Five Hundred Dollars | Page 3

George, won't you jes' git up and hand me that pipe--you ain't doin' nothin'."
"However it was," said Captain Bennett, "Delia saw that he was drifting to leeward, and she was worried. Well, you know when the reformation set in, that winter, and run crowded houses,--one night in the West Church and the next in the other. One night David surprised his wife by going; and he set in a back seat, and come away and said nothing; and the same the next night; and the same for seven or eight nights right along. Finally, one night, they had a pretty searching sermon,--'Choose ye this day,' et cetera,--and I suppose the Deacon, here, was rather expecting David to rise for prayers; but, instead of that, as soon as Amen was said, he gets right up, and off he goes, and leaves Delia there, without saying a word to her or to anybody, and goes right up to Captain Westcott's house and agrees to ship. And glad enough Captain W. was to have him, and next day off he went. Now here he is, gone two years and over, and comes home night before last; his lay 'll figure out five hundred dollars; and the biggest thing is"--here the Captain brought down his heavy hand, for emphasis, on Uncle Silas's knee--"that Delia 's kept herself and the children, and never drawn one cent against the voyage; so they've got the whole clear, and they 've been up this morning early and traded for the Callender place, and they 're going to move in to-morrow. And I guess he means business now."
"But they don't git paid off till Monday," said Uncle Silas. "They 're all goin' up to town to be paid off then."
"Well, he moves in to-morrow, anyway," said Captain Bennett. "Monday night, I believe, he's going to pay down what he has, and take a deed, and give a mortgage back for the balance."
But Uncle Silas gravely shook his head.
"I can't indorse this runnin' in haste," he said. "I never, in all my experience, knew a man before to buy real estate without sort of goin' up street and talkin' it over, and comparin' notes 'round generally. Now, we could have given him points down here about the Callender place."
"Oh, he's made a good trade there," said Captain Bennett.
"That all may be," said Uncle Silas, "but it 's the principle, not the five cents, I 'm lookin' at. I should have hed more faith in his holdin' out if he hed n't jumped quite so quick. 'Slow bind, fast find,' I say."
Captain Bennett rose, and drew on a grass-cloth coat that showed his suspenders through.
"I must be on my winding way," he said. "But did you hear how close he came to never coming back? No? Well, it was like this: It was blowing a gale, and considerable sea on, one night when they were rounding Cape Horn on the home voyage, and she was pitching pretty bad, and David was out on the jib-boom taking in jib, and somehow she pitched with a jerk, so he lost his hold and went off, and, as he fell in the dark, naturally he struck out both hands, blind, like this; and he just happened to catch, by sheer accident, a gasket that was hanging from the jib-boom, and so he saved himself by a hair's breadth. And when he came up they thought it was his ghost."
"Well, I always make it a point to look on the bright side, without exception," said Uncle Silas; "nevertheless, I prophesy it won't be two years before he 'll have the place all eat up, and sold out under the mortgage. This jumpin' so quick,--looks as if he was sca't to trust himself for a day."
"Well, we shall see," said Captain Bennett; "time will tell."
*****
There are many little farms along the New England sea-board, which the currents of life, diverted from ancient channels, have left one side, pleasant and homelike often, but of small money value. The Callender place was such a farm.
It lay a mile from the village, in a hamlet of half-a-dozen dwellings. There was a substantial house, with four large rooms below, besides an L kitchen, and above, two sunny chambers, each with a dormer and a gable window. From the front fence projected, for a hitching-post, a Minerva, carved from wood,--a figure-head washed up years before from the wreck of a brig with the bodies of the crew.
The house was on a little elevation, and looked across the road, near which it stood, and over a sloping field or two, to sea. From the windows you could count the sail in the North Channel, and look down the coast and follow with the eye the long, low curving line of shore until