Chapter VIII

Peggy Davidson, it subsequently proved, had forgotten more about flowers than both Lemuel Gill and Asaph Holmes put together had ever known. She had studied landscape architecture and her intelligent comment soon had the two men enthralled, and as oblivious to the trials of tea-shops and Green Dolphins as if they never existed.

“Your lilies are lovely,” exclaimed she. “And you’ve placed them beautifully--just in front of that larkspur and blue veronica.”

“Bless your heart, I didn’t place ’em,” honest Asaph protested. “I only planted ’em where they’d show up. White things have to have somethin’ behind ’em or they’re lost.”

“That’s placing them.”

“Is it?” queried the man in surprise. “I just call it usin’ common sense. If you like posies you want they should grow where they’ll look their best. Clim’in’ roses, now, ain’t ever so satisfyin’, to my way of thinkin’, as when twinin’ over grey shingles or a cedar post; pink, white, red, yaller--they all look fine that way.”

“So they do,” agreed Peggy, with a delighted nod. “They’re nice against the sky, too, and the blue of the water.”

“They are, marm--they are indeed!”

Asaph did not address Miss Davidson by this austere title either because her age demanded it, or because there was condescension or superiority in her manner. Rather the word dropped from his lips as an involuntary tribute of respect and admiration. Perhaps the girl realized this and was the more pleased. At least she smiled into his eyes with an unaffected camaraderie that instantly established a sympathetic bond between them. She was wont to bestow this frank, radiant smile on the especially favored, and adamantine indeed would have been the recipient of it had he not experienced a thrill of pleasure when it was flashed upon him. Such a response now stirred the blood of both Asaph and Lemmy Gill. There was a wholesome, appealing quality in the girl that was irresistible. Young as she was (and she could not have been much over twenty) she already had a remarkably clear-cut personality. The shifting gravity and laughter in her grey eyes held one captive, and so did the curving mouth with its mischievous dimples; even her hair rippled with venturesome independence, refusing to stay primly in place. As Lemuel Gill remarked afterward, she was winsome.

“I have a garden of my own in Cambridge,” explained she, “and so I know what it means to raise flowers like these. I spend hours digging and weeding. Mother says I drudge like a day laborer and is continually imploring me to hire a man to do the cultivating. But you know how it is. You can’t pass your flowers over to strangers to take care of. How would they know which ones needed coaxing along?”

“That’s right,” chimed in Lemuel Gill. “Why, I’d no more turn my garden over to hired help than I’d send somebody to represent me at the Day of Judgment.”

Peggy laughed.

“So you have a garden, too, have you?”

“Oh, Lemmy has a regular Eden down by the shore,” interpolated Asaph. “He’s carted loam an’ worked no end. If once you clapped eyes on his place you’d pass mine by without a second glance.”

“Pooh, Asaph, pooh!” blushed Lemuel. “Nonsense!”

“But it’s true,” maintained his friend stoutly. “Why, marm, Lemuel can hypnotize plants into growin’ big as cabbages. They clean forget when to stop. I believe,” continued he with impressive solemnity, “that was he to put ’em in the ground roots uppermost they’d grow for him.”

“I’d love to see your flowers, Captain Gill.”

“I’d be proud as ’lection to show ’em to you. Mebbe you’d like to step over now an’ take a look at ’em. ’Tain’t far--just down that little lane toward the shore.”

“I’m afraid I can’t,” answered the girl with genuine regret. “You see, I’m with the Hollingsworths and must not delay them.”

“That’s a pity. If you were only summerin’ somewheres on the Cape you might come another day an’ see ’em.”

“Oh, I am summering here. I’m close by. Mother and I are staying at the Belleport Inn, your village hotel.”

“Don’t call it my hotel,” objected Captain Gill. “I ain’t runnin’ no boardin’ house--no, nor tea-shop neither,” added he, a mutinous gleam in his eye.

“You can’t, however, deny having some connection with one,” retorted Peggy, dimpling, “for I spy its trade-mark right on you.”

Lemuel glanced down and for the first time realized that from the finger with which he was gesticulating dangled the green teacup.

“Haw, haw!” roared Asaph. “Haw, haw, haw! That’s a good one, Lemmy! Trade-mark indeed! My soul! I’d forgotten you were still in the stocks. Why didn’t you bust your fetters? I gave you leave.”

“I know you did. But when it come to actually doin’ it I hadn’t the heart. I knew Althea’d feel bad to get home an’ find her china broken. Besides, I tore outdoors in such a hurry I didn’t wait for nothin’; an’ once out here, with the talk of gardens an’ all, the thought of the pesky cup went clean out of my head.”

“Why do you keep it on there?” questioned the mystified Miss Davidson.

“’Cause he can’t get it off, marm. When the crowd of you hove into sight he was that flustered he rammed his finger through that handle like you’d run a sword through something ’way up to the hilt. He could never do the trick again, I’ll wager. How he managed it this time beats me. We’ve tried an’ tried to wriggle his joint back through the hole again but it’s no use.”

“Can’t you start it with warm suds?” asked Peggy with incredulity.

“We’ve experimented with soap an’ water but it don’t do nothin’,” Lemmy returned with a wry smile. “I reckon the damn thing is on there for life.”

“Pledged to the Dolphin ’til death do you part, ain’t you, Lemmy?” taunted Asaph.

“You bet I ain’t,” shot out Captain Gill.

“Maybe I could get it off,” ventured Peggy.

“Oh, leave it on him, marm,” drawled Asaph. “He may find a teacup handy; or p’raps he can make his fortune by goin’ in a show.”

“It would serve you right, Asaph Holmes, if I never helped bail you out of your troubles again,” exploded Lemuel, stung to the quick by his comrade’s jests.

Suavely Peggy stepped between the two men.

“Certainly,” declared she, “no person who can make such wonderful clam chowder should be on the disabled list. Suppose we come into the kitchen and see if we can’t release him.”

“A capital idea,” Asaph rejoined with good humor. “The two of us together ought to be able to put him out of his misery.”

Even Lemuel, ruffled as he was, smiled as he followed them indoors.

“My scheme is to oil him up good an’ slippery with kerosene an’ then slide the thing off him,” announced Asaph. “What do you think of the notion, marm?”

“We can try it and see how it works. But there--how silly of us to blunder round when young Doctor Hollingsworth, who’s a surgeon, is right here and will know exactly what to do.” She sped to the door. “Eric!”

“Now ain’t that lucky, Lemmy? There’s a live surgeon right here on the premises an’ he can operate on you. Will he need ether, Miss, or will it be painless?”

“Oh, do shut up, Asaph,” pleaded Lemmy.

“Don’t you s’pose I feel a big enough fool as ’tis without you jokin’ an’ jibin’ at me?”

But for once his colleague was deaf to his appeal.

“Won’t this be a yarn to tell Althea when she gets back?” he went on. “She’ll laugh her head off to hear the mess her Dolphin got you into, Lemmy.”

“Oh--h! Then the tea-room isn’t your own venture,” said Peggy, quickly glancing up.

“Did you think it was?” grinned Asaph. “Do I look like I could run a tea-shop?”

“Well--” she hesitated.

“No, I ain’t so stuck on teacups as my friend Captain Gill is.” He nudged Lemuel in the ribs. “’Twas my wife started the Dolphin. She was kinder lonesome an’ wanted company.”

“But where is she?”

“Gone to Abington to haul her sister out of an unlooked-for dilemma. ’Twas a pity, too, she had to go just now for she’s been weeks gettin’ this place ready for the openin’.”

“And you?”

“Well, tea-shops ain’t in my line,” was the simple answer. “Still, I promised her I’d do the best I could till she got back. To be honest I warn’t bankin’ on much trade. When you folks hove in sight my knees most crumpled up under me.”

A peal of musical laughter came from Peggy.

“I don’t wonder,” she answered, instantly sympathetic. “And then you couldn’t find the tea! Oh, it was a shame! And now we’ve eaten up all the chowder you had made for your supper.”

“I ain’t doin’ no kickin’,” smiled Asaph.

“But I am. I think we’ve been horrid. Oh, here comes the doctor. What on earth have you been doing, Eric?”

“I went out to the car to rummage for my instruments--gauze an’ stuff. What’s the matter?”

“Cap’n Gill’s kinder laid up,” explained Asaph. “Had he got the noose round his neck he has round his finger he’d be a dead man by now.”

“Don’t laugh at him any more,” implored Peggy, who saw rage again gleaming in Lemuel’s eye.

But mirth already convulsed young Hollingsworth.

“You don’t think there’s danger of this provin’ fatal, do you, Doctor?” Asaph inquired. “I’m afraid Lemmy ain’t drawed up his will.”

“If I had an’ had left you anythin’ in it I’d revoke it,” snapped the little man.

Professional skill speedily proved its ascendency over amateur methods and it did not take long for the surgeon to remove the Dolphin’s insignia from the luckless Captain. And no sooner was complete release effected than Hollingsworth Senior called from the lawn:

“All aboard, youngsters! Come, Eric, and start your engine. Come, Peggy! Now, how much do we owe you, Mr. Holmes?”

“Eh?” repeated Asaph. “Oh, the food, you mean? I don’t see as you owe me anything. You had no tea an’ that was what we contracted to give you.”

“But we had something better--the chowder.”

“That? I’d be a nice cuss to charge you for chowder me an’ Lemmy were goin’ to have anyway. The clams didn’t cost us a cent; an’ fur’s the potatoes an’ onions go I raised ’em myself.”

“But you had the trouble of doing it,” laughed the stranger. “Furthermore, the chowder was to have been your supper and we’ve devoured every smitch of it.”

“’Tain’t all gone,” was the prompt protest. “There’s dredgin’s in the bottom of the kettle yet.”

“You’ve forgotten the cake, cookies, and preserves.”

“Now, see here,” interrupted Miss Davidson, sweeping them aside with a pretty gesture of authority, “I’m going to make out this bill. I go round to tea-rooms much oftener than you men do and therefore know more about them. Will you trust me to square the account for you, Mr. Holmes?”

“I’d trust you to do anything on earth,” was the fervent response. “But don’t you see it ain’t money I’m after? We’ve had the pleasantest kind of an afternoon talkin’ gardens an’ operatin’ on Lemmy. Let’s call it quits.”

“You shall do nothing of the sort,” Peggy asserted. “What would Al--your wife say to such an arrangement?”

“Oh, Althea ain’t in it for money; she said so at the outset.”

“That’s fortunate, if you are to have the handling of the finances,” chuckled the Westerner.

“Well, Peggy, you and I will just have to settle the charges ourselves. I can see that. Good-bye, Mr. Holmes, and we thank you for your hospitality. Some day you’ll see us driving back for another chowder. Come, Peggy!”

Amid hurried adieux the visitors rolled away, the two men silently watching them out of sight.

Then as if reflecting aloud, Asaph murmured:

“Mebbe, after all, it’s goin’ to be as Althea said.”

“What is?”

“The Dolphin. P’raps it will kinder shake us up an’ give us somethin’ to think of. Spite of the mess the kitchen’s in an’ the bother ’twill be to clean it up, the afternoon’s been worth it.”

“Worth it! I should say it had!” announced Lemmy, holding before his companion’s gaze a crisp ten-dollar bill.

Dully Asaph stared at it.

“Where’d you find that, Lemmy?” interrogated he.

“They left it under a stone on the gate-post.”

“My soul an’ body! Why, they must ’a’ made a mistake. ’Tain’t right. The very notion of anybody payin’ ten dollars for that chowder, cake, an’ stuff. It’s ridiculous. Take it, Lemmy. It’s yours. ’Twas you made the chowder an’ you who got disabled in the Dolphin cause. You can consider it a sort of veteran’s pension.”

But Lemuel shook his head.

“When you see me takin’ money from this Green Dolphin, Asaph Holmes, you’ll see me nearer poverty than I am now,” returned he with dignity. “Why, ’twas worth every cent of that greenback to meet that girl.”

“So ’twas, Lemmy--so ’twas!” agreed the other man heartily.