Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards

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BOARD AND LODGING

"Take a seat, Mr. Parks!" said Mary Sands, hospitably. "Talk of angels! Cousins and I were just speakin' of you, and sayin' you never told us the rest of that nice story you began the first time you was here."

"What story?" asked Calvin Parks.

"Why, your own story, to be sure. You told us how you was displeased at a woman's bein' owner of your schooner,—" her eyes twinkled mischievously,—"and how you come ashore and set up your candy route; but Cousins were just sayin' they didn't know where you lived, nor how you was fixed anyways, except that you had that nice hoss and waggin."

"That so?" said Calvin, musing. "Well, I don't know as there's any particklar story to the rest on't. I drive my route, you know; quite a ways it is; takes me about a week to git round it all. 'Tis pleasant doin's for the most part, only when it comes to gettin' in and out of this shay; that gits me every time. But I see the country, you know—pretty country it is; I never see a prettier,—and meet up with folks and all,—"

"Where do you reside?" inquired Mr. Sam. He had moved his chair near the door of Mr. Sim's sitting-room, where Calvin was, and now peered round the doorjamb, his body invisible, his little wizen face appearing as if hung in air.

"Great snakes, Sam!" exclaimed Calvin Parks. "Don't scare the life out of us. Where's the rest of you? No use your pretendin' to be one of them cherub articles, 'cause you don't look it, and don't let anyone deceive you into thinkin' you do. I live—if you call it livin',—down Tinkham way, about ten miles from here. I'm boardin' with Widder Marlin and her daughter. Ever hear of Phrony Marlin? Well, she's a case, Phrony is, and the old lady's another. Widder of a sea-cap'n that I sailed with in former days. She has a little home, and she lets me have a room. I don't know as the old lady is quite right in her mind—I don't know as either one of 'em is, come to think of it; and she ain't much of a cook; but as she says, it's only suppers and breakfasts, and it's all dust and ashes anyway. It ain't worth while to make trouble, and I git on first-rate."

"I'm afraid they don't make you real comfortable, Mr. Parks!" said Mary Sands. "I should think they might; I don't believe but what you do your part and more too."

"Well, I dono!" said Calvin simply. "I try to help out, split the wood, kerry water and like that; two lone women, ye know, no man belongin' to 'em; I wouldn't wish to let 'em feel forsaken any."

"Do they give you enough to eat?" inquired Mr. Sim.

"Oh, I guess so. They don't feed me any too high, but they don't live any higher themselves. Phrony has the dyspepsy—I dono as it's surprisin' that she should—and the old lady has an idee that eatin' is a snare of the evil one, and she gits along on next door after nothin', as you may say."

"The idea!" cried Mary Sands, indignantly. "Mr. Parks, why do you stay there? I wouldn't if I was you, not another day."

"Oh! they don't mean no harm," said Calvin; "not a mite. I git on first-rate so long as they do; it's only when they get to quarrellin' that I mind. When they fall afoul of each other, it ain't real agreeable; but there's where it comes in handy bein' a man. Hossy and me can git out from under foot most times, and leave 'em to train by themselves."

He paused, and shook his head with a reminiscent chuckle.

"Last week we had us quite a time!" he said. "Phrony got some kind of a bee in her bunnet—I dono what it was! seemed to have a kind of idee that she was goin' to git married, if only she had some money. I never see no man round the house, nor yet heard none speak of her; and, too, if she'd looked in the glass she'd have seen 'twarn't real reasonable to expect it. However it was, so it was; she's got her eye on somebody, no question about that. Well, it's a small farm, and the soil ain't any too rich; they git along, but no more than, I expect; and yet they don't spend a cent more'n they have to, you may resk your eye-teeth on that. Well, anyways, here's what happened. I come in one night, and the old lady was sittin' studyin' over a letter or like that. When she saw me, 'Cap'n,' she says (always calls me Cap'n, same as she did the old man), 'will you cast your eye over that,' she says, 'and tell me what you think of it?'

"I looked it over, and you may call me a horn-pout, Miss Hands and boys, if 'twarn't a bill from Phrony, drawed up in reg'lar style, chargin' her mother three dollars a week wages for thirty years. Now, Miss Hands, I'd like to know what you think of that."

"I think 'twas scandalous!" cried Mary Sands, emphatically. "I think she ought to be ashamed of herself. The idea!"

"Well, it didn't seem to me real suitable," said Calvin; "I couldn't make it seem so, and so I said. 'What's got into her?' I said. 'You and her belong together; and what's one's is 'tother's, ain't it, so far as livin' goes?'

"The old lady looks at me kind o' queer. 'Phrony ain't satisfied,' she says. 'She thinks the Lord designs her to be a helpmeet, and that He's manifestin' Himself at present, or liable so to do.'

"Well, I studied over that a bit, but I didn't make nothin' out of it. The old lady has spells, as I told you, when she ain't just right in her head. Makes me laugh sometimes, the things she'll say. Take last night, now! I didn't have no fork, and I asked her to please give me one. Honest, if she didn't take and bring me a spoon! 'There, Cap'n!' she says. 'It don't look like a fork,' she says, 'but I dono what's the matter with it. The Lord'll provide!' she says. 'It's all dust and ashes!' Other days, she'll be as wide awake as the next one, and talk straight as a string. Well, about the bill! I told her she'd better let it go, and Phrony'd come round and see she wa'n't actin' real sensible, nor yet pretty. But not she! Next mornin' before I left she come out to the barn and showed me another paper, and—Jerusalem crickets! if it warn't a bill against Phrony for board and lodgin' for forty-seven years! Haw! haw! That's where the old lady come out on top. There warn't no bee in her bunnet that time!"

"He! he!" cackled Mr. Sim.

"Ho! ho!" piped Mr. Sam.

But Mary Sands looked troubled. "Mr. Parks," she said; "you'll excuse me, as am little more than a stranger to you; but yet I can't help but say I do wish you was in a different kind of place. There must be lots of nice places where you would be more than welcome."

"Mebbe so, and mebbe son't!" said Calvin Parks placidly. "Folks is real friendly, all along the route. Yes, come to think of it, there's several has said they would be pleased to take me in for a spell, if I should be thinkin' of a change. But old Widder Marlin, she needs the board money, and—well, here's where it is, Miss Hands; I don't know as she'd be real likely to get another boarder. I knew the Cap'n, you see, and he was always good to me aboard ship. But I'm full as much obliged to you," he added, with a very friendly look in his brown eyes, "for givin' it a thought. Bless your heart, this old carcass don't need much attention; it gets all it deserves, I presume likely, and more too.

"Well, I must be ramblin' along, I guess. I promised to pick up Miss Phrony at the Corners. She's been visitin' there to-day, and she'll think I'm lost for good. I tell you what it is, though, Miss Hands and boys; it's easier to turn in at this gate than what it is to turn out again, and I expect I shall be comin' in real often, if no objection is made."

"So do, Calvin! so do!" cried both twins together. Calvin looked at Mary Sands, and her eyes were as friendly as his own. "The oftener you come, Mr. Parks," she said, "the better I shall be pleased, for certin."

"Gitty up, hossy!" said Calvin. "We're late for supper now, and it don't do for me to get too sharp-set; there ain't likely to be more supper than what I can get away with. There's the store now, and there's Miss Phrony, sure enough, lookin' out for me. Now I put it to you, hossy; what was the object, precisely, of makin' a woman look like that? The ways is mysterious, sure enough. There's a plenty of material there for a good-lookin' woman, take and spread it kind o' different."

A tall, scraggy woman, with pale green eyes seeking each other across a formidable beak, and teeth like a twisted balustrade, greeted him with a reproachful look as he drove up to the corner store.

"Good afternoon, Miss Phrony," he said comfortably. "I expect I'm just a mite late, ain't I?"

"I should think you was!" replied the scraggy woman. "I've been waitin' full two hours, Cap'n Parks."

"Have!" said Calvin affably. "Now ain't that a sight! But it's a good thing you had such pleasant company to wait in; I'm glad of that. How do, Si? how do, Eph?" he nodded to two men who were leaning against the door-posts, chewing straws and observing the universe. "Any trade doin' with little Calvin to-day?"

"Nothin' only a box of wintergreen lozenges, I guess," said Si, the storekeeper. "Mebbe you might leave another box of broken," he added, after a glance in at his showcase. "Trade hasn't been real smart this week. You ain't goin' to charge me full price for them goods, are you, Cal?"

"If I took off anything," replied Calvin, "'twould be because you were so handsome, and that wouldn't be real good for your disposition, so I expect I shall have to deny myself the pleasure. Three dollars and ninety cents—thank you, sir! Now, Miss Phrony, if you're ready—these your bundles? Why, you've been buyin' out the store, I expect! Let me help you in; up she comes! So long, boys!"

"Think she'll get him?" said Si to Eph, as they watched the wagon disappearing down the road.

"I—don't—know!" replied Si slowly. "Sometimes I think he's as simple as he is appearin', and then again I have my doubts. But one thing's sure; she's goin' to do her darndest towards it!"