“Too much pie is bad for you between meals,” she firmly announced. “I’ll go cut you a reasonable piece. And don’t you let me hear you make a fuss about it.”
“Not me,” he sighed. “I know better.”
Contentedly he submitted to this fond tyranny. After all, home was the only place where folks cared whether a man lived or died. He was in every respect so unlike this high-strung, unflagging wisp of a mother of his that the contrast amused him. She was a Chichester and ran true to type. Most of the women wore themselves out in middle age. Her energy burned like a flame. Idleness was a sin.
In her turn she was perplexed by this strapping son of hers. He was rated as a highly successful young man, and yet, in her opinion, he lacked both zeal and industry—cardinal tenets of her New England creed. Sprawled upon the cushioned settle, he would drowsily stare at the fire for hours on end. He read very little and was not a loquacious person. An excellent listener, however, his mother’s eager chatter about little things broke against his massive composure like ripples upon a rock.
Now and then, in oddly silent moments, she studied him intently. Rugged, like his father, but there resemblance strangely halted. Matthew Cary’s frame had been gaunt, his features harsh and shrewd with the enduring imprint of the Puritan tradition. Richard, the son, might have belonged to another race of men. The fair skin, the ruddy cheek roughened by strong winds and salt spray, the hair like minted gold, were unfamiliar among the recent generations of Carys and Chichesters.
Handsome as a picture and as big as all outdoors, reflected the canny mother with a thrill of pride, but she actually felt like boxing his ears to wake him up. There was no soft streak in him, no weak fiber. This much she knew. His record at sea confirmed it. To call him hulking was absurd. There was courage in the level, tranquil gaze, and resolution was conveyed by the firm lips that smiled so readily.
“What in the world do you think about when you sit there like a bump on a log?” impatiently exclaimed the mother. “Is it a girl? William has suffered from those moon-struck spells now and then, but at his age it’s no more serious than chicken-pox.”
“There’s never been a girl that I thought of very long,” dutifully answered Richard, his pipe between his teeth. “I’m not so anxious to meet the right one. Going to sea is poor stuff for a married man. They mean well enough, but I have seen too many lonely skippers and mates raising hell ashore.”
“Don’t you swear in this house, Richard. And I advise you to beware of low company. Sailors who have been properly brought up are true to their sweethearts and wives, like all decent folks.”
“Yes’m,” murmured her worldly young giant. “If Bill ground the axe, as I told him to, I guess I’ll go and cut two or three cords of that pine growth. I need to limber up.”