He was somewhat warm in his a.s.surances that it did.
"I ought to be pleased by your praise," she said, demurely, "because women wear hats for men"s approval, and if my customers go home and hear such nice words from their husbands my business career is sure to be a success."
"Your business career?"
"Certainly, sir!" She bobbed a little courtesy. "I have money, sir!
Money of my own. Five thousand dollars in the bank, if you please! Oh, you need not stare at me. I did not earn it. My dear mother"s sister left it to me in her will. And some day when you are walking down the city street you"ll see a little bra.s.s sign--very bright, very neat--and there"ll be "Polly" on it. Then you may come up and call on the great milliner--that will be this person, now so humble."
"But that young man!" he protested, smiling at her gaiety.
"Oh, that young man?" She wrinkled her nose. Then she flushed, conscious that he was a bit surprised at her tone of disdain. "Why, he will wear a frock-coat and a flower in the b.u.t.tonhole and will bow in my customers.
You didn"t think my young man was a farmer-boy, did you?"
She hurried ahead of him to the beach, where her father was waiting with his men. Captain Candage had borrowed a dory for the trip. He installed himself in the stern with the steer-oar, and the young man and the girl sat together on the midship seat. The skipper listened to their chat with bland content.
"There"s a fellow that"s one of our kind, and he ain"t trying to court my girl," he had confided to Mr. Speed. "He is spoke for and she knows it. And under them circ.u.mstances I believe in encouraging young folks to be sociable."
It was still early morning when they arrived at the island, but the state agent was there ahead of them. They saw him walking briskly about among the scattered houses, puffing on his cigar.
He was making domiciliary visits and was transacting business in a loud tone of voice. That business was paying over the money which the state had allowed for "squatter improvements." In the case of the settlers on Hue and Cry the sums were mere pittances; their improvements consisted of tottering shacks, erected from salvaged flotsam of the ocean and patched over and over with tarred paper.
There was only one building on the island which deserved
the name of dwelling; from this their communicative caller of the preceding evening was removing his scant belongings. His wife and children were helping. He set down a battered table when he met Mayo and his party.
"I"m the only citizen who can get away early and--as you might call it--respectable, gents. I took my hundred and fifty and bought that house-bo"t out there." It was an ancient scow, housed over, and evidently had grown venerable in service as a floating fish-market.
"They can"t drive me off"n the Atlantic Ocean! The others "ain"t woke up to a reelizing sense that they have got to go and that this all means business! I"m getting away early or else they"d all be trying to climb aboard my bo"t like the folks wanted to do to Noah"s ark when they see that the flood wasn"t just a shower." He lifted his table upon his head and marched on, leading his flock.
All the population of the island was out of doors. The women and the children were idling in groups; the men were listlessly following the commissioner on his rounds. No spirit of rebelliousness was evident. The men acted more like inquisitive sheep. They were of that abject variety of poor whites who accept the rains from heaven and bow to the reign of authority with the same unquestioning resignation.
But Mayo discovered promptly an especial reason for the calmness exhibited by these men. Their slow minds had not wakened to full comprehension.
"What do you men propose to do?" demanded Captain Mayo of a group which had abandoned the commissioner and had strolled over to inspect the new-comers.
"There ain"t nothing we can do," stated a spokesman.
"But don"t you understand that this man is here with full power from the state to put you off this island?"
"Oh, they have threated us before. But something has allus come up. We haven"t been driv" off."
"But this time it"s going to happen! Why don"t you wake up? Where are you going?"
"That"s for somebody else to worry about. This ain"t any of our picking and choosing."
"What"s the use of trying to beat anything sensible through the sh.e.l.ls of them quahaugs?" snarled Captain Candage, with "longcoast scorn for the inefficient.
"Not much use, I"m afraid," acknowledged the young man. "But look at the children!"
Those pathetic waifs of Hue and Cry were huddled apart, dumb with terror which their elders made no attempt to calm. They were ragged, pitiful, wistful urchins; lads with pinched faces, poor little snippets of girls.
Their childish imaginations made of the affair a tragedy which they could not understand. Under their arms they held frightened cats, helpless kittens, or rag dolls. The callous calm of the men mystified them; the weeping of their mothers made their miserable fear more acute.
They stared from face to face, trying to comprehend.
"What can I say to them?" asked Polly Candage, in a whisper. "It"s wicked. They are so frightened."
"Perhaps something can be done with that agent. I"m trying to think up something to say to him," Mayo told her.
An old man, a very old man, sat on an upturned clamhod and yawled a discordant miserere on a fiddle. His eyes were wide open and sightless.
A woman whose tattered skirt only partly concealed the man"s trousers and rubber boots which she wore, occasionally addressed him as "father."
She was piling about him a few articles of furniture which she was lugging out of their home; that house was the upper part of a schooner"s cabin--something the sea had cast up on Hue and Cry. She was obliged to bend nearly double in order to walk about in the shelter. Dogs slinked between the feet of their masters, canine instinct informing them that something evil was abroad that day. The children staring wide-eyed and white-faced, the weeping women, the cowed men who shuffled and mumbled!
Among them strode the G.o.d of the machine, curt, contemptuous, puffing his cigar! He came past Captain Mayo and his friends.
"I beg your pardon, sir," called the captain; "but are you sure that you are doing this thing just right?"
"Let"s see--if I remember, I had a little talk with you last night!"
suggested the agent, frostily. "Whom do you represent?" "Myself."
"Just how do you fit into this matter?" "I don"t think I do fit--there seem to be too many sharp corners," stated Mayo, not liking the other"s insolent manner. "Well, I fit! I have state authority." "So you have told me. May I ask you a question?" "Go ahead, but be lively. This is my busy day." "These people are being rooted up; they don"t seem to know what"s to become of them. What will be done?"
"I told you last evening! Fools in an inst.i.tution; able-bodied must go to work. The state proposes--" "When you say "state" just what do you mean, sir?" "I mean that I have investigated this matter and I"m running it."
"That"s what I thought! The state usually doesn"t know much about what its agents are doing."
"You are not doubting my authority, are you?"
"No, but I"m doubting your good judgment."
"Look here, my man!"
"We"d better not lose our tempers," advised Mayo, calmly. "You are a state servant, you say. Then a citizen has a right to talk to you. Let"s leave the state out of this, if you question my right. Man to man, now!
You"re wrong."
The population of the island had drawn close circle about them.
"That"s enough talk from you," declared the agent, wrathfully.
"You are trying to make over all at once what it has taken three generations to bring about," insisted Mayo. "You can"t do it!"
"You watch me and see if I can"t! When I transact any business I"m paid to transact it gets transacted. I might have given these people a few more days if you had not come sticking your oar in here. But now I propose to show you! I"ll have "em off here by nightfall, and every shack burned to the ground."
"Do you mean to say you"re going to rub it into these poor folks just because I have tried to say something to help them?"
"I"ll show you and them that it isn"t safe to monkey with the state when the state gets started."
"Oh, the state be condemned!" exploded Mayo, feeling his own temper getting away from him. "This isn"t the state--it"s a case of a man"s swelled head!"
"Get off this island, you and your meddlers," commanded the agent.
"Yes, when we are ready to leave, sir."