“You don’t need to excuse what you said. 219 It’s God’s truth. That’s exactly what I be.”
“You ain’t, neither, and I don’t see why you want to talk that way. What I don’t see, neither, is why you want to go hanging round, waiting for that man to give you a ship. There’s plenty of others that would be glad to get you.”
“I ain’t sartin ’bout that last p’int. You see, I ain’t so young no more. I’m getting up in years, and ship-owners ain’t hiring none but young men.”
“Nonsense! There you go again. As long as you think and talk like Methuselah there ain’t no owner going to take a chance on you for fear you’d forget the name of the port he’d ordered you to. You get that idea out of your head along with the notion that Jim Fox is going to help you, and you’ll get a ship. The very best there is afloat, too.”
“It’s mighty kind of you to say that, Clemmie. I cal’late the notion about Jim is purty well shook out. That’s one thing I wanted to talk to you about. You know the old place here had been sort of run down for a good 220 many year. I’d always held to the idea that some day I’d come back here after I’d got rich, remodel the home, and get the best woman in all the world to ship side by side with me as best mate. I’ve told you all that afore, many the time, Clemmie.”
Miss Pipkin barely nodded. The suggestion of moisture gathered in her eyes as she gazed at the tragic face before her.
“Well, I’m back, and it looks like it was for good and all, but I ain’t got no money, and I don’t see no way to get any unless I rob somebody. And the law won’t let me do that. The trouble is that I’m up to my gunwales in debt.”
“In debt!” To Miss Pipkin’s mind there was no greater calamity in the world than to be in debt. She, too, had suffered a like fate many years ago.
“Yes. In bad, too. Jim come up to my house last spring just afore the minister took up his new quarters here, and he says to me: ‘Here’s some money to repair your place with. There’ll be no interest on it. It’s because of my civic pride in the affairs of Little 221 River that I make you this liberal offer.’ Well, it did look too good to be true, but I couldn’t see nothing wrong, and he promised me on his word to see that I got a ship, the very next one his company was to send out. I ain’t much up on them legal papers. I ain’t had nothing to do with any kind of papers for years ’cepting owners’ orders. I took his word for ’em being straight. I wouldn’t have took a cent of the money if them papers had been straight as the Bible, but he promised me so fair and square to place me that I fell for him hard. You know he’s one of the owners of the Atlantic Coastwise Trading Company. Well, I went right down to the city next day, and for several days I hung round. Then, they told me another feller got in ahead of me. When I was going out I see Jim in one of them little glass rooms talking earnest-like to some of his partners, and I heerd him speak my name. I knew right off that there was something up the mizzenmast. I come home, and waited. It was then I found Mack in the house. Mrs. Beaver put him in here while I was away. I also found the 222 painters all over the place. I knew right off that Jim had me on the hip, but I couldn’t make out what his game was. Yesterday the thing come tumbling down on my head; a lawyer brought it. Them papers I signed up has turned out to be a mortgage on my old home.”
Miss Pipkin gasped. “A mortgage and a lawyer was here to see you yesterday?”