Part 57

“I'll not tell you what I think of your help; it might sound like soft talk. But let me tell you that you have one grand old dad!” he declared, earnestly; but although he tried to keep his face straight and his tones steady he looked down at her and immediately lost control of himself. Merriment was mingled with tears in her eyes.

“Isn't he funny?” she gasped, and they halted in their tracks and laughed in chorus with the whole-hearted fervor of youth; that laughter relieved the strain of that anxious day.

“I am not laughing at your father--you understand that!” he assured her.

“Of course, you are not! I know. But you are getting to understand him, just as I understand him. He is only a big child under all his bluster. But he does make me so angry sometimes!”

“You can't tell much about a Yankee till he comes out of his shell, and I agree with you as to the aggravating qualities in Captain Candage. I'm not very patient myself, when I'm provoked! But after this he and I will get along all right.”

They walked on to the cottage.

“Good night,” he said at the door.

“And you have no plan as yet?”

“Maybe something will come to me in a dream.”

The dream did not come to him, for his sleep was the profound slumber of exhaustion. He went down in the early dawn and plunged into the sea, and while he was walking back toward the cottage an idea and a conviction presented themselves, hand in hand. The conviction had been with him before--that he could not back out just then and leave those poor people to shift for themselves, as anxious as he was to be off about his own affairs; his undertaking was quixotic, but if he abandoned it at that juncture a queer story would chase him alongcoast, and he knew what sort of esteem mariners entertained for quitters.

However, deep in his heart, he confessed that it was not merely sailor pride that spurred him. The pathetic helplessness of the tribe of Hue and Cry appealed with an insistence he could not deny. He understood them as he understood similar colonies along the coast--children whom an indifferent world classed as man and treated with thoughtless injustice! Work was prescribed for them, as for others! But, they did not know how to work or how to make their work pay them.

The idea which came to him with the conviction that he must help these folks concerned work for them.

After breakfast he took Captain Candage into his confidence, much to the skipper's bland delight at being considered.

“I hope it's something where we can fetch Rowley in,” confessed the skipper. “I don't care anything for them critters,” he added, assuming brusqueness. “Don't want it hinted around that I'm getting simple in my old age. But they give me an excuse to bingdoodle Rowley.”

“To carry out that plan I have outlined we need some kind of a packet,” said Mayo.

“Sure! We'll go right to Rowley. He'll know. If there's anything in this section that he 'ain't got his finger on some way--bill of sale, mortgage, debt owed to him or expecting to be owed, then it ain't worth noticing.”

Mr. Rowley listened in his back office. He stroked his beard contentedly and beamed his pleasure when he saw the prospect of making another profitable dicker with men who seemed to be reliable and energetic.

“I had a mortgage on the Ethel and May when Captain Tebbets passed on to the higher life,” he informed them. “Widder gave up the schooner when I foreclosed, she not desiring to--er--bother with vessel proputty. So I have it free and clear without it standing me such a terrible sum! Shall be pleased to charter to you gents at a reasonable figure. Furthermore, seeing that industry makes for righteousness, so we are told, your plan of making those critters go to work may be a good one, providing you'll use a club on 'em often enough.”

“From what I've heard of your talk in prayer-meeting I should think you'd advise moral suasion,” suggested Captain Candage, plainly relishing this opportunity to “bingdoodle.”

“I use common sense, whether it's in religion or politics or business,” snapped Rowley, exhibiting a bit of un-Christian heat.

“It's advisable to ile up common sense with a little charity, and then the machine won't squeak so bad.”

“I wouldn't undertake to trot a dogfish on my knee or sing him to sleep with a pennyr'yal hymn, Captain Candage.”

“I think we can show results without the club,” interposed Mayo, with mild intent to smooth the tone of this repartee.

The clerk called Mr. Rowley out into the store on some matter of special importance, and the selectman departed, coming down rather hard on his heels.

“The old Adam sort of torches up through his shell once in a while,” commented Candage.

“We'd better settle the charter price, sir, before you lay aboard him too much,” advised the young man.

“I just natch'ally can't help harpooning him,” confessed the skipper. “He's a darned old hypocrite, cheating widders and orphans by choice because they 'ain't got the spunk to razoo back, and I've allus enjoyed fighting such as him. Him and me is due for a row. But I'll hold off the best I can till we have got him beat down.”

Mayo's plan involved the modest venture of chartering a craft suitable for fishing. There was no material for real Banksmen in the Hue and Cry colony, but the run of the men would serve to go trawling for ground and shack fish a few miles off the coast. It was the only scheme which would afford employment for the whole body of dependents; older and more decrepit men and the women and children could dig and shuck clams for the trawl bait. In order to encourage ambition and independence among the abler men of the colony, Mayo suggested that the fishermen be taken on shares, and Captain Candage agreed.