1937-01-28 — Page 8

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MARAH HOWE was puzzled. Tay as she might, she could make neither head nor tail out of it. There he was, bending over the zinnias, loosening the earth about their roots, and tying up the marigolds that had bent under the weight of their blossoms. “ At breakfast she had complained of never having time to tend them, and there he was - moving awkwardly, every once in a while painfully straightening his back or wiping his forehead on the sleere of his old sea--- man's jacket. It certainly was beyond her: Then there was last night when he had.în sisted on wiping the dishes. That, of all things. "Sakes alive, no, Cap'n Pratt, and you a boarder!" But he had stood there. determined, as different a man from the one who come to them six years ago as ever you could see.

At first she hadn't wanted to take him It didn't seem regular somehow to take a bearder and get no pay for it until after he was lead. But Sam had figured it all out. "That's business, Sarah. We take a chance of losing and so does he. But it looks to me like the odds are against him. Them sea- dogs go fast on land." That was what she hadn't liked, calculating the time of his death. But finally she had given in, and Cap'n Pratt had made a will turning over to Sam his in- #surance policy of $5,000 with the agreement that Sam was to give him his living and supply him with clothes and tobacco.

Time after time in the weeks following his arrival Sarah had examined the policy, taking it from its security in the tin box where Sam kept his tax receipts and the certificate of their marriage. But each time she had put it away guiltily, despising herself and thinking that after all they shouldn't have taken him. It was keeping her mind on covetousness.

And

"If only he was paying us regular, even no more than three dollars a week. suppose he should die sudden and leave us all that money, as being no kin. Yet some- how." she added slowly. "I can't keep my mind of the things we could have a sun porch, a bay window and maybe a new barn." Her voice changed guiltily. "There now, yOU. see, Sam, what it's doing to us." This was during the first month he had been with them. Then he had acted like any other boarder. But that hadn't lasted long.

Sarah had done her best to please him It had been hard.

During all the six years he had been there, hardly a day passed but that he raised Generally it was some rumpus of other.

about the food. "Women!" he would mutter scornfully. "Women can't cook!" Yet he It was as ate twice as much as Sam did much as she could do to keep him filled. He complained, too, of his room.

"No ziz!

No air!" he would grunt, and bellow long after they had gone to bed in the little room where they had moved so that he could have the spare. Those times she thought grimly of the $5,000. Not if he should die to-mor- row, she shouldn't feel a pang of guilt--not

one.

So night after night, deafening them- selves to his spores and his curses, they had begun to plan. "What will you buy first. Sam?" It had been a game with them. A barn or a tractor, sometimes an electric cook stove or a motor car. Such talk! And they had gone laughing to sleep.

And now all of a sudden he had chang- ed. It had been more than a week since he had refused Sam's tobacco, saying that he wasn't going to smoke any more. Yet Sarah had watched his eager eyes and his nostrils. twitching when Sam lighted up his pipe. She had figured a while on that, but she couldn't make it out. Then Saturday Sam had brought him home a new summer jacket and he had put on a regular scene.

"Take it back," he had shouted. "Mine's good for ten years yet."

So there he was now, sweating in the sun with that hot seaman's cost over his underwear. There he was, weeding the zinnias. And last night he had wiped the dishes. It was too much for her.

After supper she went to the barn and talked to Sam about it.

"Does it make sense to you, Sam? To- night I said that I needed some baking powder for biscuits for breakfast, so as to make sure he'd go to the store and not touch the dishes. And what do you know, he was pre back before you'd finished the milking and never stopped a minute. Thank goodness I was done, even to the sink. Then he filled the wood-box. It kind of troubles me, Sam.” "Maybe he's got religion," Sam replied.

Cap'n Pratt, Boarder

During all the six years he had been Sarah's boarder, hardly a day passed but that he raised some rumpus or other... But one day he was quiet.

But be swears "T'd thought of that. worse than ever since he's stopped smoking, and remember how he took on when you brought home that coat."

"Well, he's getting old, I guess-must be near seventy-five. He won't last much longer, I'm thinking."

"Sam!" Sarah cried sharply. "Don't say such things! It bothers me now he's And you might getting so sort of civil-like.

as well take that coat back to Snow's store and cross it off his account. I can tell you now he'll never wear it."

The next day after dinner Sam started A few to town to deposit, the egg money. months more and they would have enough for a new roof on the barn. When he left, Sarah thought it would be a good time to wash out the floor of the shed, and Cap'n Pratt hung around the porch and yard, go- ing out of his way to be obliging. Twice be took the pail away from her on the way from the well, slopping water all over his feet, his body tottering so that she was afraid he would never make the steps. But she couldn't say anything. There was some- thing about him that made you just walk in back, sort of stupid-like.

No more had she finished than the colt gut loose, Sam's prize colt, the only thing be Sarah. had to exhibit at the county fair. hot and breathless, finally got her beaded into the pasture and put up the bars. Still It would be ahe worried about her some. dark when Sam got home, and she shouldn't It looked like rain. stay in there all night.. About sundown Sarah decided to take some com in the nose bag and try her inck at catching her. When she left, Cap'n Pratt was asleep on the porch in the old red rocker, but she had hardly reached the hol- low when she heard him shouting in back of her. She waited, wishing he hadn't come He would be no help unless to hold the feed.

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It was getting dusk when they found the colt. Sarah could have done it more quickly alone, for she had to delay for Cap'n Pratt, every few minutes picking a handful of blueberries to give him a chance to keep up. The colt, frightered, had hidden among the aiders. Sarah called coaxingly, holding the halter behind her. Cap'n Pratt held the com. But the strangeness of dusk and the colt's suspicions of the old man who had never before offered her kindness, made her back steadily as they advanced. So they gave that up and Sarah held the corn. That work- ed better. Slowly the colt came forward, smelled and ate, Sarah's hand caressing, her mane. But when Cap'n Pratt tried to slip on the halter, she turned, terrified, kicking up her long legs, knocking him sharply back- ward among the bushes.

How Sarah got him home she couldn't afterwards understand. The moon had not come up, and half of the time she couldn't. figure out the path ahead of her. She hadn't thought, big as she was, that she could carry any man, and she couldn't get over how those thin legs felt dangling against her. Sam met them at the bars. He had missed the colt and figured Sarah had gone to get her. When she shifted the old man over to Sam, they looked quickly at one another. shocked by the lightness of his weight

Sarah got him in bed. He moaned a little, but aside from that made no com- plaint until he heard the doctor's voice in the kitchen. Then he went into a regular terrible that spell and uttered oaths SO Sarah fled in confusion to the parlour. The minute she was out of the room, somehow or other be got out of bed and locked the door. No amount of talk from Sam or the doctor could bring forth anything but silence. When they gave up, Sarah tried, and finally he let her in, but only after she had pro- mised to send the doctor away. Ungracious- ly he let her tend him, and the doctor left. exasperated. These seamen were the very

devil when they got old.

Luckily there were no bones broken and no infection. Yet somehow after that he was never quite the same. He didn't ext well and went into a tantrum when Sam brought home a bottle of tonic.

"Fifty cents," he raged, "fifty cents for a bottle of bitters! Throw it to the pigs I'll take none of your swill!"*

Sarah found him more of a problem than ever. What could a body do with a man like that? He was Hungry, yet he would't eat What worried her most was that he wouldn't ̈ lef her change it bed. “Ain't you got washing enough to do?" he would matter, and every day he made his bed so that she could not see the soiled blankets. Then he took to guttering around the kitchen. No matter how early she would get up, he was "there first and had built the fire, limping out for the kindling and stumbling up the steps to the kitchen. She gave up trying to figure it out.

Now that he stayed so much in the house he was real company for her, and goodness knows he tried to help. Sometime.

VIRGINIA LOWELL CHASE

his lame foot resting on the shelf of the oven, he told her of foreign lands, of Hong Kong, rising white out of its land-locked harbour, or mud-soaked ricelands, of the ivory markets of Panga, of Constantinople, its water vendours (selling water-faner that!), its houses pink, blue, lavender-ste couldn't get over it. Of Sicily he told her: Houses covered with grape vines. 'Houses from, whose steps you could watch the sun- And she would listen en- splashed. sea.

A thralled until Sam came in for dinner. good husband, Sam, but not much of a talker.

One day Cap'n Pratt started to sing. Opera. He had heard it in Germany. That was the place for you. Those were the Music people. They knew how to live. Real farming. Good beer. They were none of your bloodless English or your blasted, They lived and they lived sneaky Wops. honest

He could show her. Mountains. And shadows of mountains. Why, in those quiet Alpine lakes one was as clear as the other. The mountain and the shadow. You Volcanoes. could hardly tell them apart. Hadn't she ever heard of Vesuvius? Hadn't she heard of Pompeii, a whole city buried under ashes? People like him and her once, sitting in the kitchen or rocking the baby or sleeping, maybe. Then covered up with no time to know what happened. It took her breath away. She could hardly believe it. She who had spent her whole life working She who had on a rocky farm in Maine. never seen a mountain. Not a real one. Carter's Hill didn't count. Not side of the Alps.

יד

Best of all she liked to hear of the Medi- terranean. Blue. No, he couldn't tell her. the shade. Not the sky on August noona, Not the waters in the cove, even on the clearest days. Not the blue of her del

Mediterraneati: phinium or of larkspur.

blue. There was nothing like it. Even on. the chart some paint company sent to Sam, Cap'n Pratt could not match it. Deeper than that. More lively than that. Mediterranear. blue. White birds above it and a salmon- coloured sky.

PENI

When the winter catalogues came around,. Sarah decided that she would give him a Christmas present. She never had before, but this year she felt kind of like doing it. It didn't take her long to figure out what he needed. A bathrobe. His old one was worn to threads. Solid colour, that was best. All Wool; Colours: Black, Brown, Blue, Navy, Cadet, ar Mediterranean. She drew her breath. She couldn't believe it. Yet here it was: Mediterranean blue.

Once she bad given the order blank to the rural delivery man, she could hardly wait until the package should come It had. been years since she'd been so finttery about anything. Suppose they were all out of Mediterranean and Had to send navy. Sup- pose it was not Mediterranean after all but just a cheap imitation. Then wouldn't it have been better never to have ordered. it? Shouldn't she maybe send a card and ask them to change it to navy and never tell him about it at all? No, let it come. She would open it first and take out the name. Then if he called it Mediterranean blue, she would tell him. If he didn't, he would never know. Anyway, it was prob ably too late to change the order. But wouldn't brown have been more sensible? What had Mediterranean ble to do with. Farmhouse kitchens 7 - Where did she get her crazy ideas from anyway? What was there about a colour to get so worked up about?.

And then it came: Not navy, not brown,

not of

the what not in the parlour, not of the sky or of the cove. She had nev seen it before, but she

sweep of blue against the shining allcloth of the kitchen table- Mediterranean blue. Tensely she unfolded it. It was as though she had reached the heavens and handled them. Mediterranean blue And she, Sarah Howe, held it in her hands.

But it all tamed out so badly. · White as a sheet he was, when she gave him the box. First when he said nothing and didn't make a move she thought he'd had a stroke and jumped toward him, but he pushed her aside roughly, letting the box crash to the floor, and stumbled out of the kitchen. Then he locked himself in this room and spoiled the day for all of them. ****

Downstairs from the parlour, they could hear him barging about above them, pulling at the furniture, granting as he worked.

At last about supper time he came down limping, staggering under a load of blankets. From now on he was going to sleep in the barn, he said. He wouldn't give them any reason. Just stuck to it. Then Sarah put her foot down. She wasn't going to stand for any more foolishness. It was her house and she had something to say about how things were rum. And it was about itme. Like it or not, from now on he was going to listen to her. He would sleep in his own bed, and what was more, she was going. to change the blankets.

"What would the neighbours think?" she asked him., “A man worth $5,000 sleep- ing in the bar. Whoever heard the like?”

Then without a word he went back to his room and sat as mecek as a lamb. while Sarah changed the bedding. He wouldn't day why he had pushed the furniture back the way it was when he came, nor would he eat any supper. Just turned his face to the wall and lay there. "When Sarah left she said: “Now, no more of this nonsense. You're all tired out and shaking. Who could ever get well anyway, I'd like to know, in blankets as dirty as these? And then he laughed, an nglish kind of laugh, and answered: "Who wants me to get well, anyhow? A man with $5,000*

♫

So that was what he thought. That they wanted his money. It had been months ---since she had opened the black tin box. Months since she had thought of the new tractor The blue of the Mediterranean and the grape-vined houses of Constantinople had crowded them from her mind. Even the sun porch and the bay window had vanished in the white glow of Hong Kong. She would figure and make Sam give him back all of the money that wasn't theirs by right. Then he could pay them by the week as she had wanted him to do in the first place. Then he would know that what he thought wasn't true.

She explained it all: to. Sam at supper. Six years' board would be $1500. Then the expensé book showed his clothes and tobacco to have been $500. That would leave $3,000 that was still kis: Sam was to get the egg money out of the savings. It would take it all, but he was to do it. Then he was to make over to Cap'n Prait the corner pasture lot and tell him that from now on he was to pay them by the week. Sam didn't under- stand it right away. But he would do it, he said, if she thought it was honest. He would tell him to-night and see to putting the money in his name the next time he went to town. She hurried him through his supper. She wanted it over with and off her mind, bod

She had finished cleaning up; and still Sam had not come out." It was taking him - time enough. He was probably burgling. Sam meant well, but he was blunt-like. Over her arm she laid the bathrobe. She wasn't going to let her feelings get hurt over the way Cap'n Pratt had acted. He was old, and he had something on his raind.” “Az she went into the room, Sain was sitting by the lamp reading aloud out of the account, book. Cap'n Pratt lay motionless. A glance told her that he was dend.

"Did he hear, Sam, about the money? Did he know ?? w

"He knew all right, Sarah. But when I tried to tell him about the egg money he turned his head away.. Then he make me read it all out loud to him. Everything that we'd bought and what it cost. I couldn't see he was failing, so I kept right on reading."

It was a week after the funeral that the letter from the insurance company came. It was addressed to Sam. As Sarah walked up the lane toward the shed holding it in her hand, she thought with quiet satisfaction of -the new bara and the sun porch and a cook stove, too, may be. Only it would be kind of lonesome there in the kitchen with no one to talk to her while she worked

Slowly Sam fore open the envelope, and read aloud. No payment has been made on Policy N 7625984 for the past seven and -one-half years. Thus we are sorry to report that Captain Pratt has defrauded you. We regret to have been even innocently associat- ed with his guilt." He paused. Sometimes it took Samz a long while to get the point, He was alowlike, was Sam. Finally he spoke. "Don't that seem sort of strong to you, Sarah? After all," he added, "I can't see that he took nothing. Just stayed with us for a spell"ORGA

If Sarah heard, she did not answer. She was thinking of something else,

"That egg money will buy as fine a stone as any in the graveyard. But Tve been try": ing to figure out what to put on it, he lying in the family lot, yet his name being different and all It ought to be something to show he sort of belonged even if he was no kin”? Her face frightened. I know, Sam. We'll Just put Cap'n Prati-Boarder on the stone. You see Lem Candage about it to day?

M