CHAPTER III
CALVIN'S STORY

Passing from the kitchen into the back sitting-room, Calvin found Mr. Sim hunched in his chair, looking injured.

"I didn't know but you had gone without comin' in," he said; "seems to me you've ben a long time with them dishes."

"They're handsome dishes!" replied Calvin. "You wouldn't have me hurry and risk droppin' of them, would you? Well, Sim, I s'pose I must be joggin' along."

"What's your hurry? what's your hurry?" cried Mr. Sim peevishly. "I didn't have no chance to talk at dinner, there was so much clack goin' on;" and he cast a baleful glance at the doorway. "I want to know where you've ben and what you've ben doin' all these years, Calvin. Sit down and fill your pipe, and let's hear about it."

Calvin looked about him. "Well!" he said slowly, "I don't know as there's any such drivin' hurry. Hossy'll be pleased to stay a bit longer, I reckon;" he glanced out of the window at the fat brown horse, who was munching oats sleepily.

"Want to hear where I've been, do you, Sim? All right! Where shall I set? Sam'll want to hear too, won't he?"

"Yes!" cried Mr. Sam from the other room. "Certin' I do, Calvin, certin' I do."

"Well, how about this? Come on into the front room, Sim!"

"No! no!" cried Mr. Sim hastily. "I allus set here, Calvin. You might set in the doorway," he added, "then the other one could hear too."

"Well, of all the darned foolishness ever I heard of!" said Calvin Parks. "Say, boys, how old was you last birthday? Was it fifty, or only five? Mebbe I was mistaken!"

Standing in the doorway, which he seemed to fill with his stalwart sunburnt presence, he looked from one twin to the other, half amused, half indignant. The brothers shuffled their feet and wriggled in their chairs. Their motions were identical, and the furtive glance which Mr. Sam cast at Calvin was mirrored by Mr. Sim. "I can hear fust rate if you sit there, Cal!" said both brothers together.

Calvin Parks pulled a chair into the doorway, and tilted it at a convenient angle. Again he looked from one twin to the other.

"If your Ma was here – " he said slowly; "but there! She ain't, and that's all there is to it. Well, I'm here anyhow, ain't I? and you want to know how I come here. Well, I come behind hossy. Whose hossy? My hossy, and my waggin. Good enough hossy, good enough waggin; but defend me from that way of gettin' about! Land is good to live on: take a farm like this now; I admire it, and barrin' tomfoolishness, I call you two lucky fellows; but come to gettin' about, give me water. This rumblin' and joltin' about over clay ro'ds, and climbin' in and out over a great wheel, and like as not hossy startin' up just as you've got your leg over and throwin' of you into the ro'd – what I say is, darn it all! And think you might be slippin' along in a schooner, and the water lip-lappin', and the shore slidin' by smooth and pleasant, and no need to say 'gerlong up!' nor slap the reins nor feed her oats – I tell you, boys, I get so homesick for it I think some days I'll chuck the whole concern."

"What concern?" inquired Mr. Sam. "You appear to me to ramble in your talk, Calvin, same as you allus did. Ma allus said you was a rambler in your talk and a rover in your ways, and you'd never settle down till you married."

"She did, did she?" said Calvin musing. "I expect she was about right. Well – you see," he cast an apologetic glance at Mary Sands, who had come in quietly and sat down with her sewing in the front room, "I've always laid it to some to the fire. Look at your house here, boys!" he gave a wistful glance round the two bright, tidy, cheerful rooms. "If I had a home like this, would I be a rover? I guess not! I guess I shouldn't need no cobbler's wax on the seat of the chair to hold me down; but if all you had come home to was an empty cellar hole, not a stick nor a stitch – nothing was saved, you remember, – why, you might feel different. I took to the coastin' trade, as you know, and the past ten years I've been master of the 'Mary Sands, Bath and Floridy with lumber.'"

"I want to know!" said Mr. Sam.

"Do tell me!" cried Mr. Sim. "Why – "

Mary Sands had dropped her work at the sound of her own name, and looked up quickly; meeting Calvin Parks's look of unconscious admiration, the wholesome color flushed into her face again, and her brown eyes began to twinkle. She broke in quickly on Mr. Sim's slow speech.

"Was she a good vessel, Mr. Parks? You know I told you I was owner of a schooner, and so I take an interest in vessels, especially coasters."

"If I should say that she was as fine-lookin' a vessel as you was lady," said Calvin deliberately, "you might cast it up that I was makin' personal remarks, which far be it from me to do; but I will say that she is a sweet schooner. There ain't a line of her but what is clean cut and handsome to look at. And as for her disposition! there! I've knowed vessels as was good-lookin', and yet so contrary and cantankerous that you'd rather lay down and take a lickin' than sail in them, any day. I've knowed poor-spirited vessels, and vessels that was just ornery and mean; but 't is handsome is as handsome does with the Mary Sands. She's sweet as her looks; she's capable and she willin'; she's free and yet she's steady. If your Ma was here, Sim and Samuel, I'd say to her, 'Show me the Mary Sands in petticoats and if she was agreeable I'd never need to be called rover again."

"Why," began Mr. Sim again; but again his cousin cut him short with less than her usual courtesy. "She must be a picture of a vessel, surely, Mr. Parks. And how come you to leave, if you liked the life so well? I'm sure Cousins want to hear about that, and I should be pleased too."

Calvin pulled at his pipe in silence for several minutes.

"'Tis hard to explain," he said at last. "I don't know as I can make it clear to you, Miss Hands; but it's a fact that a seaman, and especially a coastwise seaman, now and then takes a hankerin' after the land. Deep-sea voyages, you just don't think about it, and 'twouldn't make no difference if you did. But slippin' along shore, seein' handsome prospects, you know, and hills risin' up and ro'ds climbin' over them and goin' somewhere, you don't know where – and now and then a village, and mebbe hear the church bells ringin' and you forgettin' 'twas Sunday – now and then, some ways, it gets a holt of you.

"Well, it's goin' on a year now that one of them spells come over me. I rec'lect well, 'twas a hot day in August. We was becalmed off the mouth of the river, and the Mary couldn't make no headway, 'peared as though. The crew stuck their jackknives into the mainmast, and whistled all they knew for a wind; and I set there and watched the sails playin' Isick and Josh, Isick and Josh, till, honest, I could feel the soul creakin' inside me with tiredness. I expect the sun kind o' scrambled my brains, same as a dish of eggs; for bumbye a tug come along, goin' to the city, and I wasted good money by gettin' a tow and pullin' into port two days ahead of schedule time. Now see what I got for it! I went to the office, and there was a letter from a lawyer sayin' my owner was dead and had left the schooner to his niece. I didn't read no further, and to this day I don't know what the woman's name is. I set down and took up the paper; at first I was too mad to read. I don't know just what I was mad at, neither, but so it was. Pretty soon my eye fell on a notice of a candy route for sale, hoss and waggin', good-will and fixtures, the whole concern. 'That's me!' I says. 'No woman in mine!'

"I'm showing you what an incapable pumpkin-head I was, Miss Hands, so you can see I ain't keepin' nothin' back. All about it, I sent my papers to the lawyer that night, and next day I bought the candy route and the hoss and waggin! All the candies, lozenges, and peppermint drops; tutti-frutti and pepsin chewin'-gum; peanut toffy and purity kisses; wholesale and retail, Calvin Parks agent, that's me!"

He brought his chair down on four legs and towered once more in the doorway. "There's the first chapter of my orter-biography, Miss Hands and boys," he said. "I must be off now, or I sha'n't get over my route to-day."

CHAPTER IV
THE CANDY ROUTE

"Hossy," said Calvin as he drove out of the yard, "what do you think of that young woman?"

(Mary Sands was nearer forty than thirty, but she will be young at seventy.) The brown horse shook his head slightly as Calvin flicked the whip past his ear.

"Well, there you're mistaken!" said Calvin. "There's where you show your ignorance, hossy. I tell you that young woman is A 1 and clipper built if ever I see such. Yes, sir! ship-shape and Bristol fashion, live-oak frame, and copper fastenin's, is what I call Miss Hands, and a singular name she's got. Most prob'ly she'll be changin' it to Sill one of these days, and one of them two lobsters will be a darned lucky feller. I wonder which she'll take. I wonder why in Tunkett she should want either one of 'em. I wonder – hello!"

He checked the brown horse. A small boy was standing on a gate-post and shouting vigorously.

"What say, sonny?" said Calvin.

"Be you the candy man?" cried the child.

"That's what! be you the candy boy? lozenges, tutti-frutti and pepsin chewin' gum, chocolate creams, stick candy – what'll you have, young feller?"

"I want a stick of checkerberry!" said the boy.

"So do I!" cried a little girl in a pink gingham frock, who had run out from the house and climbed on the other gate-post. She was a pretty curly little creature, and the boy was an engaging compound of flaxen hair, freckles and snub nose. Calvin regarded them benevolently, and pulled out a drawer under the seat of the wagon.

"Here you are!" he said, taking out a glass jar full of enchanting red and white sticks.

"Best checkerberry in the State of Maine; cent apiece!" and he held out two sticks.

The children's eyes grew big and tragic. "We ain't got any money!" said the boy, sadly.

"Not any money!" echoed the little girl.

"Then what in time did you ask for it for?" asked Calvin rather irritably.

"I didn't!" said the boy. "I just said I wanted it."

Calvin looked from him to the girl, and then at the candy, helplessly.

"Well, look here!" he said. "Say! where do hossy and me come in? We've got to get our livin', you see."

"Could you get much living out of two sticks?" asked the little girl.

Calvin looked again at the round wistful eyes.

"This ain't no kind of way to do business!" he remonstrated. "You've got to airn it some way, you know. Tell you what! Let me see which can holler loudest, and I'll give you a stick apiece."

The babes closed their eyes, threw back their heads, and bellowed to the skies.

"That's first rate!" said Calvin. "Good lung power there, young uns! go it again!"

The children roared like infant bulls of Bashan. At this moment the door of the house flew open and a woman appeared wild-eyed.

"What's the matter?" she cried. "Susy, be you hurt? Eben, has something bit you?"

"Don't you be scairt, Marm!" said Calvin affably. "They was just showin' off their lung power, and they've got a first rate article of it."

The woman's eyes flashed, and she hurried toward the gate. "You come along and be spanked!" she cried to the children; "scarin' me into palpitations, and your Aunt Mandy layin' in a blue ager! And as for you," she addressed Calvin directly, "the best thing you can do is to get out of this the quickest you know how. When I want peddlers round here I'll let you know."

The children were hurried into the house, shrieking now in good earnest, but clutching their candy sticks. Calvin gazed after them ruefully.

"Well, hossy, that didn't seem to work real good, did it?" he said. "Fact is, we ain't got the hang of this business, no way, shape or manner. Try to please the kids and you get 'em a spankin' instead. Well, they got their candy anyway. 'Pears as if their Ma needed somethin', howsomever."

He sat pondering with his eyes fixed anxiously on the house; finally he rummaged among his drawers, and taking out a small package, he climbed laboriously out over the wheel, and making his way up to the house, knocked at the door. The woman opened it with a bounce, and snorted when she saw him.

Calvin bent toward her confidentially, his face full of serious anxiety.

"Say, lady!" he said gravely; "I'd like to make you a present of these cardamom seeds. They do say they're the best thing goin' for the temper; kind o' counter-irritant, y' know; bite the tongue, and – "

The door banged in his face. He smiled placidly, and returning to his wagon clambered in again and chirruped cheerily to the brown horse.

"Gitty up, hossy!" he said. "I feel a sight better now. Gitty up!"

They jogged on for some time, Calvin mostly silent, though now and then he broke out into song.

 
"Now Renzo was a sailor;
That's what Renzo was, tiddy hi!
He surely warn't a tailor,
So haul the bowline, haul!
He went adrift in Casco Bay,
Mate to a mud-scow haulin' hay,
And he come home late for his weddin' day,
So haul the bowline, haul!"
 

Rounding a curve in the road, he saw a man walking in the same direction in which he was going; a young man, slight and wiry, walking with quick, jerky strides. Calvin observed him.

"That young feller's in a hurry, hossy," he said. "See him? he's takin' longer steps than what his legs are, and that's agin' natur'. What say about givin' him a lift, hey?"

The brown horse, his ear being flicked, shook his head decidedly. "Sho!" said Calvin, "you don't mean that, hossy. Your bark – well, not exactly bark – is worse than your – not precisely bite, but you know what I mean. He's in a hurry, and he's in trouble too, and you and me ain't neither one nor 'tother. Say!" he called as he came within hailing distance. "Want a lift?"

The man stopped with a start, and turned a pale face on Calvin. He had red hair, and his blue eyes burned angrily.

"Yes!" he said. Calvin stopped, and he jumped quickly into the wagon. Calvin looked at him expectantly a moment; then "Much obliged!" he said. "Real accommodatin' of you!"

The young man colored like a girl. "I beg your pardon!" he said. "I'm forgetting my manners and everything else, I guess. Much obliged to you for takin' me up. I'm in a terrible hurry!" he added, looking doubtfully at the brown horse, who was jogging peacefully along.

"Four legs is better than two!" said Calvin. "Gitty up, hossy! He makes better time than what he appears to, hossy does. He's a better ro'der than you be. We'll git there!"

"How far you goin'?" asked the man.

"Oh, down along a piece!" said Calvin. "Where be you?"

"I'm going to Tinkham," said the red-haired man with angry emphasis; "to Lawyer Filcher. If there was any lawyer nearer I'd go to him."

"I want to know!" said Calvin sociably. "Insurance?"

"No!" the man broke out. "I'm goin' to get a bill!"

Now in our part of the country a "bill" means a bill of divorce. Calvin shook his head with sympathetic interest.

"Sho!" he said. "A young feller like you? now ain't that a pity?"

"I can't stand it any longer!" the lad cried, and his hands worked with passion. "Nor yet I won't, I tell you. No man would. This ends it. We was mismated from the first, and this is the last."

"Well!" said Calvin. "Ain't that a pity now? If it's so, it's so, and mebbe a bill is the best thing. Awful homely, is she?"

The lad turned upon him, and his blue eyes flashed.

"Homely?" he said roughly. "What you talkin' about? she was Katie Hazard."

"Nice name!" said Calvin. "Come from these parts?"

"I guess you don't!" retorted the lad, "or you wouldn't have to be told. She was called the prettiest girl in the county when I married her, and she hasn't got over it yet."

"You don't say!" said Calvin placidly. "Well, good looks is pleasant, I always maintain; I'd full rather have a woman good-lookin' if other things is 'cordin' to. I suppose likely she's a poor cook? A man has to have his victuals, you know!"

"She's the best cook in the State!" said the young man doggedly. "I'd back her riz bread or doughnuts or pies against any woman's from Portland to 'Roostick."

"Quite a ways," said Calvin. "S'pose likely she's slack, hey? house cluttered up? calicker wrapper and shoes down at the heel? that kind?"

The blue eyes flared at him. "I don't want none o' this kind o' talk!" he said sharply. "Slack! I'd sooner eat off Katie's kitchen floor than any other woman's parlor table that ever I see. You find me a speck o' dust or a spot o' dirt round our house and I'll find you a blue hen."

"I see!" said Calvin. "Another fellow, is there?"

"No!" shouted the young man, and he turned savagely on Calvin. "I'd like to know why you're sayin' this kind of thing, when you never see nor heard of me nor my wife before."

"Well!" said Calvin comfortably. "I've been wonderin' ever since you got in whether you was an ill-used man or a darned fool, and now I've found out. Why, you loony, if you've got a wife like all that, why in Tunkett are you goin' to get a bill?"

His voice rang out like a ship's trumpet. The lad shrunk down in his seat, and his face grew dogged and set.

"We was mismated, I tell you!" he said. "She's got a temper!"

"Well, how about you?" asked Calvin. "You ain't got that red hair for nothin', son."

"I know! I have one too," the lad admitted; "and each one stirs the other up and makes it worse. It's no use, I tell you! We get jawin' and the house won't hold us both, so I'm going to clear out."

"Sho!" said Calvin.

They were silent for a few moments, the young husband brooding over his wrongs, Calvin meditating. At last he said slowly, "Young feller, I ain't no lawyer, nor yet wishful to be; but I expect I can cure your case."

"What do you mean?" asked the lad.

"I expect I can cure your case," Calvin repeated deliberately, "for less money by a good sight, and more agreeable all round. Lemme see! two and two is four, and seven times four is twenty-eight, and two more – yes, sir! I'll undertake to cure your case for thirty cents, and do it handsome."

He opened a drawer, and after a careful inspection took out two small objects which he held up. "See them?" he said. "This is your article. All Day Suckers, they're called, and well named. The candy fills the mouth and yet don't crowd it any; the stick is to hold on by, and take it out when necessary. Pure sugar, no glucose in it; not a mite! Pure sugar, cream o' tartar killed, and flavored with fruit surrup. Now, young feller, you take fourteen of them suckers. They're two cents apiece, that's two for every day in the week. Every time you two find you're beginnin' to jaw, in goes your sucker, and you keep it there till you feel pleasant again. Keep that up for a week, and finish up at the end with a Purity Kiss – fifteen cents a dozen, call it two cents apiece, and I'll lay my next lo'd – what's that?"

A sharp rattle was heard. Both men turned round, and saw a light wagon whirling toward them. The horse was galloping; the driver, a young woman in a cloud of red gold hair, was urging him on with whip and voice.

"Well!" said Calvin Parks.

"Great hemlock!" cried the young man. "Katie, stop!" He leaped out over the wheel, and set off running toward the advancing wagon. The young woman pulled up with a jerk.

"Joe!" she cried. "Oh, Joe! come back! I – I'm sorry I bit you!"

She jumped out – over the wheel too – and the two red heads flamed together.

Calvin gazed for a moment, then turned round with a smile.

"I guess they won't need them suckers after all!" he said. "Gitty up, hossy!"