The Postmaster Part 1

THE POSTMASTER.

by Joseph C. Lincoln.

CHAPTER I-I MAKE TWO BETS-AND LOSE ONE OF 'EM

"So you're through with the sea for good, are you, Cap'n Zeb," says Mr.

Pike.

"You bet!" says I. "Through for good is just _what_ I am."

"Well, I'm sorry, for the firm's sake," he says. "It won't seem natural for the _Fair Breeze_ to make port without you in command. Cap'n, you're goin' to miss the old schooner."

"Cal'late I shall-some-along at fust," I told him. "But I'll get over it, same as the cat got over missin' the canary bird's singin'; and I'll have the cat's consolation-that I done what seemed best for me."

He laughed. He and I were good friends, even though he was s.h.i.+p-owner and I was only skipper, just retired.

"So you're goin' back to Ostable?" he says. "What are you goin' to do after you get there?"

"Nothin'; thank you very much," says I, prompt.

"No work at _all_?" he says, surprised. "Not a hand's turn? Goin' to be a gentleman of leisure, hey?"

"Nigh as I can, with my trainin'. The 'leisure' part'll be all right, anyway."

He shook his head and laughed again.

"I think I see you," says he. "Cap'n, you've been too busy all your life even to get married, and-"

"Humph!" I cut in. "Most married men I've met have been a good deal busier than ever I was. And a good deal more worried when business was dull. No, sir-ee! 'twa'n't that that kept me from gettin' married. I've been figgerin' on the day when I could go home and settle down. If I'd had a wife all these years I'd have been figgerin' on bein' able to settle up. I ain't goin' to Ostable to get married."

"I'll bet you do, just the same," says he. "And I'll bet you somethin'

else: I'll bet a new hat, the best one I can buy, that inside of a year you'll be head over heels in some sort of hard work. It may not be seafarin', but it'll be somethin' to keep you busy. You're too good a man to rust in the sc.r.a.p heap. Come! I'll bet the hat. What do you say?"

"Take you," says I, quick. "And if you want to risk another on my marryin', I'll take that, too."

"Go you," says he. "You'll be married inside of three years-or five, anyway."

"One year that I'll be at work-steady work-and five that I'm married.

You're s.h.i.+pped, both ways. And I wear a seven and a quarter, soft hat, black preferred."

"If I don't win the first bet I will the second, sure," he says, confident. "'Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands,' you know.

Well, good-by, and good luck. Come in and see us whenever you get to New York."

We shook hands, and I walked out of that office, the office that had been my home port ever since I graduated from fust mate to skipper. And on the way to the Fall River boat I vowed my vow over and over again.

"Zebulon Snow," I says to myself-not out loud, you understand; for, accordin' to Scriptur' or the Old Farmers' Almanac or somethin', a feller who talks to himself is either rich or crazy and, though I was well enough fixed to keep the wolf from the door, I wa'n't by no means so crazy as to leave the door open and take chances-"Zebulon Snow," says I, "you're forty-eight year old and blessedly single. All your life you've been haulin' ropes, or bossin' fo'mast hands, or tryin' to make harbor in a fog. Now that you've got an anchor to wind'ard-now that the one talent you put under the stock exchange napkin has spread out so that you have to have a tablecloth to tote it home in, don't you be a fool. Don't plant it again, cal'latin' to fill a mains'l next time, 'cause you won't do it. Take what you've got and be thankful-and careful. You go ash.o.r.e at Ostable, where you was born, and settle down and be somebody."

That's about what I said to myself, and that's what I started to do. I made Ostable on the next mornin's train. The town had changed a whole lot since I left it, mainly on account of so many summer folks buyin'

and buildin' everywhere, especially along the water front. The few reg'lar inhabitants that I knew seemed to be glad to see me, which I took as a sort of compliment, for it don't always foller by a consider'ble sight. I got into the depot wagon-the same horse was drawin' it, I judged, that Eben Hendricks had bought when I was a boy-and asked to be carted to the Travelers' Inn. It appeared that there wa'n't any Travelers' Inn now, that is to say, the name of it had been changed to the Poquit House; "Poquit" bein' Injun or Portygee or somethin' foreign.

But the name was the only thing about that hotel that was changed. The grub was the same and the wallpaper on the rooms they showed to me looked about the same age as I was, and wa'n't enough handsomer to count, either. I hired a couple of them rooms, one to sleep in and smoke in, and t'other to entertain the parson in, if he should call, which-unless the profession had changed, too-I judged he would do pretty quick. I had the rooms cleaned and papered, bought some dyspepsy medicine to offset the meals I was likely to have, and settled down to be what Mr. Pike had called a "gentleman of leisure."

Fust three months 'twas fine. At the end of the second three it commenced to get a little mite dull. In about two more I found my mind was shrinkin' so that the little mean cat-talks at the breakfast table was beginnin' to seem interestin' and important. Then I knew 'twas time to doctor up with somethin' besides dyspepsy pills. Ossification was settin' in and I'd got to do somethin' to keep me interested, even if I paid for Pike's hats for the next generation.

You see, there was such a sameness to the programme. Turn out in the mornin', eat and listen to gossip, go out and take a walk, smoke, talk with folks I met-more gossip-come back and eat again, go over and watch the carpenters on the latest summer cottage, smoke some more, eat some more, and then go down to the Ostable Grocery, Dry Goods, Boots and Shoes and Fancy Goods Store, or to the post-office, and set around with the gang till bedtime. That may be an excitin' life for a jellyfish, or a reg'lar Ostable loafer-but it didn't suit me.

I was feelin' that way, and pretty desperate, the night when Winthrop Adams Beanblossom-which wa'n't the critter's name but is nigh enough to the real one for him to cruise under in this yarn-told me the story of his life and started me on the v'yage that come to mean so much to me. I didn't know 'twas goin' to mean much of anything when I started in. But that night Winthrop got me to paddlin', so's to speak, and, later on, come Jim Henry Jacobs to coax me into deeper water; and, after that, the combination of them two and Miss Let.i.tia Lee Pendlebury shoved me in all under, so 'twas a case of stickin' to it or swimmin' or drownin'.

I was in the Ostable Store that evenin', as usual. 'Twas almost nine o'clock and the rest of the bunch around the stove had gone home. I was fillin' my pipe and cal'latin' to go, too-if you can call a tavern like the Poquit House a home. Beanblossom was in behind the desk, his funny little grizzly-gray head down over a pile of account books and papers, his specs roostin' on the end of his thin nose, and his pen scratchin'

away like a stray hen in a flower bed.

"Well, Beanblossom," says I, gettin' up and stretchin', "I cal'late it's time to shed the partin' tear. I'll leave you to figger out whether to spend this week's profits in government bonds or trips to Europe and go and lay my weary bones in the tomb, meanin' my private vault on the second floor of the Poquit. Adieu, Beanblossom," I says; "remember me at my best, won't you?"

He didn't seem to sense what I was drivin' at. He lifted his head out of the books and papers, heaved a sigh that must have started somewheres down along his keelson, and says, sorrowful but polite-he was always polite-"Er-yes? You were addressin' me, Cap'n Snow?"

"Nothin' in particular," I says. "I was just askin' if you intended spendin' your profits on a trip to Europe this summer."

Would you believe it, that little storekeepin' man looked at me through his specs, his pale face twitchin' and workin' like a youngster's when he's tryin' not to cry, and then, all to once, he broke right down, leaned his head on his hands and sobbed out loud.

I looked at him. "For the dear land sakes," I sung out, soon's I could collect sense enough to say anything, "what is the matter? Is anybody dead or-"

He groaned. "Dead?" he interrupted. "I wish to heaven, I was dead."

"Well!" I gasps. "_Well!_"

"Oh, why," says he, "was I ever born?"

That bein' a question that I didn't feel competent to answer, I didn't try. My remark about goin' to Europe was intended for a joke, but if my jokes made grown-up folks cry I cal'lated 'twas time I turned serious.

"What _is_ the matter, Beanblossom?" I says. "Are you in trouble?"

For a spell he wouldn't answer, just kept on sobbin' and wringin' his thin hands, but, after consider'ble of such, and a good many unsatisfyin' remarks, he give in and told me the whole yarn, told me all his troubles. They were complicated and various.

Picked over and b'iled down they amounted to this: He used to have an income and he lived on it-in bachelor quarters up to Boston. Nigh as I could gather he never did any real work except to putter in libraries and collect books and such. Then, somehow or other, the bank the heft of his money was in broke up and his health broke down. The doctors said he must go away into the country. He couldn't afford to go and do nothin', so he has a wonderful inspiration-he'll buy a little store in what he called a "rural community" and go into business. He advertises, "Country Store Wanted Cheap," or words to that effect. Abial Beasley's widow had the "Ostable Grocery, Dry Goods, Boots and Shoes and Fancy Goods Store"

on her hands. She answers the ad and they make a d.i.c.ker. Said d.i.c.ker took about all the cash Beanblossom had left. For a year he had been fightin' along tryin' to make both ends meet, but now they was so fur apart they was likely to meet on the back stretch. He owed 'most a thousand dollars, his trade was fallin' off, he hadn't a cent and n.o.body to turn to. What should he do? _What_ should he do?

That was another question I couldn't answer off hand. It was plain enough why he was in the hole he was, but how to get him out was different. I set down on the edge of the counter, swung my legs and tried to think.

"Hum," says I, "you don't know much about keepin' store, do you, Beanblossom? Didn't know nothin' about it when you started in?"

He shook his head. "I'm afraid not, Cap'n Snow," he says. "Why should I?

I never was obliged to labor. I was not interested in trade. I never supposed I should be brought to this. I am a man of family, Cap'n Snow."

"Yes," I says, "so'm I. Number eight in a family of thirteen. But that never helped me none. My experience is that you can't count much on your relations."

Would I pardon him, but that was not the sense in which he had used the word "family." He meant that he came of the best blood in New England.