The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Rise of Roscoe Paine, by Joseph C. Lincoln This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: The Rise of Roscoe Paine Author: Joseph C. Lincoln Release Date: June 3, 2006 [EBook #3137] Last Updated: September 27, 2016 Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RISE OF ROSCOE PAINE *** Produced by Donald Lainson; David Widger THE RISE OF ROSCOE PAINE By Joseph C. Lincoln CONTENTS CHAPTER I CHAPTER II CHAPTER III CHAPTER IV CHAPTER V CHAPTER VI CHAPTER VII CHAPTER VIII CHAPTER IX CHAPTER X CHAPTER XI CHAPTER XII CHAPTER XIII CHAPTER XIV CHAPTER XV CHAPTER XVI CHAPTER XVII CHAPTER XVIII CHAPTER XIX CHAPTER XX CHAPTER XXI CHAPTER XXII CHAPTER XXIII CHAPTER XXIV 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...