Perhaps, on the whole, it is not surprising that Captain Eri didn't grasp the situation. Neither his two partners nor himself had given much thought to the granddaughter of the sick man in the upper room. The Captain knew that there was a granddaughter, hence his letter; but he had heard John Baxter speak of her as being in school somewhere in Boston, and had all along conceived of her as a miss of sixteen or thereabouts. No wonder that at first he looked at the stylishly gowned young woman, who stood before him with one gloved hand extended, in a puzzled, uncomprehending way.
"Excuse me, ma'am," he said slowly, mechanically swallowing up the proffered hand in his own mammoth fist, "but I don't know's I jest caught the name. Would you mind sayin' it ag'in?"
"Elizabeth Preston," repeated the visitor. "Captain Baxter's granddaughter. You wrote me that he was ill, you know, and I--"
"What!" roared the Captain, delighted amazement lighting up his face like a sunrise. "You don't mean to tell me you're 'Liz'beth Baxter's gal Elsie! Well! Well! I want to know! If this don't beat all! Set down!
Take your things right off. I'm mighty glad to see you."
Captain Eri's hand, with Miss Preston's hidden in it, was moving up and down as if it worked by a clock-work arrangement. The young lady withdrew her fingers from the trap as soon as she conveniently could, but it might have been noticed that she glanced at them when she had done so, as if to make sure that the original shape remained.
"Thank you, Captain Hedge," she said. "And now, please tell me about grandfather. How is he? May I see him?"
The Captain's expression changed to one of concern.
"Why, now, Miss Preston," he said, "your grandpa is pretty sick. Oh, I don't mean he's goin' to die right off or anything like that," he added hastily. "I mean he's had a stroke of palsy, or somethin', and he ain't got so yit that he senses much of what goes on. Now I don't want to frighten you, you know, but really there's a chance--a leetle mite of a chance--that he won't know you. Don't feel bad if he don't, now will you?"
"I knew he must be very ill from your letter," said the girl simply. "I was afraid that he might not be living when I reached here. They told me at the station that he was at your house and so I came. He has been very good to me and I--"
Her voice broke a little and she hesitated. Captain Eri was a picture of nervous distress.
"Yes, yes, I know," he said hastily. "Don't you worry now. He's better; the Doctor said he was consid'rably better to-day; didn't he, Mr.
Hazeltine? Why, what am I thinkin' of? Let me make you known to Mr.
Hazeltine; next-door neighbor of ours; right acrost the road," and he waved toward the bay.
Ralph and Miss Preston shook hands. The electrician managed to utter some sort of formality, but he couldn't have told what it was. He was glad when the Captain announced that, if Mr. Hazeltine would excuse them, he guessed Miss Preston and he would step upstairs and see John.
The young lady took off her hat and jacket, and Captain Eri lighted a lamp, for it was almost dark by this time. As its light shone upon the visitor's face and hair the crimson flush before mentioned circumnavigated the electrician's head once more, and his bump of self-esteem received a finishing blow. That any man supposed to possess two fairly good eyes and a workable brain could have mistaken her for an Orham Neck book agent by the name of "'Gusty--'Gusty Black!" Heavens!
"I'll be down in a few minutes, Mr. Hazeltine," said the Captain. "Set still, won't you?"
But Mr. Hazeltine wouldn't sit still. He announced that it was late and he must be going. And go he did, in spite of his host's protestations.
"Look out for the stairs," cautioned the Captain, leading the way with the lamp. "The feller that built 'em must have b'lieved that savin'
distance lengthens out life. Come to think of it, I wouldn't wonder if them stairs was the reason why me and Jerry and Perez took this house.
They reminded us so of the shrouds on a three-master."
Elsie Preston did her best to smile as her companion rattled on in this fashion, but both the smile and the Captain's cheerfulness were too plainly assumed to be convincing, and they passed down the hall in silence. At the open door of the sick room Captain Eri paused.
"He's asleep," he whispered, "and, remember, if he wakes up and doesn't know you, you needn't feel bad."
Elsie slipped by him and knelt by the bed, looking into the white, old face on the pillow. Somehow the harsh lines had faded out of it, and it looked only old and pitiful.
The Captain watched the tableau for a moment or two, and then tiptoed into the room and placed the lamp on the bureau.
"Now, I think likely," he said in a rather husky whisper, "that you'd like to stay with your grandpa for a little while, so I'll go downstairs and see about supper. No, no, no!" he added, holding up his hand as the girl spoke some words of protest, "you ain't goin' nowheres to supper.
You're goin' to stay right here. If you want me, jest speak."
And he hurried downstairs and into the kitchen, clearing his throat with vigor and making a great to-do over the scratching of a match.
Mrs. Snow returned a few minutes later and to her the news of the arrival was told, as it was also to Perez and Jerry when they came. Mrs.
Snow took charge of the supper arrangements. When the meal was ready, she said to Captain Eri:
"Now, I'll go upstairs and tell her to come down. I'll stay with Cap'n Baxter till you're through, and then p'raps, if one of you'll take my place, I'll eat my supper and wash the dishes. You needn't come up now.
I'll introduce myself."
Some few minutes passed before Miss Preston came down. When she did so her eyes were wet, but her manner was cheerful, and the unaffected way in which she greeted Captain Perez and Captain Jerry, when these two rather bashful mariners were introduced by Eri, won them at once.
The supper was a great success. It was Saturday night, and a Saturday night supper to the average New Englander means baked beans. The captains had long ago given up this beloved dish, because, although each had tried his hand at preparing it, none had wholly succeeded, and the caustic criticisms of the other two had prevented further trials. But Mrs. Snow's baked beans were a triumph. So, also, was the brown bread.
"I snum," exclaimed Captain Perez, "if I don't b'lieve I'd sooner have these beans than turkey. What do you say, Jerry?"
"I don't know but I had," assented the sacrifice, upon whose countenance sat a placidity that had not been there since the night of the "matching." "'Specially if the turkey was like the one we tried to cook last Thanksgivin'. 'Member that, Eri?"
Captain Eri, his mouth full, grunted an emphatic assent.
"Tell me," said Miss Preston, who had eaten but little, but was apparently getting more satisfaction from watching her companions, "did you three men try to keep house here alone?"
"Yes," answered Eri dryly. "We tried. First we thought 'twas goin' to be fine; then we thought we'd like it better after we got used to it; finally we decided that by the time we got used to it we'd die, like the horse that was fed on sawdust."
"And so you hired Mrs. Snow to keep house for you? Well, I don't see how you could have made a better choice; she's a dear, good woman; I'm sure of it. And now I want to thank you all for what you've done for grandfather. Mrs. Snow told me all about it; you've been so kind that I--"
"That's all right! that's all right!" hastily interrupted Captain Eri.
"Pity if we couldn't help out a shipmate we've sailed with for years and years. But you'd ought to have tried some of OUR cookin'. Tell her about the sugar cake you made, Perez. The one that killed the yaller chicken."
So Captain Perez told it, and then their visitor set them all laughing by relating some queer housekeeping experiences that she and a school friend had had while camping at Chautauqua. Somehow each one felt at home with her. As Captain Eri said afterwards, "She didn't giggle, and then ag'in she didn't talk down at you."
As they rose from the table the young lady asked a question concerning the location of the hotel. The Captain made no answer at the time, but after a short consultation with the remainder of the triumvirate, he came to her as she stood by the window and, laying his hand on her shoulder, said:
"Now, Elsie--I hope you don't mind my callin' you Elsie, but I've been chums with your grandpa so long seems's if you must be a sort of relation of mine--Elsie, you ain't goin' to no hotel, that is, unless you're real set on it. Your grandpa's here and we're here, and there's room enough. I don't want to say too much, but I'd like to have you b'lieve that me and Perez and Jerry want you to stay right in this house jest as long's you stop in Orham. Now you will, won't you?"
And so it was settled, and Captain Perez harnessed Daniel and went to the station for the trunk.
That evening, just before going to bed, the captains stood by the door of the sick room watching Elsie and the lady from Nantucket as they sat beside John Baxter's bed. Mrs. Snow was knitting, and Elsie was reading.
Later, as Captain Eri peered out of the dining-room window to take a final look at the sky in order to get a line on the weather, he said slowly:
"Fellers, do you know what I was thinkin' when I see them two women in there with John? I was thinkin' that it must be a mighty pleasant thing to know that if you're took sick somebody like that 'll take care of you."
Perez nodded. "I think so, too," he said.
But if this was meant to influence the betrothed one, it didn't succeed, apparently, for all Captain Jerry said was:
"Humph! 'Twould take more than that to make me hanker after a stroke of palsy."
And with the coming of Elsie Preston and Mrs. Snow life in the little house by the shore took on a decided change. The Nantucket lady having satisfied herself that John Baxter's illness was likely to be a long one, wrote several letters to persons in her native town, which letters, although she did not say so, were supposed by the captains to deal with the care of her property while she was away. Having apparently relieved her mind by this method, and evidently considering the marriage question postponed for the present, she settled down to nurse the sick man and to keep house as, in her opinion, a house should be kept. The captains knew nothing of her past history beyond what they had gathered from stray bits of her conversation. She evidently did not consider it necessary to tell anything further, and, on the other hand, asked no questions.
In her care of Baxter she was more like a sister than a hired nurse. No wife could have been more tender in her ministrations or more devotedly anxious for the patient's welfare.