Blow The Man Down: A Romance Of The Coast

by Holman Day

  XIII ~ A CAPTAIN OP HUMAN FLOTSAM

  O what is that which smells so tarry? I've nothing in the house that's tarry. It's a tarry sailor, down below, Kick him out into the snow! Doo me axna, dinghy a-a-a ma! Doo me ama-day! --Doo Me Ama.

  Captain Candage growled and complained so persistently during the tripto the main that Mayo expected to be deserted by the querulous skipperthe moment the dory's prow touched the beach. But the skipper camedogging at his heels when Mayo set off up the one street of Maquoit.

  "May I come along with you?" asked the girl at his side. "I can see thatyou are thinking up some plan. I do Hope I may come!" He gave her hisaim for answer.

  "I haven't been into this port for some time, Captain Candage, but thelast trip I made here, as I remember, a man named Rowley, who runs thegeneral store, was first selectman."

  "Is now," grunted the skipper. "They've got into the habit of electinghim and can't seem to break off."

  When they arrived in front of the store Captain Candage took the lead.

  "I may as well go in and introduce you, whatever it is you want of him.I know Rufe Rowley as well as anybody ever gets to know him."

  Mr. Rowley leaned over his counter and acknowledged the introductionwith a flicker of amiability lighting his reserve. But his wan smilefaded into blankness and he clawed his chin beard nervously when Mayoinformed him that he had invited the evicted folks of Hue and Cry toland on the mainland that day.

  "As overseer of the poor in this town I can't allow it, Captain Mayo!"

  "Those people must land somewhere."

  "Yes, yes, of course!" admitted Selectman Rowley. "But not here! I'mbeholden to the taxpayers."

  "And I suppose the officers of all the other towns about here will saythe same?"

  "Yes, yes! Of course."

  "Do you still own that old fish-house?" asked the captain, afterhesitating for a few moments; "the sardine-canning plant?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "You're not using it now?"

  "No, sir."

  "It isn't paying you any revenue, eh?"

  "No, sir."

  "Then you ought to be willing to let it pretty cheap--month-to-monthlease!"

  "Depends on what I'm letting it for."

  "I want to stow those poor people in there till I can arrange furtherfor them, either show the matter up to the state, or get work for them,or something! Will you let me have it?"

  "No, sir!" declared the selectman, with vigor.

  "It's only monthly lease, I repeat. You can prevent them from gettingpauper residence here, in case none of my plans work."

  "Don't want 'em here--won't have 'em! I consider taxpayers first!"

  "Don't ye ever consider common, ordinary, human decency?" roared CaptainEpps Candage.

  It was astonishing interruption. Its violence made it startling. Mayowhirled and stared amazedly at this new recruit.

  Captain Candage yanked his fat wallet from his pocket and dammed it downon the counter with a bang which made the selectman's eyes snap.

  "You know _me_, Rowley! We've got the money to pay for what we order andcontract for. Them folks ain't paupers so long as we stand be-hind 'em.We are bringing 'em ashore, here, because it's right to help 'em getonto their feet. Hold on, Captain Mayo; you let me talk to Rowley! Himand me know how to get sociable in a business talk!"

  However, Captain Candage seemed to be seeking sociability by bellowingferociously, thudding his hard fist on the counter. Mayo was not easilysurprised by the temperamental vagaries of queer old 'longcoast crabslike Captain Candage, but this sudden conversion did take away hisbreath.

  "When a close and partickler friend of mine, like this one I've justintroduced, comes to you all polite and asks a favor, I want generalpoliteness all around or I'll know the reason why," shouted theintermediary. "Look-a-here, Rowley, you pretend to be a terribleChristian sort of a man. When I have been fog-bound here I've tended outon prayer-meetings, and I have heard you holler like a good one aboutdying grace and salvation is free. I've never heard you say much aboutliving charity that costs something!"

  "I claim to be a Christian man," faltered Rowley, backing away from thebanging fist.

  "Then act like one. If you don't do it, blast your pelt, I'll post youfor a heathen from West Quoddy to Kittery!"

  "God bless you, my dad!" whispered the girl, snuggling close to theskipper's shoulder.

  "Furthermore, Rowley, besides paying you a fair rental for that oldfish-house we'll buy grub for them poor devils out of your store."

  Mr. Rowley caressed his beard and blinked.

  "They're like empty nail-kags, and they'll eat a lot of vittles andwe've got the money to pay!"

  "I have a wallet of my own," stated Captain Mayo. He had not recoveredfrom his amazement at the sudden shift about of Captain Candage. Afterall the sullen growling he had been tempted to ask the old skipper tostop tagging him about on his errand of mercy.

  "Hear that, Rowley? This is the best friend I've got in the wholeworld! Brought him in here! Introduced him to you! Here's my daughter!Interested, too! Now, whatever you say, you'd better be sure that youpick the right words."

  "Well, I'm always ready to help friends," stated Mr. Rowley.

  "Yes, and do business in a slack time," added Captain Candage.

  "I'm willing to show Christian charity to them that's poor andoppressed. But what's the sense in doing it in this case?"

  "A great many folks in this life need a hard jolt before they turn toand make anything of themselves," said Captain Mayo. "The people on Hueand Cry have had their jolt. I do believe, with the right advice andmanagement, they can be made self-supporting. They have been allowedto run loose until now, sir. I have been pulled into the thing all ofa sudden, and now that I'm in I'm willing to give up a little time andeffort to start 'em off. I haven't much of anything else to do justnow," he added, bitterly.

  "Come into my back office," invited Mr. Rowley.

  "Much obleeged--we'll do so," said Captain Candage. "You're a brightman, Rowley, and I knowed you'd see the p'int when it was put up to youright and polite."

  The business in the back office was soon settled satisfactorily, anda busy day followed on the heels of that momentous morning. When nightfell the men, women, and children whom a benevolent state--through its"straight-business" agent--had turned loose upon the world to shift forthemselves, were located in a single colony in the spacious fish-house.

  A few second-hand stoves, hired from Rowley, served to cook the foodbought from Rowley, and the families grouped themselves in rooms andbehind partitions and arranged the poor belongings they had salvagedfrom their homes. Even the citizen who had at first resolved to gofloating on the bosom of the deep joined the colony.

  "It's more sociable," he explained, "and my wife don't like to give upher neighbors. Furthermore, I know the whole bunch, root and branch,whims, notions, and all, and they can't fool me. I'll help boss 'em!" Hebecame a lieutenant of value.

  This community life under a better roof than had ever sheltered thembefore in their lives seemed to delight the refugees. Old and young,they enjoyed the new surroundings with the zest of children. They hadnever taken thought of the morrow in their existence on Hue and Cry.Given food and shelter in this new abode, they did not worry aboutthe problems of the future. They roamed about their domain with thesatisfaction of princes in a palace. They did not show any curiosityregarding what was to be done with them. They did not ask Captain Mayoand his associates any questions. They surveyed him with a dumb andsort of canine thankfulness when he moved among them. He himself triedquestions on a few of the more intelligent men, hoping that they wouldshow some initiative. They told him with bland serenity that they wouldleave it all to him.

  "But what are you going to do for yourselves?"

  "Just what you say. You're the boss. Show us the job!"

  It was borne in upon him that he had taken a larger contract than he hadplanned on.
Rowley and the taxpayers on the main looked to him on oneside, and his dependents on the other.

  "It seems to be up to me--to us, I mean," he told the girl, ruefully,when they were on their way to the widow's cottage that evening. "It'sup to me most of all, however, for I'm the guilty party--I have pulledyou and your father in. I'm pegged in here till I can think up some sortof a scheme."

  She had been working all day faithfully by his side, a tactful andindefatigable helper. He would have been all at sea regarding the womenand children without her aid, and he told her so gratefully.

  "Both my hands and my heart are with you in this thing, Captain Mayo.And I know you'll think of some way out for them--just as you helped usout of the schooner after we had given up all hope."

  "Getting out of the schooner was merely a sailor's trick of the hands,Miss Candage. I don't believe I'll be much of a hand at making overhuman nature. I have too much of it myself, and the material down inthat fish-house would puzzle even a doctor of divinity."

  "Oh, you will think of some plan," she assured him-with fine loyalty."If you will allow me to help in my poor way I'll be proud."

  "I'll not tell you what I think of your help; it might sound like softtalk. But let me tell you that you have one grand old dad!" he declared,earnestly; but although he tried to keep his face straight and his tonessteady he looked down at her and immediately lost control of himself.Merriment was mingled with tears in her eyes.

  "Isn't he funny?" she gasped, and they halted in their tracks andlaughed in chorus with the whole-hearted fervor of youth; that laughterrelieved the strain of that anxious day.

  "I am not laughing _at_ your father--you understand that!" he assuredher.

  "Of course, you are not! I know. But you are getting to understand him,just as I understand him. He is only a big child under all his bluster.But he does make me so angry sometimes!"

  "You can't tell much about a Yankee till he comes out of his shell, andI agree with you as to the aggravating qualities in Captain Candage. I'mnot very patient myself, when I'm provoked! But after this he and I willget along all right."

  They walked on to the cottage.

  "Good night," he said at the door.

  "And you have no plan as yet?"

  "Maybe something will come to me in a dream."

  The dream did not come to him, for his sleep was the profound slumber ofexhaustion. He went down in the early dawn and plunged into the sea, andwhile he was walking back toward the cottage an idea and a convictionpresented themselves, hand in hand. The conviction had been with himbefore--that he could not back out just then and leave those poor peopleto shift for themselves, as anxious as he was to be off about his ownaffairs; his undertaking was quixotic, but if he abandoned it at thatjuncture a queer story would chase him alongcoast, and he knew what sortof esteem mariners entertained for quitters.

  However, deep in his heart, he confessed that it was not merely sailorpride that spurred him. The pathetic helplessness of the tribe of Hueand Cry appealed with an insistence he could not deny. He understoodthem as he understood similar colonies along the coast--children whom anindifferent world classed as man and treated with thoughtless injustice!Work was prescribed for them, as for others! But, they did not know howto work or how to make their work pay them.

  The idea which came to him with the conviction that he must help thesefolks concerned work for them.

  After breakfast he took Captain Candage into his confidence, much to theskipper's bland delight at being considered.

  "I hope it's something where we can fetch Rowley in," confessed theskipper. "I don't care anything for them critters," he added, assumingbrusqueness. "Don't want it hinted around that I'm getting simple in myold age. But they give me an excuse to bingdoodle Rowley."

  "To carry out that plan I have outlined we need some kind of a packet,"said Mayo.

  "Sure! We'll go right to Rowley. He'll know. If there's anything inthis section that he 'ain't got his finger on some way--bill of sale,mortgage, debt owed to him or expecting to be owed, then it ain't worthnoticing."

  Mr. Rowley listened in his back office. He stroked his beard contentedlyand beamed his pleasure when he saw the prospect of making anotherprofitable dicker with men who seemed to be reliable and energetic.

  "I had a mortgage on the _Ethel and May_ when Captain Tebbets passed onto the higher life," he informed them. "Widder gave up the schooner whenI foreclosed, she not desiring to--er--bother with vessel proputty. So Ihave it free and clear without it standing me such a terrible sum! Shallbe pleased to charter to you gents at a reasonable figure. Furthermore,seeing that industry makes for righteousness, so we are told, your planof making those critters go to work may be a good one, providing you'lluse a club on 'em often enough."

  "From what I've heard of your talk in prayer-meeting I should thinkyou'd advise moral suasion," suggested Captain Candage, plainlyrelishing this opportunity to "bingdoodle."

  "I use common sense, whether it's in religion or politics or business,"snapped Rowley, exhibiting a bit of un-Christian heat.

  "It's advisable to ile up common sense with a little charity, and thenthe machine won't squeak so bad."

  "I wouldn't undertake to trot a dogfish on my knee or sing him to sleepwith a pennyr'yal hymn, Captain Candage."

  "I think we can show results without the club," interposed Mayo, withmild intent to smooth the tone of this repartee.

  The clerk called Mr. Rowley out into the store on some matter of specialimportance, and the selectman departed, coming down rather hard on hisheels.

  "The old Adam sort of torches up through his shell once in a while,"commented Candage.

  "We'd better settle the charter price, sir, before you lay aboard himtoo much," advised the young man.

  "I just natch'ally can't help harpooning him," confessed the skipper."He's a darned old hypocrite, cheating widders and orphans by choicebecause they 'ain't got the spunk to razoo back, and I've allus enjoyedfighting such as him. Him and me is due for a row. But I'll hold off thebest I can till we have got him beat down."

  Mayo's plan involved the modest venture of chartering a craft suitablefor fishing. There was no material for real Banksmen in the Hue and Crycolony, but the run of the men would serve to go trawling for ground andshack fish a few miles off the coast. It was the only scheme whichwould afford employment for the whole body of dependents; older and moredecrepit men and the women and children could dig and shuck clams forthe trawl bait. In order to encourage ambition and independence amongthe abler men of the colony, Mayo suggested that the fishermen be takenon shares, and Captain Candage agreed.

  When Mr. Rowley came back into the office he found his match waiting forhim in the person of Captain Candage, primed and ready to drive a sharpbargain. At the end of an hour papers representing the charter of the_Ethel and May_ were turned over.

  "I reckon it's a good job," affirmed the skipper, when he and Mayowere outside the Rowley store. "I have made up my mind to let poorold _Polly_ go to Davy Jones's locker. I wrote to the shippers and theconsignees of the lumber last night. If they want it they can go afterit. I may as well fish for the rest of this season!" He regarded CaptainMayo with eyes in which query was almost wistftul. "Of course, you candepend on me to see to it that you get your share, sir, just as if youwere aboard."

  "I'm going aboard, Captain Candage."

  The old man stopped stock still and stared.

  "I haven't anything in sight just now. You need help in getting thething started right. I'm not going away and leave that gang on yourhands until I can see how the plan works out. I'll go as mate with you."

  "Not by a blame sight you won't go as no mate with me," objectedCandage. "You'll go as skipper and I'll be proud to take orders fromyou, sir."

  They were wrangling amiably on that point when they returned to thewidow's cottage. Polly Candage broke the deadlock.

  "Why not have two captains? That will be something brand new along thecoast!"

  "The rest of it is
brand new enough without that," blurted her father."But considering what kind of a crew we've got I guess two captainsain't any too much! I'll be captain number two and I know enough to keepmy place."

  "I do not think you and I will ever do much quarreling again!" smiledCaptain Mayo, extending his hand and receiving Candage's mighty grip."I am going to start out a few letters, and I'll go now and write them.Until those letters bring me something in the way of a job I am withyou, sir."

  Captain Candage walked down toward the fish-house with his daughter."Polly," he declared, after an embarrassed silence, "I have been allwrong in your case, girl. Here and now I give you clearance papers. Sailfor home just as soon as you want to. I'm asking no questions! It's noneof my business!"

  "My little affairs must always be business of yours, father," shereturned.. "I love you. I will obey you."

  "But I ain't giving off no more orders. I ain't fit to command in thewaters where you are sailing, Polly dear. So run along home and be mygood girl! I know you will be!"

  "I have changed my mind about going home--just now!" Her eyes met hisfrankly. "I have written to Aunt Zilpah to send me some of my clothes.Father," there was feminine, rather indignant amazement in her tones,"do you know that there isn't a single woman from Hue and Cry who knowshow to use a needle?"

  "I might have guessed it, judging from the way their young ones and menfolk go looking!"

  "Do you realize that those children don't even know their A-B-C's?"

  "Never heard of any college perfessers being raised on that island."

  "I am going to take a vacation from the millinery-shop, now that I amdown here. I'll show those women how to sew and cook, and I'll teachthose children how to read. It's only right--my duty! I couldn't go homeand be happy without doing it!"

  "Calling that a vacation is putting a polite name to it, Polly."

  "If you could have seen their eyes, father, when I promised to helpthem, you wouldn't wonder why I am staying."

  "I don't wonder, Polly, my girl! If you had gone away and--and leftus--Mayo and me--I should have been mighty disappointed in ye! But Ireally never thought much about your going--'cause you wouldn't go, Iknew, till you had helped all you could." He put his arm around her."I have been worrying about having brought you away. But I guess God hadit all figgered out for us. I didn't know my own girl the way I ought tohave knowed her. I'd been away too much. But now we're sort of growingup--together--sort of that, ain't we, Polly dear?"

  She put her arms about his neck and answered him with a kiss.