Bowles looked him all over with a curious expression of countenance. He was trying to decide in his mind, from the major’s white tie, whether he was a minister, whose next remark would be a request to kneel down and pray with him, or whether he were a quack doctor who had come to do a little business on his own account. The evident sincerity and tenderness of the speaker disconcerted him for the moment. He hesitated for a while, and finally formulated a reply in his mind that would cover the case if his first surmise as to his being a minister were correct, and might at the same time result in his being let alone if the second proved to be the case.
“Wall, it was so damn sudden. Fust thing I knowed I wuz in the water with th’ wind knocked out’er me, an’ the next wuz when I come to an’ they bed me in here an’ the doctor a-fixin’ me up. I’m all right, ye see, only I’m drier’n a lime-kiln. Say, cap,”—he looked over toward the water-bucket, and called to one of the men standing near the door,—“fetch me a dipper.”
To call a landsman “cap” around Keyport is to dignify him with a title which he probably does not possess, but which you think would please him if he did.
“Let me get you a drink,” said the major, rising from the bed with a quick spring indicative of his hearty desire to serve him. He clipped the floating tin in the bucket and brought it to the thirsty man.
Bowles drained the contents to its last drop. “He ain’t no preach an’ he ain’t no sawbones,” he said to himself, as he returned the empty tin to Slocomb with a “Thank ye,—much obleeged.”
Somehow the reply satisfied the major far more than the most elaborately prepared speech of thanks which he remembered ever to have received.
Then the two men continued to talk freely with each other, the one act of kindness having broken down the barrier between them. The Pocomokian, completely forgetting himself, told of his home on the Chesapeake, of his acquaintance with Sanford, of his coming up to look after Mrs. Leroy. The major’s tone of voice was as natural and commonplace as if he had been conversing with himself alone. “Couldn’t leave a woman without protection, you know,” to which code of etiquette Bowles bobbed his head in reply; the genuine, unaffected sympathy of the rough man before him seemed to have knocked every fictitious prop from under his own personality.
The quarryman, in turn, talked about the Ledge, and what a rotten season it had been,—nothing but southeasters since work opened; last week the men only got three days’ work. It was terrible rough on the boss (the boss was Sanford), paying out wages to the men and getting so little back; but it wasn’t the men’s fault,—they were standing by day and night, catching the lulls when they came; they’d make it up before the season was over; he and Caleb West had been up all the night before getting ready for the big derricks that Captain Joe was going to set up as soon as they were ready; didn’t know what they were going to do now with that Screamer all tore up: a record of danger, unselfishness, loyalty, pluck, hard work, and a sense of duty that was a complete revelation to Slocomb, whose whole life had been one prolonged loaf, and whose ideas of the higher type of man had heretofore been somehow inseparably interwoven with a veranda, a splint-bottomed chair, a palm-leaf fan, and somebody within call to administer to his personal wants.
When Captain Joe returned from an inspection of the sloop’s injuries,—strange to say, they were very slight compared to the force of the explosion,—Mrs. Leroy was still talking to Sanford, suggesting comforts for the men, and planning for mosquito nettings to be placed over their cots. The maid, a severe-looking woman in black, who had never relaxed her grasp of the dressing-case, had taken a seat on an empty nail-keg which somebody had brought in, and which she had carefully dusted with her handkerchief before occupying. It was evident from her manner that there was absolutely nothing she could do for anybody.
Captain Joe looked at the party for a moment, noted Mrs. Leroy’s traveling costume of blue foulard and dainty bonnet, ran his eye over the maid, glanced at the major, in an alpaca coat, with white waistcoat and necktie and gray slouch hat, and said in his calm, forceful, yet gentle way to Mrs. Leroy, “It was very nice of ye to come an’ bring yer friend,” pointing to the maid, “an’ any o’ Mr. Sanford’s folks is allers welcome at any time; but we be a rough lot, an’ the men’s rough, and ye kin see for yerself we ain’t fixed up fur company. They’ll be all right in a week or so. Ef ye don’t mind now, ma’am, I’m goin’ to shet them shetters to keep the sun out o’ their eyes an’ git th’ men quiet,—some on ’em ain’t slep’ any too much. The tug’ll be here to take ye all over to Medford whenever ye’re ready; she’s been to th’ Ledge fur th’ men. Mr. Sanford said ye’d be goin’ over soon.” He glanced about the room as he spoke, until his eye rested on Sanford. “Ye’re goin’ ’long, didn’t I hear ye say, sir?” Then addressing Slocomb, whose title he tried to remember, “We’ve done th’ best we could, colonel. It ain’t like what ye’re accustomed to, mebbe,—kind’er ragged place,—but we got th’ men handy here where we kin take care on ’em, an’ still look after th’ work, an’ we ain’t got no time to lose this season; it’s been back’ard, blowin’ a gale half the time. There’s the tug whistle now, ma’am,” turning again to Mrs. Leroy.