The Log of the Jolly Polly | Page 9

hand to the lovely lady and said smiling, "Have you lost it?"
The girl did not smile. To her, apparently, it was no laughing matter. "I don't know--yet," she said. Her voice was charming, and genuinely troubled.
Mr. Hatchardson, for later I learned it was he, took the book and showed me the title-page.
"This was privately printed in 1830," he said, "by Captain Noah Briggs. He distributed a hundred presentation copies among his family and friends here in New Bedford. It is a most interesting volume."
I did not find it so. For even as he spoke the young girl, still with a troubled countenance, glided away. Inwardly I cursed Captain Briggs and associated with him in my curse the polite Mr. Hatchardson. But, at his next words my interest returned. Still smiling, he lowered his voice.
"Miss Briggs, the young lady who just left us," he said, is the granddaughter of Captain Briggs, and she does not want the book to go out of the family; she wants it for herself." I interrupted eagerly.
"But it is for sale?" Mr. Hatchardson reluctantly assented.
"Then I will take it," I said.
Fifty dollars is a great deal of money, but the face of the young lady had been very sad. Besides being sad, had it been aged, plain, and ill-tempered, that I still would have bought the book, is a question I have never determined.
To Mr. Hatchardson, of my purpose to give the book to Miss Briggs, I said nothing. Instead I planned to send it to her anonymously by mail. She would receive it the next morning when I was arriving in New York, and, as she did not know my name, she could not possibly return it. At the post-office I addressed the "Log" to "Miss Briggs, care of Hatchardson's Bookstore," and then I returned to the store. I felt I had earned that pleasure. This time, Miss Briggs was in charge of the post-card counter, and as now a post-card was the only thing I could afford to buy, at seeing her there I was doubly pleased. But she was not pleased to see me. Evidently Mr. Hatchardson had told her I had purchased the "Log" and at her loss her very lovely face still showed disappointment. Toward me her manner was distinctly aggrieved.
But of the "Log" I said nothing, and began recklessly purchasing post-cards that pictured the show places of New Bedford. Almost the first one I picked up was labelled "Harbor Castle. Residence of Fletcher Farrell." I need not say that I studied it intently. According to the post-card, Harbor Castle stood on a rocky point with water on both sides. It was an enormous, wide-spreading structure, as large as a fort. It exuded prosperity, opulence, extravagance, great wealth. I felt suddenly a filial impulse to visit the home of my would-be forefathers.
"Is this place near here?" I asked.
Miss Briggs told me that in order to reach it I should take the ferry to Fairbarbor, and then cross that town to the Buzzards Bay side.
"You can't miss it," she said. "It's a big stone house, with red and white awnings. If you see anything like a jail in ruffles, that's it."
It was evident that with the home I had rejected Miss Briggs was unimpressed; but seeing me add the post-card to my collection, she offered me another.
"This," she explained, "is Harbor Castle from the bay. That is their yacht in the foreground."
The post-card showed a very beautiful yacht of not less than two thousand tons. Beneath it was printed "HARBOR LIGHTS; steam yacht owned by Fletcher Farrell." I always had dreamed of owning a steam yacht, and seeing it stated in cold type that one was owned by "Fletcher Farrell," even though I was not that Fletcher Farrell, gave me a thrill of guilty pleasure. I gazed upon the post-card with envy.
"HARBOR LIGHTS is a strange name for a yacht," I ventured. Miss Briggs smiled.
"Not for that yacht," she said. "She never leaves it."
I wished to learn more of my would-be parents, and I wished to keep on talking with the lovely Miss Briggs, so, as an excuse for both, I pretended I was interested in the Farrells because I had something I wanted to sell them.
"This Fletcher Farrell must be very rich," I said. " I wonder," I asked, "if I could sell him an automobile?" The moment I spoke I noticed that the manner of Miss Briggs toward Me perceptibly softened. Perhaps, from my buying offhand a fifty-dollar book she had thought me one of the rich, and had begun to suspect I was keeping her waiting on me only because I found her extremely easy to look at. Many times before, in a similar manner, other youths must have imposed upon her, and perhaps, also, in concealing my admiration,