“Queer! That don’t begin to describe him, Phebe.”
“He was here the other day. Came, you know, on special business about his mail, and said he had been a–trying to get down here I don’t know how long. He wanted an arrangement so that letters could come to him, in a box. Now that’s very nice, you know, when you have a class of customers wanting it. They have boxes in the Boston post–office you know, and I thought I might take it into consideration. He said he was going to send out circulars about something, and answers would come for ‘Rambler, Box one,’ if I would put one in for him. Well, if you believe it, before I had a chance to give him an answer, he went to that window in the office that looks toward the harbor—the offing, I mean.” Miss Green was, or aimed to be, very correct, having once taught school. “What a start he gave! and he turned round, pale as—as—that paint on the office–door.” It was not very white. “I didn’t seem to notice it, but only said in an off–hand way, ‘Do you see anything, Mr. Baggs?’ I thought it might be a vessel sailing in. But he didn’t take any notice. Then I said again—mild, sort of—‘The sea quiet, Mr. Baggs? Anything out of the way? Can you see the Chair? You know if we can’t see the Chair on account of fog, it is a bad sign any way; and every day, people look off there.’ You ought to have seen that man start again and almost give a real jump. ‘Chair?’ he said. ‘What have I got to do with that Chair? Chair?’ And if he didn’t rush out of the store! I couldn’t see anything that was the matter with the Chair. And there that man who had been so anxious to see me, went off and left everything unsettled. Now wasn’t it queer, Lyddy?”
“Yes, but that Baggs is a very, very unprofitable subject of talk for me, and I have made up my mind to shet my mouth on him—for the present.”
Aunt Lydia’s mouth here shut with all the decision of a portcullis.
Miss Green, though, was not prepared to close her portals of speech, and question after question did she ask about the Plymptons, back to the first that came from England.
If she had only known there was a Don Pedro in the world! She had a way of pursing up her mouth after a question, and then of fastening on one a very direct look, and all this was as irresistible as a corkscrew in the presence of a stopper. Aunt Lydia left the post–mistress and returned home.
But what was Walter’s object that led to this interview? What did he want the Hall for? St. John’s, the parish church, was a mile and a half away. On days when the wind was right, its bell could be heard faintly, musically calling all souls to prayer. Not often though did these sweet notes travel as far as The Harbor, and the consequence was, that very few souls traveled up to church. In fair weather, Miss Green and Mrs. Jabez Wherren might walk there, or they would report at Uncle Boardman’s in season to take passage in his big covered wagon that, rain or shine, was sure to be heard rattling along to St. John’s every Sunday. The remainder of the population virtually ignored St. John’s, and St. John’s ignored them. Its clergyman came down to say a few words of Christian farewell over the bodies that might rest behind the stunted firs in the little cemetery swept by the sea–winds, or to join for a life–long clasp, the two hands willing thus to fall into one another. Otherwise St. John’s had very little to do with The Harbor, and The Harbor responded in the same fashion.
“Why,” thought Walter, walking down through The Harbor one Sunday, “it doesn’t look much like Sunday down here. Uncle Boardman doesn’t live in one of these houses.”
The Harbor village had anything but that Sunday look which marked Uncle Boardman’s premises. Some of the fishermen were out in their yards overhauling and mending their trawls. One or two were doing a little autumn work in their rough gardens. In an open lot behind the gray, lichen–patched ledges, several young fishermen, in red shirts, were playing ball. There was a row of fishing–smacks at an ancient wharf, and their owners were improving Sunday’s convenient leisure for the accomplishment of odd little jobs. Sunday at The Harbor was respected by the inhabitants after their peculiar fashion. Every fishing–boat came back to its quiet moorings before Sunday, as promptly as if a police force had ordered it there. Then came a day at home, not of entire abstinence from work, but of less work. To do less, not to quit work altogether, was the Sunday fashion of The Harbor. A man would have lost caste, and been ranked as a heathen, if he had taken his boat out to sea, every Sunday. He might stay at home, and be busy all day with little “jobs,” and not hurt his reputation for religion. One fisherman abstained entirely from work, Jabez Wherren. He did not go to church, declaring that “somebody must stay at home and look arter it; at which place all religion began.” He did not work though. He would lounge about all day, dressed in his very best suit, and decked out with some very bright necktie, and flourishing a flaming red or yellow silk handkerchief, so that he looked like a man–of–war decorated with flags. Because he did not go to church, Jabez knew that his wife ranked him as a very deficient being; but on the other hand, because he did not work, he was well aware that in the eyes of his fellow–fishermen, he was regarded as a person of superior virtues. In his walk that Sunday, Walter at last was opposite the Hall, an antiquated, one–storied building that needed the services of both painter and carpenter. It was prefaced, though, by a porch, with two very imposing Doric pillars. This porch compensated for all deficiencies; and the villagers walking between those pillars felt grand as a Roman army, marching under the triumphal arch of Titus, in the “Eternal City.” Walter halted before the Hall and there held this soliloquy. “I have got an idea. Mother wanted me to do some special religious work; and, I’m afraid—I know I haven’t. She wanted me to get people to go to church if they didn’t go, and now here is a chance. There’s the new rector at St. John’s. He is young, and full of life, and I wonder if he couldn’t come down here and hold services, once every now and then at any rate. It would be just the thing, I declare.” Walter’s hazel eyes snapped with interest, and a smile swept over his round, full face.
“What’s Boardman Blake’s nephew up to, a lookin’ at the Hall?” wondered Jabez Wherren. Walter did not relieve him of his wonder, but soon turned about and went home.