Kent Knowles: Quahaug

I had caught him now. Anything remotely approaching a reflection upon the business house of which he was the head was sufficient to stir up Jim Campbell. That business, its methods and its success, were his idols.

"I don't know any such thing," he protested, hotly. "We sold—"

"Hang the sale! You sold quite enough. It is an everlasting miracle to me that you are able to sell a single copy. Why a self-respecting person, possessed of any intelligence whatever, should wish to read the stuff I write, to say nothing of paying money for the privilege, I can't understand."

"You don't have to understand. No one expects an author to understand anything. All you are expected to do is to write; we'll attend to the rest of it. And as for sales—why, 'The Black Brig'—that was the last one, wasn't it?—beat the 'Omelet' by eight thousand or more."

"The Omelet" was our pet name for "The Queen's Amulet," my first offence in the literary line. It was a highly seasoned concoction of revolution and adventure in a mythical kingdom where life was not dull, to say the least. The humblest character in it was a viscount. Living in Bayport had, naturally, made me familiar with the doings of viscounts.

"Eight thousand more than the last isn't so bad, is it?" demanded Jim Campbell combatively.

"It isn't. It is astonishingly good. It is the books themselves that are bad. The 'Omelet' was bad enough, but I wrote it more as a joke than anything else. I didn't take it seriously at all. Every time I called a duke by his Christian name I grinned. But nowadays I don't grin—I swear. I hate the things, Jim. They're no good. And the reviewers are beginning to tumble to the fact that they're no good, too. You saw the press notices yourself. 'Another Thriller by the Indefatigable Knowles' 'Barnacles, Buccaneers and Blood, not to Mention Beauty and the Bourbons.' That's the way two writers headed their articles about 'The Black Brig.' And a third said that I must be getting tired; I wrote as if I was. THAT fellow was right. I am tired, Jim. I'm tired and sick of writing slush. I can't write any more of it. And yet I can't write anything else."

Jim's pipe had gone out. Now he relit it and tossed the match over the veranda rail.

"How do you know you can't?" he demanded.

"Can't what?"

"Can't write anything but slush?"

"Ah ha! Then it is slush. You admit it."

"I don't admit anything of the kind. You may not be a William Shakespeare or even a George Meredith, but you have written some mighty interesting stories. Why, I know a chap who sits up till morning to finish a book of yours. Can't sleep until he has finished it."

"What's the matter with him; insomnia?"

"No; he's a night watchman. Does that satisfy you, you crossgrained old shellfish? Come on, let's dig clams—some of your own blood relations—and forget it."

"I don't want to forget it and there is plenty of time for clamming. The tide won't cover the flats for two hours yet. I tell you I'm serious, Jim. I can't write any more. I know it. The stuff I've been writing makes me sick. I hate it, I tell you. What the devil I'm going to do for a living I can't see—but I can't write another story."

Jim put his pipe in his pocket. I think at last he was convinced that I meant what I said, which I certainly did. The last year had been a year of torment to me. I had finished the 'Brig,' as a matter of duty, but if that piratical craft had sunk with all hands, including its creator, I should not have cared. I drove myself to my desk each day, as a horse might be driven to a treadmill, but the animal could have taken no less interest in his work than I had taken in mine. It was bad—bad—bad; worthless and hateful. There wasn't a new idea in it and I hadn't one in my head. I, who had taken up writing as a last resort, a gamble which might, on a hundred-to-one chance, win where everything else had failed, had now reached the point where that had failed, too. Campbell's surmise was correct; with the pretence of asking him to the Cape for a week-end of fishing and sailing I had lured him there to tell him of my discouragement and my determination to quit.

He took his feet from the rail and hitched his chair about until he faced me.

"So you're not going to write any more," he said.

"I'm not. I can't."

"What are you going to do; live on back royalties and clams?"

"I may have to live on the clams; my back royalties won't keep me very long."

"Humph! I should think they might keep you a good while down here. You must have something in the stocking. You can't have wasted very much in riotous living on this sand-heap. What have you done with your money, for the last ten years; been leading a double life?"

"I've found leading a single one hard enough. I have saved something, of course. It isn't the money that worries me, Jim; I told you that. It's myself; I'm no good. Every author, sometime or other, reaches the point where he knows perfectly well he has done all the real work he can ever do, that he has written himself out. That's what's the matter with me—I'm written out."

Jim snorted. "For Heaven's sake, Kent Knowles," he demanded, "how old are you?"

"I'm thirty-eight, according to the almanac, but—"

"Thirty-eight! Why, Thackeray wrote—"

"Drop it! I know when Thackeray wrote 'Vanity Fair' as well as you do. I'm no Thackeray to begin with, and, besides, I am older at thirty-eight than he was when he died—yes, older than he would have been if he had lived twice as long. So far as feeling and all the rest of it go, I'm a second Methusaleh."

"My soul! hear the man! And I'm forty-two myself. Well, Grandpa, what do you expect me to do; get you admitted to the Old Man's Home?"

"I expect—" I began, "I expect—" and I concluded with the lame admission that I didn't expect him to do anything. It was up to me to do whatever must be done, I imagined.

He smiled grimly.

"Glad your senility has not affected that remnant of your common-sense," he declared. "You're dead right, my boy; it IS up to you. You ought to be ashamed of yourself."

"I am, but that doesn't help me a whole lot."

"Nothing will help you as long as you think and speak as you have this morning. See here, Kent! answer me a question or two, will you? They may be personal questions, but will you answer them?"

"I guess so. There has been what a disinterested listener might call a slightly personal flavor to your remarks so far. Do your worst. Fire away."

"All right. You've lived in Bayport ten years or so, I know that. What have you done in all that time—besides write?"

"Well, I've continued to live."

"Doubted. You've continued to exist; but how? I've been here before. This isn't my first visit, by a good deal. Each time I have been here your daily routine—leaving out the exciting clam hunts and the excursions in quest of the ferocious flounder, like the one we're supposed—mind, I say supposed—to be on at the present moment—you have put in the day about like this: Get up, bathe, eat, walk to the post-office, walk home, sit about, talk a little, read some, walk some more, eat again, smoke, talk, read, eat for the third time, smoke, talk, read and go to bed. That's the program, isn't it?"

"Not exactly. I play tennis in summer—when there is anyone to play with me—and golf, after a fashion. I used to play both a good deal, when I was younger. I swim, and I shoot a little, and—and—"

"How about society? Have any, do you?"

"In the summer, when the city people are here, there is a good deal going on, if you care for it—picnics and clam bakes and teas and lawn parties and such."

"Heavens! what reckless dissipation! Do you indulge?"

"Why, no—not very much. Hang it all, Jim! you know I'm no society man. I used to do the usual round of fool stunts when I was younger, but—"

"But now you're too antique, I suppose. Wonder that someone hasn't collected you as a genuine Chippendale or something. So you don't 'tea' much?"

"Not much. I'm not often invited, to tell you the truth. The summer crowd doesn't take kindly to me, I'm afraid."

"Astonishing! You're such a chatty, entertaining, communicative cuss on first acquaintance, too. So captivatingly loquacious to strangers. I can imagine how you'd shine at a 'tea.' Every summer girl that tried to talk to you would be frost-bitten. Do you accept invitations when they do come?"

"Not often nowadays. You see, I know they don't really want me."

"How do you know it?"

"Why—well, why should they? Everybody else calls me—"

"They call you a clam and so you try to live up to your reputation. I know you, Kent. You think yourself a tough old bivalve, but the most serious complaint you suffer from is ingrowing sensitiveness. They do want you. They'd invite you if you gave them half a chance. Oh, I know you won't, of course; but if I had my way I'd have you dragged by main strength to every picnic and tea and feminine talk-fest within twenty miles. You might meet some persevering female who would propose marriage. YOU never would, but SHE might."

I rose to my feet in disgust.

"We'll go clamming," said I.

He did not move.

"We will—later on," he answered. "We haven't got to the last page of the catechism yet. I mentioned matrimony because a good, capable, managing wife would be my first prescription in your case. I have one or two more up my sleeve. Tell me this: How often do you get away from Bayport? How often do you get to—well, to Boston, we'll say? How many times have you been there in the last year?"

"I don't know. A dozen, perhaps."

"What did you do when you went?"

"Various things. Shopped some, went to the theater occasionally, if there happened to be anything on that I cared to see. Bought a good many books. Saw the new Sargent pictures at the library. And—and—"

"And shook hands with your brother fossils at the museum, I suppose. Wild life you lead, Kent. Did you visit anybody? Meet any friends or acquaintances—any live ones?"

"Not many. I haven't many friends, Jim; you know that. As for the wild life—well, I made two visits to New York this year."

"Yes," drily; "and we saw Sothern and Marlowe and had dinner at the Holland. The rest of the time we talked shop. That was the first visit. The second was more exciting still; we talked shop ALL the time and you took the six o'clock train home again."

"You're wrong there. I saw the new loan collections at the Metropolitan and heard Ysaye play at Carnegie Hall. I didn't start for home until the next day."

"Is that so. That's news to me. You said you were going that afternoon. That was to put the kibosh on my intention of taking you home to my wife and her bridge party, I suppose. Was it?"

"Well—well, you see, Jim, I—I don't play bridge and I AM such a stick in a crowd like that. I wanted to stay and you were mighty kind, but—but—"

"All right. All right, my boy. Next time it will be Bustanoby's, the Winter Garden and a three A. M. cabaret for yours. My time is coming. Now—Well, now we'll go clamming."

He swung out of the arm-chair and walked to the top of the steps leading down to the beach. I was surprised, of course; I have known Jim Campbell a long time, but he can surprise me even yet.

"Here! hold on!" I protested. "How about the rest of that catechism?"

"You've had it."

"Were those all the questions you wanted to ask?"

"Yes."

"Humph! And that is all the advice and encouragement I'm to get from you! How about those prescriptions you had up your sleeve?"

"You'll get those by and by. Before I leave this gay and festive scene to-morrow I'm going to talk to you, Ho-se-a. And you're going to listen. You'll listen to old Doctor Campbell; HE'LL prescribe for you, don't you worry. And now," beginning to descend the steps, "now for clams and flounders."

"And the Point Rip," I added, maliciously, for his frivolous treatment of what was to me a very serious matter, was disappointing and provoking. "Don't forget the Point Rip."

We dug the clams—they were for bait—we boarded the "Hephzy," sailed out to the fishing grounds, and caught flounders. I caught the most of them; Jim was not interested in fishing during the greater part of the time. Then we sailed home again and walked up to the house. Hephzibah, for whom my boat is named, met us at the back door. As usual her greeting was not to the point and practical.

"Leave your rubber boots right outside on the porch," she said. "Here, give me those flatfish; I'll take care of 'em. Hosy, you'll find dry things ready in your room. Here's your shoes; I've been warmin' 'em. Mr. Campbell I've put a suit of Hosy's and some flannels on your bed. They may not fit you, but they'll be lots better than the damp ones you've got on. You needn't hurry; dinner won't be ready till you are."

I did not say anything; I knew Hephzy—had known her all my life. Jim, who, naturally enough, didn't know her as well, protested.

"We're not wet, Miss Cahoon," he declared. "At least, I'm not, and I don't see how Kent can be. We both wore oilskins."

"That doesn't make any difference. You ought to change your clothes anyhow. Been out in that boat, haven't you?"

"Yes, but—"

"Well, then! Don't say another word. I'll have a fire in the sittin'-room and somethin' hot ready when you come down. Hosy, be sure and put on BOTH the socks I darned for you. Don't get thinkin' of somethin' else and come down with one whole and one holey, same as you did last time. You must excuse me, Mr. Campbell. I've got saleratus biscuits in the oven."

She hastened into the kitchen. When Jim and I, having obeyed orders to the extent of leaving our boots on the porch, passed through that kitchen she was busy with the tea-kettle. I led the way through the dining-room and up the front stairs. My visitor did not speak until we reached the second story. Then he expressed his feelings.

"Say, Kent" he demanded, "are you going to change your clothes?"

"Yes."

"Why? You're no wetter than I am, are you?"

"Not a bit, but I'm going to change, just the same. It's the easier way."

"It is, is it! What's the other way?"

"The other way is to keep on those you're wearing and take the consequences."

"What consequences?"

"Jamaica ginger, hot water bottles and an afternoon's roast in front of the sitting-room fire. Hephzibah went out sailing with me last October and caught cold. That was enough; no one else shall have the experience if she can help it."

"But—but good heavens! Kent, do you mean to say you always have to change when you come in from sailing?"

"Except in summer, yes."

"But why?"

"Because Hephzy tells me to."

"Do you always do what she tells you?"

"Generally. It's the easiest way, as I said before."

"Good—heavens! And she darns your socks and tells you what—er lingerie to wear and—does she wash your face and wipe your nose and scrub behind your ears?"

"Not exactly, but she probably would if I didn't do it."

"Well, I'll be hanged! And she extends the same treatment to all your guests?"

"I don't have any guests but you. No doubt she would if I did. She mothers every stray cat and sick chicken in the neighborhood. There, Jim, you trot along and do as you're told like a nice little boy. I'll join you in the sitting-room."

"Humph! perhaps I'd better. I may be spanked and put to bed if I don't. Well, well! and you are the author of 'The Black Brig!' 'Buccaneers and Blood!' 'Bibs and Butterscotch' it should be! Don't stand out here in the cold hall, Hosy darling; you may get the croup if you do."

I was waiting in the sitting-room when he came down. There was a roaring fire in the big, old-fashioned fireplace. That fireplace had been bricked up in the days when people used those abominations, stoves. As a boy I was well acquainted with the old "gas burner" with the iron urn on top and the nickeled ornaments and handles which Mother polished so assiduously. But the gas burner had long since gone to the junk dealer. Among the improvements which my first royalty checks made possible were steam heat and the restoration of the fireplace.

Jim found me sitting before the fire in one of the two big "wing" chairs which I had purchased when Darius Barlay's household effects were sold at auction. I should not have acquired them as cheaply if Captain Cyrus Whittaker had been at home when the auction took place. Captain Cy loves old-fashioned things as much as I do and, as he has often told me since, he meant to land those chairs some day if he had to run his bank account high and dry in consequence. But the Captain and his wife—who used to be Phoebe Dawes, our school-teacher here in Bayport—were away visiting their adopted daughter, Emily, who is married and living in Boston, and I got the chairs.

At the Barclay auction I bought also the oil painting of the bark "Freedom"—a command of Captain Elkanah Barclay, uncle of the late Darius—and the set—two volumes missing—of The Spectator, bound in sheepskin. The "Freedom" is depicted "Entering the Port of Genoa, July 10th, 1848," and if the port is somewhat wavy and uncertain, the bark's canvas and rigging are definite and rigid enough to make up. The Spectator set is chiefly remarkable for its marginal notes; Captain Elkanah bought the books in London and read and annotated at spare intervals during subsequent voyages. His opinions were decided and his notes nautical and emphatic. Hephzibah read a few pages of the notes when the books first came into the house and then went to prayer-meeting. As she had announced her intention of remaining at home that evening I was surprised—until I read them myself.

Jim came downstairs, arrayed in the suit which Hephzy had laid out for him. I made no comment upon his appearance. To do so would have been superfluous; he looked all the comments necessary.

I waved my hand towards the unoccupied wing chair and he sat down. Two glasses, one empty and the other half full of a steaming mixture, were on the little table beside us.

"Help yourself, Jim," I said, indicating the glasses. He took up the one containing the mixture and regarded it hopefully.

"What?" he asked.

"A Cahoon toddy," said I. "Warranted to keep off chills, rheumatism, lumbago and kindred miseries. Good for what ails you. Don't wait; I've had mine."

He took a sniff and then a very small sip. His face expressed genuine emotion.

"Whew!" he gasped, choking. "What in blazes—?"

"Jamaica ginger, sugar and hot water," I explained blandly. "It won't hurt you—longer than five minutes. It is Hephzy's invariable prescription."

"Good Lord! Did you drink yours?"

"No—I never do, unless she watches me."

"But your glass is empty. What did you do with it?"

"Emptied it behind the back log. Of course, if you prefer to drink it—"

"Drink it!" His "toddy" splashed the back log, causing a tremendous sizzle.

Before he could relieve his mind further, Hephzy appeared to announce that dinner was ready if we were. We were, most emphatically, so we went into the dining-room.

Hephzy and Jim did most of the talking during the meal. I had talked more that forenoon than I had for a week—I am not a chatty person, ordinarily, which, in part, explains my nickname—and I was very willing to eat and listen. Hephzy, who was garbed in her best gown—best weekday gown, that is; she kept her black silk for Sundays—talked a good deal, mostly about dreams and presentiments. Susanna Wixon, Tobias Wixon's oldest daughter, waited on table, when she happened to think of it, and listened when she did not. Susanna had been hired to do the waiting and the dish-washing during Campbell's brief visit. It was I who hired her. If I had had my way she would have been a permanent fixture in the household, but Hephzy scoffed at the idea. "Pity if I can't do housework for two folks," she declared. "I don't care if you can afford it. Keepin' hired help in a family no bigger than this, is a sinful extravagance." As Susanna's services had been already engaged for the weekend she could not discharge her, but she insisted on doing all the cooking herself.

Her conversation, as I said, dealt mainly with dreams and presentiments. Hephzibah is not what I should call a superstitious person. She doesn't believe in "signs," although she might feel uncomfortable if she broke a looking-glass or saw the new moon over her left shoulder. She has a most amazing fund of common-sense and is "down" on Spiritualism to a degree. It is one of Bayport's pet yarns, that at the Harniss Spiritualist camp-meeting when the "test medium" announced from the platform that he had a message for a lady named Hephzibah C—he "seemed to get the name Hephzibah C"—Hephzy got up and walked out. "Any dead relations I've got," she declared, "who send messages through a longhaired idiot like that one up there"—meaning the medium,—"can't have much to say that's worth listenin' to. They can talk to themselves if they want to, but they shan't waste MY time."

In but one particular was Hephzy superstitious. Whenever she dreamed of "Little Frank" she was certain something was going to happen. She had dreamed of "Little Frank" the night before and, if she had not been headed off, she would have talked of nothing else.

"I saw him just as plain as I see you this minute, Hosy," she said to me. "I was somewhere, in a strange place—a foreign place, I should say 'twas—and there I saw him. He didn't know me; at least I don't think he did."

"Considering that he never saw you that isn't so surprising," I interrupted. "I think Mr. Campbell would have another cup of coffee if you urged him. Susanna, take Mr. Campbell's cup."

Jim declined the coffee; said he hadn't finished his first cup yet. I knew that, of course, but I was trying to head off Hephzy. She refused to be headed, just then.

"But I knew HIM," she went on. "He looked just the same as he has when I've seen him before—in the other dreams, you know. The very image of his mother. Isn't it wonderful, Hosy!"

"Yes; but don't resurrect the family skeletons, Hephzy. Mr. Campbell isn't interested in anatomy."

"Skeletons! I don't know what you're talkin' about. He wasn't a skeleton. I saw him just as plain! And I said to myself, 'It's little Frank!' Now what do you suppose he came to me for? What do you suppose it means? It means somethin', I know that."

"Means that you weren't sleeping well, probably," I answered. "Jim, here, will dream of cross-seas and the Point Rip to-night, I have no doubt."

Jim promptly declared that if he thought that likely he shouldn't mind so much. What he feared most was a nightmare session with an author.

Hephzibah was interested at once. "Oh, do you dream about authors, Mr. Campbell?" she demanded. "I presume likely you do, they're so mixed up with your business. Do your dreams ever come true?"

"Not often," was the solemn reply. "Most of my dream-authors are rational and almost human."

Hephzy, of course, did not understand this, but it did have the effect for which I had been striving, that of driving "Little Frank" from her mind for the time.

"I don't care," she declared, "I s'pose it's awful foolish and silly of me, but it does seem sometimes as if there was somethin' in dreams, some kind of dreams. Hosy laughs at me and maybe I ought to laugh at myself, but some dreams come true, or awfully near to true; now don't they. Angeline Phinney was in here the other day and she was tellin' about her second cousin that was—he's dead now—Abednego Small. He was constable here in Bayport for years; everybody called him 'Uncle Bedny.' Uncle Bedny had been keepin' company with a woman named Dimick—Josiah Dimick's niece—lots younger than he, she was. He'd been thinkin' of marryin' her, so Angie said, but his folks had been talkin' to him, tellin' him he was too old to take such a young woman for his third wife, so he had made up his mind to throw her over, to write a letter sayin' it was all off between 'em. Well, he'd begun the letter but he never finished it, for three nights runnin' he dreamed that awful trouble was hangin' over him. That dream made such an impression on him that he tore the letter up and married the Dimick woman after all. And then—I didn't know this until Angie told me—it turned out that she had heard he was goin' to give her the go-by and had made all her arrangements to sue him for breach of promise if he did. That was the awful trouble, you see, and the dream saved him from it."