They had been in Trumet a week, the captain and Serena and Gertrude. Azuba had been there two days longer, having been sent on ahead of the family to open the house and get it ready. Laban remained behind as caretaker of the Scarford mansion. His term of service in that capacity was not likely to be a long one, for the real estate dealer was in active negotiation with his client, and the dealer's latest report stated that the said client was considering hiring the house, furnished, for a few months and, in the event of his liking it as well as he expected, would then, in all probability, buy.
Laban's remaining as caretaker was his own suggestion.
“Me and the old gal—Zuby Jane, I mean—have talked it over,” he explained, “and it seems like the best thing to do. You've got to have somebody here, Cap'n Dott, you've got to pay somebody, and it might as well be me. I'm out of a job just now, anyway. As for me and my wife bein' separated—well, we're different from most married folks that way; it seems the natural thing for us to BE separated. We're used to it, as you might say. I don't know as we'd get along so well together if we wasn't separated. There's nothin' like separation to keep husband and wife happy along with one another. I've been with Zuby for most three weeks steady now; that's the longest stretch we've had in a good many years. We ain't quarreled once, neither.”
He seemed to consider the fact remarkable. Captain Dott grinned.
“I suppose that shuttin' her up in the dish closet wasn't what you'd call a quarrel, hey?” he observed.
Mr. Ginn was momentarily embarrassed.
“Oh, that!” he exclaimed. “Humph! I forgot that, for the minute. But that wasn't a quarrel, rightly speakin'. 'Twas just a little difference of opinion on account of my not understandin' her reason for bein' so sot on havin' her own way. Soon's I understood 'twas all right. And you see yourself how peaceable she's been ever since.”
So, after consultation with Azuba, the arrangement was perfected. Laban was to receive ten dollars a week, from which sum he was to provide his own meals. He was to sleep in the house, but the meals were to be obtained elsewhere. Mrs. Dott would not consider his cooking in her kitchen.
Serena bore the fatigue of the journey well and the sight of her old home, with the table set for supper, plants in the dining-room windows, and all the little familiar touches which Azuba's thoughtfulness had supplied, served to bring her the contentment and happiness she had been longing for. Each day she gained in health and strength, and the rest and freedom from care, together with the early hours—they retired at nine-thirty each night—were doing wonders for her. Her husband was delighted at the improvement. He was delighted with everything, the familiar scenes, the smell of the salt marshes, and of the sea, the clear, cold air, the meeting with friends and acquaintances, the freedom from society—he had not even unpacked his dress suit, vowing to Gertrude that it might stay buried till Judgment, he wouldn't resurrect it—all these things delighted his soul. And now, on the Saturday morning at the end of his first week at home, as he sat in his arm chair behind the counter of the Metropolitan Store, looking at the view through the windows and at the store itself, he was a happy man. There was one flaw in his happiness, but that he had forgotten for the moment.
He glanced about him, took a long pull at his pipe, and said aloud: “Well, if I didn't know 'twas the same place, I wouldn't have known it. I never saw such a change in my life.”