CHAPTER V

"BETTER A DINNER OF HERBS"

The day in the Petty household began with bickerings. Sarah Petty possessed all the nagging power of dropping water. Orrin fulfilled his own surname in small meannesses. Tom was disobedient and disrespectful to both parents. All three picked on Pearl.

Although they endeavored to show Cap'n Jonah the smooth side of their natures--and even Tom remained polite to him--the visitor could not fail to overhear many things that were not intended for his ears. Nor was he to be deceived regarding the character of his relatives.

One thing amazed him. The single item in his audit of Tom's character that placed that young man one degree above an idiot, was the revelation the evening before of what seemed to be Tom's admiration for Pearl. The lout had intimated that he desired Pearl for his own.

"And if he loves a gal like her, mebbe there's some good in the scamp, after all," ruminated Cap'n Jonah.

But this day had not passed before the captain saw so many exhibitions of meanness on Tom's part in relation to the pretty household drudge that he began to wonder if his hearing had not played him false on the previous evening when he had sat at his chamber window and overheard the conversation between the two young folks.

When Sarah Petty broke out in scolding because of some real or fancied mistake of Pearl's, Cap'n Jonah expected Tom in some way to express sympathy with the girl, if he did not defend her. But the lout only grinned, lit his pipe, and left the house.

Of course, her menfolk were well used to the vitriolic dripping from Sarah Petty's tongue, and bearing this in silence was perhaps the only logical way to get along with her. If Tom had a proper feeling for Pearl, however, the captain did not see how the fellow could listen to his mother's vituperations addressed to her innocent victim. The girl deserved no such tongue-lashings as she received, the captain was quite sure.

He saw Pearl stepping lightly about her tasks--at sink, at stove, at ironing-board, or what-not--always brisk and ready, and either silent or with a pleasant word. She made no reply when Mrs. Petty's ill-humor dripped over like an overfull cup. But Cap'n Jonah missed the smile from her sweet face.

The old mariner, as he expressed it, "kept out from under foot" as much as possible. He found that every time he went up to his room, Sarah Petty was right behind him with brush and pan, ostentatiously dusting imaginary dirt from the stair carpet. If he opened his window blind to see in his room, it was shut immediately, and with emphasis, when he departed. Before this first day was over his niece began sadly to get upon the captain's nerves.

"The Lord sartainly does temper the wind to the shorn lamb--and to the man that ain't married," concluded Cap'n Jonah. "If I was Orrin Petty, I calc'late, I'd purty nigh live in the barn and never come into the house at all. Or I'd ship for a long v'y'ge."

His sympathy for Orrin could not be deep, however; for Orrin Petty possessed ways fully as unpleasant as those of his wife. His penuriousness and his suspicion were raised to the _nth_ power, and his curiosity made him a pest.

"I calc'late you seen many a chance't to turn a dollar over in them furrin' parts you was to, Cap'n Jonah," Orrin said. "Jest how did you do it?"

"Wal, for the most part, I passed one dollar from one pants pocket to the other. If I came out even I was lucky, most times. Speculatin' ain't what it's cracked up to be. Most money that I ever got my hands on to I airned by the sweat of my brow--yes, sir!"

"Tradin' in them furrin' countries I allus heard would fetch two or three hundred per cent.," Orrin went on obstinately.

"Ye-as. You'll hear a good many fool idees if you stretch your ears to ketch ev'ry sound. If it was so, there'd be more millionaires in Chinese waters than they tell me there is in Pittsburgh."

He refused to be drawn like a badger from his hole, and Orrin showed disappointment. He had the itch for making money, and any man who made it (as he believed Uncle Jonah had) by using his wits, was an object of keen envy to Orrin Petty.

Besides, in this case, Orrin had a personal reason for desiring to know the particulars of Cap'n Jonah's fortune.

"Le's see, Cap'n Jonah, you made your final investments nearer home than China, didn't you?" he asked as they smoked after dinner on the side porch. "You never come clear across't the world and left your investments in furrin parts, did you?"

"'Hem!" ejaculated Cap'n Jonah. "No. As I might say, I didn't."

"Wal, now, what did you conclude was a good, safe investment? Sarah an' me might have a little spare money some day, and I reckon the lead of a successful man like you would be a good one to foller."

"No. I wouldn't want to advise no other man in a matter of speculation," said Cap'n Jonah bruskly.

But Orrin was not to be put off. The more the old mariner tried to evade, the more Orrin was convinced that Cap'n Jonah had "made his pile" and did not want anybody to know the means he had fortunately set upon to become wealthy.

In his own heart the penurious Orrin Petty knew that if he made a successful turn in business he would be loath to tell anybody else how he did it.

"Now, Cap'n Jonah," he urged with his wry grin and slyly twinkling eye, "jest put a name to it. Jest name one thing that you put money into."

Cap'n Jonah looked at him steadily for a moment. His mahogany face was very grim indeed.

"Ile," he croaked at last.

"'Ile'?" repeated Orrin, eagerly. "Not whalin'?"

"Ile stocks," explained Cap'n Jonah gruffly.

"Wha--what's them?" stammered Mr. Petty.

"Sheers in ile wells, or in the land where ile wells is supposed to be."

"Goshamighty! Do they git ile out'n the ground?" ejaculated Orrin. "I thought they got it from whales, an' codfish livers, and castor beans."

"I don't understand much about it," said Cap'n Jonah glumly.

"But is them ile shares good things to put money in?"

Cap'n Jonah stared at him again under penthouse brows. At last he said:

"Wal--no. I couldn't recommend 'em. I wouldn't advise any man about any speculation, as I said afore."

His pipe had gone out. Cap'n Jonah was not much of a smoker. He got up and walked away from the disappointed Orrin. Cap'n Jonah's face was very grim as he paced down the lane. Finally:

"Whatever! I was sore tempted--I sartainly was. If that scalawag has got any money laid up--he and Sarah--I b'lieve I could saw off them ile sheers on to him easy.

"And s'arve him right," pursued Cap'n Jonah. "The feller that sold 'em to me was mighty glad to git rid of 'em, I don't dispute. I bit, and bit good. And I'd rayther like to see Orrin Petty swaller hook, line, and sinker same's I did, I vow!"

However that might be, curiosity and cupidity urged Orrin Petty to ask a question of the Paulmouth Bank cashier that very afternoon when he went to make a deposit in his own and Sarah's name. In a small way Orrin was considered a good customer by the bank. He made frequent deposits, and he never took a penny out.

"What are oil stocks worth, Mr. Petty?" repeated the cashier in reply to a question on that point. "Why, some I might mention are to-day quoted--provided you could buy them--at six hundred and seventy. That is five hundred and seventy dollars above par."

"Goshamighty!" murmured the wonderstruck Orrin. "An' suppose that old codger was foxy enough to buy 'em at a hundred? I bet he did!"

He did not hear the cashier's additional information: "And some of them are not worth the paper they are printed on."

This day was not ended for Cap'n Jonah before he came to one conclusion that would color his opinion of his relatives and his future intercourse with them, whether he was rich or poor.

The laws of the Medes and the Persians were no more unbreakable than certain housekeeping rules in Sarah Petty's house. Ironing day followed wash day as surely as the day dawned. Since immediately after the early breakfast Pearl had been standing at the ironing board in the hot kitchen, save when the board must be put aside for the serving of the dinner.

Midafternoon came, and the girl was still at the board, wielding the heavy irons. Her pretty face was flushed, but there was a white line about her mouth that Cap'n Jonah could see from his chair in the shaded porch. Her hair clung in damp clusters of curls about her brow. There was a strained expression in her dark eyes, and they were deep, smoldering pools of flame. The girl was overtired and her nerves were almost at the breaking point.

No offer did Sarah Petty make to help her little drudge. She puttered about certain light household duties and superintended the boiling of the pork and cabbage for dinner. But she did not lift her hand to lighten Pearl's task.

Her tongue was seldom still in fault-finding. There are housekeepers _and_ housekeepers. Sarah Petty was one of the other kind! Nobody could be clean enough, or exact enough, to suit her. Every piece she saw Pearl iron could be done better; nor was her uncomplaining serving maid that paragon which Sarah considered she should be.

As the mounds of smoothly ironed bed and table linen, with windrows of towels and piles of garments, rose, Sarah's voice rose likewise in snarling criticism.

There was no chair in the kitchen that was not occupied by the smoothed pieces. Tom Petty lumbered in to fill and light his pipe and grinned knowingly at Pearl.

"Ain't you got through yet, Pearly? By hokey! but you're takin' your time about a little old mess o' clothes."

Pearl would not reply to this attempted pleasantry.

"What's the matter--mad?" asked the jovial Tenn, pointing a tentative finger to lift Pearl's drooping chin. "You ain't mad with me, are you, Pearly?"

"You get away from me, Tom Petty!" gasped the girl, starting back, the heavy iron poised in her hand.

"By hokey! I believe you'd swipe me one with that iron!" crowed the lout, in much apparent fear.

In retreating he fell against a chair. The neatly piled pillow slips upon it toppled to the floor. His mother entered the kitchen just in season to spy this disaster.

"There! You plagued, good-for-nothin', useless gal!" she shrieked. "Them pillow slips all over the floor 'count o' your foolin' with Tom. He can't come into the house but you haf to leave your work to have some game with him. I could box your ears!"

Tom ran laughing out of the kitchen. He made no effort to defend Pearl from his mother's undeserved wrath.

"Now, Miss!" Sarah Petty continued, scrambling the overturned linen up anyway, some slightly soiled from contact with Tom's muddy boots, but all ruffled and wrinkled. "Now, Miss! You can just have the pleasure of washin' an' ironin' them over again. You wash 'em to-night after supper an' hang 'em out; and if they ain't ironed and in the linen closet by to-morrow noon, you'll hear from me, you lazybones!"

She went away, grumbling, with a pile of ironed clothes. Cap'n Jonah heard Pearl sigh, then sob, then sigh again. The girl's spirit was broken. The old mariner drew forth his never-failing comforter--the silver snuff-box. He rapped it with his knuckle, snapped open the cover, and took a huge pinch.

"Achoo!" he rasped, then muttered: "That Bible feller got it right: Better a dinner of herbs and a little peace. Whatever! a person might's well live with a live tagger as with Sarah Petty."