Old Lady Number 31 Part 13

"Yew sure the men will look arter the old fellow well an' not let him over-dew?"

But the whizz of the flight had already begun and the scooter's nose was set toward Twin Coves, her sail skimming swiftly with the ring of the steel against the ice over the shining surface of the bay.

"Law, yes," Samuel eased his conscience; "of course they will. They couldn't hurt him, anyhow. I never seen n.o.body take so kindly ter hardenin' as that air Abe."

XVIII

SAMUEL'S WELCOME

The sh.o.r.e at Twin Coves was a somewhat lonely spot, owing to stretches of marshland and a sweep of pine wood that reached almost to the edge of the water.

Samuel, however, having indicated that he wished to be landed at the foot of a path through the pines, found himself on the home sh.o.r.e scarcely ten minutes after he had left Bleak Hill--Havens already speeding toward his home some miles to the eastward, the bay seemingly deserted except for his sail, a high wind blowing, and the snow beginning to fall in scattered flakes.

Samuel picked up his grip, trudged through the heavy sand of the narrow beach, and entered the sweet-smelling pine wood. He was stiff with cold after the rough, swift voyage; his feet alone were hot--burning hot with chilblains. Away down in his heart he was uneasy lest some harm should come to Abe and the old man be caught in the approaching storm on the Beach. But, oh, wasn't he glad to be home!

His house was still half a mile away; but he was once more on good, solid, dry land.

"I'll tell Blossy haow that air Abe Rose behaved," he rea.s.sured himself, when he pictured his wife's astonished and perhaps reproachful greeting, "an' then she won't wonder that I had ter quit him an' come back."

He recollected that Angy would be there, and hoped fervently that she might not prove so strenuous a charge as Abraham. Moreover, he hoped that she would not so absorb Blossy's attention as to preclude a wifely ministering to his aching feet and the application of "St. Jerushy Ile"

to his lame and sore back.

The torture of the feet and back made walking harder, too, than he had believed possible with the prospect of relief so near. As he limped along he was forced to pause every now and again and set down the carpet-bag, sometimes to rub his back, sometimes to seat himself on a stump and nurse for a few moments one of those demon-possessed feet.

Could he have made any progress at all if he had not known that at home, no matter if there was company, there would at least be no Abe Rose to keep him going, to spur him on to unwelcome action, to force him to prove himself out of sheer self-respect the equal, if not the superior, in masculine strength?

Abe had led him that chase over at the Station, Samuel was convinced, "a-purpose" to punish him for having so soundly berated him when he lay a-bed. That was all the thanks you ever got for doing things for "some folks."

Samuel hobbled onward, his brow knit with angry resentment. Did ever a half-mile seem so long, and had he actually been only twenty-three hours from home and Blossy? Oh, oh! his back and his feet! Oh, the weight of that bag! How much he needed sleep! How good it would be to have Blossy tuck him under the covers, and give him a hot lemonade with a stick of ginger in it!

If only he had hold of Abe Rose now to tell him his opinion of him!

Well, he reflected, you have to summer and winter with a person before you can know them. This one December day and night with Abe had been equal to the revelations of a dozen seasons. The next time Samuel tried to do good to anybody more than sixty-five, he'd know it. The next time he was persuaded into leaving his wife for over night, he'd know that, too. Various manuals for the young husband, which he had consulted, to the contrary notwithstanding, the place for a married man was at home.

Samuel sat down on a fallen tree which marked the half-way point between his place and the bay. The last half of the journey would seem shorter, and, at the end, there would be Blossy smiling a welcome, for he never doubted but that Blossy would be glad to see him. She thought a good deal of him, nor had she been especially anxious for that week of separation.

His face smoothed its troubled frowns into a look of shining antic.i.p.ation--the look that Samuel's face had worn when first he ushered Blossy into his tidy, little home and murmured huskily:

"Mis' Darby, yew're master o' the vessel naow; I'm jest fo'castle hand."

Forgetting all his aches, his pains, his resentments, Samuel took a peppermint-lozenge out of his pocket, rolled it under his tongue, and walked on. Presently, as he saw the light of the clearing through the trees, he broke into a run,--an old man's trot,--thus proving conclusively that his worry of lumbago and chilblains had been merely a wrongly diagnosed case of homesickness.

He grinned as he pictured Abe's dismay on returning to the Station to find him gone. Still, he reflected, maybe Abe would have a better time alone with the young fellows; he had grown so plagued young himself all of a sudden. Samuel surely need not worry about him.

More and more good-natured grew Samuel's face, until a sociable rabbit, peeping at him from behind a bush, decided to run a race with the old gentleman, and hopped fearlessly out into the open.

"Ah, yew young rascal!" cried Samuel. "Yew're the feller that eat up all my winter cabbages."

At this uncanny reading of his mind, Mr. Cottontail darted off into the woods again to seek out his mate and inform her that their guilt had been discovered.

Finally, Samuel came to the break in the woodland, an open field of rye, green as springtime gra.s.s, and his own exquisitely neat abode beckoning across the gray rail-fence to him.

How pretty Blossy's geraniums looked in the sitting-room windows! Even at this distance, too, he could see that she had not forgotten to water his pet abutilon and begonias. How welcome in the midst of this flurry of snow--how welcome to his eye was that smoke coming out of the chimneys! All the distress of his trip away from home seemed worth while now for the joy of coming back.

Before he had taken down the fence-rail and turned into the path which led to his back door, he was straining his ears for the sound of Blossy's voice gossiping with Angy. Not hearing it, he hurried the faster.

The kitchen door was locked. The key was not under the mat; it was not in the safe on the porch, behind the stone pickle-pot. He tried the door again, and then peered in at the window.

Not even the cat could be discerned. The kitchen was set in order, the breakfast dishes put away, and there was no sign of any baking or preparations for dinner.

He knocked, knocked loudly. No answer. He went to a side door, to the front entrance, and found the whole house locked, and no key to be discovered. It was still early in the morning, earlier than Blossy would have been likely to set out upon an errand or to spend the day; and then, too, she was not one to risk her health in such chilly, damp weather, with every sign of a heavy storm.

Samuel became alarmed. He called sharply, "Blossy!" No answer. "Mis'

Rose!" No answer. "Ezra!" And still no sound in reply.

His alarm increased. He went to the barn; that was locked and Ezra nowhere in sight. By standing on tiptoe, however, and peeping through a crack in the boards, he found that his horse and the two-seated surrey were missing.

"Waal, I never," grumbled Samuel, conscious once more of all his physical discomforts. "The minute my back's turned, they go a-gallivantin'. I bet yer," he added after a moment's thought, "I bet yer it's that air Angy Rose. She's got ter git an' gad every second same as Abe, an' my poor wife has been drug along with her."

There was nothing left for him to do but seek refuge in his shop and await their return. Like nearly every other bayman, he had a one-room shanty, which he called the "shop," and where he played at building boats, and weaving nets, and making oars and tongs.

This structure stood to the north of the house, and fortunately had an old, discarded kitchen stove in it. There, if the wanderers had not taken that key also, he could build a fire, and stretch out before it on a bundle of sail-cloth.

He gave a start of surprise, however, as he approached the place; for surely that was smoke coming out of the chimney!

Ezra must have gone out with the horse, and Blossy must be entertaining Angy in some outlandish way demanded by the idiosyncrasies of the Rose temperament.

Samuel flung open the door, and strode in; but only to pause on the threshold, struck dumb. Blossy was not there, Angy was not there, nor any one belonging to the household. But sitting on that very bundle of canvas, stretching his lean hands over the stove, with Samuel's cat on his lap, was the "Old Hoss"--Abraham Rose!

XIX

EXCHANGING THE OLIVE-BRANCH

The cat jumped off Abe's lap, running to Samuel with a mew of recognition. Abe turned his head, and made a startled e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n.

"Sam'l Darby," he said stubbornly, "ef yew've come tew drag me back to that air Beach, yew 're wastin' time. I won't go!"

Samuel closed the door and hung his damp coat and cap over a suit of old oilskins. He came to the fire, taking off his mittens and blowing on his fingers, the suspicious and condemnatory tail of his eye on Abraham.

"Haow'd yew git here?" he burst forth. "What yew bin an' done with my wife, an' my horse, an' my man, an' my kerridge? Haow'd yew git here?

What'd yew come fer? When'd yew git here?"

"What'd yew come fer?" retorted Abe with some spirit. "Haow'd yew git here?"