out for'ard yonder. Come on, Cap'n Sears."
The captain shook his head. "Never mind them just now," he said. "I want to see the bedrooms, those you use, Judah. That is, unless they're up aloft."
"No, no. Right on the lower deck, both of 'em. Course there is plenty more up aloft, but, as I told you, I never bother 'em. Here's my berth," opening a door from the sitting room. "And here's what I call my spare stateroom. I keep it ready for comp'ny. Not that I ever have any, you understand."
Judah's bedroom was small and snug. The "spare stateroom" was a trifle larger. In both were the old-fashioned mahogany furniture of our great-grandfathers. Mr. Cahoon apologized for it.
"Kind of old-timey stuff down below here," he explained. "Just common folks used these rooms, I judge likely. But you'd ought to see them up on the quarter deck. There's your high-toned fixin's! Marble tops to the bureaus and tables and washstands, and fruit—peaches and pears and all sorts—carved out on the headboards of the beds, and wreaths on the walls all made out of shells, and—and kind of brass doodads at the tops of the window curtains. Style, don't talk! … Sort of a pretty look-off through that deadlight, ain't there, Cap'n Sears? Seems so to me."
Kendrick had raised the window shade of the spare stateroom and was looking out. The view extended across the rolling hills and little pine groves and cranberry bogs, to the lower road with its white houses and shade trees. And beyond the lower road were more hills and pines, a pretty little lake—Crowell's Pond, it was called—sand dunes and then the blue water of the Bay. The captain looked at the view for a few moments, then, turning, looked once more at the room and its furniture.
"So you've never had a passenger in your spare stateroom, Judah?" he asked.
"Nary one, not yet."
"Expectin' any?"
"Nary one. Don't know nobody to expect."
"But you think it would be all right if you did have some one? Your er—owner—young Minot, I mean, wouldn't object?"
"Object! No, no. He told me to. 'I should think you'd die livin' here alone,' he says. 'Why don't you take a boarder? I would if I was you.'"
Sears Kendrick stopped looking at the room and its furniture and turned his gaze upon his former cook.
"Take a boarder?" he repeated. "Did Ogden Minot tell you to take a boarder? And do you think he meant it?"
"Sartin sure he meant it. He don't care what I do—in reason, of course."
"Humph! … Well, then, Judah, why don't you take one?"
"Eh? Take one what? A boarder? Who'd I take, for thunder's sakes?"
Captain Kendrick smiled.
"Me," he said.
CHAPTER III
For the half hour which followed the captain's utterance of that simple little word, "Me," exclamation, protestation and argument heated and unwontedly disturbed the atmosphere of the Minot spare stateroom and when the discussion adjourned there, of the little back yard. The old white horse, left to himself and quite forgotten, placidly meandered on until he reached a point where he could reach the tender foliage of a young pear tree which leaned over the wall toward him. Then, with a sigh of content, he proceeded to devour the tree. No one paid the least attention to him. Captain Kendrick, now seated upon the bench beneath the locust, was quietly but persistently explaining why he desired to become a boarder and lodger at Mr. Cahoon's quarters on the after lower deck of the General Minot house, and Judah was vociferously and profanely expostulating against such an idea.
"It ain't fittin', I tell you," he declared, over and over again. "It ain't fittin', it's the craziest notion ever I heard tell of. What'll folks think if they know you're here—you, Cap'n Sears Kendrick, that all hands knows is the smartest cap'n that ever sailed out of Boston harbor? What'll they say if they know you've hove anchor along of me, stayin' here in the—in the fo'castle of this house; eatin' the grub I cook—"
"I've eaten your cookin' for a good many months at a stretch, Judah. You never heard me find any fault with it, did you?"
"Don't make no odds. That's different, Cap'n Sears, and you know 'tis. It's ridiculous, stark, ravin' ridiculous."
"So you don't care for my company?"
"Don't tuk so! Wouldn't I be proud to have ye? Wouldn't I ruther have you aboard here than anybody else on earth? Course I would!"
"All right. And you're goin' to have me. So that's all settled."
"Settled! Who said 'twas settled? Course 'tain't settled. You don't understand, Cap'n Sears. 'Tain't how I feel about it. 'Tain't even maybe how you feel about it. But how'll your sister feel about it? How'll Joel feel? How'll the doctor feel? How'll the folks in town feel? How'll—"
"Oh, shh! shh! Avast, Judah! How'll the cat feel? And the pig? What do I care? How'll your old horse feel if he eats the other half of that pear tree? That's considerably more important."
Judah turned, saw the combination of ancient equine and youthful tree and rushed bellowing to the rescue of the latter. When he returned, empty of profanity and copiously perspiring, his former skipper was ready for him.
"Listen, Judah," he said. "Listen, and keep your main hatch closed for five minutes, if you can. I want to come here to board with you for a while and I've got the best reasons on earth. Keep still and I'll tell you again what they are."
He proceeded to give those reasons. They were that he had little money and must therefore live inexpensively. He would not remain at his sister's because she had more than enough care and work in her own family. George Kent boarded with her and one boarder was sufficient. Then—and this was the principal reason for selecting the General Minot spare stateroom—he wished to live somewhere away from observation, where he could be alone, or nearly alone, where he would not be plagued with questions.
"You see, Judah," he said, "I've had a bump in more ways than one. My pride was knocked flat as well as my pocket book. The doctor says I've got to stay ashore for a good while. He says it will be months before I'm ready for sea—if I'm ever ready—"
"Hold on, hold on! Cap'n Sears, you mustn't talk so. Course you'll be ready."
"All right, we'll hope I will. But while I'm gettin' ready to be ready I want to lie snug. I don't want to see a whole lot of people and have to listen to—to sympathy and all that. I've made a fool of myself, and that kind of a fool doesn't deserve sympathy. And I don't want it, anyhow. Give me a pair of sound spars and my health once more and you won't find me beggin' for sympathy—no, nor anything else. … But there," he added, straightening and throwing back his shoulders in the way Judah had seen him do so often on shipboard and which his mates had learned to recognize as a sign that the old man's mind was made up, "that's enough of that. Let's stick to the course. I like this place of yours, Judah, and I'm comin' here to live. I'm weak yet and you can throw me out, of course," he added, "but I tell you plainly you can't talk me out, so it's no use to try."
Nevertheless, Mr. Cahoon kept on trying and, when he did give in only gave in halfway. If Captain Sears was bound to do such a fool thing he didn't
