Etext of The Rise of Roscoe Paine
by Joseph C. Lincoln



THE RISE OF ROSCOE PAINE

by Joseph C. Lincoln




CHAPTER I


"I'm going up to the village," I told Dorinda, taking my cap from
the hook behind the dining-room door.

"What for?" asked Dorinda, pushing me to one side and reaching for
the dust-cloth, which also was behind the door.

"Oh, just for the walk," I answered, carelessly.

"Um-hm," observed Dorinda.

"Um-hm" is, I believe, good Scotch for "Yes."  I have read that it
is, somewhere--in one of Barrie's yarns, I think.  I had never been
in Scotland, or much of anywhere else, except the city I was born
in, and my college town, and Boston--and Cape Cod.  "Um-hm" meant
yes on the Cape, too, except when Dorinda said it; then it might
mean almost anything.  When Mother asked her to lower the window
shade in the bed-room she said "Um-hm" and lowered it.  And, five
minutes later, when Lute came in, loaded to the guards with
explanations as to why he had forgotten to clean the fish for
dinner, she said it again.  And the Equator and the North Pole are
no nearer alike, so far as temperature is concerned, than those two
"Um-hms."  And between them she had others, expressing all degrees
from frigid to semi-torrid.

Her "Um-hm" this time was somewhere along the northern edge of
Labrador.

"It's a good morning for a walk," I said.

"Um-hm," repeated Dorinda, crossing over to Greenland, so to speak.

I opened the outside door.  The warm spring sunshine, pouring in,
was a pleasant contrast and made me forget, for the moment, the
glacier at my back.  Come to think of it, "glacier" isn't a good
word; glaciers move slowly and that wasn't Dorinda's way.

"What are you going to do?" I asked.

"Work," snapped Dorinda, unfurling the dust cloth.  "It's a good
mornin' for that, too."

I went out, turned the corner of the house and found Lute sound
asleep on the wash bench behind the kitchen.  His full name was
Luther Millard Filmore Rogers, and he was Dorinda's husband by law,
and the burden which Providence, or hard luck, had ordered her to
carry through this vale of tears.  She was a good Methodist and
there was no doubt in her mind that Providence was responsible.
When she rose to testify in prayer-meeting she always mentioned her
"cross" and everybody knew that the cross was Luther.  She carried
him, but it is no more than fair to say that she didn't provide him
with cushions.  She never let him forget that he was a steerage
passenger.  However, Lute was well upholstered with philosophy, of
a kind, and, so long as he didn't have to work his passage, was
happy, even if the voyage was a rather rough one.

Just now he was supposed to be raking the back yard, but the rake
was between his knees, his head was tipped back against the
shingled wall of the kitchen, and he was sleeping, with the
sunshine illuminating his open mouth, "for all the world like a
lamp in a potato cellar," as his wife had said the last time she
caught him in this position.  She went on to say that it was a pity
he wouldn't stand on his head when he slept.  "Then I could see if
your skull was as holler as I believe it is," she told him.

Lute heard me as I passed him and woke up.  The "potato cellar"
closed with a snap and he seized the rake handles with both hands.

"I was takin' a sort of observation," he explained hurriedly.
"Figgerin' whether I'd better begin here or over by the barn.  Oh,
it's you, Roscoe, is it!  Land sakes!  I thought first 'twas
Dorindy.  Where you bound?"

"Up to the village," I said.

"Ain't goin' to the post-office, be you?"

"I may; I don't know."

Lute sighed.  "I was kind of cal'latin' to go there myself," he
observed, regretfully.  "Thoph Newcomb and Cap'n Jed Dean and the
rest of us was havin' a talk on politics last night up there and
'twas mighty interestin'.  Old Dean had Thoph pretty well out of
the race when I hauled alongside, but when I got into the argument
'twas different.  'What's goin' to become of the laborin' men of
this country if you have free trade?' I says.  Dean had to give in
that he didn't know.  'Might have to let their wives support 'em,'
he says, pompous as ever.  'That would be a calamity, wouldn't it,
Lute?'  That wasn't no answer, of course.  But you can't expect
sense of a Democrat.  I left him fumin' and come away.  I've
thought of a lot more questions to ask him since and I was hopin' I
could get at him this mornin'.  But no!  Dorindy's sot on havin'
this yard raked, so I s'pose I've got to do it."

He had dropped the rake, but now he leaned over, picked it up, and
rose from the wash bench.

"I s'pose I've got to do it," he repeated, "unless," hopefully,
"you want me to run up to the village and do your errand for you."

"No; I hadn't any errand."

"Well, then I s'pose I'd better start in.  Unless there was
somethin' else you'd ruther I'd do to-day.  If there was I could do
this to-morrer."

"To-morrow would have one advantage: there would be more to rake
then.  However, judging by Dorinda's temper this morning, I think,
perhaps, you had better do it to-day."

"What's Dorindy doin'?"

"She is dusting the dining-room."

"I'll bet you!  And she dusted it yesterday and the day afore.  Do
you know--" Lute sat down again on the bench--"sometimes I get real
worried about her."

"No!  Do you?"

"Yes, I do.  I think she works too hard.  Seems's if sometimes it
had kind of struck to her brains--work, I mean.  She don't think of
nothin' else.  Now take the dustin', for instance.  Dustin's all
right; I believe in dustin' things.  But I don't believe in wearin'
'em out dustin' 'em.  That ain't sense, is it?"

"It doesn't seem like it, that's a fact."

"You bet it don't!  And it ain't good religion, neither.  Now take--
well, take this yard, for instance.  What is it that I'm slavin'
myself over this fine mornin'?  Why, rakin' this yard!  And what am
I rakin'?  Why, dead leaves from last fall, and straws and sticks
and pieces of seaweed and such that have blowed in durin' the
winter.  And what blowed 'em in?  Why, the wind, sartin!  And whose
wind was it?  The Almighty's, that's whose!  Now then! if the
Almighty didn't intend to have dead leaves around why did he put
trees for 'em to fall off of?  If he didn't want straws and seaweed
and truck around why did He send them everlastin' no'theasters last
November?  Did that idea ever strike you?"

"I don't know that it ever did, exactly in that way."

"No.  Well, that's 'cause you ain't reasoned it out, same as I
have.  You've got the same trouble that most folks have, you don't
reason things out.  Now, let's look at it straight in the face."
Lute let go of the rake altogether and used both hands to
illustrate his point.  "That finger there, we'll say, is me, rakin'
and rakin' hard as ever I can.  And that fist there is the
Almighty, not meanin' anything irreverent.  I rake, same as I'm
doin' this mornin'.  The yard's all cleaned up.  Then--zing!"
Lute's clenched fist swept across and knocked the offending finger
out of the way.  "Zing! here comes one of the Almighty's
no'theasters, same as we're likely to have to-morrer, and the
consarned yard is just as dirty as ever.  Ain't that so?"

I looked at the yard.  "It seems to be about as it was," I agreed,
with some sarcasm.  Lute was an immune, so far as sarcasm was
concerned.

"Yup," he said, triumphantly.  "Now, Dorindy, she's a good, pious
woman.  She believes the Powers above order everything.  If that's
so, then ain't it sacrilegious to be all the time flyin' in the
face of them Powers by rakin' and rakin' and dustin' and dustin'?
That's the question."

"But, according to that reasoning," I observed, "we should neither
rake nor dust.  Wouldn't that make our surroundings rather
uncomfortable, after a while?"

"Sartin.  But when they got uncomfortable then we could turn to and
make 'em comfortable again.  I ain't arguin' against work--needful
work, you understand.  I like it.  And I ain't thinkin' of myself,
you know, but about Dorindy.  It worries me to see her wearin'
herself out with--with dustin' and such.  It ain't sense and
'tain't good religion.  She's my wife and it's my duty to think for
her and look out for her."

He paused and reached into his overalls pocket for a pipe.  Finding
it, he reached into another pocket for the wherewithal to fill it.

"Have you suggested to her that she's flying in the face of
Providence?" I asked.

Lute shook his head.  "No," he admitted, "I ain't.  Got any tobacco
about you?  Dorindy hove my plug away yesterday.  I left it back of
the clock and she found it and was mad--dustin' again, of course."

He took the pouch I handed him, filled his pipe and absently put
the pouch in his pocket.

"Got a match?" he asked.  "Thanks.  No, I ain't spoke to her about
it, though it's been on my mind for a long spell.  I didn't know
but you might say somethin' to her along that line, Roscoe.
'Twouldn't sound so personal, comin' from you.  What do you think?"

I shook my head.  "Dorinda wouldn't pay much attention to my ideas
on such subjects, I'm afraid," I answered.  "She knows I'm not a
regular church-goer."

Lute was plainly disappointed.  "Well," he said, with a sigh,
"maybe you're right.  She does cal'late you're kind of heathen,
though she hopes you'll see the light some day.  But, just the
same," he added, "it's a good argument.  I tried it on the gang up
to the post-office last night.  I says to 'em, says I, 'Work's all
right.  I believe in it.  I'm a workin' man, myself.  But to work
when you don't have to is wrong.  Take Ros Paine,' I says--"

"Why should you take me?" I interrupted, rather sharply.

"'Cause you're the best example I could think of.  Everybody knows
you don't do no work.  Shootin' and sailin' and fishin' ain't work,
and that's about all you do.  'Take Ros,' says I.  'He might be to
work.  He was in a bank up to the city once and he knows the
bankin' trade.  He might be at it now, but what would be the use?'
I says.  'He's got enough to live on and he lives on it, 'stead of
keepin' some poor feller out of a job.'  That's right, too, ain't
it?"

I didn't answer at once.  There was no reason why I should be
irritated because Luther Rogers had held me up as a shining example
of the do-nothing class to the crowd of hangers-on in a country
post-office.  What did I care for Denboro opinion?  Six years in
that gossipy village had made me, so I thought, capable of rising
above such things.

"Well," I asked after a moment, "what did they say to that?"

"Oh, nothin' much.  They couldn't; I had 'em, you see.  Some of 'em
laughed and old Cap'n Jed he hove out somethin' about birds of a
feather stickin' up for each other.  No sense to it.  But, as I
said afore, what can you expect of a Democrat?"

I turned on my heel and moved toward the back gate.  "Ain't goin',
be you?" asked Lute.  "Hadn't you better set down and rest your
breakfast a spell?"

"No, I'm going.  By the way, if you're through with that tobacco
pouch of mine, I'll take it off your hands.  I may want to smoke by
and by."

Lute coolly explained that he had forgotten the pouch; it had "gone
clean out of his head."  However, he handed it over and I left him
seated on the wash bench, with his head tipped back against the
shingles.  I opened the gate and strolled slowly along the path by
the edge of the bluff.  I had gone perhaps a hundred yards when I
heard a shrill voice behind me.  Turning, I saw Dorinda standing by
the corner of the kitchen, dust cloth in hand.  Her husband was
raking for dear life.

I walked on.  The morning was a beautiful one.  Beside the path, on
the landward side, the bayberry and beach-plum bushes were in bud,
the green of the new grass was showing above the dead brown of the
old, a bluebird was swaying on the stump of a wild cherry tree, and
the pines and scrub oaks of the grove by the Shore Lane were
bright, vivid splashes of color against the blue of the sky.  At my
right hand the yellow sand of the bluff broke sharply down to the
white beach and the waters of the bay, now beginning to ebb.
Across the bay the lighthouse at Crow Point glistened with new
paint and I could see a moving black speck, which I knew was Ben
Small, the keeper, busy whitewashing the fence beside it.  Down on
the beach Zeb Kendrick was overhauling his dory.  In the distance,
beyond the grove, I could hear the carpenters' hammers on the roof
of the big Atwater mansion, which was now the property of James
Colton, the New York millionaire, whose rumored coming to Denboro
to live had filled the columns of the country weekly for three
months.  The quahaug boats were anchored just inside the Point; a
clam digger was wading along the outer edge of the sedge; a
lobsterman was hauling his pots in the channel; even the bluebird
on the wild cherry stump had a straw in his beak and was plainly in
the midst of nest building.  Everyone had something to do and was
doing it--everyone except Lute Rogers and myself, the "birds of a
feather."  And even Lute was working now, under compulsion.

Ordinarily the sight of all this industry would not have affected
me.  I had seen it all before, or something like it.  The six years
I had spent in Denboro, the six everlasting, idle, monotonous
years, had had their effect.  I had grown hardened and had come to
accept my fate, at first rebelliously, then with more of Lute's
peculiar kind of philosophy.  Circumstances had doomed me to be a
good-for-nothing, a gentleman loafer without the usual excuse--
money--and, as it was my doom, I forced myself to accept it, if not
with pleasure, at least with resignation.  And I determined to get
whatever pleasure there might be in it.  So, when I saw the
majority of the human race, each with a purpose in life, struggling
to attain that purpose, I passed them by with my gun or fishing rod
on my shoulder, and a smile on my lips.  If my remnant of a
conscience presumed to rise and reprove me, I stamped it down.  It
had no reasonable excuse for rising; I wasn't what I was from
choice.

But, somehow, on this particular morning, my unreasonable
conscience was again alive and kicking.  Perhaps it was the
quickening influence of the spring which resurrected it; perhaps
Luther's quotation from the remarks of Captain Jedediah Dean had
stirred it to rebellion.  A man may know, in his heart, that he is
no good and still resent having others say that he is, particularly
when they say that he and Luther Rogers are birds of a feather.  I
didn't care for Dean's good opinion; of course I didn't!  Nor for
that of any one else in Denboro, my mother excepted.  But Dean and
the rest should keep their opinions to themselves, confound them!

The path from our house--the latter every Denboro native spoke of
as the "Paine Place"--wound along the edge of the bluff for perhaps
three hundred yards, then turned sharply through the grove of scrub
oaks and pitch pines and emerged on the Shore Lane.  The Shore Lane
was not a public road, in the strictest sense of the term.  It was
really a part of my land and, leading, as it did, from the Lower
Road to the beach, was used as a public road merely because mother
and I permitted it to be.  It had been so used, by sufferance of
the former owner, for years, and when we came into possession of
the property we did not interfere with the custom.  Land along the
shore was worth precious little at that time and, besides, it was
pleasant, rather than disagreeable, to hear the fish carts going
out to the weirs, and the wagons coming to the beach for seaweed,
or, filled with picnic parties, rattling down the Lane.  We could
not see them from the house until they had passed the grove and
emerged upon the beach, but even the noise of them was welcome.
The Paine Place was a good half-mile from the Lower Road and there
were few neighbors; therefore, especially in the winter months, any
sounds of society were comforting.

I strode through the grove, kicking the dead branches out of my
way, for my mind was still busy with Luther and Captain Dean.  As I
came out into the Lane I looked across at the Atwater mansion, now
the property of the great and only Colton, "Big Jim" Colton, whose
deals and corners in Wall Street supplied so many and such varied
sensations for the financial pages of the city papers, just as
those of his wife and family supplied news for the society columns;
I looked across, I say, and then I stopped short to take a longer
look.

I could see the carpenters, whose hammers I had heard, at work upon
the roof of the barn, now destined to do double duty as a stable
and garage.  They, and the painters and plumbers, had been busy on
the premises for months.  The establishment had been a big one,
even when Major Atwater owned it, but the new owners had torn down
and added and rebuilt until the house loomed up like a palace or a
Newport villa.  A Newport villa in Denboro!  Why on earth any one
should deliberately choose Denboro as a place to live in I couldn't
understand; but why a millionaire, with all creation to select
from, should build a Newport villa on the bluff overlooking Denboro
Bay was beyond comprehension.  The reason given in the Cape Cod
Item was that Mrs. Colton was "in debilitated health," whatever
that is, and had been commanded by her doctors to seek sea air and
seclusion and rest.  Well, there was sea air and rest, not to
mention seclusion or sand and mosquitoes, for a square mile about
the new villa, and no one knew that better than I, condemned to
live within the square.  But if Mrs. Colton had deliberately chosen
the spot, with malice aforethought, the place for her was a home
for the feeble minded.  At least, that was my opinion on that
particular morning.

It was not the carpenters who caused me to pause in my walk and
look across the lane and over the stone wall at my new neighbor's
residence.  What caught my attention was that the place looked to
be inhabited.  The windows were open--fifty or so of them--smoke
was issuing from one of the six chimneys; a maid in a white cap and
apron was standing by the servants' entrance.  Yes, and a tall,
bulky man with a yachting cap on the back of his head and a cigar
in his mouth was talking with Asa Peters, the boss carpenter, by
the big door of the barn.

I had not been up to the village for two days, having been employed
at our boat-house on the beach below the house, getting my motor
dory into commission for the summer.  But now I remembered that
Lute had said something about the Coltons being expected, or having
arrived, and that he seemed much excited over it.  He would have
said more, but Dorinda had pounced on him and sent him out to shut
up the chickens, which gave him the excuse to play truant and take
his evening's trip to the post-office.  It was plain that the
Coltons HAD arrived.  Very likely the stout man with the yachting
cap was the mighty "Big Jim" himself.  Well, I didn't envy him in
his present situation.  He had my pity, if anything.

Possibly the fact that I could pity some one other than myself
helped to raise my spirits.  At any rate I managed to shake off a
little of my gloom and tramped on up the Lane, feeling more like a
human being and less like a yellow dog.  Less as I should imagine a
yellow dog ought to feel, I mean, for, as a matter of fact, most
yellow dogs of my acquaintance seem to be as happy as their brown
or white or black relatives.  I walked up the Lane, turned into the
Lower Road, and headed for the village.  The day was a gorgeous
one, the air bracing as a tonic, and my thirtieth birthday was not
yet so far astern as to be lost in the fog.  After all, there were
some consolations in being alive and in a state of health not
"debilitated."  I began to whistle.

A quarter of a mile from the junction of the Shore Lane, on the
Lower Road, was a willow-shaded spot, where the brook which
irrigated Elnathan Mullet's cranberry swamp ran under a small
wooden bridge.  It was there that I first heard the horn and,
turning, saw the automobile coming from behind me.  It was
approaching at a speed of, I should say, thirty miles an hour, and
I jumped to the rail of the bridge to let it pass.  Autos were not
as common on the Cape then as they have become since.  Now the
average pedestrian of common-sense jumps first and looks
afterwards.

However, I jumped in time, and stood still to watch the car as it
went by.  But it did not go by--not then.  Its speed slackened as
it approached and it came to a halt on the bridge beside me.  A big
car; an aristocratic car; a machine of pomp and price and polish,
such as Denboro saw but seldom.  It contained three persons--a
capped and goggled chauffeur on the front seat, and a young fellow
and a girl in the tonneau.  They attracted my attention in just
that order--first the chauffeur, then the young fellow, and, last
of all, the girl.

It was the chauffeur who hailed me.  He leaned across the
upholstery beside him and, still holding the wheel, said:

"Say, Bill, what's the quickest way to get to Bayport?"

Now my name doesn't happen to be Bill and just then I objected to
the re-christening.  At another time I might have appreciated the
joke and given him the information without comment.  But this
morning I didn't feel like joking.  My dissatisfaction with the
world in general included automobilists who made common folks get
out of their way, and I was resentful.

"I should say that you had picked about as quick a way as any," I
answered.

The chauffeur didn't seem to grasp the true inwardness of this
brilliant bit.

"Aw, what--" he stammered.  "Say, what--look here, I asked you--"

Then the young man in the tonneau took charge of the conversation.
He was a very young man, with blond hair and a silky mustache, and
his clothes fitted him as clothes have no right to fit--on Cape
Cod.

"That'll do, Oscar," he ordered.  Then, turning to me, he said:

"See here, my man, we want to go to Bayport."

I was not his man, and wouldn't have been for something.  The
chauffeur had irritated me, but he irritated me more.  I didn't
like him, his looks, his clothes, and, particularly, his manner.
Therefore, because I didn't feel like answering, I showed my
independence by remaining silent.

"What's the matter?" he demanded, impatiently.  "Are you deaf?  I
say we want to go to Bayport."

A newspaper joke which I had recently read came to my mind.  "Very
well," I said, "you have my permission."

It was a rude thing to say, and not even original.  I don't attempt
to excuse it.  In fact, I was sorry as soon as I had said it.  It
had its effect.  The young man turned red.  Then he laughed aloud.

"Well, by Jove!" he exclaimed.  "What have we here?  A humorist, I
do believe!  Mabel, we've discovered a genuine, rural humorist.
Another David Harum, by Jove!  Look at him!"

The girl in the tonneau swept aside her veil and looked, as
directed.  And I looked at her.  The face that I saw was sweet and
refined and delicate, a beautiful young face, the face of a lady,
born and bred.  All this I saw and realized at a glance; but what I
was most conscious of at the time was the look in the dark eyes as
they surveyed me from head to foot.  Indifference was there, and
contemptuous amusement; she didn't even condescend to smile, much
less speak.  Under that look my self-importance shrank until the
yellow dog with which I had compared myself loomed as large as an
elephant.  She might have looked that way at some curious and
rather ridiculous bug, just before calling a servant to step on it.

The young man laughed again.  "Isn't it a wonder, Mabel?" he asked.
"The native wit on his native heath!  Reuben--pardon me, your name
is Reuben, isn't it?--now that you've had your little joke, would
you condescend to tell us the road which we should take to reach
Bayport in the shortest time?  Would you oblige us to that extent?"

The young lady smiled at this.  "Victor," she said, "how idiotic
you are!"

I agreed with her.  Idiot was one of the terms, the mildest, which
I should have applied to that young man.  I wanted very much to
remove him from that car by what Lute would call the scruff of the
neck.  But most of all, just then, I wanted to be alone, to see the
last of the auto and its occupants.

"First turn to the right, second to the left," I said, sullenly.

"Thank you, Reuben," vouchsafed the young man.  "Here's hoping that
your vegetables are fresher than your jokes.  Go ahead, Oscar."

The chauffeur threw in the clutch and the car buzzed up the road,
turning the corner at full speed.  There was a loose board
projecting from the bridge just under my feet.  As a member--though
an inactive one--of the Village Improvement Society I should have
trodden it back into place.  I didn't; I kicked it into the brook.

Then I walked on.  But the remainder of my march was a silent one,
without music.  I did not whistle.



CHAPTER II


The post-office was at Eldredge's store, and Eldredge's store,
situated at the corners, where the Main Road and the Depot Road--
which is also the direct road to South Denboro--join, was the
mercantile and social center of Denboro.  Simeon Eldredge kept the
store, and Simeon was also postmaster, as well as the town
constable, undertaker, and auctioneer.  If you wanted a spool of
thread, a coffin, or the latest bit of gossip, you applied at
Eldredge's.  The gossip you could be morally certain of getting at
once; the thread or the coffin you might have to wait for.

I scarcely know why I went to Eldredge's that morning.  I did not
expect mail, and I did not require Simeon's services in any one of
his professional capacities.  Possibly Lute's suggestion had some
sort of psychic effect and I stopped at the post-office
involuntarily.  At any rate, I woke from the trance in which the
encounter with the automobile had left me to find myself walking in
at the door.

The mail was not yet due, to say nothing of having arrived or been
sorted, but there was a fair-sized crowd on the settees and perched
on the edge of the counter.  Ezra Mullet was there, and Alonzo
Black and Alvin Baker and Thoph Newcomb.  Beriah Doane and Sam
Cahoon, who lived in South Denboro, were there, too, having driven
over behind Beriah's horse, on an errand; that is, Beriah had an
errand and Sam came along to help him remember it.  In the rear of
the store, by the frame of letter boxes, Captain Jedediah Dean was
talking with Simeon.

Alvin Baker saw me first and hailed me as I entered.

"Here's Ros Paine," he exclaimed.  "He'll know more about it than
anybody else.  Hey, Ros, how many hired help does he keep, anyhow?
Thoph says it's eight, but I know I counted more'n that, myself."

"It's eight, I tell you," broke in Newcomb, before I could answer.
"There's the two cooks and the boy that waits on 'em--"

"The idea of having anybody wait on a cook!" interrupted Mullet.
"That's blame foolishness."

"I never said he waited on the cooks.  I said he waited on them--on
the family.  And there's a coachman--"

"Why do they call them kind of fellers coachmen?" put in Thoph.
"There ain't any coach.  I see the carriages when they come--two
freight cars full of 'em.  There was a open two-seater, and a
buckboard, and that high-wheeled thing they called a dog-cart."

Beriah Doane laughed uproariously.  "Land of love!" he shouted.
"Does the dog have a cart all to himself?  That's a good one!  You
and me ain't got no dog, Sam, but we might have a couple of cat-
carts, hey?  Haw! haw!"

Thoph paid no attention to this pleasantry.  "There was the dog-
cart," he repeated, "and another thing they called the 'trap.'  But
there wan't any coach; I'll swear to it."

"Don't make no difference," declared Alvin; "there was a man along
that SAID he was the coachman, anyhow.  And a big minister-lookin'
feller who was a butler, and two hired girls besides the cooks.
That's nine, anyhow.  One more'n you said, Thoph."

"And that don't count the chauffeur, the chap that runs the
automobiles," said Alonzo Black.  "He's the tenth.  Say, Ros,"
turning to me, "how many is there, altogether?"

"How many what?" I asked.  It was my first opportunity to speak.

"Why, hired help--servants, you know.  How many does Mr. Colton
keep?"

"I don't know how many he keeps," I said.  "Why should I?"

The group looked at me in amazement.  Thoph Newcomb voiced the
general astonishment.

"Why should you!" he repeated.  "Why shouldn't you, you mean!
You're livin' right next door to 'em, as you might say!  My soul!
If I was you I cal'late I'd know afore this time."

"No doubt you would, Thoph.  But I don't.  I didn't know the
Coltons had arrived until I came by just now.  They have arrived, I
take it."

Arrived!  There was no question of the arrival, nor of its being
witnessed by everyone present, myself and the South Denboro
delegates excepted.  Newcomb and Baker and Mullet and Black began
talking all together.  I learned that the Colton invasion of
Denboro was a spectacle only equaled by the yearly coming of the
circus to Hyannis, or the opening of the cattle show at Ostable.
The carriages and horses had arrived by freight the morning before;
the servants and the family on the afternoon train.

"I see 'em myself," affirmed Alonzo.  "I was as nigh to 'em as I be
to you.  Mrs. Colton is sort of fleshy, but as handsome a woman as
you'd want to see.  I spoke to her, too.  'It's a nice day,' I
says, 'ain't it?'"

"What did she say?" asked Newcomb.

"She didn't say nothin'.  Engine was makin' such a noise she didn't
hear, I presume likely."

"Humph!" sniffed Baker, evidently envious; "I guess she heard you,
all right.  Fellers like you make me tired.  Grabbin' every chance
to curry favor with rich folks!  Wonder you didn't tell her you
drove a fish-cart and wanted her trade!  As for me, I'm independent.
Don't make no difference to me how well-off a person is.  They're
human, just the same as I am, and _I_ don't toady to 'em.  If they
want to talk they can send for me.  I'll wait till they do."

"Hope you've got lots of patience, Alvin," observed Mullet drily.
During the hilarity which followed, and while the offended apostle
of independence was trying to think of a sufficiently cutting
reply, I walked to the rear of the store.

Our letter box was Number 218, in the center of the rack, and, as I
approached, I glanced at it involuntarily.  To my surprise there
was a letter in it; I could see it through the glass of the box
door.  Lute had, as I knew, got the mail the previous evening and
the morning's mail had not yet arrived.  Therefore this letter must
have been written by some one in Denboro and posted late the night
before or early that morning.  It was not the custom for Denboro
residents to communicate with each other through the medium of the
post.  They preferred to save the two cents stamp money, as a
general thing.  Bills sometimes came by mail, but this was the
tenth, not the first, of the month; and, besides, our bills were
paid.

I reached into my pocket for my keys, unlocked the box and took out
the letter.  The envelope was square, of an expensive quality, and
eminently aristocratic.  It was postmarked Denboro, dated that
morning, and addressed in a sharp, clear masculine hand unfamiliar
to me, to "Roscoe Paine, Esq."  The "Esq." would have settled it,
if the handwriting had not.  No fellow-townsman of my acquaintance
would address me, or any one else, as Esquire.  Misters and
Captains were common enough, but Esquires--no.

It was a Denboro custom, when one received a mysterious letter, to
get the fullest enjoyment out of the mystery before solving it.  I
had known Dorinda Rogers to guess, surmise and speculate for ten
minutes before opening a patent medicine circular.  But, though
mysteries were uncommon enough in my life, I think I should have
reached the solution of this one in the next second--in fact, I had
torn the end from the envelope--when I was interrupted.

It was Captain Dean who interrupted me.  He had evidently concluded
his conversation with the postmaster and now was bearing down
majestically upon me, like a ten thousand ton steamer on a porgie
schooner.

"Hey, you--Ros!" he roared.  He was at my elbow, but he roared just
the same.  Skipper of a coaster in his early days, he had never
outgrown the habit of pitching his voice to carry above a fifty-
mile gale.  "Hey, Ros.  See here; I want to talk to you."

I did not want to talk with any one, particularly with him.  He was
the individual who, according to Lute, had bracketed Mr. Rogers and
myself as birds of a feather, the remark which was primarily
responsible for my ill humor of the morning.  If he had not said
that, and if Lute had not quoted the saying to me, I might have
behaved less like a fool when that automobile overtook me, I might
not have given that young idiot, whose Christian name it seemed was
Victor, the opportunity to be smart at my expense.  That girl with
the dark eyes might not have looked at me as if I were a worm or a
June bug.  Confound her! what right had she to look at me like
that?  Victor, or whatever his name was, was a cub and a cad and as
fresh as the new paint on Ben Small's lighthouse, but he had
deigned to speak.  Whereas that girl--!

No, I did not want to talk with Jedediah Dean.  However, he wanted
to talk to me, and what he wanted he usually got.

Captain Dean was one of Denboro's leading citizens.  His parents
had been as poor as Job's turkey, but Jedediah had determined to
get money and now he had it.  He was reputed to be worth "upwards
of thirty thousand," owned acres and acres of cranberry swamps, and
the new house he had just built was almost as big as it was ugly,
which is saying considerable.  He had wanted to be a deacon in the
church and, though the church was by no means so eager, deacon he
became.  He was an uncompromising Democrat, but he had forced
himself into the Board of Selectmen, every other member a
Republican.  He was director in the Denboro bank, and it was town
talk that his most ardent desire at the present time was to see his
daughter Helen--Nellie, we all called her--married to George
Taylor, cashier of that bank.  As George and Nellie were "keeping
company" it seemed likely that Captain Jed would be gratified in
this, as in all other desires.  He was a born boss, and did his
best to run the town according to his ideas.  Captain Elisha
Warren, who lived over in South Denboro and was also a director in
the bank, covered the situation when he said:  "Jed Dean is one of
those fellers who ought to have a big family to order around.  The
Almighty gave him only one child and so he adopted Denboro and is
bossin' that."

"I want to talk to you, Ros," repeated Captain Jed.  "Come here."

He led the way to the settee by the calico and dress goods counter.
I put the unread letter in my pocket and followed him.

"Set down," he ordered.  "Come to anchor alongside."

I came to anchor.

"How's your mother?" he asked.  "Matilda was cal'latin' to go down
and set with her a spell this afternoon, if she didn't have
anything else to do--if Matilda didn't, I mean."

Matilda was his wife.  In her husband's company she was as dumb as
a broken phonograph; when he was not with her she talked
continuously, as if to get even.  A call from Matilda Dean was one
of the additional trials which made Mother's invalid state harder
to bear.

"Course she may not come," Jedediah hastened to say.  "She's pretty
busy these days.  But if she don't have anything else to do she
will.  I told her she'd better."

"Mother will be charmed," I said.  Captain Jed was no fool and he
looked at me sharply.

"Um; yes," he grunted.  "I presume likely.  You're charmed, too,
ain't you?"

I was not expecting this.  I murmured something to the effect that
I was delighted, of course.

"Sartin.  Well, that's all right.  I didn't get you on this settee
to charm you.  I want to talk business with you a minute."

"Business!  With me?"

"Yup.  Or it may be business later on.  I've been thinkin' about
that Shore Lane, the one that runs through your land.  Us town
folks use that a whole lot.  I cal'late most everybody's come to
look at it as a reg'lar public road to the beach."

"Why, yes, I suppose they have," I said, puzzled to know what he
was driving at.  "It is a public road, practically."

"No, 'tain't, neither.  It's a private way, and if you wanted to
you could shut it off any day.  A good many folks would have shut
it off afore this."

"Oh, I guess not."

"I guess yes.  I'd shut it off myself.  I wouldn't have Tom, Dick
and Harry drivin' fish wagons and tip carts full of seaweed through
my premises free gratis for nothin'."

"Why?" I asked.  "What harm does it do?"

"I don't know as it does any.  But because a tramp sleepin' on my
front piazza might not harm the piazza, that's no reason why I'd
let him sleep there."

I laughed.  "The two cases aren't exactly alike, are they?" I said.
"The land is of no value to us at present.  Mother and I are glad
to have the Lane used, if it is a convenience, as I suppose it is."

"It's that, sartin.  Ros, who owns that land the Lane runs through--
you or your mother?"

"It is in my name," I said.

"Um-hm.  Well, would you sell it?"

"Sell it!  Sell that strip of sand and beach grass!  Who would buy
it?"

"I don't know as anybody would.  I just asked if you'd sell it,
that's all."

"Perhaps I would.  I presume I should, if I had the chance."

"Ain't had any chance yet, have you?"

"What do you mean by that?"

"Oh, nothin', nothin'!  Well, you just think it over.  If you
decide you would sell it and get so fur as fixin' a price on it,
let me know, will you?"

"Captain, what in the world do you want of that land?  See here!
you don't want to shut off the Shore Lane, do you?"

"What in time would I want to shut it off for?  I use it as much as
anybody, don't I?"

"Then I don't see--"

"Maybe there ain't nothin' TO see.  Only, if you decide to sell,
let me know.  Yes, and don't sell WITHOUT lettin' me know.
Understand?"

"No, I don't."

"Well, you understand enough, I cal'late.  All I want you to do is
to promise not to sell that land the Lane's on without speakin' to
me fust.  Will you promise that?"

I considered for a moment.  "Yes," I said, "I'll promise that.
Though I can't imagine what you're driving at."

"You don't need to.  Maybe I'm just drivin' blind; I hope I am.
That's all I wanted to talk about," rising from the settee.  "Oh,
by the way," he added, "your neighborhood's honored just now, ain't
it?  The King of New York's arrived, they tell me."

"King of New York?  Oh! I see; you mean the Coltons."

"Sartin.  Who else?  Met his Majesty yet?"

"No.  Have you?"

"I met him when he was down a month ago.  Sim Eldredge introduced
me right here in the store.  'Mr. Colton,' says Sim, proud but
humble, so to speak, 'let me make you acquainted with one of our
selectmen, Cap'n Dean.  Cap'n, shake hands with Mr. Colton of New
York.'  We shook, and I cal'late I'd ought to have kept that hand
in a glass case ever since.  But, somehow or other, I ain't."

"What sort of a chap is Colton?" I asked.

"Oh, all right of his kind, I guess.  In amongst a gang of high
financers like himself he'd size up as a pretty good sport, I
shouldn't wonder.  And he was polite enough to me, I suppose.  But,
darn him, I didn't like the way he looked at me!  He looked as if--
as if--well, I can't tell you how he looked."

"You don't need to," I said, brusquely.  "I know."

"You do, hey?  He ain't looked at you, has he?  No, course he
ain't!  You said you hadn't met him."

"I've met others of his kind."

"Yes.  Well, I'm a hayseed and I know it.  I'm just a countryman
and he's a millionaire.  He'll be the big show in this town from
now on.  When he blows his nose seven-eighths of this community 'll
start in workin' up a cold in the head."

He turned on his heel and started to go.

"Will you?" I asked, slily.

He looked back over his shoulder.  "I ain't subject to colds--
much," he snapped.  "But YOU better lay in a supply of handkerchiefs,
Ros."

I smiled.  I knew what was troubling him.  A little tin god has a
pleasant time of it, no doubt, until the coming of the eighteen
carat gold idol.  Captain Jed had been boss of Denboro--self-
appointed to that eminent position, but holding it nevertheless--
and to be pushed from his perch by a city rival was disagreeable.
If I knew him he would not be dethroned without a fight.  There
were likely to be some interesting and lively times in our village.

I could understand Dean's dislike of Colton, but his interest in
the Shore Lane was a mystery.  Why should he wish to buy that
worthless strip of land?  And what did he mean by asking if I had
chances to sell it?  Still pondering over this puzzle, I walked
toward the front of the store, past the group waiting for the mail,
where the discussion concerning the Coltons was still going on,
Thoph Newcomb and Alvin Baker both talking at once.

"You ask Ros," shouted Alvin, pounding the counter beside him.
"Say, Ros, Newcomb here seems to think that because a feller comes
from the city and is rich that that gives him the right to order
the rest of us around as if we was fo'mast hands.  He says--"

"I don't neither!" yelled Thoph.  "What I say is that money counts,
and--"

"You do, too!  Ros, do YOU intend to get down on your knees to them
Coltons?"

I laughed and went on without replying.  I left the store and
strolled across the road to the bank, intending to make a short
call on George Taylor, the cashier, my most intimate acquaintance
and the one person in Denboro who came nearest to being my friend.

But George was busy in the directors' room, and, after waiting a
few moments in conversation with Henry Small, the bookkeeper, I
gave it up and walked home, across the fields this time; I had no
desire to meet more automobilists.

Dorinda had finished dusting the dining room and was busy upstairs.
I could hear the swish-swish of her broom overhead.  I opened the
door leading to Mother's bedroom and entered, closing the door
behind me.

The curtains were drawn, as they always were on sunny days, and the
room was in deep shadow.  Mother had been asleep, I think, but she
heard my step and recognized it.

"Is that you, Boy?" she asked.  If I had been fifty, instead of
thirty-one, Mother would have called me "Boy" just the same.

"Yes, Mother," I said.

"Where have you been?  For a walk?  It is a beautiful morning,
isn't it."

Her only way of knowing that the morning was a beautiful one was
that the shades were drawn.  She had not seen the sunlight on the
bay, nor the blue sky; she had not felt the spring breeze on her
face, or the green grass beneath her feet.  Her only glimpses of
the outside world were those which she got on cloudy or stormy days
when the shades were raised a few inches and, turning her head on
the pillow, she could see beneath them.  For six years she had been
helpless and bedridden in that little room.  But she never
complained.

I told her that I had been uptown for a walk.

"Did you meet any one?" she asked.

I said that I had met Captain Dean and Newcomb and the rest.  I
said nothing of my encounter with the motor car.

"Captain Jed graciously informed me that his wife might be down to
sit with you this afternoon," I said.  "Provided she didn't have
anything else to do; he took pains to add that.  You mustn't see
her, of course."

She smiled.  "Why not?" she asked.  "Matilda is a little tiresome
at times, but she means well."

"Humph!  Mother, I think you would make excuses for the Old Harry
himself.  That woman will talk you to death."

"Oh, no!  Not as bad as that.  And poor Matilda doesn't talk much
at home, I'm afraid."

"Her husband sees to that; I don't blame him.  By the way, the
Captain had a queer bee in his bonnet this morning.  He seems to be
thinking of buying some of our property."

I told her of Jedediah's interest in the Shore Lane and his hint
concerning its possible purchase.  She listened and then said
thoughtfully:

"What have you decided to do about it, Roscoe?"

"I haven't decided at all.  What do you think, Mother?"

"It seems to me that I shouldn't sell, at least until I knew his
reason for wanting to buy.  It would be different if we needed the
money, but, of course, we don't."

"Of course," I said, hastily.  "But why not sell?  We don't use the
land."

"No.  But the Denboro people need that Lane.  They use it a great
deal.  If it were closed it would put many of them to a great
inconvenience, particularly those who get their living alongshore.
Every one in Denboro has been so kind to us.  I feel that we owe
them a debt we never can repay."

"No one could help being kind to you, Mother.  Oh! I have another
piece of news.  Did you know that our new neighbors, the Coltons,
have arrived?"

"Yes.  Dorinda told me.  Have you met any of them?"

"No."

"Dorinda says Mrs. Colton is an invalid.  Poor woman! it must be
hard to be ill when one has so much to enjoy.  Dorinda says they
have a very pretty daughter."

I made no comment.  I was not interested in pretty daughters, just
then.  The memory of the girl in the auto was too fresh in my mind.

"Did you go to the post-office, Roscoe?" asked Mother.  "I suppose
there were no letters.  There seldom are."

Then I remembered the letter in my pocket.  I had forgotten it
altogether.

"Why, yes, there was a letter, a letter for me.  I haven't read it
yet."

I took the envelope from my pocket and drew out the enclosure.  The
latter was a note, very brief and very much to the point.  I read
it.

"Well, by George!" I exclaimed, angrily.

"What is it, Roscoe?"

"It appears to be a summons from what Captain Jed called the King
of New York.  A summons to appear at court."

"At court?"

"Oh, not the criminal court.  Merely the palace of his Majesty.
Just listen."

This was the letter:


Roscoe Paine, Esq.

Dear Sir:

I should like to see you at my house this--Thursday--forenoon, on a
matter of business.  I shall expect you at any time after ten in
the morning.

Yours truly,

JAMES W. COLTON.


"From Mr. Colton!" exclaimed Mother.  "Why! what can he want of
you?"

"I don't know," I answered.  "And I don't particularly care."

"Roscoe!"

"Mother, did you ever hear such a cool, nervy proposition in your
life?  He wants to see me and he orders me to come to him.  Why
doesn't he come to me?"

"I suppose he didn't think of it.  He is a big man in New York and
he has been accustomed to having people come at his convenience.
It's his way of doing things, I suppose."

"Then I don't like the way.  This is Denboro, not New York.  He
will expect me at any time after ten, will he?  Well, as Mullet
said to Alvin Baker just now at the post-office, I hope he has lots
of patience.  He'll need it."

"But what can he want of you?"

"I don't know.  Wants to look over his nearest jay neighbor, I
should imagine, and see what sort of a curio he is.  He thinks it
may be necessary to put up barbed wire fences, I suppose."

"Roscoe, don't be narrow-minded.  Mr. Colton's ways aren't ours and
we must make allowances."

"Let him make a few, for a change."

"Aren't you going to see him?"

"No.  At least not until I get good and ready."

Dorinda came in just then to ask Mother some questions concerning
dinner, for, though Mother had not seen the dining room since that
day, six years ago, when she was carried from it to her bedroom,
she kept her interest in household affairs and insisted on being
consulted on all questions of management and internal economy.  I
rose from my chair and started toward the door.

"Are you going, Roscoe?" asked Mother.

"Yes."

"Where?"

"Oh, just out of doors; perhaps to the boat-house."

"Boy."

"Yes, Mother?"

"What is the matter?  Something has gone wrong; I knew it as soon
as you came in.  What is it?"

"Nothing.  That is, nothing of any consequence.  I'm a little out
of sorts to-day and that man's letter irritates me.  I'll get over
it.  I'll be back soon.  Good-by, Mother."

"Good-by, Boy."

I went out through the dining room and kitchen, to the back yard,
where, seating myself on Lute's favorite resting place, the wash
bench, I lit my pipe and sat thinking, gloomily thinking.



CHAPTER III


It is a dreadful thing to hate one's own father; to hate him and be
unable to forgive him even though he is dead, although he paid for
his sin with his life.  Death is said to pay all debts, but there
are some it cannot pay.  To my father I owed my present ambitionless,
idle, good-for-nothing life, my mother's illness, years of disgrace,
the loss of a name--everything.

Paine was my mother's maiden name; she was christened Comfort
Paine.  My own Christian name is Roscoe and my middle name is
Paine.  My other name, the name I was born with, the name that
Mother took when she married, we dropped when the disgrace came
upon us.  It was honored and respected once; now when it was
repeated people coupled it with shame and crime and dishonor and
broken trust.

As a boy I remember myself as a spoiled youngster who took the
luxuries of this world for granted.  I attended an expensive and
select private school, idled my way through that somehow, and
entered college, a happy-go-lucky young fellow with money in my
pocket.  For two-thirds of my Freshman year--which was all I
experienced of University life--I enjoyed myself as much as
possible, and studied as little.  Then came the telegram.  I
remember the looks of the messenger who brought it, the cap he
wore, and the grin on his young Irish face when the fellow sitting
next me at the battered black oak table in the back room of Kelly's
asked him to have a beer.  I remember the song we were singing, the
crowd of us, how it began again and then stopped short when the
others saw the look on my face.  The telegram contained but four
words:  "Come home at once."  It was signed with the name of my
father's lawyer.

I presume I shall never forget even the smallest incident of that
night journey in the train and the home-coming.  The lawyer's
meeting me at the station in the early morning; his taking care
that I should not see the newspapers, and his breaking the news to
me.  Not of the illness or death which I had feared and dreaded,
but of something worse--disgrace.  My father was an embezzler, a
thief.  He had absconded, had run away, like the coward he was,
taking with him what was left of his stealings.  The banking house
of which he had been the head was insolvent.  The police were on
his track.  And, worse and most disgraceful of all, he had not fled
alone.  There was a woman with him, a woman whose escapades had
furnished the papers with sensations for years.

I had never been well acquainted with my father.  We had never been
friends and companions, like other fathers and sons I knew.  I
remember him as a harsh, red-faced man, whom, as a boy, I avoided
as much as possible.  As I grew older I never went to him for
advice; he was to me a sort of walking pocket-book, and not much
else.  Mother has often told me that she remembers him as something
quite different, and I suppose it must be true, otherwise she would
not have married him; but to me he was a source of supply coupled
with a bad temper, that was all.  That I was not utterly impossible,
that, going my own gait as I did, I was not a complete young
blackguard, I know now was due entirely to Mother.  She and I were
as close friends as I would permit her to be.  Father had neglected
us for years, though how much he had neglected and ill-treated her
I did not know until she told me, afterward.  She was in delicate
health even then, but, when the blow fell, it was she and not I who
bore up bravely and it was her pluck and nerve, not mine, which
pulled us through that dreadful time.

And it was dreadful.  The stories and pictures in the papers!  The
rumors, always contradicted, that the embezzler had been caught!
The misrepresentation and lies and scandal!  The loss of those whom
we had supposed were friends!  Mother bore them all, wore a calm,
brave face in public, and only when alone with me gave way, and
then but at rare intervals.  She clung to me as her only comfort
and hope.  I was sullen and wrathful and resentful, an unlicked
cub, I suspect, whose complaints were selfish ones concerning the
giving up of my college life and its pleasures, and the sacrifice
of social position and wealth.

Mother had--or so we thought at the time--a sum in her own name
which would enable us to live; although not as we had lived by a
great deal.  We took an apartment in an unfashionable quarter of
the city, and thanks to the lawyer--who proved himself a real and
true friend--I was given a minor position in a small bank.  Oddly
enough, considering my former life, I liked the work, it interested
me, and during the next few years I was made, by successive
promotions, bookkeeper, teller, and, at last, assistant cashier.
No news came from the absconder.  The police had lost track of him,
and it seemed probable that he would never be heard of again.  But
over Mother and myself hung always the dread that he might be found
and all the dreadful business revived once more.  Mother never
mentioned it, nor did I, but the dread was there.

Then came the first breakdown in Mother's health which necessitated
her removal to the country.  Luther and Dorinda Rogers were distant
relatives of our friend, the lawyer.  They owned the little house
by the shore at Denboro and the lawyer had visited them occasionally
on shooting and fishing trips.  They were in need of money, for, as
Dorinda said:  "We've got two mouths in this family and only one
pair of hands.  One of the mouths is so big that the hands can't
fill it, let alone the mouth that belongs to THEM."  Mother--as Mrs.
Paine, a widow--went there first as a boarder, intending to remain
but a few months.  Dorinda took to her at once, being attracted in
the beginning, I think, by the name.  "They call you Comfort Paine,"
she said, "and you are a comfort to everybody else's pain.  Yet you
ain't out of pain a minute scurcely, yourself.  I never see anything
like it.  If 'twan't wicked I'd say that name was give you by the
Old Scratch himself, as a sort of divilish joke.  But anybody can
see that the Old Scratch never had anything in common with you, even
a hand in the christenin'."

Dorinda was very kind, and Lute was a never-ending joy in his
peculiar way.  Mother would have been almost happy in the little
Denboro home, if I had been with her.  But she was never really
happy when we were separated, a condition of mind which grew more
acute as her health declined.  I came down from the city once every
month and those Sundays were great occasions.  The Denboro people
know me as Roscoe Paine.

For a time Mother seemed to be holding her own.  In answer to my
questions she always declared that she was ever so much better.
But Doctor Quimby, the town physician, looked serious

"She must be kept absolutely quiet," he said.  "She must not be
troubled in any way.  Worry or mental distress is what I fear most.
Any sudden bad news or shock might--well, goodness knows what
effect it might have.  She must not be worried.  Ros--" after one
has visited Denboro five times in succession he is generally called
by his Christian name--"Ros, if you've got any worries you keep 'em
to yourself."

I had worries, plenty of them.  Our little fortune, saved, as we
thought, from the wreck, suffered a severe shrinkage.  A
considerable portion of it, as the lawyers discovered, was involved
and belonged to the creditors.  I said nothing to Mother about
this: she supposed that we had a sufficient income for our needs,
even without my salary.  Without telling her I gave up our city
apartment, stored our furniture, and took a room in a boarding-
house.  I was learning the banking business, was trusted with more
and more responsibility, and believed my future was secure.  Then
came the final blow.

I saw the news in the paper when I went out to lunch.  "Embezzler
and His Companion Caught in Rio Janeiro.  He Commits Suicide When
Notified of His Arrest."  These headlines stared at me as I opened
the paper at the restaurant table.  My father had shot himself when
the police came.  I read it with scarcely more than a vague feeling
of pity for him.  It was of Mother that I thought.  The news must
be kept from her.  If she should hear of it!  What should I do?  I
went first of all to the lawyer's office: he was out of town for
the day.  I wandered up and down the streets for an hour.  Then I
went back to the bank.  There I found a telegram from Doctor
Quimby:  "Mrs. Paine very ill.  Come on first train."  I knew what
it meant.  Mother had heard the news; the shock which the doctor
dreaded had had its effect.

I reached Denboro the next morning.  Lute met me at the station.
From his disjointed and lengthy story I gathered that Mother had
been "feelin' fust-rate for her" until the noon before.  "I come
back from the post-office," said Lute, "and I was cal'latin' to
read the newspaper, but Dorindy had some everlastin' chore or other
for me to do--I believe she thinks 'em up in her sleep--and I left
the paper on the dinin'-room table and went out to the barn.
Dorindy she come along to boss me, as usual.  When we went back to
the house there was Mrs. Comfort on the dinin'-room floor--dead, we
was afraid at fust.  The paper was alongside of her, so we judge
she was just a-goin' to read it when she was took.  The doctor says
it's a paralysis or appleplexy or somethin'.  We carried her into
the bedroom, but she ain't spoke sence."

She did not speak for weeks and when she did it was to ask for me.
She called my name over and over again and, if I left her, even for
a moment, she grew so much worse that the doctor forbade my going
back to the city.  I obtained a leave of absence from the bank for
three months.  By that time she was herself, so far as her reason
was concerned, but very weak and unable to bear the least hint of
disturbance or worry.  She must not be moved, so Doctor Quimby
said, and he held out no immediate hope of her recovering the use
of her limbs.  "She will be confined to her bed for a long time,"
said the doctor, "and she is easy only when you are here.  If you
should go away I am afraid she might die."  I did not go away.  I
gave up my position in the bank and remained in Denboro.

At the end of the year I bought the Rogers house and land, moved a
portion of our furniture down there, sold the rest, and resigned
myself to a period of idleness in the country.  Dorinda I hired as
housekeeper, and when Dorinda accepted the engagement she threw in
Lute, so to speak, for good measure.

And here I have been ever since.  At first I looked upon my stay in
Denboro as a sort of enforced vacation, which was to be, of course,
only temporary.  But time went on and Mother's condition continued
unchanged.  She needed me and I could not leave her.  I fished and,
shot and sailed and loafed, losing ambition and self-respect, aware
that the majority of the village people considered me too lazy to
earn a living, and caring little for their opinion.  At first I had
kept up a hit or miss correspondence with one or two of my
associates in the bank, but after a while I dropped even this
connection with the world.  I was ashamed to have my former
acquaintances know what I had become, and they, apparently, were
quite willing to forget me.  I expected to live and die in Denboro,
and I faced the prospect with indifference.

The summer people, cottagers and boarders, I avoided altogether and
my only friend, and I did not consider him that, was George Taylor,
the Denboro bank cashier.  He was fond of salt-water and out-door
sports and we, occasionally enjoyed them together.

Thanks to the lawyer, our names had been scarcely mentioned in the
papers at the time of my father's death.  No one in the village
knew our identity or our story.  And, because I knew that Mother
would worry if she were told, I kept from her the fact that our
little income was but half of what it had been.  Our wants were
few, and if my clothes were no longer made by the best tailors, if
they were ready-made and out-of-date and lacked pressing, they were
whole, at all events, because Dorinda was a tip-top mender.  In
fact, I had forgotten they were out-of-date until the sight of the
immaculately garbed young chap in the automobile brought the
comparison between us to my mind.

But now, as I sat on the wash-bench, thinking of all this, I looked
down at my baggy trousers and faded waistcoat with disgust.  One of
the surest signs of the loss of self-respect is a disregard of
one's personal appearance.  I looked like a hayseed--not the
independent countryman who wears old clothes on week days from
choice and is proudly conscious of a Sunday suit in the closet--but
that other variety, the post-office and billiard-room idler who has
reached the point of utter indifference, is too shiftless to care.
Captain Jed was not so far wrong, after all--Lute Rogers and I were
birds of a feather in more ways than one.

No wonder that girl in the auto had looked at me as if I were
something too contemptible for notice.  Yet I hated her for that
look.  I had behaved like a boor, of course.  Because I was a
failure, a country loafer with no prospect of ever being anything
else, because I could not ride in automobiles and others could--
these were no good reasons for insulting strangers more fortunate
than I.  Yet I did hate that girl.  Just then I hated all creation,
especially that portion of it which amounted to anything.

I took the letter from my pocket and read it again.  "I should like
to see you . . . on a matter of business."  What business could
"Yours truly, James W. Colton" have with me?  And Captain Jed also
had talked business.  I supposed that I had given up business long
ago and for good; now, all at once, it seemed to be hunting me.
Well, all the hunting should be on its side.

At another time I might have treated the great Colton's "summons to
court" as a joke.  I might, like Mother, have regarded the curtness
of the command and its general tone of taking my prompt obedience
for granted as an expression of the Wall Street magnate's habit of
mind, and nothing more.  He was used to having people jump when he
snapped his fingers.  But now it made me angry.  I sympathized with
Dean and Alvin Baker.  The possession of money did not necessarily
imply omnipotence.  This was Cape Cod, not New York.  His Majesty
might, as Captain Jed put it, have blown his Imperial nose, but I,
for one, wouldn't "lay in a supply of handkerchiefs"--not yet.

I heard a rustle in the bushes and, turning my head, saw Lute
coming along the path.  He was walking fast--fast for him, that is--
and seemed to be excited.  His excitement, however, did not cause
him to forget prudence.  He looked carefully about to be sure his
wife was not in sight, before he spoke.

"Dorindy ain't been here sence I've been gone, has she?" was his
first question.

"I guess not," said I.  "She has been in the house since I got
back.  But I don't know how long you've been gone."

"Only a few minutes.  I--I just stepped over 'cross the Lane for a
jiffy, that's all.  Say, by time; them Coltons must have money!"

"That's a habit of millionaires, I believe."

"Hey?  What do you mean by that?  If they didn't have money they
couldn't be millionaires, could they?  How'd you like to be a
millionaire, Ros?"

"I don't know.  I never tried."

"By time!  I'D like to try a spell.  I've been over lookin' 'round
their place.  You never see such a place!  Why, their front
doorstep's big as this yard, pretty nigh."

"Does it have to be raked?" I asked.

"Raked!  Whoever heard of rakin' a doorstep?"

"Give it up!  But it does seem to me that I have heard of raking a
yard.  I think Dorinda mentioned that, didn't she?"

Lute looked at me: then he hurried over and picked up the rake
which was lying near the barn, a pile--a very small pile--of chips
and leaves beside it.

"When did she mention it?" he asked.

"A week ago, I think, was the first time.  She has referred to it
occasionally since.  She was mentioning it to you when I went up
town this morning.  I heard her."

Lute looked relieved.  "Oh, THEN!" he said.  "I thought you meant
lately.  Well, I'm rakin' it, ain't I?  Say, Ros," he added,
eagerly, "did you go to the post-office when you was uptown?  Was
there a letter there for you?"

"What makes you think there was?"

"Asa Peters' boy, the bow-legged one, told me.  The chauffeur, the
feller that pilots the automobiles, asked him where the post-office
was and he see the address on the envelope.  He said the letter was
for you.  I told him he was lyin'--"

"What in the world did you tell him that for?" I interrupted.  I
had known Lute a long time, but he sometimes surprised me, even
yet.

"'Cause he is, nine times out of ten," replied Lute, promptly.
"You never see such a young-one for dodgin' the truth.  Why, one
time he told his grandmother, Asa's ma, I mean, that--"

"What did he say about the letter?"

"Said 'twas for you.  And the chauffeur said Mr. Colton told him to
mail it right off.  'Twan't for you, was it, Ros?"

"Yes."

"It WAS!  Well, by time!  What did a man like Mr. Colton write to
you about?"

Among his other lackings Lute was conspicuously short of tact.
This was no time for him to ask me such a question, especially to
emphasize the "you."

"Why shouldn't he write to me?" I asked, tartly.

"But--but HIM--writin' to YOU!"

"Humph!  Even a god stoops once in a while.  Read your mythology,
Lute."

"Hey?  Say, look here, what are you swearin' about?"

"Swearing?  Oh, that's all right.  The god I referred to was a
heathen one."

"Well, it's a good thing Dorindy didn't hear you; she's down on
swearin', heathen or any other kind.  But what did Mr. Colton write
to you for?"

"He says he wants to see me."

"See you?  What for?"

"Don't know. Perhaps he wants to borrow money."

"Borrow--!  I believe you're crazy!"

"No, I'm tolerably sane.  There! there! don't look at me like that.
Here's his letter.  Read it, if you want to."

Lute's fingers were so eager to grasp that letter that they were
all thumbs.  He dropped it on the grass, picked it up with as much
care as if it was a diamond, and holding it a foot from his nose--
he had broken his spectacles and was afraid to ask Dorinda for the
money to have them repaired--he spelt it out to the last word.

"Well, by time!" he exclaimed, when he had finished. "He wants to
see you at his house this forenoon!  And--and--why, the forenoon's
all but gone now!  What are you settin' here for?"

"Well, I thought I should enjoy watching you rake the yard.  It is
a pleasure deferred so far."

"Watchin' me--!  Roscoe Paine, you are out of your head!  Ain't you
goin' to see him?"

"No."

"You AIN'T!"

"No."

"Ros Paine, have you jined in with them darn fools uptown?"

"Who's swearing now?  What fools do you mean?"

"Darn ain't swearin'.  Dorindy herself says that once in a while.
I mean Alvin Baker, and Jed Dean and the rest of 'em.  They was
goin' on about Mr. Colton last night; said THEY wan't goin' to run
at his beck and call.  I told 'em, says I, 'You ain't had the
chance.  You'll run fast enough when you do.'"

"Did you say that to Captain Jed?"

"No-o.  I said it to Alvin, but old Jed's just as bad.  He's down
on anybody that's got more'n he has.  But Ros, you ain't foolish
enough to side with Jed Dean.  Just think!  Here's Mr. Colton,
richer'n King Solomon and all his glory.  He's got servants and
butlers and bonds and cowpons and horses and teams and automobiles
and--"

I rose from the wash bench.

"I know what he's got, Lute," I interrupted. "And I know what he
hasn't got."

"What?  Is there anything he ain't got?"

"He hasn't got me--not yet. If he wants to see me he may.  I expect
to be at home for the next day or two."

"You don't mean you expect a millionaire like him to come cruisin'
after YOU!  Well, by time!  I think I see him!"

"When you do, let me know," I said. "I should like to be prepared."

"Well,--by--time!" said Lute, by way of summing up.  I ate dinner
with Dorinda.  Her husband did not join us.  Dorinda paid a visit
to the back yard and, seeing how little raking had been done,
announced that until the job was finished there would be "no dinner
for some folks."  So she and I ate and Lute raked, under protest,
and vowing that he was so faint and holler he cal'lated to collapse
'most any time.

After the meal was finished I went down to the boathouse.  The
boathouse was a little building on the beach at the foot of the
bluff below the house.  It was a favorite resort of mine and I
spent many hours there.  My eighteen foot motor launch, the
Comfort, the one expensive luxury I allowed myself and which I had
bought second-hand two years before, was jacked up in the middle of
the floor.  The engine, which I had taken apart to clean, was in
pieces beside it.  On the walls hung my two shot guns and my
fishing rod.  Outside, on the beach, was my flat-bottomed skiff,
which I used for rowing about the bay, her oars under the thwarts.
In the boathouse was a comfortable armchair and a small shelf of
books, novels for the most part.  A cheap clock and a broken-down
couch, the latter a discard from the original outfit of the
cottage, made up the list of furniture.

My idea in coming to the boathouse was to continue my work with the
engine.  I tried it for a half hour or so and then gave it up.  It
did not interest me then.  I shut the door at the side of the
building, that by which I had entered--the big double doors in
front I had not opened at all--and, taking a book from the shelf,
stretched myself on the couch to read.

The book I had chosen was one belonging to the Denboro Ladies'
Library; Miss Almena Doane, the librarian, had recommended it
highly, as a "real interesting story, with lots of uplifting
thoughts in it."  The thoughts might be uplifting to Almena, but
they did not elevate my spirits.  As for the story--well, the hero
was a young gentleman who was poor but tremendously clever and
handsome, and the heroine had eyes "as dark and deep as starlit
pools."  The poor but beautiful person met the pool-eyed one at a
concert, where he sat, "his whole soul transfigured by the music,"
and she had been "fascinated in spite of herself" by the look on
his face.  I read as far as that and dropped the book in disgust.

After that I must have fallen asleep.  What awakened me was a knock
on the door.  It was Lute, of course.  Probably mother wanted me
for something or other, and Dorinda had sent her husband to hunt me
up.

The knock was repeated.

"Come in," I said, sleepily.

The door opened and in came, not Lute, but a tall, portly man, with
a yachting cap on the back of his gray head, and a cigar in his
mouth.  He looked at me as I lay on the couch and I lay on the
couch and looked at him.

"Afternoon," he said, curtly.  "Is your name Paine?"

I nodded.  I was waking rapidly, but I was too astonished to speak.

"Roscoe Paine?"

"Yes."

"Well, mine's Colton.  I sent you a letter this morning.  Did you
get it?"



CHAPTER IV


I sat up on the couch.  Mr. Colton knocked the ashes from his
cigar, waited an instant, and then repeated his question.

"Did you get my letter?" he asked.

"Yes," I said.

"Oh, you did.  I was afraid that man of mine might have forgotten
to mail it."

"No, I got it.  Won't you--er--won't you sit down?"  He pulled the
armchair toward him and sat down.  I noticed that he had a habit of
doing things quickly.  His sentences were short and to the point
and he spoke and acted like one accustomed to having his own way.
He crossed his knees and looked about the little building.

"It is a pleasant day," I observed, for the sake of saying
something.  He did not seem to hear me, or, if he did, he was not
interested in the weather.  For my part I found the situation
embarrassing.  I knew what his next question would be, and I did
not know how to answer.  Sure enough, he asked it.

"I wrote you to come over to my place this forenoon," he said.
"You didn't come."

"No.  I--"

"Why not?"

Here was the issue joined.  Here, if ever, was the opportunity to
assert my independence a la Jed Dean and Alvin Baker.  But to
assert it now, after he had done the unexpected, after the mountain
had come to Mahomet, seemed caddish and ridiculous.  So I
temporized, weakly.

"I didn't read your letter until about noon," I said.

"I see.  Well, I waited until two o'clock and then I decided to
hunt you up.  I called at your house.  The woman there said you
were down here.  Your mother?"

"No."  My answer was prompt and sharp enough this time. It was
natural, perhaps, that he should presume Dorinda to be my mother,
but I did not like it.

He paid absolutely no attention to the tone of my reply or its
curtness.  He did not refer to Dorinda again.  She might have been
my wife or my great-aunt for all he cared.

"This your workshop?" he asked, abruptly.  Then, nodding toward the
dismembered engine, "What are you? a boat builder?"

"No, not exactly."

"What's the price of a boat like that?" indicating the Comfort with
a kick in her direction.

"About two hundred and fifty dollars, I believe," I answered.

"You believe!  Don't you know?"

"No.  I bought that boat second-hand."

He did not refer to the boat again; apparently forgot it altogether.
His next move was to rise and turn toward the door.  I watched him,
wondering what was going to happen next.  He had a habit of jumping
from one subject to another which was bewildering.

"What's that fellow doing off there?" he asked, suddenly.

I looked where he was pointing.

"That is Zeb Kendrick," I answered.  "He's raking for quahaugs."

"Raking for what hogs?"

"Quahaugs.  What you New Yorkers call clams."

"Oh!  Sell 'em, does he?"

"Yes."

"Tell him to call at my house next time you see him.  And for
heaven's sake tell him to come to the servants' door.  Don't you
people down here have any servants' doors to your houses?  There
have been no less than fifty peddlers on my porch since yesterday
and my butler will die of apoplexy if it keeps on.  He's a good
one, for a wonder, and I don't want to lose him."

I made no reply to this observation and he did not seem to expect
any.  He watched Zeb rake for a moment and then he turned back to
me.

"Can you come over to my house now?" he asked.

I was not expecting this and again I did not have an answer ready.

"Can you?" he went on.  "I've got a business deal to make with you
and I'd rather make it there.  I've got a lot of carpenters and
painters at work and they ask me ten questions a minute.  They are
unnecessary questions but if I don't answer them the fellows are
sure to make some fool mistake or other.  They need a governess.
If you'll come over with me I'll be in touch with them and you and
I can talk just as well.  Can come, can't you?"

I did not know what to say.  I wanted to say no, that if he had any
business with me it could be discussed in that boathouse.  I did
not like his manner, yet I had a feeling that it was his usual one
and that he had not meant to be rude.  And I could think of no good
reason for not going with him.

"You can come, can't you?" he repeated.

"I suppose I can.  But--"

"Of course if you're too busy to leave--"

I remembered the position he had found me in and I rather think I
had turned red.  He did not smile, but there was a sort of grim
twinkle in his eyes.

"I'll come," I said.

"Much obliged.  I won't keep you long.  Come on."

He led the way and I followed, rebellious, and angry, not so much
with him as with myself.  I wished now that I had gone over to the
Colton place when I first received the summons to court, instead of
making proclamations of defiance to mother and Lute Rogers.  This
seemed such a complete backdown.  As we passed the house I saw Lute
peering from the barn.  I devoutly hoped he might not see me, but
he did.  His mouth opened and he stared.  Then, catching my eye, he
winked triumphantly.  I wanted to punch his head.

The King of New York walked briskly on in silence until we were
just at the edge of the grove by the Shore Lane.  Then he stopped
and turned to me.

"You own all this land, don't you?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Humph!  Get a good view from here."

I admitted that the view was good.  At that particular point it
embraced nearly the whole of the bay in front, and a large portion
of the village at the side.

He waved his hand toward the cluster of houses.

"There are eighteen hundred people in this town, they tell me," he
said.  "Permanent residents, I mean.  What do they all do?"

"Do?"

"Yes.  How do they get a living?  They must get it somehow.  In the
regular summer resorts they squeeze it out of the city people, I
know that.  But there aren't so many cottagers and boarders here.
What do you all do for a living?"

I told him that most of masculine Denboro fished or farmed or kept
store.

"Which do you do?" he asked.  "You said you weren't a boat-builder."

"I'm not doing anything at present," I replied, shortly.

"Out of a job?"

"You might call it that.  Is this a part of the business you wished
to see me about, Mr. Colton?"

I was boiling inwardly and a little of the heat was expressed in my
tone.  I don't know whether he took the hint or merely lost
interest in the subject.  At any rate his reply was a brief "No,"
and we continued our walk.

As we reached the Shore Lane he paused again, and I thought he was
about to speak.  He did not, however, and we crossed the boundary
line of my property and entered the Colton grounds.  As we drew
nearer to the house I was surprised to see how large it was.  When
the Atwaters owned it I was an occasional caller there, for old
Major Atwater was fond of shooting and sometimes borrowed my
decoys.  But, since it changed hands, I had not been nearer to it
than the Lane.  With the new wing and the other additions it was
enormous.  It fairly reeked of money, though, so far as I was a
judge, the taste shown in rebuilding and decorating was good.  We
turned the corner, where Asa Peters, the head carpenter, came
hurrying up.  Asa looked surprised enough to see me in company with
his employer and regarded me wonderingly.  "Mr. Colton," he said,
"I wanted to ask you about them skylights."  I stepped back out of
hearing, but I inferred from Colton's actions that the question was
another one of the "unnecessary" ones he had so scornfully referred
to in the boathouse.

"Jackass!" he exclaimed, as he rejoined me.  I judged he was
classifying Asa, but, if so, he did not trouble to lower his voice.
"Come on, Paine," he added, and we passed a long line of windows,
hung with costly curtains, and stepped up on a handsome Colonial
portico before two big doors.

The doors were opened by an imposing personage in dark blue and
brass buttons, who bowed profoundly before Colton and regarded me
with condescending superiority.  This personage, whom I recognized,
from Alvin's description, as the "minister-lookin'" butler, led us
through a hall about as large as our sitting-room, dining-room and
kitchen combined, but bearing no other resemblance to these
apartments, and opened another door, through which, bowing once
more, he ushered us.  Then he closed the door, leaving himself, to
my relief, outside.  It had been a long time since I was waited
upon by a butler and I found this specimen rather overpowering.

The room we were in was the library, and, though it was bigger and
far more sumptuous than the library I remembered so well as a boy,
the sight of the books in their cases along the walls gave me a
feeling almost of homesickness.  My resentment against my
millionaire neighbor increased.  Why should he and his have
everything, and the rest of us be deprived of the little we once
had?

Colton seated himself in a leather upholstered chair and waved his
hand toward another.

"Sit down," he said.  He took a cigar from his pocket.  "Smoke?" he
asked.

I was a confirmed smoker, but I was not going to smoke one of his
cigars--not then.

"No thank you," said I.  He did not comment on my refusal, but lit
the cigar himself, from the stump of his former one.  Then he
crossed his legs and proceeded, with characteristic abruptness, to
his subject.

"Paine," he began, "you own this land next to me, you say.  Your
property ends at the fence this side of that road we just crossed,
doesn't it?"

"It ends where yours begins," I announced.

"Yes.  Just this side of that road."

"Of the Shore Lane.  It isn't a road exactly."

"I don't care what you call it.  Road or lane or cow-path.  It ends
there?"

"Yes."

"And it IS your land?  It belongs to you, personally, all of it,
free and clear?"

"Why--yes; it does."  I could not see what business of his my
ownership of that land might be.

"All right.  I asked that because, if it wasn't yours, if it was
tied up or mortgaged in any way, it might complicate matters.  But
it isn't."

"No."

"Good!  Then we can get down to brass tacks and save time.  I want
a piece of that land."

I looked at him.

"You want--?" I repeated, slowly.

"I want a strip of your land.  Want to buy it, of course.  I don't
expect you to give it to me.  What's it worth, by the acre, say?"

I did not answer.  All at once I was beginning to see a light.
Captain Jed Dean's mysterious conversation at the post-office was
beginning to lose some of its mystery.

"Well?" asked Colton, impatiently.  Then, without waiting longer,
he added:

"By the way, before you name a figure, answer me one more question.
That road--or lane, or whatever it is--that is yours, too?  Doesn't
belong to the town?"

The light was growing more brilliant.  I could see breakers ahead.

"No," I replied, slowly.  "It is a private way.  It belongs to me."

"Good!  Well, what's that land of yours worth by the acre?"

I shook my head.  "I scarcely know," I said.  "I've never figured
it that way."

"I don't care how you figure it.  Here, let's get down to a
business proposition.  I want to buy a strip of that land from the
Lower Road--that's what you call the one above here, isn't it?--to
the beach.  The strip I want is about three hundred feet wide, for
a guess.  It extends from my fence to the other side of that grove
by the bluff.  What will you sell it for?"

The breakers were close aboard.  However, I dodged them momentarily.

"Why do you want to buy?" I asked.

"For reasons."

"I should think you had land enough already."

"I thought I had, but it seems I haven't.  Well, what's your price
for that strip?"

"Mr. Colton, I--I'm afraid--"

"Never mind that.  I suppose you're afraid you'll make the price
too low.  Now, see here, I'm a busy man.  I haven't time to do any
bargaining.  Name your price and, if it's anywhere within reason,
we won't haggle.  I expect to pay more than anyone else would.
That's part of my fine for being a city man and not a native.  Gad!
the privilege is worth the money.  I'll pay the fine.  What's the
price?"

"But why do you want to buy?"

"For reasons of my own, I tell you.  They haven't anything to do
with your selling."

"I'm not so sure."

"What do you mean by that?"

"That strip takes in the Shore Lane, Mr. Colton."

"I know it."

"And, if you buy, I presume the Lane will be closed."

He looked at me, surprised, and, I thought, a little annoyed.

"Well?" he said; "suppose it is?"

"But it will be, won't it?"

"You bet your life it will!  What of it?"

"Then I don't know that I care to sell."

He leaned back in his chair.

"You don't care to sell!" he repeated, slowly.  "What the devil do
you mean by that?"

"What I said.  And, besides, Mr. Colton, I--"

He interrupted me.

"Why don't you care to sell?" he demanded.  "The land is no good to
you, is it?"

"Not much.  No."

"Humph!  Are you so rich that you've got all the money you want?"

I was angry all through.  I rose from my chair.

"Good day, Mr. Colton," I said.

"Here!" he shouted.  "Hold on!  Where are you going?"

"I can't see that there is any use of our talking further."

"No use?  Why--  There! there! sit down.  It's none of my business
how rich you are, and I beg your pardon.  Sit down.  Sit down, man,
I tell you!"

I sat down, reluctantly.  He threw his cigar, which had gone out,
into the fireplace and lit another.

"Say," he said, "you surprise me, Paine.  What do you mean by
saying you won't sell that land?  You don't know what I'll pay for
it yet."

"No, I don't."

"Then how do you know you won't sell it?  I never had anything yet--
except my wife and family--that I wouldn't sell for a price.  Look
here! I haven't got time to do any Down-East horse-jockeying.  I'll
make you an offer.  I'll give you five hundred dollars cash for
that strip of land.  What do you say?"

I didn't say anything.  Five hundred dollars was a generous offer.
I couldn't help thinking what Mother and I might do with that five
hundred dollars.

"What do you say?" he repeated.

I answered, Yankee fashion, with another question.  "Mr. Colton," I
asked, "why do you want to close that Shore Lane?"

"Because I do.  What difference does it make to you why I want to
close it?"

"That Lane has been used by Denboro people for years.  It is almost
a public necessity."

He puffed twice on his cigar before he spoke again.  When he did it
was in a different tone.

"I see," he said.  "Humph!  I see.  Paine, does the town pay you
rent for the use of that road?"

"No."

"Has it been bidding to buy it?"

"No."

"Is any one else after it?"

"No-o.  I think not.  But--"

"You THINK not.  That means you're not sure.  You've had a bite
somewhere.  Somebody has been nibbling at your hook.  Well, they've
got to bite quick and swallow some to get ahead of me.  I want that
road closed and I'm going to have it closed, sooner or later.  I'd
prefer it sooner."

"But why do you want to close it?"

Before he could answer there came a knock at the door.  The butler
appeared.

"I beg your pardon, sir--" he began.  His master cut him short.

"Tell 'em to wait," he ordered.  "I can't see any one now, Johnson.
If it is that damned carpenter he can wait."

"It isn't the carpenter, sir," explained Johnson.  "It's Mrs.
Colton, sir.  She wishes to know if you have bought that road.  She
says three of those 'orrid fishcarts have gone by in the last hour,
sir, and they are making her very nervous.  That's all, sir."

"Tell her I've bought it," snapped the head of the house.  "Get
out."

The butler obeyed orders.  Colton turned to me.

"You heard that, Paine," he said.  "That's my reason, the principal
one.  I bought this place principally on account of Mrs. Colton's
health.  The doctors said she needed quiet and rest.  I thought she
could have them here--God knows the place looked forsaken enough--
but it appears she can't.  Whenever she or I sit on the veranda or
at a window we have to watch a procession of jays driving smelly
fish carts through that lane of yours, or be stared at by a gang of
countrymen hanging over the fence.  It's a nuisance.  It is bad
enough for me or my daughter and our guests, but it will be the
ruination of my wife's nerves, and I can't stand for that.  You see
the position I'm in.  You heard what I told that butler.  I said I
had bought the road.  You wouldn't make me a liar, would you?  I'll
give you five hundred for that bunch of sand.  You couldn't get
more for it if you sold it by the pound, like tea.  Say yes, and
close the deal."

I shook my head.

"I understand your position, Mr. Colton," I said, "but I can't say
yes.  Not now, at any rate."

"Why not?  Isn't five hundred enough?"

"It's a good offer."

"Then why not accept it?"

"Because, if I were certain that I wanted to sell, I could not
accept any offer just now."

"Why not?  See here! are you afraid the town will be sore because
the road is closed?"

"It would be a great inconvenience to them."

"It's a greater one to me as it is.  Can you afford to be a
philanthropist?  Are you one of those public-spirited citizens we
read about?"

He was sneering now, and my anger, which had lessened somewhat when
he spoke of his wife's ill health, was rising again.

"Are you?" he repeated.

"I don't know as to that.  But, as I said a while ago, Mr. Colton,
I couldn't sell that land to you now."

"Why not?"

"Because, if there were no other reason, I promised not to sell it
without telling another person first."

He threw down his cigar and stood up.  I rose also.

"I see," he said, with sarcasm.  "I knew there was something beside
public spirit.  You think, by hanging off and playing me against
this other sucker, you can get a higher price.  Well, if that's the
game, I'll keep him busy."

He took out his watch, glanced at it, and thrust it back into his
pocket.

"I've wasted time enough over this fool thing," he declared.  "Now
that I know what the game is we'll talk to the point.  It's highway
robbery, but I might have expected to be robbed.  I'll give you six
hundred for that land."

I did not answer.  I was holding my temper by main strength and I
could not trust myself to speak.

"Well?" he sneered.  "That shakes your public spirit some, hey?
What do you say?"

"No," I answered, and started for the door.

"What!" he could hardly believe his ears.  "By the Lord Harry! the
fellow is crazy.  Six hundred and fifty then, you infernal robber."

"No."

"NO!  Say, what in thunder do you mean?"

"I mean that you may go to the devil," I retorted, and reached for
the door knob.

But before my fingers touched it there was the sound of laughter
and voices in the hall.  The knob was turned from without.  I
stepped back and to one side involuntarily, as the door opened and
into the library came, not the butler, but a young lady, a girl in
an automobile coat and bonnet.  And, following her, a young man.

"Father," said the young lady, "Johnson says you've bought that
horrid road.  I'm so glad!  When did you do it?"

"Congratulations, Mr. Colton," said the young man.  "We just passed
a cart full of something--seaweed, I believe it was--as we came
along with the car.  Oscar had to slow down to squeeze by, and we
certainly were swept by ocean breezes.  By Jove!  I can smell them
yet.  I--"

The young lady interrupted him.

"Hush, Victor," she said.  "I beg your pardon, Father.  I thought
you were alone.  Victor, we're intruding."

The open door had partially screened me from the newcomers.  But
Colton, red and wrathful, had not ceased to glare in my direction
and she, following his gaze, saw me.  She did not recognize me, I
think--probably I had not made sufficient impression upon her mind
even for casual remembrance--but I recognized her.  She was the
girl with the dark eyes, whose look of contemptuous indifference
had so withered my self-esteem.  And her companion was the young
chap who, from the tonneau of the automobile that morning, had
inquired the way to Bayport.

The young man turned lazily.  "Are we?" he said.  "I--  What!  Why,
Mabel, it's the humorist!"

Then she recognized me.  I could feel the blood climbing from my
toes to the roots of my hair.  I was too astonished and chagrined
to speak or even move, though I wanted to move very much indeed.
She looked at me and I at her.  Then she turned coldly away.

"Come, Victor," she said.

But Victor was his own blase self.  It took more than a trifle to
shake his calm.  He laughed.

"It's the humorist," he repeated.  "Reuben, how are you?"

Colton regarded the three of us with amazement.

"What?" he began.  "Mabel, do you--"

But I had recovered my powers of locomotion.  I was on my way out
of that library.

"Here!" shouted Colton.  "Stop!"

I did not stop.  Feeling as I did at that moment it would have been
distinctly unpleasant for the person who tried to stop me.  The
girl was in my way and, as I approached, she drew her skirts aside.
No doubt it was my imagination which made her manner of doing it
seem like an insult, but, imagination or reality, it was the one
thing necessary to clench my resolution.  Now when she looked at me
I returned the look with interest.  I strode through the doorway
and across the hall.  The butler would have opened the outer door
for me, but I opened it myself to the imminent danger of his
dignified nose.  As I stepped from the portico I heard behind me a
roar from Big Jim Colton and a shout of laughter from Victor.

I walked home at top speed.  Only once did I look back.  That was
just as I was about to enter the grove on the other side of the
Shore Lane.  Then I turned and saw, at the big window at the end of
the "Newport villa," a group of three staring in my direction:
Colton, his daughter and that cub Victor.  The distance was too
great to see the expression of their faces, but I knew that two of
them, at least, were laughing--laughing at me.

I did not laugh.

Lute was waiting for me by the gate and ran to meet me.  He was
wild with excitement.

"He came after you, didn't he?" he cried, grabbing at my coat
sleeve.  "You went over to his house with him, didn't you!  I see
you and at fust I couldn't scurcely believe it.  What did he want?
What did he say?"

I did not answer.  He ran along beside me, still clinging to my
sleeve.

"What did he want?" he repeated.  "What did he say to you?  What
did you say to him?  Tell a feller, can't you?"

"I told him to go to the devil," I answered, savagely.

Lute let go of my sleeve.

"You--you--  By time, you're stark loony!" he gasped; and collapsed
against the gate post.

I went into the house, up the back stairs to my room, and shut the
door.



CHAPTER V


So she was his daughter.  I might have guessed it; would have
guessed it if I had possessed the commonest of common-sense.  I
might have known that the auto was Colton's.  No other machine was
likely to be traveling on the Lower Road at that season of the
year.  She was the pretty daughter of whom Dorinda had spoken to
Mother.  Well, she was pretty enough; even I had to admit that.
But I admitted it grudgingly.  I hated her for her beauty and fine
clothes and haughty arrogance.  She was the incarnation of
snobbishness.

But to be made twice ridiculous even by the incarnation of
snobbishness was galling.  She was to be my next-door neighbor; we
were likely to meet almost anywhere at any time.  When I thought of
this and of the two meetings which had already taken place I swore
at the blue and white water-pitcher on my bureau because it did not
contain water enough to drown me.  Not that I would commit suicide
on her account.  She would not care if I did and certainly I did
not care whether she would care or not; but if I were satisfactorily
dead I probably should not remember what a fool I had made of
myself, or Fate had made of me.

Why had I not got out of that library before she came?  Oh, if not,
why hadn't I stayed and told her father, in her hearing, and with
dignity, just what I thought of him and his remarks to me?  But no;
I had run away.  She--or that Victor--would tell of the meeting at
the bridge, and all my independence and the rest of it would be
regarded as of a piece with that, just the big-headed "smartness"
of a country boor.  In their eyes I was a nuisance, that was all.
A disagreeable one, perhaps, like the Shore Lane, but a nuisance,
one to laugh at and forget--if it could not be gotten rid of.

Why had I gone with Colton at all?  Why hadn't I remained at the
boathouse and there told the King of New York to go to the
mischief? or words to that effect.  But I had, at all events, told
him that.  In spite of my chagrin I could not help chuckling as I
thought of it.  To tell Big Jim Colton to go to the devil was, in
its way, I imagined, a privilege enjoyed by few.  It must have
shaken his self-satisfaction a trifle.  Well, after all, what did
I care?  He, and his whole family--including Victor--had my
permission to migrate in that direction and I wished Old Nick joy
of their company.

Having derived this much satisfaction from my reflections, I went
downstairs.  Dorinda was setting the table for supper.  She looked
at me as I came in.

"Been visitin', I hear," she observed, wiping an imaginary speck
from the corner of a plate with her "afternoon" apron.

"Yes," said I.

"Um-hm," said Dorinda.  "Have a good time?"

I smiled.  "I had an interesting one," I told her.

"Um-hm, I judged so, from what Lute said."

"Where is Lute?"

"Out in the barn, beddin' down the horse.  That is, I told him to
do that, but his head was so full of you and what you told him you
said to Mr. Colton that I shouldn't be surprised if he's bedded
down the hens and was huntin' in the manger for eggs."

"Lute thinks I've gone crazy," I observed.

"Um-hm.  He was all for fetchin' the doctor right off, but I told
him I cal'lated we could bear with your ravin's for a spell.  Did
you say what he said you said?"

"I'm afraid I did."

"Um-hm.  Well, it didn't do any good, did it?"

"Good?  What do you mean?"

"I mean he didn't obey orders--Colton, that is."

"He hadn't when I left."

"I thought not.  I never saw any good come from profane language
yet; and, besides, judgin' from what I hear about the way that
Colton man lives, and what he does on Sundays and all, he'll make
the port you sent him to when his time comes.  All you need is
patience."

I laughed, and she began sorting the plated spoons.  We had silver
ones, but Dorinda insisted on keeping those to use when we had
company.  In consequence we used them about twice a year, when the
minister came.

"Of course," she said, "I ain't askin' you what happened over there
or why he wanted to see you.  But I give you fair warnin' that, if
I don't, Lute will.  Lute's so stuffed with curiosity that he's
li'ble to bust the stitches any minute."

"I'll tell you both, at supper," I said.

"Um-hm," said Dorinda.  "Well, I can wait, and Lute'll have to.  By
the way," she added, seeing me about to enter Mother's room, "if
it's anything too unpleasant I wouldn't worry Comfort with it.
She'll want to know, of course, but I'd sort of smooth the edges."

Mother did want to know, and I told her, "smoothing the edges" all
I could.  I omitted my final order to "Big Jim" and I said nothing
whatever about his daughter.  Mother seemed to think I had done
right in refusing to sell, though, as usual, she was ready to make
allowances for the other side.

"Poor woman," she said, "I suppose the noise of the wagons and all
that are annoying to any one with weak nerves.  It must be dreadful
to be in that condition.  I am so sorry for her."

She meant it, too.  But I, remembering the Colton mansion, what I
had seen of it, and contrasting its splendor with the bare
necessity of that darkened bedroom, found it hard to spare pity for
the sufferer from "nerves."

"You needn't be," I said, bitterly.  "I imagine she wouldn't think
of you, if the conditions were reversed.  I doubt if she thinks of
any one but herself."

"You shouldn't say that, Roscoe.  You don't know.  You have never
met her."

"I have met the rest of the family.  No, Mother, I think you
needn't he sorry for that woman.  She has everything under the sun.
Whereas you--"

"Hush! hush!  There is one thing she hasn't got.  She hasn't a son
like you, Boy."

"Humph!  That must be a terrible deprivation.  There! there!
Mother, I won't be disagreeable.  Let's change the subject.  Did
Matilda Dean come to see you this afternoon?"

"No.  I presume she was too busy.  But, Roscoe, it is plain enough
why Captain Dean spoke to you about the Lane at the office this
morning.  He must have heard, somehow, that Mr. Colton wished to
buy it."

"Yes.  Or, if he didn't hear just that, he heard enough to make him
guess the rest.  He is pretty shrewd."

"You promised him you wouldn't sell without telling him beforehand.
Shall you tell him of Mr. Colton's offer?"

"If he asks me, I shall, I suppose."

"I wonder what he will do then.  Do you suppose he will try to
persuade the Selectmen to buy the Lane for the town?"

"I don't know.  I shouldn't wonder."

"It will be harder to refuse the town's offer."

"Yes.  Although the town can't afford to pay Colton's prices.  I
believe that man would have raised his bid to a thousand, if I had
let him.  As a matter of business and nothing else, I suppose I am
foolish not to push the price as high as possible and then sell.
The land is worthless to us."

"I know.  But this isn't just a matter of business, is it?  And we
DON'T need the money.  We're not rich, but we aren't poor, are we,
Boy."

"No.  No, of course not.  But, Mother, just see what I could do--
for you--with a thousand dollars.  Why, there are so many little
things, little luxuries, that you need."

"I had rather not get them that way.  No, Roscoe, I wouldn't sell
to Mr. Colton.  And I think I wouldn't sell to the town either."

"Why not?"

"Well, because we don't have to sell, and selling to either party
would make ill-feeling.  I should--of course I'm only a woman; you
are a man and know much more about such things than I--but why not
let matters stay just as they are?  The townspeople can use the
Lane, just as they have always done, and, as I told you before,
every one has been so kind to us that I like to feel we are doing a
little in return.  Let them use the Lane, without cost.  Why not?"

"What do you think the Coltons would say to that?"

"Perhaps they don't understand the real situation.  The next time
you see Mr. Colton you could explain more fully; tell him what the
Lane means to the town, and so on.  I'm sure he would understand,
if you told him that.  And then, if the sight of the wagons was too
annoying, he could put up some kind of a screen, or plant a row of
fir trees by the fence.  Don't you think so?"

I imagined the great man's reply to such a suggestion.  However, I
did not express my thoughts.  I told Mother not to worry, I was
sure everything would be all right, and, as Dorinda called me to
supper, I went into the dining-room.

Lute was waiting for me at the table, and Dorinda, after taking the
tray into Mother's room, joined us.  Lute was so full of excitement
and curiosity that he almost forgot to eat, a miracle of itself and
made greater by the fact that he did not ask a single question
until his wife asked one first.  Then he asked three in succession.
Dorinda, who was quite as curious as he but would not have shown it
for the world, stopped him at the beginning of the fourth.

"There! there!" she said, sharply, "this is supposed to be a meal,
not a parrot shop, and we're humans, not a passel of birds on a
telegraph wire all hollerin' at once.  Drink your tea and stop your
cawin', Lute Rogers.  Ros'll tell us when he gets ready.  What DID
Mr. Colton want of you, Roscoe?"

I told them as much of the interview at the Coltons' as I thought
necessary they should know.  Lute kept remarkably quiet, for him,
until I named the figure offered by the millionaire.  Then he could
hold in no longer.

"Five hundred!" he repeated "Five hundred DOLLARS for the Shore
Lane!  Five--"

"He raised it to six hundred and fifty before I left," I said.

"SIX hundred!  Six hundred--and FIFTY!  For the Shore Lane!  Six
hun--"

"Sshh! shh!" cut in Dorinda.  "You sound like Sim Eldredge sellin'
somethin' at auction.  DO be quiet!  And you told him, Roscoe--?"

"I told you what I told him," I said.

"Um-hm.  I ain't forgot it.  Be quiet, Lute.  Well, Roscoe, I
cal'late you know your own affairs best, but, judgin' from some
hints Matildy Dean hove out when she was here this afternoon, I
don't believe you've heard the last from that Shore Lane."

"Matilda Dean!" I repeated.  "Why, Mother said Matilda wasn't here
to-day."

"Um-hm.  Well, she was here, though Comfort didn't know it.  I took
pains she shouldn't.  Matildy come about three o'clock, in the
buggy, along with Nellie.  Nellie was doin' the drivin', of course,
and her mother was tellin' her how, as usual.  I don't wonder that
girl is such a meek, soft-spoken kind of thing.  Between her pa's
bullyin' and her ma's tongue, it's a wonder she's got any spirit
left.  It would be a mercy if George Taylor should marry her and
take her out of that house.  Matildy had a new book on Spiritu'lism
and she was figgerin' to read some of it out loud to Comfort, but I
headed her off.  I know _I_ wouldn't want to be all stirred up
about 'tests' and 'materializations' and such, and so I told her
Comfort was asleep."

"She wasn't asleep, neither," declared Lute.  "What did you tell
such a whopper as that for?  You're always sailin' into me if I
stretch a yarn the least mite.  Why, last April Fool Day you give
me Hail Columby for jokin' you about a mouse under the kitchen
table.  Called me all kinds of names, you did--after you got down
off the table."

His wife regarded him scornfully.  "It's pretty hard to remember
which IS that partic'lar day with you around," she said.  "I'd told
Comfort she'd ought to take a nap and if she wan't takin' it
'twan't my fault.  I wan't goin' to have her seein' her granddad's
ghost in every corner.  But, anyhow, Matildy made a little call on
me, and, amongst the million other things she said, was somethin'
about Cap'n Jed hearin' that Mr. Colton was cal'latin' to shut off
that Lane.  Matildy hinted that her husband and the Selectmen might
have a little to say afore 'twas closed.  If that's so I guess you
may hear from him as well as the Colton man, Roscoe."

"Perhaps," I said.  I could see no use in repeating my conversation
with Captain Jed.

Dorinda nodded.

"Goin' to tell the town to go--where you sent the other one?" she
asked, dryly.

"I don't know."

"Humph!  Well," with some sarcasm, "it must be fine to be in a
position where money's no object.  I never tried it, myself, but it
sounds good."

I did not answer.

"Um-hm," she said.  "Well, anyhow it looks to me--Lute, you keep
still--as if there was goin' to be two parties in Denboro afore
this Lane business is over.  One for the Coltons and one against
'em.  You'll have to take one side or the other, won't you,
Roscoe?"

"Not necessarily."

"Goin' to set on the fence, hey?"

"That's a good place TO sit, isn't it?"

Dorinda smiled, grimly.

"If it's the right kind of a fence, maybe 'tis," she observed.
"Otherwise the pickets are liable to make you uncomf'table after a
spell, I presume likely."

I went out soon after this, for my evening smoke and walk by the
bluff.  As I left the dining-room I heard Lute reiterating his
belief that I had gone crazy.  Colton had said the same thing.  I
wondered what Captain Jed's opinion would be.

Whether it was another phase of my insanity or not, I don't know,
but I woke the next morning in pretty good spirits.  Remembrance of
the previous day's humiliations troubled me surprisingly little.
They did not seem nearly so great in the retrospect.  What
difference did it make to me what that crowd of snobs did or said
or thought?

However, there was just enough bitterness in my morning's review of
yesterday's happenings to make me a little more careful in my
dress.  I did not expect to meet my aristocratic neighbors--I
devoutly wished it might be my good luck never to meet any of them
again--but in making selections from my limited wardrobe I chose
with more thought than usual.  Dorinda noticed the result when I
came down to breakfast.

"Got your other suit on, ain't you," she observed.

"Yes," said I.

"Goin' anywheres special?"

"No.  Down to the boathouse, that's all."

"Humph!  I don't see what you put those blue pants on for.  They're
awful things to show water spots.  Did you leave your brown ones
upstairs?  Um-hm.  Well, I'll get at 'em some time to-day.  I
noticed they was wearin' a little, sort of, on the bottoms of the
legs."

I had noticed it, too, and this reminder confirmed my suspicions
that others had made the same observations.

"I'll try and mend 'em this afternoon," went on Dorinda, "if I can
find time.  But, for mercy's sake, don't spot those all up, for I
may not get time, and then you'd have to wear your Sunday ones."

I promised, curtly, to be careful, and, after saying good morning
to Mother, I went down to the boathouse and set to work on the
engine.  It was the only thing in the nature of work that I had to
do, but, somehow or other, I did not feel like doing it any more
than I had the day before.  A little of my good spirits were
wearing off, like the legs of my "other" trousers, and after an
hour of intermittent tinkering I threw down the wrench and decided
to go for a row.  The sun was shining brightly, but the breeze was
fresh, and, as my skiff was low in the gunwale and there was likely
to be some water flying, I put on an old oilskin "slicker" and
sou-wester before starting.

I had determined to row across the bay over to the lighthouse, and
ask Ben Small, the keeper, if there were any signs of fish
alongshore.  The pull was a long one, but I enjoyed every stroke of
it.  The tide was almost full, just beginning to ebb, so there was
scarcely any current and I could make a straight cut across,
instead of following the tortuous channel.  My skiff was a flat
bottomed affair, drawing very little, but in Denboro bay, at low
tide, even a flat-bottomed skiff has to beware of sand and eel-
grass.

Small was busy whitewashing, but he was glad to see me.  If you
keep a lighthouse, the average lighthouse, you are glad to see
anybody.  He put his brush into the pail and insisted on my coming
to the house, because "the old woman," his wife, would want to hear
"all the sewin' circle news."  "It's the biggest hardship of her
life," said Ben, "that she has to miss sewin' circle when the bay
ices in.  Soon's it clears she's at me to row her acrost to the
meetin's.  I've took her to two this spring, but she missed the
last one, on account of this whitewashin', and she's crazy to know
who's been talked about now.  If anything disgraceful has happened
for the land sakes tell her; then she'll he more reconciled."

I had nothing disgraceful to tell, but Mrs. Small was glad to see
me, nevertheless.  She brought out doughnuts and beach-plum jelly
and insisted on my sampling both, the doughnuts because they were
just made and she "mistrusted" there was too much flour in them,
and the jelly because it was some she had left over and she wanted
to see if I thought it was "keepin'" all right.  After this, Ben
took me out to see his hens, and then we walked to the back of the
beach and talked fish.  The forenoon was almost gone when I got
back to the skiff.  The tide had ebbed so far that the lightkeeper
and I had to pull the little boat twenty feet to launch her.

"There!" said Ben, "now you're afloat, ain't you.  Cal'late you'll
have to go way 'round Robin Hood's barn to keep off the flats.  I
forgot about the tide or I wouldn't have talked so much.  Hello!
there's another craft about your size off yonder.  Somebody else
out rowin'.  Two somebodys.  My eyes ain't as good for pickin' em
out as they used to be, but one of 'em IS a female, ain't it?"

I looked over my shoulder, as I sat in the skiff and saw, out in
the middle of the bay, another rowboat with two people in it.

"That ain't a dory or a skiff," shouted Ben, raising his voice as I
pulled away from him.  "Way she sets out of water I'd call her a
lap-streak dingy.  If that feller's takin' his girl out rowin'
he'll have to work his passage home against this tide . . .  Well,
so long, Ros.  Come again."

I nodded a goodby, and settled down for my long row, a good deal
longer this time on account of the ebb.  There was water enough on
this side of the bay, but on the village side the channel made a
wide detour and I should be obliged to follow it for nearly a mile
up the bay, before turning in behind the long sand bar which made
out from the point beyond my boathouse.

The breeze had gone down, which made rowing easier, but the pull of
the tide more than offset this advantage.  However, I had mastered
that tide many times before and, except that the delay might make
me late for dinner, the prospect did not trouble me.  I swung into
the channel and set the skiff's bow against the current.  Then from
the beach I had just left I heard a faint hail.  Turning my head, I
saw Ben Small waving his arms.  He was shouting something, too, but
I was too far away to catch the words.

The lightkeeper continued to shout and wave.  I lifted an oar to
show that he had my attention.  He recognized the signal, and began
pointing out over the water astern of me.  I looked where he was
pointing.  I could not see anything out of the ordinary.  Except
for my own skiff and the gulls, and the row boat with the two
persons in it there was nothing astir on the bay.  But Ben kept on
waving and pointing.  At last I decided that it must be the row
boat he was pointing at.  I stopped rowing and looked.

The row boat was a good distance off and its occupants were but
specks.  Now one of the specks stood up and waved its arms.  So far
as I could see, the boat was drifting; there were no flashes of
sunlight on wet blades to show that the oars were in use.  No, it
was drifting, and, as I looked, it swung broadside on.  The
standing figure continued to wave its arms.

Those people must be in trouble of some sort, I decided, and it was
evident that Small thought so, too.  There could no imminent danger
threaten for, on a day like this, with no sea running, there was
nothing to fear in the bay.  If, however, they should drift out of
the bay it might be unpleasant.  And they certainly were drifting.
I resigned myself to the indefinite postponement of my dinner,
swung the skiff about, and pulled as hard as I could in the
direction of the row boat.

With the tide to help me I made good progress, but, even at that,
it took me some time to overtake the drifting craft.  She was, as
Ben had said, a lap-streaked, keel-bottomed dingy--good enough as a
yacht's tender or in deep water, but the worst boat in the world to
row about Denboro bay at low tide.  Her high rail caught what
breeze there was blowing and this helped to push her along.
However, I got within easy hailing distance after a while and
called, over my shoulder, to ask what was the matter.

A man's voice answered me.

"We've lost an oar," he shouted.  "We're drifting out to sea.  Lend
us a hand, will you?"

"All right," I answered.  "I'll be there in a minute."

Within the minute I was almost alongside.  Then I turned, intending
to speak again; but I did not.  The two persons in the dingy were
Victor--I did not know his other name--and Mabel Colton.

I was wearing the oilskin slicker and had pulled down the brim of
my sou'wester to keep the sun from my eyes; therefore they had not
recognized me before.  And I, busy at the oars and looking over my
shoulder only occasionally, had not recognized them.  Now the
recognition was mutual.  Miss Colton spoke first.

"Why, Victor!" she said, "it is--"

"What?" asked her companion.  Then, looking at me, "Oh! it's you,
is it?"

I did not answer.  Luck was certainly against me.  No matter where
I went, on land or water, I was fated to meet these two.

Victor, apparently, was thinking the same thing.  "By Jove!" he
observed; "Mabel, we seem destined to . . .  Humph!  Well?  Will
you give us a hand?"

The most provoking part of it was that, if I had known who was in
that rowboat, I could have avoided the encounter.  Ben Small could
have gone to their rescue just as well as I.  However, here I was,
and here they were.  And I could not very well go away and leave
them, under the circumstances.

Victor's patience was giving way.

"What are you waiting for?" he demanded.  "Aren't you going to help
us?  We'll pay you for it."

I pulled the skiff a little closer and, drawing in my oars, turned
and picked up the slack of my anchor rope.

"Here," I said, brusquely; "catch this line and I'll tow you."

I tossed him the loop of rope and he caught it.

"What shall I do with it?" he asked.

"Hold it, just as it is, for the present.  What became of your
other oar?"

"Lost it overboard."

"Why didn't you throw over your anchor and wait where you were?"

I think he had not thought of the anchor, but he did not deign to
explain.  Instead he began pulling on the rope and the two boats
drew together.

"Don't do that," I said.  "Wait."

I untied the rope, where it was made fast to the skiff's bow, and
with it and the anchor in my hands, scrambled aft and wedged the
anchor under the stern thwart of the little craft.

"Now," I said, "you can pull in the slack until you get to the end.
Then make it fast to your bow somewhere."

I suppose he did his best to follow instructions, but the rope was
a short one, the end jerked loose suddenly and he went backward in
a heap.  I thought, for an instant, that he was going overboard and
that mine would be the mixed pleasure of fishing him out.

Miss Colton gave a little scream, which changed to a ripple of
laughter.  I might have laughed, too, under different circumstances,
but just now I did not feel like it.  Besides, the rope, having
flown out of his hands, was in the water again and the two boats
were drifting apart.

"What did you do that for?" demanded the fallen one, scrambling to
his knees.  I heard a sound from the dingy's stern as if the young
lady was trying to stifle her merriment.  Victor, doubtless, heard
it, too.

"Where are you going?" he sputtered, angrily.  "Give me that rope."

I gave it to him, literally gave it, for I pulled alongside and put
the end in his hands.

"Tie it in the bow of your boat," I said.  He did so.  I drew in
the slack until a fair towing length remained and made it fast.
While he was busy I ventured to glance at Miss Colton.  Her eyes
were snapping with fun and she seemed to be enjoying the situation.
But, catching my look, her expression changed.  She turned away and
looked indifferently out to sea.

I swung the skiff's bow around.

"Where do you want to go?" I asked.

Victor answered.  "Back to Mr. Colton's landing," he said.  "Get as
much of a move on as you can, will you?  I'll make it worth your
while."

I was as anxious to get there as he was.  I did not care for a
quarrel, and I knew if he continued to use that tone in his remarks
to me I should answer as I felt.  I pulled with all my strength,
but against the tide towing was hard work.

Victor sat on the amidships thwart of the dingy, with his back to
me.  But Miss Colton, seated in the stern, was facing me and I
could not help looking at her.  She did not look at me, or, if she
did, it was as if I were merely a part of the view; nothing to be
interested in, one way or the other.

She was beautiful; there was no doubt of that.  Prettier even, in
the blue and white boating costume and rough-and-ready white felt
hat, than she had seemed when I saw her in the auto or her father's
library.  She represented the world that I had lost.  I had known
girls like her.  They had not as much money as she, perhaps, but
they were just as well-bred and refined, and almost as pretty.  I
had associated with them as an equal.  I wondered what she would
say, or think, if she knew that.  Nothing, probably; she would not
care enough to think at all.  It did not matter to me what she
thought; but I did wish I had not put on those fool oilskins.  I
must look more like a country longshoreman than ever.

If I had any doubts about it they were dispelled when I had rowed
the two boats up the bay until we were abreast the Colton mansion.
Then Victor, who had been talking in a low tone with his fellow
passenger in the dingy, looked at the distant shore and, over his
shoulder, at me.

"Here!" he shouted.  "Where are you going?  That's the landing over
there."

"I know," I answered.  "But we shall have to go around that flat.
We can't cross here."

"Why?  What's the reason we can't?"

"Because there isn't water enough.  We should get aground."

He stood up to look.

"Nonsense!" he said.  "There's plenty of water.  I can't see any
flat, or whatever you call it."

"It's there, though you can't see it.  It is covered with eelgrass
and doesn't show.  We shall have to go a half mile further before
we turn in."

"A half mile!  Why, confound it! it's past one o'clock now.  We
haven't any time to waste."

"I'm sorry, but we can't cross yet.  And, if I were you, I
shouldn't stand up in that boat."

He paid no attention to this suggestion.

"There are half a dozen boats, bigger than these, by the landing,"
he declared.  "There is water enough for them.  What are you afraid
of?  We haven't any time to waste, I tell you."

I did not answer.  Silence, on my part, was the safest thing just
then.  I continued rowing up the bay.

Miss Colton spoke to him and he sat down, a proceeding for which I
was thankful.  They whispered together for a moment.  Then he
turned to me.

"See here," he said; "this lady and I have an appointment.  We must
get ashore.  Go straight in.  If you're afraid I'll take the risk.
If there is any danger I'll pay for that, too."

There was no question of risk.  It was a certainty.  I knew that
channel.

"We can't cross here," I said, shortly.

"Why, confound you--"

"Victor!" cautioned Miss Colton.

"Hush, Mabel!  This is ridiculous.  You and I saw two boats go
straight out from the beach this morning.  We went out that way
ourselves.  Here you--Paine, or whatever your name is--we've had
enough of this.  I've hired you to take us ashore, and I want to go
there and not a half mile in another direction.  Will you do as I
tell you?"

When the dingy and the other boats crossed the flat the tide had
been hours higher, of course; but I was in no mood to explain--to
him.

"No," I said, shortly.

"You won't?  Then you give me an oar and I'll row the rest of the
way myself."

There were only two oars in the skiff, but I could get on perfectly
well with one.  And it would serve him beautifully right to let him
go.  But there was the girl.  I hesitated.

"Give me that oar," he repeated, angrily.  "You won't?  Then, by
Jove, I'll do without it.  Stop!  Stop where you are! do you
understand.  We don't require your services any longer."

He turned and began untying the tow line.  I stopped rowing.

Miss Colton looked troubled.

"Victor!" she cried.  "What are you doing?"

"I know what I'm doing.  Can't you see this fellow's game?  The
longer the row the higher his price, that's all.  He can't work me.
I've seen his kind before.  Don't be frightened.  If we can't do
anything else we can anchor and wait until they see us from the
house."

Idiot!  At that point the channel was deep and the bottom soft mud.
I doubted if his anchor would touch and, if it did, I knew it would
not hold.  I backed water and brought the skiff alongside the
dingy, the rail of which I seized and held.

"Keep off!" ordered Victor, still fumbling with the rope.  "We
don't want your help."

I wasted no breath on him.  I addressed my remarks to the girl.

"Miss Colton," I said, "will you listen to me, please.  You can't
anchor here because your anchor will not hold.  And you can't cross
that flat at this stage of the tide.  I can give you an oar, of
course, but it won't do any good.  My oars are too light and small
for your boat.  Unless you wish to drift back where you were, or
beyond, you must let me tow you around the head of this flat."

I don't know what answer she might have made.  None, perhaps;
although I am sure she was listening.  But Victor, who had
succeeded in untying the tow line, cut in ahead of her.

"Mabel," he warned, "don't pay any attention to him.  Didn't your
father tell us what he was?  There!" throwing the end of the rope
overboard and addressing me; "now, you may clear out.  We've done
with you.  Understand?"

I looked at Miss Colton.  But I might as well have looked at an
iceberg.  I slid one of my oars over into the dingy.

"There you are," I said, grimly.  "But I warn you that you're in
for trouble."

I let go of the rail and the boats fell apart.  Victor seized the
borrowed oar with a triumphant laugh.

"Your bluff wouldn't work, would it, Reuben," he sneered.  "I'll
send you the oar and your pay later.  Now, Mabel, sit tight.  I'll
have you ashore in fifteen minutes."

He began rowing toward the weed-covered flat.  I said nothing.  I
was furiously angry and it was some moments before I recovered
self-possession sufficiently to get my remaining oar over the
skiff's stern and, by sculling, hold her against the tide.  Then I
watched and waited.

It was not a long wait.  Victor was in difficulties almost from the
beginning.  The oar belonging to the dingy was a foot longer than
the one I had given him and he zig-zagged wildly.  Soon he was in
the edge of the eelgrass and "catching crabs," first on one side,
then on the other.  The dingy's bow slid up on the mud.  He stood
up to push it off, and the stern swung around.  Getting clear, he
took a fresh start and succeeded only in fouling again.  This time
he got further into the tangle before he grounded.  The bow rose
and the stern settled.  There was a mighty splashing, as Victor
pushed and tugged, but the dingy stuck fast.  And there she would
continue to stick for four hours unless I, or some one else, helped
her off.

I did not want to help.  In fact, I looked all up and down the bay
before I made a move.  But it was dinner time and there was not
another soul afloat.  More than that, I noticed, as I had not
noticed before, that brown clouds--wind clouds--were piling up in
the west, and, if I was anything of a prophet, we would have
squalls and dirty weather long before those four hours were over.
And the dingy, in that position, was not safe to face a blow.  No,
as the small boys say, it was "up to me."  I wished it was not, but
it was.

So again I went to the rescue, but this time in an entirely
different frame of mind.  My anger and resentment had settled to a
cold determination, and this trip was purely business.  I was not
at a disadvantage now, as I had been when I first met that girl and
her friend, in "Big Jim" Colton's library.  I was master of this
situation and master I intended to be.

I sculled the skiff straight in to the edge of the flat, at a point
where the bank sloped sharply to deep water.  I threw over my
anchor, shortened the rope and made it fast.  Then I stepped out
into water above my shoe tops and waded toward the dingy.  The
water was icy cold, but I did not know it at the time.

I splashed through the eelgrass.  Victor saw me coming and roared
an angry protest.  He was still trying to push the boat off with an
oar.

"Here!" he shouted.  "You keep away.  We don't want you."

I did not care what he wanted.  I splashed alongside the dingy and
looked at her and the position she was in.  My mind was made up
instantly.

"You'll never get her off if you both stay aboard," I said.  "Let
the lady move amidships and you get out and wade."

He glared at me as if I were as crazy as Colton or Lute had
declared me to be.  Then he laughed contemptuously.

"You go back where you came from," he ordered.  "I'm running this."

"Yes, I've noticed that.  Now I'll state the facts as plainly as I
can.  This boat is fast aground in the mud, the tide is still going
out, and there are squalls coming.  She must be got off or there
may be danger.  You can't get her off until she is lightened.  Will
you get out and wade?"

He did not answer; instead he continued to push with the oar.  I
turned to the girl.

"Miss Colton," I said, "I must ask you to stand up.  Be careful
when you rise."

She made no move, nor did she reply.  The look she gave me was
enough.

"You must stand up," I repeated, firmly.  "Either your--this
gentleman--must get out, as I tell him to, or I shall have to carry
you to my skiff.  We haven't any time to spare."

She gazed at me in blank astonishment.  Then the color flamed in
her cheeks and her e