Part 25 (1/2)
”I'd like to get something out of him,” growled Tunis, to whom the remark was addressed.
”What's that?”
”Some work, for one thing,” said the captain of the _Seamew_. ”He's as lazy a fellow as I ever saw. And his tongue's too long.”
”Trouble is,” Cap'n Ira rejoined, ”these trips you take in the schooner are too short to give you any chance to lick your crew into shape. They get back home too often. Too much sh.o.r.e leave, if ye ask me.”
”I'd lose Mason Chapin if the _Seamew_ made longer voyages. And I have lost one of the hands already--Tony.”
”I swan! What's the matter with him?”
”His mother says Tony is scared to sail again with the _Seamew_.
Some Portygee foolishness.”
”I told you them Portygees warn't worth the grease they sop their bread in,” declared Cap'n Ira.
The two on the rear seat of the carryall paid no attention to this conversation.
”I'm real pleased,” said the old woman, ”that you are going to dinner with Lucretia Latham, Ida May. Your mother thought a sight of her, and 'Cretia did of Sarah Honey, too. Sarah was one of the few who seemed to understand Lucretia. She's so dumb. I declare I can't never get used to her myself. I like folks lively about me, and I don't care how much they talk--the more the better.
”Lucretia Latham might have got her a good man and been happily married long ago, if it hadn't been that when a feller dropped in to call on her she sat mum all the evening and never said no more than the cat.
”I remember Silas Payson, who lived over beyond the port, took quite a s.h.i.+ne to Lucretia, seeing her at church. Or, at least, we thought he did. Silas began going down to Latham's Folly of an evening, now and then, and setting up with Lucretia. But after a while he left off going and said he cal'lated he'd join the Quakers over to Seetawket. Playing Quaker meeting with just one girl to look at didn't suit, noway.” And the old woman laughed placidly.
”Tunis says he understands his aunt,” ventured the girl.
”Tunis has had to put up with her. But he can say nothing a good deal himself, if anybody should ask ye. That's the only fault I've found with Tunis. I've heard Ira talk at him for a straight hour in our kitchen, and all the answer Tunis made was to say 'yes' twice.”
The girl did not find the captain of the _Seamew_ at all inarticulate later, as they crossed the old fields of the Ball place and walked down the slope into the saucerlike valley where lay Latham's Folly. She had never known Tunis to be more companionable than on this occasion. He seemed to have gained the courage to talk on more intimate topics than at any time since their acquaintances.h.i.+p had begun.
”I guess you know,” he observed, ”that most all the money Uncle Peke left me--after what the lawyers got--I put into that schooner.
There's a mortgage on her, too. You see, although the old place will come to me by and by, Aunt Lucretia has rights in it while she lives. It's sort of entailed, you know. I could not raise a dollar on Latham's Folly, if I wanted to. So I am pretty well tied up, you see.
”But the schooner is doing well. That is, I mean, business is good, Ida May. Other things being equal, I will make more money with her the way I am doing now than I could in any other business. My line is the sea; I know that. I am fitted for it.
”And if I had invested Uncle Peke's legacy and kept on fis.h.i.+ng, or tried for a berth in a deep bottom somewhere, I would not get ahead any faster or make so much money. Besides, long voyages would take me away from home, and, after all, Aunt Lucretia is my only kin and she would miss me sore.”
”I am sure she would,” said the girl with sympathy.
”But all ain't plain sailing,” added the young skipper wistfully. ”I am running too close to the reefs right now to crow any.”
”But I am sure you will be successful in the end. Of course you will!”
”That's mighty nice of you,” he said, smiling down into her vivid face. ”With you and Aunt Lucretia both pulling for me, I ought to win out, sure enough.
”You can't fail to like her,” he added. ”If you just get the right slant on her character, I mean, Ida May. Hers has been a lonely life. Not that there has not almost always been somebody in the house with her. But she has lived with her own thoughts. She reads a great deal. There is not one topic I can broach of which she has not at least a general knowledge. I was sent away to school, but when I came home vacations I brought my books and she read them all.
”And she is a splendid listener.” He laughed. ”You'll find that out for yourself, I fancy. And I know she likes people to talk to her--when they have anything to say. Tell her things; that is what she enjoys.”