way."

"What's that got to do with the Berrys?"

"Cause it worked that way with them. _You_ knew Cap'n Ike Berry, Cap'n Sears. Sharp, shrewd, able and all that, but rough and hard as the broadside of a white-oak plank. Well, he married a woman from down in the Carolinas somewhere. Her folks was well-off and she was brought up in cotton wool, as you might say. They wouldn't have nothin' to do with her after she married Cap'n Ike. He fell in love with her and carried her off by main strength, as you might say. She'd been treated like a plaything afore he got her and he treated her that way till he died. She is soft-spoken, and kind of good-lookin', and polite and all that--but about as much practical use for bossin' a place like the Fair Harbor as a--well as a paper umbrella would be in a no'theaster. But 'Lizabeth now, she's different. She's got her mother's good looks and nice manners and--and kind of genteelness, you understand, and with 'em she's got her dad's sense and capableness. She's all right, that girl. Don't you think so, Cap'n Sears?"

The captain nodded.

"I never met her but that once, Judah," he replied. "She was all right then, surely."

"I bet you! She's all right most of the time, I guess.... That young George Kent, he thinks so, they tell me."

"Oh ... does he?"

"Um-hm! He's cruisin' up to the Fair Harbor 'bout every once or twice a week, 'cordin' to tell. If it ain't to see 'Lizabeth I don't know what 'tis. It might be Queen Elviry he's after, but I have my doubts.... Oh, say, Cap'n, speakin' of the Harbor reminds me of Judge Knowles. You ain't been in to see him yet, same as he wanted you to."

"That's so, Judah, I haven't. I must pretty soon, I suppose. I can't think what the old judge wants to see me for. But why did talkin' of the Fair Harbor and the rest of it make you think of Judge Knowles?"

"Hey? Oh, 'cause the judge is kind of commodore of the fleet there, looks after the money matters for 'em, I understand. He's Lobelia's lawyer, same as he was old Cap'n Sylva.n.u.s's afore he died.... I declare I can't guess what he wants to see you for, Cap'n Sears. Do you s'pose----"

Judah proceeded to suppose several things, each supposition more far-fetched and improbable than its predecessor. Sears paid little attention to them. He again expressed his intention of calling upon the judge before long and changed the subject.

The next day it rained and he did not go and the following day he did not feel like going. On the day after that, however, further procrastination was rendered impossible. Mrs. Tidditt, the judge's housekeeper, visited the General Minot place with another message from her employer. Emmeline was gray-haired, brisk and, as Judah expressed it, "straight up and down," both in figure and manner of speaking.

"Good mornin', Cap'n Kendrick," she said. "Judge Knowles wants to know if 'twill be convenient for you to come over and see him this afternoon?

Says if 'tis he'll send Mike and the hoss-'n'-buggy around for you at two o'clock."

The captain's guilty conscience made him a trifle embarra.s.sed.

"Why--why, yes, certainly," he stammered. "I---- Well, I'm ashamed of myself for not goin' over there sooner. Beg Judge Knowles's pardon for me, will you, and tell him I'll be on hand at two sharp. And tell him not to bother to send the horse and team. I'll get there all right."