The Best Short Stories of 1919 Part 26

Jovially he would put the question, "Which would you rather have, a husband or a fireless cooker?" He would argue it out--and he would sometimes get them all to laughing, only the argument was never a very long one. One day it occurred to him that the debates were short because the others didn't hold up their end. He was talking for the fireless cooker--if it was going to be a real debate, they ought to speak up for the husband. But there seemed to be so much less to be said for a husband than there was for a fireless cooker. This struck him as really quite funny, but it seemed it was a joke he had to enjoy by himself.

Sometimes when he came home pretty tired--for you could get as tired at odd jobs as at jobs that weren't odd--and heard all about what the Cadaras were that night to eat out of their fireless cooker, he would wish that some one else would do the joking. It was kind of tiresome doing it all by yourself--and kind of lonesome.

One morning he woke up feeling particularly rested and lively. He was going out to work on the _Lillie-Bennie_, and he always felt in better spirits when he was working on a boat.

It was a cool, fresh, sunny morning. He began a song--he had a way of making up songs. It was, "I'd rather be alive than dead." He didn't think of any more lines, so while he was getting into his clothes he kept singing this one, to a tune which became more and more stirring. He went over to the window by the looking-gla.s.s. From this window you looked over to the Cadaras. And then he saw that from the Cadaras a new arrival looked at him.

He stared. Then loud and long he laughed. He threw up the window and called, "h.e.l.lo, there!"

The new arrival made no reply, unless a slight droop of the head could be called a reply.

"Well, you cap the climax!" called Joe Doane.

Young Doanes had discovered the addition to the Cadara family and came running out of the house.

"Pa!" Edgar called up to him, "the Cadaras have got a _Goat_!"

"Well, do you know," said his father, "I kind of _suspected_ that was a goat."

Young Cadaras came out of the house to let young Doanes know just what their privileges were to be with the goat--and what they weren't. They could walk around and look at her; they were not to lead her by her rope.

"There's no hope now," said Joe, darkly shaking his head. "No man in his senses would buck up against a _goat_."

The little Doanes wouldn't come in and eat their breakfast. They'd rather stay out and walk round the goat.

"I think it's too bad," their mother sighed, "the kiddie-car and the ball-suit and the sail-boat were _enough_ for the children to bear--without this goat. It seems our children haven't got _any_ of the things the Cadaras have got."

"Except--" said Joe, and waited for some one to fill it in. But no one did, so he filled it in with a laugh--a rather short laugh.

"Look out they don't put you in the fireless cooker!" he called to the goat as he went off to work.

But he wasn't joking when he came home at noon. He turned in at the front gate and the goat blocked his pa.s.sage. The Cadaras had been willing to let the goat call upon the Doanes and graze while calling.

"Get out of my way!" called Joe Doane in a surly way not like Joe Doane.

"Pa!" said young Joe in an awed whisper, "it's a _government_ goat."

"What do I care if it is?" retorted his father. "_d.a.m.n_ the government goat!"

Every one fell back, as when blasphemy--as when treason--have been uttered. These Portuguese kids looking at _him_ like that--as if _they_ were part of the government and he outside. He was so mad that he bawled at Tony Cadara, "To _h.e.l.l_ with your government goat!"

From her side of the fence, Mrs. Cadara called, "Tony, you bring the goat right home," as one who calls her child--and her goat--away from evil.

"And keep her there!" finished Joe Doane.

The Doanes ate their meal in stricken silence. Finally Doane burst out, "What's the matter with you all? Such a fuss about the orderin' off of a _goat_."

"It's a _government_ goat," lisped Edgar.

"It's a _government_ goat," repeated his wife in a tense voice.

"What do you mean--government goat? There's no such animal."

But it seemed there was, the Cadaras had, not only the goat, but a book about the goat. The book was from the government. The government had raised the goat and had singled the Cadaras out as a family upon whom a government goat should be conferred. The Cadaras held her in trust for the government. Meanwhile they drank her milk.

"Tony Cadara said, if I'd dig clams for him this afternoon he'd let me help milk her to-night," said young Joe.

This was too much. "Ain't you kids got no _spine_? Kowtowing to them Portuguese because a few folks that's sorry for them have made them presents. They're _ginnies_. You're Doanes."

"I want a goat!" wailed Edgar. His father got up from the table.

"The children are all right," said his wife, in her patient voice that made you impatient. "It's natural for them to want a few of the things they see other children having."

He'd get _away_! As he went through the shed he saw his line and picked it up. He'd go out on the breakwater--maybe he'd get some fish, at least have some peace.

The breakwater wasn't very far down the beach from his house. He used to go out there every once in a while. Every once in a while he had a feeling he had to get by himself. It was half a mile long and of big rocks that had big gaps. You had to do some climbing--you could imagine you were in the mountains--and that made you feel far off and different.

Only when the tide came in, the sea filled the gaps--then you had to "watch your step."

He went way out and turned his back on the town and fished. He wasn't to finish the work on the _Lillie-Bennie_. They said that morning they thought they'd have to send down the Cape for an "expert." So _he_ would probably go to work at the new cold storage--working with a lot of Portagee laborers. He wondered why things were this way with him. They seemed to have just happened so. When you should have had some money it didn't come natural to do the things of people who have no money. The money went out of the "Bank" fis.h.i.+ng about three years before his father sold his vessels. During those last three years Captain Silas Doane had spent all the money he had to keep things going, refusing to believe that the way of handling fish had changed and that the fis.h.i.+ng between Cape's End and the Grand Banks would no longer be what it had been. When he sold he kept one vessel, and the next Winter she went ash.o.r.e right across there on the northeast arm of the Cape. Joe Doane was aboard her that night. Myrtie was a baby then. It was of little Myrtie he thought when it seemed the vessel would pound herself to pieces before they could get off. _He_ couldn't be lost! He had to live and work so his little girl could have everything she wanted--After that the Doanes were without a vessel--and Doanes without a vessel were fish out of sea. They had never been folks to work on another man's boat. He supposed he had never started any big new thing because it had always seemed he was just filling in between trips. A good many years had slipped by and he was still just putting in time. And it began to look as if there wasn't going to be another trip.

Suddenly he had to laugh. Some _joke_ on Joe Cadara! He could see him going down the Front street--broad, slow, _dumb_. Why, Joe Cadara thought his family _needed_ him. He thought they got along because he made those trips. But had Joe Cadara ever been able to give his wife a fireless cooker? Had the government presented a goat to the Cadaras when Joe was there? Joe Doane sat out on the breakwater and laughed at the joke on Joe Cadara. When Agnes Cadara was a little girl she would run to meet her father when he came in from a trip. Joe Doane used to like to see the dash she made. But Agnes was just tickled to death with her mourning!

He sat there a long time--sat there until he didn't know whether it was a joke or not. But he got two haddock and more whiting than he wanted to carry home. So he felt better. A man sometimes needed to get off by himself.

As he was turning in at home he saw Ignace Silva about to start out on a trip with Captain Gorspie. Silva thought he _had_ to go. But Silva had been saved--and had _his_ wife a fireless cooker? Suddenly Joe Doane called.

"Hey! Silva! You're the government goat!"

The way Doane laughed made Silva know this was a joke; not having a joke of his own he just turned this one around and sent it back. "Government goat yourself!"

"Shouldn't wonder," returned Joe jovially.

He had every Doane laughing at supper that night. "Bear up! Bear up!

True, you've got a father instead of a goat--but we've all got our cross! We all have our cross to bear!"

"Say!" said he after supper, "every woman, every kid, puts on a hat, and up we go to see if Ed. Smith might _happen_ to have a soda."

As they were starting out, he peered over at the Cadaras in mock surprise. "Why, what's the matter with that _goat_? That goat don't seem to be takin' the Cadaras out for a soda."

Next day he started to make a kiddie-car for Edgar. He promised Joe he'd make him a sail-boat. But it was up-hill work. The Cape's End Summer folk gave a "Streets of Bagdad" and the "disaster families" got the proceeds. Then when the Summer folk began to go away it was quite natural to give what they didn't want to take with them to a family that had had a disaster. The Doanes had had no disaster; anyway, the Doanes weren't the kind of people you'd think of giving things to. True, Mr. Doane would sometimes come and put on your screen-doors for you, but it was as if a neighbor had come in to lend a hand. A man who lives beside the sea and works on the land is not a picturesque figure. Then, in addition to being alive, Joe Doane wasn't Portuguese. So the Cadaras got the underwear and the bats and preserves that weren't to be taken back to town. No one father--certainly not a father without a steady job--could hope to compete with all that wouldn't go into trunks.

Anyway, he couldn't possibly make a goat. No wit or no kindness which emanated from him could do for his boys what that goat did for the Cadaras. Joe Doane came to throw an awful hate on the government goat.

Portagees were only Portagees--yet _they_ had the government goat. Why, there had been Doanes on that Cape for more than a hundred years. There had been times when everybody round there _worked_ for the Doanes, but now the closest his boys could come to the government was beddin' down the Cadaras' government goat! Twenty-five years ago Cadaras had huddled in a hut on the G.o.d-forsaken Azores! If they knew there was a United States government, all they knew was that there _was_ one. And now it was these Cadara kids were putting on airs to _him_ about the government. He knew there was a joke behind all this, behind his getting so wrought up about it, but he would sit and watch that goat eat leaves in the vacant lot across from the Cadaras until the goat wasn't just a goat. It was the turn things had taken. One day as he was sitting watching Tony Cadara milking his goat--wistful boys standing by--Ignace Silva, just in from a trip, called out, "Government goat yourself!" and laughed at he knew not what.

By G.o.d!--'t was true! A Doane without a vessel. A native who had let himself be crowded out by ignorant upstarts from a filthy dot in the sea! A man who hadn't got his bearings in the turn things had taken. Of a family who had built up a place for other folks to grow fat in. _Sure_ he was the government goat. By just being alive he kept his family from all the fancy things they might have if he was dead. Could you be more of a _goat_ than that?

Agnes Cadara and Myrtie came up the street together. He had a feeling that Myrtie was _set up_ because she was walking along with Agnes Cadara. Time had been when Agnes Cadara had hung around in order to go with Myrtie! Suddenly he thought of how his wife had said maybe Agnes Cadara could wear Myrtie's shoes. He looked at Agnes Cadara's feet--at Myrtie's. Why, Myrtie looked like a kid from an orphan asylum walking along with the daughter of the big man of the town!

He got up and started toward town. He wouldn't stand it! He'd show 'em!

He'd buy Myrtie---- Why, he'd buy Myrtie----! He put his hand in his pocket. Change from a dollar. The rest of the week's pay had gone to Lou Hibbard for groceries. Well, he could hang it up at Wilkinson's. He'd buy Myrtie----!