"Wal-now-I dunno. If I can help a likely couple like Lorna and Ralph to an understanding--"
"Huh! Matches are made in heaven," said his sister.
"Oh, sugar! They don"t often smell so when you light "em," chuckled Tobias.
"Oh, you hush!"
"I"m thinkin" serious, Heppy, of helping them two foolish young ones to an understanding."
"You"d better mind your own business, Tobias Ba.s.sett."
"Ain"t it my business?" he queried, his head c.o.c.ked on one side watching the disappearing motor cars. "You know the Bible says we should all turn to an" help get our neighbor"s a.s.s out o" the pit--"
"An" you"ll be the biggest jack of all if you interfere in the affairs of them young ones."
"I dunno--"
"You"d better know!" exclaimed Miss Heppy, exasperated. "For love"s sake! who ever told you, Tobias Ba.s.sett, that you knowed enough to venture where even angels fear to tread?"
"Oh! Hum! Then I guess you don"t cal"late after all that matches is made in heaven," he chuckled. "And I give it as my opinion, Heppy, that marrying and giving in marriage ain"t never been angels" jobs. Mebbe a mere human being like me might have more of a sleight at matchmaking than the heavenly host-if anybody should drive up an" ax ye."
CHAPTER V
THE UNEXPECTED
Miss Heppy took pride in her front yard. The immediate vicinity of a lighthouse is not often a beauty-spot, and that of the Twin Rocks Light was for the most part bleached sand. Nevertheless the lightkeeper"s sister never failed to make her garden in early May.
The soil in which she coaxed to cheerful bloom old maid"s pinks, bachelor b.u.t.tons, ladies" slippers, marigolds and a dozen other old-fashioned flowers, was brought from a distance. The boisterous autumn winds always drifted over the beds with sand; yet each spring Miss Heppy, like nature herself, made all things new again.
"I vum!" said her brother in his good-natured, if critical way, "I don"t see why you do it. All you have to begin on every year is the conch-sh.e.l.ls and white pebbles for borders. Sea sand mixed with its loam in such quant.i.ty would ha" sp"iled the Garden of Eden for any agricultooral purposes."
"This ain"t no Garden of Eden, I do allow," his sister said. "Wherever them scientific fellers undertake to locate what was mankind"s first home, they never say "twas here on the Cape."
"Oh, sugar!" chuckled Tobias. "It took them frozen-faced Puritan ancestors of our"n to choose the Cape to locate on an" set the Provincetown folks and the Plymouth folks a-fightin" over which town should be celebrated in song an" story as the real landin" place of the Pilgrim Fathers."
"Humph!" sniffed Hephzibah, "we hear enough about the Pilgrim Fathers.
I cal"late if it hadn"t been for the Pilgrim Mothers there wouldn"t have been any settlement here a-tall."
"Ye-as," agreed Tobias, pursing his lips. "But the women didn"t have the vote then, so they didn"t get advertised none to speak of. Of course, there was Priscilla Alden-she that was a Mullens. Longfeller advertised _her_ a good bit. She"s the only woman among the Pilgrims that we hear much about. I cal"late "twas because she was one that knowed her own mind."
"No," said his sister, whose habit of looking at the darker side of life could not be denied. "No. The first woman the history of them times tells about was drowned off the _Mayflower_ as she lay in Provincetown Harbor."
"Oh, sugar! That"s so," chuckled Tobias. "She was crowded overboard by the deckload of furniture the packet carried. I never did understand how such a small craft could have brought across all that household stuff folks claim was in her cargo."
But Miss Heppy"s reflections were not to be turned by frivolity.
"She," the spinster said, with a sigh, "was the first of us Cape Cod women to suffer from the savage sea."
"Oh, sugar, Heppy!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Tobias. "You"re the beatin"est for seining up trouble and seeing the blackest side of things. Enough to give a man the fantods, you are! h.e.l.lo! Here"s the mail packet heaving into sight."
A bony horse with a head so long that he might easily eat his oats out of a flour barrel, appeared from around the turn in the Lower Trillion road. He drew behind him a buckboard which sagged under the weight of Amos Pickering, the rural mail carrier.
"Maybe he"s got a letter for us," suggested Miss Heppy with some eagerness. "You go see, Tobias."
The lightkeeper dropped his spade and made a speaking trumpet of his hands. "Ahoy! Ahoy, Amos! What"s the good word?"
The mail carrier waved an answering hand before diving into the sack at his feet and bringing to light, as Tobias strode down to the roadside, a letter and a paper.
"Wal, now," said the lightkeeper, "that"s what ye might call a heavy haul for us. I cal"late, Amos, if all your customers got as few parcels o" mail as what me and Heppy does, you"d purt" near go out o" business."
"It"s got a black border onto it, Tobias," said the mail carrier, voicing the curiosity that ate like acid on his mind. "And it"s postmarked at Batten. Ain"t that where your Uncle Jethro lives?"
"Sure enough!" agreed the lightkeeper. "But "tain"t his hand o"
write-nossir!"
"Be you sure?"
"Surest thing you know, Amos. "Cause why? Cap"n Jethro Potts never learned to more than make his mark-if that much."
"I cal"late he"s dead, Tobias."
"Then it"s sartain he didn"t send this letter with the black border."
"Well, it must be something about him, don"t you think?" suggested the mail carrier leaning forward, his eager eyes twinkling.
"Why, we ain"t in correspondence with n.o.body down there to Batten," said Tobias slowly, and holding the letter far off as though he feared it might explode.
Miss Heppy had got to her feet now and came forward.
"What"s the matter with you, Tobias?" she cried. "Why don"t you open it?
Amos won"t get home to-night if you don"t."
Her gentle sarcasm was quite lost on the two men. Her brother shook his head.
"Can"t open it," he said.
"Why not, for love"s sake?" demanded the exasperated Heppy.
""Cause it"s for you," chuckled Tobias, thrusting the letter into her hand.
"For love"s sake!" repeated Miss Heppy much fl.u.s.tered. "I can"t read it, Tobias. I ain"t got my specs here."
"No more have I," her brother rejoined. "But I cal"late I can read it for you if "tain"t writ in Choctaw."
The others, Amos no less than Heppy, remained eagerly expectant while Tobias worked his stubbed finger under the gummed flap of the envelope and tore it open. The folded sheet of paper he drew forth was likewise bordered with black. He held it off, for he was far-sighted, and read aloud slowly: