Blow The Man Down: A Romance Of The Coast
“Oh, you will think of some plan,” she assured him-with fine loyalty.
“If you will allow me to help in my poor way I'll be proud.”
“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.
When Mr. Rowley came back into the office he found his match waiting for
him in the person of Captain Candage, primed and ready to drive a sharp
bargain. At the end of an hour papers representing the charter of the
_Ethel and May_ were turned over.
“I reckon it's a good job,” affirmed the skipper, when he and Mayo
were outside the Rowley store. “I have made up my mind to let poor
old _Polly_ go to Davy Jones's locker. I wrote to the shippers and the
consignees of the lumber last night. If they want it they can go after
it. I may as well fish for the rest of this season!” He regarded Captain
Mayo with eyes in which query was almost wistftul. “Of course, you can
depend on me to see to it that you get your share, sir, just as if you
were aboard.”
“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 embarrassed 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 God 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 hellum 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 gratitude 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 constituted 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.