CHAPTER XVI

THE ALLEGORY

Cap'n Jonah hobbled downstairs in season for the noonday dinner. "Jest about as spry as a crippled fiddler crab," he expressed it. But after the meal he insisted upon going out of doors.

Helmford assisted him, although Sarah tried to get Tom to offer his arm first. The lout, however, was backward and Helmford went down the lane with the old mariner.

"Something of a squall last night," muttered Cap'n Jonah in Helmford's ear. "Did you hear it?"

"Why, no. I didn't know it stormed last night. But I know it was very cold," replied the young man.

"Whatever! I should say it was cold," the captain agreed. "But I meant the squall in the house."

"Oh!" Helmford's expression changed.

"Sarah and them pickin' on Pearly the way they've been doin' has got to be stopped."

"Oh!"

"I had to put my foot down," went on Cap'n Jonah, boldly. "She sha'n't be brow-beaten no more. What I've got shall be that gal's when I'm dead an' gone, and then she sha'n't be beholden to no Petty."

"Oh!"

"Whatever!" exclaimed Cap'n Jonah, exasperated. "Ain't you got nothin' but 'O's' left inside you?"

"Er--not much, I guess, Cap'n Jonah. You take my breath away. Do you mean you are going to make Miss Pearl your heir?"

"That's what I mean to do," the old man said firmly, "if them Pettys don't treat her better. Of course, the gal ain't nothin' by blood to me. Though the Hands, and the Holdens, and the Cards, and most of the other old families hereabout are a good deal mixed up.

"Just the same," continued Cap'n Jonah, almost convincing himself of the reality of his plans as he went along, "I might do better willin' my property to Pearly than leaving it to Sarah Petty and her lout of a son. What do you think, Mr. Helmford?"

"I--I do not feel myself qualified to advise, Cap'n Hand. It is a delicate matter," said Helmford slowly, and left him at the highway.

"Ye-as. It's purty delicate, I do allow," muttered Cap'n Jonah. "Whatever!"

He turned shoreward himself. The surf boomed with a threatening sound along The Beaches. Had he given thought to the matter he would have expressed it as his opinion that this was a weather-breeder. Clear as the sky was, there was a threatening haze along the horizon. He believed the barometer must be falling. The gulls stormed overhead and the white-maned sea-horses charged upon and over the Gull Rocks reef.

Cap'n Jonah found the gold-headed cane a great help on this sunny afternoon. His joints were limbering slowly, but the attack of the morning had warned him of what was likely to come on him at almost any time. Articular rheumatism comes and goes, striking unexpectedly the victim. Cap'n Jonah felt that he must do what he could for Pearl--and for himself--immediately. He might be laid up, a cripple, for a long time.

As he approached Cap'n Abe's store he saw a long, low-hung russet-painted roadster standing before the door. The engine was throbbing gently and the car seemed like a spirited horse, eager to be off along the road. Cap'n Jonah had seen the motor car before speeding up and down the Shell Road.

In it at present was a young man with a healthy wash of tan upon his face and the look of an athlete in every curve of his long body. Beside him sat a smiling young woman. It seemed to Cap'n Jonah she was the happiest looking woman he had ever seen. She held a bundle in her lap, and above it her face glowed with health and the joy of living.

Cap'n Abe was at the side of the car handing in certain packages that the driver of the automobile was stowing away.

"Ahoy, Cap'n Hand!" the storekeeper hailed when he saw the captain. "Come meet my niece Louise and Mr. Lawford Tapp, her husband. Not to forgit," Cap'n Abe added, chuckling, "the last Tapp of all," and he poked a horny finger at the bundle in the girl's lap.

Cap'n Jonah managed to call up a twisted smile in spite of the twinges of pain he suffered, and met a pair of warm and friendly handclasps from the young couple--for Lawford and Louise Tapp were very loyal Cape Codders at heart.

"That little feller," said the proud and delighted Cap'n Abe, as Louise turned back the veil to reveal the baby's face for a moment, "near's I kin make out, is my ha'f-grand-nephew. He's only a half portion now; but he's goin' to be a big feller like his pop, and he's a-goin' to be happy an' friendly an' hail-feller-well-met with all the world, like his marm."

"Now, Uncle Abram!" cried Louise Tapp, "you give me a rather questionable reputation."

"No, I don't, Louise! No, I don't!" Cap'n Abe urged. "You're one o' these friendly souls, I do allow, that sweeten this old world of ourn an' make it fit to live in. Hi-mighty! I do despise, an' always did, folks that go 'round hangin' their heads an' moanin' an' takin' on like all kildee, because the world don't go right for them.

"Why, the way to make the world go right," declared the emphatic storekeeper, "is to get out an' push it right. Put your shoulder to things! If you want a sartin thing, go out an' git it," and he winked slyly at Cap'n Jonah.

"Whatever!" ejaculated Cap'n Jonah, approving Cap'n Abe's statement for once at least. "Ain't it so?"

"You're a philosopher, Cap'n Abe," declared Lawford Tapp, preparing to drive away. "Glad to have met you, Cap'n Hand. I'd heard we had a new neighbor. Come over to the Point and see us."

Louise seconded the invitation as the car rolled away. Lawford shifted to high speed and they shot off at a racing clip.

"Hi-mighty!" said Cap'n Abe. "If them speed demons, L. Tapp and his wife, don't wreck that racing car _and_ my ha'f-grand-nephew, it'll be a mercy! Come in, Cap'n Jonah. It's colder'n a dog's nose out here in the road."

He led the way into the warm store, where there was a glowing fire in the big stove. The frost had been driven to the outer barrier, and the smell of heated boots and fishy garments was heavy upon the air. Washy Gallup, Cap'n Joab, Milt Baker, and Amiel Perdue, as well as others of the usual loungers, encircled the stove. They made room for Cap'n Jonah while the storekeeper himself halted to warm his hands at the fire.

"We're in for a spell of Jack Frost, Cap'n Jonah," remarked Washy.

"I shouldn't wonder! I shouldn't wonder!" agreed the mariner addressed. But he gave little attention to the several greetings of the loungers. His mind was fixed upon the errand on which he had come. He desired greatly to get Cap'n Abe off into a corner and sound him upon the subject of "foolin' them Pettys." Cap'n Abe was his only hope. He took snuff thoughtfully and rapped his knuckles on the cover of the silver snuffbox.

"It was jest such another spell of dry cold as this," began the storekeeper ruminatively, "when Uncle Joe Hanna over to Freedom was turned out o' house an' home years ago by the sheriff. 'Member that, Cap'n Joab?"

"Forever an' ever," replied the person addressed. "And ev'rybody else remembers it, too."

"Wal--mebbe," agreed Cap'n Abe quite composed. The shuffling of feet, clearing of throats, and other indications of distaste for the expected yarn did not halt him at all. "It was a hi-mighty cold day," as he had himself remarked, and he had his audience in chancery.

"Uncle Joe Hanna owned a leetle place where he'd lived all his life, and he mortgaged it to Jonathan Coffin. Coffin was as hard as nails, and his wife, Miz Coffin, was as hard as spikes. Hi-mighty! they was a pair.

"Wal, when Uncle Joe Hanna got too old to work much he couldn't keep up the int'rest on the mortgage. Ye know," said Cap'n Abe, genially, "a feller told me once what the word 'mortgage' meant. He said 'mort' was French for 'death' and 'gage' meant a challenge. So, when a feller mortgages his home he challenges death to a set-to--an' death usually wins. I guess that's purty nigh so.

"Anyhow, Uncle Joe might jest as well have been up against the 'grim reaper,' as Elder Golightly calls it when he gets right poetic in the pulpit--Uncle Joe might just as well have grappled with death as to have Jonathan Coffin for a creditor. He was turned out, hoss _an'_ foot, an' didn't have a place to lay his head.

"Course," pursued Cap'n Abe, "the neighbors took him in, turn an' turn about, and he was made comfortable. But Uncle Joe was proud, and he wanted his rights. He had paid taxes--sech as they was--all his life, and he p'inted out to the selectmen that he was wishful of havin' a home and an abiding place for the rest of his days--sech as it might be--and didn't propose to be driven from piller to post.

"Ye see," said Cap'n Abe, "at that time Freedom didn't have no poorfarm. That is, there was a farm but no house onto it an' no provision made for inmates, as the feller said. So they begun boardin' Uncle Joe around at the town expense. Plenty of folks would take him. All but the Widder Blodgett. She was all alone in her house, and although Uncle Joe was nigh eighty, she didn't think she could take him in. The neighbors might talk," added Cap'n Abe, his eyes twinkling.

"Wal, Uncle Joe was partic'lar about his food. He'd always been used to hot biscuit three times a day--made 'em himself after his wife died--and he craved milk in his chowder, both fish _an'_ clam; an' good, solid pound cake with plenty aigs in it.

"Nobody seemed to suit his appetite but Jonathan Coffin's wife herself. She was a master hand to cook; but as she said, what the selectmen allowed for Uncle Joe's up-keep didn't scurse pay for the grub he et. He wouldn't do a hand's turn of work, bein' a town boarder, and she complained to Jonathan that he'd been smarter if he'd let Uncle Joe live and die in his own house, and waited to git his claws on the old man's prop'ty through sheriff's sale till after Uncle Joe was under the sod.

"But by an' by ev'rybody noticed how much nicer the Coffinses began to treat Uncle Joe. They took him to church in their buggy, and bought him tobacker, and a new suit of clo'es. And you could see him sittin' out under the trees in the Coffinses' front yard takin' it easy, an' all. Folks began to say they'd never suspicioned what re'l kind-hearted people Jonathan Coffin and his wife was. They treated Uncle Joe lovely!"

Cap'n Abe chuckled reflectively.

"Don't you calc'late to go clammin' to-morrow, Milt?" asked Cap'n Joab Beecher weakly. But Mr. Baker had just taken a huge and comforting chew of Brown Mule and was speechless for the moment. So that attempt to head off the storekeeper's story was still-born.

"But the old man died finally. Hot biscuit, and milk chowder, and six-aig cake couldn't keep him alive," said Cap'n Abe. "He was long past the allotted time of man, an' the selectmen sartainly were glad to see that account wiped off their books. They give him a nice fun'ral. Jonathan Coffin, they say, helped pay for the extrys. Hadn't had a pauper funeral in Freedom for two generations, so they just spread themselves.

"Wal, you'd ha' thought Jonathan an' Miz Coffin had lost a close rel'tive. She went into mournin'--of course it was a veil she'd worn years before when her own pop died--and Jonathan went around with a broad band of crêpe on his arm. Then, the week after Uncle Joe was laid away, they hustled down to Arad Peck, who was a lawyer, and took with 'em an old black satchel Uncle Joe had set gre't store by. It seemed Uncle Joe had made a will in their favor, they'd treated him so nice, and in the satchel was all the old man's private papers.

"Wal, sir!" continued Cap'n Abe, smiling broadly, "on the face of 'em them papers made out Uncle Joe Hanna to have been a regular miser. He'd hid away securities and deeds wuth a scand'lous amount. Hi-mighty! It struck Arad Peck all aback.

"Then he begun to go through 'em, and sift 'em out, and make comparisons, and he found out them valu'bles of Uncle Joe's was wuth jest a cent an' a ha'f a pound. Waste paper brung a purty good price at that time."

"Whatever!" ejaculated the single listener unfamiliar with the denouement of the story. "Wuthless?"

"'Ceptin' to the junkman," chuckled Cap'n Abe. "Seems Uncle Joe had found them ancient and useless dockyments in an old safe he'd bought and cleaned out one time. They was a collection of certificates and deeds and sich that never had been wuth more than ten per cent. of their face value, in all probability, and had been deteriorating since the year one.

"But they sarved," concluded the narrator, "to gull the Coffinses nicely. Paid Jonathan up for overreachin' Uncle Joe. He played a trick on 'em that I dunno as the parsons would approve; but as I see it, they was sarved right."

Cap'n Abe went around behind the counter again and an audible sigh of relief was expelled by most of his audience. By all but Cap'n Jonah. He remained in a reflective mood. Suddenly, as the hum of general conversation rose again about the stove, Cap'n Jonah slapped his leg heartily.

"Whatever!" he ejaculated.

"See the p'int, Cap'n Hand?" asked the storekeeper slyly.

"Whatever!" repeated Cap'n Jonah. "I sh'd say I do!"