The Postmaster Part 14

"She'll prob'bly try to cure your foot with mind, Cap'n Zeb," says Lot, apologetic as usual. "But you mustn't worry about that. She means well."

"I sha'n't worry," I says. "She can put her mind on my foot, if she wants to; unless it's as hefty as that sugar barrel I cal'late 'twon't hurt me much. But say, Lot," I says, "are all your folks taken with something special in the line of religion or cures? How about this cousin-this Lemuel one? What's possessin' _him_?"

Oh, Cousin Lemuel was different. He'd had money left him and was an aristocrat. He never married, but lived in "chambers" up to Boston. He didn't have to work, but was a "collector" for the fun of it; collected postage stamps and folks' hand-writin's and insects and such. He wasn't very well, his nerves was kind of twittery, so Lot said.

"Um-hm," says I. "Well, collectin' insects would make most anybody's nerves twitter, I cal'late. But if Cousin Lemuel likes 'em, I s'pose we hadn't ought to fret. He could pick up a healthy collection of wood-ticks back here in the pines, if he'd only come after 'em, though it ain't likely he will."

But he did, just the same. Not after the ticks, exactly, but, as sure as I'm settin' here, this Cousin Lemuel landed in the house at South Ostable, bag and baggage. 'Twas three days afore the beginnin' of camp-meetin' and two afore Aunt Lucindy was expected over. Lot and me was settin' in rockin' chairs by the front windows in my room lookin'

out over the bay, when all to once we heard the rattle of a wagon from the woods abaft the kitchen.

"It's the doctor, I cal'late," says Lot, wakin' up and stretchin'. "Ah, hum, I s'pose I'll have to go down and let him in."

"'Tain't the doctor," says I. "He come yesterday. More likely it's Mr.

Jacobs, though I thought he'd gone to Boston and wouldn't be back for three or four days."

But a minute later we see we was mistaken. Around the house come rattlin' Simeon Wixon's old depot wagon, with the curtains all drawed down-though 'twas hot summer-and the rack astern and the seat in front piled up high with trunks and bags and satchels and goodness knows what all. Sim was drivin' and he had a grin on him like a Chessy cat.

"Whoa!" says he, haulin' in the horses. "Ahoy, Lot! Turn out there! Got a pa.s.senger for you."

Lot was so surprised he could hardly believe his ears, though they was big enough to be believed. He h'isted up the window screen and looked out.

"Hey?" he says, bewildered-like. "Did you say a _pa.s.senger_?"

"That's what I said. A pa.s.senger for you. Come on down."

"A pa.s.senger? For _me_?"

"Yes! yes! yes!" Simeon's patience was givin' out, and no wonder. "Don't stay up there," he snaps, "with your head stuck out of that window like a poll-parrot's out of a cage. And don't keep sayin' things over and over or I'll believe you _are_ a poll-parrot. Come down!" Then, leaning back and hollerin' in behind the carriage curtains, he sung out, "Hi, mister! here we be. You can get out now."

The curtains shook a little mite and then, from behind 'em, sounded a voice, a man's voice, but kind of shrill and high, and with a quiver in the middle of it.

"Are you sure this is the right place, driver?" it says.

"Sartin sure. This is it."

"But are you certain those animals are perfectly safe? They won't run away?"

The horses was takin' a nap, the two of 'em. Sim grinned, wider'n ever, and winks up at the window.

"I'll do my best to hold 'em," he says. "If I'd known you was comin' I'd have fetched an anchor."

The curtains shook some more, as if the feller inside was fidgetin' with 'em. Then the voice says again and more excited than ever, "Well, why in Heaven's name don't you unfasten this dreadful door? How am I to get out?"

Simeon stood grinnin', ripped a remark loose under his breath, jumped from the seat, and yanked the door open. There was a full half minute afore anything happened. Then out from that wagon door popped a black felt hat with a brim like a small-sized umbrella. Under the hat was a pair of thin, grayish side-whiskers, a long nose, and a pair of specs like full moons. The hat and the rest of it turned towards the horses and the voice says:

"You're _perfectly_ sure of those creatures you are drivin'? Very good.

Where is the step? Oh, dear! where is the _step_?"

Sim reached in, grabbed a little foot with one of them things they call a "gaiter" on it, hauled it down and planted it on the step of the carriage.

"There!" he snaps. "There 'tis, underneath you. Come on! Here! I'll unload you."

Maybe the pa.s.senger would have said somethin' else, but he didn't have a chance. Afore he could even think he was jerked out of that depot wagon and stood up on the ground.

"There!" says Simeon. "Now you're safe and no bones broken. Where do you want your dunnage; in the house?"

I don't know what answer he got. Afore I could hear it there was a gasp and a gurgle from Lot. I turned to him. He was leaning out of the window starin' down at the little man under the big hat.

"I believe-" he says, "I-I-_why_, it's Cousin Lemuel!"

Cousin Lemuel looked around him, at the house, at the woods, at the bay, at everything.

"Good heavens!" says he, in a sort of groan.-"Good heavens! what an awful place!"

That's how he made port and that was his first observation after landin'. He made consider'ble many more durin' the next few days, but the drift of 'em was all similar. He was a bird, Cousin Lemuel was. His twittery nerves had twittered so much durin' the past month or so that his doctors-he had seven or eight of 'em-had got tired of the chirrup, I cal'late, had held officers' counsel, and decided he must be got rid of somehow. They couldn't kill him, 'cause that was against the law, so they done the next best and ordered him to the seash.o.r.e for a complete rest; at least, he said the rest was to be for him, but I judge 'twas the doctors that needed it most. He wouldn't go to a hotel-hotels were horrible,-but he happened to think of relation Lot down in South Ostable and headed for there. Whether or not Lot could take him in, or wanted to, didn't trouble him a mite! _He_ wanted to come and that was sufficient! He never even took the trouble to write that he was comin'.

When he once made up his mind to do a thing, and got sot on it, he was like the laws of the Medes and Possums-or whatever they was-in Scripture; you couldn't upset him in two thousand years. It got to be a "matter of principle" with him-he was always tellin' about his matters of principle-and when the "principle" complication struck, that settled it. Oh, Cousin Lemuel was a bird, just as I said.

And Lot, of course, didn't have gumption enough to say he wasn't welcome. No, indeed; fact is, Lot seemed to consider his comin' a sort of honor, as you might say. If that retired bug-collector had been the Queen of Sheba, he couldn't have had more fuss made over him. The schooner-load of trunks and satchels was carted aloft to the big room next to mine,-Lot's room 'twas, but Lot soared to the attic,-and Cousin Lemuel was carted there likewise. He was introduced to me, and about the first thing he said was, would I mind wearin' a dressin'-robe, or a bath-sack, or somethin' to cover up my game foot? the sight of the dreadful bandage affected his nerves. I was sort of shy on sacks and dolmans and such, but I done my best to please him with a patchwork comforter.

I can't begin to tell you the things he did, or had Lot do for him.

Changin' the feather bed for a pumped-up air mattress he'd fetched along-air mattresses was a matter of principle with him-and firin' the rag mats off the floor of his room, 'cause the round-and-round braids made whirligigs in his head-and so on. But I sha'n't forget that first night in a hurry.

He was in and out of my room no less than fifteen times, rigged out in some sort of blanket dress, fastened with a rope amids.h.i.+ps. He wore that over his nightgown, and a shawl like an old woman's on top of the blanket. His head was tied up in a silk handkerchief; and his feet was shoved into slippers that flapped up and down when he walked and sounded like a slack jib in a light breeze. First off he couldn't sleep 'cause the frogs hollered. Next, 'twas the surf that troubled him. Then the window blinds creaked. And, at last, I'm blessed if he didn't come flappin' and rustlin' in at half-past one to ask what made it so quiet.

I was desp'rate, and I told him I was subject to nightmare, and had been known to cripple folks that come in and woke me sudden that way. He cleared out and I heard him pilin' chairs and furniture against his door on the inside. After that I managed to sleep till six o'clock. Then he knocked and asked if I was thoroughly awake, 'cause if I was would I tell him what sort of weather 'twas likely to be, so's he could dress accordin'. His risin' hour was nine,-more principle, of course,-but he liked to know what to wear when he did get up.

And he was just as bad all that day and the next. I'd have quit and had the doctor take me back to the Poquit House, but I didn't like to on Lot's account. Poor Lot was all upset and needed some sane person to turn to for comfort. And besides, although he made me mad, I got consider'ble fun out of this Lemuel man's doin's. He was such a specimen that I liked to study him, same as he used to study a new species of insect, when he had that particular craze.

He seemed to like me, too, in a way. Anyhow he used to come in and talk to me pretty frequent. He had three words that he used all the time-"awful" and "dreadful" and "horrible." Everything in the neighborhood fitted to them words, 'cordin' to his notion. And he had one question that he kept askin' over and over: What should he do? What was there to do in the dreadful place?

"Why don't you keep on collectin'?" I asked him. "We're kind of scurce on postage stamps, and the handwritin' supply is limited; though you never collected anything like Lot's signature, I'll bet a cooky. But there's bugs enough, land knows! Why don't you go bug-huntin'?"

Oh, he was tired of insects. Never wanted to see one again!

"Then you'll have to wear blinders when you go past the salt-marsh,"

says I. "The moskeeters are so thick there they get in your eyes. Why not take a swim?"

Horrible! he loathed salt-water. He never bathed in it, as a matter of-

I interrupted quick-"Then take a walk," says I.

Walking was a "bore."

"Well then," I says, "just do what the doctor ordered-set and rest."

But settin' made his nerves worse than ever! "I don't know what is the matter with me, Cap'n Snow," he says. "My physicians seemed to think I should find what I needed here, but I don't!-I don't! I am more depressed and enervated than ever."

"I know what you need," I said emphatic.