Caleb West, Master Diver

by Francis Hopkinson Smith

“Yaas, sah; everything’s ready, sah,” replied Sam, who, now that the telegram had been dispatched and the morning papers and letters delivered, had slipped into his white jacket again.

Sanford picked up the package of letters, a dozen or more, and began cutting the envelopes. Most of them were read rapidly, marked in the margin, and laid in a pile beside him. There were two which he had placed by themselves without opening: one from his friend Mrs. Morgan Leroy, and the other from Major Tom Slocomb, of Pocomoke, Maryland.

Major Slocomb wrote to inform him of his approaching visit to New York, accompanied by his niece, Miss Helen Shirley, of Kent County,—“a daughter, sir, of Colonel Talbot Shirley, one of our foremost citizens, whom I believe you had the honor of meeting during your never-to-be-forgotten visit among us.”

The never-to-be-forgotten visit was one that Sanford had made the major the winter before, when he was inspecting the site for a stone and brush jetty he was about to build for the government, in the Chesapeake, near those famous estates which the Pocomokian inherited from his wife, “the widow of Major Talbot, suh.”

During this visit the major had greatly endeared himself to the young engineer. Under all the Pocomokian’s veneer of delightful mendacity, utter shiftlessness, and luxurious extravagance, Sanford had discovered certain qualities of true loyalty to those whom he loved, and a very tender sympathy for the many in the world worse off than himself. He had become convinced too that the major’s conversion from a vagabond with gentlemanly instincts to a gentleman with strong Bohemian tendencies might easily be accomplished were a little more money placed at the Pocomokian’s disposal. With an endless check-book and unlimited overdrafts, settlements to be made every hundred years, the major would be a prince among men.

The niece to whom the major referred in his letter lived in an adjoining county with a relative much nearer of kin. Like many other possessions of this acclimated Marylander, she was really not his niece at all, but another heritage from his deceased wife. The major first saw her on horseback, in a neat-fitting riding-habit which she had made out of some blue army kersey bought at the country store. One glance at her lovely face, the poise of her head, the easy grace of her seat, and her admirable horsemanship decided him at once. Henceforward her name was to be emblazoned on the scroll of his family tree!

It was not until Sanford had finished the major’s letter that he turned to that from Mrs. Leroy. He looked first at the circular postmark to see the exact hour at which it had been mailed; then he rose from the big chair, threw himself on the divan, tucked a pillow under his head, and slowly broke the seal. The envelope was large and square, decorated with the crest of the Leroys in violet wax, and addressed in a clear, round, almost masculine hand. “My dear Henry,” it began, “if you are going to the Ledge, please stop at Medford and see how my new dining-room is getting on. Be sure to come to luncheon to-morrow, so we can talk it over,” etc., and ended with the hope that he had not taken cold when he left her house the night before.

It had contained but half a dozen lines, and was as direct as most of her communications; yet Sanford held it for a long time in his hands, read and re-read it, looked at the heading, examined the signature, turned it over carefully, and, placing it in its envelope, thrust it under the sofa-pillow. With his hands behind his head he lay for some time in thought. Then taking Mrs. Leroy’s letter from under the pillow, he read it again, put it in his pocket, and began pacing the room.

The letter had evidently made him restless. He threw wide the sashes of the French window which opened on the iron balcony, and looked for a moment over the square below, where the hard, pen-line drawing of its trees was blurred by the yellow-green bloom of the early spring. He turned back into the room, rearranged a photograph or two on the mantel, and, picking up a vase filled with roses, inhaled their fragrance and placed them in the centre of the dainty breakfast-table, with its snowy linen and polished silver, that Sam had just been setting near him. Reseating himself in his chair, he called again to the ever watchful darky, who had been following his movements through the crack of the pantry door.

“Sam.”