CHAPTER VI

ROMANCE AND PEARL HOLDEN

Cap'n Jonah Hand was gregarious by nature. He had spent many solitary hours at sea, but not from choice. The master of a good-sized craft can favor his mate and sub-officers with little of his company and his crew none at all.

Off duty he had spent many many hours playing that favorite solitaire of the lonely mariner "Push"--a game which "comes out" about once in five hundred times. Now that he was ashore with human beings within hail, the retired seaman wasted no time in such a poor substitute for sociability.

Finding the Petty family so uncongenial and Pearl usually too busy to pass more than the time of day with him, Cap'n Jonah lay in wait at the mouth of the lane like a huge brown and blue ant-lion waiting for passing Shell Road folk to fall into his conversational trap.

Washy Gallup, wheeling his barrow laden with the innumerable turns of a well corked seine, was easily persuaded to drop the barrow handles, seat himself on one of them and push back from his weather-beaten face the battered tarpaulin he affected on week days, preparatory to "a dish of gossip."

"Wal, Cap'n," began Washy, "what do you think of Cardhaven an' Cardhaven folks as fur as you've gone?"

The captain's eyes twinkled. "I'm a good deal like the feller that allus walked backwards. Then he didn't have to give an opinion in advance. I dunno as I could tell you yet, Mr. Gallup, how the place nor the people strike me, by and large."

"I figger you're a cautious man, Cap'n Hand," said Washy with a shrewd nod. "Orrin was sayin' down to Cap'n Abe's last night he reckoned you had made all the money a man ought to make, out there in the China Seas."

"Orrin Petty holds a good opinion of his own jedgment, I allow," replied the captain grimly.

It was almost uncanny how the talk of most people who paused to speak to him slipped around to money matters. Cap'n Beecher, leaning on his cane at the roadside, dropped his plummet into Cap'n Jonah's financial waters.

"You calc'late to settle down here, Cap'n Hand, don't ye?" he asked, mopping his brow with a brilliant bandana.

"I calc'late."

"Glad to hear it," said the one-time master of the clipper-built _Ivanhoe_. "We need jest sech solid men as you, Cap'n Hand, at this end of the town to balance t'other end with the board of selectmen. Why! we can't ever git street lights this side o' the Mariner's Chapel. Was you thinkin' of buyin' property here, Cap'n? For a home, _or_ an investment? For if you be," Cap'n Joab hastened to add, "I got some likely lots adjoining my own place that I'd like to have you cast an eye on."

"Thank ye," said the new arrival in the Shell Road neighborhood, dryly. "If I decide to buy I'll let you know."

'Liathel Grummit, humped over on his seat, dragged past behind his patient steers a dripping load of seaweed mounded high upon the two-wheeled cart. 'Liathel owned a small and scrubby farm on which he raised vegetables, much poverty grass, and an astonishing crop of tow-headed children.

"Ye-a, Buck! Ye-a, Bright!" he intoned, cracking the long whip-lash before the spotted faces of the steers. They came to a lumbering halt. "You air Cap'n Hand, I don't dispute?"

"It's as good a name as any. But I've left the sea for all time, and I ain't no more a skipper," replied the captain, indicating that he was no stickler for quarterdeck formalities now that he was a landsman.

"So I was informed," said 'Liathel politely. "But I didn't jest know whether you was thinkin' of settin' up for yourself around here? If you be, and if you do, I'd like to sell you a pair of late shoats I got. You'll want a pig or two to help eat your table scraps. An' my wife, Miz Grummit, has some yearling fowls she'd be glad to dispose of if you was calc'latin' to keep hens."

"Whatever!" gasped Cap'n Jonah. "Do you folks think I'm an open market for all the surplus of this here town? I ain't no idee of keeping pigs, nor yet poultry. I'm obleeged to you, but you ain't got a thing I'm in need of, I do assure you."

"All right, Cap'n. No offense meant. No offense taken. Ye-ip, Buck! Ye-ip, Bright!"

The long whip snapped again. The placid steers, chewing their cuds and swaying their bodies rhythmically, plodded on up the white road. Cap'n Jonah watched the sunshine sparkle in the pool that had dripped from the load of seaweed. He shook his head.

"Whatever!" he said, repeating his favorite ejaculation. "This here determination to turn a penny is the curse o' the Cape, just as it always was. I bet even the preachers think in terms of dollars and cents.

"And they are going to pester me purty nigh to death about my fortune. I can see that, as the feller said when he saw stars. Now them ile sheers! I swan to man! I b'lieve I could make a bit on them, let alone turn 'em over. Get thee behind me, Satan! Whew!" and the captain removed his hat and passed the silk handkerchief over his brown face. "Whatever! I don't wonder there's so many sharks an' dogfish at loose ends--an' pea-an'-shell game men, too," and he chuckled. "The sucker-fish must bite more voracious than any other kind.

"'Hem! Here's a feller might tell me if that's so."

He saw the tall figure of Helmford approaching. The usual smile upon the young government employee's face had a rueful cast just now. He answered Cap'n Jonah's hail, however, with equal cordiality and, like every other passer-by, stopped to pass the time of day.

"This is one large day--and plenty of it, Captain," he said. "How do you feel?"

"I fare pretty well," responded Cap'n Jonah; "only there's somethin' in the j'ints of my knees that makes 'em creak like a wood snatch block when I try to swing 'em. How air you, Mr. Helmford?"

"Why, Captain Hand, I'm like to be cast out into the cold world. The Cardhaven Inn closes for the season, and I don't know where I'm to look for a boarding place."

"Sho!" exclaimed the old mariner. "Aren't boardin' places plenty 'round here?"

"In the summer--yes. Almost everybody takes boarders. But the women are not so ready to take in a stranger during the winter. It makes too many menfolk around the house. Then there is the heating to be considered, as well as extra food, when fresh vegetables and even a plentiful supply of fresh fish are not available."

"I see, I see," agreed the captain. "Codfish and potaters don't suit the city appetite, eh?"

"I should not be afraid of plain food," declared Helmford. "I was born on a farm. And I'd like to get board down this way. It's nearer my plant."

"The place where you teach fish to hatch their aigs?"

The young fellow laughed a little. "If you hear of a boarding place for me, Captain Hand----"

The captain's eyes were twinkling. He was scrutinizing young Helmford much more sharply than appeared to be the case.

"Ahem!" he said, clearing his throat reflectively. "Why don't you try Sarah?"

"'Sarah'?"

"Yep. My niece."

"Mrs. Petty?"

"That's who I mean. She ain't averse, I should say, to turning a penny. Try her."

"Why, I will!" he exclaimed. "And thank you, Captain. I can go right in and see her now, can't I?"

"I spect you can," said Cap'n Jonah. "There ain't no law again' it that I know on."

Helmford laughed and started immediately up the lane. Where it debouched into the yard he came upon Pearl hanging out certain couch covers and hangings to air, this being sweeping day. Her head was tightly banded with a towel for a dustcap. The face under such a turban must be pretty indeed to attract favorable attention.

"I beg pardon, Miss Holden," Helmford said, doffing his cap. "Can I see Mrs. Petty for a moment?"

"I guess you can," said the girl, dimpling and showing marked approval of the young man. She had seen him at a distance often before; but Joseph Helmford had never seen her, for Pearl's face was usually hidden in public by a sun-bonnet.

"Thank you," murmured he, and for once he did not appear to be blind. He bowed a second time. Pearl looked at him with shining eyes. Was he about to say something more? It would not be polite to run away before he had said all he wished to say.

A harsh voice suddenly broke the thread between them: "You, Pearl! If that's a book agent tell him we don't want no books. If it's a missionary collector tell him we've subscribed already. If it's one o' them nursery stock salesmen, jest unloose the dog onto _him_."

Helmford's eyes widened during this tirade. Then he began to smile. Pearl giggled faintly, and, turning, fled. "I'll splain to her," she whispered over her shoulder.

Mrs. Petty came rampantly to the door. Her head was tied up in a towel, too--the universal sign of sweeping day on the Cape.

"Can't you git rid----"

"Sh!" gasped Pearl.

"'Tain't a minister?" hissed Mrs. Petty.

"No. It's Mr. Helmford, the fish man."

"_Fish_ man?" demanded the woman, still raucously. "What do we want o' fish, I'd like to know? Can't your Uncle Orrin an' Tom git us all the fish we need?"

"Oh, Miz Petty!" cried Pearl. "He is the government fish man, Mr. Helmford."

"Oh!"

Sarah Petty began to comprehend that possibly the well dressed man in the yard was not one to be chased back to the roadway as though he were pariah. She assumed a doubtful smirk and stepped out on the porch to blink near-sightedly at the caller.

"Captain Hand suggested, Mrs. Petty," Helmford began, drawing near, "that you might consider taking me to board. You know the Cardhaven Inn closes now, and I would prefer living down this way. It is nearer to the hatchery."

"Oh! Yes! I see! You're the young man they say hatches fish up Salt Creek way," said Mrs. Petty doubtfully. "I--hum! I dunno. These fishermen allus do bring such a smell of fish home on their clo'es. I make Orrin an' Tom change their duds in the shed when they have been handlin' their seine or the lobster pots. I dunno."

"I assure you, Mrs. Petty," Helmford said, hiding his amusement, "that my work at the fish hatchery leaves no odor upon my clothing. I am counted, I believe, rather neat and--er--'old-maidish,' they called me at college."

"Wal! I dunno! I couldn't cater to fussy folks," objected Mrs. Petty, who felt it became her position in the community to yield only after proper urging. "We're plain folks an' eat plain food----"

"I ask for nothing better," Helmford said.

His eyes were fixed on Pearl, who had returned to her task of pinning the cretonne covers to the clothesline. As she had passed him again the young man felt an indefinable attraction which caused his gaze to follow her. He noted her litheness, the turn of her limbs, the flowerlike sweetness of her expression of countenance--all for the first time. Joe Helmford was not given much to the observation of women. But this girl made an impression--indefinite, perhaps, at first--that he was destined to carry with him.

"I ask for nothing better," he repeated, dragging his attention back to the sharp-featured Mrs. Petty.

"Wal, I dunno!" the latter said again. "Course I _could_ take ye in, Mr. Helmford. I have room. And with Uncle Jonah here I haf to figger on one extry plate at table--and two wouldn't be so much more bother. But I dunno as my 'commodations would please ye."

"Let me be the judge of that, Mrs. Petty," the young man urged.

"I can show ye the best chamber," Sarah said. "Come right upstairs with me." Here was a chance to get Uncle Jonah out of the big and comfortable room. And an additional six dollars a week to the family exchequer was not to be overlooked. Visions of financial benefit danced in the woman's mind. She even considered adding an extra half dollar to the price when Helmford praised the room, but then thought better of it as the winter was coming on, only saying:

"If you want a fire in here, Mr. Helmford, there's a pipehole in the chimney. But you'll haf to furnish your own stove and coal. We keep a settin'-room fire in the coldest weather; but you'll find it chilly up here."

"I see," agreed the young man. "I think I shall be satisfied, Mrs. Petty. I agree to the terms. When can I have my books and trunk sent over?"

"Any time you like. I'll just put fresh sheets on the bed. You can sleep here to-night," said the woman, grimly satisfied that Cap'n Jonah was to be so soon ousted to the room over the kitchen.

With no idea that he was making the genial captain any trouble, Helmford paid Sarah Petty for the week in advance (a custom that pleased her vastly) and, assured that he had secured better lodgings than he had expected to find, the young man departed.

From the sitting-room window, behind the lace curtains, Pearl watched him go. She hoped he would return. He was entirely different from the young men whom she saw daily at the store or at the Mariner's Chapel when she went to service. Helmford was out of quite another world from that with which Pearl Holden was familiar. Her gaze followed him down the lane and out to the Shell Road, the glare of which swallowed him up.