"What 's he goin' to give ye, Cap'n Pharo Kobbe, if ye win the bet?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: Music fragment: "'Or as the morn-ing flow'r, The blight--'"]

"Ye needn't keep on singin', Captain Pharo Kobbe; for the sake o' the company, I shan't ask ye nothin' more."

Saddened by this blight, his evil and surrept.i.tious deed being accomplished, Captain Pharo backed out of the stream.

But the triumphant smile returned to his countenance as he advanced on the Point and found Admiral 'S I Sums-it-up sitting within the porch of the grocery with other of his townsmen.

"Adm'r'l," said Captain Pharo, "I want ye to step down here and sc.r.a.pe twenty-five pound o' mud off'n my two-seated kerridge."

The admiral regarded us fixedly for some moments, fireless pipe in expressionless mouth, and then rose and descended to us. The women had already contemptuously left our company and gone about their shopping.

"Come along, Kobbe!" said the admiral, "and bring"--he glanced with calm, meaningless vision at me--"bring all the rest on ye."

He led us under the loud sign of a tin shop, where, after sedate speculation in the matter of purchasing a tea-kettle with a consuming leak in the bottom, he cleared his throat. "'S I sums it up," said he to the proprietor, without further utterance; that individual looked doubtfully at me.

"Oh, he 's all right," said Captain Pharo; "he 's a cousin o' mine in the show business."

This introduction proving more than satisfactory, we were ushered into a small room apart and the door locked behind us: but missing Uncle Coffin's inspiration in this case, and remembering the quality of the liquid, I made a smart show of drinking, without in the least diminishing the contents of the bottle.

Not so, however, good Captain Pharo: from this time on his conduct waxed sunny and genial, as well as irresponsible of the grave duties which had hitherto afflicted him.

"Thar' 's a lot o' winter cabbage, 't was sp'ilin' down in my suller, 't I put in onto the kerridge floor, major," said he; "ef ye're mind ter sell 'em out for what ye can git, to harves, ye're welcome. Sell 'em out to hulls, by clam!" he called after me. "I ain't so mean 't I carn't help a young man along a little."

I returned to the carriage and arranged my fading cabbages as attractively as possible, offset by the glories of the star bed-quilt; and whether it was because the news had already spread that I was in the show business, or by reason of some of those occult charms at which Captain Pharo had hinted, I was soon surrounded by a lively group of women.

"Here 's one 't ain't worth but two cents," said one fair creature, holding up a specimen of my stock, whose appearance beside her own fresh beauty caused me to writhe for shame. "I shan't give a mite more for her."

"O madam, is she worth that?" I denied impulsively.

The woman, speechless, dropped the cabbage to the earth.

"Here 's a nickel, anyway, for your bein' so honest," she exclaimed, soon afterward.

I took it with a bow. And here sordid considerations ceased, as they had begun: my pious emotions toward the s.e.x conquered, and I became not the base purveyor but the elegant distributor of cabbages, right and left, only with murmured apologies for gifts so unworthy.

I was now evidently cla.s.sified as belonging high in the spectacular drama; when the horse, having finished the meal of cracked corn he had been enjoying by the roadside, with the reins thrown slack over his neck, suddenly lifted his head with an air of arriving at some instant conclusion and started merrily down the road.

Too lame to jump from a moving vehicle, my first emotions of dismay gradually disappeared, however, as I found that our pa.s.sage was not disturbed even by the most untoward outward events. For a base-ball from the bat of some players in an adjoining field hit the n.o.ble animal full in the flank without occasioning any alarm to his gait or divergence from his resolved purpose.

He turned down the Artichoke road and went straight to Uncle Coffin's.

"I've come to take you and Aunt Salomy to the show," I said, lifted out and knocked hither and thither by my friend in his tender ecstasy.

"Cruisin' out on the high seas without no rudder, you--you young spark, you!" he cried delightedly. "You're 'most too full o' the devil t'

exist!" he exclaimed at last, holding me out at arm's-length admiringly.

Proud now of my wickedness as I had formerly been of my charms, I steered my friends to the Point by the conventional means of the rudder. Captain Pharo, who had been so congenially occupied that he had not even missed me, heaped encomiums upon me, and receiving Uncle Coffin almost with tears of joy in his eyes, led him away to the tin shop.

I secured more cracked corn for the horse and shed-room, where I tied him with retrospective security. There being no restaurant, I obtained some biscuits and cheese, and with these and six tickets for the very front row, Aunt Salomy and Mrs. Kobbe and Miss Pray and I stole early into the hall and sat us down to rest.

There were already figures as for a rehearsal behind the curtain; indeed, that thin structure revealed angry silhouettes, and loud voices reached us.

"Sh!" came from that source: "or them fools down there, eatin' crackers an' cheese, 'll hear ye."

"I don't care if the whole town hears me," replied a pa.s.sionate female voice. "You said I could have twenty dollars, and now you won't give it to me. I won't play to-night till I do have it--hear that!"

"Sh! or I'll shake ye! Don't make a fool o' yourself, Maud. Wait till I get to-night's receipts----"

"I won't! I'd like to see you shake me; ha! ha!"

Here the angry figures became plastic and tilted at each other menacingly; the woman seized something and threw it; there was a crash.

Aunt Salomy choked placidly over her cracker crumbs. Mrs. Kobbe gazed with faithful interest.

Soon the very tall and hard-looking young man who had sold me the tickets came down from behind the curtain, with a hang-dog air, and his handkerchief bound about his head, and returned to the office at the door.

Almost at the same moment Captain Pharo and Uncle Coffin walked fearlessly up the aisle, their familiar hats on their heads, their pipes in harmonious glowing action, and sat down beside us with beams of recognition.

The hard young man, who appeared to be pecuniary manager as well as leading star of the show, came to us. "No smoking here!" he said, severely.

"No smokin'!" replied Captain Pharo. "Ye'd orter put it on yer plackards then! D'ye s'pose I'd come to yer show ef I'd known that?

Come along, Coffin! I'm goin' ter hang out outside, by clam!

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

"No singing, either, sir, on the part of the audience. This company is from Boston, sir."

"Is she?" said Captain Pharo, with blighting sarcasm, new-lighting his pipe preparatory to leaving the hall; "I thought she was from Jaffy!"

"Dodrabbit ye, Pharo!" said Uncle Coffin, wirily folding his powerful arms; "keep yer seat, Pharo, and keep yer pipe. Ef any man from Boston, or any other man, wants ter take the pipe outer my mouth, or outer Pharo Kobbe's mouth, let 'im come on an' try it!"

At this opportunity, I silently pressed a coin of such meaning into the manager's hand that he skipped gracefully past us to the stage, where he proceeded to explain--while the ribs of court-plaster with which he had endeavored to conceal his wounds kept constantly falling upon the floor--that, owing to the unavoidable illness of some of the actors, he should be obliged to give us a choice variety entertainment instead of the play advertised.

Captain Pharo and Uncle Coffin, not yet comprehending this idea, and smoking triumphantly with their hats on, listened to several ranting recitations from the wife who had so inopportunely defaced her husband's visage; but when, after a brief recess, she again appeared with a stage bow, Captain Pharo looked blankly at Uncle Coffin.

"Where 's the ba-ar, Coffin?"

"I kind o' suspicion they've giv' it up, Pharo; goin' to have recitationers 'nstead."

"Curfew _shall_ not ring to-night!" yelled the woman on the stage, with a leap of several feet perpendicularly.

"By clam!" cried poor Captain Pharo, rising; "I don' know what she is, but she is goin' to ring, and she 's goin' to ring loud too, by clam!

I come here to see 'Ten Nights in a Ba-ar Room,' I didn't come here t'

see contortioners and recitationers. Give us any more o' yer----"

Here, an onion, thrown from the rear of the room by some sympathetic partner in Captain Pharo's woes, came whizzing over our heads and just missed the woman, by good aim; she retreated without the formality of her usual sweeping bow. The manager began hastily to get together his stage setting for the play. A table and a bottle were first produced; Captain Pharo and Uncle Coffin began to nudge each other with choice antic.i.p.ation of the advancing drama, when another onion, thrown with unerring vision, took the bottle and shattered it, with its contents, upon the stage floor, directly under our faces.