“Greens? There’s Greens all over the Cape. But I reckon I know ’most everyone in these parts and if I don’t, Elizy does—”
“Ezekiel Green sailed the Betsy King—” enlightened Sidney.
“Old Zeke? Why, sure as spatter! Well, well! I might say I was brought up on stories about Zeke Green. My father overhauled the Betsy King for Zeke. Zeke’s folks any folks of yours?” turning suddenly to Sidney.
Sidney explained that they were—that she was Sidney Romley of Middletown, going now to visit her Cousin Achsa, whom she had never seen and of whom she knew little.
“You don’t say. My, my, comin’ all this way. So Achsa’s livin’, is she? Zeke’s boy died, near as I can remember. I rec’lect a benefit they had for his widow. She was a Wellfleet girl. Seems to me she died, too. Yes, she did—suddenly, when her baby was born. Can’t rec’lect whether the baby lived or not. Don’t pay much time to those things, don’t have to for Elizy does it well enough for the two of us. Ain’t anything on the Cape Elizy misses. Comes to me though that I heard her say something about that kid—sure does. I remember that benefit like it was last night. I’d just come ashore from a long v’yage and was rigged from t’mast to mizzen for a night at Potter’s with the boys and Elizy puts me into a b’iled shirt and makes me hitch up the hoss and drive to that benefit. I guess I ought ’er remember it.”
He was too deep in his own reminiscences to observe the effect of his words upon Sidney. So Cousin Asabel was dead! And they had had a benefit for his widow. Sidney did not know just what a benefit was but the sound of the word connected it in her brain with the League and the mortgage. She wished Cap’n Phin Davies could remember whether the baby had lived or not.
“If it had lived—I mean that baby—how old would it be, now?”
“Oh—yes—the baby. Let’s see. That benefit must a’ been all a’ sixteen or seventeen year ago. It was the last trip I made on the Valiant. Yep, the last. Elizy’d know for sartin sure, though. Ain’t many dates she can’t remember down to the minit. There’s somethin’ about that kid of Green’s I’ve heard Elizy tell—” He turned suddenly to Sidney: “You’re comin’ down to this part of the country to visit what’s left of your folks hereabouts and you don’t know nothin’ ’bout them? Seems to me some one ought ’a shipped with you. Now I wish ’twas Elizy and me you was comin’ to visit. I sartin’ do. Elizy likes little girls—we’ve often wished we had a boat’s crew of ’em. What’s the use I tell her of havin’ a house as big as a four-masted schooner and nary a chick or a child in it. I tell you, you ask your auntie or whatever she is to let you come over and stay a spell with us. Wellfleet ain’t so far. I’ll tell Elizy. You’ll come, now, won’t you? Anyone can tell you which is Phin Davies’ house—ain’t any much finer on the Cape.”
“Is it square—and white—and on an eminence?”
“Eh? If it’s a hill you mean, you’re right. I told Elizy after I’d made my last v’yage she could build anything she had her heart set on but it’d got to be where I could smell the harbor. Got a lookout atop where you can see the boats when they sail round the Point.” A faintly wistful note shaded the rugged voice. “You tell folks in Provincetown that you’re a friend of Cap’n Phin Davies and I guess you can just about have anything you want in the town. There’s a few of us old fellows left!”