Mary-'Gusta Part 63

Jeremiah looked at her steadily for what seemed a long time. Then she was surprised to see the corner of his lip twitch and notice a grim twinkle in his eye. Also there was a grudging note of admiration in his voice when he next spoke.

"Ain't takin' no chances, be you?" he said dryly.

"No. Don't you think we've taken enough already?"

Mr. Clifford did not answer. He replaced the blank check in his pocketbook and, from another compartment, extracted some bills rolled in a tight little cylinder and wound about with elastic.

"There you be," he said shortly. Then, turning to Shadrach, he added: "Don't I get nothin' off for payin' cash?"

From the back room came a vigorous "Haw, haw!" Even Mary laughed aloud.

As for Captain Shad, he could only stare, struck speechless by his visitor's audacity. Mary, when she had finished laughing, answered for him.

"We shall deduct the interest we might have charged you, Mr. Clifford,"

she said. "Thank you. There is your change and there is the receipted bill. Now, I shall call up Judge Baxter."

When she returned from the post-office Jeremiah was still there.

Shadrach, all smiles, was doing up parcels.

"What are those, Uncle Shad?" asked Mary. Mr. Clifford answered.

"Oh, I thought I might as well buy a little sugar and flour and such,"

he said. "Always come in handy, they do. Send 'em up when you get to it.

Good-by."

His hand was on the door, but Mary called to him.

"Mr. Clifford," she called; "just a minute, please. Are you in any hurry for these things--the sugar and the rest of it?"

"No, don't know's I be, 'special'; why?"

"Oh, nothing, except that if you were in a hurry I should advise your paying for them. I told you, you remember, that we weren't taking chances."

For an instant Jeremiah stood there glowering. Then he did another astonishing thing. He took out the pocketbook once more and from it extracted a two-dollar bill.

"Take it out of that," he said, "and send me a receipted bill afterwards. I always cal'late to know what I've paid for. And say, you--what's your name--Mary-'Gusta, if you get tired of workin' for Shad Gould and Zoeth Hamilton, come round and see me. I've got--I mean my wife's got--two or three mortgages that's behind on the interest. I ain't been able to collect it for her yet, but--but, by time, I believe YOU could!"

He went out and the next moment Mary was almost smothered in her uncle's embrace.

"After this--after THIS," roared Shadrach, "I'll believe anything's possible if you've got a hand in it, Mary-'Gusta. If YOU'D been Jonah you'd have put the whale in your pocket and swum ash.o.r.e."

CHAPTER XXVII

Early in April, when Mary announced that she was ready to put into operation her biggest and most ambitious plan, suggested the year before by Barbara Howe--the tea-room and gift-shop plan--the Captain did not offer strenuous opposition.

"I can't see much sense in it," he admitted. "I don't know's I know what it's all about. Nigh as I can make out you're figgerin' to open up some kind of a high-toned eatin' house. Is that it?"

"Why, no, Uncle Shad, not exactly," explained Mary.

"Then what is it--a drinkin' house? I presume likely that's it, bein'

as you call it a 'tea-room.' Kind of a temperance saloon, eh? Can't a feller get coffee in it, if he wants to? I don't wake up nights much hankerin' for tea myself."

"Listen, Uncle Shad: A tea-room--at least a tearoom of the sort I intend to have--is a place where the summer people, the women and girls especially, will come and sit at little tables and drink tea and eat cakes and ice cream and look off at the ocean, if the weather is pleasant--"

"Yes, and at the fog, if 'tain't; and talk about their neighbor's clothes and run down the characters of their best friends. Yes, yes, I see; sort of a sewin' circle without the sewin'. All right, heave ahead and get your tea-room off the ways if you want to. If anybody can make the thing keep afloat you can, Mary-'Gusta."

So Mary, thus encouraged, went on to put her scheme into effect. She had been planning the details for some time. About halfway down the lane leading to the house from the store was another small story-and-a-half dwelling of the old-fashioned Cape Cod type. It stood upon a little hill and commanded a wide view of ocean and beach and village. There were some weather-beaten trees and a tangle of shrubs about it. It had been untenanted for a good while and was in rather bad repair.

Mary arranged with the owner, a Bayport man, to lease this house and land at a small rental for three years. In the lease was included consent to the making of necessary alterations and repairs and the privilege of purchasing, at a price therein named, at the end of the three years, should the tenant wish to do so.

Then with the aid of soap and water, white paint and whitewash, attractive but inexpensive wall papers, and odds and ends of quaint old furniture, of which the parlor and best bedroom of the Gould-Hamilton home supplied the larger quant.i.ty, she proceeded to make over the interior of the little building. To every bit of nautical bric-a-brac, pictures of old sailing ships and sea curios she gave especial prominence. Then the lawn was mowed, the tangled shrubbery untangled and clipped and pruned; cheap but pretty lattices made to look like the shrouds of a ship, over which climbing roses were supposed--some day--to twine, were placed against the walls, and rustic tables set about under the trees and the grape arbor with ship lanterns hung above them. The driveway down to the lane was rolled and hardened, and a sign, painted by Joshua Bemis, the local "House, Boat and Sign Painter, Tinsmith and Glazier"--see Mr. Bemis's advertis.e.m.e.nt in the Advocate--was hung on a frame by the gateway.

Captain Shad's remarks when he first saw that sign may be worth quoting.

Mary had not consulted him concerning it; she deemed it best not to do so. When it was in place, however, she led him out to inspect. Shadrach adjusted his spectacles and read as follows:

THE FOR'ARD LOOKOUT TEA AND GIFTS DAINTY THINGS TO EAT PRETTY THINGS TO BUY ALL'S WELL!

There was the picture of a full-rigged ship, with every st.i.tch set alow and aloft, sailing through a sea of thick green and white paint toward a kind of green wall with green feather dusters growing out of it.

Shadrach subjected this work of art to a long and searching stare. At last he spoke.

"Carryin' every rag she can h'ist," he observed; "n.o.body at the wheel, land dead ahead and breakers under the bows. Looks to me as if 'twas liable to be a short v'yage and a lively one. But the for'ard lookout says all's well and he ought to know; he's had more experience aboard gift-shop ships, I presume likely, than I have. What's those bristly things stickin' up along sh.o.r.e there--eel gra.s.s or tea grounds?"

For the first few weeks after the tea-room was really "off the ways" the optimistic declaration of the For'ard Lookout seemed scarcely warranted by the facts. Mary was inclined to think that all was by no means well.

In fitting out the new venture she had been as economical as she dared, but she had been obliged to spend money and to take on a fresh a.s.sortment of debts. Then, too, she had engaged the services of a good cook and two waitresses, so there was a weekly expense bill to consider.

And the number of motor cars which turned in at the new driveway was disappointingly small.

But the number grew larger. As people had talked about Hamilton and Company's a.s.sortment of Christmas goods, so now they began to talk about the "quaintness and delightful originality" of the For'ard Lookout. The tea was good; the cakes and ices were good; on pleasant days the view was remarkably fine, and the pretty things in the gift shop were temptingly displayed. So, as May pa.s.sed and June came, and the cottages and hotels began to open, the business of the new tea-room and gift shop grew from fair to good and from that to very good indeed.

Mary divided her time between the store and the tearoom, doing her best to keep a supervising eye on each. She was in no mood to meet people and kept out of the way of strangers as much as possible; even of her former acquaintances who came to the For'ard Lookout she saw but few. If she had not been too busy she might have found it amusing, the contrasting studies in human nature afforded by these former acquaintances in their att.i.tude toward her.

For instance, Mr. and Mrs. Christopher Mullet and daughter, Irene, the latter now through school and "finished" until her veneering actually glittered, sat drinking tea at a table on the lawn. Said Mrs. Mullet:

"And THIS is what it's come to; after all the airs and frills and the goin' to Europe and I don't know what all. Here she is keepin' an eatin'

house. An eatin' house--just THINK of it! If that ain't a comedown!

Wouldn't you think she'd be ashamed, 'Rena?"

Miss Mullet drooped a weary eyelid and sighed a hopeless sigh.

"Oh, Mother," she drawled, in deep disgust, "CAN'T you stop calling me by that outlandish name? I was christened Irene, I believe. PLEASE remember it."

"All right, 'Re--all right, Irene; I won't forget again. Oh, there's Mary-'Gusta, now! Showin' herself out here with all these city folks, when she's nothin' but a hired help--a table girl, as you might say!

I shan't notice her, anyway. I may buy her tea and stuff, but I--Who's that runnin' up to her and--and kissin' her--and--mercy on us! You'd think they was sisters, if you didn't know. Who is it? Looks kind of common, she does to me. Don't you think so, 'Rena--Irene, I mean?"

Irene sniffed.