“Oh, rot, captain!” said Code equally bluffly, and the ceremony was over.
But not so with Ma Tanner. She wept and laughed over the preserver of her offspring, and called him so many exalting names that he was glad to turn her over to Nellie and his mother at the Schofield gate.
Hot and flushed with the notoriety she had given him along the main road, he retired to the corner shop and drank wonderful cold ginger-beer out of a white stone jug until his temperature had returned to normal.
But later he returned to the house, and found the Tanners about to depart. The widow Sprague, near the Odd Fellows’ Hall, who lived, as she expressed it, “all deserted and alone,” had agreed to take the family into her rambling cottage. Luke Fraser had brought his truck-cart up alongside the rescued Tanner belongings, and they were already half loaded.
“Can you come down to the widdy’s to-night, Code?” asked Bijonah. “I’ve got somethin’ to tell ye that ought to int’rest ye consid’able.”
“Yes, I’ll be there about eight,” was the reply as Schofield joined in loading the truck.
He found the captain that night smoking a pipe on the low front porch of the Widow Sprague’s cottage, evidently very much at home. Bijonah motioned him to a chair and proffered a cigar with a 40 slightly self-conscious air. Inside the house, Code could hear the sound of people moving about and the voice of a woman singing low, as though to a child. He told himself without question that this was Nellie getting the kiddies to sleep.
“A feller hears queer things over in St. John’s sometimes,” announced Bijonah suddenly, sucking at his pipe.
“Yes.”