Fair Harbor | Page 3

"Sears," said Mrs. Macomber, taking the kettle of boiling dish-water
from the top of the stove, "you'll do nothin' of the kind. You'll go
outdoors and get a little sunshine this lovely day. It's the first real good
day you've had since you got up from bed, and outdoors 'll help you
more than anything else. Now you go!"
"But look here, Sarah, for Heaven's sake----"
"Be still, Sears, and don't be foolish. There ain't dishes enough to worry
about. I'll have 'em done in half a shake. Go outdoors, I tell you. But
don't you walk on those legs of yours. You hear me."
Her brother--Sarah Macomber was a Kendrick before she married
Joel--smiled slightly. "How do you want me to walk, Sarah, on my
hands?" he inquired. "Never mind my legs. They're better this mornin'
than they have been since that fat woman and a train of cars fell on
'em.... Ah hum!" with a change of tone, "it's a pity they didn't fall on
my neck and make a clean job of it, isn't it?"
"Sears!" reproachfully. "How can you talk so? And especially now,
when the doctor says if you take care of yourself, you'll 'most likely be
as well as ever in--in a little while."
"A little while! In a year or two was what he said. In ten years was
probably what he meant, and you'll notice he put in the 'most likely'
even at that. If you were to lash him in the fore-riggin' and keep him
there till he told the truth, he'd probably end by sayin' that I would
always be a good for nothin' hulk same as I am now."
"Sears, don't--please don't. I hate to hear you speak so bitter. It doesn't
sound like you."
"It's the way I feel, Sarah. Haven't I had enough to make me bitter?"

His sister shook her head. "Yes, Sears," she admitted, "I guess likely
you have, but I don't know as that is a very good excuse. Some of the
rest of us," with a sigh, "haven't found it real smooth sailin' either;
but----"
She did not finish the sentence, and there was no need. He understood
and turned quickly.
"I'm sorry, Sarah," he said. "I ought to be hove overboard and towed
astern. The Almighty knows you've had more to put up with than ever I
had and you don't spend your time growlin' about it, either. I declare
I'm ashamed of myself, but--but--well, you know how it is with me.
I've never been used to bein' a loafer, spongin' on my relations."
"Don't, Sears. You know you ain't spongin', as you call it. You've paid
your board ever since you've been here."
"Yes, I have. But how much? Next to half of nothin' a week and you
wouldn't have let me pay that if I hadn't put my foot down. Or said I
was goin' to try to put it down," he added with a grim smile. "You're a
good woman, Sarah, a good woman, with more trials than your share.
And what makes me feel worst of all, I do believe, is that I should be
pitched in on you--to be the biggest trial of all. Well, that part's about
over, anyhow. No matter whether I can walk or not I shan't stay and
sponge on you. If I can't do anything else I'll hire a fish shanty and open
clams for a livin'."
He smiled again and she smiled in sympathy, but there were tears in her
eyes. She was seven years older than her brother, and he had always
been her pride. When she was a young woman, helping with the
housework in the old home there in Bayport, before her father's death
and the sale of that home, she had watched with immense gratification
his success in school. When he ran away to sea she had defended him
when others condemned. Later, when tales of his "smartness," as sailor
or mate, or by and by, a full rated captain, began to drift back, she had
gloried in them. He came to see her semi-occasionally when his ship
was in port, and his yarns of foreign lands and strange people were, to
her, far more wonderful than anything she had ever found in the few

books which had come in her way. Each present he brought her she had
kept and cherished. And there was never a trace of jealousy in her
certain knowledge that he had gone on growing while she had stopped,
that he was a strong, capable man of the world--the big world--whereas
she was, and would always be, the wife and household drudge of Joel
Macomber.
Now, as she looked at him, pale, haggard and leaning on his cane,
stooping a little when he had