--she heered 't there was goin' to be a show up thar' to-night--some play-actor folks. 'Ten Nights in a Ba-ar Room'"--the captain took the pipe out of his mouth and yawned with affected unconcern. "I've heered o' worse names for a show; but ye know what women-folks is when there 's any play-actin' around. They're jest like sheep next to a turnip patch."

"Are they?"

"Oh, by clam! ye don't know nothin' 'bout female gra.s.s yit, major--nothin'. Bars can't shet 'em out." I followed his sad gaze to the west, and we sighed in unison.

"By the way, how 's your show stock gittin' along, major?"

"My show stock?"

"Why, sartin; we thinks all the more on ye, ef that c'd be, for havin'

some business. Ye see, the way my woman found it out, she runs over to Lunette's every mail day and helps her sort the mail, 'nd she said all the letters 't come directed to 'Mr. Paul Henry' had a mess o' wax run onto the fold of every envelope with a pictur' stamped inter it o' a couple o' the cur'osest-lookin' creeturs; said 'twas jest the head an'

necks of 'em an' they looked to be retchin' up ter eat out o' the same soup plate; said 't must be your stock to the circus; for business folks often has their business picturs put on outside their envelopes, ye know, and jedgin' by the cur'osity of 'em, she thought they must be doin' pretty well by ye."

"Oh, they are, captain," I sighed; "yes, they're doing pretty well by me."

"Wal now, ef you've got a comf'tably good thing, major, be content with it; 'tain't easy to git onto a new job nowadays. Ain't there some pertick'lar spear o' gra.s.s ye'd like t' have set on the back seat with ye?" he continued cheerfully. "She rides easier for havin'

consid'rable ballast, ye know."

"I don't know of any. Mrs. Lester is away at her daughter-in-law's."

"Hain't ye never thought--poo! poo! hohum!--wal, wal--

[Ill.u.s.tration: Music fragment: "'The blighting wind sweeps o'er, she--']

hain't ye never thought o' Miss Pray?"

"In what way, captain?"

"Wal, as a--poo! poo!--

[Ill.u.s.tration: Music fragment: "'She--']

as a pertick'lar spear, ye know?"

"No."

"In course human nature turns natchally to pink and white clover, like Vesty; but I tell ye, major, when it comes to a honest jedgment o'

gra.s.s thar' 's lots o' comfort arter all to be took out o' old red timothy. Old red timothy goes to shutin' right up straight an' minds her own business. She ain't a-tryin' so many o' these d--d ructions on ye. My foot 's some better," said he, lifting the maimed member; "but she ain't yit what she use ter be. It 'u'd make a home for ye, 'ithout payin' no board, an' ef ye got red o' payin' yer board ye wouldn't mind ef she didn't treat ye quite so well--for that's the way 'ith all female gra.s.s, clover 'n' all, when they once gits spliced onto ye. But 'ith what ye gits from yer show ye c'd buy a hoss, an' when the wind 's in the nor'-east ye c'd tack away from home on some arrant--see? But don't arsk her, 'less ye means ter stand by it, major, for the women-folks has got to settin' onaccountable store by ye, ye kind o'

humors of 'em so."

I limped down the lane to invite Miss Pray on our excursion, with light feet. Was it the air again, or was it the new consciousness that I was developing into a beloved and coveted beau?

I stepped into the cottage through the low window, as I often did. At the same moment the cover of the wood-box flew up, and I beheld the rosy, good-natured visage of Miss Pray's orphan girl looking out: she put her finger on her lip.

"Sh!"

"What is it?" I said.

She pointed upward. I saw on the long spike which held the horseshoe over the door a pail of water so delicately hung that whoever first entered there must receive its contents in one fell unmitigated deluge upon the crown.

"Sh! It 's Wesley's" (her fellow-orphan) "it 's Wesley's birthday. I ain't got no present to give him, so I'm going to _souze_ him with cold water: he 's bringin' in some wood--there 's steps! Sh!"

She ducked into the wood-box, which had subterranean channels of escape, with antic.i.p.ated delight, and put down the cover, leaving me alone in the room with the approaching victim and in the unenviable position of appearing to be the sole perpetrator of this malign deed.

I had the merest time to master this idea, when the door swung in upon its hinges, and not Wesley, but Miss Pray herself, stood before me, a mad and a blighted object.

I gazed at her, horror-struck, and was endeavoring to speak, when Wesley, staggering in behind her with his arms full of wood, came to my relief. "O Miss Pray, 'twan't major, honest 'twan't, nor 'twan't me, Miss Pray: 'twas that Belle O'Neill, an' she 's mos' got to the graves by this time. I seed her runnin', through the windy. O Lord! O Miss Pray! how wet you looks when you're as wet as you be now, Miss Pray!"

"Indeed it was not meant for you," I cried. "Belle meant it for a birthday jest on Wesley."

"Oh, I wish it had b'en, Miss Pray," gasped poor Wesley, with ill-timed sympathy; "I'm so much more used to bein' wet 'n you be."

It was doubtful toward which Miss Pray was waxing most warm--the recusant Belle O'Neill, or the stupid, open-mouthed Wesley--when I stepped in at this juncture and entreated her with the Kobbes'

invitation.

"I'll go," said she, with evident satisfaction gleaming even through her dripping state, "'s soon 's I've changed my do's and whipped Belle O'Neill."

During the former process I volunteered, as one whom she would trust, to watch for Belle, and lure her, if possible, to the house. I repeatedly saw that damsel's head peering out from behind the gravestones of Miss Pray's ancestors, down by the sea-wall, and making signals to me to know if advance were safe.

And every time, prost.i.tuting sublime justice to a weak sense of compa.s.sion, I waved her back to her fastness until after we should be gone.

"Shall I tell her 't you'll whip her after you git back, Miss Pray?"

said Wesley, with deep relish.

"No," said Miss Pray, who had now appeared, resplendent in holiday attire. "Do you want her to run away, and leave me without help?

All'as keep your mouth shet--that 's the safest commands for you; all'as keep your mouth shet."

Wesley closed that wide organ, with a look of wondering surprise.

Miss Pray was lean and resplendent, not gray and comfortable like my friend Mrs. Lester. There was no blueberry "turnover" to devour. As we pa.s.sed over the jolting road I clung desperately to the carriage bars.

But it appeared that the captain had an abnormal design, before entering the Point, of descending into a shallow branch of Crooked River, there to wash the mud of past happy epochs from the carriage.

"Wal, Cap'n Pharo Kobbe," said his young wife, stultified with amaze at this proceeding, "I should like to know what's took you!"

"Adm'r'l bet, spell ago, 't he could sc.r.a.pe twenty-five pound o' mud off'n my two-seated kerridge next time I driv her to the Point. Jest keep yer eyes up the road," said Captain Pharo, standing, diligently and furtively swashing, with his unconscious boots submerged in water, "t' see that thar' ain't n.o.body lookin'."

"What 's he goin' to give ye, if ye win the bet, cap'n?" said his lively wife.

The captain cast me a dark and fleeting wink over his shoulder. "Poo!

poo!" he sang: "hohum!

[Ill.u.s.tration: Music fragment: "'My days are as the gra.s.s. Or as--']

anybody in sight, major?"

"No; the road is all clear."