The Portygee Part 27

"Why--why, Grandfather, I--"

"Haven't they?"

"Why--Well, yes, someone has been talking to me, but the whole idea isn't theirs. I WAS sorry for speaking to you as I did and sorry to think of leaving you and grandmother. I--I was sitting up there in my room and feeling blue and mean enough and--and--"

"And then Rachel came aboard and gave you your sailin' orders; eh?"

Albert gasped. "For heaven's sake how did you know that?" he demanded.

"She--Why, she must have told you, after all! But she said--"

"Hold on, boy, hold on!" Captain Lote chuckled quietly. "No," he said, "Rachel didn't tell me; I guessed she was the one. And it didn't take a Solomon in all his glory to guess it, neither. Labe Keeler's been talkin' to ME, and when you come down here and began proposin' the same scheme that I was just about headin' up to your room with to propose to you, then--well, then the average whole-witted person wouldn't need more'n one guess. It couldn't be Labe, 'cause he'd been whisperin' in MY ear, so it must have been the other partner in the firm. That's all the miracle there is to it."

Albert's brain struggled with the situation. "I see," he said, after a moment. "She hinted that someone had been talking to you along the same line. Yes, and she was so sure you would agree. I might have known it was Laban."

"Um-hm, so you might... . Well, there have been times when if a man had talked to me as Labe did to-night I'd have knocked him down, or told him to go to--um--well, the tropics--told him to mind his own business, at least. But Labe is Labe, and besides MY conscience was plaguin' me a little mite, maybe ... maybe."

The young man shook his head. "They must have talked it over, those two, and agreed that one should talk to you and the other to me. By George, I wonder they had the nerve. It wasn't their business, really."

"Not a darn bit."

"Yet--yet I--I'm awfully glad she said it to me. I--I needed it, I guess."

"Maybe you did, son... . And--humph--well, maybe I needed it, too.

... Yes, I know that's consider'ble for me to say," he added dryly.

Albert was still thinking of Laban and Rachel.

"They're queer people," he mused. "When I first met them I thought they were about the funniest pair I ever saw. But--but now I can't help liking them and--and--Say, Grandfather, they must think a lot of your--of our family."

"Cal'late they do, son... . Well, boy, we've had our sermon, you and me, what shall we do? Willin' to sign for the five years trial cruise if I will, are you?"

Albert couldn't help smiling. "It was three years Rachel proposed, not five," he said.

"Was, eh? Suppose we split the difference and make it four? Willin' to try that?"

"Yes, sir."

"Agreement bein' that you shall stick close to Z. Snow and Co. durin'

work hours and write as much poetry as you darned please other times, neither side to interfere with those arrangements? That right?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good! Shall we shake hands on it?"

They shook, solemnly. Captain Lote was the first to speak after ratification of the contract.

"There, now I cal'late I'll go aloft and turn in," he observed. Then he added, with a little hesitation, "Say, Al, maybe we'd better not trouble your grandma about all this fool business--the row this afternoon and all. 'Twould only worry her and--" he paused, looked embarra.s.sed, cleared his throat, and said, "to tell you the truth, I'm kind of ashamed of my part---er--er--that is, some of it."

His grandson was very much astonished. It was not often that Captain Zelotes Snow admitted having been in the wrong. He blurted out the question he had been dying to ask.

"Grandfather," he queried, "had you--did you really mean what you said about starting to come to my room and--and propose this scheme of ours--I mean of Rachel's and Labe's--to me?"

"Eh? ... Ye-es--yes. I was on my way up there when I met you just now."

"Well, Grandfather, I--I--"

"That's all right, boy, that's all right. Don't let's talk any more about it."

"We won't. And--and--But, Grandfather, I just want you to know that I guess I understand things a little better than I did, and--and when my father--"

The captain's heavy hand descended upon his shoulder.

"Heave short, Al!" he commanded. "I've been doin' consider'ble thinkin'

since Labe finished his--er--discourse and p.r.o.nounced the benediction, and I've come to a pretty definite conclusion on one matter. I've concluded that you and I had better cut out all the bygones from this new arrangement of ours. We won't have fathers or--or--elopements--or past-and-done-with disapp'intments in it. This new deal--this four year trial v'yage of ours--will be just for Albert Speranza and Zelotes Snow, and no others need apply... . Eh? ... Well, good night, Al."

CHAPTER VIII

So the game under the "new deal" began. At first it was much easier than the old. And, as a matter of fact, it was never as hard as before. The heart to heart talk between Captain Zelotes and his grandson had given each a glimpse of the other's inner self, a look from the other's point of view, and thereafter it was easier to make allowances. But the necessity for the making of those allowances was still there and would continue to be there. At first Albert made almost no mistakes in his bookkeeping, was almost painfully careful. Then the carefulness relaxed, as it was bound to do, and some mistakes occurred. Captain Lote found little fault, but at times he could not help showing some disappointment. Then his grandson would set his teeth and buckle down to painstaking effort again. He was resolved to live up to the very letter of the agreement.

In his spare time he continued to write and occasionally he sold something. Whenever he did so there was great rejoicing among the feminine members of the Snow household; his grandmother and Rachel Ellis were enraptured. It was amusing to see Captain Zelotes attempt to join the chorus. He evidently felt that he ought to praise, or at least that praise was expected from him, but it was also evident that he did not approve of what he was praising.

"Your grandma says you got rid of another one of your poetry pieces, Al," he would say. "Pay you for it, did they?"

"Not yet, but they will, I suppose."

"I see, I see. How much, think likely?"

"Oh, I don't know. Ten dollars, perhaps."

"Um-hm ... I see... . Well, that's pretty good, considerin', I suppose... . We did first-rate on that Hyannis school-house contract, didn't we. Nigh's I can figger it we cleared over fourteen hundred and eighty dollars on that."

He invariably followed any reference to the profit from the sale of verses by the casual mention of a much larger sum derived from the sale of lumber or hardware. This was so noticeable that Laban Keeler was impelled to speak of it.

"The old man don't want you to forget that you can get more for hard pine than you can for soft sonnets, sellin' 'em both by the foot,"

observed Labe, peering over his spectacles. "More money in s.h.i.+ngles than there is in jingles, he cal'lates... . Um... . Yes, yes... .

Consider'ble more, consider'ble."

Albert smiled, but it astonished him to find that Mr. Keeler knew what a sonnet was. The little bookkeeper occasionally surprised him by breaking out unexpectedly in that way.

From the indiscriminate praise at home, or the reluctant praise of his grandfather, he found relief when he discussed his verses with Helen Kendall. Her praise was not indiscriminate, in fact sometimes she did not praise at all, but expressed disapproval. They had some disagreements, marked disagreements, but it did not affect their friends.h.i.+p. Albert was a trifle surprised to find that it did not.

So as the months pa.s.sed he ground away at the books of Z. Snow and Company during office hours and at the poetry mill between times. The seeing of his name in print was no longer a novelty and he poetized not quite as steadily. Occasionally he attempted prose, but the two or three short stories of his composition failed to sell. Helen, however, urged him to try again and keep trying. "I know you can write a good story and some day you are going to," she said.

His first real literary success, that which temporarily lifted him into the outer circle of the limelight of fame, was a poem written the day following that upon which came the news of the sinking of the Lusitania.

Captain Zelotes came back from the post-office that morning, a crumpled newspaper in his hand, and upon his face the look which mutinous foremast hands had seen there just before the mutiny ended. Laban Keeler was the first to notice the look. "For the land sakes, Cap'n, what's gone wrong?" he asked. The captain flung the paper upon the desk. "Read that," he grunted. Labe slowly spread open the paper; the big black headlines shrieked the crime aloud.