Eli Part 1

Eli.

by Heman White Chaplin.

I.

Under a boat, high and dry at low tide, on the beach, John Wood was seated in the sand, sheltered from the sun in the boat's shadow, absorbed in the laying on of verdigris. The dull, worn color was rapidly giving place to a brilliant, s.h.i.+ning green. Occasionally a sc.r.a.per, which lay by, was taken up to remove the last trace of a barnacle.

It was Wood's boat, but he was not a boatman; he painted cleverly, but he was not a painter. He kept the brown store under the elms of the main street, now hot and still, where at this-moment his blus.h.i.+ng sister was captivating the heart of an awkward farmer's boy as she sold him a pair of striped suspenders.

As the church clock struck the last of twelve decided blows, three children came rus.h.i.+ng out of the house on the bank above the beach. It was one of those deceptive New England cottages, weather-worn without, but bright and bountifully home-like within,--with its trim parlor, proud of a cabinet organ; with its front hall, now cooled by the light sea-breeze drifting through the blind-door, where a tall clock issued its monotonous call to a siesta on the rattan lounge; with its spare room, open now, opposite the parlor, and now, too, drawing in the salt air through close-shut blinds, in antic.i.p.ation of the joyful arrival this evening of Sister Sarah, with her little brood, from the city.

The children scampered across the road, and then the eldest hushed the others and sent a little brother ahead to steal, barefoot, along the s.h.i.+ning sea-weed to his father.

The plotted surprise appeared to succeed completely. The painter was seized by the ears from behind, and captured.

"Guess who 's here, or you can't get up," said the infant captor.

"It 's Napoleon Bonaparte; don't joggle," said his father, running a brush steadily along the water-line.

"No! no! no!" with shouts of laughter from the whole attacking party.

"Then it's Captain Ezekiel."

This excited great merriment: Captain Ezekiel was an aged, purblind man, who leaned on a cane.

After attempts to identify the invader--with the tax-collector come for taxes, then with the elderly minister making a pastoral call, with the formal schoolmaster, and with Samuel J. Tilden--the victim reached over his shoulder, and, seizing the a.s.sailant by a handful of calico jacket, brought him around, squirming, before him.

"Now," he said, "I 'll give you a coat of verdigris. (Great applause from the reserve force behind.)

"I suppose Mother sent you to say dinner's ready," said the father, rising and surveying the green bottom of the boat. "I must eat quick, so as to do the other side before half-flood."

And with a child on each shoulder, and the third pus.h.i.+ng him from behind with her head, he marched toward the vine-covered kitchen, where, between two opposite netted doors, the table was trimly set.

"Father, you look like a mermaid, with your green hands," said his wife, laughing, as she handed him the spirits of turpentine. "A woman could paint that boat, in a light dress, and not get a spot on her."

He smiled good-naturedly: he never spoke much.

"I guess Louise won't have much trade today," said his wife, as they all sat down; "it's so hot in the sun that everybody 'll wait till night.

But she has her tatting-work to do, and she 's got a book, too, that she wanted to finish."

Her husband nodded, and ate away.

"Oh, can't we go up street and see her, this afternoon?" said one of the children.

"Who can that be?" said the mother, as an elderly, half-official-looking man stopped his horse at the front gate and alighted. The man left the horse unchecked to browse by the roadside, and came to the door.

"Oh, it 's you, Captain Nourse," said Wood, rising to open the netting door, and holding out his hand. "Come to summons me as a witness in something about the bank case, I suppose. Let me introduce Captain Nourse, Mary," he said, "deputy sheriff. Sit down, Captain, and have some dinner with us."

"No, I guess I won't set," said the captain. "I cal'lated not to eat till I got home, in the middle o' the afternoon. No, I 'll set down in eye-shot of the mare, and read the paper while you eat."

"I hope they don't want me to testify anywhere to-day," said Wood; "because my boat's half verdigris'd, and I want to finish her this afternoon."

"No testimony to-day," said the captain. "Hi! hi! Kitty!" he called to the mare, as she began to meander across the road; and he went out to a tree by the front fence, and sat down on a green bench, beside a work-basket and a half-finished child's dress, and read the country paper which he had taken from the office as he came along.

After dinner Wood went out bareheaded, and leaned on the fence by the captain. His wife stood just inside the door, looking out at them.

The "bank case" was the great sensation of the town, and Wood was one of the main witnesses, for he had been taking the place of the absent cas.h.i.+er when the safe was broken open and rifled to the widespread distress of depositors and stockholders, and the ruin of Hon. Edward Clark, the president. Wood had locked the safe on the afternoon before the eventful night, and had carried home the key with him, and he was to testify to the contents of the safe as he had left it.

"I guess they 're glad they 've got such a witness as John," said his wife to herself, as she looked at him fondly, "and I guess they think there won't be much doubt about what he says."

"Well, Captain," said Wood, jocosely, breaking a spear of gra.s.s to bits in his fingers, "I did n't know but you 'd come to arrest me."

The captain calmly smiled as only a man can smile who has been accosted with the same humorous remark a dozen times a day for twenty years.

He folded his paper carefully, put it in his pocket, took off his spectacles and put them in their silver case, took a red silk handkerchief from his hat, wiped his face, and put the handkerchief back. Then he said shortly,--

"That's what I _have_ come for."

Wood, still leaning on the fence, looked at him, and said nothing.

"That's just what I 've come for," said Captain Nourse. "I 've got to arrest you; here's the warrant." And he handed it to him.

"What does this mean?" said Wood. "I can't make head or tail of this."

"Well," said the captain, "the long and short is, these high-toned detectives that they 've hed down from town, seein' as our own force was n't good enough, allow that the safe was unlocked with a key, in due form, and then the lock was broke afterward, to look as if it had been forced open. They 've hed the foreman of the safe-men down, too, and he says the same thing. Naturally, the argument is, there was only two keys in existence,--one was safe with the president of the bank, and is about all he 's got to show out of forty years' savings; the only other one you hed: consequently, it heaves it onto you."

"I see," said Wood. "I will go with you. Do you want to come into the house with me while I get my coat?"

"Well, I suppose I must keep you in sight,--now you know."

And they went into the house.

"Mary," said her husband, "the folks that lost by Clark when the bank broke have been at him until he 's felt obliged to pitch on somebody, and he's pitched on me; and Captain Nourse has come to arrest me. I shall get bail before long."

She said nothing, and did not shed a tear till he was gone.

But then--

II.

Wide wastes of salt-marsh to the right, imprisoning the upland with a vain promise of infinite liberty, and, between low, distant sandhills, a rim of sea. Stretches of pine woods behind, shutting in from the great outer world, and soon to darken into evening gloom. Ploughed fields and elm-dotted pastures to the left, and birch-lined roads leading by white farm-houses to the village, all speaking of cheer and freedom to the prosperous and the happy, but to the unfortunate and the indebted, of meshes invisible but strong as steel. But, before, no lonesome marshes, no desolate forest, no farm or village street, but the free blue ocean, rolling and tumbling still from the force of an expended gale.

In the open doorway of a little cottage, warmed by the soft slanting rays of the September sun, a rough man, burnt and freckled, was sitting, at his feet a net, engaged upon some handiwork which two little girls were watching. Close by him lay a setter, his nose between his paws.

Occasionally the man raised his eyes to scan the sea.

"There's Joel," he said, "comin' in around the Bar. Not much air stirrin' now!"