"Yes," she says, "he was here. He's gone out now with that Mr. Frank. I believe they've gone up to the old Higgins Place."
"Um-hm," says I. "Well, Mary, just between friends, I'd like to ask you somethin'. Do you like that Frank man's looks?"
She wa'n't expectin' that and she didn't know how to answer for a jiffy. Then she kind of half laughed, and says: "No, Cap'n Zeb, since you ask me, I—I don't. I don't like him. And I haven't any good reason, either."
I nodded. "Much obliged, Mary," says I. "And, since you ain't asked me, I'll tell you that I don't like him. And my reason's about as good as yours. Maybe it's his clothes. A man, 'cordin' to my notion, has a right to look like a horse jockey, if he wants to; and he's got a right to look like an undertaker. But when he looks like a combination of the two, I—well, I get skittish and begin to shy, that's all. It's too much as if he was baited to trap you dead or alive."
Then Jim Henry come in and when, an hour or so later, he got me one side and asked me if I'd made up my mind about investin' in Frank's road-house, I answered prompt that my mind was made up and the answer was still no. He was disapp'inted, I could see that, and pretty mad.
"Humph!" says he. "Skipper, you're all right except for one fault—you're as 'country' as they make 'em, and they make 'em pretty narrer sometimes. Well, you've had the chance. Don't ever tell me you haven't."
"I won't," says I, and we didn't mention the subject for a long time. Then—but that comes later. However, I judged that Frank had found folks in Ostable who wa'n't as narrer and "country" as I was, for, inside of a week, the carpenters was busy on the Higgins Place. They built on great, wide piazzas; they knocked out partitions between rooms; they made the house pretty much over. In March loads of fancy furniture came from Boston. At last a windmill three feet high—made to look like a little copy of the old Cape windmills our great-granddads used to grind grist in, with sails that turned—was set up in the front yard, and on a post by the big gate was swingin' a fancy notice board, with a gilt windmill painted on that, and the words in big letters:
THE SIGN OF THE WINDMILL.
MEALS AT ALL HOURS.
Steaks, Chops, Game, Etc.