Cape Cod Stories - Joseph Crosby Lincoln

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      “You're spilling half the wind!” he yells. “Pint' her for the buoy or else you'll be licked to death! Jibe her so's she gits it full. Jibe her, you lubber! Don't you know how? Here! let me show you!”

      And the next thing I knew he fetched a hop like a frog, shoved Phil out of the way, grabbed the tiller, and jammed it over.

      She jibed—oh, yes, she jibed! If anybody says she didn't you send 'em to me. I give you my word that that flat-iron jibed twice—once for practice, I jedge, and then for business. She commenced by twisting and squirming like an eel. I jest had sense enough to clamp my mittens onto the little brass rail by the stern and hold on; then she jibed the second time. She stood up on two legs, the boom come over with a slat that pretty nigh took the mast with it, and the whole shebang whirled around as if it had forgot something. I have a foggy kind of remembrance of locking my mitten clamps fast onto that rail while the rest of me streamed out in the air like a burgee. Next thing I knew we was scooting back towards Dillaway's, with the sail catching every ounce that was blowing. Jonadab was braced across the tiller, and there, behind us, was the Honorable Philip Catesby-Stuart, flat on his back, with his blanket legs looking like a pair of compasses, and skimming in whirligigs over the slick ice towards Albany. HE hadn't had nothing to hold onto, you understand. Well, if I hadn't seen it, I wouldn't have b'lieved that a human being could spin so long or travel so fast on his back. His legs made a kind of smoky circle in the air over him, and he'd got such a start I thought he'd NEVER STOP a-going. He come to a place where some snow had melted in the sun and there was a pond, as you might say, on the ice, and he went through that, heaving spray like one of them circular lawn sprinklers the summer folks have. He'd have been as pretty as a fountain, if we'd had time to stop and look at him.

      “For the land sakes, heave to!” I yelled, soon's I could get my breath. “You've spilled the skipper!”

      “Skipper be durned!” howls Jonadab, squeezing the tiller and keeping on the course; “We'll come back for him by and by. It's our business to win this race.”

      And, by ginger! we DID win it. The way Jonadab coaxed that cocked hat on runners over the ice was pretty—yes, sir, pretty! He nipped her close enough to the wind'ard, and he took advantage of every single chance. He always COULD sail; I'll say that for him. We walked up on Archie like he'd set down to rest, and passed him afore he was within a half mile of home. We run up abreast of Dillaway's, putting on all the fancy frills of a liner coming into port, and there was Ebenezer and a whole crowd of wedding company down by the landing.

      “Gosh!” says Jonadab, tugging at his whiskers: “'Twas Cape Cod against New York that time, and you can't beat the Cape when it comes to getting over water, not even if the water's froze. Hey, Barzilla?”

      Ebenezer came hopping over the ice towards us. He looked some surprised.

      “Where's Phil?” he says.

      Now, I'd clean forgot Phil and I guess Jonadab had, by the way he colored up.

      “Phil?” says he. “Phil? Oh, yes! We left him up the road a piece. Maybe we'd better go after him now.”

      But old Dillaway had something to say.

      “Cap'n,” he says, looking round to make sure none of the comp'ny was follering him out to the ice-boat. “I've wanted to speak to you afore, but I haven't had the chance. You mustn't b'lieve too much of what Mr. Catesby-Stuart says, nor you mustn't always do just what he suggests. You see,” he says, “he's a dreadful practical joker.”

      “Yes,” says Jonadab, beginning to look sick. I didn't say nothing, but I guess I looked the same way.

      “Yes,” said Ebenezer, kind of uneasy like; “Now, in that matter of Mrs. Granby. I s'pose Phil put you up to asking her about her son's laundry. Yes? Well, I thought so. You see, the fact is, her boy is a broker down in Wall Street, and he's been caught making some of what they call 'wash sales' of stock. It's against the rules of the Exchange to do that, and the papers have been full of the row. You can see,” says Dillaway, “how the laundry question kind of stirred the old lady up. But, Lord! it must have been funny,” and he commenced to grin.

      I looked at Jonadab, and he looked at me. I thought of Marm Granby, and her being “dying to know us,” and I thought of the lies about the “hod of change” and all the rest, and I give you my word I didn't grin, not enough to show my wisdom teeth, anyhow. A crack in the ice an inch wide would have held me, with room to spare; I know that.

      “Hum!” grunts Jonadab, kind of dry and bitter, as if he'd been taking wormwood tea; “I see. He's been having a good time making durn fools out of us.”

      “Well,” says Ebenezer, “not exactly that, p'raps, but—”

      And then along comes Archie and his crowd in the other ice-boat.

      “Hi!” he yells. “Who sailed that boat of yours? He knew his business all right. I never saw anything better. Phil—why, where IS Phil?”

      I answered him. “Phil got out when we jibed,” I says.

      “Was THAT Phil?” he hollers, and then the three of 'em just roared.

      “Oh, by Jove, you know!” says Archie, “that's the funniest thing I ever saw. And on Phil, too! He'll never hear the last of it at the club—hey, boys?” And then they just bellered and laughed again.

      When they'd gone, Jonadab turned to Ebenezer and he says: “That taking us out on this boat was another case of having fun with the countrymen. Hey?”

      “I guess so,” says Dillaway. “I b'lieve he told one of the guests that he was going to put Cape Cod on ice this morning.”

      I looked away up the river where a little black speck was just getting to shore. And I thought of how chilly the wind was out there, and how that ice-water must have felt, and what a long ways 'twas from home. And then I smiled, slow and wide; there was a barge load of joy in every half inch of that smile.

      “It's a cold day when Phil loses a chance for a joke,” says Ebenezer.

      “'Tain't exactly what you'd call summery just now,” I says. And we hauled down sail, run the ice-boat up to the wharf, and went up to our room to pack our extension cases for the next train.

      “You see,” says Jonadab, putting in his other shirt, “it's easy enough to get the best of Cape folks on wash sales and lying, but when it comes to boats that's a different pair of shoes.”

      “I guess Phil'll agree with you,” I says.

       Table of Contents

      The way we got into the hotel business in the first place come around like this: Me and Cap'n Jonadab went down to Wellmouth Port one day 'long in March to look at some property he'd had left him. Jonadab's Aunt Sophrony had moved kind of sudden from that village to Beulah Land—they're a good ways apart, too—and Cap'n Jonadab had come in for the old farm, he being the only near relative.

      When you go to Wellmouth Port you get off the cars at Wellmouth Center and then take Labe Bearse's barge and ride four miles; and then, if the horse don't take a notion to lay down in the road and go to sleep, or a wheel don't come off or some other surprise party ain't sprung on you, you come to a place where there's a Baptist chapel that needs painting, and a little two-for-a-cent store that needs trade, and two or three houses that need building over, and any Lord's quantity of scrub pines and beach grass and sand. Then you take Labe's word for it that you've got to Wellmouth Port and get out of the barge and try to remember you're a church member.

      Well, Aunt Sophrony's house was a mile or more from the place where the barge stopped, and Jonadab and me, we hoofed it up there. We bought some cheese and crackers and canned things at the store, 'cause we expected to stay overnight

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