But 'twas almost too slick. I was afraid the calm was a weather breeder, and sure enough, the hurricane struck us the day after that fishing trip.
Peter had gone driving with Maudina and her dad, and me and Cap'n Jonadab was smoking on the front piazza. I was pulling at a pipe, but the cap'n had the home end of one of Stumpton's cigars harpooned on the little blade of his jackknife, and was busy pumping the last drop of comfort out of it. I never see a man who wanted to get his money's wuth more'n Jonadab, I give you my word, I expected to see him swaller that cigar remnant every minute.
And all to once he gives a gurgle in his throat.
"Take a drink of water," says I, scared like.
"Well, by time!" says he, pointing.
A feller had just turned the corner of the house and was heading up in our direction. He was a thin, lengthy craft, with more'n the average amount of wrists sticking out of his sleeves, and with long black hair trimmed aft behind his ears and curling on the back of his neck. He had high cheek bones and kind of sunk-in black eyes, and altogether he looked like "Dr. Macgoozleum, the Celebrated Blackfoot Medicine Man." If he'd hollered: "Sagwa Bitters, only one dollar a bottle!" I wouldn't have been surprised.
But his clothes--don't say a word! His coat was long and buttoned up tight, so's you couldn't tell whether he had a vest on or not--though 'twas a safe bet he hadn't--and it and his pants was made of the loudest kind of black-and-white checks. No nice quiet pepper-and-salt, you understand, but the checkerboard kind, the oilcloth kind, the kind that looks like the marble floor in the Boston post-office. They was pretty tolerable seedy, and so was his hat. Oh, he was a last year's bird's nest NOW, but when them clothes was fresh--whew! the northern lights and a rainbow mixed wouldn't have been more'n a cloudy day 'longside of him.
He run up to the piazza like a clipper coming into port, and he sweeps off that rusty hat and hails us grand and easy.
"Good-morning, gentlemen," says he.
"We don't want none," says Jonadab, decided.
The feller looked surprised. "I beg your pardon," says he. "You don't want any--what?"
"We don't want any 'Life of King Solomon' nor 'The World's Big Classifyers.' And we don't want to buy any patent paint, nor sewing machines, nor clothes washers, nor climbing evergreen roses, nor rheumatiz salve. And we don't want our pictures painted, neither."
Jonadab was getting excited. Nothing riles him wuss than a peddler, unless it's a woman selling tickets to a church fair. The feller swelled up until I thought the top button on that thunderstorm coat would drag anchor, sure.
"You are mistaken," says he. "I have called to see Mr. Peter Brown; he is--er--a relative of mine."
Well, you could have blown me and Jonadab over with a cat's-paw. We went on our beam ends, so's to speak. A relation of Peter T.'s; why, if he'd been twice the panorama he was we'd have let him in when he said that. Loud clothes, we figgered, must run in the family. We remembered how Peter was dressed the first time we met him.
"You don't say!" says I. "Come right up and set down, Mr.--Mr.--"
"Montague," says the feller. "Booth Montague. Permit me to present my card."
He drove into the hatches of his checkerboards and rummaged around, but he didn't find nothing but holes, I jedge, because he looked dreadful put out, and begged our pardons five or six times.
"Dear me!" says he. "This is embarassing. I've forgot my cardcase."
We told him never mind the card; any of Peter's folks was more'n welcome. So he come up the steps and set down in a piazza chair like King Edward perching on his throne. Then he hove out some remarks about its being a nice morning, all in a condescending sort of way, as if he usually attended to the weather himself, but had been sort of busy lately, and had handed the job over to one of the crew. We told him all about Peter, and Belle, and Ebenezer, and about Stumpton and Maudina. He was a good deal interested, and asked consider'ble many questions. Pretty soon we heard a carriage rattling up the road.
"Hello!" says I. "I guess that's Peter and the rest coming now."
Mr. Montague got off his throne kind of sudden.
"Ahem!" says he. "Is there a room here where I may--er--receive Mr. Brown in a less public manner? It will be rather a--er--surprise for him, and--"
Well, there was a good deal of sense in that. I know 'twould surprise ME to have such an image as he was sprung on me without any notice. We steered him into the gents' parlor, and shut the door. In a minute the horse and wagon come into the yard. Maudina said she'd had a "heavenly" drive, and unloaded some poetry concerning the music of billows and pine trees, and such. She and her father went up to their rooms, and when the decks was clear Jonadab and me tackled Peter T.
"Peter," says Jonadab, "we've got a surprise for you. One of your relations has come."
Brown, he did look surprised, but he didn't act as he was any too joyful.
"Relation of MINE?" says he. "Come off! What's his name?"
We told him Montague, Booth Montague. He laughed.
"Wake up and turn over," he says. "They never had anything like that in my family. Booth Montague! Sure 'twa'n't Algernon Cough-drops?"
We said no, 'twas Booth Montague, and that he was waiting in the gents' parlor. So he laughed again, and said somethin' about sending for Laura Lean Jibbey, and then we started.
The checkerboard feller was standing up when we opened the door. "Hello, Petey!" says he, cool as a cucumber, and sticking out a foot and a half of wrist with a hand at the end of it.
Now, it takes considerable to upset Peter Theodosius Brown. Up to that time and hour I'd have bet on him against anything short of an earthquake. But Booth Montague done it--knocked him plumb out of water. Peter actually turned white.
"Great--" he began, and then stopped and swallered. "HANK!" he says, and set down in a chair.
"The same," says Montague, waving the starboard extension of the checkerboard. "Petey, it does me good to set my eyes on you. Especially now, when you're the real thing."
Brown never answered for a minute. Then he canted over to port and reached down into his pocket. "Well," says he, "how much?"
But Hank, or Booth, or Montague--whatever his name was--he waved his flipper disdainful. "Nun-nun-nun-no, Petey, my son," he says, smiling. "It ain't 'how much?' this time. When I heard how you'd rung the bell the first shot out the box and was rolling in coin, I said to myself: 'Here's where the prod comes back to his own.' I've come to live with you, Petey, and you pay the freight."
Peter jumped out of the chair. "LIVE with me!" he says. "You Friday evening amateur night! It's back to 'Ten Nights in a Barroom' for yours!" he says.
"Oh, no, it ain't!" says Hank, cheerful. "It'll be back to Popper Dillaway and Belle. When I tell 'em I'm your little cousin Henry and how you and me worked the territories together--why--well, I guess there'll be gladness round the dear home nest; hey?"
Peter didn't say nothing. Then he fetched a long breath and motioned with his head to Cap'n Jonadab and me. We see we weren't invited to the family reunion, so we went out and shut the door. But we did pity Peter; I snum if we didn't!
It was most an hour afore Brown come out of that room. When he did he took Jonadab and me by the arm and led us out back of the barn.
"Fellers," he says, sad and mournful, "that--that plaster cast in a crazy-quilt," he says, referring to Montague, "is a cousin of mine. That's the living truth," says he, "and the only excuse I can make is that 'tain't my fault. He's my cousin, all right, and his name's Hank Schmults, but the sooner you box that fact up in your forgetory, the smoother 'twill be