So when Asaph arrived--per truck wagon--at three o"clock the next afternoon, Mrs. Badger was ready for him. She didn"t wait to shake hands or say: "Glad to see you." No, sir! The minute he landed she sent him out by the barn with orders to chop a couple of cords of oak slabs that was piled there. He groaned and commenced to develop lumbago symptoms, but she cured "em in a hurry by remarking that her doctor"s book said vig"rous exercise was the best physic, for that kind of disease, and so he must chop hard. She waited till she heard the ax "chunk" once or twice, and then she went into the house, figgering that she"d gained the first lap, anyhow.
But in an hour or so it come over her all of a sudden that "twas awful quiet out by the woodpile. She hurried to the back door, and there was Ase, setting on the ground in the shade, his eyes shut and his back against the chopping block, and one poor lonesome slab in front of him with a couple of splinters knocked off it. That was his afternoon"s work.
Maybe you think the widow wa"n"t mad. She tip-toed out to the wood-pile, grabbed her new boarder by the coat collar and shook him till his head played "Johnny Comes Marching Home" against the chopping block.
"You lazy thing, you!" says she, with her eyes snapping. "Wake up and tell me what you mean by sleeping when I told you to work."
"Sleep?" stutters Asaph, kind of reaching out with his mind for a life-preserver. "I--I wa"n"t asleep."
Well, I don"t think he had really meant to sleep. I guess he just set down to think of a good brand new excuse for not working, and kind of drowsed off.
"You wa"n"t hey?" says Deborah. "Then "twas the best imitation ever _I_ see. What WAS you doing, if "tain"t too personal a question?"
"I--I guess I must have fainted. I"m subject to such spells. You see, ma"am, I ain"t been well for--"
"Yes, I know. I understand all about that. Now, you march your boots into that house, where I can keep an eye on you, and help me get supper.
To-morrer morning you"ll get up at five o"clock and chop wood till breakfast time. If I think you"ve chopped enough, maybe you"ll get the breakfast. If I don"t think so you"ll keep on chopping. Now, march!"
Blueworthy, he marched, but "twa"n"t as joyful a parade as an Odd Fellers" picnic. He could see he"d made a miscue--a clean miss, and the white ball in the pocket. He knew, too, that a lot depended on his making a good impression the first thing, and instead of that he"d gone and "foozled his approach," as that city feller said last summer when he ran the catboat plump into the end of the pier. Deborah, she went out into the kitchen, but she ordered Ase to stay in the dining room and set the table; told him to get the dishes out of the closet.
All the time he was doing it he kept thinking about the mistake he"d made, and wondering if there wa"n"t some way to square up and get solid with the widow. Asaph was a good deal of a philosopher, and his motto was--so he told me afterward, that time I spoke of when he"d been investigating the jug--his motto was: "Every hard sh.e.l.l has a soft spot somewheres, and after you find it, it"s easy." If he could only find out something that Deborah Badger was particular interested in, then he believed he could make a ten-strike. And, all at once, down in the corner of the closet, he see a big pile of papers and magazines. The one on top was the Banner of Light, and underneath that was the Mysterious Magazine.
Then he remembered, all of a sudden, the town talk about Debby"s believing in mediums and spooks and fortune tellers and such. And he commenced to set up and take notice.
At the supper table he was as mum as a rundown clock; just set in his chair and looked at Mrs. Badger. She got nervous and fidgety after a spell, and fin"lly bu"sts out with: "What are you staring at me like that for?"
Ase kind of jumped and looked surprised. "Staring?" says he. "Was I staring?"
"I should think you was! Is my hair coming down, or what is it?"
He didn"t answer for a minute, but he looked over her head and then away acrost the room, as if he was watching something that moved. "Your husband was a short, kind of fleshy man, as I remember, wa"n"t he?" says he, absent-minded like.
"Course he was. But what in the world--"
""Twa"n"t him, then. I thought not."
"HIM? My husband? What DO you mean?"
And then Asaph begun to put on the fine touches. He leaned acrost the table and says he, in a sort of mysterious whisper: "Mrs. Badger," says he, "do you ever see things? Not common things, but strange--shadders like?"
"Mercy me!" says the widow. "No. Do YOU?"
"Sometimes seems"s if I did. Jest now, as I set here looking at you, it seemed as if I saw a man come up and put his hand on your shoulder."
Well, you can imagine Debby. She jumped out of her chair and whirled around like a kitten in a fit. "Good land!" she hollers. "Where? What?
Who was it?"
"I don"t know who "twas. His face was covered up; but it kind of come to me--a communication, as you might say--that some day that man was going to marry you."
"Land of love! Marry ME? You"re crazy! I"m scart to death."
Ase shook his head, more mysterious than ever. "I don"t know," says he.
"Maybe I am crazy. But I see that same man this afternoon, when I was in that trance, and--"
"Trance! Do you mean to tell me you was in a TRANCE out there by the wood-pile? Are you a MEDIUM?"
Well, Ase, he wouldn"t admit that he was a medium exactly, but he give her to understand that there wa"n"t many mediums in this country that could do business "longside of him when he was really working. "Course he made believe he didn"t want to talk about such things, and, likewise of course, that made Debby all the more anxious TO talk about "em.
She found out that her new boarder was subject to trances and had second-sight and could draw horoscopes, and I don"t know what all.
Particular she wanted to know more about that "man" that was going to marry her, but Asaph wouldn"t say much about him.
"All I can say is," says Ase, "that he didn"t appear to me like a common man. He was sort of familiar looking, and yet there was something distinguished about him, something uncommon, as you might say. But this much comes to me strong: He"s a man any woman would be proud to get, and some time he"s coming to offer you a good home. You won"t have to keep poorhouse all your days."
So the widow went up to her room with what you might call a case of delightful horrors. She was too scart to sleep and frightened to stay awake. She kept two lamps burning all night.
As for Asaph, he waited till "twas still, and then he crept downstairs to the closet, got an armful of Banners of Light and Mysterious Magazines, and went back to his room to study up. Next morning there was nothing said about wood chopping--Ase was busy making preparations to draw Debby"s horoscope.
You can see how things went after that. Blueworthy was star boarder at that poorhouse. Mrs Badger was too much interested in spooks and fortunes to think of asking him to work, and if she did hint at such a thing, he"d have another "trance" and see that "man," and "twas all off.
And we poor fools of selectmen was congratulating ourselves that Ase Blueworthy was doing something toward earning his keep at last. And then--"long in July "twas--Betsy Mullen died.
One evening, just after the Fourth, Deborah and Asaph was in the dining room, figgering out fortunes with a pack of cards, when there comes a knock at the door. The widow answered it, and there was an old chap, dressed in a blue suit, and a stunning pretty girl in what these summer women make believe is a sea-going rig. And both of "em was sopping wet through, and as miserable as two hens in a rain barrel.
It turned out that the man"s name was Lamont, with a colonel"s pennant and a million-dollar mark on the foretop of it, and the girl was his daughter Mabel. They"d been paying six dollars a day each for sea air and clam soup over to the Wattagonsett House, in Harniss, and either the soup or the air had affected the colonel"s head till he imagined he could sail a boat all by his ownty-donty. Well, he"d sailed one acrost the bay and got becalmed, and then the tide took him in amongst the shoals at the mouth of Wellmouth Crick, and there, owing to a mixup of tide, shoals, dark, and an overdose of foolishness, the boat had upset and foundered and the Lamonts had waded half a mile or so to sh.o.r.e.
Once on dry land, they"d headed up the bluff for the only port in sight, which was the poorhouse--although they didn"t know it.
The widow and Asaph made "em as comfortable as they could; rigged "em up in dry clothes which had belonged to departed paupers, and got "em something to eat. The Lamonts was what they called "enchanted" with the whole establishment.
"This," says the colonel, with his mouth full of brown bread, "is delightful, really delightful. The New England hospitality that we read about. So free from ostentation and conventionality."
When you stop to think of it, you"d scurcely expect to run acrost much ostentation at the poorhouse, but, of course, the colonel didn"t know, and he praised everything so like Sam Hill, that the widow was ashamed to break the news to him. And Ase kept quiet, too, you can be sure of that. As for Mabel, she was one of them gushy, goo-gooey kind of girls, and she was as struck with the shebang as her dad. She said the house itself was a "perfect dear."
And after supper they paired off and got to talking, the colonel with Mrs. Badger, and Asaph with Mabel. Now, I can just imagine how Ase talked to that poor, unsuspecting young female. He sartin did love an audience, and here was one that didn"t know him nor his history, nor nothing. He played the sad and mysterious. You could see that he was a blighted bud, all right. He was a man with a hidden sorrer, and the way he"d sigh and change the subject when it come to embarra.s.sing questions was enough to bring tears to a graven image, let alone a romantic girl just out of boarding school.
Then, after a spell of this, Mabel wanted to be shown the house, so as to see the "sweet, old-fashioned rooms." And she wanted papa to see "em, too, so Ase led the way, like the talking man in the dime museum. And the way them Lamonts agonized over every rag mat, and corded bedstead was something past belief. When they was saying good-night--they HAD to stay all night because their own clothes wa"n"t dry and those they had on were more picturesque than stylish--Mabel turns to her father and says she:
"Papa, dear," she says, "I believe that at last we"ve found the very thing we"ve been looking for."
And the colonel said yes, he guessed they had. Next morning they was up early and out enjoying the view; it IS about the best view alongsh.o.r.e, and they had a fit over it. When breakfast was done the Lamonts takes Asaph one side and the colonel says:
"Mr. Blueworthy," he says, "my daughter and I am very much pleased with the Cape and the Cape people. Some time ago we made up our minds that if we could find the right spot we would build a summer home here.
Preferably we wish to purchase a typical, old-time, Colonial homestead and remodel it, retaining, of course, all the original old-fashioned flavor. Cost is not so much the consideration as location and the house itself. We are--ahem!--well, frankly, your place here suits us exactly."
"We adore it," says Mabel, emphatic.
"Mr. Blueworthy," goes on the colonel, "will you sell us your home? I am prepared to pay a liberal price."
Poor Asaph was kind of throwed on his beam ends, so"s to speak. He hemmed and hawed, and finally had to blurt out that he didn"t own the place. The Lamonts was astonished. The colonel wanted to know if it belonged to Mrs. Badger.
"Why, no," says Ase. "The fact is--that is to say--you see--"