Galusha the Magnificent Part 27

"This ain't no time to holler about your savin' soul," whispered Zacheus, hoa.r.s.ely. "This is the time to shut up. And KEEP shut up. You be still, Dandelion!"

Primmie obeyed orders and was still. But even if she had shrieked it is doubtful if any one in the dining room could have heard her. The "ghost seiners," quoting from Mr. Bloomer, were pouring through the entry and, as all were talking at once, the clatter of tongues would have drowned out any shriek of ordinary volume. A moment later the Halletts, father and daughter, led the way into the sitting room. Lulie's first procedure was to glance quickly about the apartment. A look of relief crossed her face and she and Martha Phipps exchanged glances.

"Father has--he has come back," was her somewhat superfluous explanation. Captain Jethro noted the superfluity.

"Cal'late they can see that for themselves, Lulie," he observed. "How are you, Martha? Evenin', Mr. Bangs. Everything all right about the light, Zach?"

"Ay, ay, sir," was Mr. Bloomer's nautical reply. The captain grunted.

"Better go look at it," he said. Turning, he called over his shoulder, "Come in, all hands."

"All hands," that is, the company in the dining room--came in. There were fourteen of them, all told, and, as Martha Phipps told Galusha Bangs afterward, "If you had run a net from one end of Ostable County to the other you wouldn't have landed more freaks than there were in that house at that minute." The majority were women and the few men in the party looked as if each realized himself a minority at home and abroad.

"Set down, everybody," commanded Captain Jethro. "Lulie, you better help me fetch in them dining-room chairs. We'll need 'em."

"But, father," begged Lulie, "what are you going to do?"

"Do? We're goin' to have a meetin', that's what we're goin' to do. Set down, all of you that can. We'll have chairs for the rest in a minute."

"But, father--" began Lulie, again. The captain interrupted her. "Be still," he ordered, irritably. "Marietta, you set over here by the melodeon. That'll be about right for you, will it?"

Miss Marietta Hoag was a short, dumpy female with a face which had been described by Zach Bloomer as resembling a "pan of dough with a couple of cranberries dropped into it." She wore a blue hat with a red bow and a profusion of small objects--red cherries and purple grapes--bobbing on wires above it. The general effect, quoting Mr. Bloomer again, was "as if somebody had set off a firecracker in a fruit-peddler's cart." The remainder of her apparel was more subdued.

She removed the explosive headgear and came forward in response to the light keeper's command. She looked at the chair by the ancient parlor organ and announced: "Yes, indeed, it'll do real well, thank you, Cap'n Jethro." Her voice was a sharp soprano with liquid gurgles in it--"like pourin' pain-killer out of a bottle," this last still another quotation from the book of Zacheus.

"All right," said Captain Jeth, "then we'll begin. We've wasted enough time cruisin' way over to Trumet and back for nothin'. No need to waste any more. Set down, all hands, and come to order. Lulie, you and Martha and the rest of you set down, too."

"But, father," urged his daughter again, "I don't understand. What are you going to do?"

"Goin' to have a meetin', I tell you."

"But what sort of a meeting?"

"A seance. We cruised clear over to Trumet to hear that Brockton medium that was stayin' at Obed Taylor's there and when we got to Obed's we found she'd been called back home unexpected and had left on this afternoon's train. So we came back here and Marietta's goin' to try to get in communication herself. That's all there is to it.... Now don't waste any more time askin' fool questions. Set down. Martha Phipps, what are you and Mr. Bangs standin' up for?"

Martha's answer was quietly given.

"Why, good gracious, Jethro!" she observed, "why shouldn't we stand up?

Mr. Bangs and I came over to spend the evenin' with Lulie. We didn't know you and Marietta and Ophelia and the rest were goin' to hold any--er--what do you call 'em?--seances. We'll run right along and leave you to enjoy yourselves. Come, Mr. Bangs."

For some reason or other this reply appeared to irritate the light keeper exceedingly. He glared at her.

"Set down, both of you," he ordered. "I want you to. 'Twill do you good.

No, you ain't goin', neither. Lulie, you tell 'em to stay here."

His manner was so determined and the light in his eye so ominous that his daughter was alarmed.

"Oh, do stay, Martha," she pleaded. "Won't you please stay, you and Mr.

Bangs? I think it will be for the best, truly I do. Please stay."

Martha looked at her lodger. Galusha smiled.

"I shall be very glad to remain," he observed. "Indeed yes, really."

Miss Phipps nodded. "All right, Lulie," she said, quietly. "We'll stay."

They took chairs in the back row of the double circle. Primmie, eyes and mouth open and agog with excitement, had already seated herself. Captain Jethro looked about the room.

"Are we all ready," he growled. "Eh? Who's that comin'? Oh, it's you.

Well, set down and keep quiet."

It was Mr. Bloomer who had re-entered the room and was received so unceremoniously. He glanced at Galusha Bangs, winked the eye which the captain could not see, and sat down next to Primmie.

"Now then," said Captain Jeth, who was evidently master of ceremonies, "if you're all ready, Marietta, I cal'late we are. Cast off! Heave ahead!"

But Miss Hoag seemed troubled; evidently she was not ready to cast off and heave ahead.

"Why--why, Cap'n Jeth," she faltered, "I CAN'T. Don't you KNOW I can't? Everybody's got to take hands--and the lights must be turned way down--and--and we've GOT to have some music."

The captain pulled his beard. "Humph!" he grunted. "That's so, I forgot.

Don't know what's the matter with me to-night, seem to be kind of--of upset or somethin'. Zach, turn them lamps down; more'n that, way down low.... That'll do. Now all hands hold hands. Make a--a kind of ring out of yourselves. That's it. Now what else was it, Marietta?"

"Music," faltered Miss Hoag, who seemed rather overawed by the captain's intensity and savage earnestness. "We always have music, you know, to establish the--the contact. Have somebody play the organ. 'Phelia, you play it; you know how."

Miss Ophelia Beebe, sister of the village storekeeper, was a tall, angular woman garbed in black. Her facial expression was as mournful as her raiment. She rose with a rustle and moved toward the ancient melodeon. Lulie spoke hurriedly.

"No, no, Ophelia," she protested, "it isn't any use. That old thing has been out of order for--why, for years. No one could possibly play on it.

No one has for ever and ever so long. Father knows it perfectly well."

Again Captain Jethro tugged at his beard.

"Humph!" he grunted. "'Tis out of order; I remember now.... Humph! I--I forgot that. Well, we'll have to have some sort of music. Can anybody that's here play on anything?"

There was silence for a moment. Then a thin masculine voice from the dimness made proclamation.

"I can play on the fiddle," it said; and then added, as if in afterthought, "some."

There was a rustle in the corner from which the voice had come.

Mutterings and whisperings arose. "Don't talk so foolish!" "Well, Sary, he asked if anybody could play on anything and I--" "Be still, I tell you! I declare if there's any chance for a person to make a jumpin'

numbskull out of himself in front of folks I'll trust you to be right on deck." "Now, Sary, what are you goin' on like this for? I only just--"

The dispute was growing louder and more violent. Captain Jethro roared a command for silence.

"What's all this?" he demanded. "Silence there for'ard!" He waited an instant and then asked, "Who was it said they could play the fiddle? Was it you, Abel Hardin'?"

Mr. Abel Harding, clam digger and fish purveyor, resident in South Wellmouth, acknowledged his ident.i.ty.

"Yus, Cap'n Jeth," he declared. "I said I could play the fiddle, and I can, too. Sary B., she says--"