Part 21 (1/2)

”Some,” and cast his eyes and jerked his thumb vaguely upward, toward the ceiling.

”If she throws 'em at him--Aye--” He struggled with the thought, bringing it slowly out of dim recesses to the light. ”She ought to pour the bilin' off first. It ain't right.”

Silence fell over us again. At last Captain Tom said:

”Supposing a man is loose-jointed in his mind, like Abe, or Billy Corliss a trifle, and gets took back of the ear with something hard, that steadies him, it's no great harm if it's warm.”

”She ought to pour off the bilin',” said Uncle Abimelech uneasily.

After that we sat for a while, each taken with his own thoughts, until Pemberton was knocking out his pipe, like one approaching the idea of a night's rest, when there came a noise in the outer hall, and the wind blew snow under the crack below the inner door. Some one bounced into the room like a storm. He was a short, thickset man with white side whiskers, and looked like an infuriated Santa Claus, for he was covered with snow.

”Most miserable, infernal, impossible night ever made, Mr. Pemberton!

Forty thousand devils---Ah! Give me some of that, hot! Detestable night!”

”It is so, Andrew,” said Pemberton, soothing and agreeable. ”You're near right.”

”As referring to weather,” said Stevey Todd, ”though not putting it so strong, you might--”

But the newcomer broke in, and beat the table with his fist.

”Weather! No! Not weather. Mr. Pemberton, I'll tell you what's the matter. Here's my daughter run away to be married with the coolest, freshest, limber-tongued young codfish that ever escaped salting. Not if I know it! I'll salt him! I'll pickle him! I will, if my name's McCulloch.”

He puffed hard, and sat down. Stevey Todd looked at Andrew McCulloch, then he looked at the others and winked cautiously, and Pemberton winked back. But Captain Tom did not look up. Uncle Abimelech too kept his eyes on the fire. He seemed to be following his old train of thought, which Andrew McCulloch's coming had started again in his mind, for he began:

”Before I was married, her mother she used to throw kettles at me. They was kettles,” he said bitterly, ”with spouts and handles. Aye, afterward she did too, some.”

Andrew McCulloch puffed and looked surprised and Pemberton said:

”Ran in the family?”

”Aye. Then she come across the bay in a rowboat, and I was diggin'

clams, and she says. 'If you dasn't come to the house, what dast you do?' I see the minister down the beach, diggin' clams, an' he had eleven children, he had, diggin' clams, and she looked at him too, and I says, 'I das' say he'd rather'n dig clams.' We went fis.h.i.+n' afterward, and got eight barrel o' herring.”

”You don't say!” says Andrew McCulloch, puffing and looked surprised.

Uncle Abimelech kept his eyes fixed on the kettle and wandered away in his mind. Then Captain Tom roused himself, and spoke thoughtfully.

”It was different with me,” he said. ”Her parents wanted another one.

He was richer, but nowise so good-looking. I says to her, 'Cut and run!'

but she wouldn't, as being undutiful. She took him. His name was Jones.

He went bankrupt, and got paralysis, and is living still. Her parents died in different poorhouses.”

Pemberton looked surprised at this too, and then thoughtful, and then he winked at Stevey Todd, who pa.s.sed it back.

”I got my wife out of the back window of a boarding school, second story,” said Pemberton. ”She came down the blinds.” And he wiped his face with his coat sleeve.

”Mine came through the cellar,” said Stevey Todd. ”She brought a pot of jam in her pocket, or else,” he added cautiously, ”or else it was pickles. It might've been pickles, but it runs in my mind it was jam.”