The Mark On The Door
One nice moonlight evening me and Cap'n Jonadab and Peter T.,
having, for a wonder, a little time to ourselves and free from
boarders, was setting on the starboard end of the piazza, smoking,
when who should heave in sight but Cap'n Eri Hedge and Obed
Nickerson. They'd come over from Orham that day on some fish
business and had drove down to Wellmouth Port on purpose to put up
at the Old Home for the night and shake hands with me and Jonadab.
We was mighty glad to see 'em, now I tell you.
They'd had supper up at the fish man's at the Centre, so after
Peter T. had gone in and fetched out a handful of cigars, we
settled back for a good talk. They wanted to know how business was
and we told 'em. After a spell somebody mentioned the Todds and I
spun my yarn about the balky mare and the Greased Lightning. It
tickled 'em most to death, especially Obed.
"Ho, ho!" says he. "That's funny, ain't it. Them power boats are
great things, ain't they. I had an experience in one--or, rather,
in two--a spell ago when I was living over to West Bayport. My
doings was with gasoline though, not electricity. 'Twas something
of an experience. Maybe you'd like to hear it."
"'Way I come to be over there on the bay side of the Cape was like
this. West Bayport, where my shanty and the big Davidson summer
place and the Saunders' house was, used to be called Punkhassett--
which is Injun for 'The last place the Almighty made'--and if
you've read the circulars of the land company that's booming
Punkhassett this year, you'll remember that the principal
attraction of them diggings is the 'magnificent water privileges.'
'Twas the water privileges that had hooked me. Clams was thick on
the flats at low tide, and fish was middling plenty in the bay. I
had two weirs set; one a deep-water weir, a half mile beyond the
bar, and t'other just inside of it that I could drive out to at low
water. A two-mile drive 'twas, too; the tide goes out a long ways
over there. I had a powerboat--seven and a half power gasoline--
that I kept anchored back of my nighest-in weir in deep water, and
a little skiff on shore to row off to her in.
"The yarn begins one morning when I went down to the shore after
clams. I'd noticed the signs then. They was stuck up right acrost
the path: 'No trespassing on these premises,' and 'All persons are
forbidden crossing this property, under penalty of the law.' But
land! I'd used that short-cut ever sence I'd been in Bayport--which
was more'n a year--and old man Davidson and me was good friends, so
I cal'lated the signs was intended for boys, and hove ahead without
paying much attention to 'em. 'Course I knew that the old man--
and, what was more important, the old lady--had gone abroad and
that the son was expected down, but that didn't come to me at the
time, neither.
"I was heading for home about eight, with two big dreeners full of
clams, and had just climbed the bluff and swung over the fence into
the path, when somebody remarks: 'Here, you!' I jumped and turned
round, and there, beating across the field in my direction, was an
exhibit which, it turned out later, was ticketed with the name of
Alpheus Vandergraff Parker Davidson--'Allie' for short.
"And Allie was a good deal of an exhibit, in his way. His togs
were cut to fit his spars, and he carried 'em well--no wrinkles at
the peak or sag along the boom. His figurehead was more'n average
regular, and his hair was combed real nice--the part in the middle
of it looked like it had been laid out with a plumb-line. Also, he
had on white shoes and glory hallelujah stockings. Altogether, he
was alone with the price of admission, and what some folks, I
s'pose, would have called a handsome enough young feller. But I
didn't like his eyes; they looked kind of tired, as if they'd seen
'bout all there was to see of some kinds of life. Twenty-four year
old eyes hadn't ought to look that way.
"But I wasn't interested in eyes jest then. All I could look at
was teeth. There they was, a lovely set of 'em, in the mouth of
the ugliest specimen of a bow-legged bulldog that ever tried to
hang itself at the end of a chain. Allie was holding t'other end
of the chain with both hands, and they were full, at that. The dog
stood up on his hind legs and pawed the air with his front ones,
and his tongue hung out and dripped. You could see he was
yearning, just dying, to taste of a middle-aged longshoreman by the
name of Obed Nickerson. I stared at the dog, and he stared at me.
I don't know which of us was the most interested.
"'Here, you!' says Allie again. 'What are you crossing this field
for?'
"I heard him, but I was too busy counting teeth to pay much
attention. 'You ought to feed that dog,' I says, absent-minded
like. 'He's hungry.'
"'Humph!' says he. 'Well, maybe he'll be fed in a minute. Did you
see those signs?'
"'Yes,' says I; 'I saw 'em. They're real neat and pretty.'
"'Pretty!' He fairly choked, he was so mad. 'Why, you cheeky,
long-legged jay,' he says, 'I'll-- What are you crossing this
field for?'
"'So's to get to t'other side of it, I guess,' says I. I was
riling up a bit myself. You see, when a feller's been mate of a
schooner, like I've been in my day, it don't come easy to be called
names. It looked for a minute as if Allie was going to have a fit,
but he choked it down.
"'Look here!' he says. 'I know who you are. Just because the
gov'ner has been soft enough to let you countrymen walk all over
him, it don't foller that I'm going to be. I'm boss here for this
summer. My name's--' He told me his name, and how his dad had
turned the place over to him for the season, and a lot more. 'I
put those signs up,' he says, 'to keep just such fellers as you are
off my property. They mean that you ain't to cross the field.
Understand?'
"I understood. I was mad clean through, but I'm law-abiding,
generally speaking. 'All right,' I says, picking up my dreeners
and starting for the farther fence; 'I won't cross it again.'
"'You won't cross it now,' says he. 'Go back where you come from.'
"That was a grain too much. I told him a few things. He didn't
wait for the benediction. 'Take him, Prince!' he says, dropping
the chain.
"Prince was willing. He fetched a kind of combination hurrah and
growl and let out for me full-tilt. I don't feed good fresh clams
to dogs as a usual thing, but that mouth HAD to be filled. I
waited till he was almost on me, and then I let drive with one of
the dreeners. Prince and a couple of pecks of clams went up in the
air like a busted bomb-shell, and I broke for the fence I'd started
for. I hung on to the other dreener, though, just out of
principle.
"But I had to let go of it, after all. The dog come out of the
collision looking like a plate of scrambled eggs, and took after me
harder'n ever, shedding shells and clam juice something scandalous.
When he was right at my heels I turned and fired the second
dreener. And, by Judas, I missed him!
"Well, principle's all right, but there's times when even the best
of us has to hedge. I simply couldn't reach the farther fence, so
I made a quick jibe and put for the one behind me. And I couldn't
make that, either. Prince was taking mouthfuls of my overalls for
appetizers. There was a little pine-tree in the lot, and I give
one jump and landed in the middle of it. I went up the rest of the
way like I'd forgot something, and then I clung onto the top of
that tree and panted and swung round in circles, while the dog
hopped up and down on his hind legs and fairly sobbed with
disapp'intment.
"Allie was rolling on the grass. 'Oh, DEAR me!' says he, between
spasms. 'That was the funniest thing I ever saw.'
"I'd seen lots funnier things myself, but 'twa'n't worth while to
argue. Besides, I was busy hanging onto that tree. 'Twas an awful
little pine and the bendiest one I ever climbed. Allie rolled
around a while longer, and then he gets up and comes over.
"'Well, Reuben,' says he, lookin' up at me on the roost, 'you're a
good deal handsomer up there than you are on the ground. I guess
I'll let you stay there for a while as a lesson to you. Watch him,
Prince.' And off he walks.
"'You everlasting clothes-pole,' I yells after him, 'if it wa'n't
for that dog of yours I'd--'
"He turns around kind of lazy and says he: 'Oh, you've got no kick
coming,' he says. 'I allow you to--er--ornament my tree, and
'tain't every hayseed I'd let do that.'
"And away he goes; and for an hour that had no less'n sixty
thousand minutes in it I clung to that tree like a green apple,
with Prince setting open-mouthed underneath waiting for me to get
ripe and drop.
"Just as I was figgering that I was growing fast to the limb, I
heard somebody calling my name. I unglued my eyes from the dog and
looked up, and there, looking over the fence that I'd tried so hard
to reach, was Barbara Saunders, Cap'n Eben Saunders' girl, who
lived in the house next door to mine.
"Barbara was always a pretty girl, and that morning she looked
prettier than ever, with her black hair blowing every which way and
her black eyes snapping full of laugh. Barbara Saunders in a white
shirt-waist and an old, mended skirt could give ten lengths in a
beauty race to any craft in silks and satins that ever _I_ see, and
beat 'em hull down at that.
"'Why, Mr. Nickerson!' she calls. 'What are you doing up in that
tree?'
"That was kind of a puzzler to answer offhand, and I don't know
what I'd have said if friend Allie hadn't hove in sight just then
and saved me the trouble. He come strolling out of the woods with
a cigarette in his mouth, and when he saw Barbara he stopped short
and looked and looked at her. And for a minute she looked at him,
and the red come up in her cheeks like a sunrise.
"'Beg pardon, I'm sure,' says Allie, tossing away the cigarette.
'May I ask if that--er--deep-sea gentleman in my tree is a friend
of yours?'
"Barbara kind of laughed and dropped her eyes, and said why, yes, I
was.
"'By Jove! he's luckier than I thought,' says Allie, never taking
his eyes from her face. 'And what do they call him, please, when
they want him to answer?' That's what he asked, though, mind you,
he'd said he knew who I was when he first saw me.
"'It's Mr. Nickerson,' says Barbara. 'He lives in that house
there. The one this side of ours.'
"'Oh, a neighbor! That's different. Awfully sorry, I'm sure.
Prince, come here. Er--Nickerson, for the lady's sake we'll call
it off. You may--er--vacate the perch.'
"I waited till he'd got a clove-hitch onto Prince. He had to give
him one or two welts over the head 'fore he could do it; the dog
acted like he'd been cheated. Then I pried myself loose from that
blessed limb and shinned down to solid ground. My! but I was
b'iling inside. 'Taint pleasant to be made a show afore folks, but
'twas the feller's condescending what-excuse-you-got-for-living
manners that riled me most.
"I picked up what was left of the dreeners and walked over to the
fence. That field was just sowed, as you might say, with clams.
If they ever sprouted 'twould make a tip-top codfish pasture.
"'You see,' says Allie, talking to Barbara; 'the gov'nor told me
he'd been plagued with trespassers, so I thought I'd give 'em a
lesson. But neighbors, when they're scarce as ours are, ought to be
friends. Don't you think so, Miss--? Er--Nickerson,' says he,
'introduce me to our other neighbor.'
"So I had to do it, though I didn't want to. He turned loose some
soft soap about not realizing afore what a beautiful place the Cape
was. I thought 'twas time to go.
"'But Miss Saunders hasn't answered my question yet,' says Allie.
'Don't YOU think neighbors ought to be friends, Miss Saunders?'
"Barbara blushed and laughed and said she guessed they had. Then
she walked away. I started to follow, but Allie stopped me.
"'Look here, Nickerson,' says he. 'I let you off this time, but
don't try it again; do you hear?'
"'I hear,' says I. 'You and that hyena of yours have had all the
fun this morning. Some day, maybe, the boot'll be on t'other leg.'
"Barbara was waiting for me. We walked on together without
speaking for a minute. Then I says, to myself like: 'So that's
old man Davidson's son, is it? Well, he's the prize peach in the
crate, he is!'
"Barbara was thinking, too. 'He's very nice looking, isn't he?'
says she. 'Twas what you'd expect a girl to say, but I hated to
hear her say it. I went home and marked a big chalk-mark on the
inside of my shanty door, signifying that I had a debt so pay some
time or other.
"So that's how I got acquainted with Allie V. P. Davidson. And,
what's full as important, that's how he got acquainted with Barbara
Saunders.
"Shutting an innocent canary-bird up in the same room with a
healthy cat is a more or less risky proposition for the bird. Same
way, if you take a pretty country girl who's been to sea with her
dad most of the time and tied to the apron-strings of a deef old
aunt in a house three miles from nowhere--you take that girl, I
say, and then fetch along, as next-door neighbor, a good-looking
young shark like Allie, with a hogshead of money and a blame sight
too much experience, and that's a risky proposition for the girl.
"Allie played his cards well; he'd set into a good many similar
games afore, I judge. He begun by doing little favors for Phoebe
Ann--she was the deef aunt I mentioned--and 'twa'n't long afore he
was as solid with the old lady as a kedge-anchor. He had a way of
dropping into the Saunders house for a drink of water or a slab of
'that delicious apple-pie,' and with every drop he got better
acquainted with Barbara. Cap'n Eben was on a v'yage to Buenos
Ayres and wouldn't be home till fall, 'twa'n't likely.
"I didn't see a great deal of what was going on, being too busy
with my fishweirs and clamming to notice. Allie and me wa'n't
exactly David and Jonathan, owing, I judge, to our informal
introduction to each other. But I used to see him scooting 'round
in his launch--twenty-five foot, she was, with a little mahogany
cabin and the land knows what--and the servants at the big house
told me yarns about his owning a big steam-yacht, with a sailing-
master and crew, which was cruising round Newport somewheres.
"But, busy as I was, I see enough to make me worried. There was a
good deal of whispering over the Saunders back gate after supper,
and once, when I come up over the bluff from the shore sudden, they
was sitting together on a rock and he had his arm round her waist.
I dropped a hint to Phoebe Ann, but she shut me up quicker'n a
snap-hinge match-box. Allie had charmed 'auntie' all right. And
so it drifted along till September.
"One Monday evening about the middle of the month I went over to
Phoebe Ann's to borrow some matches. Barbara wasn't in--gone out
to lock up the hens, or some such fool excuse. But Phoebe was
busting full of joy. Cap'n Eben had arrived in New York a good
deal sooner'n was expected and would be home on Thursday morning.
"'He's going from Boston to Provincetown on the steamer,
Wednesday,' says Phoebe. 'He's got some business over there. Then
he's coming home from Provincetown on the early train. Ain't that
splendid?'
"I thought 'twas splendid for more reasons than one, and I went out
feeling good. But as I come round the corner of the house there
was somebody by the back gate, and I heard a girl's voice sayin':
'Oh, no, no! I can't! I can't!'
"If I hadn't trod on a stick maybe I'd have heard more, but the
racket broke up the party. Barbara come hurrying past me into the
house, and by the light from the back door, I see her face. 'Twas
white as a clam-shell, and she looked frightened to death.
"Thinks I: 'That's funny! It's a providence Eben's coming home so
soon.'
"And the next day I saw her again, and she was just as white and
wouldn't look me in the eye. Wednesday, though, I felt better, for
the servants on the Davidson place told me that Allie had gone to
Boston on the morning train to be gone for good, and that they was
going to shut up the house and haul up the launch in a day or so.
"Early that afternoon, as I was coming from my shanty to the bluff
on my way to the shore after dinner, I noticed a steam-yacht at
anchor two mile or so off the bar. She must have come there sence
I got in, and I wondered whose she was. Then I see a dingey with
three men aboard rowing in, and I walked down the beach to meet
'em.
"Sometimes I think there is such things as what old Parson Danvers
used to call 'dispensations.' This was one of 'em. There was a
feller in a uniform cap steering the dingey, and, b'lieve it or
not, I'll be everlastingly keelhauled if he didn't turn out to be
Ben Henry, who was second mate with me on the old Seafoam. He was
surprised enough to see me, and glad, too, but he looked sort of
worried.
"'Well, Ben,' says I, after we had shook hands, 'well, Ben,' I
says, 'my shanty ain't exactly the United States Hotel for gilt
paint and bill of fare, but I HAVE got eight or ten gallons of
home-made cherry rum and some terbacker and an extry pipe. You
fall into my wake.'
"'I'd like to, Obed,' he says; 'I'd like to almighty well, but I've
got to go up to the store, if there is such a thing in this
metropolus, and buy some stuff that I forgot to get in Newport.
You see, we got orders to sail in a tearing hurry, and--'
"'Send one of them fo'mast hands to the store,' says I. 'You got
to come with me.'
"He hemmed and hawed a while, but he was dry, and I shook the
cherry-rum jug at him, figuratively speaking, so finally he give
in.
"'You buy so and so,' says he to his men, passing 'em a ten-dollar
bill. 'And mind, you don't know nothing. If anybody asks,
remember that yacht's the Mermaid--M-U-R-M-A-D-E,' he says, 'and
she belongs to Mr. Jones, of Mobile, Georgia.'
"So the men went away, and me and Ben headed for my shanty, where
we moored abreast of each other at the table, with a jug between us
for a buoy, so's to speak. We talked old times and spun yarns, and
the tide went out in the jug consider'ble sight faster than 'twas
ebbing on the flats. After a spell I asked him about the man that
owned the yacht.
"'Who? Oh--er--Brown?' he says. 'Why, he's--'
"'Brown?' says I. 'Thought you said 'twas Jones?'
"Well, that kind of upset him, and he took some cherry-rum to
grease his memory. Then I asked more questions and he tried to
answer 'em, and got worse tangled than ever. Finally I had to
laugh.
"'Look here, Ben,' says I. 'You can't fetch port on that tack.
The truth's ten mile astern of you. Who does own that yacht,
anyway?'
"He looked at me mighty solemn--cherry-rum solemn. 'Obed,' he
says, 'you're a good feller. Don't you give me away, now, or I'll
lose my berth. The man that owns that yacht's named Davidson, and
he's got a summer place right in this town.'
"'Davidson!' says I. 'DAVIDSON? Not young Allie Davidson?'
"'That's him,' says he. 'And he's the blankety blankest meanest
low-down cub on earth. There! I feel some better. Give me
another drink to take the taste of him out of my mouth.'
"'But young Davidson's gone to Boston,' I says. 'Went this
morning.'
"'That be hanged!' says Ben. 'All I know is that I got a despatch
from him at Newport on Monday afternoon, telling me to have the
yacht abreast this town at twelve o'clock to-night, 'cause he was
coming off to her then in his launch with a friend. Friend!' And
he laughed and winked his starboard eye.
"I didn't say much, being too busy thinking, but Ben went on
telling about other cruises with 'friends.' Oh, a steam-yacht can
be a first-class imitation of hell if the right imp owns her.
Henry got speaking of one time down along the Maine coast.
"'But,' says I, referring to what he was telling, 'if she was such
a nice girl and come from such nice folks, how--'
"'How do I know?' says he. 'Promises to marry and such kind of
lies, I s'pose. And the plain fact is that he's really engaged to
marry a swell girl in Newport.'
"He told me her name and a lot more about her. I tried to remember
the most of it, but my head was whirling--and not from cherry rum,
either. All I could think was: 'Obed, it's up to you! You've got
to do something.'
"I was mighty glad when the sailors hailed from the shore and Ben
had to go. He 'most cried when he said good-by, and went away
stepping high and bringing his heels down hard. I watched the
dingey row off--the tide was out, so there was barely water for her
to get clear--and then I went back home to think. And I thought
all the afternoon.
"Two and two made four, anyway I could add it up, but 'twas all
suspicion and no real proof, that was the dickens of it. I
couldn't speak to Phoebe Ann; she wouldn't b'lieve me if I did.
I couldn't telegraph Cap'n Eben at Provincetown to come home that
night; I'd have to tell him the whole thing and I knew his temper,
so, for Barbara's sake, 'twouldn't do. I couldn't be at the shore
to stop the launch leaving. What right had I to stop another man's
launch, even--
"No, 'twas up to me, and I thought and thought till after supper-
time. And then I had a plan--a risky chance, but a chance, just
the same. I went up to the store and bought four feet of medium-
size rubber hose and some rubber tape, same as they sell to bicycle
fellers in the summer. 'Twas almost dark when I got back in sight
of my shanty, and instead of going to it I jumped that board fence
that me and Prince had negotiated for, hustled along the path past
the notice boards, and went down the bluff on t'other side of
Davidson's p'int. And there in the deep hole by the end of the
little pier, out of sight of the house on shore, was Allie's
launch. By what little light there was left I could see the brass
rails shining.
"But I didn't stop to admire 'em. I give one look around. Nobody
was in sight. Then I ran down the pier and jumped aboard. Almost
the first thing I put my hand on was what I was looking for--the
bilge-pump. 'Twas a small affair, that you could lug around in one
hand, but mighty handy for keeping a boat of that kind dry.
"I fitted one end of my hose to the lower end of that pump and
wrapped rubber tape around the j'int till she sucked when I tried
her over the side. Then I turned on the cocks in the gasoline
pipes fore and aft, and noticed that the carbureter feed cup was
chock full. Then I was ready for business.
"I went for'ard, climbing over the little low cabin that was just
big enough for a man to crawl into, till I reached the brass cap in
the deck over the gasoline-tank. Then I unscrewed the cap, run my
hose down into the tank, and commenced to pump good fourteen-cents-
a-gallon gasoline overboard to beat the cars. 'Twas a thirty-
gallon tank, and full up. I begun to think I'd never get her
empty, but I did, finally. I pumped her dry. Then I screwed the
cap on again and went home, taking Allie's bilge-pump with me, for
I couldn't stop to unship the hose. The tide was coming in fast.
"At nine o'clock that night I was in my skiff, rowing off to where
my power-boat laid in deep water back of the bar. When I reached
her I made the skiff fast astern, lit a lantern, which I put in a
locker under a thwart, and set still in the pitch-dark, smoking and
waiting.
"'Twas a long, wearisome wait. There was a no'thwest wind coming
up, and the waves were running pretty choppy on the bar. All I
could think of was that gasoline. Was there enough in the pipes
and the feed cup on that launch to carry her out to where I was?
Or was there too much, and would she make the yacht, after all?
"It got to be eleven o'clock. Tide was full at twelve. I was a
pretty good candidate for the crazy house by this time. I'd
listened till my ear-drums felt slack, like they needed reefing.
And then at last I heard her coming--CHUFF-chuff! CHUFF-chuff!
CHUFF-chuff!
"And HOW she did come! She walked up abreast of me, went past me,
a hundred yards or so off. Thinks I: 'It's all up. He's going to
make it.'
"And then, all at once, the 'chuff-chuff-ing' stopped. Started up
and stopped again. I gave a hurrah, in my mind, pulled the skiff
up alongside and jumped into her, taking the lantern with me, under
my coat. Then I set the light between my feet, picked up the oars
and started rowing.
"I rowed quiet as I could, but he heard me 'fore I got to him. I
heard a scrambling noise off ahead, and then a shaky voice hollers:
'Hello! who's that?'
"'It's me,' says I, rowing harder'n ever. 'Who are you? What's
the row?'
"There was more scrambling and a slam, like a door shutting. In
another two minutes I was alongside the launch and held up my
lantern. Allie was there, fussing with his engine. And he was all
alone.
"Alone he was, I say, fur's a body could see, but he was mighty
shaky and frightened. Also, 'side of him, on the cushions, was a
girl's jacket, and I thought I'd seen that jacket afore.
"'Hello!' says I. 'Is that you, Mr. Davidson? Thought you'd gone
to Boston?'
"'Changed my mind,' he says. 'Got any gasoline?'
"'What you doing off here this time of night?' I says.
"'Going out to my--' He stopped. I s'pose the truth choked him.
'I was going to Provincetown,' he went on. 'Got any gasoline?'
"'What in the nation you starting to Provincetown in the middle of
the night for?' I asks, innocent as could be.
"'Oh, thunder! I had business there, that's all. GOT ANY
GASOLINE?'
"I made my skiff's painter fast to a cleat on the launch and
climbed aboard. 'Gasoline?' says I. 'Gasoline? Why, yes; I've
got some gasoline over on my power-boat out yonder. Has yours give
out? I should think you'd filled your tank 'fore you left home on
such a trip as Provincetown. Maybe the pipe's plugged or
something. Have you looked?' And I caught hold of the handle of
the cabin-door.
"He jumped and grabbed me by the arm. ''Tain't plugged,' he yells,
sharp. 'The tank's empty, I tell you.'
"He kept pulling me away from the cabin, but I hung onto the
handle.
"'You can't be too sure,' I says. 'This door's locked. Give me
the key.'
"'I--I left the key at home,' he says. 'Don't waste time. Go over
to your boat and fetch me some gasoline. I'll pay you well for
it.'
"Then I was sartin of what I suspicioned. The cabin was locked,
but not with the key. THAT was in the keyhole. The door was
bolted ON THE INSIDE.
"'All right,' says I. 'I'll sell you the gasoline, but you'll have
to go with me in the skiff to get it. Get your anchor over or this
craft'll drift to Eastham. Hurry up.'
"He didn't like the idee of leaving the launch, but I wouldn't hear
of anything else. While he was heaving the anchor I commenced to
talk to him.
"'I didn't know but what you'd started for foreign parts to meet
that Newport girl you're going to marry,' I says, and I spoke good
and loud.
"He jumped so I thought he'd fall overboard.
"'What's that?' he shouts.
"'Why, that girl you're engaged to,' says I. 'Miss--' and I yelled
her name, and how she'd gone abroad with his folks, and all.
"'Shut up!' he whispers, waving his hands, frantic. 'Don't stop to
lie. Hurry up!'
"''Tain't a lie. Oh, I know about it!' I hollers, as if he was
deef. I meant to be heard--by him and anybody else that might be
interested. I give a whole lot more partic'lars, too. He fairly
shoved me into the skiff, after a spell.
"'Now,' he says, so mad he could hardly speak, 'stop your lying and
row, will you!'
"I was willing to row then. I cal'lated I'd done some missionary
work by this time. Allie's guns was spiked, if I knew Barbara
Saunders. I p'inted the skiff the way she'd ought to go and laid
to the oars.
"My plan had been to get him aboard the skiff and row somewheres--
ashore, if I could. But 'twas otherwise laid out for me. The wind
was blowing pretty fresh, and the skiff was down by the stern, so's
the waves kept knocking her nose round. 'Twas dark'n a pocket,
too. I couldn't tell where I WAS going.
"Allie got more fidgety every minute. 'Ain't we 'most there?' he
asks. And then he gives a screech. 'What's that ahead?'
"I turned to see, and as I done it the skiff's bow slid up on
something. I give an awful yank at the port oar; she slewed and
tilted; a wave caught her underneath, and the next thing I knew me
and Allie and the skiff was under water, bound for the bottom.
We'd run acrost one of the guy-ropes of my fish-weir.
"This wa'n't in the program. I hit sand with a bump and pawed up
for air. When I got my head out I see a water-wheel doing business
close along-side of me. It was Allie.
"'Help!' he howls. 'Help! I'm drowning!'
"I got him by the collar, took one stroke and bumped against the
weir-nets. You know what a fish-weir's like, don't you, Mr.
Brown?--a kind of pound, made of nets hung on ropes between poles.
"'Help!' yells Allie, clawing the nets. 'I can't swim in rough
water!'
"You might have known he couldn't. It looked sort of dubious for a
jiffy. Then I had an idee. I dragged him to the nighest weir-
pole. 'Climb!' I hollers in his ear. 'Climb that pole.'
"He done it, somehow, digging his toes into the net and going up
like a cat up a tree. When he got to the top he hung acrost the
rope and shook.
"'Hang on there!' says I. 'I'm going after the boat.' And I
struck out. He yelled to me not to leave him, but the weir had
give me my bearings, and I was bound for my power-boat. 'Twas a
tough swim, but I made it, and climbed aboard, not feeling any too
happy. Losing a good skiff was more'n I'd figgered on.
"Soon's I got some breath I hauled anchor, started up my engine and
headed back for the weir. I run along-side of it, keeping a good
lookout for guy-ropes, and when I got abreast of that particular
pole I looked for Allie. He was setting on the rope, a-straddle of
the pole, and hanging onto the top of it like it owed him money.
He looked a good deal more comfortable than I was when he and
Prince had treed me. And the remembrance of that time come back to
me, and one of them things they call inspiration come with it. He
was four feet above water, 'twas full tide then, and if he set
still he was safe as a church.
"So instead of running in after him, I slowed 'way down and backed
off.
"'Come here!' he yells. 'Come here, you fool, and take me aboard.'
"'Oh, I don't know,' says I. 'You're safe there, and, even if the
yacht folks don't come hunting for you by and by--which I cal'late
they will--the tide'll be low enough in five hours or so, so's you
can walk ashore.'
"'What--what do you mean?' he says. 'Ain't you goin' to take me
off?'
"'I was,' says I, 'but I've changed my plans. And, Mr. Allie
Vander-what's-your-name Davidson, there's other things--low-down,
mean things--planned for this night that ain't going to come off,
either. Understand that, do you?'
"He understood, I guess. He didn't answer at all. Only gurgled,
like he'd swallered something the wrong way.
"Then the beautiful tit for tat of the whole business come to me,
and I couldn't help rubbing it in a little. 'As a sartin
acquaintance of mine once said to me,' I says, 'you look a good
deal handsomer up there than you do in a boat.'
"'You--you--etcetery and so forth, continued in our next!' says he,
or words to that effect.
"'That's all right,' says I, putting on the power. 'You've got no
kick coming. I allow you to--er--ornament my weir-pole, and
'tain't every dude I'd let do that.'
"And I went away and, as the Fifth Reader used to say, 'let him
alone in his glory.'
"I went back to the launch, pulled up her anchor and took her in
tow. I towed her in to her pier, made her fast and then left her
for a while. When I come back the little cabin-door was open and
the girl's jacket was gone.
"Then I walked up the path to the Saunders house and it done me
good to see a light in Barbara's window. I set on the steps of
that house until morning keeping watch. And in the morning the
yacht was gone and the weir-pole was vacant, and Cap'n Eben
Saunders come on the first train.
"So's that's all there is of it. Allie hasn't come back to Bayport
sence, and the last I heard he'd married that Newport girl; she has
my sympathy, if that's any comfort to her.
"And Barbara? Well, for a long time she'd turn white every time I
met her. But, of course, I kept my mouth shut, and she went to sea
next v'yage with her dad. And now I hear she's engaged to a nice
feller up to Boston.
"Oh, yes--one thing more. When I got back to my shanty that
morning I wiped the chalkmark off the door. I kind of figgered
that I'd paid that debt, with back interest added."
-THE END-
Joseph Crosby Lincoln's short story: The Mark On The Door
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