the pentle place had been closed up and the servants were gone; but mrs. pentle's car was still waiting at the gate, and mrs. pentle herself—old john ferguson, on his way to the lookout, could see mrs. pentle perched up on her flat rock and looking out on gloucester harbor and the sea.
there was a fishing-schooner sailing out. john put his glasses on her and was entering her in his book when he heard some one's step on the ladder leading to his tower, and then the hatch sliding back. it was mrs. pentle.
"i've heard of your book, john. may i look at it?"
"surely, ma'am, surely." he passed it to her. "for seventeen years now i've been keeping it—the account o' the fishing-vessels sailin' out o' gloucester, ma'am. a column for the day o' departure, one for the name o' the vessel, one for the master, and one for the day she comes back home."
she was turning the pages.
"so many never come back home, do they?"
"nacherally—they bein' fishermen, ma'am."
"ah-h, here's the year!" she ran her finger down the page. "and here!" and read: "'valorous—sailed december seventeenth—and never returned.'"
"i mind her, ma'am, with the proud name—george's handlin'."
"i know. my father was one of her crew.... but here"—she stopped in her turning of the pages—"isn't this the entry of one they've just given up for lost?"
"that's her, ma'am—the conqueror. it's queer what bad luck goes with those proud names, ma'am. peter crudden was master of her."
"peter crudden! i played with peter crudden when we were children together. and he's lost?"
"when they print the names o' the crew in the gloucester papers, it's a hundred to one they're gone, ma'am. a married sister o' peter's is a neighbor o' my married daughter's up in boston, and they're cryin' their heart out a'ready, she writes me—peter's sister an' her children."
mrs. pentle closed the book.
"we live such sheltered lives here ashore, most of us, don't we, john? and we complain at the smallest little discomfort—many of us, i mean. and those brave men sail out to the dangerous waters in their little boats, where the best of it is hardship and death comes so often. it must be born in me—i just can't help feeling different toward those fishermen from what i do toward the men i meet in my business in the city."
she left; and, watching her swing down the ladder, john ferguson was thinking that for a woman of her build—full-bosomed and no slimling—she was cert'nly light on her feet, and wondering why a young and good-looking widow as she was—dang good-looking—why more o' those wealthy young men she must know hadn't hooked her afore that. "must be," mused john, "none of 'em's used the right bait."
john turned, just naturally to have another look out to sea, and—"well, you old gadabout!" muttered john and hurried to point his glasses at what he saw wabbling in.
"dang me if she c'n be!" cried john. "dang me, but she is!"
it was the conqueror—her foremast gone half-way to the deck, her mainmast gone clean to the deck, and her bowsprit broken off at the knight-heads. and she was a foot thick, or more, in ice; and in her jury-rigging was her flag—at half-mast.
"that's one, ye ravenous sea, dang ye, ye didn't get!" muttered john. "and she'll have a tale to tell!" and wondering how many of 'em were gone, and who they were, he entered the month and day of her return.
the conqueror had fitted out at duncan's; and duncan's wharf and store had not changed in twenty years. mr. duncan did not like changes.
the old shelves of canned goods in duncan's, the long packages of blue-papered macaroni, the little green cartons of fish-hooks, the piled-up barrels of flour and boxes of hardtack—they were all of the same old reliable brands. and the woollen mitts in strings! and in back was an area of kegs of red lead and hanks of tarred ground-line and coils of stout rope, and oilskins and sou'-westers, and rubber boots and the heavy leather redjacks—the smell of them was all over duncan's.
fred lichens, who had kept books for thirty years for mr. duncan, was looking down the wharf at the conqueror warping into the slip when mrs. pentle arrived in her car. her arrival was not surprising. she had half a dozen small charities in gloucester, and she came regularly to mr. duncan's for advice about them.
fred knew all this exactly, because he kept the books for the gloucester end of these things—drawing a few extra dollars a month therefor—and he had known mrs. pentle since she was a little girl and used to come with her mother, and without her as she grew older, to mr. duncan's to draw, against whatever would be her father's share, the stores which the family needed to keep them alive while the father was out to sea.
fred remembered when the girl who was now mrs. pentle left high school to go to work in boston. she was a bouncingly pretty girl, and within two years married pentle, the millionaire department-store man.
fred dusted a chair for mrs. pentle and set it in her favorite spot, which was beside a window in mr. duncan's own office looking out on the harbor. sitting there, she saw an iced-up wreck of a vessel and some of her crew leaping up onto the wharf, where a crowd was surrounding them. she asked what vessel it was, and fred told her—the conqueror, peter crudden; and she said no! and fred said yes, ma'am, it was.
"i wonder if i should know him now," she said; and then: "which is peter crudden?"
"captain crudden," said fred, "is the one mr. duncan is bending toward to hear better."
the crowd was moving up toward the store. mrs. pentle jumped up on her chair so as to be able to look over the glazed lights of glass between the private office and the store as they came in.
peter crudden was a hard-looking figure of a man, coming into duncan's store that day. he had not shaved for days, and his thick hair looked enormous—it was so tangled. he had not slept in a week; and when he took his seat on the long store bench and let his head settle wearily back against the wall he looked old.
he was telling about the big gale coming on and how her spars went, which maybe saved her from going into the shoals and being lost right there, and how they worked her way clear o' the shoals under jury-rig, how they were lookin' for a little ease and comfort, when aboard comes this unlucky sea, with no more warning than a shooting star out of the sky, and sweeps—cleaner than ever you could sweep the floor o' the store—her deck and all, everything. and atop o' that a sea to fill her cabin full. four of 'em makin' for the deck were thrown back into the cabin again—smashed afoul o' the stove one, and atop o' the lockers and into a looard bunk another; and how they picked themselves up and made the deckhand when they got there—as if a clean-swept deck warn't hard luck enough—there was dave elwell that was to the wheel, his breast smashed again' the wheel spokes and he dead.
"and the two on the deck gone—gone, sir, so quick that we never even got a sight o' them or a smothered hail from them goin'," concluded peter. "an' cold! and ice! and—" but once more he let his head fall back against the wall.
fred was so wrapped up in peter's story that he forgot mrs. pentle till he found her beside him and heard her saying in a low voice:
"when i was a little girl i listened to fishermen on that same bench, with their stories of toil and death. and i remember how i would linger, making believe to retie my packages into a tighter bundle, to hear more of what they had to say. it was a man sitting on that bench, mr. lichens, in just that way, not knowing who i was, who brought word of my father's vessel gone down—and all hands with her."
"i cal'late the hard tales told from that same bench would fill more books than was ever writ about gloucester, an' there's been a many—an' some foolish ones among 'em," said fred.
"those two men washed overboard"—peter was speaking again—"some one has got to tell their people how they come to be lost. and poor dave in the ice-house aboard the vessel—some one has got to 'tend to him."
"i'll 'tend to dave," said mr. duncan.
"that'll help," said peter. "and now—i'm through with fishin'—through with goin' to sea! i'm goin' to stop ashore!"
it was then mrs. pentle ran from beside fred and into the store. "captain crudden——"
"this is mrs. pentle, captain," said mr. duncan.
"celia curtin that was," explained mrs. pentle. "i knew you as a boy."
"i know," said peter. and then he almost smiled: "and no girl in gloucester ever better able to take care of herself!"
"if i could get you something to do in my store, would you take it, captain? if it was fit work, i mean, for a man?"
"it wouldn't have to be fit—i'll trim bonnets for ladies before i go back to fishin'," said peter, "and thank you for the chance."
peter passed out with his crew.
mrs. pentle turned to mr. duncan.
"so that's settled! i shall telephone you, mr. duncan, about captain crudden's place in my store—the work will not be disagreeable."
mr. duncan and fred watched mrs. pentle's car racing up the street; and then fred said:
"mr. duncan, peter didn't look like any magazine cover of a hero i've seen lately, but—sitting there on that bench awhile ago—did you take a look at mrs. pentle's face while he was telling the story of that wreck?"
mr. duncan looked at his old bookkeeper.
"reef down your imagination, fred. she's a woman who likes to manage things and to do good; but what i'm afraid she'll do now will be to ruin the makings of a smart young skipper with her soft job ashore."
mr. henston, the manager of pentle's, brought peter crudden to flaxley, the head shipper.
"flaxley, you are to break in this man," said henston, "and he's to go on the pay-roll at twenty dollars per week."
flaxley wondered why a new man, who was to be only a shipper's helper, should go on the payroll for twenty dollars a week; and he wondered yet more why henston should be telling him about the pay-roll, which was made up in the office and not in the shipping-room. he wondered, too, why the manager himself should take the trouble to introduce the new man.
"you needn't make it easy for him on my account," whispered henston, going out.
flaxley had seen a lot of things happen in pentle's, where he had been so long that, when mrs. pentle wanted to know about anything that went back beyond the memory of even the ancient cashier herrick, she would send down for flaxley.
he was no older than herrick, but he had started to work in the store younger.
flaxley was like something that went with the store. he had privileges; and he did not like henston and would not have minded telling him so, but that he had great respect for mrs. pentle and thought—what many more in the store thought—that henston was dressing his windows so as to catch mrs. pentle's eye, and some day—you can't tell about women, especially young widows—some day henston might marry her.
flaxley looked peter over and rather liked his make-up, and pointed out a big dry-goods case and told him what he wanted done. flaxley saw the new man hook into the box, which weighed eight hundred pounds, up-end it, claw-hammer it, and toss the heavy bolts of cloth out onto the long table.
"jeepers!" said flaxley. "he did that while some o' the other young fellows here would be peeking around for help!" he studied peter for two days more, and from then on wearied the head shippers of other emporiums, whenever he met one, with his tales of the strength and niftiness of the new man he'd "picked up."
peter took his lunch in the basement where he worked, the same being put up by his married sister in a package made to look like a camera-box.
he had bought this lunch-box in pentle's—he remembered it was sold to him by a pretty girl with a pleasant manner. it was just the thing for lunch—she had said—all the girls in pentle's carried 'em; and there was ten per cent off for employees. it was the first time in his life that peter ever got anything off on anything he'd ever bought, and he said so; and the salesgirl looked at him again and then smiled.
"you're not a city man?" she said. peter said he wasn't; and then his change came and he went off.
it was his third day in pentle's. he sat on a stool by the door leading into a passageway, to eat his lunch. just across the passageway was the door into the girls' rest-room, where there were lounges and chairs and a big heater on which they set their cans of coffee to warm up.
"my new helper, girls—height five feet eleven, weight a hundred ninety, thirty-two teeth in his head and not married—look him over," said old flaxley, making peter blush. "and now warm his coffee for him—he's been too shy to ask," and flaxley handed peter's coffee across the passageway.
they looked him over, some of them saucily. and hearing flaxley call him peter, in a week or so some of them were calling him peter and offering him pickles and doughnuts from their lunch-boxes; and there were always three or four ready to take his coffee from him when he reached it across the passageway to be heated.
one day a group of them, with their heads bunched in the doorway as usual, chaffed him across the passageway. peter was looking at a lovely white neck and dark little head, back of the row of heads in the door, and wondering where he had seen that girl before. and biting into a thick corned-beef sandwich, he remembered where—it was the girl who had sold him the lunch-box.
"ten per cent off for employees," shouted peter; "all the girls carry 'em!" and held up the lunch-box. the others caught the idea and laughed uproariously—except the one who had sold it. she only blushed scarlet and disappeared, and did not come back.
"she must 'a' thought i was tryin' to get acquainted," said peter later to old flaxley, "and didn't like it."
that same afternoon mrs. pentle looked into the shipping-room. it was one of those warm days in winter and, of course, the steam was on. peter was wearing only a sleeveless white jersey above his belt. peter was wide-shouldered and trim-waisted, with the easy lines of the man who is quick as well as powerful in action.
flaxley saw mrs. pentle in the doorway. henston was with her and, because henston was with her, flaxley stepped quickly over to the door. if mr. henston had anything to say about peter he wanted to be there to hear it.
mrs. pentle was watching peter at work.
"he doesn't look like the same man," said mrs. pentle. "when i last saw him his jaws were set like steel, his eyes like hard lights back in his head, and his voice was rough. and his skin was like something worn raw by the beating of hammers on it. he looked like a middle-aged man then, and now—why, he doesn't look twenty-two now!"
"he ain't much more," said flaxley.
just then peter up-ended a big dry-goods case, ripped off a boarded side, tore away a layer of thick paper, and tossed onto a table ten feet away a bolt of cloth that mrs. pentle knew weighed fifty pounds; and he did not even bend his knees to do it.
"a powerful brute," said henston.
"brute?" said mrs. pentle.
"i mean—" said henston; but mrs. pentle had stepped inside the shipping-room door.
peter was whistling; but he had to up-end another case. it took a little effort, this one, and he stopped his whistling.
"up—up—upsie boy!" cooed peter. it did not up. he set himself and tugged. he grew impatient. "come here, you loafer!" he shouted, and braced and heaved. the case came up.
"when peter takes to heavin' in earnest they generally come," said flaxley.
while old flaxley stood there looking from peter to mrs. pentle he couldn't help thinking—much as he respected her—he couldn't help wondering if she was comparing peter to pentle that was dead and gone.
"if she is," thought flaxley, "lord help the memory o' pentle—who was never any apoller for build and about as much blood in him as a man'd find in four pounds of excelsior packin'."
peter was whistling again and carolling and heaving facetious comment at anybody and everybody, when he felt the silence. he looked round and saw mrs. pentle.
"how do you do, captain?"
peter shifted his cotton-hook from right hand to left and shook her extended hand.
"i'm cert'nly glad to see you again, mrs. pentle."
"how are you getting on, captain?"
"fine—fine!"
"the work is not too hard?"
"hard?" peter smiled. "often enough i think of those fellows out on the banks turning out on a good, cold, blizzardy day in winter, mrs. pentle—turning out at four o'clock in the mornin' and goin' into a cold hold with the ice and baitin' up, so's to be ready to go over the side in the dory by the first o' the daylight. and then all day long it's heave and haul trawls, with maybe a sea that they don't know what minute'll get 'em. an' dressin' down a deck-load o' fish on top o' that afore they turn in of a night—an' maybe standin' watch in the night again, standin' to the wheel beatin' home in a nor'wester, when it's so cold you have to wear a woollen mask over your face with two holes to see through and another to breathe through, and your watch-mates have to relieve you—and you them—every six or eight minutes to keep from freezin' to death!
"hard work, mrs. pentle!" it was too ridiculous—peter laughed aloud this time.
"i live with my married sister, mrs. pentle, and goin' home these cold winter nights i sit down to supper, and after supper i slip into my slipshods, an' i get out my pipe, an' i spread my feet out before a nice, hot fire, in a rockin'-chair, an' the sister's six children they climb up all over me and we have one good time together. some nights i take one or two of the oldest of 'em to the movies."
"you like children, then, captain?"
"the man, mrs. pentle, that ain't got children is bein' cheated out o' something," said peter. "an' sittin' there after the children are put to bed, i say to myself: 'well, peter crudden, you're cert'nly one lucky dog. here's you into your warm, dry bed every night, an' work that there's about enough of to exercise you, an' no matter how the weather is—no matter about sea and wind so rough you can't fish—there's your pay-envelope every week with the same old reg'lar amount in it.'"
"i'm glad you like it here, captain, and—i'm partners with mr. duncan in a new vessel to be named after me."
"i hope," said peter earnestly, "that she won't shame her name—that she'll be fast an' weatherly—and always find her way back home."
"i hope so, captain. and now—if there is anything about your work you do not like, let me know." there was a tramping of girls hurrying through the passageway. two or three were gazing curiously in from the doorway.
"closing-up time, is it?" mrs. pentle had suddenly become nervous. "good-by." she passed out with henston.
old flaxley looked kindly at peter. "no airs to her, peter; all men look alike to her," said old flaxley.
"she's all right," said peter. "but as for hard work—lord!"
and he was chuckling over that all the while he was washing up and still smiling at the thought of it when he overhauled a girl in the passageway on his way out. he said good evening politely and was hurrying by when the figure said: "good evening, captain."
it was something in the voice that held him. he had another look—it wasn't very light in the passageway. well, if it wasn't the girl who had sold him the lunch-box!
peter walked to the corner with her; when her car came along, it happened to be his car. she lived not very far from peter's sister. he walked to her door with her. her name was sarah hern.
after work next day peter waited at the door of the shipping-room. when she came out of the girls' room he fell into step with her and they rode home together. sarah invited him in. peter stepped in for a minute and met sarah's mother.
he stayed to supper. there must have been eight or nine hern boys and girls, some grown up, with a widowed mother. and they all but the mother sat down together; and the girls kept bouncing up and down, hopping back and forth between table and kitchen when things didn't come fast enough.
peter felt as if he had known them for years; and after supper, an older brother passed peter a cigar and up-stairs in the living-room talked in a casually friendly way on baseball, prize-fighting, the big war, the latest movies. one of sarah's sisters played the piano and sarah and another sister sang. other young men called. peter was a good listener until a little brother of sarah's peeked in and finally came over by peter and shyly said:
"won't you tell something, captain, about the big ocean?"
peter told them a little about the big ocean, as he knew it, and stopped. he himself wanted to hear more songs—"annie laurie," or "the robert e. lee," or something like them—but they asked him to keep on. he told more—he would have told them more, in the first place, but he had no idea shore-going people, especially girls, cared much for rough fishing life. in a little while he was warmed up and going good. when he stopped this time they were all bent over and staring at him. the big brother straightened up first and pulled out his watch and said:
"what d'y'know—i'm chairman o' the house committee down to the club, and we had a meeting scheduled for an hour and a half ago!"
sarah sang "asthore" and "mother machree" and there was more playing. and they all had ice-cream and cake, and the older brother gave peter a great grip of the hand going; and they all asked him to call again soon and waved him good night from the doorway. and peter, walking up the street, began to think that maybe he had been sticking round his sister's too much nights.
mrs. pentle called into the shipping-room on a tour of inspection the next day again and regularly after that; and regularly peter rode home with sarah and one night he asked her if she would go to the theatre with him. she looked so pleased that he was sorry he hadn't got his courage up sooner.
it was to a musical show that peter took sarah. all the time he was there he felt uncomfortable—some of the people on the stage cert'nly did carry some things pretty far.
however, it was over, and peter suggested supper at a restaurant.
peter knew nothing of the night restaurants of the city. he picked out one he saw advertised in the theatre programme and because it also happened to be on the way to their trolley-line. he felt sarah shrink a little going in; and after he was inside and seated he wished he had paid more attention to her shrinking. but he had been too excited to notice. he had been lashed to the wheel of his vessel steering her in a living gale and not half so much excited as he was now. it wasn't just the kind of place, maybe, to bring a young girl; but they were in there now and he guessed they would weather whatever happened. he asked sarah if she would have a glass of beer or anything like that. he didn't want her to think him too slow. he was pleased when she said no.
what would she have to eat? sarah picked up the card. "suppose we try a tarble dote?" she said.
"all right. where is it?"
sarah pointed it out:
table d'h?te $1.50
peter had a notion she was trying to save his money, and he liked her for it, but he wasn't looking to save money. he pointed out various things on the other side of the bill, picking out always the high-priced ones, but sarah shook her head. she always preferred the "tarble dote" to ordering à la carte.
the waiter approached.
"what to drink?" he asked briskly.
"nothing to drink," answered peter, and, pointing out the caption, table d'h?te $1.50, said "two."
"two what?" asked the waiter.
"why, two of what it says—two tarble dotes."
"and what drinks did you say?" the waiter bent a confidential ear and scratched his head with his pencil while he waited. peter looked up at the ear; then he stretched up and whispered into it:
"ever hear of the boundin' biller, captain hanks?"
"the boundin' biller?" well, all kinds of queer ones blow into restaurants—the waiter slewed his head round, looked at peter, put his ear down, and whispered back: "what about it?"
and peter whispered up into the waiting ear:
"the boundin' biller, captain hanks,
she was hove flat down on th' western banks."
"huh!" the waiter slewed his head round again to have another look, which pulled his ear out of position and forced peter to raise his voice.
"he had the greatest ear, that captain hanks," explained peter. "he could hear a sound when no other mortal ever sailed a vessel could. he heard a steamer's whistle in a gale o' wind and fog one time, and—runnin' fair before the wind at the time he was—he jibed her over, and o' course you know what happens to a vessel that's runnin' with her main sheet to the knot an' somebody jibes her over all standin'?"
the waiter stared with increasing doubt at peter.
"captain hanks had nothing on you for hearing," explained peter. "i said no drinks."
"oh, oh, excuse me! i begin to get yuh now. no drinks," and the waiter retreated and returned in silence, but with the food.
two women on a platform, one very stout and one very thin, danced and sang; and then they half-wiggled and half-danced in and out among the tables. here and there they chucked a chin or kissed a bald head, and one, on invitation, sat on a man's knee and had a sip of wine with him.
sarah herself was knots prettier than either of the singing girls—peter could see that—and she was dressed pretty, too. he didn't know what kind of stuff it was she was wearing, except that it was a kind of slaty sea-gray color and fitted snug. and she had a hat that was shaped like a little capsized dory and listed to starboard, just about the same list a vessel takes when she puts her scuppers under to a light breeze.
peter, by and by, began to have a notion that sarah wasn't enjoying herself. there was a party in one of the booths—peter could not see them without turning, but he had a feeling in the back of his head that they were paying more attention to sarah than she liked. but perhaps he was wrong about it. what with the lights and the music and the dancing, he was beginning to feel like rolling out a little song himself—a little more maybe about the boundin' biller—but sarah suddenly started to draw on her gloves. and she looked tired; and peter hurried to pay the bill and tip the waiter—fifty cents. the waiter thanked him with more respect than peter would have thought was in him.
peter was jumping up to put sarah's coat on her before his waiter could do it, when a strange waiter came over with a glass of champagne and set it on the table before sarah.
"the gentleman wishes to know if the young lady will have a glass of wine with him."
some joker, of course. peter smiled till he saw that sarah was looking frightened.
"who sent it?" asked peter.
the waiter looked over to the booth which peter had had in mind earlier. peter looked over that way. a head darted out and back into the corner of the booth. peter's eyebrows lowered and his eyes narrowed. it looked like a familiar sail.
"did he say anything about a drink for me?" asked peter.
the waiter started to smile and then said "no, sir," very quickly.
peter picked up the glass delicately.
"do you want to drink this wine, sarah?"
"oh, peter!"
"it's all right—i knew you didn't," assured peter.
he stepped over to the booth. he was right about the man in the corner—it was henston.
more than the shipping of goods was discussed in the shipping-room, and there was more than that glass of wine in peter's mind when he looked in on henston in the booth. there was a sales-girl who had lost her job in pentle's. it was henston who had taken advantage of his position to start her on the wrong road.
"the young lady," said peter to henston, "don't want to drink your health."
"too bad—she drank it before," said henston.
peter had hard work to keep the wine from spilling.
"if you don't believe me, ask her," said henston.
"what's that?" peter said that to gain time to get his balance.
"i said, ask her."
"you—you squid, you!"
peter whipped the glass of wine into henston's face and with that reached across for him. the two men nearest to peter in the booth stood up to stop him. peter reached a hand to the collar of each, stepped back, and brought their faces crashing together.
"it's my fight and his—keep out, you!" said peter, and swept them back and down into their seats.
a waiter attacked peter from behind. it took peter a few seconds to wiggle round, get the heel of his hand under the waiter's chin, and jolt him down to where, falling backward on his heels all the while, he hit solidly with the back of his head between the plump shoulders of the fat one of the singing ladies who was fervidly warbling:
"mem-moh-reez—mem-moh-reez!"
to an elderly male with a proud smile on his face.
a little cloud of powder flew into the air above the singer; an ejaculation of shocked surprise from her lips. peter felt sorry, but didn't see how he could help her just then.
it was henston peter wanted, and all the waiters tugging from behind warn't going to stop him. he reached across the table and took a good hold and hauled. it was like hauling a two-hundred-pound halibut over the gunnel of a dory, only he had nothing against any halibut that ever he hauled into a dory. he braced and heaved, and henston came out of his corner and over the table, and kept on coming till he was clear over the table behind peter and flat into the aisle beyond.
"you'll have to excuse me," said peter to the diners at that table—all men; but they spoke right up, three of them, to say hurriedly:
"it's all right; it's all right." and the other, as if to himself: "and they're scourin' the country for white hopes!"
"stop him, some of you, before he smashes the place up!" roared a frantic man who came running up then; and two, four, six waiters piled onto peter, who, having no quarrel with them, gently shoved them off and went over to get sarah.
a pugnacious-looking, prematurely gray-haired man stood at the café door as they were passing out. peter was wondering if he would have to fight him, too.
the man's face—it was the cafe bouncer—broke into a sudden grin.
"you're all right," he said. "i been watchin' that fuhler an' his crowd. an' you leave it to the manager to stick the damages onto him. you're all right, and that young lady—you take it from me, young fuhler—she's all right, too."
sarah felt grateful to the bouncer for that tribute. she hoped that it would bring a smile to peter's face. but all the way home in the trolley there was no smile from peter; he clung grimly to his strap and stared straight at the advertising cards. at her door he only spoke to say "good night."
"good night, peter." and then, with a little clutch at his sleeve: "you're not mad with me, peter?"
"i'm mad with myself for makin' the show o' you that i did to-night; but when he said you'd drunk wine with him there—said it with a bunch o' people like himself listenin'—when he said that——"
sarah's curling little hand had been reaching out for his. it came back flat to her side again.
"i got a bad temper, sarah. it don't come out often, but it's there. and to-night, sarah, when he lied about you like that, and his crowd, and maybe others round, believin' him maybe——"
sarah shivered. she knew now that in peter's good opinion of her lay much of what she cared for in this world. in the good opinion of some man or other lay most of what the other girls in the store cared for. always with them was the undying note—to hold and keep men's good opinion, to keep it at no matter what sacrifice of everything else.
"what they don't know will never hurt them. a man is no better off because he knows things!" she had heard that so often; and no girl is spending eight hours a day for two years with other girls without soaking in something of what they believe—not and be human, that is.
but she had never met a man like peter. he held her in such respect, he held all girls in such respect, that it was solemn. only the night before she had thought one time he was going to kiss her, and she had surged toward him, with her lips soft for him, but he had only said "good night" suddenly and had run off—almost—up the street.
but peter was speaking.
"men have to go out to fight for a living in places where the fighting, sarah, is sometimes pretty fierce. and sometimes that kind o' fighting makes 'em rough, and maybe cruel in spots. but that don't mean they're bad men. men c'n be rough sometimes, but i never knew a man—that was any good, sarah—that wanted women to have any o' men's badness. aboard a vessel we just nacherally expect every man in her will 'tend to his part o' the work, even if he loses his life sometimes 'tendin' to it. that's a man's part, an' it's what he owes to the other men aboard. an' every man has that, an' it's as much a part of him as the beard on his face. and so when there's a woman somewhere a man's countin' on, he expects just nacherally she'll hold out against all the world for him. that's her part. and when to-night, sarah, that fat-faced, lyin' brute said you'd drunk wine with him, 'twas just as much as if you'd said you liked him once—liked his kind."
sarah sat down on the step. pretty soon—she couldn't help it—peter heard her sobbing.
he lifted her up.
"sarah, sarah; what is it?"
she drew away from him; for, of course, when she told him, he, that was so good himself, would never care for her again.
"it was true what he said, peter! i did drink wine with him, and in that same place!"
peter stood very still. and then he moved out to the curbstone, and with little tugs at his collar kept looking up at the sky. by and by he came back to the doorway.
"i wish you hadn't, sarah; i wish you hadn't," he said, but came no nearer.
"wish i hadn't told you?"
"no, no; i'm glad you told me. and i know what it meant for you to tell me. i'd rather take a chance going over the side—redjacks, oilskins, and all—in a high sea after a shipmate than have to tell a girl something about myself that i know she don't want to hear. specially when i care for her—not that i'm thinkin' you care for me so much, sarah."
the blood came back to sarah's heart. she hurried to tell him the rest.
"i've been wanting to tell you, peter; you mustn't think me worse than i am. he used to come down to my counter and talk to me; and after a few days of that he asked me to go out with him. i was a little proud at first—to be noticed by the manager above the other girls. girls like to be made much of, peter; if it's only by a lost dog that licks their hand, they like it. i went to that place with him, after he'd asked me a dozen times, and the third time there with him i drank a glass of champagne. i wanted to know for myself what it tasted like. but i never took it with him again—nor went out with him again, because coming home in the taxi that night he tried to get fresh. a lot of men, peter, think that if a girl isn't cold and stiff in her ways she must be bad. and i kicked the door of the taxi open and left him and came home alone."
"i'm glad you told me that. and sarah?"
"yes, peter?"
"good night, sarah."
"you're not mad with me any more, peter?"
"i could never stay mad with you."
"then you must tell me you're not, peter. a girl wants to be told these things."
her eyes were smiling up like stars through the dark of the doorway at him. he drew back her head to him and kissed her. she lay very still against him. he patted her head.
"you'll marry me, won't you, sarah, some day?"
"i'll ask mother. and whenever she says—will that do, peter?"
late every winter mrs. pentle took a month's trip south. she had returned from that trip south and was making the rounds of the store. she came to the shipping-room, looked round, asked flaxley a few questions about things; and then, as she was about to go:
"i don't see captain crudden. he is not sick?"
"peter's gone, ma'am," said flaxley. "mr. henston and peter had words, ma'am, and peter put on his coat and walked out."
"what!"
"yes'm. but before he put on his coat he threw mr. henston into the passageway. then he went and got married," he added.
"peter married!"
"yes, ma'am. he surprised us, too—that is, gettin' married so quick."
"whom did he marry?"
"miss hern, from the notions counter."
"hern? notions? oh—i remember her now."
flaxley saw her cross the passageway to the rest-room and sit down on a couch. after a time she went up-stairs.
it was after two o'clock—flaxley remembered the time very well—when mrs. pentle left the rest-room; so she must have ordered her car and gone to gloucester right away, for she was in duncan's store, according to the minutes of fred lichens, the old bookkeeper, before four o'clock.
"is captain crudden here?" was her first question.
"he is. he's down the wharf—ready to sail in your vessel," said mr. duncan. "shall i call him up?"
"please do."
mr. duncan hailed from the steps of the store, and peter came; but no smiling shipper's helper who looked like a boy was this peter.
he was smiling enough, but there was already the hint in the set jaws, the wary, far-looking eyes of the master mariner, the ocean battler. her confidence ebbed; she was in an atmosphere of men's work that she could never get away from in duncan's store, and almost timidly she heard herself asking:
"will you tell me, captain crudden, what was wrong with the work in the store? i thought you liked it."
"nothing wrong, mrs. pentle."
"then what, please?"
"m-m-m." peter revolved his cloth cap on one finger but said nothing.
"one day in the shipping-room, captain crudden, you told me what a comfort it was for a man to be home—of the joy of the easy slippers and the warm fire, of children climbing all over you—of the warm bed every night."
"that's right; i did."
"no more danger, no more hardship, your sure pay every week!"
"i know; i know."
"then why? was it the work?"
"the work?" peter clearly smiled now.
"haddockin' in south channel, mrs. pentle, workin' fourteen tubs—eight thousand hooks to a dory a day, an' dressin' our deckload o' fish on top o' that—three, four, yes an' five days an' nights runnin' sometimes, with no lookin' at our bunks till we filled her up—! work? i cal'late i've done more work in south channel fishin' many a day than in any ten days i ever saw in your store, mrs. pentle."
"then why, please, captain crudden, why?"
"why? when you went south, mrs. pentle, you left a man in your place to give orders."
"mr. henston? what of him?"
"him!" peter looked down at his cap, twirled it on a finger, looked at mrs. pentle, and then: "him! honest, mrs. pentle, if we had him out on the fishin'-grounds we wouldn't cut him up for bait!"
peter went back to his vessel and mrs. pentle to her car.
"i ordered my house opened to-day. i'll run over there," she told mr. duncan.
it was a clear day with a fresh breeze from the west. she must have seen, when she looked, the whitecaps in the harbor as her car rolled over the road.
john ferguson, up in his lookout, saw her car roll up to her gate. john could also see the reflection of the fresh fire in the grate in her den, the fresh pot of tea beside the window-seat. and no doubt she could see, as she sipped her tea, john ferguson through an air-port of his aerie.
however, the celia pentle was sailing out to sea and john was entering her—celia pentle, peter crudden, master, with the date, in his book—and was reading the entry over to himself when mrs. pentle came in.
the harbor had grown whiter under the little crests of the tossing seas, and outside the point they were rolling yet higher and higher.
"isn't it rough weather to be sailing, john?" she asked.
"rough? for an able fisherman and an able master and crew? no, mrs. pentle. the wind's fair, ma'am, as a man'd want for a run offshore—a great chance for peter to try the new vessel out. this time to-morrow, ma'am, and if you could listen to peter i'll bet you'd be proud to have such a wonderful vessel named after you. a new, able vessel and a new, lovely young wife—he oughter be the happy man sailin' to sea this night."
"but his wife—won't she be lonesome, john?"
"for her own good and peter's, i cert'nly hope so, ma'am. but she won't be lonesome for too long, ma'am. their age—an' healthy an' lovin'—they're the kind, ma'am, to have a houseful o' children. an' that'll be a good thing. many's the day an' night, out on the wide ocean there, peter'll be drivin' his vessel, thinkin' o' them children an' the mother to home, an' plannin' how he's ever goin' to kill fish enough to pay for the shoes an' their clothes an' their schoolin' an' the house rent, an' all the rest of it. many a hard night out to sea he'll be thinkin' o' that, an' it'll be that'll hold him to his work an' make a full man o' him. and the mother she'll be keepin' the home, lovin' the children an' lovin' peter that's workin' night an' day to keep 'em. i tell you, ma'am, they're the wise ones that lay their courses so that by 'n' by, whether they will or no, they got to go on with the steady drivin'."
"look at her now, ma'am, down to the rail already an' whalin' away through it! an' there's peter—look at him—in the oilskins up by the wind'ard bitt! an'— but there's some one callin' you, ma'am."
it was her maid, who came running over to say that there was an urgent telephone message.
"it is from mr. henston, madam."
mrs. pentle nodded that she heard, but continued to look through the glasses at the celia sailing out to sea.
the maid coughed. she was at the foot of the tower, looking up.
"he says, madam, that the silk-buyer wishes him to go to new york for that stock of pongees, and that he is waiting for an answer to his letter before he goes."
mrs. pentle stood at the hatch of the tower, looking down.
"fishermen are pretty careful of what they use for bait, aren't they, john?"
john, after consideration, said:
"bank fishermen are maybe more careful than most, ma'am; though, when we was hard put to it, i've seen some pretty poor quality o' stuff cut up for bait."
mrs. pentle looked down the ladder to the maid.
"tell mr. henston there is no answer. tell him to go to new york and that, hereafter, he had better stay there and look after the silks exclusively."
for as long as the falling darkness would allow, john saw mrs. pentle picking out the plunging course of peter's vessel through the green-white waters. and then, turning to him, she said:
"i've been thinking that i ought to take more interest in my young girls when they marry. on the day the cruddens have a baby born to them i shall make over the celia pentle to the baby."
for all she smiled when she said that—and in john's opinion she should 'a' been a happy woman to be able to say things like that—for all that there was what john called a melancholy in her voice and a sort of vapor in her eyes when she said it; and, looking after her making her lonesome way over to the big house with all the lighted windows, he couldn't help thinking that for all they said she was such a boss of a woman—for all that—there ought to be somebody more than a lot of butlers and maids and cooks to meet her at the door.
there is the story of peter's stop ashore, as old man flaxley, john ferguson, and fred lichens know it. fred had to add that he couldn't see where peter's stop ashore ever hurt him any.
"certainly," said fred, "since the baby came, he has been making fishing history in the celia!" he looked over to mr. duncan when he said that.
mr. duncan wasn't deaf.
"a little stop ashore never harmed anybody," retorted mr. duncan—"it's the stopping ashore too long!"
