'Twould have done you good to see the fleet run into the breakfast room of a morning, with the Dowager leading, under full sail, Barbara close up to her starboard quarter, and Milo tailing out a couple of lengths astern. The other boarders looked like quahaug dories abreast of the Marblehead Yacht Club. Oh, the Thompsons won every cup until the Smalls arrived on a Monday; then 'twas a dead heat.

Mamma Small was built on the lines of old lady Thompson, only more so, and her daughter flew pretty nigh as many pennants as Barbara. Peter T. had 'em labeled the "d.u.c.h.ess" and "Irene dear" in a jiffy. He didn't nickname Small any more'n he had Thompson, and for the same reasons. Me and Cap'n Jonadab called Small "Eddie" behind his back, 'count of his wife's hailing him as "Edwin."

Well, the Dowager and the d.u.c.h.ess sized each other up, and, recognizing I jedge, that they was sister ships, set signals and agreed to cruise in company and watch out for pirates--meaning young men without money who might want to talk to their daughters. In a week the four women was thicker than hasty-pudding and had thrones on the piazza where they could patronize everybody short of the Creator, and criticize the other boarders. Milo and Eddie got friendly too, and found a harbor behind the barn where they could smoke and swap sympathy.

'Twas fair weather for pretty near a fortni't, and then she thickened up. The special brand of craziness in Wellmouth that season was collecting "antiques," the same being busted chairs and invalid bureaus and sofys that your great grandmarm got ashamed of and sent to the sickbay a thousand year ago. Oh, yes, and dishes! If there was one thing that would drive a city woman to counting her fingers and cutting paper dolls, 'twas a nicked blue plate with a Chinese picture on it. And the homelier the plate the higher the price. Why there was as many as six families that got enough money for the rubbage in their garrets to furnish their houses all over with brand new things--real shiny, hand-painted stuff, not haircloth ruins with music box springs, nor platters that you had to put a pan under for fear of losing cargo.

I don't know who fetched the disease to the Old Home House. All I'm sartain of is that 'twan't long afore all hands was in that condition where the doctor'd have pa.s.sed 'em on to the parson. First along it seemed as if the Thompson-Small syndicate had been vaccinated--they didn't develop a symptom. But one noon the Dowager sails into the dining-room and unfurls a brown paper bundle.

"I've captured a prize, my dear," says she to the d.u.c.h.ess. "A veritable prize. Just look!"

And she dives under the brown paper hatches and resurrects a pink plate, suffering from yaller jaundice, with the picture of a pink boy, wearing curls and a monkey-jacket, holding hands with a pink girl with pointed feet.

"Ain't it perfectly lovely?" says she, waving the outrage in front of the d.u.c.h.ess. "A ginuwine Hall nappy! And in SUCH condition!"

"Why," says the d.u.c.h.ess, "I didn't know you were interested in antiques."

"I dote on 'em," comes back the Dowager, and "my daughter" owned up that she "adored" 'em.

"If you knew," continues Mrs. Thompson, "how I've planned and contrived to get this treasure. I've schemed--My! my! My daughter says she's actually ashamed of me. Oh, no! I can't tell even you where I got it.

All's fair in love and collecting, you know, and there are more gems where this came from."

She laughed and "my daughter" laughed, and the d.u.c.h.ess and "Irene dear"

laughed, too, and said the plate was "SO quaint," and all that, but you could fairly hear 'em turn green with jealousy. It didn't need a spygla.s.s to see that they wouldn't ride easy at their own moorings till THEY'D landed a treasure or two--probably two.

And sure enough, in a couple of days they bore down on the Thompsons, all sail set and colors flying. They had a pair of plates that for ugliness and price knocked the "ginuwine Hall nappy" higher 'n the main truck. And the way they crowed and bragged about their "finds" wa'n't fit to put in the log. The Dowager and "my daughter" left that dinner table trembling all over.

Well, you can see how a v'yage would end that commenced that way.

The Dowager and Barbara would scour the neighborhood and capture more prizes, and the d.u.c.h.ess and her tribe would get busy and go 'em one better. That's one sure p'int about the collecting business--it'll stir up a fight quicker'n anything I know of, except maybe a good looking bachelor minister. The female Thompsons and Smalls was "my dear-in'"

each other more'n ever, but there was a chill setting in round them piazza thrones, and some of the sarcastic remarks that was casually hove out by the bosom friends was pretty nigh sharp enough to shave with. As for Milo and Eddie, they still smoked together behind the barn, but the atmosphere on the quarter-deck was affecting the fo'castle and there wa'n't quite so many "old mans" and "dear boys" as there used to was.

There was a general white frost coming, and you didn't need an Old Farmer's Almanac to prove it.

The spell of weather developed sudden. One evening me and Cap'n Jonadab and Peter T. was having a confab by the steps of the billiard-room, when Milo beats up from around the corner. He was smiling as a basket of chips.

"h.e.l.lo!" hails Peter T. cordial. "You look as if you'd had money left you. Any one else remembered in the will?" he says.

Milo laughed all over. "Well, well," says he, "I AM feeling pretty good.

Made a ten-strike with Mrs. T. this afternoon for sure.

"That so?" says Peter. "What's up? Hooked a prince?"

A friend of "my daughter's" over at Newport had got engaged to a mandarin or a count or something 'nother, and the Dowager had been preaching kind of eloquent concerning the shortness of the n.o.bility crop round Wellmouth.

"No," says Milo, laughing again. "Nothing like that. But I have got hold of that antique davenport she's been dying to capture."

One of the boarders at the hotel over to Harniss had been out antiquing a week or so afore and had bagged a contraption which answered to the name of a "ginuwine Sheriton davenport." The dowager heard of it, and ever since she'd been remarking that some people had husbands who cared enough for their wives to find things that pleased 'em. She wished she was lucky enough to have that kind of a man; but no, SHE had to depend on herself, and etcetery and so forth. Maybe you've heard sermons similar.

So we was glad for Milo and said so. Likewise we wanted to know where he found the davenport.

"Why, up here in the woods," says Milo, "at the house of a queer old stick, name of Rogers. I forget his front name--'twas longer'n the davenport."

"Not Adoniram Rogers?" says Cap'n Jonadab, wondering.

"That's him," says Thompson.

Now, I knew Adoniram Rogers. His house was old enough, Lord knows; but that a feller with a nose for a bargain like his should have hung on to a salable piece of dunnage so long as this seemed 'most too tough to believe.

"Well, I swan to man!" says I. "Adoniram Rogers! Have you seen the--the davenport thing?"

"Sure I've seen it!" says Milo. "I ain't much of a jedge, and of course I couldn't question Rogers too much for fear he'd stick on the price.

But it's an old davenport, and it's got Sheriton lines and I've got the refusal of it till to-morrow, when Mrs. T's going up to inspect."

"Told Small yet?" asked Peter T., winking on the side to me and Jonadab.

Milo looked scared. "Goodness! No," says he. "And don't you tell him neither. His wife's davenport hunting too."

"You say you've got the refusal of it?" says I. "Well, I know Adoniram Rogers, and if _I_ was d.i.c.kering with him I'd buy the thing first and get the refusal of it afterwards. You hear ME?"

"Is that so?" repeats Milo. "Slippery, is he? I'll take my wife up there first thing in the morning."

He walked off looking worried, and his tops'ls hadn't much more'n sunk in the offing afore who should walk out of the billiard room behind us but Eddie Small.

"Brown," says he to Peter T., "I want you to have a horse and buggy harnessed up for me right off. Mrs. Small and I are going for a little drive to--to--over to Orham," he says.

'Twas a mean, black night for a drive as fur as Orham and Peter looked surprised. He started to say something, then swallered it down, and told Eddie he'd see to the harnessing. When Small was out of sight, I says:

"You don't cal'late he heard what Milo was telling, do you, Peter?" says I.

Peter T. shook his head and winked, first at Jonadab and then at me.

And the next day there was the d.i.c.kens to pay because Eddie and the d.u.c.h.ess had driven up to Rogers' the night afore and had bought the davenport, refusal and all, for twenty dollars more'n Milo offered for it.

Adoniram brought it down that forenoon and all hands and the cook was on the hurricane deck to man the yards. 'Twas a wonder them boarders didn't turn out the band and fire salutes. Such ohs and ahs! 'Twan't nothing but a ratty old cripple of a sofy, with one leg carried away and most of the canvas in ribbons, but four men lugged it up the steps and the careful way they handled it made you think the Old Home House was a receiving tomb and they was laying in the dear departed.

'Twas set down on the piazza and then the friends had a chance to view the remains. The d.u.c.h.ess and "Irene dear" gurgled and gushed and received congratulations. Eddie stood around and tried to look modest as was possible under the circ.u.mstances. The Dowager sailed over, tilted her nose up to the foretop, remarked "Humph"' through it and come about and stood at the other end of the porch. "My daughter" follers in her wake, observes "Humph!" likewise and makes for blue water. Milo comes over and looks at Eddie.

"Well?" says Small. "What do you think of it?"

"Never mind what I think of IT," answers Thompson, through his teeth.

"Shall I tell you what I think of YOU?"

I thought for a minute that hostilities was going to begin, but they didn't. The women was the real battleships in that fleet, the men wa'n't nothing but transports. Milo and Eddie just glared at each other and sheered off, and the "ginuwine Sheriton" was lugged into the sepulchre, meaning the trunk-room aloft in the hotel.

And after that the cold around the thrones was so fierce we had to move the thermometer, and we had to give the families separate tables in the dining-room so's the milk wouldn't freeze. You see the pitcher set right between 'em, and--Oh! I didn't expect you'd believe it.

The "antiquing" went on harder than ever. Every time the Thompsons landed a relic, they'd bring it out on the veranda or in to dinner and gloat over it loud and pointed, while the Smalls would pipe all hands to unload sarcasm. And the same vicy vercy when 'twas t'other way about.

'Twas interesting and instructive to listen to and amused the populace on rainy days, so Peter T. said.

Adoniram Rogers had been mighty scurce 'round the Old Home sense the davenport deal. But one morning he showed up unexpected. A boarder had dug up an antique somewheres in the shape of a derelict plate, and was displaying it proud on the piazza. The Thompsons was there and the Smalls and a whole lot more. All of a sudden Rogers walks up the steps and reaches over and makes fast to the plate.