Mary Gusta

J >> Joseph C. Lincoln >> Mary Gusta


"That's all right, that's all right. I know you'll try, and I think
you'll succeed. Now, why don't you go up and pick out some of those
summer goods? You don't need them yet, and you needn't pay for them yet,
but now is the time to select. Give my regards to your uncles when you
see them and tell them I wish them luck. I may be motoring down the Cape
this summer and if I do I shall drop in on you and them."

Mary had news to tell when she reached South Harniss. It was listened
to with attention, if not entirely in silence. Captain Shadrach's
ejaculations of "You don't say!" "I want to know!" and "Jumpin' fire,
how you talk!" served as punctuation marks during the narration. When
she had finished her story, she said:

"And now, Uncle Zoeth and Uncle Shad--now that you've heard the whole of
it, and know what my plan is, what do you think of it?"

Both answers were characteristic. Zoeth drew a long breath.

"The Almighty sent you to us, Mary-'Gusta," he vowed. "There was a time
a little spell ago when I begun to think He'd pretty nigh deserted us. I
was almost discouraged and it shook my trust--it shook my trust. But now
I can see He was just tryin' us out and in His good time He sent you to
haul us off the shoals. He'll do it, too; I know it and I'll thank Him
tonight on my knees."

Shadrach shook his head. "By fire!" he cried. "Mary-'Gusta, I always
said you was a wonder. You've given us a chance to get clear of the
breakers, anyhow, and that's somethin' we'd never have done ourselves.
Now, if you can collect that money from Jeremiah Clifford I'll--I'll--I
swan to man I'll believe anything's possible, even Jonah's swallowin'
the whale."

"Oh, Shadrach!" protested his partner. "If you wouldn't be so
irreverent!"

"All right, I'll behave. But it's just as I say: if Mary-'Gusta can get
Jerry Clifford to pay up I'll swallow Jonah and the whale, too. 'Twas
Moses that hit the rock and the water gushed out, wa'n't it? Um--hm!
Well, that was somethin' of a miracle, but strikin' Jerry Clifford for
ten cents and gettin' it would be a bigger one. Why, that feller's got
fists like--like one of those sensitive plants my mother used to have
in the settin'-room window when I was a boy. You touch a leaf of one
of those plants and 'twould shrivel up tight. Jerry's fists are that
way--touch one of 'em with a nickel and 'twill shut up, but not until
the nickel's inside. No, sir! Ho, ho!"

"If you knew all this, Uncle Shad," suggested Mary, "why in the world
did you sell Mr. Clifford at all? If he wouldn't pay, why sell him?"

Mr. Hamilton answered.

"He always did pay," he said. "You see, he had to have groceries and
clothes and such and whenever he needed more and thought he owed us so
much we wouldn't put more on the bill he'd pay a little on account. That
way we managed to keep up with him."

"Not exactly up with him," commented the Captain. "We was always a
couple of laps astern, but we could keep him in sight. Now the new
stores have come and he can get trusted there he don't buy from us--or
pay, either. What's the use? That's what he thinks, I cal'late."

Mary considered. "The mean old sinner!" she said. "I should judge, Uncle
Shad, that what you told me once, when I was a little girl, about the
Free Masons might apply to Mr. Clifford's pocketbook. You said that once
in Masonry a man never got out. A dollar in Mr. Clifford's pocketbook
never gets out, either, does it?"

Shadrach chuckled. "You bet it don't!" he agreed. "It's got a life
sentence. And, so fur as that goes, they generally open a Mason lodge
meetin' with prayer, but 'twould take more'n that to open Jerry's
pocketbook, I'LL bet you!"

"And, nevertheless," declared Mary, laughing, "I mean to make him pay
our bill."

She did make the tight-fisted one pay up eventually, but months were to
elapse before that desirable consummation was reached. In the meantime
she set herself to collecting other amounts owed Hamilton and Company
and to building up the trade at the store. The collecting was not so
difficult as she had expected. The Captain and Mr. Hamilton had been
reluctant to ask their friends and neighbors to be prompt in their
payments, and largely through carelessness accounts had been permitted
to drop behind. Mary personally saw the debtors and in most cases, by
offering slight discounts or by accepting installments, she was able
to obtain at least the greater part of the money due. In some cases she
could obtain nothing and expected nothing, but these cases, among them
that of 'Rastus Young, were rather to be considered in the light of good
riddance even at the price. As Shadrach said, it was worth a few dollars
not to have to listen to 'Rastus or Mrs. 'Rastus cry over their troubles
whenever they wanted to hold up the firm for more plunder.

"Last time 'Rastus was in to buy anything," declared the Captain, "he
shed so blamed many tears into my rubber boots that I got wet feet and
sent the boots to the cobbler's to have 'em plugged. I cal'lated they
leaked; I didn't realize 'twas Rat workin' me out of four dollars worth
of groceries by water power."

The collections, then, those from Mr. Young and his ilk excepted, were
satisfactory. Mary was enabled to buy and pay for a modest assortment of
summer supplies, those she had selected while in Boston. The store she
had thoroughly cleaned and renovated. The windows were kept filled with
attractive displays of goods, and the prices of these goods, as set
forth upon tickets, were attractive also. Business began to pick up, not
a great deal at first, but a little, and as May brought the first of
the early-bird summer cottagers to South Harniss, the silent partner
of Hamilton and Company awaited the coming of what should be the firm's
busiest season with hope and some confidence.




CHAPTER XXI


During all this time she had heard from Crawford at least once a week.
He would have written oftener than that, had she permitted it. And in
spite of her determination so bravely expressed in their interview over
the telephone, she had written him more than the one letter she had
promised. In that letter--her first--she told him the exact situation
there at home; of her discovery that her uncles were in trouble, that
the small, but to them precious, business they had conducted so long
was in danger, and of her determination to give up school and remain at
South Harniss where, she knew, she was needed. Then she went on to tell
of her still greater discovery, that instead of being a young woman of
independent means, she was and always had been dependent upon the bounty
of her uncles.


You can imagine how I felt when I learned this [she wrote], when I
thought of all the kindness I had accepted at their hands, accepted it
almost as if it was my right, thinking as I did that my own money paid.
And now to learn that all the time I had nothing and they had given
of their own when they had so little, and given it so cheerfully, so
gladly. And, Crawford, when I told them what I had done, they would not
accept thanks, they would not let me even speak of the great debt I owed
them. So far from that they acted as if they were the ones who owed and
as if I had caught them in some disgraceful act. Why, if they could,
they would have sent me back to Boston and to school, while they
remained here to work and worry until the bankruptcy they expected came.

Do you wonder that I feel my first and whole duty is to them and that
nothing, NOTHING must be permitted to interfere with it? I am going to
stay here and try to help. Perhaps I shall succeed, and perhaps, which
is just as probable, I may fail; but at any rate while my uncles live
and need me I shall not leave them. They gave all they had to me when
there was no real reason why they should give anything. The very least
I can do is to be with them and work for them now when they are growing
old.

I am sure you must understand this and that, therefore, you will
forget--


She paused. "Forget" was a hard word to write. Fortunately she had
written it at the top of a page, so she tore up that sheet and began the
line again.


I am sure you will understand and that you will see my duty as I see it
myself. It seems to me clear. Everyone has duties, I suppose, but you
and I have ours very plainly shown us, I think. Yours is to your father
and mine to my uncles.


Bringing that letter to an end was a difficult task. There were things
which must be said and they were so very hard to say. At last, after
many attempts:


I have not referred [she wrote] to what you said to me when we last met.
It seems almost useless to refer to it, doesn't it? You see how I
am placed here, and I have written you what I mean to do. And please
understand I am doing it gladly, I am happy in having the opportunity to
do it; but it does mean that for years my life and interest must be here
with them. Even if I were sure of my own feelings--and perhaps I am not
really sure--I certainly should not think of asking one I cared for to
wait so long. You have your future to think of, Crawford, and you must
think of it. And there is your father. Of course, I don't know, but I
somehow feel certain that he will not wish you to marry me. Don't you
think it better for us both to end it now? It seems so hopeless.


Which, she flattered herself, was brave and sensible and right. And,
having reached this commendable conclusion and sealed and posted the
letter, she came back to the house, went upstairs to her room, and,
throwing herself upon the bed, cried bitterly for many minutes.

Yet, in a way, her tears were wasted. It takes two to make a bargain and
although she might notify Crawford Smith that his case was hopeless,
it by no means followed that that young gentleman would accept
the notification as final. His reply to her letter was prompt and
convincing. All the references to ending it were calmly brushed aside.
There could be but two endings, one being their marriage--this, of
course, the logical and proper ending--and the other Mary's notifying
him that she did not love him. Anything else was nonsense and not worth
consideration. Wait! He would wait fifty years if necessary, provided
she would wait for him. He was about to take up his studies again, but
now he would feel that he was working for her. His father, he was sorry
to say, was not at all well. He was very nervous, weak and irritable.


I came home [he wrote] fully determined to tell him of you and my
determination to marry you--always provided you will have me, you
know--on the very night of my arrival. But when I saw how poor old Dad
was feeling and after the doctor told me how very necessary it was that
his nervous system be allowed a complete rest, I decided I must wait. So
I shall wait; perhaps I shall not tell him for months; but just as soon
as he is able to hear, I shall speak, and I am sure he will say,
"Good luck and God bless you." But if he doesn't, it will make not the
slightest difference. If you will have me, Mary dear, nothing on this
earth is going to stop my having you. That's as settled and solid a fact
as the Rocky Mountains.


He pleaded for a letter at least once a week.


You needn't put a word of love in it [he wrote]. I know how
conscientious you are, and I know perfectly well that until your mind
is made up you won't feel it right to encourage me in the least. But do
please write, if only to tell me how you are getting on with Hamilton
and Company. I only wish I were there to help you pull those fine old
uncles of yours out of the hot water. I know you'll do it, though. And
meanwhile I shall be digging away out here and thinking of you. Please
write OFTEN.


So Mary, after considerable thought and indecision, did write, although
Crawford's suggestion that her letters have no word of love in them
was scrupulously followed. And so, while the summer came and went, the
letters crossed and the news of the slow but certain building up of the
business of Hamilton and Company was exchanged for that of Edwin Smith's
steady regaining of health and strength.

And Hamilton and Company's business was reviving. Even the skeptics
could see the signs. The revival began before the summer residents
arrived in South Harniss, but after the latter began to come and the
cottages to open, it was on in earnest. John Keith helped to give it its
first big start. Mrs. Wyeth wrote him of Mary's leaving her school work
to go to the rescue of Shadrach and Zoeth, and the girl's pluck and
uncomplaining acceptance of the task she considered set for her made
Keith's eyes twinkle with admiration as he read the letter. The family
came early to South Harniss and this year he came with them. One of his
first acts after arrival was to stroll down to the village and enter
Hamilton and Company's store. Mary and the partners were there, of
course. He shook hands with them cordially.

"Well, Captain," he said, addressing Shadrach, "how is the new hand
taking hold?"

Shadrach grinned. "Hand?" he repeated. "I don't know's we've got any new
hand, Mr. Keith. Ain't, have we, Zoeth?"

Zoeth did not recognize the joke. "He means Mary-'Gusta, I cal'late,
Shadrach," he said. "She's doin' splendid, Mr. Keith. I don't know how
we ever got along without her."

"I do," put in his partner promptly; "we didn't, that's how. But, Mr.
Keith, you hadn't ought to call Mary-'Gusta a 'hand.' Zoeth and me are
the hands aboard this craft. She's skipper, and engineer, and purser,
and--yes, and pilot, too. And don't she make us tumble up lively when
she whistles! Whew! Don't talk!"

"She is the boss, then, is she?" observed Keith.

"Boss! I guess SO! She's got US trained! Why, I've got so that I jump
out of bed nights and run round the room in my sleep thinkin' she's
just hollered to me there's a customer waitin'. Oh, she's a hard driver,
Mary-'Gusta is. Never had a fust mate aboard drove harder'n she does.
And it's havin' its effect on us, too. Look at Zoeth! He's agin' fast;
he's a year older'n he was twelve months ago."

Keith laughed, Mary smiled, and Mr. Hamilton, judging by the behavior of
the company that there was a joke somewhere on the premises, smiled too.

"You mustn't mind Uncle Shad, Mr. Keith," said Mary. "He talks a great
deal."

"Talkin's all the exercise my face gets nowadays," declared the Captain
instantly. "She keeps me so busy I don't get time to eat. What do you
think of the store, Mr. Keith? Some improvement, ain't it?"

Keith, who had already noticed the trim appearance of the store and the
neat and attractive way in which the goods were displayed, expressed his
hearty approval.

"And how is business?" he asked.

"Tiptop!" declared Shadrach.

"It's improvin' consider'ble," said Zoeth.

"It is a little better, but it must be far better before I am
satisfied," said Mary.

"How is the cottage trade?" asked Keith.

"Why, not so very good. There aren't many cottagers here yet."

When Keith reached home he called his wife into consultation.

"Gertrude," he asked, "where do we buy our household supplies, groceries
and the like?"

"In Boston, most of them. The others--those I am obliged to buy here in
South Harniss--at that new store, Baker's."

"I want you to buy them all of Hamilton and Company hereafter."

"THAT old-fogy place! Why?"

"Because the partners, Captain Gould and the other old chap, are having
a hard struggle to keep going and I want to help them."

Mrs. Keith tossed her head. "Humph!" she sniffed. "I know why you are
so interested. It is because of that upstart girl you think is so
wonderful, the one who has been boarding with Clara Wyeth."

"You're right, that's just it. She has given up her studies and her
opportunities there in Boston and has come down here to help her uncles.
Clara writes me that she was popular there in the school, that the
best people were her friends, and you know of her summer in Europe with
Letitia Pease. Letitia isn't easy to please and she is enthusiastic
about Mary Lathrop. No ordinary girl could give up all that sort of
thing and come back to the village where everyone knows her and go to
keeping store again, and do it so cheerfully and sensibly and without
a word of complaint. She deserves all the help and support we and our
friends can give her. I mean to see that she has it."

Mrs. Keith looked disgusted. "You're perfectly infatuated with that
girl, John Keith," she said. "It is ridiculous. If I were like some
women I should be jealous."

"If I were like some men you might be. Now, Gertrude, you'll buy in
future from Hamilton and Company, won't you?"

"I suppose so. When your chin sets that way I know you're going to be
stubborn and I may as well give in first as last. I'll patronize your
precious Mary-'Gusta, but I WON'T associate with her. You needn't ask
that."

"Don't you think we might wait until she asks it first?"

"Tut! tut! Really, John, you disgust me. I wonder you don't order Sam to
marry her."

"From what Clara writes he might not have needed any orders if he had
received the least encouragement from her. Sam might do worse; I imagine
he probably will."

So, because John Keith's chin was set, the Keith custom shifted
to Hamilton and Company. And because the Keiths were wealthy and
influential, and because the head of the family saw that that influence
was brought to bear upon his neighbors and acquaintances, their custom
followed. Hamilton and Company put a delivery wagon--a secondhand
one--out on the road, and hired a distinctly secondhand boy to drive it.
And Mary and Shadrach and Zoeth and, in the evenings, the boy as well,
were kept busy waiting on customers. The books showed, since the silent
partner took hold, a real and tangible profit, and the collection and
payment of old debts went steadily on.

The partners, Shadrach and Zoeth, were no longer silent and glum. The
Captain whistled and sang and was in high spirits most of the time. At
home he was his old self, chaffing Isaiah about the housekeeping, taking
a mischievous delight in shocking his friend and partner by irreverent
remarks concerning Jonah or some other Old Testament personage, and
occasionally, although not often, throwing out a sly hint to Mary about
the frequency of letters from the West. Mary had told her uncles
of Crawford's leaving Boston and returning to Nevada because of his
father's ill health. The only item of importance she had omitted to tell
was that of the proposal of marriage. She could not speak of that even
to them. They would ask what her answer was to be, and if she loved
Crawford. How could she answer that--truthfully--without causing them to
feel that they were blocking her way to happiness? They felt that quite
keenly enough, as it was.

So when Captain Shad declared the illness of the South Harniss
postmaster--confined to his bed with sciatica--to be due to his having
"stooped to pick up one of them eighty-two page Wild West letters of
yours, Mary-'Gusta, and 'twas so heavy he sprained his back liftin'
it," Mary only laughed and ventured the opinion that the postmaster's
sprained back, if he had one, was more likely due to a twist received
in trying to read both sides of a postcard at once. Which explanation,
being of the Captain's own brand of humor, pleased the latter immensely.

"Maybe you're right, Mary-'Gusta," he chuckled. "Maybe that's what
'twas. Seth [the postmaster] is pure rubber so far as other folks' mail
is concerned; maybe he stretched the rubber too far this time and it
snapped."

Zoeth did not joke much--joking was not in his line--but he showed
his relief at the improvement in the firm's affairs in quieter but as
unmistakable ways. When Mary was at the desk in the evenings after the
store had closed, busy with the books, he would come and sit beside her,
saying little but occasionally laying his hand gently on her shoulder
or patting her arm and regarding her with a look so brimful of love and
gratitude that it made her feel almost guilty and entirely unworthy.

"Don't, Uncle Zoeth," she protested, on one such occasion. "Don't look
at me like that. I--I--Really, you make me feel ashamed. I haven't done
anything. I am not doing half enough."

He shook his head.

"You're doin' too much, I'm afraid, Mary-'Gusta," he said. "You're
givin' up everything a girl like you had ought to have and that your
Uncle Shadrach and I had meant you should have. You're givin' it up just
for us and it ain't right. We ain't worthy of it."

"Hush, hush, Uncle Zoeth! Please! When I think what you have given up
for me--"

"'Twa'n't nothin', Mary-'Gusta. You came to your Uncle Shadrach and to
me just when we needed somethin' to keep our lives sweet. Mine especial
was bitter and there was danger 'twould always be so. And then we
brought you over from Ostable in the old buggy and--and the Almighty's
sunshine came with you. You was His angel. Yes, sir! His angel, that's
what you was, only we didn't know it then. I was pretty sore and bitter
in those days, thought I never could forget. And yet--and yet, now I
really am forgettin'--or, if I don't forget, I'm more reconciled. And
you've done it for me, Mary-'Gusta."

Mary was puzzled. "Forget what?" she asked. "Do you mean the business
troubles, Uncle Zoeth?"

Zoeth seemed to waken from a sort of dream. "Business troubles?"
he repeated. "No, no; long, long afore that these troubles were,
Mary-'Gusta. Don't let's talk about 'em. I can't talk about 'em even
now--and I mustn't think. There are some troubles that--that--" He
caught his breath and his tone changed. "I called you an angel just now,
dearie," he went on. "Well, you was and you are. There are angels in
this world--but there's devils, too--there's devils, too. There; the
Lord forgive me! What am I talkin' about? We'll forget what's gone and
be thankful for what's here. Give your old uncle a kiss, Mary-'Gusta."

He was happy in Mary's society and happy in the steady improvement of
the business, but the girl and Captain Shadrach were a little worried
concerning his general health. For years he had not been a very strong
or active man, but now he looked paler and more frail than ever. He
walked to and from the store and house several times a day, but he
retired almost as soon as he entered the house at night and his appetite
was not good.

"His nerves ain't back where they'd ought to be," declared Shadrach. "He
was awful shook up when it looked as if Hamilton and Company was goin'
to founder. He didn't keep blowin' off steam about it the way I did--my
safety-valve's always open--but he kept it all inside his biler and it's
put his engine out of gear. He'll get along all right so long's it's
smooth sailin', but what I'm afraid of is a rock showin' up in the
channel unexpected. The doctor told me that Zoeth mustn't worry any more
and he mustn't work too hard. More'n all, he mustn't have any scares or
shocks or anything like that."

"We must try to see that he doesn't have any," said Mary.

"Sartin sure we must, but you can't always see those things in time to
head 'em off. Now take my own case. I had a shock this mornin'. 'Rastus
Young paid me a dollar on account."

"WHAT? 'Rastus Young PAID you?"

"Well, I don't know's he paid it, exactly. He borrowed the dollar of
one of those summer fellers over at Cahoon's boardin' house and he was
tellin' Ab Bacheldor about it at the corner by the post-office. Ab,
naturally, didn't believe any sane man would lend Rastus anything, so he
wanted proof. 'Rastus hauled the dollar out of his pocket to show, and I
who happened to be standin' behind 'em without their knowin' it reached
out and grabbed it."

"You did? Why, Uncle Shad!"

"Yes. I told 'Rastus I'd credit his account with it, but I don't know's
I hadn't ought to give it back to the summer feller. Anyhow, gettin' it
was a shock, same as I said at the beginnin'. 'Rastus says he's goin' to
sue me. I told him I'd have sued HIM long ago if I'd supposed he could
STEAL a dollar, let alone borrow one."




CHAPTER XXII


It was late in August when Mary received the letter from Crawford in
which he told of his determination to wait no longer but to tell his
father of his love for her. Edwin Smith was much better. By way of
proof, his son inclosed a photograph which he had taken of his father
sitting beneath a tree on the lawn of their home. The picture showed Mr.
Smith without his beard, which had been shaved off during his illness.
Either this or the illness itself had changed him a great deal. He
looked thinner and, which was odd under the circumstances, younger.
Mary, looking at this photograph, felt more than ever the impossible
conviction that somewhere or other at some time in her life she must
have met Mr. Edwin Smith.


So, in my next letter [wrote Crawford], I shall have news to tell. And
I am sure it will be good news. "Ask your father first," you said. Of
course you remember that, and I have remembered it every moment since.
Now I am going to ask him. After that you will give me your answer,
won't you? And it can't be anything but yes, because I won't let it be.


What Mary's feelings were when she received this letter, whether or not
she slept as soundly that night and other nights immediately following,
whether or not the sight of Isaiah returning from the post-office at
mail times caused her breath to come a little quicker and her nerves
to thrill--these are questions the answers to which must be guessed.
Suffice it to say that she manifested no marked symptoms of impatience
and anxiety during that week and when at last Isaiah handed her another
letter postmarked Carson City the trembling of the hand which received
it was so slight as to be unnoticed by Mr. Chase.