Vesty of the Basins Part 37

"It is fine. He is making for himself a name in your politics, and at the same time there 's the old fire in him, flas.h.i.+ng out over conventions; one can almost hear him laugh. He rings out, clear, amid any false notes; it is a grand satire; sometimes the dry bones quake."

"Lord sakes!" said Captain Leezur, turning on me with deep-smitten dismay; "I heered how't he was bein' successful!"

"His financial speculations seem touched with magic, they say; he is courted, feared, praised, maligned; he laughs and rings out, the true note! His health is not strong, never since that fall. There; you have all I know, Captain Leezur."

Captain Leezur meditated. "There _be_ times--I sh'd never want this said except between you an' me, major--when I'm glad 't Notely Garrison didn't marry Vesty, after all! Notely 'n' me was great mates, all'as.

But I'll tell ye this, when Notely got everythin' he wanted he'd carry sail enough to sink the boat, all'as; couldn't never jump rough enough or fast enough on a high sea; kept the rest on us bailin' water: that was Note, when he had all the wind he wanted; that was Note, all'as--but I all'as loved him better 'n them 't was more keerful sailors."

The sun saw itself globed in a tear that fell on Captain Leezur's felts.

"Moderation in all things, ye know," he added, beaming, not to distress me; "even in pa.s.snips."

I mused with him in silent sympathy. "Oiling the saw again, I see," I said at last glancing with reverent admiration of such benign industry at the oil-can.

"No," said Captain Leezur kindly; "I wa'n't, I was a-goin' deown, by 'n' by, to the cove, to ca'm the water deown, 'n' see ef I c'd spear up a few fleounders; but I ain't in no hurry. I'd jest as soon set areound on the int'rust o' my money!"

This was a joke insatiable between us, always bubbling over, always enough of it left for next rime. At its utterance Captain Leezur's countenance was accustomed to break up entirely, while I laughed with an appreciation that never fainted or palled.

We felt that there was never aught sparkling enough to be said after it, but parted in succulent silence, Captain Leezur with his oil-can, going down to compose the waters, while I pursued my less omnipotent way to the Basin "post-office."

"Ef there 's anything trying," said Lunette, though with the peculiarly official air she always wore on post days, "it is dressin' sand-peeps.

But thar! Tyson come home with a harf-bushel, an' what are ye goin' to do? Onct a year, Ty says, he wants ter jest stuff himself to the collar-bone on sand-peep pie, an' then he don't want to see nary one, nor hear 'em mentioned in his sight--not for another year."

It might have troubled the casual observer at first to discover, in the variety of Lunette's official capacity, which was post-office and which was sand-peeps, so agreeably and informally did these two elements combine in her surroundings.

"Mis' Pharo Kobbe!" she called.

That lady, thus summarily summoned, sprang forward from a cloud of witnesses, as choice and flattered a.s.sistant.

"Won't you take them letters 't Major Henry's jest brought in, and deface the stamps on 'em? Turn the ink enter them pictur's o' George Was.h.i.+n'ton so 't his own mother's son wouldn't know him. I don't calk'late to have no stamps 't 's sent out from the Basin post-office washed out an' used over ag'in. The defacement they gets here is for everlastin' an' for aye."

I watched helplessly a full discharge of this command on the part of Mrs. Pharo Kobbe, and proceeded to pluck one of the sand-peeps meanwhile, along with the rest, waiting the arrival of the post bag.

"Some o' the rusticators 't was here in the summer," continued Lunette, sneezing over a culinary preparation of pepper, "though 't we ought to have two mails a week! Ef I was so dyin' crazy for news 's that, I'd go an' live to Machias!"

"That does seem dissipated and unreasonable, certainly," I a.s.sented, interested in the endeavor to extract the minutest pin-feathers from the tail of the sand-peep.

"Ef they was all like Major Henry, I told 'em, the post-office 'ud be easy runnin', an' I don't care if I do say it afore his face. I'd say it afore the meet'n-house--ef there was one. The very first time 't Major Henry ever stepped inter this post-office he come up to me an'

handed me a five-dollar bill, 'n' says he:

"'Mardam, could you kin'ly put my mail t' one side, me not all'as bein'

convienent to be here at its openin', maybe; an' all the mail that ain't called for at its openin' bein' thrun up onter the top pantry shelf,' says he, ''nd everybody 't comes in lookin' it over t' see ef they've got anything, is a most beautiful compliment to human natur','

says he, 'an' one that I wish I could interduce everywhere; but me not bein' vary tall,' he says, 'an' kind o' near-sighted, I'm afeered as I might git somethin' 't didn't belong to me. Have ye got anythin' like a dror, or anythin' 't ye could lock up?' says he.

"'No,' says I, 'I hain't, but I'll tell ye what I can do. I can put 'em inter th' old Gran'mother Tyson soup-turreen, 't I don't believe the led of it 's been lifted this ten year; they'll be as safe as ef they was buried an' in their graves,' says I. An' so I thought, but ye know how things is all'as sartin to happen.

"What, in the name o' ructions, did Ty do but come home that afternoon with a bag o' ches'nits, which he knows I won't have in the pantry on account o' breedin' worms; but me bein' over to Mis' Kobbe's, what does he do, manlike, but dump them letters inter the churn, an' go an' sneak his ches'nits inter th' old Granm'er Tyson soup-turreen.

"Wal, I all'as churn my b.u.t.ter Friday mornin', come hail, come wind: so I gits up--an' 'twas kind o' dark yit--an' in I pours the pail o' cream an' begins to churn, an' thinks I, 'This spatters onaccountable this mornin',' an' took off the cover to see what the ructions was!

"Wal, the verd.i.c.k of it was, after I'd laid into Ty, I went down to major with the five-dollar bill an' another atop of it, all I had in this livin' world--'An' ef that 's any objec', major,' says I, a-wipin'

of my eyes, 'it's all I c'n do.'

"Wall, what think you, but major laughs, an' wouldn't tetch ary cent of it, but took 'is letters, an' says he, 'They've ackired a peculiar richness,' says he, 'an' I'd orter be up there mail-openin' an' not make a lady so much trouble,' says he. That's the kind o' poppolation 's I, for one, sh'd like to fill up the Basin with!" said Lunette, flouris.h.i.+ng her rolling-pin.

A murmur of approval ran through the room.

Blus.h.i.+ng, embarra.s.sed, but swollen with pride, I picked up another sand-peep to pluck.

At that instant "Snipe," the household and post-office dog, ran across the floor with high-careering head, holding a huge envelope in his teeth.

"Stop him! stop him!" cries arose: "it's Elvine's registered letter, 't 's goin' to Boston for a tea-set!"

A rush followed Snipe into the bedroom, the door of which stood open; the evil dog ran under the bed and into the farthest corner, where, with his jaws formed into the semblance of a menace and a mocking laugh, he a.s.sumed an attack upon that potential tea-set.

Lunette rushed in after him. Now the bed, in default, for some unknown though doubtless wise Basin reasons, of other stanchions, was set up on four chairs, one at each corner, and as Lunette rushed under it, she displaced the outermost chair; whereat the bed at that source collapsed with a crash, imprisoning both her and the dog.

"I've been a-threatenin' to have that bed fixed," said Tyson, with politic zeal, as his wife and dog were delivered.

Lunette with voiceless indignation seized one of a b.u.t.tress of birch-switches behind the door, and began applying it to the consciously ruined Snipe, at the arising of whose howls the post-carrier drove up, and, entering, threw the bag, in loud token of his arrival, upon the floor.

Snipe, of all places, ran and entrenched himself behind my feeble legs!

Whereat, "Don't whip him any more," I pleaded, being already flattered, in one way and another, as high as mortal could sustain.

Lunette turned unwillingly to the post. The post-driver stood about seven feet in his boots, with a handsome face, all mud-bespattered.

Many voices beset him familiarly.

"Say, Will, did ye bring down my mola.s.ses?" "Say, Will, did ye match that ribbin f'r me?" "Say, Will," etc., etc.

"You bet I did, every time!" he answered jovially, showing his white teeth. Interest in the post was comparatively moribund; a general parcel-distributing and hand-shaking followed--until we were startled by a cry from Lunette:

"Look a' this, Will Hunson!" said she; "look a' this, will ye? A whole pot o' strawberry jam soaked right plumb inter the middle o' the United States Governmunt!"

It was only too true. The pile of letters and papers which she had emptied onto the moulding table were red and glowing as the summer rose.

Will hung his dismayed head.

"Be them ructions, or ain't they?" coldly demanded Lunette, pointing to the awful pile.

"I didn't mean to," said Will.

"Didn't mean to!" cried Lunette. "Didn't mean to, lived in a lean-to!"

Blasted by terror and sarcasm, we all hung our heads. Snipe grovelled in still farther behind my legs.

"There 's got to be something done!" cried Lunette. "Folks's got to learn 't the United States Governmunt is a awful an' a solemn an' a turrible thing. What ef it sh'd be told 't we hadn't no more respec'

for her down here to the Basin 'n to soak her through with strawberry jam an' molarsses! These here ructions have been a-goin' on too long with the Basin post-office. I'm a-goin' to fill out a blank an' send it to Was.h.i.+n'ton!"