The Woman-Haters Part 15

"I'm married, and I've got a wife livin'," continued Seth; adding hurriedly and fiercely, "don't you say nothin' to me! Don't you put me out. I'm goin' to tell you! I'm goin' to tell you all of it--all, by time! I am, if I die for it."

He was speaking so rapidly that the words were jumbled together. He knocked his hat from his forehead with a blow of his fist and actually panted for breath. Brown had never before seen him in this condition.

"Hold on! Wait," he cried. "Atkins, you needn't do this; you mustn't. I am asking no questions. We agreed to--"

"Hush up!" Seth waved both hands in the air. "DON'T you talk! Let me get this off my chest. Good heavens alive, I've been smotherin' myself with it for years, and, now I've got started, I'll blow off steam or my b'iler'll bust. I'm GOIN' to tell you. You listen--

"Yes, sir, I'm a married man," he went on. "I wa'n't always married, you understand. I used to be single once. Once I was single; see?"

"I see," said Brown, repressing a smile.

Seth was not aware that there was anything humorous in his statement.

"Yes," he said, "I was single and--and happy, by jiminy! I was skipper of a mack'rel schooner down Cape Ann way, never mind where, and Seth Atkins is only part of my name; never mind that, neither. I sailed that schooner and I run that schooner--I RUN her; and when I said 'boo' all hands aboard jumped, I tell you. When I've got salt water underneath me, I'm a man. But I told you that afore.

"However, this is what I didn't tell you nor n.o.body else in this part of the state: I stayed single till I got to be past forty. Everybody set me down as an old bach. Then I met a woman; yes, sir, I met a woman."

He made this a.s.sertion as if it was something remarkable. His companion on the bench made no comment.

"She was a widow woman," went on Seth, "and she had a little property left her by her first husband. Owned a house and land, she did, and had some money in the bank. Some folks cal'lated I married her for that, but they cal'lated wrong. I wanted her for herself. And I got her. Her name was Emeline. I always thought Emeline was a sort of pretty name."

He sighed. Brown observed that Emeline was a very pretty name, indeed.

"Um-hm. That's what I thought, and Emeline was a real pretty woman, for her age and heft--she was fleshy. She had some consider'ble prejudice against my goin' to sea, so I agreed to stay on sh.o.r.e a spell and farm it, as you might say. We lived in the house she owned and was real happy together. She bossed me around a good deal, but I didn't mind bein'

bossed by her. 'Twas a change, you see, for I'd always been used to bossin' other folks. So I humored her. And, bein' on land made me lose my--my grip or somethin'; 'cause I seemed to forget how to boss. But we was happy, and then--then Bennie D. come. Consarn him!"

His teeth shut with a snap, and he struck his knee with his fist.

"Consarn him!" he repeated, and was silent.

The subst.i.tute a.s.sistant ventured to jog his memory.

"Who was Bennie D.?" he asked.

"What? Hey? Bennie D.? Oh, he was her brother-in-law, her husband's brother from up Boston way. He was a genius--at least, he said he was--and an inventor. The only invention I ever could l'arn he'd invented to a finish was how to live without workin', but he'd got that brought to a science. However, he was forever fussin' over some kind of machine that was sartin sure to give power to the universe, when 'twas done, and Emeline's husband--his name was Abner--thought the world and all of him. 'Fore he died he made Emeline promise to always be kind to Bennie D., and she said she would. Abner left him a little money, and he spent it travelin' 'for his health.' I don't know where he traveled to, but, wherever 'twas, the health must have been there. He was the healthiest critter ever I see--and the laziest.

"Well, his travels bein' over, down he comes to make his sister-in-law a little visit. And he stays on and stays on. He never took no shine to me--I judge he figgered I hadn't no business sharin' Abner's property--and I never took to him, much.

"Emeline noticed Bennie D. and me wa'n't fallin' on each other's necks any to speak of, and it troubled her. She blamed me for it. Said Bennie was a genius, and geniuses had sensitive natures and had to be treated with consideration and different from other folks. And that promise to Abner weighed on her conscience, I cal'late. Anyhow, she petted that blame inventor, and it made me mad. And yet I didn't say much--not so much as I'd ought to, I guess. And Bennie D. was always heavin' out little side remarks about Emeline's bein' fitted for better things than she was gettin', and how, when his invention was 'perfected,' HE'D see that she didn't slave herself to death, and so on and so on. And he had consider'ble to say about folks tryin' to farm when they didn't know a cuc.u.mber from a watermelon, and how 'farmin'' was a good excuse for doin' nothin', and such. And I didn't have any good answer to that, 'cause I do know more about seaweed than I do cuc.u.mbers, and the farm wasn't payin' and I knew it.

"If he'd said these things right out plain, I guess likely I'd have give him what he deserved. But he didn't; he just hinted and smiled and acted superior and pityin'. And if I got mad and hove out a little sailor talk by accident, he'd look as sorry and shocked as the Come-Outer parson does when there's a baby born to a Universalist family. He'd get up and shut the door, as if he was scart the neighbors' morals would suffer--though the only neighbor within hearin' was an old critter that used to run a billiard saloon in Gloucester, and HIS morals had been put out of their misery forty years afore--and he'd suggest that Emeline better leave the room, maybe. And then I'd feel ashamed and wouldn't know what to do, and 'twould end, more'n likely, by my leavin' it myself.

"You can see how matters was driftin'. I could see plain enough, and I cal'late Emeline could, too--I'll give her credit for that. She didn't begin to look as happy as she had, and that made me feel worse than ever. One time, I found her cryin' in the wash room, and I went up and put my arm round her.

"'Emeline,' I says, 'don't; please don't. Don't cry. I know I ain't the husband I'd ought to be to you, but I'm doin' my best. I'm tryin' to do it. I ain't a genius,' I says.

"She interrupted me quick, sort of half laughin' and half cryin'. 'No, Seth,' says she, 'you ain't, that's a fact.'

"That made me sort of mad. 'No, I ain't,' I says again; 'and if you ask me, I'd say one in the house was enough, and to spare.'

"'I know you don't like Bennie,' she says.

"''Taint that,' says I, which was a lie. 'It ain't that,' I says; 'but somehow I don't seem to fit around here. Bennie and me, we don't seem to belong together.'

"'He is Abner's brother,' she says, 'and I promised Abner. I can't tell him to go. I can't tell him to leave this house, his brother's house.'

"Now, consarn it, there was another thing. It WAS Abner's house, or had been afore he died, and now 'twas hers. If I ever forgot that fact, which wa'n't by no means likely to happen, Bennie D. took occasions enough to remind me of it. So I was set back again with my canvas flappin', as you might say.

"'No,' says I, 'course you can't. He's your brother-in-law.'

"'But you are my husband,' she says, lookin' at me kind of queer.

Anyhow, it seems kind of queer to me now. I've thought about that look a good deal since, and sometimes I've wondered if--if . . . However, that's all past and by.

"'Yes,' I says, pretty average bitter, 'but second husbands don't count for much.'

"'Some of 'em don't seem to, that's a fact,' she says.

"'By jiminy,' I says, 'I don't count for much in this house.'

"'Yes?' says she. 'And whose fault is that?'

"Well, I WAS mad. 'I tell you what I CAN do,' I sings out. 'I can quit this landlubber's job where I'm nothin' but a swab, and go to sea again, where I'm some account. That's what I can do.'

"She turned and looked at me.

"'You promised me never to go to sea again, she says.

"'Humph!' says I; 'some promises are hard to keep.'

"'I keep mine, hard or not,' says she. 'Would you go away and leave me?'

"'You've got Brother Bennie,' says I. 'He's a genius; I ain't nothin'

but a man.'

"She laughed, pretty scornful. 'Are you sartin you're that?' she wanted to know.

"'Not since I been livin' here, I ain't,' I says. And that ended that try of makin' up.

"And from then on it got worse and worse. There wan't much comfort at home where the inventor was, so I took to stayin' out nights. Went down to the store and hung around, listenin' to fools' gabble, and wishin'

I was dead. And the more I stayed out, the more Bennie D. laughed and sneered and hinted. And then come that ridic'lous business about Sarah Ann Christy. That ended it for good and all."

Seth paused in his long story and looked out across the starlit sea.

"Who was Sarah Ann?" asked Brown. The lightkeeper seemed much embarra.s.sed.

"She was a born fool," he declared, with emphasis; "born that way and been developin' extry foolishness ever since. She was a widow, too; been good lookin' once and couldn't forget it, and she lived down nigh the store. When I'd be goin' down or comin' back, just as likely as not she was settin' on the piazza, and she'd hail me. I didn't want to stop and talk to her, of course."

"No, of course not."