第37章

MATCHMAKING AND LIFE-SAVING

Captain Jerry sat behind the woodshed, in the sunshine, smoking and thinking. He had done a good deal of the first ever since he was sixteen years old; the second was, in a measure, a more recent acquirement. The Captain had things on his mind.

It was one of those perfect, springlike mornings that sometimes come in early November. The sky was clear blue, and the air was so free from haze that the houses at Cranberry Point could be seen in every detail. The flag on the cable station across the bay stood out stiff in the steady breeze, and one might almost count the stripes. The pines on Signal Hill were a bright green patch against the yellow grass. The sea was a dark sapphire, with slashes of silver to mark the shoals, and the horizon was notched with sails. The boats at anchor in front of the shanties swung with the outgoing tide.

Then came Captain Eri, also smoking.

"Hello!" said Captain Jerry. "How is it you ain't off fishin' a mornin' like this?""Somethin' else on the docket," was the answer. "How's matchmakin'

these days?"

Now this question touched vitally the subject of Captain Jerry's thoughts. From a placid, easygoing retired mariner, recent events had transformed the Captain into a plotter, a man with a "deep-laid scheme," as the gentlemanly, cigarette-smoking villain of the melodrama used to love to call it. To tell the truth, petticoat government was wearing on him. The marriage agreement, to which his partners considered him bound, and which he saw no way to evade, hung over him always, but he had put this threat of the future from his mind so far as possible. He had not found orderly housekeeping the joy that he once thought it would be, but even this he could bear. Elsie Preston was the drop too much.

He liked Mrs. Snow, except in a marrying sense. He liked Elsie better than any young lady he had ever seen. The trouble was, that between the two, he, as he would have expressed it, "didn't have the peace of a dog."Before Elsie came, a game of checkers between Perez and himself had been the regular after-supper amusement. Now they played whist, Captain Eri and Elsie against him and his former opponent. As Elsie and her partner almost invariably won, and as Perez usually found fault with him because they lost, this was not an agreeable change. But it was but one. He didn't like muslin curtains in his bedroom, because they were a nuisance when he wanted to sit up in bed and look out of the window; but the curtains were put there, and everybody else seemed to think them beautiful, so he could not protest. Captain Perez and Captain Eri had taken to "dressing up"for supper, to the extent of putting on neckties and clean collars.

Also they shaved every day. He stuck to the old "twice-a-week"plan for a while, but looked so scrubby by contrast that out of mere self-respect he had to follow suit. Obviously two females in the house were one too many. Something had to be done.

Ralph Hazeltine's frequent calls gave him the inspiration he was looking for. This was to bring about a marriage between Ralph and Miss Preston. After deliberation he decided that if this could be done the pair would live somewhere else, even though John Baxter was still too ill to be moved. Elsie could come in every day, but she would be too busy with her own establishment to bother with the "improvement" of theirs. It wasn't a very brilliant plan and had some vital objections, but Captain Jerry considered it a wonder.

He broached it to his partners, keeping his real object strictly in the background and enlarging upon his great regard for Ralph and Elsie, and their obvious fitness for each other. Captain Perez liked the scheme well enough, provided it could be carried out.

Captain Eri seemed to think it better to let events take their own course. However, they both agreed to help if the chance offered.

So, when Mr. Hazeltine called to spend the evening, Captain Jerry would rise from his chair and, with an elaborate cough and several surreptitious winks to his messmates, would announce that he guessed he would "take a little walk," or "go out to the barn," or something similar. Captain Perez would, more than likely, go also.

As for Captain Eri, he usually "cal'lated" he would step upstairs, and see how John was getting along.

But in spite of this loyal support, the results obtained from Captain Jerry's wonderful plan had not been so startlingly successful as to warrant his feeling much elated. Ralph and Elsie were good friends and seemed to enjoy each other's society, but that was all that might be truthfully said, so far.

Captain Jerry, therefore, was a little discouraged as he sat in the sunshine and smoked and pondered. He hid his discouragement, however, and in response to Captain Eri's question concerning the progress of the matchmaking, said cheerfully:

"Oh, it's comin' along, comin' along. Kind of slow, of course, but you can't expect nothin' diff'rent. I s'pose you noticed he was here four times last week?""Why, no," said Captain Eri, "I don't know's I did.""Well, he was, and week a fore that 'twas only three. So that's a gain, ain't it?""Sartin."

"I didn't count the time he stopped after a drink of water neither.

That wasn't a real call, but--"

"Oh, it ought to count for somethin'! Call it a ha'f a time. That would make four times and a ha'f he was here."Captain Jerry looked suspiciously at his friend's face, but its soberness was irreproachable, so he said:

"Well, it's kind of slow work, but, as I said afore, it's comin'

along, and I have the satisfaction of knowin' it's all for their good.""Yes, like the feller that ate all the apple-dumplin's so's his children wouldn't have the stomach-ache. But say, Jerry, I come out to ask if you'd mind bein' housekeeper to-day. Luther Davis has been after me sence I don't know when to come down to the life-savin' station and stay to dinner. His sister Pashy--the old maid one--is down there, and it's such a fine day I thought I'd take Perez and Elsie and Mrs. Snow and, maybe, Hazeltine along.