CHAPTER XXX

"CHRISTMAS GIFT"

Eliphalet Truitt stumbled out of the Shell Road store a little later with fingers tingling from the pressure of many friendly hands and with tear-blinded eyes. Perhaps this latter fact was what caused him to all but run into a much smaller craft on the wind-swept road. The clouds were broken overhead and the moon, peering through, shed sufficient light for the startled ex-steward to identify his vis-à-vis.

"Sue? By Hannah! I reckoned you'd be 'twixt your blankets," he declared.

"Oh, 'Liphalet!" she cried. "Pearly and I have been giving the last touches to the Christmas tree. And Pearly----Why! where is she?"

Miss Sue had not seen her companion dart ahead to join Helmford, who had likewise come down the store steps.

"Pearly's going to live with me, 'Liphalet--for a while at least. Cap'n Jonah will stay with Cap'n Abe here at the store. But Pearly will need somebody to help with her sewing--you know----"

She halted with a blush that 'Liphalet did not see. Then, eagerly: "I suppose Cap'n Abe presented the music box to you, 'Liphalet? I did not mean to miss that. But I had to rouse out Washy Gallup and start him over to old Suz Montevedo's for the night. The Ladies' Aid will find watchers for poor Suz, turn about, until he is better."

"By Hannah!" breathed the ex-steward looking hungrily into her face. "You knowed about that music box the folks was getting me all the time, didn't you, Susan?"

"Oh, yes. And I thought you would surely suspect something that day in front of the post-office when you saw it in Perry Baker's wagon."

Her laugh, so low and mellow, thrilled him. Somehow he caught both of her fluttering hands and she let them lie in his grasp.

"Susan!" he said.

"Yes, 'Liphalet," and her sweet eyes were suddenly raised boldly to his own.

"If you didn't have all that money----"

"What money do you mean, 'Liphalet?" she asked, puzzled.

"That fortune your A'nt Amy left you."

"I--I haven't much of it left, you know, 'Liphalet. Only 'bout ninety dollars."

"_What?_" almost shouted the man. "Ninety dollars?"

"Yes. You know, Aunt Amy left me a little over four hundred dollars. I--I bought a dress, that I--I laid away, with part of it." The blush was again hidden in the uncertain light of an uncertain moon. That silver gray poplin, laid away in lavender, was the tenderest secret in all Sue Ambrose's life.

"Folks reported around," she hastened to add, "that the legacy was a lot more. You know how stories grow in Cardhaven."

"Grow! From four hundred to forty thousand? I should say! Why, Susan, thinking you had all that money----"

"Only four hundred dollars, 'Liphalet."

"_Forty thousand!_ By Hannah! Has gossip cheated me out of this here blessin' for goin' on ten year?"

He held her in his arms right in the public road. He knew by the very yielding of her body to his own what her answer was. With the clearing of the tempest on this Christmas Eve had come the clearing up of all mistakes and misapprehensions in their lives.

A raucous "Ahem!" apprised them of the presence of somebody besides Pearl and Helmford behind them. "Well, I vum!" ejaculated the voice of Doctor Ambrose. "'Twan't your liver after all, 'Liphalet Truitt, that was out of kilter. I see now 'twas your heart!"

The dying gale chased tatters of cloud across the face of the moon. Only now and then was the road lighted sufficiently for Helmford and Pearl to see clearly the trio walking on ahead of them toward the Ambrose cottage. Helmford and Pearl walked close together and slowly. They were in that ecstatic state where the touch of a hand--even the caress of their garments against each other--thrilled them. Pearl had never dreamed, even under the inspiration of the tales in the _Ladies' Home Provider_, that love was as sweet as this!

"This has been one blessed--exciting--_astounding_ day, Pearly," Helmford said. "How much has happened in a few hours! This morning I thought----"

"Yes?" she asked, as he hesitated, and giving a happy little skip as she clung to his arm. "What did you think?"

"I thought you were as far away from me as that moon up there."

"My, how foolish of you!" breathed Pearl, yet delighted. "And just because poor Uncle Jonah would give me some of his fortune."

"All of it, he said," Helmford told her grimly. "A hundred thousand dollars. That is a great sum, Pearl."

"Is it?" she asked innocently. "It's not so much _when it's only in your mind_."

"And I'm glad you haven't got it--even in your mind, Pearly."

"Why, say!" cried the girl, "I never thought about having money. Only a little. If Cap'n Jonah really had a fortune to give me I wouldn't know what to do with it. Look at Miss Sue. What does she do with all the money folks say she's got? She can only eat so much, and drink so much, and sleep in one bed at a time. Of course, she can wear better clothes than I can. But, Joe," she added roguishly and peered up into his face with sparkling eyes, "if you teach _lots_ of fishes to hatch eggs, the Government will raise your pay, and then _you_ can buy all the dresses I need or want, I am sure!"

The moon drew a heavier, fleecier cloud across her face just then and hid a second couple who were locked in each other's arms on the old Shell Road.

* * * * *

In the brilliant sunshine of that Christmas morning Cap'n Jonah marched up the Petty lane again. And he thought as he advanced toward the house of his initial approach to the Petty domicile on the October afternoon which now seemed so long past--when he had found Pearl Holden taking down the clothes with the Petty family absent at the Harwich cattle show.

"Whatever!" muttered the master mariner. "Things have changed since then, for a fac'! Why! they've changed ha'f a dozen times around--near 'bout. I ain't ne'er taken a v'y'ge yet--not even that one when I was purty nigh made into a goulash by cannibals--that's been any more excitin' than this here.

"But," concluded the captain with vast satisfaction, "I have made harbor at last and dropped anchor in a safe roadstead, I do allow."

Although he expected no pleasant interview with his relatives, he tramped cheerfully to the door. Nothing could greatly disturb a man who was worth thirty thousand dollars, and could get the cash any day he wanted to go to the bank and deliver up the certificate of stock of the Little Sandy Oil and Coal Company which he had carried around so long, as a keepsake more than anything else.

For on the previous afternoon Cap'n Abe had insisted on calling up his friend at the Paulmouth National Bank by telephone, and this individual had confirmed the story of the sudden and phenomenal rise in value of the Little Sandy Oil and Coal Company shares. So after all, Cap'n Jonah was comfortably wealthy and need never worry about the "bite and sup" that Sarah Petty had so begrudged him.

Sarah was in no aggressive mood when Cap'n Jonah came to the door on this Christmas morning. The sorely battered Tom had returned on the previous afternoon to relate the wonderful story of Cap'n Jonah's real fortune. It was more astonishing--indeed, it was a greater shock--to the Pettys than all that had gone before.

Without a doubt now--it was a tangible fact--Cap'n Jonah possessed the equivalent of thirty thousand dollars. It was no mythical fortune such as Miss Sue's had been. Gossip could not increase or diminish it in the Pettys' ears. It was an incontrovertible fact--and they had cut themselves off from any share of it, whether Cap'n Jonah lived or died!

"I ain't going to bother you for long, Niece Sarah," said the old man sternly as he entered. "I propose to pack my chist, and Enos Cartright will come along by an' by with his old Mehitabel, and cart it down to Mr. Silt's. Pearly is coming to pack her things, too, and Enos will take them along to Doc Ambrose's, where Pearly will stay till she an' Mr. Helmford git married."

"Oh, Uncle Jonah!" murmured Sarah. "I'm sorry you got mad and air detarmined to leave us----"

"That'll do for you, my gal!" exclaimed the old captain, speaking with his sternest quarterdeck manner. "You had your chance and you flung it away. Don't you, nor your'n, never expect favor of me again, for you won't get it."

The blow silenced Orrin and the lout. But Sarah could not give up all. There was too much at stake. If all chance of getting a share of Cap'n Jonah's fortune was gone, there was still an attempt to be made to save something from the wreck of their hopes.

"Dear Uncle Jonah," Sarah cried, wiping crocodile tears from her narrow eyes, "do not leave us in an angry sperit. I can never forgit your kindness to father and mother when I was a gal. We should have been homeless had it not been for you. And even now you can make us all--Orrin, an' Tom, an' me--all but penniless if you air so minded."

"What do you mean, gal?" demanded Cap'n Jonah, eyeing her in amazement.

"Why--er--you know that note poor father gave you years ago--that note for two thousand dollars. Of course, it's a long time ago it happened----"

"Gal," Cap'n Jonah said quietly, drawing out his snuff box and making use of it in his usual way, "do you think I'd hold my kith an' kin--specially my own brother--to sech a hard-and-fast arrangement? Your father needed that money bad; and at that time I didn't need it. I sent it to him freely--glad I was to do it. When he sent me his note for two thousand dollars I tore it up and throwed it into the galley fire. I tell you what, I hope there isn't nothin' _petty_ about Jonah Hand!"

The Mariner's Chapel was alight that evening and filled with the Shell Road folk and their friends from near and far. Only one family in the neighborhood was not represented. The Petty house was dark, and 'Liphalet, as the jolly representative of Santa Claus, had no gift in his sack marked for any of the sadly disappointed trio who had treated Cap'n Jonah so despitefully.

But for everybody else the Shell Road Santa Claus found something in that wonderful sack of his, or on the tree which occupied the site of the pulpit. Even "the last Tapp" was not forgotten, and that round-eyed and chubby baby gripped in his tiny fist a wonderful rattle which his smiling mother had much to do to keep out of his mouth.

Never had 'Liphalet been jollier, been so ready with quip and jest as he passed through the company, as on this particular occasion. For wherever he went with his pack of gifts he could turn his gaze upon the quiet, yet gay and smiling, countenance of Miss Sue. She paid him back in his own coin when he looked at her--in the coinage of happy smiles--so that 'Liphalet thrilled to the very marrow of his being.

Nor were 'Liphalet and Miss Sue the only happy couple in the Mariner's Chapel on this blessed Christmas night. The vestry as well as the audience room had been trimmed with greens and holly; and in the vestry the young folks gathered in groups when the refreshments had been served.

Cap'n Jonah and Cap'n Abe, each with a plate of ice-cream and a generous slice of cake on his broad knee, sat together on the stairs like two school boys and watched the young folk below with appreciative glances. One particular couple they eyed with deep interest. Helmford was leading the curious Pearl to a spot directly under the main chandelier of the vestry, from which dangled some mystery wrapped in muslin.

"You trimmed this part of the vestry, Joe," they heard Pearl say. "What _is_ it?"

Helmford reached up and whipped the covering from his bough of mistletoe. He held her close under it and boldly took toll from her ready lips. The others shouted their approval and ran toward them. The old custom of the mistletoe was due to be honored by more than one couple that evening. Nor did 'Liphalet fail to lead Miss Sue to the spot and there kiss the doctor's blushing sister before them all.

"Tell ye what 'tis," shrilled Washy Gallup. "Looks as though the Mariner's Chapel could purt' nigh afford to support a reg'lar minister. There's at least two marriages in the offing."

Cap'n Abe nudged Cap'n Jonah heartily in the ribs.

"I guess ye needn't be so scare't," he whispered hoarsely, "of telling Pearly an' that Helmford 'bout your fortune, Cap'n Hand. Looks to me as though you couldn't pry that fish trainer away from her now with a crowbar!"

"That's whatever!" returned Cap'n Jonah. "Jest the same I'll feel more satisfied like when I see 'em spliced an' we've all set up housekeepin' together. For I tell you, Mr. Silt, them two young folks have told me that they won't be happy unless I share their quarters with 'em.

"I'm goin' to cast anchor--that's whatever!" said Cap'n Jonah, rapping his knuckle thoughtfully on the cover of his old silver snuffbox. "I've come to a pleasant harbor, Mr. Silt. I calc'late I'm goin' to be happy--and would be happy, fortune or no fortune--for the rest of my natural life, with little Pearly and her man."

THE END

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[Transcriber's Note: Inconsistent hyphenation left as printed.]