第32章 CHAPTER VII(2)

All that summer she played about the house or at the store or on the beach and, when the fall term began, the partners sent her to school. They were happy and proud men when Miss Dobson, the primary teacher, said the girl was too far advanced for the first class and entered her in the second. "Just natural smartness," Captain Shadrach declared. "Natural smartness and nothin' else. She ain't had a mite of advantages, but up she goes just the same. Why, Teacher told me she considered her a reg'lar parachute."

"A parachute's somethin' that comes down, ain't it," suggested Zoeth, remembering the balloon ascension he had seen at the county fair.

"Humph! So 'tis. Seems as if 'twasn't parachute she said. 'Twas--

'twas--"

"Parasol?" suggested Isaiah, who was an interested listener.

"No, no; nor paralysis neither. Paragon, that's what 'twas.

Teacher said that child was a paragon."

"What's a paragon?" asked Mr. Chase.

"I don't know. But it's what she is, anyway."

The paragon continued to progress in her studies. Also she continued, more and more, to take an interest in the housework and the affairs of her adopted uncles and Isaiah Chase. Little by little changes came in the life of the family. On one memorable Sunday Captain Shadrach attended church. It was the first time in a good many years and whether the congregation or Zoeth or the Captain himself was the more astonished at the latter's being there is a question. Mary-'Gusta was not greatly astonished. It was the result of careful planning on her part, planning which had as its object the relieving of Mr. Hamilton's mind. Zoeth never missed a Sunday service or a Friday night prayer meeting. And, being sincerely religious, he was greatly troubled because his friend and partner took little interest in such things.

Shadrach's aversion to churches dated back to a sermon preached by a former minister. The subject of that sermon was Jonah and the whale. The Captain, having been on several whaling voyages in his younger days, had his own opinion concerning the prophet's famous adventure.

If the minister had been a younger and more tactful man the argument which followed might have ended pleasantly and the break have been avoided. But the clergyman was elderly, as set in his ways as the Captain was in his, and the disagreement was absolute and final.

"The feller is a regular wooden-head," declared Shadrach, hotly. "I was willin' to be reasonable; I was willin' to give in that this Jonah man might have been out of his head and, after he was hove overboard and cast ashore, thought he'd been swallowed by a whale or somethin' or 'nother. I picked up a sailor once who'd drifted around in a boat for a week and he couldn't remember nothin' of what happened after the first day or so. If you'd told him he'd been swallowed by a mackerel he wouldn't have said no. But I've helped kill a good many whales--yes, and I've helped cut 'em up, too--and I know what they look like inside. No man, whether his name was Jonah or Jehoshaphat, could have lived three days in a whale's stomach.

How'd he breathe in there, eh? Cal'late the whale had ventilators and a skylight in his main deck? How'd the whale live all that time with a man hoppin' 'round inside him? Think I'd live if I--if I swallowed a live mouse or somethin'? No, sir-ee! Either that mouse would die or I would, I bet you! I've seen a whole parcel of things took out of a whale's insides and some of the things had been alive once, too; but they wasn't alive then; they was in chunks and part digested. Jonah wasn't digested, was he? And the whale wasn't dead of dyspepsy neither. That's what I told that minister. 'You try it yourself,' I says to him. 'There's whales enough back of the Crab Ledge, twenty mile off Orham,' said I. 'You're liable to run in sight of 'em most any fair day in summer. You go off there and jump overboard some time and see what happens. First place, no whale would swallow you; next place, if it did 'twould chew you or sift you fine first; and, third place, if you was whole and alive that whale would be dead inside of ten minutes. You try it and see.'

Good fair offer, wasn't it? But did he take it up? Not much. Said I was a scoffer and an infidel and didn't know anything about Scripture! 'I know about whales, anyhow,' I told him. And he slammed off and wouldn't speak to me again. Don't talk to ME! I'll never go inside that meetin'-house again."

And he never had until Mary-'Gusta coaxed him into it. She was a regular attendant at Sunday school, but on Sunday mornings in pleasant weather she had been accustomed to take a walk with Shadrach. These walks they both enjoyed hugely, but one bright morning she announced that she was not going for a walk, but was going to church with Uncle Zoeth. Shadrach was disappointed and astonished.

"Land sakes! What's this mean?" he demanded. "Thought you liked to walk with me."

"I do. I like it very much. But I don't think it's fair for me to do it every Sunday. Uncle Zoeth ALWAYS goes to church and he feels real bad 'cause you don't go. He told me so. He says the church folks think you won't go to Heaven when you die and that makes him feel dreadful. He's goin' to Heaven, you know."

"Oh, he is, eh?"

"Of course. He couldn't help it, he's so good. Don't you think he'll go to Heaven, Uncle Shad?"

"Who? Zoeth? Sartin I do. If he don't, nobody will."

"Wouldn't it make you feel bad if you was afraid he wouldn't go there?"

"Humph! Maybe so, but I ain't afraid."

"I know, but he is afraid YOU won't. He thinks an awful lot of you; as much as you do of him, you know. Uncle Shad, I'm goin' to meetin' with Uncle Zoeth this mornin', and I want you to go with us; will you?"

The Captain pulled his beard.

"Look here, Mary-'Gusta," he said. "What's all this about, anyway?

You don't cal'late I'd take you walkin' Sundays if I thought 'twas wicked, do you?"

"No, sir; but Uncle Zoeth thinks not goin' to church is wicked. If you and I went to church with him 'twould please him ever so much."

"Maybe so, but 'twould please you and me if he went walkin' with us.