Galusha the Magnificent Part 25

"No, no, no," he growled, "'tain't any such thing. Your boardin' there's a good thing for Martha. She needs the money."

Galusha was troubled.

"I'm sorry to hear that," he said. "She is not--ah--not pinched for means, I hope. Not that that is my business, of course," he added, hastily.

Captain Jeth's reply was gruff and rather testy.

"She'll come out all right," he said, "if she's willin' to do as I do and wait. I know I'll come out right. Julia told me so, herself."

Galusha had forgotten, momentarily.

"Julia?" he repeated.

"My WIFE."

"Oh--oh, yes, yes, of course."

In these conversations Bangs learned to steer the talk as far as possible from the subjects of life beyond the grave or of spirit communications. The slightest touch here and the captain was off, his eyes shining beneath his heavy brows, and his face working with belligerent emotion. A hint of doubt or contradiction and trouble followed immediately.

"Don't argue with me," roared Cap'n Jethro. "I KNOW."

Lulie and Galusha had many chats together. He had liked her at first sight and soon she came to like him.

"He's as funny and odd as can he," she told Martha, "and you never can tell what he may say or do next. But he's awfully nice, just the same."

Little by little she confided to him her hopes and doubts and fears, the hopes of her own love story and the doubts and fears concerning her father.

"He isn't well," she said, referring to the latter. "He pretends he is, but he isn't. And all this consulting with mediums and getting messages and so on is very bad for him, I know it is. Do you believe in it at all, Mr. Bangs?"

Galusha looked doubtful.

"Well," he replied, "it would be presumptuous for one like me to say it is all nonsense. Men like Conan Doyle and Lodge and Doctor Hyslop are not easy dupes and their opinions are ent.i.tled to great respect. But it seems--ah--well, I am afraid that a majority of the so-called mediums are frauds."

"ALL of father's mediums are that kind," declared Lulie, emphatically.

"I know it. Most of them are frauds for money, but there are some, like that ridiculous Marietta Hoag, who pretend to go into trances and get messages just because they like to be the center of a sensation. They like to have silly people say, 'Isn't it wonderful!' Marietta Hoag's 'control,' as she calls it, is a Chinese girl. She must speak spirit Chinese, because no Chinese person on earth ever talked such gibberish.

Control! SHE ought to be controlled--by the keeper of an asylum."

The indignation expressed upon Lulie's pretty face was so intense that Galusha suspected an especial reason.

"Is--ah--is this Marietta person the medium who--who--" he began.

"Who set father against Nelson? Yes, she is. I'd like to shake her, mischief-making thing. Father liked Nelson well enough before that, but he came home from that seance as bitter against him as if the poor boy had committed murder. Marietta told him that a small dark man was trying to take away his daughter, or some such silliness. Nelson isn't very small nor VERY dark, but he was the only male in sight that came near answering the description. As a matter of fact--"

She hesitated, colored, and looked as if she had said more than she intended. Galusha, who had not noticed her embarra.s.sment, asked her to go on.

"Well," she said, in some confusion, "I was going to say that if it hadn't been Nelson it would probably have been some one else. You see, I am father's only child and so--and so--"

"And so he doesn't like the idea of giving you up to some one else."

"Yes, that's it. But it wouldn't be giving me up. It would be merely sharing me, that's all. I never shall leave father and I've told him so ever so many times.... Oh, dear! If you could have known him in the old days, Mr. Bangs, before he--well, when he was himself, big and strong and hearty. He used to laugh then; he hardly ever laughs now. He and Cap'n Jim Phipps--Martha's father--were great friends. You would have liked Cap'n Jim, Mr. Bangs."

"Yes, I am sure I should."

"So am I. Martha is very much like him. She's a dear, isn't she?"

Galusha nodded. "She has been very kind to me," he said. "Indeed, yes."

"Oh, she is to every one. She is always just like that. I am very glad you have decided to board with her this winter, Mr. Bangs. I have an idea that she has been--well, troubled about something; just what, of course, I don't know, although I think--but there, I mustn't guess because it is not my business."

Galusha expressed a wish that he might become better acquainted with Nelson Howard.

"I am sure I should like him," he said. "He seems like a very nice young man."

Lulie nodded radiantly.

"Oh, he is," she cried. "Truly he is, Mr. Bangs. Why, every one says--"

Then, becoming aware of her enthusiasm, she blushed and begged pardon.

"You see, I hear so much against him--from father, I mean--that I couldn't help acting silly when you praised him. Do forgive me, won't you, Mr. Bangs?"

He would have forgiven her much more than that.

"I shall make it a point to go over to the South Wellmouth station and call upon him," he told her. She thanked him.

"I am hoping that you and Martha and Nelson and I may spend an evening together pretty soon," she said. "You see, father--but there, that's another secret. I'll tell you in a little while, next week, I hope."

He learned the secret from Martha. On a day in the following week Miss Phipps informed her lodger that he and she were to have supper at the light keeper's that evening.

"It's a real sort of party," declared Martha. "Small but select, as they used to say in books when I was a girl. There will be four of us, you and I and Nelson Howard and Lulie."

Galusha was surprised.

"Nelson Howard!" he repeated. "Why, dear me, I thought--I understood that Mr. Howard was persona non grata to Captain Hallett."

Martha nodded. "Well, if that means what I suppose it does, he is," she replied. "If Cap'n Jeth knew Nelson was goin' to eat supper in his house he'd go without eatin' himself to stop it. But, you see, he doesn't know. Jethro is goin' spiritualizin' to-night. Marietta Hoag and Ophelia Beebe and their crowd of rattleheads have dug up a brand new medium who is visitin' over in Trumet and they've made up a party to go there and hold a seance. When they told Cap'n Jeth, of course nothin' would do but he must go, too. So, WHILE he is gone Nelson is comin' over to supper.

It's deceivin' the old man, in one way, of course, but it isn't doin'

him a bit of harm. And it does give the young folks a pleasant time, and I think they deserve it. Lulie has been as kind and forbearin' with her father as a daughter could be, and Nelson has been more patient than the average young fellow, by a good deal."

Late that afternoon two automobiles laden with humanity, male and female, drove past the Phipps' gate, and Primmie, from the window, announced that it was "Marietta and 'Phelia and the rest of 'em. My savin' soul, ain't they talkin' though! Cal'late the sperits 'll have busy times this evenin', don't you, Miss Martha?" A few minutes later she proclaimed that Cap'n Jeth had just climbed aboard and that the autos were coming back.

"See! See, Mr. Bangs!" she cried, pointing. "There's Cap'n Jeth, settin'

between Marietta and 'Phelia Beebe. There's the three of 'em on the back seat. Cap'n Jeth's the one with the whiskers."

At six o'clock Martha and her lodger walked over to the Hallett house.

Miss Phipps was dressed in her best gown and looked the personification of trim, comfortable New England femininity. Galusha was garbed in the suit he wore the evening of his arrival, but it had been newly sponged and pressed.

"It looks lots better," observed Martha, inspecting him as they walked along. "It wouldn't have, though, if Primmie had finished the job. I was so busy that I let her start on it, but when I saw what a mess she was makin' I had to drop everything else and do it myself."

Galusha looked puzzled.