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CHAPTER I
THE PERFECT BOARDING HOUSE
It is queer, but Captain Cy himself doesn't remember whether the day was Tuesday or Wednesday. Asaph Tidditt's records ought to settle it, for there was a meeting of the board of selectmen that day, and Asaph has been town clerk in Bayport since the summer before the Baptist meeting house burned. But on the record the date, in Asaph's handwriting, stands "Tuesday, May 10, 189-" and, as it happens, May 10 of that year fell on Wednesday, not Tuesday at all.
Keturah Bangs, who keeps "the perfect boarding house," says it was Tuesday, because she remembers they had fried cod cheeks and cabbage that day—as they have every Tuesday—and neither Mr. Tidditt nor Bailey Bangs, Keturah's husband, was on hand when the dinner bell rang. Keturah says she is certain it was Tuesday, because she remembers smelling the boiled cabbage as she stood at the side door, looking up the road to see if either Asaph or Bailey was coming. As for Bailey, he says he remembers being late to dinner and his wife's "startin' to heave a broadsides into him" because of it, but he doesn't remember what day it was. This isn't surprising; Keturah's verbal cannonades are likely to make one forgetful of trifles.
At any rate, whether Tuesday or Wednesday, it is certain that it was quarter past twelve, according to the clock presented to the Methodist Society by the Honorable Heman Atkins, when Asaph Tidditt came down the steps of the townhall, after the selectmen's meeting, and saw Bailey Bangs waiting for him on the opposite side of the road.
"Hello, Ase!" hailed Mr. Bangs. "You'll be late to dinner, if you don't hurry. I was headin' for home, all sail sot, when I see you. What kept you?"
"Town business, of course," replied Mr. Tidditt, with the importance pertaining to his official position. "What kept YOU, for the land sakes? Won't Ketury be in your wool?"
Bailey hasn't any "wool" worth mentioning now, and he had very little more then, but he mopped his forehead, or the extension above it, taking off his cap to do so.
"I cal'late she will," he said, uneasily. "Tell you the truth, Ase, I was up to the store, and Cap'n Josiah Dimick and some more of 'em drifted in and we got talkin' about the chances of the harbor appropriation, and one thing or 'nother, and 'twas later'n I thought 'twas 'fore I knew it."
The appropriation from the government, which was to deepen and widen our harbor here at Bayport, was a very vital topic among us just then. Heman Atkins, the congressman from our district, had promised to do his best for the appropriation, and had for a time been very sanguine of securing it. Recently, however, he had not been quite as hopeful.
"What's Cap'n Josiah think about the chances?" asked Asaph eagerly.
"Well, sometimes he thinks 'Yes' and then again he thinks 'No,'" replied Bailey. "He says, of course, if Heman is able to get it he will, but if he ain't able to, he—he—"
"He won't, I s'pose. Well, I can think that myself, and I don't set up to be no inspired know-it-all, like Joe Dimick. He ain't heard from Heman lately, has he?"
"No, he ain't. Neither's anybody else, so fur as I can find out."
"Oh, yes, they have. I have, for one."
Mr. Bangs stopped short in his double-quick march for home and dinner, and looked his companion in the face.
"Ase Tidditt!" he cried. "Do you mean to tell me you've had a letter from Heman Atkins, from Washin'ton?"
Asaph nodded portentously.
"Yes, sir," he declared. "A letter from the Honorable Heman G. Atkins, of Washin'ton, D. C., come to me last night. I read it afore I turned in."
"You did! And never said nothin' about it?"
"Why should I say anything about it? 'Twas addressed to me as town clerk, and was concernin' a matter to be took up with the board of s'lectmen. I ain't in the habit of hollerin' town affairs through a speakin' trumpet. Folks that vote for me town-meetin' day know that, I guess. Angie Phinney says to me only yesterday, 'Mr. Tidditt,' says she, 'there's one thing I'll say for you—you don't talk.'"
Miss Phinney boarded with the Bangses, and Bailey was acquainted with her personal peculiarities; for that matter so were most of Bayport's permanent residents.
"Humph!" he snorted indignantly. "She thought 'twas a good thing not to talk, hey? SHE did? Well, by mighty! you never get no CHANCE to talk when she's around. Angie Phinney! Why, when that poll parrot of hers died, Alph'us Smalley declared up and down that what killed it was jealousy and disapp'inted ambition; he said it broke its heart tryin' to keep up with Angie. Her ma was the same breed of cats. I remember—"
The talking proclivities of females is the one topic upon which Keturah's husband is touchiest. Asaph knew this, but he delighted to stir up his chum occasionally. He chuckled as he interrupted the flow of reminiscence.
"There, there, Bailey!" he exclaimed. "I know as much about Angie's tribe as you do, I cal'late. Ain't we a little mite off the course? Seems to me we was talkin' about Heman's letter."
"Is that so? I judged from what you said we wa'n't goin' to talk about it. Aw, don't be so mean, Ase! Showin' off your importance like a young one! What did Heman say about the appropriation? Is he goin' to get it?"
Mr. Tidditt paused before replying. Then, bending over, he whispered in his chum's ear:
"He never said one word about the appropriation, Bailey; not one word. He wanted to know if we'd got this year's taxes on the Whittaker place. And, if we hadn't, what was we goin' to do about it? Bailey, between you and me and the mizzenmast, Heman Atkins wants to get ahold of that place the worst way."
"He does? He DOES? For the land sakes, ain't he got property enough already? Ain't a—a palace like that enough for one man, without wantin' to buy a rattletrap like THAT?"
The first "that" was emphasized by a brandished but reverent left hand; the second by a derisively pointing right. The two friends had reached the crest of the long slope leading up from the townhall. On one side of the road stretched the imposing frontage of the "Atkins estate," with its iron fence and stone posts; on the other slouched the weed-grown, tumble-down desolation of the "Cy Whittaker place." The contrast was that of opulent prosperity and poverty-stricken neglect.
If our village boasted one of those horseless juggernauts, such as are used to carry sightseers in Boston from the old North Church to the Public Library and other points of interest—that is, if there was a "seeing Bayport" car, it is from this hill that its occupants would be given their finest view of the village and its surroundings. As Captain Josiah Dimick always says: "Bayport is all north and south, like a codfish line. It puts me in mind of Seth Higgins's oldest boy. He was so tall and thin that when they bought a suit of clothes for him, they used to take reefs in the sides of the jacket and use the cloth to piece onto the bottoms of the trousers' legs." What Captain Joe means is that the houses in the village are all built beside three roads running longitudinally. There is the "main road" and the "upper road"—or "Woodchuck Lane," just as you prefer—and the "lower road," otherwise known as "Bassett's Holler."
The "upper road" is sometimes called the "depot road," because the railroad station is conveniently located thereon—convenient for the railroad, that is—the station being a full mile from Simmons's "general store," which is considered the center of the town. The upper road enters the main road at the corner by the store, and there also are the Methodist meetinghouse and the schoolhouse. The townhall is in the hollow farther on. Then comes the big hill—
"Whittaker's Hill"—and from the top of this hill you can, on a clear day, see for miles across the salt marshes and over the bay to the eastward, and west as far as the church steeple in Orham. If there happens to be a fog, with a strong easterly wind, you cannot see the marshes or the bay, but you can smell them, wet and salty and sweet. It is a smell that the born Bayporter never forgets, but carries with him in memory wherever he goes; and that, in the palmy days of the merchant marine, was likely, to be far, for every male baby in the village was born with web feet, so people said, and was predestined to be a sailor.
When Heman Atkins came back from the South Seas early in the '60's, "rich as dock mud," though still a young man, he promptly tore down his father's old house, which stood on the crest of Whittaker's Hill, and built in its place a big imposing residence. It was by far the finest house in Bayport, and Heman made it finer as the years passed. There were imitation brownstone pillars supporting its front porch, iron dogs and scroll work iron benches bordering its front walk, and a pair of stone urns, in summer filled with flowers, beside its big iron front gate.
Heman was our leading citizen, our representative in Washington, and the town's philanthropist. He gave the Atkins memorial window and the Atkins tower clock to the Methodist Church. The Atkins town pump, also his gift, stood before the townhall. The Atkins portrait in the Bayport Ladies' Library was much admired; and the size of the Atkins fortune was the principal subject of conversation at sewing circle, at the table of "the perfect boarding house," around the stove in Simmons's store, or wherever Bayporters were used to gather. We never exactly worshipped Heman Atkins, perhaps, but we figuratively doffed our hats when his name was mentioned.
The "Cy Whittaker place" faced the Atkins estate from the opposite side of the main road, but it was the general opinion that it ought to be ashamed to face it. Almost everybody called it "the Cy Whittaker place," although some of the younger set spoke of it as the "Sea Sight House." It was a big, old-fashioned dwelling, gambrel-roofed and brown and dilapidated. Originally it had enjoyed the dignified seclusion afforded by a white picket fence with square gateposts, and the path to its seldom-used front door had been guarded by rigid lines of box hedge. This, however, was years ago, before the second Captain Cy Whittaker died, and before the Howes family turned it into the "Sea Sight House," a hotel for summer boarders.
The Howeses "improved" the house and grounds. They tore down the picket fence, uprooted the box hedges, hung a sign over the sacred front door, and built a wide veranda under the parlor windows.
They took boarders for five consecutive summers; then they gave up the unprofitable undertaking, returned to Concord, New Hampshire, their native city, and left the Cy Whittaker place to bear the ravages of Bayport winters and Bayport small boys as best it might.
For years it stood empty. The weeds grew high about its foundations; the sparrows built nests behind such of its shutters as had not been ripped from their hinges by February no'theasters; its roof grew bald in spots as the shingles loosened and were blown away; the swallows flew in and out of its stone-broken windowpanes. Year by year it became more of a disgrace in the eyes of Bayport's neat and thrifty inhabitants—for neat and thrifty we are, if we do say it. The selectmen would have liked to tear it down, but they could not, because it was private property, having been purchased from the Howes heirs by the third Cy Whittaker, Captain Cy's only son, who ran away to sea when he was sixteen years old, and was disinherited and cast off by the proud old skipper in consequence. Each March, Asaph Tidditt, in his official capacity as town clerk, had been accustomed to receive an envelope with a South American postmark, and in that envelope was a draft on a Boston banking house for the sum due as taxes on the "Cy Whittaker place." The drafts were signed "Cyrus M. Whittaker."
But this particular year—the year in which this chronicle begins—no draft had been received. Asaph waited a few weeks and then wrote to the address indicated by the postmark. His letter was unanswered. The taxes were due in March and it was now May. Mr. Tidditt wrote again; then he laid the case before the board of selectmen, and Captain Eben Salters, chairman of that august body, also wrote. But even Captain Eben's authoritative demand was ignored. Next to the harbor appropriation, the question of what should be done about the "Cy Whittaker place" filled Bayport's thoughts that spring. No one, however, had supposed that the Honorable Heman might wish to buy it. Bailey Bangs's surprise was excusable.
"What in the world," repeated Bailey, "does Heman want of a shebang like that? Ain't he got enough already?"
His friend shook his head.
"'Pears not," he said. "I judge it's this way, Bailey: Heman, he's a proud man—"
"Well, ain't he got a right to be proud?" broke in Mr. Bangs, hastening to resent any criticism of the popular idol. "Cal'late you and me'd be proud if we was able to carry as much sail as he does, wouldn't we?"
"Yes, I guess like we would. But you needn't get red in the face and strain your biler just because I said that. I ain't finding fault with Heman; I'm only tellin' you. He's proud, as I said, and his wife—"
"She's dead this four year. What are you resurrectin' her for?"
"Land! you're peppery as a West Injy omelet this mornin'. Let me alone till I've finished. His wife, when she was alive, she was proud, too. And his daughter, Alicia, she's eight year old now, and by and by she'll be grown up into a high-toned young woman. Well, Heman is fur-sighted, and I s'pose likely he's thinkin' of the days when there'll be young rich fellers—senators and—and—well, counts and lords, maybe—cruisin' down here courtin' her. By that time the Whittaker place'll be a worse disgrace than 'tis now. I presume he don't want those swells to sit on his front piazza and see the crows buildin' nests in the ruins acrost the road. So—"
"Crows! Did you ever see a crow build a nest in a house? I never did!"
"Oh, belay! Crows or canary birds, what difference does it make? SOMETHIN' 'll nest there, if it's only A'nt Sophrony Hallett's hens. So Heman he writes to the board, askin' if the taxes is paid, if we've heard any reason why they ain't paid, and what we're goin' to do about it. If there's a sale for taxes he wants to be fust bidder. Then, when the place is his, he can tear down or rebuild, just as he sees fit. See?"
"Yes, I see. Well, I feel about that the way Joe Dimick felt when he heard the doctor had told Elviry Pepper she must stop singin' in the choir or lose her voice altogether. 'Whichever happens 'll be an improvement,' says Cap'n Joe; and whatever Heman does 'll help the Whittaker place. What did you decide at the meetin'?"
"Nothin'. We can't decide yet. We ain't sure about the law and we want to wait a spell, anyhow. But I know how 'twill end: Atkins 'll get the place. He always gets what he wants, Heman does."
Bailey turned and looked back at the old house, forlorn amidst its huddle of blackberry briers and weeds, and with the ubiquitous "silver-leaf" saplings springing up in clusters everywhere about it and closing in on its defenseless walls like squads of victorious soldiery making the final charge upon a conquered fort.
"Well," sighed Mr. Bangs, "so that 'll be the end of the old Whittaker place, hey? Sho! things change in a feller's lifetime, don't they? You and me can remember, Ase, when Cap'n Cy Whittaker was one of the biggest men we had in this town. So was his dad afore him, the Cap'n Cy that built the house. I wonder the looks of things here now don't bring them two up out of their graves. Do you remember young Cy—'Whit' we used to call him—or 'Reddy Whit,' 'count of his red hair? I don't know's you do, though; guess you'd gone to sea when he run away from home."
Mr. Tidditt shook his head.
"No, no!" he said. "I was to home that year. Remember 'Whit'? Well, I should say I did. He was a holy terror—yes, sir! Wan't no monkey shines or didos cut up in this town that young Cy wan't into. Fur's that goes, you and me was in 'em, too, Bailey. We was all holy terrors then. Young ones nowadays ain't got the spunk we used to have."
His friend chuckled.
"That's so," he declared. "That's so. Whit was a good-hearted boy, too, but full of the Old Scratch and as sot in his ways as his dad, and if Cap'n Cy wan't sot, then there ain't no sotness. 'You'll go to college and be a parson,' says the Cap'n. 'I'll go to sea and be a sailor, same as you done,' says Whit. And he did, too; run away one night, took the packet to Boston, and shipped aboard an Australian clipper. Cap'n Cy didn't go after him to fetch him home. No, sir—ee! not a fetch. Sent him a letter plumb to Melbourne and, says he: 'You've made your bed; now lay in it. Don't you never dast to come back to me or your ma,' he says. And Whit didn't, he wan't that kind."
"Pretty nigh killed the old lady—Whit's ma—that did," mused Asaph. "She died a little spell afterwards. And the old man pined away, too, but he never give in or asked the boy to come back. Stubborn as all get-out to the end, he was, and willed the place, all he had left, to them Howes folks. And a nice mess THEY made of it. Young Cy, he—"
"Young Cy!" interrupted Bailey. "We're always callin' him 'young Cy,' and yet, when you come to think of it, he must be pretty nigh fifty-five now; 'most as old as you and I be. Wonder if he'll ever come back here."
"You bet he won't!" was the oracular reply. "You bet he won't! From what I hear he got to be a sea cap'n himself and settled down there in Buenos Ayres. He's made all kinds of money, they say, out of hides and such. What he ever bought his dad's old place for, I can't see. He'll never come back to these common, one-horse latitudes, now you mark my word on that!"