“Well, what did you think of him?” asked Captain Perez, when the recital was finished.
“Seemed to me like a pretty good feller,” answered Captain Eri deliberately. “He didn't git mad at the joke the gang played on him, for one thing. He ain't so smooth-tongued as Parker used to be and he didn't treat Baxter and me as if Cape Codders was a kind of animals, the way some of the summer folks do. He had the sense not to offer to pay me for takin' him over to the station, and I liked that. Take it altogether, he seemed like a pretty decent chap—for a New Yorker,” he added, as an after thought.
“But say,” he said a moment later, “I've got some more news and it ain't good news, either. Web Saunders has got his liquor license.”
“I want to know!” exclaimed Captain Perez.
“You don't tell me!” said Captain Jerry.
Then they both said, “What will John Baxter do now?” And Captain Eri shook his head dubiously.
The cod bit well next morning and Captain Eri did not get in from the Windward Ledge until afternoon. By the way, it may be well to explain that Captain Jerry's remarks concerning “settlin' down” and “restin',” which we chronicled in the first chapter must not be accepted too literally. While it is true that each of the trio had given up long voyages, it is equally true that none had given up work entirely. Some people might not consider it restful to rise at four every weekday morning and sail in a catboat twelve miles out to sea and haul a wet cod line for hours, not to mention the sail home and the cleaning and barreling of the catch. Captain Eri did that. Captain Perez was what he called “stevedore”—that is, general caretaker during the owner's absence, at Mr. Delancy Barry's summer estate on the “cliff road.” As for Captain Jerry, he was janitor at the schoolhouse.
The catch was heavy the next morning, as has been said, and by the time the last fish was split and iced and the last barrel sent to the railway station it was almost supper time. Captain Eri had intended calling on Baxter early in the day, but now he determined to wait until after supper.
The Captain had bad luck in the “matching” that followed the meal, and it was nearly eight o'clock before he finished washing dishes. This distasteful task being completed, he set out for the Baxter homestead.
The Captain's views on the liquor question were broader than those of many Orham citizens. He was an abstainer, generally speaking, but his scruples were not as pronounced as those of Miss Abigail Mullett, whose proudest boast was that she had refused brandy when the doctor prescribed it as the stimulant needed to save her life. Over and over again has Miss Abigail told it in prayer-meeting; how she “riz up” in her bed, “expectin' every breath to be the last” and said, “Dr. Palmer, if it's got to be liquor or death, then death referred to!”—meaning, it is fair to presume, that death was preferred rather than the brandy. With much more concerning her miraculous recovery through the aid of a “terbacker and onion poultice.”