CHAPTER IV

TOM PETTY REVEALS HIMSELF

Cap'n Jonah's quiet amusement, secured through his unintentional eavesdropping at the bedroom window, was mixed with a certain satisfaction in learning the sort of fellow his grand-nephew was. Tom Petty was evidently "no brighter than the law allows," as the captain expressed it to himself.

Pearl, he was pleased to see, was just the sort of girl he had believed her--sympathetic and good, with a strain of old-fashioned piety that the captain was glad to see had not run out here on the Cape. Nor was the girl impractical.

Her amazement and horror over the denouement of Tom's story assured Cap'n Jonah that young Tom was in serious trouble. He had gambled away money that did not belong to him and it was pretty certain that he had no resources from which to make good the sum thus squandered.

"Tom Petty!" Pearl said again, "what will your mother say to you?"

"By hokey! if she hears 'bout it, Pearly, she'll near 'bout nail me to the barn door like a salt haddock. I got to fool her someway; but how can I? I can keep her from knowing it till about breakfast time to-morrow morning. Then if I don't pony up that eighteen-seventy-five that belonged to the Ladies Aid that she's treasurer of--Well, she's bound to throw a conniption fit and step in it, that's what she'll do!" concluded the young fellow, both inelegantly and unfilially.

"My goodness!" the girl murmured. "Don't let her know you took the money, Tom. It's bad enough for you to have gambled. But don't ever let her know it was with money that wasn't yours. Especially money she'd trusted you with."

"Aw, cat's foot!" exclaimed Tom. "I wouldn't care so much if the whole twenty-five dollars was somebody else's money and I didn't have to pay any of it back."

Captain Jonah Hand certainly was learning what his grand-nephew was.

"But if Marm knows it she'll stew about it, and fuss an' fume till all git out!"

"Tell your father," suggested Pearl.

"Hoh! Where will he get money to help me--if he would? Marm keeps him as close--or closer--than she does me."

"Oh!" said Pearl with a sudden change in her tone. "Do you want to borrow the money to pay back the Ladies Aid?"

"That's what I've got to do, Pearly," Tom said hastily. "I don't mind the money _I_ lost; but I've got to borrow that eighteen-seventy-five. No two ways about it. Why! I'd rob a bank 'fore I'd let Marm know about this."

"Sh!" it was then Pearl's turn to say warningly. "Don't talk so recklessly, Tom. Who can you borrow of if your father hasn't it?"

"You know mighty well that Pop never has any money that Marm don't keep strict account of," growled Tom's voice.

"I don't see----"

"By hokey!" ejaculated the young man. "I've a mind to strike the old codger for a loan."

"Who do you mean?" demanded Pearl.

"This Uncle Jonah of Marm's."

"Tom Petty! You wouldn't?" cried the girl, aghast.

"I tell you I'm desperate, Pearly. And you don't seem to care a dern!" and Tom's voice seemed actually to foretell tears. "We've been friends for years, Pearly, and you know well 'nough what I think of you. I'd dearly love to have you for my gal----"

"Now, Tom! don't talk that-a-way," said Pearl, sharply, and evidently much worried. Then added: "There must be some way out of your pickle."

"I'd like to know what it is. I've got to get money to satisfy Marm, or I've got to get out. That's all there is to it. And that's all you care! Aw, Pearly, I'd just be finished complete if I had to leave you," and Tom's voice dropped to a maudlin tone that could not be mistaken.

"Run away!" exclaimed the girl, but apparently responding not at all to his tender advances. "You wouldn't do _that_?"

"I'm my own man I guess. I'd like to see anybody try to stop me. Hoh! Unless 'twas a policeman 'long o' losin' that money," added Tom, his sudden boastfulness evaporating.

"You ought to go to work, Tom," Pearl said thoughtfully. "But you don't need to run away and break your mother's heart. No. Cap'n Durgin will give you a berth on the _Tryout_, you know. And if you borrow that money to pay back the Ladies Aid, you'll have to go to work to earn money to repay what you borrow."

"I suppose so."

"But, don't you _intend_ to?" demanded the girl sharply.

"Well, I don't know as he'd want it back," said Tom slowly.

"Who are you talkin' about, Tom Petty?" Pearl demanded with sudden exasperation.

"Uncle Jonah."

"You're not going to Cap'n Hand to borrow money, Tom Petty!" ejaculated the girl. "You got no call to. It isn't decent--and he just come here."

"Well," whined Tom, "I dunno what to do then."

"You'll borrow it of _me_," said Pearl decisively. "You know I've got 'most twenty dollars saved up--what with picking cranberries last fall and selling blueberries to the hotel this summer. You know I've got that money."

"That don't help me none," growled Tom.

"Why not?"

"As long as you've got it, it don't help me," said the lout, already in a lighter mood.

"I'll get it and give it to you before breakfast time," promised Pearl briskly. "But you've got to go to work and pay it back 'fore Christmas."

"I ain't goin' with Cap'n Durgin, just the same," grumbled Tom. "He's a reg'lar driver."

"You can work in the cranberry bogs, then. You'll earn two dollars and a half a day there," said the practical Pearl.

"Well." If it was a promise, it was given under duress.

Cap'n Jonah heard the screen door click again and the light tap of Pearl's heels upon the kitchen floor. The girl was coming up to bed. The old mariner felt some mixed emotions astir within him. He had a mind for a moment to call the girl into his room and talk to her "like a Dutch uncle," as he expressed it.

Then he thought of Tom, and his soul was filled with disgust. Tom was worse than a fool. He had not only allowed himself to be gulled by a trick that had been in disfavor "when Adam was a boy" (so grumbled the captain), but he had run squealing to a girl about it and had worked on that girl's sympathies until she had agreed to help him out of his predicament.

"And it's in my mind," muttered Cap'n Jonah, as he pulled on a stockinet nightcap a little later, and got into bed, "that the young sculpin ain't no idee of ever payin' the gal back her money if she lends it to him. He's a sweet May blossom, he is! We'll see 'bout that." But these several discoveries about the Petty household did not keep Cap'n Jonah Hand awake.

* * * * *

The bell-like note of a bird rising from the clashing cat-tail rushes was the first sound to assail the waking senses of the newcomer to the Orrin Petty homestead on the following morning. Cap'n Jonah was an early riser both because of his advanced years and from habit. He got out of bed as quietly as a cat. The family was sleeping later than usual because of the outing the day before.

From long sea going habit the captain was already half dressed. He doused his head and face in a brimming basin, combed his thinning locks and beard, and got into his outer garments, even to his hat. Then, with his shoes in his hand, he stole out of the room and down the stairs.

Cape Cod people have no particular reason for locking their doors. The tramp was not known in Cardhaven, although Sarah Petty was so given to using the expression. Cap'n Jonah found the kitchen door unfastened, and he stepped out, stopping in the porch to pull on his shoes, which were of the elastic-sided congress variety.

The sun had not yet thrust even his upper rim above the distant sea-line. When Cap'n Jonah descended the porch steps he waded waist deep in a blanket of mist which Night had spread upon the earth, and which Dawn, brisk housekeeper that she was, had not yet rolled up and laid away.

There was much astir, however, and the stratum of mist carried certain sounds for long distances. The captain heard Enos Cartright ordering his old mare, Mehitabel, to "stand over!" in her box stall, as he faithfully curried her down. Then a mellow "So, boss! So, boss!" revealed the Widow Shattuck at her pasture bars calling up Sukey to be milked.

A little later, in the midst of a chanticleer chorus and the hungry grunting of pigs, the captain, pacing back and forth in the lane, heard the tinkle of Sukey's milk in the pail as her mistress capably massaged the cow's udder.

The now wavering mist acted as a transmitter for sounds from greater distances. He heard voices and the creak of blocks of cordage from the Haven itself. A fishing boat was putting out. Then the two-leaved door of Cap'n Abe's store was set wide and he heard the storekeeper drive home the wedges which held it open.

A sudden flash of red heralded the sun's appearance. All this moving fog began to glow, rose-colored. It was dissipated rapidly. Out of it he saw several columns of smoke rising, straight into the air, marking matutinal fires of neighboring dwellings.

A mighty yawn sounded near at hand. Cap'n Jonah wheeled to see Tom Petty come stretching and gaping from the kitchen door.

"Well, young man!" said the old mariner briskly.

"Oh! Ah!" exploded Tom, finishing his yawn loudly, arms stretched above his head. "Morning, Uncle Jonah."

"Good morning to you," replied his elderly relative. "I guess you're feeling your yest'day's good time some?"

"'Good time'! Hoh!" snorted Tom. "I never want to see another cattle show."

"Leaves a brown taste in your mouth, does it?" chuckled the captain. "And drained your pocket as dry as the Desert of Sahara, I bet!"

"Hoh! Who was tellin' you?" demanded Tom, bitten with sudden suspicion.

"I don't have to be told ev'rything--not at my age," chuckled Cap'n Jonah. "I was young once myself."

He drew a bill-holder from an inner pocket. Tom, who had begun to scowl, washed that expression hurriedly off his face.

"I guess you know how 'tis, Uncle Jonah," confessed the young fellow, suppressing a certain eagerness he felt and trying to keep his eyes off the bill-holder which, if not plethoric, looked to be well filled. "You know, where ev'rybody else is spendin', you spend more'n you ought to yourself."

"Just so! Just so!" agreed the captain. He selected a yellow-backed bill, crisp and crackling, and thrust it suddenly into Tom's itching palm. "Here's a twenty for you. I never do know what sort o' presents to buy folks. Get somethin' for yourself or put it away in the bank as you like. And don't say nothin' to your Pop or Marm about it," concluded the shrewd old fellow, with a keen side glance at Tom.

The latter was all but overcome. Relief and gratification momentarily enlarged his heart to almost the size of a pea.

"By hokey! Uncle Jonah, you're all right!" he murmured, pocketing the twenty dollar bank note and his freckled face glowing all over. "I'll never forgit you for this."

He lumbered away toward the barn while the captain continued to "pace the quarterdeck" along the shaded lane. A little later he saw Tom talking with Pearl at the barnyard bars.

"I guess I put a spoke in your wheel, young man," thought the captain, but with a dark look at the loutish Tom.

Pearl came back to the lane to bid Cap'n Jonah good-morning, her sweet face aglow. Starry-eyed and dimpling, she showed plainly, the old man thought, her relief on finding that Tom had in some way got out of his financial difficulty.

When the young fellow paid his mother at the breakfast table, and before them all, the eighteen-seventy-five he owed her, he produced the exact change in small bills and silver. It did not cross Cap'n Jonah's mind to wonder where Tom had got the twenty dollar note changed, so early in the morning.