"Probably the President knows as much about it as you and me, Zelotes," she suggested."I presume likely he has his own reasons.""Humph! When Seth Bassett got up in the night and took a drink out of the bottle of Paris Green by mistake 'Bial Cahoon asked him what in time he kept Paris Green in his bedroom for, anyhow.All that Seth would say was that he had his own reasons.The rest of the town was left to guess what those reasons was.That's what the President's doin'--keepin' us guessin'.By the everlastin', if Iwas younger I'd ship aboard a British lime-juicer and go and fight, myself!"It was Rachel Ellis who caused the Captain to be a bit more restrained in his remarks.
"You hadn't ought to talk that way, Cap'n Lote," she said."Not when Albert's around, you hadn't.""Eh? Why not?"
"Because the first thing you know he'll be startin' for Canada to enlist.He's been crazy to do it for 'most a year.""He has? How do you know he has?"
"Because he's told me so, more'n once."
Her employer looked at her.
"Humph!" he grunted."He seems to tell you a good many things he doesn't tell the rest of us."The housekeeper nodded."Yes," she said gravely, "I shouldn't wonder if he did." A moment later she added, "Cap'n Lote, you will be careful, won't you? You wouldn't want Al to go off and leave Z.
Snow and Company when him and you are gettin' on so much better.
You ARE gettin' on better, ain't you?"
The captain pulled at his beard.
"Yes," he admitted, "seems as if we was.He ain't any wonder at bookkeepin', but he's better'n he used to be; and he does seem to try hard, I'll say that for him."Rachael beamed gratification."He'll be a Robert Penfold yet," she declared; "see if he isn't.So you musn't encourage him into enlistin' in the Canadian army.You wouldn't want him to do that any more'n the rest of us would."The captain gazed intently into the bowl of the pipe which he had been cleaning.He made no answer.
"You wouldn't want him to do that, would you?" repeated the housekeeper.
Captain Lote blew through the pipe stem.Then he said, "No, Iwouldn't...but I'm darn glad he's got the spunk to WANT to do it.We may get that Portygee streak out of him, poetry and all, give us time; eh, Rachael?"It was the first time in months that he had used the word "Portygee"in connection with his grandson.Mrs.Ellis smiled to herself.
In April the arbutus buds began to appear above the leaf mold between the scrub oaks in the woods, and the walls of Fletcher Fosdick's new summer home began to rise above the young pines on the hill by the Inlet in the Bay Road.The Item kept its readers informed, by weekly installments, of the progress made by the builders.
The lumber for Mr.Fletcher Fosdick's new cottage is beginning to be hauled to his property on Inlet Hill in this town.Our enterprising firm of South Harniss dealers, Z.Snow & Co., are furnishing said lumber.Mr.Nehemiah Nickerson is to do the mason work.Mr.Fosdick shows good judgment as well as a commendable spirit in engaging local talent in this way.We venture to say he will never regret it.
A week later:
Mr.Fletcher Fosdick's new residence is beginning building, the foundation being pretty near laid.
And the following week:
The Fosdick mansion is growing fast.South Harniss may well be proud of its new ornament.
The rise in three successive numbers from "cottage" to "mansion" is perhaps sufficient to indicate that the Fosdick summer home was to be, as Issachar Price described it, "Some considerable house! Yes sir, by crimus, some considerable!"In June, Helen came home for a week.At the end of the week she left to take up her new duties at the summer camp for girls in Vermont.Albert and she were together a good deal during that week.Anticipating her arrival, the young man's ardent imagination had again fanned what he delighted to think of as his love for her into flame.During the last months of the winter he had not played the languishing swain as conscientiously as during the autumn.
Like the sailor in the song "is 'eart was true to Poll" always, but he had broken away from his self-imposed hermitage in his room at the Snow place several times to attend sociables, entertainments and, even, dances.Now, when she returned he was eagerly awaiting her and would have haunted the parsonage before and after working hours of every day as well as the evening, if she had permitted, and when with her assumed a proprietary air which was so obvious that even Mr.Price felt called upon to comment on it.
"Say, Al," drawled Issachar, "cal'late you've cut out Eddie Raymond along with Helen, ain't ye? Don't see him hangin' around any since she got back, and the way you was actin' when I see you struttin'
into the parsonage yard last night afore mail time made me think you must have a first mortgage on Helen and her pa and the house and the meetin'-house and two-thirds of the graveyard.I never see such an important-lookin' critter in MY life.Haw, haw! Eh? How 'bout it?"Albert did not mind the Price sarcasm; instead he felt rather grateful to have the proletariat recognize that he had triumphed again.The fly in his ointment, so to speak, was the fact that Helen herself did not in the least recognize that triumph.She laughed at him.
"Don't look at me like that, please, please, don't," she begged.
"Why not?" with a repetition of the look.
"Because it is silly."
"Silly! Well, I like that! Aren't you and I engaged? Or just the same as engaged?""No, of course we are not."
"But we promised each other--"
"No, we did not.And you know we didn't.""Helen, why do you treat me that way? Don't you know that--that Ijust worship the ground you tread on? Don't you know you're the only girl in this world I could ever care for? Don't you know that?"They were walking home from church Sunday morning and had reached the corner below the parsonage.There, screened by the thicket of young silver-leafs, she stopped momentarily and looked into his face.Then she walked on.
"Don't you know how much I care?" he repeated.
