James was sitting in a large room which served in winter as a kitchen and in summer as a sort of sitting-room, smoking a pipe and gazing vacantly into the pine-branches in the open fireplace before him. He had been out all day on his marsh, but he had been home a couple of hours. His wife—kindly soul—received Captain Pelham at the door, wiping her hands upon her apron, and modestly showed him into the sitting-room; then she retired to her tasks in the shed kitchen. She moved about mechanically for a moment; then she ran hastily out into the lean-to wood-shed, shut the door behind her, sat down on the worn floor where it gives way with a step to the floor of earth by the wood-pile, hid her face in her apron, and burst into tears.
Joe was at the wharf with his comrades playing at war.
Now, if there ever was a hospitable man,—a man who gave a welcome,—a rough but merry welcome to every one who entered his doors, it was James Parsons. He had a homely, jocose saying that you must either make yourself at home or go home. But on this occasion he rose with a somewhat forced and awkward air, laid his pipe down on the mantel-piece, and nodded to the Captain with an air of embarrassed inquiry. Then he bethought himself, and asked the Captain to sit down. The Captain took the nearest chair, beside the table, where Mrs. Parsons had lately been sitting at her work. James's chair was directly opposite. The table was between them.
James rose and went to the mantel-piece, scratched a match upon his boot-heel, and undertook to light his pipe. It did not light; he did not notice it, but put the pipe in his mouth as if it were lighted.
It occurred to Captain Pelham now, for the first time, absorbed as he had been with exclusive thoughts of the boy, that he should first say something to this old man about the daughter whom he had lost: and he made some expressions of sympathy. The old man nodded, but said nothing.
There was silence for two or three minutes.
The subject in order now was inevitably the boy. Captain Pelham opened his lips to claim him; but, almost to his own surprise, he found himself making some common remark about the affairs of the neighborhood. It came in harsh and forced, as if it were a fragment of conversation floated in by the breeze from the street outside. Then the Captain waited a moment, looking out of the window.
James took his pipe from his mouth and leaned his elbows on the table. “Why don't you go take him?” he suddenly said: “he's probably down to the wharf. Ef you have got the claim to him, why don't you go take him? You 've got your team here,—drive right down there and put him in and drive off; if you 've got the right to him, why don't you go take him? But ef you 've come for my consent, you can set there till the chair rots beneath you.”
With this, James rose and took the felt hat which was lying by him on the table, and saying not another word, went out of the door. He went down to the shore, and affected to busy himself with his boat.
There was nothing for Captain Pelham to do but to take his hat, untie his horse, and drive home.