Chapter XIV: The “subscription Ball.”

“There!” exclaimed Captain Titcomb, ten days later, when the last section of the _Liberty’s_ chain had been laid on Orham wharf; “there! _that_ child’s born and his name’s Adoniram! Now, then, Brad, what next--more anchor-draggin’?”

Getting up that chain with a hand windlass was a tough proposition, but they had done it finally. The calm weather helped them here, for though the heavy links had sanded somewhat, they managed to work the last one loose after a struggle. Again the partners had longed for the much talked-of schooner with an engine, but this time it was Bradley who did most of the complaining. The Captain merely looked wise and winked knowingly. “Keep your head to wind’ard, son,” he remarked. “Maybe I’ll have a s’prise party for you some of these days.” Bradley didn’t know what he meant and the Captain wouldn’t explain.

In reply to the question concerning what was to be done next, the junior partner, who was sitting on an overturned salt-mackerel tub aboard the _Lizzie_, asked a question in his turn.

“Cap’n Ez,” he said, “do you remember that schooner loaded with tar that foundered on the flats off Caleb’s Point last March? The one we located when we were dragging for Anderson’s anchor that time?”

Captain Titcomb nodded. “Yup,” he said. “She b’longed to a Boston firm, seems to me. Let’s see--what was their names?”

“Colton, Lee and Company. They are on Commercial Street. Well, I went in to see ’em when I was up to Boston.”

“You did?”

“Yes. That tar has stuck in my mind ever since you told me about it. It was in barrels, you see, and it’s harder than Pharaoh’s heart naturally, so the salt water hasn’t had time to hurt it any to speak of. Obed told me that the schooner was insured and the cargo wasn’t. So I thought I’d go in and see the owners. Well, they’d pretty nearly forgotten about the tar--I suppose it had been charged to profit and loss long ago. We talked and I told ’em that I might, perhaps, be able to save a few barrels--only a few, of course. The upshot of it all was that I bought the whole cargo, eight hundred and forty barrels, just as it lies on the bottom, for twenty-five dollars cash.”

“You didn’t?”

“I did. It was twenty-five dollars more than they ever expected to get, at that. Now, Cap’n, our agreement was that no new move should be entered into without the consent of both partners. This deal was so ‘all in the air,’ as you might say, that I didn’t say anything about it until I’d seen the owners. Now, if you feel that we can’t raise enough of the stuff to pay for the trouble, I’ll let the twenty-five come out of my pocket and call it a fine for being too smart.”

“You shan’t do no such thing! We can git out enough of that tar to make that up twice over, even with the back-number rig we’ve got. But if we had a divin’ kit and a diver, I’d be willin’ to bet we could save two or three hundred barrels, maybe more.”

“That’s what I thought. So I spent nearly three hours cruising up and down Atlantic Avenue and rummaging in ship stores and such places. And, Cap’n Ezra, I know where we can buy a complete fit-out second-hand--pumps, pipes, diver’s suit and the whole business, in A1 shape, so far as I can see--for three hundred and fifty dollars. Just for a flyer I paid ten dollars and got an option on it for a week.”

“_No? you didn’t?_ Brad Nickerson, here’s where the old man takes his hat off. You’ve got me beat, hull down. I’ll be askin’ you for a mate’s job yit. Three hundred and fifty! Dirt, dog cheap!”

“I’m glad you feel that way, Cap’n. Of course a diver’ll be expensive. The Salvage Company will charge us anywhere from fifteen to twenty dollars a day for a good one. And there’s where I’m afraid the whole speculation falls down. We don’t know how that tar lies, whether the hull’s broken up, whether the barrels are sanded over or not. It might take so long to get it out that we’d lose money.”

The Captain, with both hands jammed into his pockets--his beckets, he called them--was pacing up and down.

“Lay to, son,” he observed, shortly, “and let your hair grow. You’ve landed nine-tenths of this deal already; let me handle t’other tenth. I have a sneakin’ notion that I can git that diver cheap enough to make it worth while. No, I shan’t say anything more jest now. You wait.”

But the next morning he greeted his partner with jubilation.

“I’ve got your diver, boy!” he cried. “That is, I’ve got him if you say the word. Five dollars a day, too, instead of fifteen.”

“Where in the world----”

“Right here in Orham. And he’s had plenty of experience. What’s the matter with Sam Hammond?”

“Sam _Hammond_! Sam--Why, Cap’n Ez, what are you talking about? Sam told me himself that he’d come home to rest. He’s going back to New York in a little while. He wouldn’t work for _us_!”

“Wouldn’t, hey? Brad, ’twas the feller with one leg that was too religious to dance. Sam’s out of a job. Maybe he fired the boss; maybe the boss fired him. All I know is that he told me last night he’d dive for us at five dollars per. ’Course he’d only do it to help us out, but _that’s_ all right; I don’t care if there’s a hole in the bag so long’s the cookies are inside.”

Bradley was silent. He didn’t like the idea of having Sam as a shipmate. There were other reasons as well, and these the wily Captain may have guessed, for he said:

“Now, Brad, of course it’s for you to say. We couldn’t git another good man so cheap, but never mind that. Sam _is_ a great feller for the girls, and they seem to like him pretty well. I s’pose he’d be cuttin’ out some beau or other, and then we’d have trouble on our hands. Not that that would hurt you any, except in a way, but----”

Bradley interrupted him sharply. The hint roused his pride. “Oh! I don’t care,” he said. “Hire him, if you want to. Only, I’m surprised that he’s willing to come.”

And so that is how Mr. Samuel Hammond, late of the Metropolitan Wrecking Company of New York, came to enter the employ of Titcomb and Nickerson, to whom he had contemptuously referred as “anchor-draggers.” But if Bradley supposed for a moment that Sam would change his patronizing attitude because of the move, he was much mistaken. Mr. Hammond laughed when he boarded the _Lizzie_, asked facetiously if “this was the vessel or only the long boat?” and poked fun at the whole outfit generally. He gave each member of the crew to understand that he was only doing this for a while, to help out Brad. He said that puttering around this way was such a change for him that it was the best fun of his vacation.

He took pains to make his position plain in the minds of the townspeople. Captain Jabez Bailey told Bradley, in a confidential whisper: “It’s mighty good of Sam to turn to and help you and Ez out of a hole. I hope you appreciate it.” Bradley said he appreciated it fully.

Even Gus was inclined to view the matter in that light. Sam saw to it that she did. He called at the Baker homestead pretty often, and when Bradley was there treated the latter in a jolly, good-fellow sort of way that couldn’t well be resented, but which had always in it that aggravating flavor of pitying patronage.

Bradley felt that he was placed in an awkward and humiliating position. He told Gus so plainly.

“Gus,” he said, “the last time we talked on this matter you spoke of ‘treating me fairly.’ Do you think it’s fair to allow Sam to call here as he does?”

A more experienced ladies’ man--Captain Titcomb, for instance--would not have selected this particular evening to bring up this particular subject. Gus was in one of her uncertain moods. She had refused to be serious before, and she was not serious now.

“Why, Bradley Nickerson!” she exclaimed, with a laugh, “I do believe you’re jealous!”

“No, I’m not jealous, exactly. But why do you let him come here?”

“You _are_ jealous! Oh, dear me! I didn’t believe you had that sort of a disposition. Why do I let him come here? What shall I do? Lock the door and scream ‘I’ve gone out!’ the way old Cap’n Pepper did when the tax collector called?”

“Oh, be serious, please!”

“All right! Let’s be very serious. Sam calls here, I suppose, because he and I have always been friends and we’re friends now. I don’t invite him, but I can’t very well tell him to stay away. He doesn’t know that you and I are engaged--or partially engaged--and----”

“That’s just it! If you will only let me tell people of our engagement then he can’t call any more. May I, Gus?”

“Brad, don’t you trust me?”

“Of course I trust you.”

“Then why are you suspicious or what are you afraid of?”

This very direct question was embarrassing. Bradley felt certain that he had good reason to be suspicious of Hammond’s intentions, but he knew he had no actual proof that would warrant his saying so. He stammered, and could reply only that he didn’t like the fellow’s calling so often.

“I don’t see,” said Gus, “why you dislike Sam so. He never mentions your name without praising you. He thinks you are doing wonderfully well.”

Bradley knew just the tone in which that “wonderfully well” had been uttered by the ex-New Yorker. It made him angry.

“Yes,” he remarked, with sarcasm, “I suppose his lordship thinks we’re doing very fairly for Cape Cod countrymen. Well, he’s working for those same countrymen himself, now, so he ought to know.”

“I think that’s a very unkind remark, especially when Sam is helping you, as he is, just out of friendship. I tell you this, Brad: Sam isn’t always talking about himself and saying sarcastic things about other people.”

Bradley went home injured and resentful. He made up his mind that Gus shouldn’t have another chance to call him “jealous.” He could show her that there were others who didn’t care.

He plunged into business deeper than ever. The diving outfit came from Boston and worked well. They visited the sunken tar schooner and Sam made his first dive; Captain Titcomb, who understood the apparatus, worked the pump. Sam reported that the tar seemed to be in good condition, and that, for the present, they could get up a number of the barrels through the hatchway. Later they might have to blow away a part of the hull.

So every fair day they worked over the wreck. Sam, in the diver’s suit, clambered down into the submerged vessel’s hold and attached the barrels to the tackle. Then, by the aid of the windlass, they were hauled up and swung aboard the _Lizzie_. By the first of October they had already gotten out over two hundred barrels, and Sam said that he saw no reason why all of the eight hundred might not be secured in the course of time. The tar speculation was already a very profitable one, and the credit belonged to Bradley.

* * * * *

There was to be what the posters called “A Grand Select Subscription Ball” at the Orham Town Hall on the evening of October tenth. The local correspondent of the _Item_ announced that the beauty and fashion of the surrounding section were expected to be present, that the Silver String Orchestra, all the way from Bridgewater, was to furnish music, and that, altogether, the affair would no doubt be “the most élite time that our village has seen since the Masonic Temple was dedicated.”

Gus had expressed a desire to go to the ball and Bradley had subscribed; that is to say, he had paid two dollars for a ticket admitting “gent and two ladies.”

He dressed for the affair, when the evening came, with no very pleasant anticipations. The relations between Gus and himself had not improved since the disagreement over Sam’s visits. It was as much his own fault as anyone’s; instead of waiting for a favorable time and again pleading his case, he brooded over what he considered his ill-treatment and behaved almost boyishly sulky. Gus resented this behavior and showed that she resented it. It was all very foolish, of course, but also very natural. And, meanwhile, Mr. Hammond, backed by some experience with the ladies, played his own cards with discrimination.

The partners were expecting a check from New Bedford in payment of the first shipment of tar, and, as it was early when Bradley finished dressing, he determined to go down to the post-office before calling for Gus. Captain Titcomb was out of town. He had not told where he was going, merely observing that he wanted a couple of days off for private business. What the private business was he did not state.

The old maids were on hand, as usual, to inspect their boy when he appeared in the sitting-room. Miss Prissy brushed his coat and handed him a clean handkerchief, while Miss Tempy sprinkled his lapel with perfumery from her own bottle. The sisters were in high spirits these days. Miss Prissy was almost well again, and Captain Titcomb was calling with encouraging regularity. Clara, whose mother seemed likely to spend the winter at Fall River, was still with them. As Miss Tempy said, they didn’t see how they had ever got along without her. On this particular evening Miss Hopkins, dressed in her best, had gone out. She had explained that she might go to the ball, “just to keep Bennie company.” “Bennie” was a twelve-year-old cousin of hers who lived downtown and was attending dancing-school.

The expected check did not arrive on that mail, and, as Bradley came down the post-office steps, some one laid a heavy hand on his shoulder. He turned with a start.

“Why, hello, Cap’n Ez!” he exclaimed, “you back again?”

The Captain nodded. He was dressed in his Sunday clothes and carried a hand-bag. His light overcoat was thrown open, his derby hat was a little on one side, and the stump of a cigar was gripped between his teeth.

“What’s up?” asked the junior partner.

“Everything’s up,” was the brisk answer. “You come with me.”

“But I can’t stop now; I’m in a hurry.”

“Never mind your hurry. I want you. Stopped at the house on the way from the train, but Tempy said you’d gone to the office. Come on--come!”

He hooked his arm into that of his companion and led the way through the crowd of loungers on the sidewalk. Bradley still protested.

“But, Cap’n Ez, wait till some other time. I must----”

“Shut up! I’m so full of steam I’ll bile over in a minute. This ain’t foolin’, it’s bus’ness.”

He dragged his puzzled partner along the sidewalk and across the road to the Traveller’s Rest. Bradley hung back and asked questions, but the Captain would neither pause nor answer. He opened the door of the hotel and literally pushed his friend inside. Then he led the way upstairs and into his own room.

“Set down!” he commanded, kicking a chair up to the table and turning to lock the door behind him.

“No, Cap’n, I can’t sit down; I ought to be going this minute.”

Captain Titcomb hesitated. Then he unlocked the door and flung it open.

“All right!” he said, “go ahead. I’ve been countin’ on springin’ the news on you for the last six hours, but I s’pose I can wait another ten. Don’t let _me_ interfere with your plans.”

Any other tone than this and Bradley might have continued to resist. As it was he sat down, though with reluctance.

“Well?” he said, somewhat impatiently.

“Well!” replied the Captain, still with the aggrieved expression on his face. “Now, Brad, you know mighty well I’ve got somethin’ important to say--somethin’ mighty important, or I wouldn’t have snaked you up by the coat-collar this way. I haven’t even stopped to eat a mouthful, myself, I was so crazy to git at you. But never mind that; if you ain’t interested enough to----”

“You know I’m interested, Cap’n Ez. Only do hurry!”

The Captain locked the door again. Then he took a bundle of papers from his overcoat pocket, and, selecting a card from among them, said, impressively, “Brad, what have you and me been prayin’ for for the last three months or more?”

The junior partner shook his head. The Captain’s suppressed excitement was beginning to have its effect on him.

“I don’t know,” he replied. “Do you mean a big job?”

“I mean somethin’ that’ll give us the tools to do a good many big jobs with. I mean a new, up-to-date wreckin’ vessel.” He leaned across the table. “Brad, my son,” he said, slowly, “I’ve got that very craft.”

“You’ve _got_ her?”

“I’ve got her, or the same as got her. Look at that!”

He tossed the card on the table and Bradley picked it up. It was the photograph of a good-sized, two-masted schooner--a wrecking schooner, and of modern build; so much was plain.

“Look at her!” cried the Captain. “Ain’t she a dream? And that tintype don’t begin to do her justice. Now, Brad, that schooner’s the _Diving Belle_, built in New Bedford two years ago and cost eight thousand to build. No sham about her; built for wreckin’; good seasoned timber, tackles, patent windlass, nice, light, roomy cabin, anchors, sails, all complete--_and_ a first-class sixteen horse-power gasoline engine. And, son,” Captain Titcomb raised his fist, “you and me can buy the whole blessed outfit for five--thousand--dollars--cash!”

The fist fell on the table with a bang. Bradley gasped in delighted wonder.

“You don’t mean it!” he cried.

“You bet I mean it! And I’ve got a six-day option on her, and I had to talk to git it, too. You see,” he added, gleefully, “you ain’t cornered the option market altogether.”

“But where is she? Whose was she? How did you hear of her? Five thousand! Why, that’s a----”

“Easy! Easy! ‘One at a time, please, so I’ll know which to dodge,’ as the play actor said when he got the bouquet one side of his head and the cabbage t’other. Now, I’ll tell you all about it.”

And he kept his word. When Captain Titcomb really enthused over a subject he was a wonderful talker. Now, shaking a forefinger in his companion’s face, he talked so fast that Bradley forgot everything except to listen. The schooner had been built for one Abijah Foster, of Vineyard Haven. She had been engaged in the wrecking business for two seasons along the south Jersey coast and then her owner died. His widow was the only heir and she needed money. The vessel had been bought by a Nantucket man, but when it came to paying the price there had been a hitch that resulted in the collapse of the deal. Captain Titcomb had heard of this hitch some weeks before and that was what his previous hints had meant. He wrote to the widow’s lawyer, received a letter in reply, and hurried to the Haven.

Bradley was now as wildly jubilant as his partner. He asked innumerable questions, but the Captain had an answer ready for each one. He had with him a rough plan of the schooner’s rig, a photograph of her cabin, a drawing of her engine. These were laid on the table and they moved from one to the other, the Captain explaining, pointing and arguing. The passing of time was forgotten entirely.

“There!” cried Captain Titcomb, at length, taking a drink from the water pitcher to moisten his throat, dry from continuous talking; “there! that’s what my private bus’ness out of town was! D’you wonder I had to unload to-night or bust a biler?”

The junior partner awoke from his trance with a start. And just then, from the sitting-room below, came a muffled, whirring sound, followed by a succession of faint “_Hoo_-hoos” nine of them altogether. The cuckoo clock, legacy of old Captain Sylvester Harding, who had willed it to the Traveller’s Rest--possibly as a partial recompense for unpaid board--was doing its duty.

Bradley turned white and then red. Nine o’clock! and the grand march at the Subscription Ball was to start “promptly at eight!” And Gus had looked forward to this evening for over a month!

It is doubtful if, even now, he could tell much about his trip from the Captain’s room to the Baker cottage. He ran most of the way. Over and over again he reproached himself for his forgetfulness. Gus had called him neglectful and selfish once before; what would she say now? He scarcely dared knock on the dining-room door.

But whatever he may have expected to hear when that door opened, what he did hear was certainly a distinct surprise. It was some moments before the knock was answered. Then the door opened a very little way and Grandmother Baker, her head enveloped in a shawl, peeped out.

“Who is it?” she asked, doubtfully. Nine o’clock is a late hour for callers in Orham.

“It’s me--Brad. Where’s Gus?”

“Oh! I declare, Bradley, you scart me, comin’ so late. Gus has gone.”

“Gone!”

“Yes. She said if you called to say that she didn’t wish to interfere with anything so important as your business matters. You see, Sam Hammond stopped here about ha’f-past eight and said he’d seen you and Cap’n Ezry go into the Traveller’s Rest together. So Gus went to the ball with him.”

* * * * *

The Subscription Ball was nearly half over when Bradley came up the stairs of the Town Hall. He tossed his ticket in at the window and absent-mindedly checked his overcoat and hat. Then he stood in the doorway looking at the dancers. For almost an hour he had been walking up and down the sidewalk opposite the Hall, remorsefully hating himself one minute, and fiercely nursing his injured pride the next. Twice he turned to go home, and each time he turned back again.

The “waltz quadrille” was the particular dance then going on. Bradley glanced over the crowded floor. He caught sight of Sam Hammond dancing with one of the Rogers girls. Opposite them in the set, he noted vaguely, were Captain Titcomb and Clara Hopkins. Further off “Snuppy” Black and Georgiana Bailey were whirling with the “society” step--Georgiana always proclaimed that the “glide” was “dreadful old-fashioned.” Captain Jabez was turning stout Mrs. Seth Wingate; the “glide” was good enough and to spare for Captain Jabez.

At last Bradley saw Gus. She was away down at the other end of the hall and her partner was Hartwell Sears. He was glad that she was not with Sam, but he resented the look of enjoyment on her face. He did not know that she had seen him looking for her, and that the expression was assumed for his benefit.

But when Hartwell, at the end of the quadrille, escorted her to the settee by the wall, Bradley, white but firm, walked straight toward her. She saw him coming and smiled coolly.

“Hello!” she said, “so you decided to come, after all!”

“Gus,” whispered Bradley, bending toward her, “I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.”

But Gus didn’t intend to forgive so soon. She had been deeply wounded by what she considered his neglect, and she meant to punish him.

“Oh!” she observed, carelessly, “I realize that I must not expect you to think of my pleasure when Cap’n Titcomb wants to interview you. Oh, yes, Sam! this _is_ our schottische, isn’t it? I’m _so_ glad!” The next instant she was sorry she said this, but then it was too late.

There was just a suspicion of triumph in the glance that Hammond gave him as the music began for the schottische, and Bradley watched them go with tight-shut lips. Then he tossed his head and stepping briskly down to where the younger Miss Rogers sat, entered into a lively conversation.

Miss Rogers had arrived late and her card was, in consequence, not full. Bradley promptly pencilled his initials in every vacant space. The fact that he thereby contracted for a galop, a “York,” and a schottische, none of which he had the slightest idea how to dance, didn’t trouble him at the time. As for the flattered Miss Rogers, she simpered and giggled and looked up into his face until Melissa Busteed--who had been given a gallery ticket and had come in order to denounce the whole sinful affair at the next Come-Outers’ meeting--declared ’twas a mercy she didn’t kiss him right in front of the whole crowd.

They went to supper together and--there was fate in it, beyond doubt--sat directly opposite Sam and Gus. Bradley ate cold ham and ice-cream without knowing which was which, being certain only that both were flavored with gall and wormwood. He laughed as loudly as the rest when unlucky Captain Jabez spilled a plate of vanilla-and-lemon-mixed into his wife’s lap, but five minutes later he couldn’t have sworn that it had happened.

He spoke with Captain Titcomb but once. That was during an interval between dances, when the Captain, red-hot but smiling, came strolling towards him.

“Hello, Brad!” he exclaimed. “Got here, didn’t you?” Then, glancing at the young man’s face, he added: “Havin’ a good time? Hope our stoppin’ to talk didn’t make any diff’rence?”

The answer was non-committal. Just then “Bennie,” Miss Hopkins’ nephew, came up. He was arrayed in his first black suit with “long pants,” and the glory thereof sat grandly upon him. The Captain noticed it.

“My!” exclaimed the latter, “you are tony tonight, Bennie. How you do grow! You’ll be a man ’fore your mother yit. Does she know you’re out?”

He hurried away in response to the prompter’s call of “Take your partners,” leaving the indignant Bennie to observe, “Humph! think’s he’s smart, don’t he! He ain’t any dancer. Don’t know one of the new steps us fellers learn at dancin’-school. Gee!” with a chuckle, “Clara was awful mad at him. He’d engaged the grand march and a lot more with her and never got here till ha’f-past nine. If he hadn’t explained how you’d got hold of him at the post-office and kept him talkin’ ‘wreckin’ for over an hour, I don’t b’lieve they’d have made up yet. ’Twouldn’t have made any difference to her, though; _I_ was here, and I can dance better’n any two Cap’n Ez Titcombs.”

Bradley had never before felt so much like kicking his business partner. The smooth way in which the Captain cleared his own skirts, by shifting the blame to his innocent victim, was characteristically diplomatic, but mighty provoking. And he “hoped” it wouldn’t make any difference!

The Subscription Ball, extras and all, came to an end at three o’clock. By this time Bradley was once more repentant and humble. When Gus came out of the cloak-room he went to meet her, resolved to abase himself and plead again for forgiveness.

“Gus,” he stammered, “Gus--I--I--mayn’t I walk home with you? You know I----”

But, as Bradley’s anger had cooled, his fiancée’s had risen. No detail of the flirtation with the Rogers girl had escaped her.

“Thank you,” she answered, and every word was crusted with ice; “Mr. Hammond was gentleman enough to escort me here and I presume he will see me home.”

Bradley accompanied Miss Rogers to the parental gate. It wasn’t a hilarious walk. The young lady said to her older sister later on:

“Julia, I honestly believe he didn’t speak one word from the time he left the hall till he said good-night. I had to talk for two, or I should have gone to sleep on the way. He may be good-looking enough, but Gus Baker can have him for all me. I’d as soon come home with a wooden Indian.”

And Bradley, in his own chamber, stared out of the window at the light in Gus’ room and vowed that he would not get down on his knees to that young lady again; let her have her New York gentleman if she wanted him. Then he thought of that other dance and how happy he had been because she had given him the waltz that Sam asked for. And he went to bed utterly miserable.