On general principles the Captain objected to the granting of a license to a fellow like “Web” Saunders, but it was the effect that this action of the State authorities might have upon his friend John Baxter that troubled him most.
For forty-five years John Baxter was called by Cape Cod people “as smart a skipper as ever trod a plank.” He saved money, built an attractive home for his wife and daughter, and would, in the ordinary course of events, have retired to enjoy a comfortable old age. But his wife died shortly after the daughter's marriage to a Boston man, and on a voyage to Manila, Baxter himself suffered from a sunstroke and a subsequent fever, that left him a physical wreck and for a time threatened to unsettle his reason. He recovered a portion of his health and the threatened insanity disappeared, except for a religious fanaticism that caused him to accept the Bible literally and to interpret it accordingly. When his daughter and her husband were drowned in the terrible City of Belfast disaster, it is an Orham tradition that John Baxter, dressed in gunny-bags and sitting on an ash-heap, was found by his friends mourning in what he believed to be the Biblical “sackcloth and ashes.” His little baby granddaughter had been looked out for by some kind friends in Boston. Only Captain Eri knew that John Baxter's yearly trip to Boston was made for the purpose of visiting the girl who was his sole reminder of the things that might have been, but even the Captain did not know that the money that paid her board and, as she grew older, for her gowns and schooling, came from the bigoted, stern old hermit, living alone in the old house at Orham.
In Orham, and in other sections of the Cape as well, there is a sect called by the ungodly, “The Come-Outers.” They were originally seceders from the Methodist churches who disapproved of modern innovations. They “come out” once a week to meet at the houses of the members, and theirs are lively meetings. John Baxter was a “Come-Outer,” and ever since the enterprising Mr. Saunders opened his billiard room, the old man's tirades of righteous wrath had been directed against this den of iniquity. Since it became known that “Web” had made application for the license, it was a regular amusement for the unregenerate to attend the gatherings of the “Come-Outers” and hear John Baxter call down fire from Heaven upon the billiard room, its proprietor, and its patrons. Orham people had begun to say that John Baxter was “billiard-saloon crazy.”
And John Baxter was Captain Eri's friend, a friendship that had begun in school when the declaimer of Patrick Henry's “Liberty or Death” speech on Examination Day took a fancy to and refused to laugh at the little chap who tremblingly ventured to assert that he loved “little Pussy, her coat is so warm.” The two had changed places until now it was Captain Eri who protected and advised.
When the Captain rapped at John Baxter's kitchen door no one answered, and, after yelling “Ship ahoy!” through the keyhole a number of times, he was forced to the conclusion that his friend was not at home.
“You lookin' fer Cap'n Baxter?” queried Mrs. Sarah Taylor, who lived just across the road. “He's gone to Come-Outers' meetin', I guess. There's one up to Barzilla Small's to-night.”
Mr. Barzilla Small lived in that part of the village called “down to the neck,” and when the Captain arrived there, he found the parlor filled with the devout, who were somewhat surprised to see him.
“Why, how do you do?” said Mrs. Small, resplendent in black “alpaca” and wearing her jet earrings. “I snum if you ain't a stranger! We'll have a reel movin' meetin' to-night because Mr. Perley's here, and he says he feels the sperrit a-workin'. Set right down there by the what-not. Luther,” to her oldest but three, “give Cap'n Hedge your chair. You can set on the cricket. Yes, you can! Don't answer back!”
“Aw, ma!” burst out the indignant Luther, “how d'yer think I'm goin' to set on that cricket? My laigs 'll be way up under my chin. Make Hart set on it; he's shorter'n me.”
“Shan't nuther, Lute Small!” declared Hartwell, a freckle-faced youngster, who was the next step downward in the family stair of children. “Set on it yourself. Make him, ma, now! You said he'd have to.”