"Come on, come on," urged Issachar Price. "I ain't begun to show ye the whole of it yet . . . Eh? Oh, Lord, there comes Cahoon's team now! Well, I got to go. Show you the rest some other time. So long . . . Eh? Cap'n Lote's callin' you, ain't he?"

Albert went into the office in response to his grandfather's call to find the latter seated at an old-fashioned roll-top desk, piled with papers.

"I've got to go down to the bank, Al," he said. "Some business about a note that Laban ought to be here to see to, but ain't. I'll be back pretty soon. You just stay here and wait for me. You might be lookin' over the books, if you want to. I took 'em out of the safe and they're on Labe's desk there," pointing to the high standing desk by the window. "They're worth lookin' at, if only to see how neat they're kept. A set of books like that is an example to any young man. You might be lookin' 'em over."

He hurried out. Albert smiled condescendingly and, instead of looking over Mr. Keeler's books, walked over to the window and looked out of that. The girl was not in sight now, but she might be soon. At any rate watching for her was as exciting as any amusement he could think of about that dull hole. Ah hum! he wondered how the fellows were at school.

The girl did not reappear. Signs of animation along the main road were limited. One or two men went by, then a group of children obviously on their way to school. Albert yawned again, took the silver cigarette case from his pocket and looked longingly at its contents. He wondered what his grandfather's ideas might be on the tobacco question. But his grandfather was not there then . . . and he might not return for some time . . . and . . . He took a cigarette from the case, tapped, with careful carelessness, its end upon the case—he would not have dreamed of smoking without first going through the tapping process—lighted the cigarette and blew a large and satisfying cloud. Between puffs he sang:

"To you, beautiful lady, I raise my eyes. My heart, beautiful lady, To your heart cries: Come, come, beautiful lady, To Par-a-dise, As the sweet, sweet—'"

Some one behind him said: "Excuse me." The appeal to the beautiful lady broke off in the middle, and he whirled about to find the girl whom he had seen across the road and for whose reappearance he had been watching at the window, standing in the office doorway. He looked at her and she looked at him. He was embarrassed. She did not seem to be.

"Excuse me," she said: "Is Mr. Keeler here?"

She was a pretty girl, so his hasty estimate made when he had first sighted her was correct. Her hair was dark, so were her eyes, and her cheeks were becomingly colored by the chill of the winter air. She was a country girl, her hat and coat proved that; not that they were in bad taste or unbecoming, but they were simple and their style perhaps nearer to that which the young ladies of the Misses Bradshaws' seminary had worn the previous winter. All this Albert noticed in detail later on. Just then the particular point which attracted his embarrassed attention was the look in the dark eyes. They seemed to have almost the same disturbing quality which he had noticed in his grandfather's gray ones. Her mouth was very proper and grave, but her eyes looked as if she were laughing at him.

Now to be laughed at by an attractive young lady is disturbing and unpleasant. It is particularly so when the laughter is from the provinces and the laughee—so to speak—a dignified and sophisticated city man. Albert summoned the said dignity and sophistication to his rescue, knocked the ashes from his cigarette and said, haughtily:

"I beg your pardon?"

"Is Mr. Keeler here?" repeated the girl.

"No, he is out."

"Will he be back soon, do you think?"

Recollections of Mr. Price's recent remark concerning the missing bookkeeper's "good start" came to Albert's mind and he smiled, slightly. "I should say not," he observed, with delicate irony.

"Is Issy—I mean Mr. Price, busy?"

"He's out in the yard there somewhere, I believe. Would you like to have me call him?"

"Why, yes—if you please—sir."

The "sir" was flattering, if it was sincere. He glanced at her. The expression of the mouth was as grave as ever, but he was still uncertain about those eyes. However, he was disposed to give her the benefit of the doubt, so, stepping to the side door of the office—that leading to the yards—he opened it and shouted: "Price! . . . Hey, Price!"

There was no answer, although he could hear Issachar's voice and another above the rattle of lath bundles.

"Price!" he shouted, again. "Pri-i-ce!"

The rattling ceased. Then, in the middle distance, above a pile of "two by fours," appeared Issachar's head, the features agitated and the forehead bedewed with the moisture of honest toil.

"Huh?" yelled Issy. "What's the matter? Be you hollerin' to me?"

"Yes. There's some one here wants to see you."

"Hey?"

"I say there's some one here who wants to see you."

"What for?"

"I don't know."

"Well, find out, can't ye? I'm busy."

Was that a laugh which Albert heard behind him? He turned around, but the young lady's face wore the same grave, even demure, expression.

"What do you want to see him for?" he asked.

"I wanted to buy something."

"She wants to buy something," repeated Albert, shouting.

"Hey?"

"She wants to—BUY—something." It was humiliating to have to scream in this way.

"Buy? Buy what?"

"What do you want to buy?"

"A hook, that's all. A hook for our kitchen door. Would you mind asking him to hurry? I haven't much time."

"She wants a hook."

"Eh? We don't keep books. What kind of a book?"

"Not book—HOOK. H-O-O-K! Oh, great Scott! Hook! HOOK! Hook for a door! And she wants you to hurry."

"Eh? Well, I can't hurry now for nobody. I got to load these laths and that's all there is to it. Can't you wait on him?" Evidently the customer's sex had not yet been made clear to the Price understanding. "You can get a hook for him, can't ye? You know where they be, I showed ye. Ain't forgot so soon, 'tain't likely."

The head disappeared behind the "two by fours." Its face was red, but no redder than Mr. Speranza's at that moment.

"Fool rube!" he snorted, disgustedly.

"Excuse me, but you've dropped your cigarette," observed the young lady.

Albert savagely slammed down the window and turned away. The dropped cigarette stump lay where it had fallen, smudging and smelling.

His caller looked at it and then at him.

"I'd pick it up, if I were you," she said. "Cap'n Snow HATES cigarettes."

Albert, his dignity and indignation forgotten, returned her look with one of anxiety.

"Does he, honest?" he asked.

"Yes. He hates them worse than anything."

The cigarette stump was hastily picked up by its owner.

"Where'll I put it?" he asked, hurriedly.

"Why don't you—Oh, don't put it in your pocket! It will set you on fire. Put it in the stove, quick."

Into the stove it went, all but its fragrance, which lingered.

"Do you think you COULD find me that hook?" asked the girl.

"I'll try. I don't know anything about the confounded things."

"Oh!" innocently. "Don't you?"

"No, of course I don't. Why should I?"

"Aren't you working here?"

"Here? Work HERE? ME? Well, I—should—say—NOT!"

"Oh, excuse me. I thought you must be a new bookkeeper, or—or a new partner, or something."

Albert regarded her intently and suspiciously for some seconds before making another remark. She was as demurely grave as ever, but his suspicions were again aroused. However, she WAS pretty, there could be no doubt about that.

"Maybe I can find the hook for you," he said. "I can try, anyway."

"Oh, thank you ever so much," gratefully. "It's VERY kind of you to take so much trouble."

"Oh," airily, "that's all right. Come on; perhaps we can find it together."

They were still looking when Mr. Price came panting in.

"Whew!" he observed, with emphasis. "If anybody tells you heavin' bundles of laths aboard a truck-wagon ain't hard work you tell him for me he's a liar, will ye. Whew! And I had to do the heft of everything, 'cause Cahoon sent that one-armed nephew of his to drive the team. A healthy lot of good a one-armed man is to help heave lumber! I says to him, says I: 'What in time did—' Eh? Why, hello, Helen! Good mornin'. Land sakes! you're out airly, ain't ye?"

The young lady nodded. "Good morning, Issachar," she said. "Yes, I am pretty early and I'm in a dreadful hurry. The wind blew our kitchen door back against the house last night and broke the hook. I promised Father I would run over here and get him a new one and bring it back to him before I went to school. And it's quarter to nine now."

"Land sakes, so 'tis! Ain't—er—er—what's-his-name—Albert here, found it for you yet? He ain't no kind of a hand to find things, is he? We'll have to larn him better'n that. Yes indeed!"

Albert laughed, sarcastically. He was about to make a satisfyingly crushing reproof to this piece of impertinence when Mr. Price began to sniff the air.

"What in tunket?" he demanded. "Sn'f! Sn'f! Who's been smokin' in here? And cigarettes, too, by crimus! Sn'f! Sn'f! Yes, sir, cigarettes, by crimustee! Who's been smokin' cigarettes in here? If Cap'n Lote knew anybody'd smoked a cigarette in here I don't know's he wouldn't kill 'em. Who done it?"

Albert shivered. The girl with the dark blue eyes flashed a quick glance at him. "I think perhaps someone went by the window when it was open just now," she suggested. "Perhaps they were smoking and the smoke blew in."

"Eh? Well, maybe so. Must have been a mighty rank cigarette to smell up the whole premises like this just goin' past a window. Whew! Gosh! no wonder they say them things are rank pison. I'd sooner smoke skunk-cabbage myself; 'twouldn't smell no worse and 'twould be a dum sight safer. Whew! . . . Well, Helen, there's about the kind of hook I cal'late you need. Fifteen cents 'll let you out on that. Cheap enough for half the money, eh? Give my respects to your pa, will ye. Tell him that sermon he preached last Sunday was fine, but I'd like it better if he'd laid it on to the Univer'lists a little harder. Folks that don't believe in hell don't deserve no consideration, 'cordin' to my notion. So long, Helen . . . Oh say," he added, as an afterthought, "I guess you and Albert ain't been introduced, have ye? Albert, this is Helen Kendall, she's our Orthodox minister's daughter. Helen, this young feller is Albert—er—er—Consarn it, I've asked Cap'n Lote that name a dozen times if I have once! What is it, anyway?"

"Speranza," replied the owner of the name.

"That's it, Sperandy. This is Albert Sperandy, Cap'n Lote's grandson."

Albert and Miss Kendall shook hands.

"Thanks," said the former, gratefully and significantly.

The young lady smiled.

"Oh, you're welcome," she said. "I knew who you were all the time—or I guessed who you must be. Cap'n Snow told me you were coming."

She went out. Issachar, staring after her, chuckled admiringly. "Smartest girl in THIS town," he observed, with emphasis. "Head of her class up to high school and only sixteen and three-quarters at that."

Captain Zelotes came bustling in a few minutes later. He went to his desk, paying little attention to his grandson. The latter loitered idly up and down the office and hardware shop, watching Issachar wait on customers or rush shouting into the yard to attend to the wants of others there. Plainly this was Issachar's busy day.

"Crimus!" he exclaimed, returning from one such excursion and mopping his forehead. "This doin' two men's work ain't no fun. Every time Labe goes on a time seem's if trade was brisker'n it's been for a month. Seems as if all creation and part of East Harniss had been hangin' back waitin' till he had a shade on 'fore they come to trade. Makes a feller feel like votin' the Prohibition ticket. I WOULD vote it, by crimustee, if I thought 'twould do any good. 'Twouldn't though; Labe would take to drinkin' bay rum or Florida water or somethin', same as Hoppy Rogers done when he was alive. Jim Young says he went into Hoppy's barber-shop once and there was Hoppy with a bottle of a new kind of hair-tonic in his hand. 'Drummer that was here left it for a sample,' says Hoppy. 'Wanted me to try it and, if I liked it, he cal'lated maybe I'd buy some. I don't think I shall, though,' he says; 'don't taste right to me.' Yes, sir, Jim Young swears that's true. Wan't enough snake-killer in that hair tonic to suit Hoppy. I—Yes, Cap'n Lote, what is it? Want me, do ye?"

But the captain did not, as it happened, want Mr. Price at that time. It was Albert whose name he had called. The boy went into the office and his grandfather rose and shut the door.

"Sit down, Al," he said, motioning toward a chair. When his grandson had seated himself Captain Zelotes tilted back his own desk chair upon its springs and looked at him.

"Well, son," he said, after a moment, "what do you think of it?"

"Think of it? I don't know exactly what—"

"Of the place here. Shop, yards, the whole business. Z. Snow and Company—what do you think of it?"

Privately Albert was inclined to classify the entire outfit as one-horse and countrified, but he deemed it wiser not to express this opinion. So he compromised and replied that it "seemed to be all right."

His grandfather nodded. "Thanks," he observed, dryly. "Glad you find it that way. Well, then, changin' the subject for a minute or two, what do you think about yourself?"

"About myself? About me? I don't understand?"

"No, I don't suppose you do. That's what I got you over here this mornin' for, so as we could understand—you and me. Al, have you given any thought to what you're goin' to do from this on? How you're goin' to live?"

Albert looked at him uncomprehendingly.

"How I'm going to live?" he repeated. "Why—why, I thought—I supposed I was going to live with you—with you and Grandmother."

"Um-hm, I see."

"I just kind of took that for granted, I guess. You sent for me to come here. You took me away from school, you know."

"Yes, so I did. You know why I took you from school?"

"No, I—I guess I DON'T, exactly. I thought—I supposed it was because you didn't want me to go there any more."

"'Twasn't that. I don't know whether I would have wanted you to go there or not if things had been different. From what I hear it was a pretty extravagant place, and lookin' at it from the outside without knowin' too much about it, I should say it was liable to put a lot of foolish and expensive notions into a boy's head. I may be wrong, of course; I have been wrong at least a few times in my life."

It was evident that he considered the chances of his being wrong in this instance very remote. His tone again aroused in the youth the feeling of obstinacy, of rebellion, of desire to take the other side.

"It is one of the best schools in this country," he declared. "My father said so."

Captain Zelotes picked up a pencil on his desk and tapped his chin lightly with the blunt end. "Um," he mused. "Well, I presume likely he knew all about it."

"He knew as much as—most people," with a slight but significant hesitation before the "most."

"Um-hm. Naturally, havin' been schooled there himself, I suppose."

"He wasn't schooled there. My father was a Spaniard."

"So I've heard. . . . Well, we're kind of off the subject, ain't we? Let's leave your father's nationality out of it for a while. And we'll leave the school, too, because no matter if it was the best one on earth you couldn't go there. I shouldn't feel 'twas right to spend as much money as that at any school, and you—well, son, you ain't got it to spend. Did you have any idea what your father left you, in the way of tangible assets?"

"No. I knew he had plenty of money always. He was one of the most famous singers in this country."

"Maybe so."

"It WAS so," hotly. "And he was paid enough in one week to buy this whole town—or almost. Why, my father—"

"Sshh! Sssh!"

"No, I'm not going to hush. I'm proud of my father. He was a—a great man. And—and I'm not going to stand here and have you—"

Between indignation and emotion he choked and could not finish the sentence. The tears came to his eyes.

"I'm not going to have you or anyone else talk about him that way," he concluded, fiercely.

His grandfather regarded him with a steady, but not at all unkindly, gaze.

"I ain't runnin' down your father, Albert," he said.

"Yes, you are. You hated him. Anybody could see you hated him."

The captain slowly rapped the desk with the pencil. He did not answer at once.

"Well," he said, after a moment, "I don't know as I ought to deny that. I don't know as I can deny it and be honest. Years ago he took away from me what amounted to three-quarters of everything that made my life worth while. Some day you'll know more about it than you do now, and maybe you'll understand my p'int of view better. No, I didn't like your father—Eh? What was you sayin'?"

Albert, who had muttered something, was rather confused. However, he did not attempt to equivocate. "I said I guessed that didn't make much difference to Father," he answered, sullenly.

"I presume likely it didn't. But we won't go into that question now. What I'm tryin' to get at in this talk we're having is you and your future. Now you can't go back to school because you can't afford it. All your father left when he died was—this is the honest truth I'm tellin' you now, and if I'm puttin' it pretty blunt it's because I always think it's best to get a bad mess out of the way in a hurry—all your father left was debts. He didn't leave money enough to bury him, hardly."

The boy stared at him aghast. His grandfather, leaning a little toward him, would have put a hand on his knee, but the knee was jerked out of the way.

"There, that's over, Al," went on Captain Zelotes. "You know the worst now and you can say, 'What of it?' I mean just that: What of it? Bein' left without a cent, but with your health and a fair chance to make good—that, at seventeen or eighteen ain't a bad lookout, by any manner of means. It's the outlook I had at fifteen—exceptin' the chance—and I ain't asked many favors of anybody since. At your age, or a month or two older, do you know where I was? I was first mate of a three-masted schooner. At twenty I was skipper; and at twenty-five, by the Almighty, I owned a share in her. Al, all you need now is a chance to go to work. And I'm goin' to give you that chance."

Albert gasped. "Do you mean—do you mean I've got to be a—a sailor?" he stammered.

Captain Zelotes put back his head and laughed, laughed aloud.

"A sailor!" he repeated. "Ho, ho! No wonder you looked scared. No, I wan't cal'latin' to make a sailor out of you, son. For one reason, sailorin' ain't what it used to be; and, for another, I have my doubts whether a young feller of your bringin' up would make much of a go handlin' a bunch of fo'mast hands the first day out. No, I wasn't figgerin' to send you to sea . . . What do you suppose I brought you down to this place for this mornin'?"

And then Albert understood. He knew why he had been conducted through the lumber yards, about the hardware shop, why his grandfather and Mr. Price had taken so much pains to exhibit and explain. His heart sank.

"I brought you down here," continued the captain, "because it's a first-rate idea to look a vessel over afore you ship aboard her. It's kind of late to back out after you have shipped. Ever since I made up my mind to send for you and have you live along with your grandmother and me I've been plannin' what to do with you. I knew, if you was a decent, ambitious young chap, you'd want to do somethin' towards makin' a start in life. We can use—that is, this business can use that kind of a chap right now. He could larn to keep books and know lumber and hardware and how to sell and how to buy. He can larn the whole thing. There's a chance here, son. It's your chance; I'm givin' it to you. How big a chance it turns out to be 'll depend on you, yourself."

He stopped. Albert was silent. His thoughts were confused, but out of their dismayed confusion two or three fixed ideas reared themselves like crags from a whirlpool. He was to live in South Hamiss always—always; he was to keep books—Heavens, how he hated mathematics, detail work of any kind!—for drunken old Keeler; he was to "heave lumber" with Issy Price. He—Oh, it was dreadful! It was horrible. He couldn't! He wouldn't! He—

Captain Zelotes had been watching him, his heavy brows drawing closer together as the boy delayed answering.

"Well?" he asked, for another minute. "Did you hear what I said?"

"Yes."

"Understood, did you?"

"Yes—sir."

"Well?"

Albert was clutching at straws. "I—I don't know how to keep books," he faltered.

"I didn't suppose you did. Don't imagine they teach anything as practical as bookkeepin' up at that school of yours. But you can larn, can't you?"

"I—I guess so."

"I guess so, too. Good Lord, I HOPE so! Humph! You don't seem to be jumpin' for joy over the prospect. There's a half dozen smart young fellers here in South Harniss that would, I tell you that."

Albert devoutly wished they had jumped—and landed—before his arrival. His grandfather's tone grew more brusque.

"Don't you want to work?" he demanded.

"Why, yes, I—I suppose I do. I—I hadn't thought much about it."

"Humph! Then I think it's time you begun. Hadn't you had ANY notion of what you wanted to do when you got out of that school of yours?"

"I was going to college."

"Humph! . . . Yes, I presume likely. Well, after you got out of college, what was you plannin' to do then?"

"I wasn't sure. I thought I might do something with my music. I can play a little. I can't sing—that is, not well enough. If I could," wistfully, "I should have liked to be in opera, as father was, of course."

Captain Zelotes' only comment was a sniff or snort, or combination of both. Albert went on.

"I had thought of writing—writing books and poems, you know. I've written quite a good deal for the school magazine. And I think I should like to be an actor, perhaps. I—"

"Good God!" His grandfather's fist came down upon the desk before him. Slowly he shook his head.

"A—a poetry writer and an actor!" he repeated. "Whew! . . . Well, there! Perhaps maybe we hadn't better talk any more just now. You can have the rest of the day to run around town and sort of get acquainted, if you want to. Then to-morrow mornin' you and I'll come over here together and we'll begin to break you in. I shouldn't wonder," he added, dryly, "if you found it kind of dull at first—compared to that school and poetry makin' and such—but it'll be respectable and it'll pay for board and clothes and somethin' to eat once in a while, which may not seem so important to you now as 'twill later on. And some day I cal'late—anyhow we'll hope—you'll be mighty glad you did it."

Poor Albert looked and felt anything but glad just then. Captain Zelotes, his hands in his pockets, stood regarding him. He, too, did not look particularly happy.

"You'll remember," he observed, "or perhaps you don't know, that when your father asked us to look out for you—"

Albert interrupted. "Did—did father ask you to take care of me?" he cried, in surprise.

"Um-hm. He asked somebody who was with him to ask us to do just that."

The boy drew a long breath. "Well, then," he said, hopelessly, "I'll—I'll try."

"Thanks. Now you run around town and see the sights. Dinner's at half past twelve prompt, so be on hand for that."

After his grandson had gone, the captain, hands still in his pockets, stood for some time looking out of the window. At length he spoke aloud.

"A play actor or a poetry writer!" he exclaimed. "Tut, tut, tut! No use talkin', blood will tell!"

Issachar, who was putting coal on the office fire, turned his head.

"Eh?" he queried.

"Nothin'," said Captain Lote.

He would have been surprised if he could have seen his grandson just at that moment. Albert, on the beach whither he had strayed in his desire to be alone, safely hidden from observation behind a sand dune, was lying with his head upon his arms and sobbing bitterly.

A disinterested person might have decided that the interview which had just taken place and which Captain Zelotes hopefully told his wife that morning would probably result in "a clear, comf'table understandin' between the boy and me"—such a disinterested person might have decided that it had resulted in exactly the opposite. In calculating the results to be obtained from that interview the captain had not taken into consideration two elements, one his own and the other his grandson's. These elements were prejudice and temperament.



CHAPTER IV

The next morning, with much the same feeling that a convict must experience when he enters upon a life imprisonment, Albert entered the employ of "Z. Snow and Co., Lumber and Builders' Hardware." The day, he would have sworn it, was at least a year long. The interval between breakfast and dinner was quite six months, yet the dinner hour itself was the shortest sixty minutes he had ever known. Mr. Keeler had not yet returned to his labors, so there was no instruction in bookkeeping; but his grandfather gave him letters to file and long dreary columns of invoice figures to add. Twice Captain Zelotes went out and then, just as Albert settled back for a rest and breathing spell, Issachar Price appeared, warned apparently by some sort of devilish intuition, and invented "checking up stock" and similar menial and tiresome tasks to keep him uncomfortable till the captain returned. The customers who came in asked questions concerning him and he was introduced to at least a dozen citizens of South Harniss, who observed "Sho!" and "I want to know!" when told his identity and, in some instances, addressed him as "Bub," which was of itself a crime deserving capital punishment.

That night, as he lay in bed in the back bedroom, he fell asleep facing the dreary prospect of another monotonous imprisonment the following day, and the next day, and the day after that, and after that—and after that—and so on—and on—and on—forever and ever, as long as life should last. This, then, was to be the end of all his dreams, this drudgery in a country town among these commonplace country people. This was the end of his dreams of some day writing deathless odes and sonnets or thrilling romances; of treading the boards as the hero of romantic drama while star-eyed daughters of multi-millionaires gazed from the boxes in spellbound rapture. This . . . The thought of the star-eyed ones reminded him of the girl who had come into the office the afternoon of his first visit to that torture chamber. He had thought of her many times since their meeting and always with humiliation and resentment. It was his own foolish tongue which had brought the humiliation upon him. When she had suggested that he might be employed by Z. Snow and Co. he had replied: "Me? Work HERE! Well, I should say NOT!" And all the time she, knowing who he was, must have known he was doomed to work there. He resented that superior knowledge of hers. He had made a fool of himself but she was to blame for it. Well, by George, he would NOT work there! He would run away, he would show her, and his grandfather and all the rest what was what. Night after night he fell asleep vowing to run away, to do all sorts of desperate deeds, and morning after morning he went back to that office.

On the fourth morning the prodigal came home, the stray lamb returned to the fold—Mr. Keeler returned to his desk and his duties. There was a premonition of his return at the Snow breakfast table. For three days Mrs. Ellis had swathed her head in white and her soul in black. For three days her favorite accompaniment to conversation had been a groan or a sigh. Now, on this fourth morning, she appeared without the bandage on her brow or the crape upon her spirit. She was not hilarious but she did not groan once, and twice during the meal she actually smiled. Captain Lote commented upon the change, she being absent from table momentarily.

"Whew!" he observed, in an undertone, addressing his wife. "If it ain't a comfort to see the wrinkles on Rachel's face curvin' up instead of down. I'm scared to death that she'll go out some time in a cold spell when she's havin' one of them sympathetics of hers, and her face'll freeze that way. Well, Albert," turning to his grandson, "the colors'll be h'isted to the truck now instead of half-mast and life'll be somethin' besides one everlastin' 'last look at the remains.' Now we can take off the mournin' till the next funeral."

"Yes," said Olive, "and Laban'll be back, too. I'm sure you must have missed him awfully, Zelotes."

"Missed him! I should say so. For one thing, I miss havin' him between me and Issy. When Labe's there Is talks to him and Labe keeps on thinkin' of somethin' else and so it don't worry him any. I can't do that, and my eardrums get to wearin' thin and that makes me nervous. Maybe you've noticed that Issy's flow of conversation ain't what you'd call a trickle," he added, turning to Albert.

Albert had noticed it. "But," he asked, "what makes Rachel—Mrs. Ellis—so cheerful this morning? Does she know that Mr. Keeler will be back at work? How does she know? She hasn't seen him, has she?"

"No," replied the captain. "She ain't seen him. Nobody sees him, far's that goes. He generally clears out somewheres and locks himself up in a room, I judge, till his vacation's over. I suppose that's one way to have fun, but it ain't what I'd call hilarious."

"Don't, Zelotes," said Mrs. Snow. "I do wish you wouldn't call it fun."

"I don't, but Laban seems to. If he don't do it for fun I don't know what he does it for. Maybe it's from a sense of duty. It ain't to oblige me, I know that."

Albert repeated his question. "But how does she know he will be back to-day?" he asked.

His grandmother shook her head. "That's the mysterious part about it," she whispered. "It makes a person think there may be somethin' in the sympathetic notion she talks so much about. She don't see him at all and yet we can always tell when he's comin' back to work by her spirits. If he ain't back to-day he will be to-morrow, you'll see. She never misses by more than a day. I think it's real sort of mysterious, but Zelotes laughs at me."

Captain Lote's lip twitched. "Yes, Mother," he said, "it's about as mysterious as the clock's strikin' twelve when it's noon. I know it's morally sartin that Labe'll be back aboard to-day or to-morrow because his sprees don't ever last more than five days. I can't swear to how she knows, but that's how I know—and I'm darned sure there's no 'sympathy' about my part." Then, as if realizing that he had talked more than usual, he called, brusquely: "Come on, Al, come on. Time we were on the job, boy."

Sure enough, as they passed the window of the office, there, seated on the stool behind the tall desk, Albert saw the diminutive figure of the man who had been his driver on the night of his arrival. He was curious to see how the delinquent would apologize for or explain his absence. But Mr. Keeler did neither, nor did Captain Snow ask a question. Instead the pair greeted each other as if they had parted in that office at the close of business on the previous day.

"Mornin', Cap'n Lote," said Laban, quietly.

"Mornin', Labe," replied the captain, just as calmly.

He went on and opened his own desk, leaving his grandson standing by the door, not knowing whether to speak or offer to shake hands. The situation was a little difficult, particularly as Mr. Keeler gave no sign of recognition, but, after a glance at his employer's companion, went on making entries in the ledger.

Captain Zelotes looked up a moment later. His gray eyes inspected the pair and the expression on Albert's face caused them to twinkle slightly. "Labe," he said, "this is my grandson, Albert, the one I told you was comin' to live with us."

Laban turned on the stool, regarded Albert over his spectacles, and extended a hand.

"Pleased to meet you," he said. "Yes, yes . . . Yes, yes, yes. . . Pleased to meet you. Cap'n Lote said you was comin'—er—er—Alfred. Howdy do."

They shook hands. Mr. Keeler's hand trembled a little, but that was the only symptom of his recent "vacation" which the youth could notice. Certain vivid remembrances of his father's bad humor on mornings following convivial evenings recurred to him. Was it possible that this odd, precise, dried-up little man had been on a spree for four days? It did not seem possible. He looked more as if he might be expected to rap on the desk and ask the school to come to order.

"Albert's goin' to take hold here with us in the office," went on Captain Lote. "You'll remember I spoke to you about that when we talked about his comin'. Al, Labe—Mr. Keeler here—will start you in larnin' to bookkeep. He'll be your first mate from now on. Don't forget you're a fo'mast hand yet awhile and the way for a fo'mast hand to get ahead is to obey orders. And don't," he added, with a quiet chuckle, "do any play-actin' or poetry-makin' when it's your watch on deck. Laban nor I ain't very strong for play-actin', are we, Labe?"

Laban, to whom the reference was anything but clear, replied rather vaguely that he didn't know as he was, very. Albert's temper flared up again. His grandfather was sneering at him once more; he was always sneering at him. All right, let him sneer—now. Some day he would be shown. He scowled and turned away. And Captain Zelotes, noticing the scowl, was reminded of a scowl he had seen upon the face of a Spanish opera singer some twenty years before. He did not like to be reminded of that man.

He went out soon afterward and then Laban, turning to Albert, asked a few questions.

"How do you think you're goin' to like South Harniss, Ansel?" he asked.

Albert was tempted to reply that he, Keeler, had asked him that very question before, but he thought it best not to do so.

"I don't know yet," he answered, carelessly. "Well enough, I guess."

"You'll like it fust-rate bimeby. Everybody does when they get used to it. Takes some time to get used to a place, don't you know it does, Ansel?"

"My name is Albert."

"Eh? Yes, yes, so 'tis. Yes, yes, yes. I don't know why I called you Ansel, 'less 'twas on account of my knowin' an Ansel Olsen once . . . Hum . . . Yes, yes. Well, you'll like South Harniss when you get used to it."

The boy did not answer. He was of the opinion that he should die long before the getting used process was completed. Mr. Keeler continued.

"Come on yesterday's train, did you?" he asked.

Albert looked at him. Was the fellow joking? He did not look as if he was.

"Why no," he replied. "I came last Monday night. Don't you remember?"

"Eh? Oh, yes . . . Yes, yes, yes . . . Last Monday night you come, eh? On the night train, eh?" He hesitated a moment and then asked. "Cap'n Lote fetch you down from the depot?"

Albert stared at him open-mouthed.

"Why, no!" he retorted. "You drove me down yourself."

For the first time a slight shade of embarrassment crossed the bookkeeper's features. He drew a long breath.

"Yes," he mused. "Yes, yes, yes. I kind of thought I—yes, yes,—I—I thought likely I did . . . Yes, yes, course I did, course I did. Well, now maybe we'd better be startin' you in to work—er—Augustus. Know anything about double-entry, do you?"

Albert did not, nor had he the slightest desire to learn. But before the first hour was over he foresaw that he was destined to learn, if he remained in that office, whether he wanted to or not. Laban Keeler might be, and evidently was, peculiar in his ways, but as a bookkeeper he was thoroughness personified. And as a teacher of his profession he was just as thorough. All that forenoon Albert practiced the first principles of "double entry" and, after the blessed hour for dinner, came back to practice the remainder of the working day.

And so for many days. Little by little he learned to invoice and journalize and "post in the ledger" and all the rest of the detail of bookkeeping. Not that his instructor permitted him to do a great deal of actual work upon the books of Z. Snow and Co. Those books were too spotless and precious for that. Looking over them Albert was surprised and obliged to admit a grudging admiration at the manner in which, for the most part, they had been kept. Page after page of the neatest of minute figures, not a blot, not a blur, not an erasure. So for months; then, in the minor books, like the day-book or journal, would suddenly break out an eruption of smudges and scrawls in the rugged handwriting of Captain Zelotes. When he first happened upon one of these Albert unthinkingly spoke to Mr. Keeler about it. He asked the latter what it meant.

Laban slowly stroked his nose with his thumb and finger, a habit he had.

"I cal'late I was away for a spell then," he said, gravely. "Yes, yes . . . Yes, yes, yes. I was away for a little spell."

He went soberly back to his desk. His new assistant, catching a glimpse of his face, felt a pang of real pity for the little man. Of course the reason for the hiatus in the books was plain enough. He knew about those "little spells." Oddly enough Laban seemed to feel sorry for them. He remembered how funny the bookkeeper had appeared at their first meeting, when one "spell" was just developing, and the contrast between the singing, chirruping clown and the precise, grave little person at the desk struck even his youthful mind as peculiar. He had read "Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," and now here was an example of something similar. He was beginning to like Laban Keeler, although he was perfectly sure that he should never like bookkeeping.

He did not slave at the books all the time, of course. For stretches, sometimes lasting whole days, his slavery was of another sort. Then he was working in the lumber yard with Issachar, or waiting on customers in the hardware shop. The cold of winter set in in earnest now and handling "two by fours" and other timber out where the raw winds swept piercingly through one's overcoat and garments and flesh to the very bone was a trying experience. His hands were chapped and cracked, even though his grandmother had knit him a pair of enormous red mittens. He appreciated the warmth of the mittens, but he hated the color. Why in the name of all that was inartistic did she choose red; not a deep, rich crimson, but a screeching vermilion, like a fireman's shirt?

Issachar, when he had the opportunity, was a hard boss. It suited Mr. Price to display his superior knowledge and to find fault with his helper's lack of skill. Albert's hot temper was at the boiling point many times, but he fought it down. Occasionally he retorted in kind, but his usual and most effective weapon was a more or less delicate sarcasm. Issachar did not understand sarcasm and under rapid fire he was inclined to lose his head.

"Consarn it!" he snapped, irritably, on one occasion. "Consarn it, Al, why don't you h'ist up on t'other end of that j'ist? What do you cal'late you're out here along of me for; to look harnsome?"

Albert shook his head. "No, Is," he answered, gravely. "No, that wouldn't be any use. With you around nobody else has a look-in at the 'handsome' game. Issy, what do you do to your face?"

"Do to it? What do you mean by do to it?"

"What do you do to it to make it look the way it does? Don't tell me it grew that way naturally."

"Grew! Course it grew! What kind of talk's that?"

"Issy, with a face like yours how do you keep the birds away?"

"Eh? Keep the birds away! Now look here, just—"

"Excuse me. Did I say 'birds,' Issy? I didn't mean birds like—like crows. Of course a face like yours would keep the crows away all right enough. I meant girls. How do you keep the girls away? I should think they would be making love all the time."

"Aw, you shut up! Just 'cause you're Cap'n Lote's grandson I presume likely you think you can talk any kind of talk, don't ye?"

"Not any kind, Is. I can't talk like you. Will you teach me?"

"Shut up! Now, by Crimus, you—you furriner—you Speranzy—"

Mr. Keeler appeared at the office window. His shrill voice rose pipingly in the wintry air as he demanded to know what was the trouble out there.

Mr. Price, still foaming, strode toward the window; Albert laughingly followed him.

"What's the matter?" repeated Laban. "There's enough noise for a sewin' circle. Be still, Is, can't you, for a minute. Al, what's the trouble?"

"Issy's been talking about his face," explained Albert, soberly.

"I ain't neither. I was h'istin' up my end of a j'ist, same as I'm paid to do, and, 'stead of helpin' he stands there and heaves out talk about—about—"

"Well, about what?"

"Aw, about—about me and—and girls—and all sorts of dum foolishness. I tell ye, I've got somethin' else to do beside listen to that kind of cheap talk."

"Um. Yes, yes. I see. Well, Al, what have you got to say?"

"Nothing. I'm sure I don't know what it is all about. I was working as hard as I could and all at once he began pitching into me."

"Pitchin' into you? How?"

"Oh, I don't know. Something about my looks he didn't like, I guess. Wanted to know if I thought I was as handsome as he was, or something like that."

"Eh? I never neither! All I said was—"

Mr. Keeler raised his hand. "Seems to be a case for an umpire," he observed. "Um. Seem's if 'twas, seems so, seems so. Well, Captain Lote's just comin' across the road and, if you say the word, I'll call him in to referee. What do you say?"

They said nothing relevant to the subject in hand. Issachar made the only remark. "Crimus-TEE!" he ejaculated. "Come on, Al, come on."

The pair hurried away to resume lumber piling. Laban smiled slightly and closed the window. It may be gathered from this incident that when the captain was in charge of the deck there was little idle persiflage among the "fo'mast hands." They, like others in South Harniss, did not presume to trifle with Captain Lote Snow.

So the business education of Alberto Miguel Carlos Speranza progressed. At the end of the first six weeks in South Harniss he had learned a little about bookkeeping, a little about selling hardware, a little about measuring and marking lumber. And it must be admitted that that little had been acquired, not because of vigorous application on the part of the pupil, but because, being naturally quick and intelligent, he could not help learning something. He liked the work just as little as he had in the beginning of his apprenticeship. And, although he was forgetting his thoughts of running away, of attempting fortune on his own hook, he was just as rebellious as ever against a future to be spent in that office and at that work.

Outside the office and the hateful bookkeeping he was beginning to find several real interests. At the old house which had for generations been called "the Snow place," he was beginning to feel almost at home. He and his grandmother were becoming close friends. She was not looking for trouble, she never sat for long intervals gazing at him as if she were guessing, guessing, guessing concerning him. Captain Zelotes did that, but Olive did not. She had taken the boy, her "Janie's boy," to her heart from the moment she saw him and she mothered him and loved him in a way which—so long as it was not done in public—comforted his lonely soul. They had not yet reached the stage where he confided in her to any great extent, but that was certain to come later. It was his grandmother's love and the affection he was already beginning to feel for her which, during these first lonesome, miserable weeks, kept him from, perhaps, turning the running away fantasy into a reality.

Another inmate of the Snow household with whom Albert was becoming better acquainted with was Mrs. Rachel Ellis. Their real acquaintanceship began one Sunday forenoon when Captain Zelotes and Olive had gone to church. Ordinarily he would have accompanied them, to sit in the straight-backed old pew on a cushion which felt lumpy and smelt ancient and musty, and pretend to listen while old Mr. Kendall preached a sermon which was ancient and musty likewise.

But this Sunday morning he awoke with a headache and his grandmother had pleaded for him, declaring that he ought to "lay to bed" a while and get over it. He got over it with surprising quickness after the church bell ceased ringing, and came downstairs to read Ivanhoe in the sitting room. He had read it several times before, but he wanted to read something and the choice of volumes in the Snow bookcase was limited. He was stretched out on the sofa with the book in his hand when the housekeeper entered, armed with a dust-cloth. She went to church only "every other" Sunday. This was one of the others without an every, and she was at home.

"What are you readin', Albert?" she asked, after a few' minutes vigorous wielding of the dust-cloth. "It must be awful interestin', you stick at it so close."

The Black Knight was just then hammering with his battle-axe at the gate of Front de Buef's castle, not minding the stones and beams cast down upon him from above "no more than if they were thistle-down or feathers." Albert absently admitted that the story was interesting. The housekeeper repeated her request to be told its name.

"Ivanhoe," replied the boy; adding, as the name did not seem to convey any definite idea to his interrogator's mind: "It's by Walter Scott, you know."

Mrs. Ellis made no remark immediately. When she did it was to the effect that she used to know a colored man named Scott who worked at the hotel once. "He swept out and carried trunks and such things," she explained. "He seemed to be a real nice sort of colored man, far as ever I heard."

Albert was more interested in the Black Knight of Ivanhoe than the black man of the hotel, so he went on reading. Rachel sat down in a chair by the window and looked out, twisting and untwisting the dust-cloth in her lap.

"I presume likely lots and lots of folks have read that book, ain't they?" she asked, after another interval.

"What? Oh, yes, almost everybody. It's a classic, I suppose."

"What's that?"

"What's what?"

"What you said the book was. A class-somethin' or other?"

"Oh, a classic. Why, it's—it's something everybody knows about, or—or ought to know about. One of the big things, you know. Like—like Shakespeare or—or Robinson Crusoe or Paradise Lost or—lots of them. It's a book everybody reads and always will."

"I see. Humph! Well, I never read it. . . . I presume likely you think that's pretty funny, don't you?"

Albert tore himself away from the fight at the gate.

"Why, I don't know," he replied.

"Yes, you do. You think it's awful funny. Well, you wouldn't if you knew more about how busy I've been all my life. I ain't had time to read the way I'd ought to. I read a book once though that I'll never forget. Did you ever read a book called Foul Play?"

"No. . . . Why, hold on, though; I think I have. By Charles Reade, wasn't it?"

"Yes, that's who wrote it, a man named Charles Reade. Laban told me that part of it; he reads a lot, Laban does. I never noticed who wrote it, myself. I was too interested in it to notice little extry things like that. But ain't that a WONDERFUL book? Ain't that the best book you ever read in all your LIFE?"

She dropped the dust-cloth and was too excited and enthusiastic to pick it up. Albert did his best to recall something definite concerning Foul Play. The book had been in the school library and he, who read almost everything, had read it along with the others.

"Let me see," he said musingly. "About a shipwreck—something about a shipwreck in it, wasn't there?"

"I should say there was! My stars above! Not the common kind of shipwreck, neither, the kind they have down to Setuckit P'int on the shoals. No sir-ee! This one was sunk on purpose. That Joe Wylie bored holes right down through her with a gimlet, the wicked thing! And that set 'em afloat right out on the sea in a boat, and there wan't anything to eat till Robert Penfold—oh, HE was the smart one; he'd find anything, that man!—he found the barnacles on the bottom of the boat, just the same as he found out how to diffuse intelligence tied onto a duck's leg over land knows how many legs—leagues, I mean—of ocean. But that come later. Don't you remember THAT?"

Albert laughed. The story was beginning to come back to him.

"Oh, sure!" he exclaimed. "I remember now. He—the Penfold fellow—and the girl landed on this island and had all sorts of adventures, and fell in love and all that sort of stuff, and then her dad came and took her back to England and she—she did something or other there to—to get the Penfold guy out of trouble."

"Did somethin'! I should say she did! Why, she found out all about who forged the letter—the note, I mean—that's what she done. 'Twas Arthur Wardlaw, that's who 'twas. And he was tryin' to get Helen all the time for himself, the skinner! Don't talk to me about that Arthur Wardlaw! I never could bear HIM."

She spoke as if she had known the detested Wardlaw intimately from childhood. Young Speranza was hugely amused. Ivanhoe was quite forgotten.

"Foul Play was great stuff," he observed. "When did you read it?"

"Eh? When? Oh, ever and ever so long ago. When I was about twenty, I guess, and laid up with the measles. That's the only time I ever was real what you might call down sick in my life, and I commenced with measles. That's the way a good many folks commence, I know, but they don't generally wait till they're out of their 'teens afore they start. I was workin' for Mrs. Philander Bassett at the time, and she says to me: 'Rachel,' she says, 'you're on the mendin' hand now, wouldn't you like a book to read?' I says, 'Why, maybe I would.' And she fetched up three of 'em. I can see 'em now, all three, plain as day. One was Barriers Burned Away. She said that was somethin' about a big fire. Well, I'm awful nervous about fires, have been from a child, so I didn't read that. And another had the queerest kind of a name, if you'd call it a name at all; 'twas She."

Albert nodded.

"Yes," he said. "I've read that."

"Have you? Well, I begun to, but my stars, THAT wasn't any book to give to a person with nerve symptoms. I got as far as where those Indians or whatever they was started to put red-hot kettles on folks's heads, and that was enough for ME. 'Give me somethin' civilized,' says I, 'or not at all.' So I commenced Foul Play, and I tell you I kept right on to the end.

"I don't suppose," she went on, "that there ever was a much better book than that wrote, was there?"

Albert temporized. "It is a good one," he admitted.

"Don't seem to me there could be much better. Laban says it's good, though he won't go so far as to say it's the very best. He's read lots and lots of books, Laban has. Reads an awful lot in his spare time. He's what you'd call an educated person, which is what I ain't. And I guess you'll say that last is plain enough without bein' told," she added.

Her companion, not exactly knowing how to answer, was silent for a moment. Rachel, who had picked up and was again twisting the dust-cloth, returned to the subject she so delighted in.

"But that Foul Play book," she continued, "I've read till I've pretty nigh wore the covers off. When Mrs. Bassett saw how much I liked it she gave it to me for a present. I read a little bit in it every little while. I kind of fit the folks in that book to folks in real life, sort of compare 'em, you know. Do you ever do that?"

Albert, repressing a chuckle, said, "Sure!" again. She nodded.

"Now there's General Rolleson in that book," she said. "Do you know who he makes me think of? Cap'n Lote, your grandpa, that's who."

General Rolleson, as Albert remembered him, was an extremely dignified, cultured and precise old gentleman. Just what resemblance there might be between him and Captain Zelotes Snow, ex-skipper of the Olive S., he could not imagine. He could not repress a grin, and the housekeeper noticed it.

"Seems funny to you, I presume likely," she said. "Well, now you think about it. This General Rolleson man was kind of proud and sot in his ways just as your grandpa is, Albert. He had a daughter he thought all the world of; so did Cap'n Lote. Along come a person that wanted to marry the daughter. In the book 'twas Robert Penfold, who had been a convict. In your grandpa's case, 'twas your pa, who had been a play-actor. So you see—"

Albert sat up on the sofa. "Hold on!" he interrupted indignantly. "Do you mean to compare my father with a—with a CONVICT? I want you to understand—"

Mrs. Ellis held up the dust-cloth. "Now, now, now," she protested. "Don't go puttin' words in my mouth that I didn't say. I don't doubt your pa was a nice man, in his way, though I never met him. But 'twan't Cap'n Lote's way any more than Robert Penfold's was General Rolleson's."

"My father was famous," declared the youth hotly. "He was one of the most famous singers in this country. Everybody knows that—that is, everybody but Grandfather and the gang down here," he added, in disgust.

"I don't say you're wrong. Laban tells me that some of those singin' folks get awful high wages, more than the cap'n of a steamboat, he says, though that seems like stretchin' it to me. But, as I say, Cap'n Lote was proud, and nobody but the best would satisfy him for Janie, your mother. Well, in that way, you see, he reminds me of General Rolleson in the book."

"Look here, Mrs. Ellis. Tell me about this business of Dad's marrying my mother. I never knew much of anything about it."

"You didn't? Did your pa never tell you?"

"No."

"Humph! That's funny. Still, I don't know's as 'twas, after all, considerin' you was only a boy. Probably he'd have told you some day. Well, I don't suppose there's any secret about it. 'Twas town talk down here when it happened."

She told him the story of the runaway marriage. Albert listened with interest and the almost incredulous amazement with which the young always receive tales of their parents' love affairs. Love, for people of his age or a trifle older, was a natural and understandable thing, but for his father, as he remembered him, to have behaved in this way was incomprehensible.

"So," said Rachel, in conclusion, "that's how it happened. That's why Cap'n Lote couldn't ever forgive your father."

He tossed his head. "Well, he ought to have forgiven him," he declared. "He was dead lucky to get such a man for a son-in-law, if you ask me."

"He didn't think so. And he wouldn't ever mention your pa's name."

"Oh, I don't doubt that. Anybody can see how he hated Father. And he hates me the same way," he added moodily.

Mrs. Ellis was much disturbed. "Oh, no, he don't," she cried. "You mustn't think that, Albert. He don't hate you, I'm sure of it. He's just kind of doubtful about you, that's all. He remembers how your pa acted—or how he thinks he acted—and so he can't help bein' the least mite afraid the same thing may crop out in you. If you just stick to your job over there at the lumber yards and keep on tryin' to please him, he'll get all over that suspicion, see if he don't. Cap'n Lote Snow is stubborn sometimes and hard to turn, but he's square as a brick. There's some that don't like him, and a good many that don't agree with him—but everybody respects him."

Albert did not answer. The housekeeper rose from her chair.

"There!" she exclaimed. "I don't know when I've set down for so long. Goodness knows I've got work enough to do without settin' around talkin'. I can't think what possessed me to do it this time, unless 'twas seein' you readin' that book." She paused a moment and then said: "Albert, I—I don't want you and your grandpa to have any quarrels. You see—well, you see, I used to know your mother real well, and—and I thought an awful sight of her. I wish—I do wish when you and the cap'n have any trouble or anything, or when you think you're liable to have any, you'd come and talk it over with me. I'm like the feller that Laban tells about in his dog-fight yarn. This feller was watchin' the fight and when they asked him to stop it afore one or t'other of the dogs was killed, he just shook his head. 'No-o,' he says, kind of slow and moderate, 'I guess I shan't interfere. One of 'em's been stealin' my chickens and the other one bit me. I'm a friend to both parties,' he says. Course I don't mean it exactly that way," she added, with a smile, "but you know what I do mean, I guess. WILL you talk things over with me sometimes, Albert?"

His answer was not very enthusiastic, but he said he guessed so, and Rachel seemed satisfied with that. She went on with her dusting, and he with his reading, but the conversation was the first of many between the pair. The housekeeper appeared to consider his having read her beloved Foul Play a sort of password admitting him to her lodge and that thereafter they were, in consequence, to be confidants and comrades. She never hesitated to ask him the most personal questions concerning his work, his plans, the friends or acquaintances he was making in the village. Some of those questions he answered honestly and fully, some he dodged, some he did not answer at all. Mrs. Ellis never resented his not answering. "I presume likely that ain't any of my business, is it?" she would say, and ask about something else.

On the other hand, she was perfectly outspoken concerning her own affairs. He was nearly overcome with hilarious joy when, one day, she admitted that, in her mind, Robert Penfold, the hero of Foul Play, lived again in the person of Laban Keeler.

"Why, Mrs. Ellis," he cried, as soon as he could trust himself to speak at all, "I don't see THAT. Penfold was a six-footer, wasn't he? And—and athletic, you know, and—and a minister, and young—younger, I mean—and—"

Rachel interrupted. "Yes, yes, I know," she said. "And Laban is little, and not very young, and, whatever else he is, he ain't a minister. I know all that. I know the outside of him don't look like Robert Penfold at all. But," somewhat apologetically, "you see I've been acquainted with him so many years I've got into the habit of seein' his INSIDE. Now that sounds kind of ridiculous, I know," she added. "Sounds as if I—I—well, as if I was in the habit of takin' him apart, like a watch or somethin'. What I mean is that I know him all through. I've known him for a long, long while. He ain't much to look at, bein' so little and sort of dried up, but he's got a big, fine heart and big brains. He can do 'most anything he sets his hand to. When I used to know him, when I was a girl, folks was always prophesyin' that Laban Keeler would turn out to be a whole lot more'n the average. He would, too, only for one thing, and you know what that is. It's what has kept me from marryin' him all this time. I swore I'd never marry a man that drinks, and I never will. Why, if it wasn't for liquor Labe would have been runnin' his own business and gettin' rich long ago. He all but runs Cap'n Lote's place as 'tis. The cap'n and a good many other folks don't realize that, but it's so."

It was plain that she worshiped the little bookkeeper and, except during the periods of "vacation" and "sympathetics," was tremendously proud of him. Albert soon discovered that Mr. Keeler's feeling for her was equally strong. In his case, though, there was also a strong strain of gratitude.

"She's a fine woman, Al," he confided to his assistant on one occasion. "A fine woman. . . . Yes, yes, yes. They don't make 'em any finer. Ah hum! And not so long ago I read about a passel of darn fools arguin' that the angels in heaven was all he-ones. . . . Umph! . . . Sho, sho! If men was as good as women, Ansel—Alfred—Albert, I mean—we could start an opposition heaven down here most any time. 'Most any time—yes, yes."

It was considerable for him to say. Except when on a vacation, Laban was not loquacious.

Each Sunday afternoon, when the weather was pleasant, he came, dressed in his best black cutaway, shiny at elbows and the under part of the sleeves, striped trousers and a pearl gray soft hat with a black band, a hat which looked as much out of place above his round, withered little face as a red roof might have looked on a family vault, and he and the housekeeper went for a walk.

Rachel, in her Sunday black, bulked large beside him. As Captain Zelotes said, the pair looked like "a tug takin' a liner out to sea."



CHAPTER V

Outside of the gates of the Snow place Albert was making many acquaintances and a few friends. After church on Sundays his grandmother had a distressful habit of suddenly seizing his arm or his coat-tail as he was hurrying toward the vestibule and the sunshine of outdoors, and saying: "Oh, Albert, just a minute! Here's somebody you haven't met yet, I guess. Elsie"—or Nellie or Mabel or Henry or Charlie or George, whichever it happened to be—"this is my grandson, Albert Speranza." And the young person to whom he was thus introduced would, if a male, extend a hesitating hand, give his own an embarrassed shake, smile uncertainly and say, "Yes—er—yes. Pleased to meet you." Or, if of the other sex, would blush a little and venture the observation that it was a lovely morning, and wasn't the sermon splendid.

These Sabbath introductions led to week-day, or rather week-evening, meetings. The principal excitement in South Harniss was "going for the mail." At noon and after supper fully one-half of the village population journeyed to the post office. Albert's labors for Z. Snow and Co. prevented his attending the noon gatherings—his grandfather usually got the morning mail—but he early formed the habit of sauntering "down street" in the evening if the weather was not too cold or disagreeable. There he was certain to find groups of South Harniss youth of both sexes, talking, giggling, skylarking and flirting. Sometimes he joined one or the other of these groups; quite as often he did not, but kept aloof and by himself, for it may as well be acknowledged now, if it is not already plain, that the son of Miguel Carlos Speranza had inherited a share of his father's temperament and self-esteem. The whim of the moment might lead him to favor these young people with his society, but he was far from considering himself under obligation to do so. He had not the least idea that he was in any way a snob, he would have hotly resented being called one, but he accepted his estimate of his own worth as something absolute and certain, to be taken for granted.

Now this attitude of mind had its dangers. Coupled with its possessor's extraordinary good looks, it was fascinating to a large percentage of the village girls. The Speranza eyes and the Speranza curls and nose and chin were, when joined with the easy condescension of the Speranza manner, a combination fatal to the susceptible. The South Harniss "flappers," most of them, enthused over the new bookkeeper in the lumber office. They ogled and giggled and gushed in his presence, and he was tolerant or bored, just as he happened to be feeling at the moment. But he never displayed a marked interest in any one of them, for the very good reason that he had no such interest. To him they were merely girls, nice enough in their way, perhaps, but that way not his. Most of the town young fellows of his age he found had a "girl" and almost every girl had a "fellow"; there was calf love in abundance, but he was a different brand of veal.

However, a great man must amuse himself, and so he accepted invitations to church socials and suppers and to an occasional dance or party. His style of dancing was not that of South Harniss in the winter. It was common enough at the hotel or the "tea house" in July and August when the summer people were there, but not at the town hall at the Red Men's Annual Ball in February. A fellow who could foxtrot as he could swept all before him. Sam Thatcher, of last year's class in the high school, but now clerking in the drug store, who had hitherto reigned as the best "two-stepper" in town, suddenly became conscious of his feet. Then, too, the contents of the three trunks which had been sent on from school were now in evidence. No Boston or Brockton "Advanced Styles" held a candle to those suits which the tailor of the late Miguel Carlos had turned out for his patron's only son. No other eighteen-year-older among the town's year-around residents possessed a suit of evening clothes. Albert wore his "Tux" at the Red Men's Ball and hearts palpitated beneath new muslin gowns and bitter envy stirred beneath the Brockton "Advanced Styles."

In consequence, by spring the social status of Albert Speranza among those of his own age in the village had become something like this: He was in high favor with most of the girls and in corresponding disfavor with most of the young fellows. The girls, although they agreed that he was "stand-offish and kind of queer," voted him "just lovely, all the same." Their envious beaux referred to him sneeringly among themselves as a "stuck-up dude." Some one of them remembered having been told that Captain Zelotes, years before, had been accustomed to speak of his hated son-in-law as "the Portygee." Behind his back they formed the habit of referring to their new rival in the same way. The first time Albert heard himself called a "Portygee" was after prayer meeting on Friday evening, when, obeying a whim, he had walked home with Gertie Kendrick, quite forgetful of the fact that Sam Thatcher, who aspired to be Gertie's "steady," was himself waiting on the church steps for that privilege.

Even then nothing might have come of it had he and Sam not met in the path as he was sauntering back across lots to the main road and home. It was a brilliant moonlight night and the pair came together, literally, at the bend where the path turns sharply around the corner of Elijah Doane's cranberry shanty. Sam, plowing along, head down and hands in his pockets, swung around that corner and bumped violently into Albert, who, a cigarette between his lips—out here in the fields, away from civilization and Captain Zelotes, was a satisfyingly comfortable place to smoke a cigarette—was dreaming dreams of a future far away from South Harniss. Sam had been thinking of Gertie. Albert had not. She had been a mere incident of the evening; he had walked home with her because he happened to be in the mood for companionship and she was rather pretty and always talkative. His dreams during the stroll back alone in the moonlight had been of lofty things, of poetry and fame and high emprise; giggling Gerties had no place in them. It was distinctly different with Sam Thatcher.

They crashed together, gasped and recoiled.

"Oh, I'm sorry!" exclaimed Albert.

"Can't you see where you're goin', you darned Portygee half-breed?" demanded Sam.

Albert, who had stepped past him, turned and came back.

"What did you say?" he asked.

"I said you was a darned half-breed, and you are. You're a no-good Portygee, like your father."

It was all he had time to say. For the next few minutes he was too busy to talk. The Speranzas, father and son, possessed temperament; also they possessed temper. Sam's face, usually placid and good-natured, for Sam was by no means a bad fellow in his way, was fiery red. Albert's, on the contrary, went perfectly white. He seemed to settle back on his heels and from there almost to fly at his insulter. Five minutes or so later they were both dusty and dirty and dishevelled and bruised, but Sam was pretty thoroughly licked. For one thing, he had been taken by surprise by his adversary's quickness; for another, Albert's compulsory training in athletics at school gave him an advantage. He was by no means an unscarred victor, but victor he was. Sam was defeated, and very much astonished. He leaned against the cranberry house and held on to his nose. It had been a large nose in the beginning, it was larger now.

Albert stood before him, his face—where it was not a pleasing combination of black and blue—still white.

"If you—if you speak of my father or me again like that," he panted, "I'll—I'll kill you!"

Then he strode off, a bit wobbly on his legs, but with dignity.

Oddly enough, no one except the two most interested ever knew of this encounter. Albert, of course, did not tell. He was rather ashamed of it. For the son of Miguel Carlos Speranza to conquer dragons was a worthy and heroic business, but there seemed to be mighty little heroism in licking Sam Thatcher behind 'Lije Doane's cranberry shack. And Sam did not tell. Gertie next day confided that she didn't care two cents for that stuck-up Al Speranza, anyway; she had let him see her home only because Sam had danced so many times with Elsie Wixon at the ball that night. So Sam said nothing concerning the fight, explaining the condition of his nose by saying that he had run into something in the dark. And he did not appear to hold a grudge against his conqueror; on the contrary when others spoke of the latter as a "sissy," Sam defended him. "He may be a dude," said Sam; "I don't say he ain't. But he ain't no sissy."

When pressed to tell why he was so certain, his answer was: "Because he don't act like one." It was not a convincing answer, the general opinion being that that was exactly how Al Speranza did act.

There was one young person in the village toward whom Albert found himself making exceptions in his attitude of serenely impersonal tolerance. That person was Helen Kendall, the girl who had come into his grandfather's office the first morning of his stay in South Harniss. He was forced to make these exceptions by the young lady herself. When he met her the second time—which was after church on his first Sunday—his manner was even more loftily reserved than usual. He had distinct recollections of their first conversation. His own part in it had not been brilliant, and in it he had made the absurd statement—absurd in the light of what came after—that he was certainly NOT employed by Z. Snow and Co.

So he was cool and superior when his grandmother brought them together after the meeting was over. If Helen noticed the superiority, she was certainly not over-awed by it, for she was so simple and natural and pleasant that he was obliged to unbend and be natural too. In fact, at their third meeting he himself spoke of the interview in the lumber office and again expressed his thanks for warning him of his grandfather's detestation of cigarettes.

"Gee!" he exclaimed, "I'm certainly glad that you put me on to the old boy's feelings. I think he'd have murdered me if he had come back and found me puffing a Pall Mall in there."

She smiled. "He does hate them, doesn't he?" she said.

"Hate them! I should say he did. Hating cigarettes is about the only point where he and Issy get along without an argument. If a traveler for a hardware house comes into the office smoking a cig, Issy opens all the windows to let the smell out, and Grandfather opens the door to throw the salesman out. Well, not exactly to throw him out, of course, but he never buys a single cent's worth of a cigarette smoker."

Helen glanced at him. "You must be awfully glad you're not a traveling salesman," she said demurely.

Albert did not know exactly what to make of that remark. He, in his turn, looked at her, but she was grave and quite unconcerned.

"Why?" he asked, after a moment.

"Why—what?"

"Why ought I to be glad I'm not a traveling salesman?"

"Oh, I don't know. It just seemed to me that you ought, that's all."

"But why?"

"Well, if you were you wouldn't make a great hit with your grandfather, would you?"

"Eh? . . . Oh, you mean because I smoke. Say, YOU'RE not silly enough to be down on cigarettes the way grandfather is, are you?"

"No-o, I'm not down on them, especially. I'm not very well acquainted with them."

"Neither is he. He never smoked one in his life. It's just country prejudice, that's all."

"Well, I live in the country, too, you know."

"Yes, but you're different."

"How do you know I am?"

"Oh, because any one can see you are." The manner in which this remark was made, a manner implying a wide knowledge of humanity and a hint of personal interest and discriminating appreciation, had been found quite effective by the precocious young gentleman uttering it. With variations to suit the case and the individual it had been pleasantly received by several of the Misses Bradshaw's pupils. He followed it with another equally tried and trustworthy.

"Say," he added, "would YOU rather I didn't smoke?"

The obvious reply should have been, "Oh, would you stop if I asked you to?" But Helen Kendall was a most disconcerting girl. Instead of purring a pleased recognition of the implied flattery, she laughed merrily. The Speranza dignity was hurt.

"What is there to laugh at?" he demanded. "Are you laughing at me?"

The answer was as truthful as truth itself.

"Why, of course I am," she replied; and then completed his discomfiture by adding, "Why should I care whether you smoke or not? You had better ask your grandfather that question, I should think."

Now Alberto Miguel Carlos Speranza had not been accustomed to this sort of treatment from young persons of the other sex, and he walked away in a huff. But the unusual is always attractive, and the next time he and Miss Kendall met he was as gracious and cordial as ever. But it was not long before he learned that the graciousness was, in her case, a mistake. Whenever he grew lofty, she took him down, laughed at him with complete frankness, and refused to treat him as anything but a boy. So they gradually grew friendly, and when they met at parties or church socials he spent most of the time in her company, or, rather, he would have so spent it had she permitted. But she was provokingly impartial and was quite as likely to refuse a dance with him to sit out one with Sam Thatcher or Ben Hammond or any other village youth of her acquaintance. However, although she piqued and irritated him, he was obliged to admit to his inner consciousness that she was the most interesting person he had yet discovered in South Harniss, also that even in the eyes of such connoisseurs as his fellow members of the senior class at school she would have been judged a "good looker," in spite of her country clothes.

He met her father, of course. The Reverend Mr. Kendall was a dreamy little old gentleman with white hair and the stooped shoulders of a student. Everybody liked him, and it was for that reason principally that he was still the occupant of the Congregational pulpit, for to quote Captain Zelotes, his sermons were inclined to be like the sandy road down to Setuckit Point, "ten mile long and dry all the way." He was a widower and his daughter was his companion and managing housekeeper. There was a half-grown girl, one of the numerous Price family, a cousin of Issachar's, who helped out with the sweeping, dish-washing and cooking, but Helen was the real head of the household.

"And she's a capable one, too," declared Mrs. Snow, when at supper one evening Helen's name had come into the conversation. "I declare when I was there yesterday to see the minister about readin' poetry to us at sewin'-circle next Monday that parlor was as neat as wax. And 'twas all Helen's work that kept it so, that was plain enough. You could see her way of settin' a vase or puttin' on a table cloth wherever you looked. Nobody else has just that way. And she does it after school or before school or 'most any odd time. And whatever 'tis is done right."

The housekeeper put in a word. "There's no doubt about that," she said, "and there ain't any more doubt that she don't get much help from her pa or that Maria B." There were so many Prices within the township limits that individuals were usually distinguished by their middle initial. "As for Mr. Kendall," went on Rachel, "he moves with his head in the clouds and his feet cruisin' with nobody at the wheel two-thirds of the time. Emma Smith says to me yesterday, says she, 'Mr. Kendall is a saint on earth, ain't he,' says she. 'Yes,' says I, 'and he'll be one in heaven any minute if he goes stumblin' acrost the road in front of Doctor Holliday's automobile the way I see him yesterday.' The doctor put on the brakes with a slam and a yell. The minister stopped right there in the middle of the road with the front wheels of that auto not MORE'N two foot from his old baggy trousers' knees, and says he, 'Eh? Did you want me, Doctor?' The doctor fetched a long breath. 'Why, no, Mr. Kendall,' he says, 'I didn't, but I come darn nigh gettin' you.' I don't know what WOULD become of him if he didn't have Helen to look out for him."

As they came to know each other better their conversation dealt with matters more personal. They sometimes spoke of plans for the future. Albert's plans and ambitions were lofty, but rather vague. Helen's were practical and definite. She was to graduate from high school that spring. Then she was hoping to teach in the primary school there in the village; the selectmen had promised her the opportunity.

"But, of course," she said, "I don't mean to stay here always. When I can, after I have saved some money and if Father doesn't need me too badly, I shall go away somewhere, to Bridgewater, or perhaps to Radcliffe, and study. I want to specialize in my teaching, you know."

Albert regarded her with amused superiority.

"I don't see why on earth you are so anxious to be a school-marm," he said. "That's the last job I'd want."

Her answer was given promptly, but without the least trace of temper. That was one of the most provoking things about this girl, she would not lose her temper. He usually lost his trying to make her. She spoke now, pleasantly, and deliberately, but as if she were stating an undesirable fact.

"I think it would be the last one you would get," she said.

"Why? Great Scott! I guess I could teach school if I wanted to. But you bet I wouldn't want to! . . . NOW what are you laughing at?"

"I'm not laughing."

"Yes, you are. I can always tell when you're laughing; you get that look in your eyes, that sort of—of—Oh, I can't tell you what kind of look it is, but it makes me mad. It's the same kind of look my grandfather has, and I could punch him for it sometimes. Why should you and he think I'm not going to amount to anything?"

"I don't think so. And I'm sure he doesn't either. And I wasn't laughing at you. Or, if I was, it—it was only because—"

"Well, because what?"

"Oh, because you are so AWFULLY sure you know—well, know more than most people."

"Meaning I'm stuck on myself, I suppose. Well, now I tell you I'm not going to hang around in this one-horse town all my life to please grandfather or any one else."

When he mentioned his determination to win literary glory she was always greatly interested. Dreams of histrionic achievement were more coldly received. The daughter of a New England country clergyman, even in these days of broadening horizons, could scarcely be expected to look with favor upon an actor's career.

June came and with it the first of the summer visitors. For the next three months Albert was happy with a new set of acquaintances. They were HIS kind, these young folks from the city, and his spare moments were for the most part spent in their society. He was popular with them, too. Some of them thought it queer that he should be living all the year in the village and keeping books for a concern like Z. Snow and Co., but juvenile society is tolerant and a youth who could sing passably, dance wonderfully and, above all, was as beautifully picturesque as Albert Speranza, was welcomed, especially by the girls. So the Saturdays and Sundays and evenings of that summer were pleasant for him. He saw little of Helen or Gertie Kendrick while the hotel or the cottages remained open.

Then came the fall and another long, dreary winter. Albert plodded on at his desk or in the yard, following Mr. Keeler's suggestions, obeying his grandfather's orders, tormenting Issy, doing his daily stint because he had to, not because he liked it. For amusement he read a good deal, went to the usual number of sociables and entertainments, and once took part in amateur theatricals, a play given by the church society in the town hall. There was where he shone. As the dashing young hero he was resplendent. Gertie Kendrick gazed upon him from the third settee center with shining eyes. When he returned home after it was over his grandmother and Mrs. Ellis overwhelmed him with praises.

"I declare you was perfectly splendid, Albert!" exclaimed Olive. "I was so proud of you I didn't know what to do."

Rachel looked upon him as one might look upon a god from Olympus.

"All I could think of was Robert Penfold," she said. "I says so to Laban: 'Laban,' says I, ain't he Robert Penfold and nobody else?' There you was, tellin' that Hannibal Ellis that you was innocent and some day the world would know you was, just the way Robert Penfold done in the book. I never did like that Hannie Ellis!"

Mrs. Snow smiled. "Mercy, Rachel," she said, "I hope you're not blamin' Hannie because of what he did in that play. That was his part, he had to do it."

But Rachel was not convinced. "He didn't have to be so everlastin' mean and spiteful about it, anyhow," she declared. "But there, that family of Ellises never did amount to nothin' much. But, as I said to Laban, Albert, you was Robert Penfold all over."

"What did Labe say to that?" asked Albert, laughing.

"He never had a chance to say nothin'. Afore he could answer, that Maria B. Price—she was settin' right back of me and eatin' molasses candy out of a rattly paper bag till I thought I SHOULD die—she leaned forward and she whispered: 'He looks more to me like that Stevie D. that used to work for Cap'n Crowell over to the Center. Stevie D. had curly hair like that and HE was part Portygee, you remember; though there was a little nigger blood in him, too,' she says. I could have shook her! And then she went to rattlin' that bag again."

Even Mr. Keeler congratulated him at the office next morning. "You done well, Al," he said. "Yes—yes—yes. You done fust-rate, fust-rate."

His grandfather was the only one who refused to enthuse.

"Well," inquired Captain Zelotes, sitting down at his desk and glancing at his grandson over his spectacles, "do you cal'late to be able to get down to earth this mornin' far enough to figger up the payroll? You can put what you made from play-actin' on a separate sheet. It's about as much as the average person makes at that job," he added.

Albert's face flushed. There were times when he hated his grandfather. Mr. Keeler, a moment later, put a hand on his shoulder.

"You mustn't mind the old man, Al," he whispered. "I expect that seein' you last night brought your dad's job back to him strong. He can't bear play-actin', you know, on your dad's account. Yes—yes. That was it. Yes—yes—yes."

It may have been a truthful explanation, but as an apology it was a limited success.

"My father was a gentleman, at any rate," snapped Albert. Laban opened his mouth to reply, but closed it again and walked back to his books.

In May, which was an unusually balmy month, the Congregational Sunday School gave an automobile excursion and box-luncheon party at High Point Light down at Trumet. As Rachel Ellis said, it was pretty early for picnickin', but if the Almighty's season was ahead of time there didn't seem to be any real good reason why one of his Sunday schools shouldn't be. And, which was the principal excuse for the hurry, the hotel busses could be secured, which would not be the case after the season opened.

Albert went to the picnic. He was not very keen on going, but his grandfather had offered him a holiday for the purpose, and it was one of his principles never to refuse a chance to get away from that office. Besides, a number of the young people of his age were going, and Gertie Kendrick had been particularly insistent.

"You just MUST come, Al," she said. "It won't be any fun at all if you don't come."

It is possible that Gertie found it almost as little fun when he did come. He happened to be in one of his moods that day; "Portygee streaks," his grandfather termed these moods, and told Olive that they were "that play-actor breakin' out in him." He talked but little during the ride down in the bus, refused to sing when called upon, and, after dinner, when the dancing in the pavilion was going on, stepped quietly out of the side door and went tramping along the edge of the bluff, looking out over the sea or down to the beach, where, one hundred and fifty feet below, the big waves were curling over to crash into a creamy mass of froth and edge the strand with lacy ripples.

The high clay bluffs of Trumet are unique. No other part of the Cape shows anything just like them. High Point Light crowns their highest and steepest point and is the flashing beacon the rays of which spell "America" to the incoming liner Boston bound.

Along the path skirting the edge of the bluff Albert strolled, his hands in his pockets and his thoughts almost anywhere except on the picnic and the picnickers of the South Harniss Congregational Church. His particular mood on this day was one of discontent and rebellion against the fate which had sentenced him to the assistant bookkeeper's position in the office of Z. Snow and Co. At no time had he reconciled himself to the idea of that position as a permanent one; some day, somehow he was going to break away and do—marvelous things. But occasionally, and usually after a disagreeable happening in the office, he awoke from his youthful day dreams of glorious futures to a realization of the dismal to-day.

The happening which had brought about realization in this instance was humorous in the eyes of two-thirds of South Harniss's population. They were chuckling over it yet. The majority of the remaining third were shocked. Albert, who was primarily responsible for the whole affair, was neither amused nor shocked; he was angry and humiliated.

The Reverend Seabury Calvin, of Providence, R. I., had arrived in town and opened his summer cottage unusually early in the season. What was quite as important, Mrs. Seabury Calvin had arrived with him. The Reverend Calvin, whose stay was in this case merely temporary, was planning to build an addition to his cottage porch. Mrs. Calvin, who was the head of the summer "Welfare Workers," whatever they were, had called a meeting at the Calvin house to make Welfare plans for the season.

The lumber for the new porch was ordered of Z. Snow and Co. The Reverend Calvin ordered it himself in person. Albert received the order.

"I wish this delivered to-morrow without fail," said Mr. Calvin. Albert promised.

But promises are not always easy to keep. One of Z. Snow and Co.'s teams was busy hauling lumber for the new schoolhouse at Bayport. The other Issachar had commandeered for deliveries at Harniss Center and refused to give up his claim. And Laban Keeler, as it happened, was absent on one of his "vacations." Captain Zelotes was attending a directors' meeting at Osham and from there was going to Boston for a day's stay.

"The ship's in your hands, Al," he had said to his grandson. "Let me see how you handle her."

So, in spite of Albert's promise, the Calvin lumber was not delivered on time. The Reverend gentleman called to ask why. His manner was anything but receptive so far as excuses were concerned.

"Young man," he said loftily, "I am accustomed to do business with business people. Did you or did you not promise to deliver my order yesterday?"

"Why, yes sir, I promised, but we couldn't do it. We—"

"I don't care to know why you didn't do it. The fact that you did not is sufficient. Will that order of mine be delivered to-day?"

"If it is a possible thing, Mr. Calvin, it—"

"Pardon me. Will it be delivered?"

The Speranza temper was rising. "Yes," said the owner of that temper, succinctly.

"Does yes mean yes, in this case; or does it mean what it meant before?"

"I have told you why—"

"Never mind. Young man, if that lumber is not delivered to-day I shall cancel the order. Do you understand?"

Albert swallowed hard. "I tell you, Mr. Calvin, that it shall be delivered," he said. "And it will be."

But delivering it was not so easy. The team simply could NOT be taken off the schoolhouse job, fulfillment of a contract was involved there. And the other horse had gone lame and Issachar swore by all that was solemn that the animal must not be used.

"Let old Calvin wait till to-morrow," said Issy. "You can use the big team then. And Cap'n Lote'll be home, besides."

But Albert was not going to let "old Calvin" wait. That lumber was going to be delivered, if he had to carry it himself, stick by stick. He asked Mr. Price if an extra team might not be hired.

"Ain't none," said Issy. "Besides, where'd your granddad's profits be if you spent money hirin' extry teams to haul that little mite of stuff? I've been in this business a good long spell, and I tell you—"

He did not get a chance to tell it, for Albert walked off and left him. At half-past twelve that afternoon he engaged "Vessie" Young—christened Sylvester Young and a brother to the driver of the depot wagon—to haul the Calvin lumber in his rickety, fragrant old wagon. Simpson Mullen—commonly called "Simp"—was to help in the delivery.

Against violent protests from Issy, who declared that Ves Young's rattle-trap wan't fit to do nothin' but haul fish heads to the fertilizer factory, the Calvin beams and boards were piled high on the wagon and with Ves on the driver's seat and Simp perched, like a disreputable carrion crow on top of the load, the equipage started.