第23章 CHAPTER V(3)

"I guess there's more--more things in it with separate smells to 'em," she said.

Captain Shad had no remark to make for a moment. Mary-'Gusta, however, was anxious to please.

"They're nice smells," she hastened to add. "I like 'em; only I never smelled 'em all at the same time before. And I like the lozengers VERY much."

The two or three days which Captain Shad had set as the limit of the child's visit passed; as did the next two or three. She was busy and, apparently, enjoying herself. She helped Isaiah with the housework, and although he found the help not altogether unwelcome, he was inclined to grumble a little at what he called her "pesterin' around."

"I never see such a young-one," he told his employers. "I don't ask her to do dishes nor fill pitchers nor nothin'; she just does it on her own hook."

"Humph!" grunted Captain Shadrach. "So I judged from what I see.

Does it pretty well, too, don't she?"

"Um-hm. Well enough, I guess. Yes," with a burst of candor, "for her age, she does it mighty well."

"Then what are you kickin' about?"

"I ain't kickin'. Who said I was kickin'? Only--well, all I say is let her do dishes and such, if she wants to, only--only--"

"Only what?"

"Only I ain't goin' to have her heavin' out hints about what I ought to do. There's two skippers aboard this craft now and that's enough. By time!" with another burst, "that kid's a reg'lar born mother. She mothers that cat and them dolls and the hens already, and I swan to man I believe she'd like to adopt me. I ain't goin' to be mothered and hinted at to do this and that and put to bed and tucked in by no kid. I'll heave up my job first."

He had been on the point of heaving up his job ever since the days when he sailed as cook aboard Captain Shadrach's schooner. When the Captain retired from the sea for the last time, and became partner and fellow shopkeeper with Zoeth, Isaiah had retired with him and was engaged to keep house for the two men. The Captain had balked at the idea of a female housekeeper.

"Women aboard ship are a dum nuisance," he declared. "I've carried 'em cabin passage and I know. Isaiah Chase is a good cook, and, besides, if the biscuits are more fit for cod sinkers than they are for grub, I can tell him so in the right kind of language. We don't want no woman steward, Zoeth; you hear ME!"

Zoeth, although the Captain's seafaring language was a trial to his gentle, churchly soul, agreed with his partner on the main point.

His experience with the other sex had not been such as to warrant further experiment. So Isaiah was hired and had been cook and steward at the South Harniss home for many years. But he made it a practice to assert his independence at frequent intervals, although, as a matter of fact, he would no more have dreamed of really leaving than his friends and employers would of discharging him. Mr. Chase was as permanent a fixture in that house as the ship's chronometer in the dining-room; and that was screwed to the wall.

And, in spite of his grumbling, he and Mary-'Gusta were rapidly becoming fast friends. Shadrach and Zoeth also were beginning to enjoy her company, her unexpected questions, her interest in the house and the store, and shrewd, old-fashioned comments on persons and things. She was a "queer young-one"; they, like the people of Ostable, agreed on that point, but Mr. Hamilton was inclined to think her ways "sort of takin'" and the Captain admitted that maybe they were. What he would not admit was that the girl's visit, although already prolonged for a fortnight, was anything but a visit.

"I presume likely," hinted Zoeth, "you and me'll have to give the Judge some sort of an answer pretty soon, won't we? He'll be wantin' to know afore long."

"Know? Know what?"

"Why--why whether we're goin' to say yes or no to what Marcellus asked us in that letter."

"He does know. Fur's I'm consarned, he knows. I spoke my mind plain enough to pound through anybody's skull, I should think."

"Yes--yes, I know you did. But, Shadrach, if she don't stay here for good where will she stay? She ain't got anybody else to go to."

"She is stayin', ain't she? She--she's makin' us a visit, same as I said she could. What more do you want? Jumpin' fire! This fix is your doin' anyway. 'Tain't mine. If you had paid attention to what I said, the child wouldn't have been here at all."

"Now, Shadrach! You know you was the one that would fetch her over that very day."

"Oh, blame it onto me, of course!"

"I ain't blamin' anybody. But she's here and we've got to decide whether to send her away or not. Shall we?"