""Batten, Ma.s.s.
""Miss Hephzibah Ba.s.sett, ""Twin Rocks Light.
""Dear Miss Heppy:-
""Your uncle, Captain Jethro Potts, of this town, pa.s.sed into rest this day at noon. The funeral is set for Thursday at ten in the morning, that being high tide. You and your family is hereby notified and are requested to be present at the unsealing of Captain Potts" will in Judge Waddams" office which will follow the ceremony at the grave.
""Your relation by marriage, ""ICIVILLA POTTS.""
Then followed the date. The reading of the letter for the moment left the trio-even the mail carrier-stunned. The latter finally said:
"Well! Well! That"s sad news-"tis, for a fact. I expect he left a tidy bit of money?"
"Poor Uncle Jethro!" murmured Miss Heppy.
"I don"t know how much money Uncle Jethro had to leave," said Tobias slowly. "But however much or little "twas, he left it all. That"s sure."
Amos gathered up the reins.
"Course you"ll both go down to the funeral?"
""Tain"t likely," Tobias said. "Somebody"s got to stay and nuss this light, and I cal"late "twill be me."
But Miss Heppy would not hear to that. She declared it to be her brother"s duty to go and represent their branch of the family. To tell the truth, Miss Heppy had never in her life been farther from Clinkerport than to the East Harwich Fair, while Tobias was, of course, like all deep-bottom sailors, "a traveled man."
Came Thursday, and Zeke Ba.s.sett arrived with his motor car to take Tobias to the train. It was rather an early hour for a man to climb into his Sunday suit, and the lightkeeper hated formal dress.
He should have been well used to the black suit by this time. It had served him for state occasions for full twenty years. When it was bought Tobias had not been so full-bodied as he was now. He was a st.u.r.dy man, built brickwise, with more corners than curves, and the black short-tailed coat strained at each and every seam to keep him within its bounds.
To have b.u.t.toned it across his chest would have rent b.u.t.ton from fabric.
It was so tight at the armholes that his elbows were held from his sides and his shoulders squared in a most military fashion. Tight as the coat was at these points, there were three sets of wrinkles plainly evident at the back-two perpendicular and one set horizontal. Altogether this ensemble of dress gave one the impression of a rather bulgy man being slowly choked to death by his own habit.
"I don"t mind wearin" "em on the Sabbath," confessed Tobias. "To keep in a proper frame of mind to enjoy one of Elder Hardraven"s sermons, who"s as melancholy as a widder woman with six small children, a feller needs to have something wearing on his mind b"sides his hair. It makes me right religious feeling to put on Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes."
"For love"s sake!" his sister said tartly, "you"re going to a funeral.
I should think you would expect to feel religious."
"If I do," rejoined Tobias grimly, "me and the minister will be "bout the only ones there that feel that way. This here is going to be a gathering of the vultures, Heppy."
"Why, Tobias, how you do talk!"
"Yep. The Pottses and their rel"tives are going to gather from far and near to hear the reading of Uncle Jethro"s will. Icivilly Potts would never have writ us if Judge Waddams hadn"t told her to. The Pottses of Batten would like to make the fun"ral and reading of the will a close-corporation affair, I cal"late. But "tis evident Uncle Jethro must have mentioned others in his last will and testament."
"Oh, Tobias!" gasped his sister, clasping her hands.
"Yep," he rejoined. "If the old captain left us something, you"ll be getting your wish, won"t you?"
"Oh, don"t Tobias!" she cried. "That sounds awful!"
"Oh, sugar!" drawled the practical lightkeeper, "we might"s well own to it. We never bothered Uncle Jethro none endurin" his life. He was here and took pot-luck with us many"s the time. He did seem to like your fishb.a.l.l.s an" biscuit, Heppy. If he hadn"t had prop"ty to watch down there at Batten, I cal"late he might nigh have lived here all the time.
So why shouldn"t we have expectations?"
"Oh, Tobias!" she murmured.
"I am frank to say," the lightkeeper declared, "that I"m going down there to Batten with expectations. Uncle Jethro is dead, and I cal"late to show respect to his memory. If the sermon is long I"ll likely go to sleep during it. But I don"t cal"late to sleep none in Judge Waddams"
office when the will is being read."
His perfectly frank acknowledgment shocked Miss Heppy. But that was Tobias Ba.s.sett"s way. He gave no hostage to Mrs. Grundy in any particular. No odor of hypocrisy clung to anything he did or said. If he had ever occasion to be untruthful he lied "straight from the shoulder"-without any circ.u.mlocution.
In his Sunday clothes, however, Tobias o" Twin Rocks Light was not likely to go to sleep under the dreariest funeral sermon that was ever preached on the Cape. The embrace of the Iron Virgin of the Inquisition could have been little more uncomfortable than that of his Sunday suit.
The Mariners" Chapel at Batten was set upon one of the loneliest sites to be found along the entire length of the Cape"s ocean sh.o.r.e.
Weather-bleached dunes and flats on which spa.r.s.e herbage grew surrounded the chapel. But the building was centrally located and tapped a good-sized community. The gulls clamored about its squat bell-tower and the marching sands drifted against its foundation. The northeasterly windows which overlooked the sea were ground by the flying sand to a pebbly roughness. The high roof beams were hand-hewn, for the chapel had weathered at least four-score years. The pews were high-backed pens with doors. The old-time worshipper in the Puritan House of G.o.d preferred to be shut in from his neighbors, and he likewise kept his religion a matter of close communion. The uncushioned seats were the most uncomfortable that the ingenuity of man could devise.
There had been no service at the house. Such a thing as a private funeral was not known in this community. A funeral is one of the most important incidents in the existence of Cape Cod folks, and at Batten (which was a clam-digging village) was held at high sea. It was expected of the minister that he should preach a full and complete sermon over the remains.
The bustling old undertaker, in shabby black broadcloth and with his iron-grey hair brushed forward over his ears, giving him the look of a super-serious monkey, marshaled the audience after the sermon to march down one aisle past the coffin and out the other aisle.
The grim, mahogany-hued face of Captain Jethro Potts, the lines of which even the touch of death could not soften, confronted his neighbors from the coffin. His countenance was not composed as the dead usually are; but looked as though he lay there in ambush, ready to jump out at one.
There was even the glitter of a beady eyeball behind the thin lashes drawn down over his eye.
"He looks mighty like he was a-watchin" of ye," observed the undertaker to Tobias. "I never see a corp" more nateral."
"You said it. "Nateral" is right," agreed the lightkeeper. "I cal"late Uncle Jethro has got something to spring on his rel"tives. He"s watchin" of "em yet."
Whether the other members of the family had the same feeling about the dead man"s alertness or not, they saw the lid of the coffin screwed down with complacency. Tobias was one of those who bore the coffin out to the churchyard and lowered it into the newly opened grave, the sides of which had to be bulkheaded to keep the sand from caving in.
Following the prayer there was a little lingering in the graveyard.
Judge Waddams had announced that he would read the dead man"s will in his office an hour later. Those interested began drifting back to the village along the white sh.e.l.l road.
CHAPTER VI
DEAD MEN"S SHOES
A dozen or more grim-faced men and women were gathered in the lawyer"s office when Tobias Ba.s.sett entered. He had seen them all at the church and grave, but there had been no opportunity to greet personally the Pottses, the Ba.s.setts and the Dawsons, names which for the most part made up the roster of Captain Jethro"s immediate family.
The lightkeeper proceeded to speak to each in turn. He was of no grim disposition himself, and was sport enough in any case to shake hands with his deadliest enemy before the battle.
His smile and cheerful word were for all, even for Icivilla Potts who was, of all the dead captain"s relatives, the one who considered that Tobias"s interest in the will should be infinitesimal. She had lived next door to Captain Jethro"s little box of a house for thirty years, and had kept a sharp and hungry eye upon him and his affairs during all of that time.
"Yes," she was saying, "he depended upon me for everything. If Cap"n Jethro had been my own father I could have taken no more pains with him."