“No, thank ye, I had some ’board sloop,” replied Captain Brandt.
“Here, cap’n, take my seat,” said Captain Joe. “I’m goin’ out ter see how the weather looks.” He picked up the first hat he came to,—as was his custom,—and disappeared through the open door, followed by nearly all the seafaring men in the room.
As the men passed out, each one reached for his hat and oilskins hanging behind the wooden door, and waddling out stood huddled together in the driving rain like yellow penguins, their eyes turned skyward.
Each man diagnosed the weather for himself. Six doctors over a patient with a hidden disease are never so impressive nor so obstinate as six seafaring men over a probable change of wind. The drift of the cloud-rack scudding in from the sea, the clearness of the air, the current of the upper clouds, were each silently considered. No opinions were given. It was for Captain Joe to say what he thought of the weather. Breaking clouds meant one kind of work for them,—fitting derricks, perhaps,—a continued storm meant another.
If the captain arrived at any conclusion, it was not expressed. He had walked down to the gate and leaned over the palings, looking up at the sky across the harbor, and then behind him toward the west. The rain trickled unheeded down the borrowed sou’wester and fell upon his blue flannel shirt. He looked up and down the road at the passers-by tramping along in the wet: the twice-a-day postman, wearing an old army coat and black rubber cape; the little children crowding together under one umbrella, only the child in the middle keeping dry; and the butcher in the meat wagon with its white canvas cover and swinging scales. Suddenly he gave a quick cry, swung back the gate with the gesture of a rollicking boy, and threw both arms wide open in a mock attempt to catch a young girl who sprang past him and dashed up the broad walk with a merry ringing laugh that brought every one to the outer door.
“Well, if I live!” exclaimed Mrs. Bell. “Mary Peebles, you jes’ come here an’ see Betty West. Ain’t you got no better sense, Betty, than to come down in all this soakin’ rain? Caleb’ll be dreadful mad, an’ I don’t blame him a mite. Come right in this minute and take that shawl off.”
“I ain’t wet a bit, Aunty Bell,” laughed Betty, entering the room. “I got Caleb’s high rubber boots on. Look at ’em. Ain’t they big!” showing the great soles with all the animation of a child. “An’ this shawl don’t let no water through nowhere. Oh, but didn’t it blow round my porch las’ night!” Then turning to the captain, who had followed close behind, “I think you’re real mean, Cap’n Joe, to keep Caleb out all night on the Ledge. I was that dead lonely I could’er cried. Oh, is Mr. Sanford here?” she asked quickly, and with a little shaded tone of deference in her voice, as she caught sight of him in the next room. “I thought he’d gone to New York. How do you do, Mr. Sanford?” with another laugh and a nod of her head, which Sanford as kindly returned.
“We come purty nigh leavin’ everybody on the Ledge las’ night, Betty, an’ the sloop too,” said Captain Joe, “cutting” his eye at the skipper as he spoke. Then in a more serious tone, “I lef’ Caleb a-purpose, child. We got some stavin’ big derricks to set, an’ Mr. Sanford wants ’em up week arter next, an’ there ain’t nobody kin fix the anchor sockets but me an’ Caleb. He’s at work on ’em now, an’ I had to come back to git th’ bands on ’em. He’ll be home for Sunday, little gal.”
“Well, you jes’ better, or I’ll lock up my place an’ come right down here to Aunty Bell. Caleb wasn’t home but two nights last week, and it’s only the beginnin’ of summer. I ain’t like Aunty Bell,—she can’t get lonely. Don’t make no difference whether you’re home or not, this place is so chuck-full of folks you can’t turn round in it; but ’way up where I live, you don’t see a soul sometimes all day but a peddler. Oh, I jes’ can’t stand it, an’ I won’t. Land sakes, Aunty Bell, what a lot of folks you’ve had for breakfast!”
