Part 1 (1/2)
Five Hundred Dollars.
by Heman White Chaplin.
I.
Captain Philo's sail-loft was a pleasant place to sit in, and it was much frequented. At one end was a wide, sliding door, that opened on the water, and through it you saw the little harbor and the low, glistening sand-bar at its entrance, and whitecaps in the sea beyond, and s.h.i.+ning sails. At the other end another wide door led, by a gently descending cleated platform, to the ground.
It was a pleasant place to rest and refresh the mind in, whether you chose to look in or out. You could rock in the hair-cloth chair by the water door, and join in conversation with more active persons mending seines upon the wharf; or you could dangle your heels from the work-bench, and listen to stories and debates inside, and look on Captain Philo sewing upon a mainsail.
It was a summer afternoon: warm under the silver poplars, hot in the store, and hotter in the open street; but in the sail-loft it was cool.
”More than once,” Captain Bennett was remarking from the rocking-chair, while his prunella shoes went up and down,--”more than once I've wished that I could freight this loft to Calcutta on speculation, and let it out, so much a head, for so long a time, to set in and cool off.”
”How about them porious water-jars they hev there?” asked Uncle Silas, who had never sailed beyond Cape Pogue; ”how do they work?”
”Well,” said the captain, ”they 're so-so. But you set up this loft, both doors slid open, air drawing through and all, right on Calcutta main street, or what they call the Maiden's Esplanade, and fit it up with settees like a conference-meeting, and advertise, and you could let out chances to set for twenty cents an hour.”
”You 'd hev to hev a man to take tickets, to the door,” said Uncle Silas, who had been looking for an easy job for forty years.
”That's Si all over.” said Captain Bennett, with a wink; ”that berth would be just his size.”
”Well,” said Uncle Silas, faintly smiling, ”'t is no use rubbin' the fur the wrong way; stroke the world from head to tail is my rule.”
”Speaking of folks being easy,” said Captain Bennett, ”it seems there 's quite a little story about David Prince's voyage on the 'Viola.'” ”I thought he went off whaling rather in a hurry,” said Captain Philo, ”and if it had been 'most anybody else, I should have thought there was something up.”
”It seems,” said Captain Bennett, ”it was like this: You know, Delia was n't much over ten years old when her mother died, along a piece after her father, and she come to live with us. And you know how she was almost like one of the family. Well, about eight years ago, when she 'd got to be towards nineteen, it was then that David first set out to s.h.i.+ne up to her; and when he begun to come home from singing-school with her that winter, and got to coming to the house quite often the next spring along, I begun to feel a little shaky. Finally, one Sunday afternoon I was sitting out on the porch and she was singing hymns inside,--you know she was always singing,--and I called to her to quit and come out, and sit down alongside of me, and says I,--”'Delia, it can't be you 're thinking of taking up with David Prince?'
”Well, she flared a little, but finally says she:
”'Why should n't I, or anybody that has the chance, take David Prince?'
”'Well,' says I, 'I don't think you need to ask why; I should say that a smart girl wouldn't want more than to travel once along the Lower Road and see those two run-down houses,--one deserted, and the other, handy by, about as bad,--and the barn across the road, that was raised and boarded in over forty years ago, and never s.h.i.+ngled, and stood so till it's all rotted and sunk in.'
”'What's that got to do with David?' says she.
”'It's got this to do with David,' says I, 'that his father and his Uncle Ezekiel and their father before 'em--good, kindly men--all seemed to settle, settle, somehow; and it was all to-morrow, and to-morrow, with 'em; 'and then I told Delia how they sold off their wood and then their land, piecemeal, all but the spot where the old buildings stand,--and that's worth nothing.
”'And that's the way,' says I, 'it 'll be with David when he gets over being a boy and settles down; it's in the blood; and I don't want to see you, Delia, keel-hauled there--'”
”Like David's mother,--Prudence Frost, that was,” said Uncle Silas; ”originally she was a good, smart girl, and full of jingle; but finally she give up and come to it,--lef sweepin'-day out o' the almanic, washed dishes in cold water, and made up beds at bedtime; and when she ironed a s.h.i.+rt, jes' 's like's not she 'd iron a hoss-fly right into the bosom.”
”And lived a dog's life generally,” said Captain Bennett. ”So I laid the whole thing out to Delia, the best way I knew how.
”'Well,' says she, 'I know you mean my good, Captain Bennett,--but I shall take my chances.' And so she did. Well--”
”Speakin' o' the barn,” said Uncle Silas, ”do you remember that high shay that David's father hed? I was up to the Widow Pope's vendue the day he bid it off. He managed to s.p.u.n.k up so fur's to hitch the shaffs under his team and fetch the vehicle home, and then he hed n't no place to put it up out o' the weather,--and so he druv it along under that big Bald'n apple-tree that used to stand by the pantry window, on the north side o' the house, and left it there, with the shaffs clawin' down in the ground. Then the talk was, he was goin' to build him a sort of a little tabernacle for it before winter set in; and he hed down a load of lumber from Uncle Joe's mill and hed it dumped down alongside o' the shay. But the shay was n't never once hitched up, nor the tabernacle built; and the timber and the shay jes' set there, side by side, seein'
who 'd speak first, for twenty year, to my cer-ting knowledge; and you go by there when it was blowin' fresh, and the old curtings would be flappin' in and out, black and white, till finally the whole arrangement sunk out o' sight. I guess there 's more or less wrack there now, 'f you sh'd go poke in the gra.s.s.”
”It was thirty-one year ago, come October, that he bought the shay,”
said Captain Philo; ”it was the fall I was cast away on the Tombstones, and lost every dollar I had. I remember it because the old man came down to the house of his own accord, when I got home, and let me have two hundred dollars. He 'd just been selling the West New Field; and when he 'd sold land and had money on hand, it was anybody's that wanted it. But what was it about David's going off so sudden on the 'Viola'?”