Cap'n Warren's Wards Part 11

"Did, hey? Humph! I ought to know enough by this time not to believe all I hear, but I kind of had an idea that picture paintin' was starvation work. I've read about artists committin' suicide, and livin' in attics, and such. Whew! About two such bargain sale jobs as this, and I'd guarantee not to starve--and to live as nigh the ground as a second-floor bedroom anyhow. How about this next one? This feller in a dory--coddin', I guess he is. Did--did Mr. Corot do him?"

"No. That is by a well-known American artist. It is a good piece of work, but not like the other. It is worth much less. Perhaps five thousand."

"So? Well, even for that I'd undertake to buy consider'ble many dories, and hire fellers to fish from 'em, too. Humph! I guess I'm out of soundin's. When I thought fifteen dollars was a high price for paintin'

a view of a house I was slightly mistaken. Next time I'll offer the paintin' feller the house and ask him what he considers a fair boot, besides. Sam Cahoon's a better speculator than I thought he was. h.e.l.lo, Commodore! what's worryin' you now?"

Edwards appeared to announce that dinner was served. Caroline rose and led the way to the dining room. Captain Elisha followed, looking curiously about him as he did so. Stephen, who had been sulkily dressing in his own room, entered immediately after.

The captain surveyed the dining room with interest. Like the others of the suite, it was sumptuously and tastefully furnished. He took the chair indicated by the solemn Edwards, and the meal began.

The butler's sense of humor was not acute, but it was with considerable difficulty that he restrained his smiles during the next half hour. A more appreciative observer would have noticed and enjoyed the subtler points. Stephen's glare of disgust at his uncle when the latter tucked his napkin in the opening of his waistcoat; Caroline's embarra.s.sment when the captain complimented the soup, declaring that it was almost as good as one of Abbie's chowders; the visitor's obvious uneasiness at being waited upon attentively, and the like. These Edwards missed, but he could not help appreciating Captain Elisha's conversation.

Caroline said little during dinner. Her brother glowered at his plate and was silent. But the captain talked and talked.

"Maybe you think I didn't have a time findin' your new lodgin's,"

he said. "I come over on the cars, somethin' I don't usually do when there's anything afloat to carry me. But I had an errand or two to do in Boston, so I stopped over night at the hotel there and got the nine o'clock train. I landed here in New York all s.h.i.+pshape and on time, and started in to hunt you up."

"How did you get our address?" asked his niece. "Mr. Graves couldn't have given it to you, for we only decided on this apartment a few days ago."

"Ho! ho!" chuckled Captain Elisha, rolling in his chair, like a s.h.i.+p in a cross sea. "Ho! ho! You remind me of Abbie, Caroline. That's what she said. 'I never heard of such a crazy cruise,' she says. 'Startin' off to visit folks when you haven't the least idea where they live!' 'Oh, yes, I have,' I says, 'I know where they live; they live in New York.'

Well, you ought to have seen her face. Abbie's a good woman--none better--but she generally don't notice a joke until she trips over it.

I get consider'ble fun out of Abbie, take her by the large. 'New York!'

she says. 'Did anybody ever hear the beat of that? Do you cal'late New York's like South Denboro, where everybody knows everybody else? What are you plannin' to do? run up the fust man, woman or child you meet and ask 'em to tell you where 'Bijah Warren lives? Or are you goin' to trot from Dan to Beersheby, trustin' to meet your nephew and niece on the way? I never in my born days!'

"Well," went on the captain, "I told her that the last suggestion weren't such a bad one, but there was one little objection to it.

Considerin' that I hadn't ever laid eyes on Steve and that I hadn't seen you since you was a baby, the chances was against my recognizin' you if we did meet. Ho, ho, ho! Finally I hinted that I might look in the directory, and she got more reconciled to my startin'. Honest, I do believe she'd have insisted on takin' me by the hand and leadin' me to you, if I hadn't told her that.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "The captain talked and talked."]

"So I did look in the directory and got the number on Fifth Avenue where you used to be. I asked a policeman the nighest way to get there, and he said take a bus. Last time I was in New York I rode in one of those Fifth Avenue omnibuses, and I never got such a jouncin' in my life.

The pavement then was round cobble stones, like some of the roads in Nantucket. I remember I tried to ask a feller that set next to me somethin' or other, and I swan to man I couldn't get nothin' out of my mouth but rattles. 'Metropolitan Museum,' sounded like puttin' in a ton of coal. I thought I was comin' apart, or my works was out of order, or somethin', but when the feller tried to answer he rattled just as bad, so I realized 'twas the reg'lar disease and felt some better. I never shall forget a fleshy woman--somethin' like that Mrs. Dunn friend of yours, Caroline--that set opposite me. It give me the crawls to look at her, her chins shook around so. Ho! ho! she had no less'n three of 'em, and they all shook different ways. Ho! ho! ho! If I'd been in the habit of wearin' false hair or teeth or anything that wa'n't growed to or b.u.t.toned on me I'd never have risked a trip in one of those omnibuses.

"So when the police officer prescribed one for me this v'yage, I was some dubious. I'm older'n I was ten year ago, and I wa'n't sure that I'd hold together. I cal'lated walkin' was better for my health. So I found Fifth Avenue and started to walk. And the farther I walked the heavier that blessed satchel of mine got. It weighed maybe ten or twelve pounds at the corner of 42nd Street, but when I got as far as the open square where the gilt woman is hurryin' to keep from bein' run over by Gen'ral Sherman on horseback--that statue, you know--I wouldn't have let that blessed bag go for less'n two ton, if I was sellin' it by weight. So I leaned up against an electric light pole to rest and sort of get my bearin's. Then I noticed what I'd ought to have seen afore, that the street wa'n't paved with cobbles, as it used to be, but was smooth as a stretch of state road down home. So I figgered that a bus was a safe risk, after all. I waited ten minutes or more for one to come, and finally I asked a woman who was in tow of an astrakhan-trimmed dog at the end of a chain, if the omnibuses had stopped runnin'. When I fust see the dog leadin' her I thought she was blind, but I guess she was deef and dumb instead. Anyhow, all she said was 'Ugh!' not very enthusiastic, at that, and went along. Ho! ho! So then I asked a man, and he pointed to a bus right in front of me. You see, I was lookin' for the horses, same as they used to be, and this was an automobile.

"I blushed, I guess, just to show that there was some red underneath the green, and climbed aboard the omnibus. I rode along for a spell, admirin' as much of the scenery as I could see between the women's hats, then I told the skipper of the thing that I wanted to make port at 82nd Street. He said 'Ugh,' apparently suff'rin' from the same complaint the dog woman had, and we went on and on. At last I got kind of anxious and asked him again.

"'Eighty-second!' says he, ugly. 'This is Ninety-first.'

"'Good land!' says I. 'I wanted Eighty-second.'

"'Why didn't you say so?' says he, lookin' as if I'd stole his mother's spoons.

"'I did,' says I.

"'You _did_?' he snarls. 'You did not! If you did, wouldn't I have heard you?'

"Well, any answer I'd be likely to make to that would have meant more argument, and the bus was sailin' right along at the time, so I piled out and did some more walkin', the other way. At last I reached your old number, Stevie, and--Hey? Did you speak?"

"Don't call me 'Stevie,'" growled his nephew, rebelliously.

"Beg your pardon. I keep forgettin' that you're almost grown up. Well, as I was sayin', I got to the house where you used to live, and 'twas shut tight. n.o.body there. Ho! ho! I felt a good deal like old Beriah Doane must have on his last 'vacation.' You see, Beriah is one of our South Denboro notorieties; he's famous in his way. He works and loafs by spells until cranberry pickin' time in the fall; then he picks steady and earns thirty or forty dollars all at once. Soon's he's paid off, he starts for Boston on a 'vacation,' an alcoholic one. Well, last fall his married sister was visitin' him, and she, bein' strong for good Templarism, was determined he shouldn't vacate in his regular way. So she telegraphed her husband's brother in Brockton to meet Beriah there, go with him to Boston, and see that he behaved himself and stayed sober.

Beriah heard of it, and when his train gets as far as Tremont what does he do but get off quiet and change cars for New Bedford. He hadn't been there for nine years, but he had pleasant memories of his last visit.

And when he does get to New Bedford, chucklin' over the way he's befooled his sister and her folks, I'm blessed if he didn't find that the town had gone no-license, and every saloon was shut up! Ho! ho! ho!

Well, I felt about the way he did, I guess, when I stood on the steps of your Fifth Avenue house and realized you'd gone away. I wouldn't have had Abbie see me there for somethin'. Ho! ho!"

He leaned back in his chair and laughed aloud. Caroline smiled faintly.

Stephen threw down his napkin and sprang to his feet.

"Sis," he cried, "I'm going to my room. By gad! I can't--"

Catching a warning glance from his sister, he did not finish his sentence, but stood sulkily beside his chair. Captain Elisha looked at him, then at the girl, and stopped laughing. He folded his napkin with care, and rose.

"That's about all of it," he said, shortly. "I asked around at two or three of the neighbors' houses, and the last one I asked knew where you'd moved and told me how to get here."

When the trio were again in the library, the captain spoke once more.

"I'm 'fraid I've talked too much," he said, gravely. "I didn't realize how I was runnin' on. Thought I was home, I guess, with the fellers of my own age down at the postoffice, instead of bein' an old countryman, tirin' out you two young city folks with my yarns. I beg your pardon.

Now you mustn't mind me. I see you're expectin' company or goin' callin'

somewheres, so I'll just go to my bedroom and write Abbie a line. She'll be kind of anxious to know if I got here safe and sound and found you.

Don't worry about me, I'll be comf'table and busy."

He turned to go. Caroline looked at him in surprise. "We are not expecting callers," she said. "And certainly we are not going out to-night. Why should you think such a thing?"

It was her uncle's turn to show surprise.

"Why," he said, with a glance at Stephen, "I see that you're all dressed up, and so I thought, naturally--"

He paused.

Young Warren grunted contemptuously.

"We dressed for dinner, that is all," said Caroline.

"You--you mean you put these clothes on every night?"

"Certainly."

Captain Elisha was plainly very much astonished.

"Well," he observed, slowly. "I--guess I've made another mistake. Hum!

Good night."

"Good night," said Stephen, quickly. Caroline, however, seemed embarra.s.sed.

"Captain Warren," she said, "I thought possibly you might wish to talk business with my brother and me. We--we understand that you have come on business connected with father's will. It seems to me that the sooner we--we--"

"Get it over the better, hey? Well, maybe you're right. It's an odd business for an old salt like me to be mixed up in, that's a fact. If it hadn't been so odd, if I hadn't thought there must be some reason, some partic'lar reason, I--well, I guess I'd have stayed to home where I belong. You mustn't think," he added, seriously, "that I don't realize I'm as out of place amongst you and your rich friends as a live fish in a barrel of sawdust. That's all right; you needn't trouble to say no.

But you must understand that, realizin' it, I'm not exactly imposin'

myself on you for pleasure or--well, from choice. I'm so built that I can't s.h.i.+rk when my conscience tells me I shouldn't, that's all. I'm kind of tired to-night, and I guess you are. To-morrow mornin', if it's agreeable to all hands, we will have a little business talk. I'll have to see Lawyer Graves pretty soon, and have a gen'ral look at your pa's affairs. Then, if everything is all right and I feel my duty's done, I'll probably go back to the Cape and leave you to him, or somebody else able to look out for you. Until then I'm afraid," with a smile which had a trace of bitterness in it; "I'm afraid you'll have to do the best you can with me. I'll try to be no more of a nuisance than I can help. Good night."