His Native Heath

His Native Heath

I never could quite understand why the folks at Wellmouth made me
selectman. I s'pose likely 'twas on account of Jonadab and me and
Peter Brown making such a go of the Old Home House and turning
Wellmouth Port from a sand fleas' paradise into a hospital where
city folks could have their bank accounts amputated and not suffer
more'n was necessary. Anyway, I was elected unanimous at town
meeting, and Peter was mighty anxious for me to take the job.

"Barzilla," says Peter, "I jedge that a selectman is a sort of
dwarf alderman. Now, I've had friends who've been aldermen, and
they say it's a sure thing, like shaking with your own dice. If
you're straight, there's the honor and the advertisement; if you're
crooked, there's the graft. Either way the house wins. Go in, and
glory be with you."

So I finally agreed to serve, and the very first meeting I went to,
the question of Asaph Blueworthy and the poorhouse comes up. Zoeth
Tiddit--he was town clerk--he puts it this way:

"Gentlemen," he says, "we have here the usual application from
Asaph Blueworthy for aid from the town. I don't know's there's
much use for me to read it--it's tolerable familiar. 'Suffering
from lumbago and rheumatiz'--um, yes. 'Out of work'--um, just so.
'Respectfully begs that the board will'--etcetery and so forth.
Well, gentlemen, what's your pleasure?"

Darius Gott, he speaks first, and dry and drawling as ever. "Out
of work, hey?" says Darius. "Mr. Chairman, I should like to ask if
anybody here remembers the time when Ase was IN work?"

Nobody did, and Cap'n Benijah Poundberry--he was chairman at that
time--he fetches the table a welt with his starboard fist and comes
out emphatic.

"Feller members," says he, "I don't know how the rest of you feel,
but it's my opinion that this board has done too much for that lazy
loafer already. Long's his sister, Thankful, lived, we couldn't
say nothing, of course. If she wanted to slave and work so's her
brother could live in idleness and sloth, why, that was her
business. There ain't any law against a body's making a fool of
herself, more's the pity. But she's been dead a year, and he's
done nothing since but live on those that'll trust him, and ask
help from the town. He ain't sick--except sick of work. Now, it's
my idea that, long's he's bound to be a pauper, he might's well be
treated as a pauper. Let's send him to the poorhouse."

"But," says I, "he owns his place down there by the shore, don't
he?"

All hands laughed--that is, all but Cap'n Benijah. "Own nothing,"
says the cap'n. "The whole rat trap, from the keel to maintruck,
ain't worth more'n three hundred dollars, and I loaned Thankful
four hundred on it years ago, and the mortgage fell due last
September. Not a cent of principal, interest, nor rent have I got
since. Whether he goes to the poorhouse or not, he goes out of
that house of mine to-morrer. A man can smite me on one cheek and
maybe I'll turn t'other, but when, after I HAVE turned it, he finds
fault 'cause my face hurts his hand, then I rise up and quit; you
hear ME!"

Nobody could help hearing him, unless they was deefer than the
feller that fell out of the balloon and couldn't hear himself
strike, so all hands agreed that sending Asaph Blueworthy to the
poorhouse would be a good thing. 'Twould be a lesson to Ase, and
would give the poorhouse one more excuse for being on earth.
Wellmouth's a fairly prosperous town, and the paupers had died, one
after the other, and no new ones had come, until all there was left
in the poorhouse was old Betsy Mullen, who was down with creeping
palsy, and Deborah Badger, who'd been keeper ever since her husband
died.

The poorhouse property was valuable, too, specially for a summer
cottage, being out on the end of Robbin's Point, away from the
town, and having a fine view right across the bay. Zoeth Tiddit
was a committee of one with power from the town to sell the place,
but he hadn't found a customer yet. And if he did sell it, what to
do with Debby was more or less of a question. She'd kept poorhouse
for years, and had no other home nor no relations to go to.
Everybody liked her, too--that is, everybody but Cap'n Benijah.
He was down on her 'cause she was a Spiritualist and believed in
fortune tellers and such. The cap'n, bein' a deacon of the Come-
Outer persuasion, was naturally down on folks who wasn't broad-
minded enough to see that his partic'lar crack in the roof was the
only way to crawl through to glory.

Well, we voted to send Asaph to the poorhouse, and then I was
appointed a delegate to see him and tell him he'd got to go. I
wasn't enthusiastic over the job, but everybody said I was exactly
the feller for the place.

"To tell you the truth," drawls Darius, "you, being a stranger, are
the only one that Ase couldn't talk over. He's got a tongue that's
buttered on both sides and runs on ball bearings. If I should see
him he'd work on my sympathies till I'd lend him the last two-cent
piece in my baby's bank."

So, as there wa'n't no way out of it, I drove down to Asaph's that
afternoon. He lived off on a side road by the shore, in a little,
run-down shanty that was as no account as he was. When I moored my
horse to the "heavenly-wood" tree by what was left of the fence, I
would have bet my sou'wester that I caught a glimpse of Brother
Blueworthy, peeking round the corner of the house. But when I
turned that corner there was nobody in sight, although the bu'sted
wash-bench, with a cranberry crate propping up its lame end, was
shaking a little, as if some one had set on it recent.

I knocked on the door, but nobody answered. After knocking three
or four times, I tried kicking, and the second kick raised, from
somewheres inside, a groan that was as lonesome a sound as ever I
heard. No human noise in my experience come within a mile of it
for dead, downright misery--unless, maybe, it's Cap'n Jonadab
trying to sing in meeting Sundays.

"Who's that?" wails Ase from 'tother side of the door. "Did
anybody knock?"

"Knock!" says I. "I all but kicked your everlasting derelict out
of water. It's me, Wingate--one of the selectmen. Tumble up,
there! I want to talk to you."

Blueworthy didn't exactly tumble, so's to speak, but the door
opened, and he comes shuffling and groaning into sight. His face
was twisted up and he had one hand spread-fingered on the small of
his back.

"Dear, dear!" says he. "I'm dreadful sorry to have kept you
waiting, Mr. Wingate. I've been wrastling with this turrible
lumbago, and I'm 'fraid it's affecting my hearing. I'll tell you--"

"Yes--well, you needn't mind," I says; "'cordin' to common tell,
you was born with that same kind of lumbago, and it's been getting
no better fast ever since. Jest drag your sufferings out onto this
bench and come to anchor. I've got considerable to say, and I'm in
a hurry."

Well, he grunted, and groaned, and scuffled along. When he'd got
planted on the bench he didn't let up any--kept on with the misery.

"Look here," says I, losing patience, "when you get through with
the Job business I'll heave ahead and talk. Don't let me interrupt
the lamentations on no account. Finished? All right. Now, you
listen to me."

And then I told him just how matters stood. His house was to be
seized on the mortgage, and he was to move to the poorhouse next
day. You never see a man more surprised or worse cut up. Him to
the poorhouse? HIM--one of the oldest families on the Cape? You'd
think he was the Grand Panjandrum. Well, the dignity didn't work,
so he commenced on the lumbago; and that didn't work, neither. But
do you think he give up the ship? Not much; he commenced to
explain why he hadn't been able to earn a living and the reasons
why he'd ought to have another chance. Talk! Well, if I hadn't
been warned he'd have landed ME, all right. I never heard a better
sermon nor one with more long words in it.

I actually pitied him. It seemed a shame that a feller who could
argue like that should have to go to the poorhouse; he'd ought to
run a summer hotel--when the boarders kicked 'cause there was
yeller-eyed beans in the coffee he would be the one to explain that
they was lucky to get beans like that without paying extra for 'em.
Thinks I, "I'm an idiot, but I'll make him one more offer."

So I says: "See here, Mr. Blueworthy, I could use another man in
the stable at the Old Home House. If you want the job you can have
it. ONLY, you'll have to work, and work hard."

Well, sir, would you believe it?--his face fell like a cook-book
cake. That kind of chance wa'n't what he was looking for. He
shuffled and hitched around, and finally he says: "I'll--Ill
consider your offer," he says.

That was too many for me. "Well, I'll be yardarmed!" says I, and
went off and left him "considering." I don't know what his
considerations amounted to. All I know is that next day they took
him to the poorhouse.

And from now on this yarn has got to be more or less hearsay. I'll
have to put this and that together, like the woman that made the
mince meat. Some of the facts I got from a cousin of Deborah
Badger's, some of them I wormed out of Asaph himself one time when
he'd had a jug come down from the city and was feeling toler'ble
philanthropic and conversationy. But I guess they're straight
enough.

Seems that, while I was down notifying Blueworthy, Cap'n Poundberry
had gone over to the poorhouse to tell the Widow Badger about her
new boarder. The widow was glad to hear the news.

"He'll be somebody to talk to, at any rate," says she. "Poor old
Betsy Mullen ain't exactly what you'd call company for a sociable
body. But I'll mind what you say, Cap'n Benijah. It takes more
than a slick tongue to come it over me. I'll make that lazy man
work or know the reason why."

So when Asaph arrived--per truck wagon--at three o'clock the next
afternoon, Mrs. Badger was ready for him. She didn't wait to shake
hands or say: "Glad to see you." No, sir! The minute he landed
she sent him out by the barn with orders to chop a couple of cords
of oak slabs that was piled there. He groaned and commenced to
develop lumbago symptoms, but she cured 'em in a hurry by remarking
that her doctor's book said vig'rous exercise was the best physic,
for that kind of disease, and so he must chop hard. She waited
till she heard the ax "chunk" once or twice, and then she went into
the house, figgering that she'd gained the first lap, anyhow.

But in an hour or so it come over her all of a sudden that 'twas
awful quiet out by the woodpile. She hurried to the back door, and
there was Ase, setting on the ground in the shade, his eyes shut
and his back against the chopping block, and one poor lonesome slab
in front of him with a couple of splinters knocked off it. That
was his afternoon's work.

Maybe you think the widow wa'n't mad. She tip-toed out to the
wood-pile, grabbed her new boarder by the coat collar and shook him
till his head played "Johnny Comes Marching Home" against the
chopping block.

"You lazy thing, you!" says she, with her eyes snapping. "Wake up
and tell me what you mean by sleeping when I told you to work."

"Sleep?" stutters Asaph, kind of reaching out with his mind for a
life-preserver. "I--I wa'n't asleep."

Well, I don't think he had really meant to sleep. I guess he just
set down to think of a good brand new excuse for not working, and
kind of drowsed off.

"You wa'n't hey?" says Deborah. "Then 'twas the best imitation
ever _I_ see. What WAS you doing, if 'tain't too personal a
question?"

"I--I guess I must have fainted. I'm subject to such spells. You
see, ma'am, I ain't been well for--"

"Yes, I know. I understand all about that. Now, you march your
boots into that house, where I can keep an eye on you, and help me
get supper. To-morrer morning you'll get up at five o'clock and
chop wood till breakfast time. If I think you've chopped enough,
maybe you'll get the breakfast. If I don't think so you'll keep on
chopping. Now, march!"

Blueworthy, he marched, but 'twa'n't as joyful a parade as an Odd
Fellers' picnic. He could see he'd made a miscue--a clean miss,
and the white ball in the pocket. He knew, too, that a lot
depended on his making a good impression the first thing, and
instead of that he'd gone and "foozled his approach," as that city
feller said last summer when he ran the catboat plump into the end
of the pier. Deborah, she went out into the kitchen, but she
ordered Ase to stay in the dining room and set the table; told him
to get the dishes out of the closet.

All the time he was doing it he kept thinking about the mistake
he'd made, and wondering if there wa'n't some way to square up and
get solid with the widow. Asaph was a good deal of a philosopher,
and his motto was--so he told me afterward, that time I spoke of
when he'd been investigating the jug--his motto was: "Every hard
shell has a soft spot somewheres, and after you find it, it's
easy." If he could only find out something that Deborah Badger was
particular interested in, then he believed he could make a ten-
strike. And, all at once, down in the corner of the closet, he see
a big pile of papers and magazines. The one on top was the Banner
of Light, and underneath that was the Mysterious Magazine.

Then he remembered, all of a sudden, the town talk about Debby's
believing in mediums and spooks and fortune tellers and such. And
he commenced to set up and take notice.

At the supper table he was as mum as a rundown clock; just set in
his chair and looked at Mrs. Badger. She got nervous and fidgety
after a spell, and fin'lly bu'sts out with: "What are you staring
at me like that for?"

Ase kind of jumped and looked surprised. "Staring?" says he. "Was
I staring?"

"I should think you was! Is my hair coming down, or what is it?"

He didn't answer for a minute, but he looked over her head and then
away acrost the room, as if he was watching something that moved.
"Your husband was a short, kind of fleshy man, as I remember,
wa'n't he?" says he, absent-minded like.

"Course he was. But what in the world--"

"'Twa'n't him, then. I thought not."

"HIM? My husband? What DO you mean?"

And then Asaph begun to put on the fine touches. He leaned acrost
the table and says he, in a sort of mysterious whisper: "Mrs.
Badger," says he, "do you ever see things? Not common things, but
strange--shadders like?"

"Mercy me!" says the widow. "No. Do YOU?"

"Sometimes seems's if I did. Jest now, as I set here looking at
you, it seemed as if I saw a man come up and put his hand on your
shoulder."

Well, you can imagine Debby. She jumped out of her chair and
whirled around like a kitten in a fit. "Good land!" she hollers.
"Where? What? Who was it?"

"I don't know who 'twas. His face was covered up; but it kind of
come to me--a communication, as you might say--that some day that
man was going to marry you."

"Land of love! Marry ME? You're crazy! I'm scart to death."

Ase shook his head, more mysterious than ever. "I don't know,"
says he. "Maybe I am crazy. But I see that same man this
afternoon, when I was in that trance, and--"

"Trance! Do you mean to tell me you was in a TRANCE out there by
the wood-pile? Are you a MEDIUM?"

Well, Ase, he wouldn't admit that he was a medium exactly, but he
give her to understand that there wa'n't many mediums in this
country that could do business 'longside of him when he was really
working. 'Course he made believe he didn't want to talk about such
things, and, likewise of course, that made Debby all the more
anxious TO talk about 'em. She found out that her new boarder was
subject to trances and had second-sight and could draw horoscopes,
and I don't know what all. Particular she wanted to know more
about that "man" that was going to marry her, but Asaph wouldn't
say much about him.

"All I can say is," says Ase, "that he didn't appear to me like a
common man. He was sort of familiar looking, and yet there was
something distinguished about him, something uncommon, as you might
say. But this much comes to me strong: He's a man any woman would
be proud to get, and some time he's coming to offer you a good
home. You won't have to keep poorhouse all your days."

So the widow went up to her room with what you might call a case of
delightful horrors. She was too scart to sleep and frightened to
stay awake. She kept two lamps burning all night.

As for Asaph, he waited till 'twas still, and then he crept
downstairs to the closet, got an armful of Banners of Light and
Mysterious Magazines, and went back to his room to study up. Next
morning there was nothing said about wood chopping--Ase was busy
making preparations to draw Debby's horoscope.

You can see how things went after that. Blueworthy was star
boarder at that poorhouse. Mrs Badger was too much interested in
spooks and fortunes to think of asking him to work, and if she did
hint at such a thing, he'd have another "trance" and see that
"man," and 'twas all off. And we poor fools of selectmen was
congratulating ourselves that Ase Blueworthy was doing something
toward earning his keep at last. And then--'long in July 'twas--
Betsy Mullen died.

One evening, just after the Fourth, Deborah and Asaph was in the
dining room, figgering out fortunes with a pack of cards, when
there comes a knock at the door. The widow answered it, and there
was an old chap, dressed in a blue suit, and a stunning pretty girl
in what these summer women make believe is a sea-going rig. And
both of 'em was sopping wet through, and as miserable as two hens
in a rain barrel.

It turned out that the man's name was Lamont, with a colonel's
pennant and a million-dollar mark on the foretop of it, and the
girl was his daughter Mabel. They'd been paying six dollars a day
each for sea air and clam soup over to the Wattagonsett House, in
Harniss, and either the soup or the air had affected the colonel's
head till he imagined he could sail a boat all by his ownty-donty.
Well, he'd sailed one acrost the bay and got becalmed, and then the
tide took him in amongst the shoals at the mouth of Wellmouth
Crick, and there, owing to a mixup of tide, shoals, dark, and an
overdose of foolishness, the boat had upset and foundered and the
Lamonts had waded half a mile or so to shore. Once on dry land,
they'd headed up the bluff for the only port in sight, which was
the poorhouse--although they didn't know it.

The widow and Asaph made 'em as comfortable as they could; rigged
'em up in dry clothes which had belonged to departed paupers, and
got 'em something to eat. The Lamonts was what they called
"enchanted" with the whole establishment.

"This," says the colonel, with his mouth full of brown bread, "is
delightful, really delightful. The New England hospitality that we
read about. So free from ostentation and conventionality."

When you stop to think of it, you'd scurcely expect to run acrost
much ostentation at the poorhouse, but, of course, the colonel
didn't know, and he praised everything so like Sam Hill, that the
widow was ashamed to break the news to him. And Ase kept quiet,
too, you can be sure of that. As for Mabel, she was one of them
gushy, goo-gooey kind of girls, and she was as struck with the
shebang as her dad. She said the house itself was a "perfect
dear."

And after supper they paired off and got to talking, the colonel
with Mrs. Badger, and Asaph with Mabel. Now, I can just imagine
how Ase talked to that poor, unsuspecting young female. He sartin
did love an audience, and here was one that didn't know him nor his
history, nor nothing. He played the sad and mysterious. You could
see that he was a blighted bud, all right. He was a man with a
hidden sorrer, and the way he'd sigh and change the subject when it
come to embarrassing questions was enough to bring tears to a
graven image, let alone a romantic girl just out of boarding
school.

Then, after a spell of this, Mabel wanted to be shown the house, so
as to see the "sweet, old-fashioned rooms." And she wanted papa to
see 'em, too, so Ase led the way, like the talking man in the dime
museum. And the way them Lamonts agonized over every rag mat, and
corded bedstead was something past belief. When they was saying
good-night--they HAD to stay all night because their own clothes
wa'n't dry and those they had on were more picturesque than
stylish--Mabel turns to her father and says she:

"Papa, dear," she says, "I believe that at last we've found the
very thing we've been looking for."

And the colonel said yes, he guessed they had. Next morning they
was up early and out enjoying the view; it IS about the best view
alongshore, and they had a fit over it. When breakfast was done
the Lamonts takes Asaph one side and the colonel says:

"Mr. Blueworthy," he says, "my daughter and I am very much pleased
with the Cape and the Cape people. Some time ago we made up our
minds that if we could find the right spot we would build a summer
home here. Preferably we wish to purchase a typical, old-time,
Colonial homestead and remodel it, retaining, of course, all the
original old-fashioned flavor. Cost is not so much the
consideration as location and the house itself. We are--ahem!--
well, frankly, your place here suits us exactly."

"We adore it," says Mabel, emphatic.

"Mr. Blueworthy," goes on the colonel, "will you sell us your home?
I am prepared to pay a liberal price."

Poor Asaph was kind of throwed on his beam ends, so's to speak. He
hemmed and hawed, and finally had to blurt out that he didn't own
the place. The Lamonts was astonished. The colonel wanted to know
if it belonged to Mrs. Badger.

"Why, no," says Ase. "The fact is--that is to say--you see--"

And just then the widow opened the kitchen window and called to
'em.

"Colonel Lamont," says she, "there's a sailboat beating up the
harbor, and I think the folks on it are looking for you."

The colonel excused himself, and run off down the hill toward the
back side of the point, and Asaph was left alone with the girl. He
see, I s'pose, that here was his chance to make the best yarn out
of what was bound to come out anyhow in a few minutes. So he
fetched a sigh that sounded as if 'twas racking loose the
foundations and commenced.

He asked Mabel if she was prepared to hear something that would
shock her turrible, something that would undermine her confidence
in human natur'. She was a good deal upset, and no wonder, but she
braced up and let on that she guessed she could stand it. So then
he told her that her dad and her had been deceived, that that house
wa'n't his nor Mrs. Badger's; 'twas the Wellmouth poor farm, and he
was a pauper.

She was shocked, all right enough, but afore she had a chance to
ask a question, he begun to tell her the story of his life. 'Twas
a fine chance for him to spread himself, and I cal'late he done it
to the skipper's taste. He told her how him and his sister had
lived in their little home, their own little nest, over there by
the shore, for years and years. He led her out to where she could
see the roof of his old shanty over the sand hills, and he wiped
his eyes and raved over it. You'd think that tumble-down shack was
a hunk out of paradise; Adam and Eve's place in the Garden was a
short lobster 'longside of it. Then, he said, he was took down
with an incurable disease. He tried and tried to get along, but
'twas no go. He mortgaged the shanty to a grasping money lender--
meanin' Poundberry--and that money was spent. Then his sister
passed away and his heart broke; so they took him to the poorhouse.

"Miss Lamont," says he, "good-by. Sometimes in the midst of your
fashionable career, in your gayety and so forth, pause," he says,
"and give a thought to the broken-hearted pauper who has told you
his life tragedy."

Well, now, you take a green girl, right fresh from novels and music
lessons, and spring that on her--what can you expect? Mabel, she
cried and took on dreadful.

"Oh, Mr. Blueworthy!" says she, grabbing his hand. "I'm SO glad
you told me. I'm SO glad! Cheer up," she says. "I respect you
more than ever, and my father and I will--"

Just then the colonel comes puffing up the hill. He looked as if
he'd heard news.

"My child," he says in a kind of horrified whisper, "can you
realize that we have actually passed the night in the--in the
ALMSHOUSE?"

Mabel held up her hand. "Hush, papa," she says. "Hush. I know
all about it. Come away, quick; I've got something very important
to say to you."

And she took her dad's arm and went off down the hill, mopping her
pretty eyes with her handkerchief and smiling back, every once in a
while, through her tears, at Asaph.

Now, it happened that there was a selectmen's meeting that
afternoon at four o'clock. I was on hand, and so was Zoeth Tiddit
and most of the others. Cap'n Poundberry and Darius Gott were
late. Zoeth was as happy as a clam at high water; he'd sold the
poorhouse property that very day to a Colonel Lamont, from Harniss,
who wanted it for a summer place.

"And I got the price we set on it, too," says Zoeth. "But that
wa'n't the funniest part of it. Seems's old man Lamont and his
daughter was very much upset because Debby Badger and Ase
Blueworthy would be turned out of house and home 'count of the
place being sold. The colonel was hot foot for giving 'em a check
for five hundred dollars to square things; said his daughter'd made
him promise he would. Says I: 'You can give it to Debby, if you
want to, but don't lay a copper on that Blueworthy fraud.' Then I
told him the truth about Ase. He couldn't hardly believe it, but I
finally convinced him, and he made out the check to Debby. I took
it down to her myself just after dinner. Ase was there, and his
eyes pretty nigh popped out of his head.

"'Look here,' I says to him; 'if you'd been worth a continental you
might have had some of this. As it is, you'll be farmed out
somewheres--that's what'll happen to YOU.'"

And as Zoeth was telling this, in comes Cap'n Benijah. He was
happy, too.

"I cal'late the Lamonts must be buying all the property alongshore,"
he says when he heard the news. "I sold that old shack that I took
from Blueworthy to that Lamont girl to-day for three hundred and
fifty dollars. She wouldn't say what she wanted of it, neither, and
I didn't care much; _I_ was glad to get rid of it."

"_I_ can tell you what she wanted of it," says somebody behind us.
We turned round and 'twas Gott; he'd come in. "I just met Squire
Foster," he says, "and the squire tells me that that Lamont girl
come into his office with the bill of sale for the property you
sold her and made him deed it right over to Ase Blueworthy, as a
present from her."

"WHAT?" says all hands, Poundberry loudest of all.

"That's right," said Darius. "She told the squire a long
rigamarole about what a martyr Ase was, and how her dad was going
to do some thing for him, but that she was going to give him his
home back again with her own money, money her father had given her
to buy a ring with, she said, though that ain't reasonable, of
course--nobody'd pay that much for a ring. The squire tried to
tell her what a no-good Ase was, but she froze him quicker'n--
Where you going, Cap'n Benije?"

"I'm going down to that poorhouse," hollers Poundberry. "I'll find
out the rights and wrongs of this thing mighty quick."

We all said we'd go with him, and we went, six in one carryall. As
we hove in sight of the poorhouse a buggy drove away from it, going
in t'other direction.

"That looks like the Baptist minister's buggy," says Darius. "What
on earth's he been down here for?"

Nobody could guess. As we run alongside the poorhouse door, Ase
Blueworthy stepped out, leading Debby Badger. She was as red as an
auction flag.

"By time, Ase Blueworthy!" hollers Cap'n Benijah, starting to get
out of the carryall, "what do you mean by-- Debby, what are you
holding that rascal's hand for?"

But Ase cut him short. "Cap'n Poundberry," says he, dignified as a
boy with a stiff neck, "I might pass over your remarks to me, but
when you address my wife--"

"Your WIFE?" hollers everybody--everybody but the cap'n; he only
sort of gurgled.

"My wife," says Asaph. "When you men--church members, too, some of
you--sold the house over her head, I'm proud to say that I, having
a home once more, was able to step for'ard and ask her to share it
with me. We was married a few minutes ago," he says.

"And, oh, Cap'n Poundberry!" cried Debby, looking as if this was
the most wonderful part of it--"oh, Cap'n Poundberry!" she says,
"we've known for a long time that some man--an uncommon kind of
man--was coming to offer me a home some day, but even Asaph didn't
know 'twas himself; did you, Asaph?"

We selectmen talked the thing over going home, but Cap'n Benijah
didn't speak till we was turning in at his gate. Then he fetched
his knee a thump with his fist, and says he, in the most disgusted
tone ever I heard:

"A house and lot for nothing," he says, "a wife to do the work for
him, and five hundred dollars to spend! Sometimes the way this
world's run gives me moral indigestion."

Which was tolerable radical for a Come-Outer to say, seems to me.

-THE END-
Joseph Crosby Lincoln's short story: His Native Heath

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