Chapter XI

That evening when the grey cottage had resumed its tranquillity; when the sea flickered silver and a broad moonglade shimmered from the doorway straight up to heaven, Asaph, seated on the rose-scented piazza with his wife and Lemuel Gill, told Althea the story of the Dolphin. He spun the yarn graphically with all a seafarer’s love of the dramatic, and Althea laughed at its lights and shadows as she had not done in years. Then, the tale finished, he went indoors and returned carrying a cracked blue sugar-bowl from whose azure depths resounded the tinkle of coins.

“Here’s what we’ve made,” announced he. “I’ve been too busy to figure out what it comes to, but you’ll find it all in here.”

“How much do you reckon ’twill add up?” speculated Lemmy Gill, the financial angle of the venture for the first time stirring his interest. “We’d oughter counted it an’ found out. But we were so dead beat when night come we didn’t care. Had we taken in a million dollars I wouldn’t ’a’ turned my hand over for it. Still ’twill be amusin’ now to find out. Let’s give a guess.”

“Twenty-five dollars,” hazarded Asaph.

“Nonsense!” jeered the more worldly-minded Captain. “It’s nearer seventy-five.”

“Oh, it couldn’t be so much as that, Lemmy,” contradicted Althea.

“Have a look an’ see if ’tain’t,” urged Lemuel.

“Seventy-five dollars is a mint of money, Lemmy. It would never come to that,” rejoined Asaph. “Tip it out, Althea, an’ give us the total. Then we’ll know without doin’ more guessin’.”

Obediently his wife tumbled the disputed contents of the sugar-bowl into her lap and while the men sat by and in antiphonal chorus repeated the addition after her, she sorted the bills and counted the jingling silver. Then in awed silence she looked down upon it.

Lemuel’s mad surmise of seventy-five dollars had been modest when compared with the little fortune her apron contained.

“I don’t see how you contrived it,” murmured she at last. “Are you sure you didn’t make mistakes in change?”

“Folks didn’t do no kickin’,” replied Lemuel.

“Maybe you haven’t paid for everything, Asaph. Ain’t there a bill at the store needs settlin’?”

“Nope! I squared everythin’ with spot cash. I was afraid not to, lest I get in deeper’n I knew. So, you see, what’s here is net profit--all ’cept Lemmy’s share of the plunder.”

“’Cept what?” piped Lemuel.

“’Cept your portion.”

“But I ain’t got no portion,” answered the little man simply.

“’Course you have. The lobsters were yours, warn’t they? An’ a good part of the fish an’ clams, too. Besides, your services come to somethin’.”

“Who ever heard of anythin’ so plumb ridic’lous!” guffawed the Captain scornfully.

“Asaph is right, Lemmy. Part of the money belongs to you,” agreed Althea.

“Nonsense, marm! Non--sense!”

“But you’ve earned it, an’ neither Asaph nor I will be happy unless you take what’s yours,” insisted she firmly.

“An’ what would I be doin’ with a sugar-bowl full of money?” blustered Lemuel derisively. “Buyin’ a diamond ring for myself?”

“What’s the matter with your gettin’ a new suit of clothes?” suggested Asaph.

“Clothes? I’ve got all the clothes I want to sew buttons on already,” objected Lemmy. “Had I more they’d keep me patchin’, darnin’ an’ tinkerin’ with ’em all the time an’ leave me not a minute for weedin’ an’ cultivatin’ my garden. No, siree! Folks that want closetfuls of clothes are welcome to ’em. I wouldn’t be bothered riggin’ myself up in white pants an’ silk shirts like some of the jackanapes do that come here tea drinkin’. The more things you get the less peace you have, in my opinion.”

“You could find a use for the money, I guess,” smiled Althea. “If worse came to worst, Lemmy, you could lay it out in rose bushes.”

“I--I--s’pose I might do that,” faltered the horticulturist, tempted by the artful suggestion.

“Of course you could,” went on Althea quickly. “Haven’t you been wantin’ some white Killarneys for a long time? Now’s your chance to get ’em. ’Tain’t as if the money was a gift. It’s your own earnin’s.”

“You can hand me ten dollars, then--ten dollars--not another cent. ’Twill be like manna fallin’ from heaven it’s so unexpected. In fact, ’bout all the money I’ve ever had has descended upon me without warnin’. When I’ve gone after it an’ tried to earn it, it’s been as hard to lay a-holt of as the end of the rainbow. Durin’ my life I’ll bet I’ve set out to get a job a hundred times--actually gone nettin’ one--an’ ’twas never any use; but just you let me set down an’ put money as fur from my reckin’ as Mars is an’ ’twill drop like a meteor at my feet.” Reminiscently he smiled. “I’ve ’bout come to the conclusion that when you chase a thing too hard an’ vow you’ll have it whether or no you seldom capture it.”

“An’ yet we’d have nothin’ in this world if we didn’t determine to get it,” Althea remarked. “The Dolphin, now--hadn’t I aimed for it an’ worked for it I’d ’a’ been without it to this day.”

“I reckon you would,” Lemmy admitted. “Mebbe, though, you’d ’a’ been as well off.”

Instantly the woman bristled.

“What do you mean?” demanded she. “Ain’t it turned out well? Ain’t folks come to it?”

“Oh, folks have come right ’nough,” answered the little man. “They’ve trooped in here like as if their eternal salvation depended on a cup of tea. I’m afraid you’re goin’ to think so too when once you get the place into your own hands.”

“Oh, no, I’m not,” was the assured retort. “Crowds of folks ain’t goin’ to bother me. Warn’t it for the sake of seein’ people I opened the tea-room?”

“If that was your reason, Althea, you’ll have enough of ’em now to content you,” drawled the Captain. “They’ll drift past you like so many movin’ pictures--all sorts an’ kinds. There’ll be the woman in the pink hat who carries away the lump sugar in her handkerchief; an’ the sharp-nosed old maid from the Inn that drinks her tea so black you feel guilty lettin’ her have it. Then you’ll see the girl that fixes up her drink with lemon, cloves, ginger, an’ sugar like she was intendin’ to make it into sweet pickle. I can’t imagine puttin’ such a mixture into my tea. I’d as soon think of dishin’ spices into an oyster stew. Still, if that’s what city folks want, they’re welcome to it.”

“That’s what I say,” rejoined Asaph. “They can doctor their beverage up with Paris green if they have a mind to. I don’t care.”

“Oh, I do,” promptly averred Althea. “It all interests me--the folks, what they wear, what they eat, how they eat it--everythin’. I shall admire to watch ’em.”

“I’m afraid you won’t get much chance to do that, penned up in the kitchen as you’ll be,” was Lemuel’s disheartening comment. “It’ll take ’bout all your time to dish up the food an’ keep things movin’.”

It was evident from the swift change in Althea’s expression that the assertion dismayed her. “Didn’t Miss Davidson mingle round with the people same’s you an’ Asaph?” she questioned. Lemmy shook his head.

“Peggy had her hands full behind the scenes,” was his reply. “She was either bilin’ water, spreadin’ sandwiches, slicin’ lemon, fillin’ cake plates, makin’ tea, or doin’ somethin’ else. I’d a notion it was because of her bein’ imprisoned in the kitchen Doctor Hollingsworth kept goin’ out there for drinks of water. He was continually makin’ journeys to the pump. I’ll bet he swilled down a gallon of water every afternoon he was here.”

Althea’s laughter rippled out upon the quiet air.

“Well, he can quit his drinkin’ now,” said she.

“What do you mean?” demanded Lemmy, a startled expression dilating his eyes.

“Why, after this Miss Davidson won’t be a captive in our kitchen. She won’t have to be. Certainly you an’ Asaph didn’t expect a girl young an’ pretty as she to keep right on slavin’ here all summer. She’s away on her vacation. What rest would she get to be cooped up in the house day after day, washin’ dishes an’ cookin’?”

“I dunno.” The little man was silent. “I hadn’t thought of it that way. She seemed so sorter contented--” His voice trailed off and died in a murmur of disappointment.

“We mustn’t forget, Lemmy, Miss Peggy an’ the Doctor have been awful kind,” interrupted Asaph. “They’ve come to our rescue like Trojans. But as Althea says, they’re young, an’ ’twouldn’t be right for us to keep ’em from enjoyin’ themselves. They don’t have the ocean to look at all the year round, same’s we do.”

“But I thought they were enjoyin’ themselves,” lamented the Captain, with spirits at a low ebb. “It’s goin’ to make the Dolphin awful different to have ’em gone. They were so pleasant an’ lively! There won’t be no more jokin’ now, nor frosted cakes, nor--”

“Yes, there will, Lemmy,” cut in Althea briskly. “Can’t I make frosted cakes well as Miss Davidson? Besides, ’tain’t as if she was goin’ away for good. She’ll be at the hotel an’ will come droppin’ in here now an’ again of an afternoon. She promised she would. So don’t go mournin’ her like as if she was dead an’ buried. Most likely when it’s rainy an’ she can’t go ridin’, sailin’ or walkin’ she’ll come visitin’ us.”

“I shall pray for rain then,” was Lemmy’s instant answer. “I’m goin’ to raise a petition to heaven right now that it rains forty days an’ forty nights same’s it did in the time of Noah.”

“Don’t you do no such thing, Lemuel Gill,” cried Asaph. “If you was to send up a prayer like that what do you s’pose would become of the garden?”

“Sakes alive! I clean forgot the flowers,” gasped Lemuel. “I reckon I’ll have to let the weather go its own gait an’ Peggy go hers. Still that don’t alter the fact we’re goin’ to miss her somethin’ alarmin’. However, we’ve got Althea back so t’ain’t all loss,” added he more cheerily. “Now if them Tylers will only keep out of mischief an’ stay right side up I guess we can manage--Peggy or no Peggy. All the same you can’t deny girls like her are scarce as hen’s teeth.”

“I reckon that’s what the young Doctor thinks,” returned Althea with a significant smile.

“Eh?” questioned Asaph.

“I just said I guessed Doctor Hollingsworth was of that opinion.”

“Pooh! Nonsense, Althea. Why, them young folks are only a boy an’ girl--nothin’ but children,” protested her husband.

“The Doctor’s thirty if he’s a day. An’ Miss Davidson--”

“I never thought of such a thing,” said Asaph slowly. “The idea of there bein’ anythin’ ’twixt ’em never crossed my mind. ’Course there was the water drinkin’ an’ the pleasant talk but--law!”

Dumbfounded, he halted.

“Asaph Holmes, you beat the Dutch,” laughed Althea. “Still, I wouldn’t expect otherwise. You’re that innocent should Romeo an’ Juliet go to love-makin’ under your very nose you’d never have an’ inklin’ they entertained a partiality for one another.”

“I reckon men ain’t as quick at smellin’ out romances as women,” was the mild defense.

“Lemmy warn’t so blind. He saw what was goin’ on, didn’t you, Lemmy?”

“I--well, it did seem as if the Doctor was takin’ aboard considerable water,” confessed Lemuel with caution.

“I’m glad you got that far,” answered Althea, good-humoredly. “There’s hope for you. Why, I didn’t have to do more’n glance at ’em to size up the whole situation. He’s dead in love with her. That’s plain as the nose on your face. She likes him, too, up to a certain point; but she ain’t as sure of herself as he is. She’s kinder waverin’--tryin’ to make up her mind. It bothers him no end. That’s why he laughs that nervous, uncertain way; an’ scowls when he thinks nobody’s lookin’.”

“For the land’s sake, Althea!” ejaculated Asaph with unconcealed admiration. “How in goodness did you find all that out? You ain’t been in the house more’n a couple of hours.”

“’Twarn’t difficult to see,” responded his wife with a shrug of her shoulders. “A child could ’a’ read the story. All is, now I’ve told you the state of affairs, you an’ Lemmy must on no account go blunderin’ in. You might upset the whole kettle of fish. Remember, love affairs are delicate as cobwebs an’ easily spoiled.”

“Oh, neither Lemmy nor me would think of doin’ any meddlin’,” was the reassuring answer. “Fallin’ in love ain’t in my line nor yet in his.” Musing, he stroked his chin. “Wall, wall! Just to think of it! Peggy an’ the Doctor! They’ll make a fine couple.” Then, after an interval of thought he continued: “Mebbe, all things considered, it’s as well, they won’t be comin’ here every day, from now on, for I’d be so took up with watchin’ ’em, an’ worryin’ lest things warn’t goin’ right I’d get nothin’ done.”

“That’s my feelin’ too,” echoed Lemuel. “I figger the turn affairs has took is all for the best.”