"I"m going aboard, Captain Candage."
The old man stopped stock still and stared.
"I haven"t anything in sight just now. You need help in getting the thing started right. I"m not going away and leave that gang on your hands until I can see how the plan works out. I"ll go as mate with you."
"Not by a blame sight you won"t go as no mate with me," objected Candage. "You"ll go as skipper and I"ll be proud to take orders from you, sir."
They were wrangling amiably on that point when they returned to the widow"s cottage. Polly Candage broke the deadlock.
"Why not have two captains? That will be something brand new along the coast!"
"The rest of it is brand new enough without that," blurted her father.
"But considering what kind of a crew we"ve got I guess two captains ain"t any too much! I"ll be captain number two and I know enough to keep my place."
"I do not think you and I will ever do much quarreling again!" smiled Captain Mayo, extending his hand and receiving Candage"s mighty grip.
"I am going to start out a few letters, and I"ll go now and write them.
Until those letters bring me something in the way of a job I am with you, sir."
Captain Candage walked down toward the fish-house with his daughter.
"Polly," he declared, after an embarra.s.sed silence, "I have been all wrong in your case, girl. Here and now I give you clearance papers. Sail for home just as soon as you want to. I"m asking no questions! It"s none of my business!"
"My little affairs must always be business of yours, father," she returned.. "I love you. I will obey you."
"But I ain"t giving off no more orders. I ain"t fit to command in the waters where you are sailing, Polly dear. So run along home and be my good girl! I know you will be!"
"I have changed my mind about going home--just now!" Her eyes met his frankly. "I have written to Aunt Zilpah to send me some of my clothes.
Father," there was feminine, rather indignant amazement in her tones, "do you know that there isn"t a single woman from Hue and Cry who knows how to use a needle?"
"I might have guessed it, judging from the way their young ones and men folk go looking!"
"Do you realize that those children don"t even know their A-B-C"s?"
"Never heard of any college perfessers being raised on that island."
"I am going to take a vacation from the millinery-shop, now that I am down here. I"ll show those women how to sew and cook, and I"ll teach those children how to read. It"s only right--my duty! I couldn"t go home and be happy without doing it!"
"Calling that a vacation is putting a polite name to it, Polly."
"If you could have seen their eyes, father, when I promised to help them, you wouldn"t wonder why I am staying."
"I don"t wonder, Polly, my girl! If you had gone away and--and left us--Mayo and me--I should have been mighty disappointed in ye! But I really never thought much about your going--"cause you wouldn"t go, I knew, till you had helped all you could." He put his arm around her.
"I have been worrying about having brought you away. But I guess G.o.d had it all figgered out for us. I didn"t know my own girl the way I ought to have knowed her. I"d been away too much. But now we"re sort of growing up--together--sort of that, ain"t we, Polly dear?"
She put her arms about his neck and answered him with a kiss.
XIV - BEARINGS FOR A NEW COURSE
And now, my brave boys, comes the best of the fun, It"s hands about ship and reef topsails in one; So it"s lay aloft, topman, as the h.e.l.lum goes down, And clew down your topsails as the mainyard goes round.
--La Pique.
At the end of that week the _Ethel and May_ had delivered at market her first fare of fish and her captains had divided her first shares. Mayo decided that the results were but of proportion to the modest returns.
He was viewing the regeneration of the tribe of Hue and Cry. In their case it had been the right touch at the right time. For years their hopes had been hungry for a chance to make good. Now grat.i.tude inspired them and an almost insane desire to show that they were not worthless drove them to supreme effort. The leaven of the psychology of independence was getting in its work.
The people of Hue and Cry for three generations had been made to feel that they were pariahs. When they had brought their fish or clams to the mainland the buyers were both unjust and contemptuous, as if they were dealing with begging children who must expect only a charitable gift for their product instead of a real man"s price. Prices suited the fish-buyers" moods of the day. The islanders had never been admitted to the plane of straight business like other fishermen. They had always taken meekly what had been offered--whether coin or insults. Therefore, their labor had never returned them full values.
They who bought made the poor wretches feel that it const.i.tuted a special favor to take their fish at any price.
They seemed to come into their own that first day at market when the _Ethel and May_ made her bigness in the dock at the city fish-house.
Masterful men represented them in the dealings with the buyers. The crew hid their delighted grins behind rough palms when Captain Epps Candage bawled out bidders who were under market quotations; they gazed with awe on Captain Mayo when he read from printed sheets--print being a mystery they had never mastered--and figured with ready pencil and even corrected the buyer, who acknowledged his error and humbly apologized.
No more subservient paltering at the doors of fish-houses!
Back home the women and the children and the old folks had a good roof over their heads; the fishers had the deck of a tidy schooner under their feet. Shiftlessness departed from them. After years of oppression they had found their opportunity. More experienced men would have found this new fortune only modest; these men grasped it with juvenile enthusiasm.
They were over the side of the schooner and out in their dories when more cautious trawlsmen hugged the fo"c"sle. On their third trip, because of this daring, they caught the city market bare on a Thursday and made a clean-up.
"I"m told that Saint Peter started this Friday notion because he was in the fish business," stated Captain Candage, sorting money for the shares. "All I"ve got to say is, he done a good job of it."
Mr. Speed, sailing as mate, always found ready obedience.
s.m.u.t-nosed Dolph never listened before to such praise as was lavished by the hungry men over the pannikins which he heaped.
Captain Mayo, casting up accounts one day, was honestly astonished to find that almost a month had pa.s.sed since he had landed at Maquoit.
"That goes to show how a man will get interested when he is picked up and tossed into a thing," he said to Polly Candage.
"You are making real men of them, Captain Mayo!" She added, with a laugh, "And you told me you were no kind of a hand at making over human nature!"
"They are doing it themselves."
"I will say nothing to wound your modesty, sir."
"Now I must wake up. I must! There"s nothing worth while in the profit for both your father and myself. I want him to have the proposition alone. There"ll be a fair make for him. I didn"t intend to stay here so long. I guess I sort of forgot myself." He went on with his figures.
"But I knew you could not forget," she ventured, after a pause.
He glanced up and found a queer expression on her countenance. There were frank sympathy and friendliness in her eyes. He had revolved bitter thoughts alone, struggling with a problem he could not master. In sudden emotion--in an unpremeditated letting-go of himself--he reached out for somebody in whom to confide. He needed counsel in a matter where no man could help him. This girl was the only one who could understand.
"There may be letters waiting for me in the city--in the big city where I may be expected," he blurted. "I haven"t dared to send any." He hesitated, and then gave way to his impulse. "Miss Polly, I haven"t any right to trouble you with my affairs. I may seem impertinent. But you are a girl! Does a girl usually sit down and think over all the difficulties--when she doesn"t get letters--and then make allowances?"
"I"m sure she does--when she loves anybody."
"And yet it may seem very strange. I am worried out of my senses. I don"t know what to do."
She was silent for a long time, looking away from him and twisting her hands in her lap; she was plainly searching her soul for inspiration--and courage!
"You think she will understand the situation?" he insisted.