“And why did she think so?” asked Mayo, in milder tones.
“She didn't say why,” admitted Captain Candage. “Maybe women see into things deeper than men do.”
“It seems like coming home—coming home when a man is sick and tired of everything in the world, sir.”
“Reckon my Polly had something like that in mind. She dropped a few hints that she hoped you'd come and get rested up from your troubles.”
“And she has gone back to her work, I suppose?”
“No, she is still on her job at Maquoit, sir—calls it her real job. She isn't a quitter, Polly isn't. She says they need her.”
“Like the song says, 'The flowers need the sunshine and the roses need the dew,' that's how they need her,” averred Oakum Otie. “Though them Hue and Cry women and children can't be said to be much like roses and geraniums! But they're more like it than they ever was before, since Miss Polly has taken hold of 'em. It's wonderful what a good girl can do when she tries, Captain Mayo!”
Resuming his life on the fishing-schooner was like slipping on a pair of old shoes, and Mayo was grateful for that New England stoicism which had greeted him in such matter-of-fact fashion.
“What you want to tell me is all right and what you don't want to tell me is still better,” stated Captain Candage. “Because when you ain't talking about it you ain't stirring it!”
So, in that fashion, he came back into the humble life of Maquoit. There had been no awkwardness in his meeting with Captain Candage; it had been man to man, and they understood how to dispense with words. But Mayo looked forward to his meeting with Polly Candage without feeling that equanimity which the father had inspired.