Part 31 (2/2)

Feeling, somehow, that the death of the man who had chosen and employed him for the position increased his responsibility in that position, Captain Sears worked harder than ever to earn his salary as general manager of the Fair Harbor. He had already made some improvements in systematizing and thereby saving money for the inst.i.tution. The groceries, flour, tea, sugar, and the rest, had heretofore been purchased at Ba.s.sett's store in the village. He still continued to buy certain articles of Eliphalet, princ.i.p.ally from motives of policy and to retain the latter's good will, but the bulk of supplies he contracted for in Boston at the houses from which he had so often bought stores for his s.h.i.+ps. He could not go to the city and negotiate by word of mouth, more was the pity, and so was obliged to make his trades by mail, but he got bids from several firms and the results were quite worth while.

Besides groceries he bought a hogshead of corned beef, barrels of crackers, a barrel of salt pork, and, from one of the local fishermen, a half dozen kegs of salt mackerel. The saving altogether was a very appreciable amount.

The Fair Harbor property included, besides the land upon which the house was situated, several acres of wood lot timbered with pine and oak. Mrs.

Berry--or her daughter--had been accustomed to hire a man to cut and haul such wood as was needed, from time to time, for the stoves and fireplaces. Also, when repairs had to be done, they hired a carpenter to make them. Sears, when he got around to it, devoted some consideration to the wood and repair question and, after much haggling, affected a sort of three-cornered swap. Benijah Black, the carpenter, was a brother-in-law of Burgess Paine, who owned the local coal, wood, lumber and grain shop by the railway station. The captain arranged that Black should do whatever carpenter work might be needed at the Harbor and take his pay in wood at the wood lot, selling the wood--or a part of it--to Paine, for whom he was in debt for coal and lumber; and, also, for whom he, Black, was building a new storage shed. It was a complicated process, but it resulted in the Fair Harbor's getting its own firewood cut, hauled and split for next to nothing, its repair costs cut in half, its coal bills lessened, while Black and Paine seemed to be perfectly satisfied. Altogether it was a good deal of a managerial triumph, as even the manager himself was obliged to admit.

Elizabeth was loud in her praises.

”I don't see how you ever did it, Cap'n Kendrick,” she declared. ”And Benijah and Mr. Paine are just as contented as we are. It is a miracle.”

Sears grinned. ”I don't know quite how I did it, myself,” he said.

”'Twas the most complicated piece of steerin' I ever did, and if we come out without s.h.i.+pwreck it _will_ be a miracle! I'm goin' to tackle that hay question next. There's hay enough on that lower meadow of ours to pay for corn for the hens for quite a spell. I'll see if I can't make a d.i.c.ker there somehow. Then if I can fix up a deal with the hens to trade corn for eggs, we'll come out pretty well, won't we?”

This sort of thing interested him and made him a trifle more contented with his work. His talents as a diplomat, such as they were, were needed continually. The interior of the Fair Harbor was a sort of incubator for petty squabbles, jealousies, prejudices and complaints, some funny, many ridiculous, and almost all annoying. The most petty he refused to be troubled with, bidding the complainants go to Mrs. Berry. His refusals were good-natured but determined.

”Well, I tell you, Miss Peasley,” he said, when that lady had come to him with a long, involved wail concerning the manner in which Mrs.

Constance Cahoon, who occupied the seat next her at table, insisted on keeping the window open all through meals, ”so's I sit there with a draft blowin' right down my neck the whole time.” ”I tell you, Miss Peasley,” said the captain, ”if I were you I would shut the window.”

”But I do shut it,” declared Desire. ”And every time I jump up and shut it, up she bounces and opens it again.”

”Humph! I see.... Well, exercise helps digestion, so they say. You can jump as long as she can bounce, can't you?”

Miss Peasley was disgusted. ”Well,” she snapped, ”I don't call that much help. I supposed if I went to the _manager_ he'd put his foot down.”

”He's goin' to--and then take it up and put it down again. I've got to hobble out to see to mowin' the meadow. You tell Mrs. Berry all about it.”

As a part of his diplomacy he made it a point to spend half an hour each morning in consultation with Cordelia Berry. The matron of the Fair Harbor was at first rather suspicious and ready to resent any intrusion upon her rights and prerogatives. But at each conference the captain listened so politely to her rambling reports, seemed to receive her suggestions so eagerly and to ask her advice upon so many points, that her suspicions were lulled and she came to accept the new superintendent's presence as a relief and a benefit.

”He is so very gentlemanly, Elizabeth,” she told her daughter. ”And so willing to learn. At first, as you know, I couldn't see why the poor dear judge appointed him, but now I do. He realized that I needed an a.s.sistant. In many ways he reminds me of your father.”

”But, mother,” exclaimed her daughter, in surprise, ”Cap'n Kendrick isn't nearly as old as father was.”

”Oh it isn't the age that reminded me. It's the manner. He has the same quick, authoritative way of making decisions and saying things. And it is so very gratifying to see how he defers to my judgment and experience.”

Captain Sears did defer, that is he seldom opposed. But, when each conference was over, he went his own sweet way, using his own judgment and doing what seemed to him best. With Elizabeth, however, he was quite different. When she offered advice--which was seldom--he listened and almost invariably acted upon it. He was daily growing to have a higher opinion of her wisdom and capabilities. Whether or not it was the wisdom and capabilities alone which influenced that opinion he did not attempt to a.n.a.lyze. He enjoyed being with her and working with her, that he knew. That the constant companions.h.i.+p might be, for him, a risky and perhaps dangerous experience, he did not as yet realize. When he was with her, and busy with Fair Harbor affairs, he could forget the slowness with which his crippled legs were mending, and the increasing longing--sometimes approaching desperation--for the quarter deck of his own s.h.i.+p and the sea wind in his face.

He worked hard for the Harbor and did his best to justify his appointment as manager, but, work as he might, he knew perfectly well that such labors would scarcely earn his salary. But, on the other hand, he knew that the man who appointed him had not expected them to do so.

He had been put in charge of the Fair Harbor for one reason alone and that was to be in command of the s.h.i.+p when the redoubtable Egbert came alongside. Judge Knowles had as much as told him that very thing, and more than once. Egbert Phillips had been, evidently, the judge's pet aversion and, in his later days illness and fretfulness had magnified and intensified that aversion. When Sears attempted to find good and sufficient reasons for belief that the husband of Lobelia Seymour was any such bugbear he was baffled. He asked Judah more questions and he questioned citizens of Bayport who had known the former singing teacher before and after his marriage. Some, like Judah, declared him ”slick” or ”smooth.” Others, and those the majority, seemed to like him. He was polite and educated and a ”perfect gentleman,” this was the sum of feminine opinion. Captain Sears was inclined to picture him as what he would have called a ”sissy,” and not much more dangerous than that. The judge's hatred, he came to believe, was an obsession, a sick man's fancy.

He had, of course, read the Phillips letter, that which Judge Knowles bade him take away and read that night of his death. He hurriedly read it on that occasion before going to bed; he had reread it several times since.

It was a well-written letter, there was no doubt of that, a polite letter, almost excessively so, perhaps. In fact, if Sears had been obliged to find a fault with it it would have been that it was a little too polite, a little too polished and flowery. It was not the sort of letter that he, himself, would have written under stress of grief, but he realized that it was not the sort of letter he could have written at all. Taken as a whole it was hard to pick flaws which might not be the result of prejudice, and taken sentence by sentence it stood the test almost as well.

”Our life together has been so happy,” wrote Phillips, ”so ideal, that the knowledge of its end leaves me stunned, speechless, wordless.”

That was exaggeration, of course. He was not wordless, for the letter contained almost a superfluity of words; but people often said things they did not mean literally.

”My dear wife and I spoke of you so often, Judge, her affection for you was so great--an affection which I share, as you know----”

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