Joseph Crosby Lincoln

“ It was a brilliant moonlight night and the pair came together, literally, at the bend where the path turns sharply around the corner of Elijah Doane's cranberry shanty. Sam, plowing along, head down and hands in his pockets, swung around that corner and bumped violently into Albert, who, a cigarette between his lips—out here in the fields, away from civilization and Captain Zelotes, was a satisfyingly comfortable place to smoke a cigarette—was dreaming dreams of a future far away from South Harniss. ”

“ That morning Albert Speranza had arisen as usual, a casual, careless, perfectly human young fellow. He went to bed that night a superman, an archangel, a demi-god, with his head in the clouds and the earth a cloth of gold beneath his feet. Life was a pathway through Paradise arched with rainbows.
He and Madeline Fosdick loved each other madly, devotedly. They were engaged to be married. ”

“ Captain Zelotes rose and slammed the door after his departing grandson.
At ten that evening Albert was in his room, sitting in a chair by the window, gloomily looking out. The packing, most of it, had been done. He had not, as he told his grandfather he intended doing, left the office immediately and come straight home to pack. As he emerged from the inner office after the stormy interview with the captain he found Laban Keeler hard at work upon the books. The sight of the little man, so patiently and cheerfully pegging away, brought another twinge of conscience to the assistant bookkeeper. ”

“ Other and far more experienced feminine hearts than Jane Snow's were flutteringly disturbed by the glory of his rays. Jane and he met, they shook hands, they conversed. And at subsequent teas they met again, for Speranza, on his part, was strongly attracted to the simple, unaffected Cape Cod schoolgirl. It was not her beauty alone—though beauty she had and of an unusual type—it was something else, a personality which attracted all who met her. The handsome Spaniard had had many love affairs of a more or less perfunctory kind, but here was something different, something he had not known. ”

“ One was a high, wind-swept knoll, overlooking the bay, about a half mile from the hotel, another was a secluded nook in the pine grove beside Carver's Pond, a pretty little sheet of water on the Bayport boundary. On pleasant Saturday afternoons or Sundays, when the poetic fit was on him, Albert, with a half dozen pencils in his pocket, and a rhyming dictionary and a scribbling pad in another, was wont to stroll towards one or the other of these two retreats. There he would sprawl amid the beachgrass or upon the pine-needles and dream and think and, perhaps, ultimately write. ”

“ In the meantime here was the blissful present with its roses and rainbows and here, for each, was the other. What would be likely to happen when the Fosdick parents learned of the engagement of their only child to the assistant bookkeeper of the South Harniss lumber and hardware company was unpleasant to contemplate, so why contemplate it? Upon one point they were agreed—never, never, NEVER would they give each other up. No power on earth—which included parents and grandparents—should or could separate them.
Albert's conscience troubled him slightly at first when he thought of Helen Kendall. ”

“ The dog continued to snarl and growl, darting toward the ankles occasionally. Evidently he was mustering courage for the attack. Albert in desperation scooped up a handful of sand. If worst came to worst he might blind the creature temporarily. What would happen after that was not clear. Unless he might by a lucky cast fill the dog's interior so full of sand that—like the famous “Jumping Frog”—it would be too heavy to navigate, he saw no way of escape from a painful bite, probably more than one. What Captain Zelotes had formerly called his “Portygee temper” flared up. ”

“ Suddenly the housekeeper, who had resumed her seat in compliance with Captain Zelotes' order, slammed back her chair and stood up.
“I've hated the smell of peppermint for twenty-two year,” she declared, and went out into the kitchen. Albert, looking after her, felt his grandmother's touch upon his sleeve.
“I wouldn't say any more about it before her,” she whispered. “She's awful sensitive.”
Why in the world the housekeeper should be particularly sensitive because the man who had driven him from the station ate peppermint was quite beyond the boy's comprehension. ”

“ Albert, taken by surprise, stammered that he didn't know that he was sad. Miss Kelsey laughed merrily and declared that everyone who saw him knew it at once. “Oh, excuse me, Madeline,” she added. “I forgot that you and Mr. Speranza had not met. Of course as you're going to live in South Harniss you must know him without waiting another minute. Everybody knows everybody down here. He is Albert Speranza—and we sometimes call him Albert because here everybody calls everyone else by their first names. There, now you know each other and it's all very proper and formal.” ”

“ Captain Zelotes Snow, for his part, saw a tall young fellow, slim and straight, with black curly hair, large black eyes and regular features. A good-looking boy, a handsome boy—almost too handsome, perhaps, or with just a touch of the effeminate in the good looks. The captain's glance took in the well-fitting suit of clothes, the expensive tie, the gold watch chain.
“Humph!” grunted Captain Zelotes. “Well, your grandma and I are glad to have you with us. Let me see, Albert—that's your right name, ain't it—Albert?” ”

“ The bare branches of the wild-cherry and silverleaf trees scraped and rattled and tossed. And the wind, the raw, chilling December wind, driven in, wet and salty, from the sea, tore over the dunes and brown uplands and across the frozen salt-meadows, screamed through the telegraph wires, and made the platform of the dismal South Harniss railway station the lonesomest, coldest, darkest and most miserable spot on the face of the earth. ”

“ If I were you, I should be proud of Captain Zelotes because he is what he has made himself. Nobody helped him; he did it all. He was a sea captain and a good one. He has been a business man and a good one, even if the business isn't so very big. Everybody here in South Harniss—yes, and all up and down the Cape—knows of him and respects him. My father says in all the years he has preached in his church he has never heard a single person as much as hint that Captain Snow wasn't absolutely honest, absolutely brave, and the same to everybody, rich or poor. ”

“ Miss Jane Kelsey was saying: “And NOW what do you think of our Cape Cod poet? Didn't I promise you to show you something you couldn't find on Fifth Avenue?” And to this Miss Madeline Fosdick made reply: “I think he is the handsomest creature I ever saw. And so clever! Why, he is wonderful, Jane! How in the world does he happen to be living here—all the time?”
It is perhaps, on the whole, a good thing that Albert Speranza could not hear this. It is certainly a good thing that Captain Zelotes Snow did not hear it. ”

“ The captain had never attended the performance of an opera; what was more, he never expected to attend one. He had been given to understand that a “parcel of play-actin' men and women hollered and screamed to music for a couple of hours.” Olive, his wife, had attended an opera once and, according to her, it was more like a cat fight than anything else. Nobody but foreigners ever had anything to do with operas. And for foreigners of all kinds—but the Latin variety of foreigner in particular—Captain Zelotes Snow cherished a detest which was almost fanatic. ”

“ So that was the arrangement made, and in his own room Albert sat down at the battered old desk, which had been not only his grandfather's but his great-grandfather's property, to concentrate upon the first of the series of stories ordered by the New York magazine. He had already decided upon the general scheme for the series. A boy, ragamuffin son of immigrant parents, rising, after a wrong start, by sheer grit and natural shrewdness and ability, step by step to competence and success, winning a place in and the respect of a community. ”

“ Don't, Grandfather. When I came here I was a little snob, a conceited, insufferable little—”
“Here, here! Hold on! No, you wa'n't, neither. Or if you was, you was only a boy. I was a man, and I ought to—”
“No, I'm going to finish. Whatever I am now, or whatever I may be. I owe to you, and to Grandmother, and Rachel and Laban—and Helen. You made me over between you. I know that now.”
They walked home instead of riding in the new car. Captain Zelotes declared he had hung on to that steering wheel all the forenoon and he was afraid if he took it again his fingers would grow fast to the rim. ”

“ She was sorry for poor Madeline, of course, but the dear child was but a child and would recover.
But as with more and more intensity the limelight of publicity was turned upon Albert Speranza's life and death and writing, the wife of the Honorable Fletcher Fosdick could not but be impressed. As head of several so-called literary societies, societies rather neglected since the outbreak of hostilities, she had made it her business to hunt literary lions. ”

“ Fletcher Fosdick was a seasoned veteran, a general who had planned and fought many hard campaigns upon the political battlegrounds of women's clubs and societies of various sorts. From the majority of those campaigns she had emerged victorious, but her experiences in defeat had taught her that the next best thing to winning is to lose gracefully, because by so doing much which appears to be lost may be regained. For Albert Speranza, bookkeeper and would-be poet of South Harniss, Cape Cod, she had had no use whatever as a prospective son-in-law. ”

“ Albert sniffed suspiciously, but no odor of alcohol rewarded the sniff. Neither was there any perfume of peppermint, Mr. Keeler's transparent camouflage at a vacation's beginning. And Laban was not humming the refrain glorifying his “darling hanky-panky.” Apparently he had not yet embarked upon the spree which Captain Lote had pronounced imminent. But why did he behave so queerly?
“I ain't the way you think, Al,” declared the little man, divining his thought. “I'm just kind of shaky and nervous, that's all. That's all, that's all, that's all. Yes, yes. Come, come! COME!” ”

“ Fosdick marked his manner and appearance and breathed a sigh of satisfaction. Madeline noted them. Her young friends of the sex noted them and whispered and looked approval. What the young men thought does not matter so much, perhaps. One of these was the Captain Blanchard, of whom Madeline had written and spoken. He was a tall, athletic chap, who looked well in his uniform, and whose face was that of a healthy, clean-living and clean-thinking young American. He and Albert shook hands and looked each other over. Albert decided he should like Blanchard if he knew him better. ”

“ The young people said good-by in his absence.
“It has been awfully good to see you again, Helen,” declared Albert. “But I told you that in the beginning, didn't I? You seem like—well, like a part of home, you know. And home means something to me nowadays.”
“I'm glad to hear you speak of South Harniss as home. Of course I know you don't mean to make it a permanent home—I imagine Madeline would have something to say about that—but it is nice to have you speak as if the old town meant something to you.” ”

“ He gazed at her as if she were a witch who had performed a miracle.
“Why—why—well, by George!” he exclaimed. “Helen—how—how did you know? Who told you?”
“No one told me. But I think I can even guess who it is you have found. It is Madeline Fosdick, isn't it?”
His amazement now was so open-mouthed as well as open-eyed that she could not help smiling.
“Don't! Don't stare at me like that,” she whispered. “Every one is looking at you. There is old Captain Pease on the other side of the street; I'm sure he thinks you have had a stroke or something. Here! ”

“ Your grandmother, poor little woman, was brave and quiet, but we all knew she was trying to keep up for Captain Zelotes' sake. And he—Albert, you can scarcely imagine how the news of your death changed him. . . . Ah! well, it was a hard time, a dreadful time for—for every one.”
She paused and he, turning to look at her, saw that there were tears in her eyes. He knew of her affection for his grandparents and theirs for her. Before he could speak she was smiling again.
“But now that is all over, isn't it?” she said. “And the Snows are the happiest people in the country, I do believe. ”

“ You won't run away and marry. Will you promise me that?”
Albert looked at him. This WAS a hard promise to make. In their talks beneath the rainbows, whenever he and Madeline had referred to the future and its doubts, they had always pushed those doubts aside with vague hints of an elopement. If the unreasonableness of parents and grandparents should crowd them too far, they had always as a last resort, the solution of their problem by way of a runaway marriage. And now Captain Zelotes was asking him to give up this last resort. ”

“ Motored from home, you know. I—be still, Goo, you bad thing! It was such a lovely day that I couldn't resist going for a walk along the beach. I took Googoo because he does love it so, and—Goo, be still, I tell you! I am sure he thinks you are a tramp, out here all alone in the—in the wilderness. And what were you doing here?”
Albert drew a long breath. “I was half asleep, I guess,” he said, “when he broke loose at my heels. I woke up quick enough then, as you may imagine. And so you are here for the summer? Your new house isn't finished, is it?” ”

“ Lote Snow's grandson? The one they used to call the Portygee? . . . Eh? Well, all right, I don't care if he did hear me. If he don't know you're nice and smart and good-lookin', it's high time he did.”
Helen, a trifle embarrassed but laughing, emerged a moment later, and when she had put on her hat she and Albert left the Howes cottage and began their walk home. It was one of those nights such as Cape Codders, year-rounders or visitors, experience three or four times during a summer and boast of the remainder of the year. A sky clear, deep, stretched cloudless from horizon to horizon. ”

“ Or, rather, life in the old house and at the lumber and hardware office slumped back into the groove in which it had run before the opera singer's son was summoned from the New York school to the home and into the lives of his grandparents. Three people instead of four sat down at the breakfast table and at dinner and at supper. Captain Zelotes walked alone to and from the office. Olive Snow no longer baked and iced large chocolate layer cakes because a certain inmate of her household was so fond of them. Rachel Ellis discussed Foul Play and Robert Penfold with no one. ”

“ MADELINE.
His reply was longer. At its end he wrote:
Of course I forgive you. In the first place there is nothing to forgive. The unforgivable thing would have been the sacrifice of your happiness and your future to a dream and a memory. I hope you will be very happy. I am sure you will be, for Blanchard is, I know, a fine fellow. The best of fortune to you both.
The next forenoon he sat once more in the car of the morning train for Cape Cod, looking out of the window. He had made the journey from New York by the night boat and had boarded the Cape train at Middleboro. ”

“ And, I declare, I'm ashamed of myself. . . . Humph! . . . Well, to-night you come home with me and have supper at the house.”
“Now, now, Cap'n Lote—”
“You do as I tell you. After supper, if there's any walkin' to be done—if you take a notion to frog it to Orham or San Francisco or somewheres—maybe I'll go with you. Walkin' may be good for my fight, too; you can't tell till you try. . . . There, don't argue, Labe. I'm skipper of this craft yet and you'll obey my orders; d'you hear?”
The day following the receipt of the fateful telegram the captain wrote a brief note to Fletcher Fosdick. ”

“ Honest, Mr. Fosdick, I . . . Humph! Mind if I tell you a little story? 'Twon't take long. When I was a little shaver, me and my granddad, the first Cap'n Lote Snow—there's been two since—were great chums. When he was home from sea he and I stuck together like hot pitch and oakum. One day we were sittin' out in the front yard of his house—it's mine, now—watchin' a hoptoad catch flies. You've seen a toad catch flies, haven't you, Mr. Fosdick? Mr. Toad sits there, lookin' half asleep and as pious and demure as a pickpocket at camp-meetin', until a fly comes along and gets too near. ”

“ You are a little thinner, but broader, too, aren't you? And you do look older, especially about the eyes. And, of course—well, of course I think I do miss a little of the Albert Speranza I used to know, the young chap with the chip on his shoulder for all creation to knock off.”
“Young jackass!”
“Oh, no indeed. He had his good points. But there! we're wasting time and we have so much to talk about. You—why, what am I thinking of! I have neglected the most important thing in the world. And you have just returned from New York, too. Tell me, how is Madeline Fosdick?” ”

“ Yes, yes, why not? that's what he said. . . . There's some philosophy in that, Al. Why does a hen go across the road? Why not? Why is Labe Keeler a disgrace to all his friends and the town he lives in? Why not? . . . Eh? . . . Yes, yes. That's it—why not?”
He smiled again, but there was bitterness and not humor in the smile. Albert put a hand on his shoulder.
“Why, Labe,” he asked, in concern, “what is it?”
Laban turned away.
“Don't mind, me, Al,” he said, hurriedly. “I mean don't mind if I act funny. I'm—I'm kind of—of—Oh, good Lord A'mighty, DON'T look at me like that! . . . ”