man. And old Stumpton's been praying for something alive to shoot at," I says.
The manager gave Jonadab and me a couple of tickets, and we went to the show that night. And when we saw Booth Hank Montague parading about the stage and defying the slave hunters, and telling 'em he was a free man, standing on the Lord's free soil, and so on, we realized 'twould have been a crime to let him do anything else.
"As an imitation poet," says Jonadab, "he was a kind of mildewed article, but as a play actor--well, there may be some that can beat him, but _I_ never see 'em!"
THE MARE AND THE MOTOR
Them Todds had got on my nerves. 'Twas Peter's ad that brought 'em down. You see, 'twas 'long toward the end of the season at the Old Home, and Brown had been advertising in the New York and Boston papers to "bag the leftovers," as he called it. Besides the reg'lar hogwash about the "breath of old ocean" and the "simple, cleanly living of the bygone days we dream about," there was some new froth concerning hunting and fishing. You'd think the wild geese roosted on the flagpole nights, and the bluefish clogged up the bay so's you could walk on their back fins without wetting your feet--that is, if you wore rubbers and trod light.
"There!" says Peter T., waving the advertisement and crowing gladsome; "they'll take to that like your temp'rance aunt to brandy cough-drops. We'll have to put up barbed wire to keep 'em off."
"Humph!" grunts Cap'n Jonadab. "Anybody but a born fool'll know there ain't any shooting down here this time of year."
Peter looked at him sorrowful. "Pop," says he, "did you ever hear that Solomon answered a summer hotel ad? This ain't a Chautauqua, this is the Old Home House, and its motto is: 'There's a new victim born every minute, and there's twenty-four hours in a day.' You set back and count the clock ticks."
Well, that's 'bout all we had to do. We got boarders enough from that ridiculous advertisement to fill every spare room we had, including Jonadab's and mine. Me and the cap'n had to bunk in the barn loft; but there was some satisfaction in that--it give us an excuse to get away from the "sports" in the smoking room.
The Todds was part of the haul. He was a little, dried-up man, single, and a minister. Nigh's I could find out, he'd given up preaching by the request of the doctor and his last congregation. He had a notion that he was a mighty hunter afore the Lord, like Nimrod in the Bible, and he'd come to the Old Home to bag a few gross of geese and ducks.
His sister was an old maid, and slim, neither of which failings was from choice, I cal'late. She wore eye-glasses and a veil to "preserve her complexion," and her idee seemed to be that native Cape Codders lived in trees and ate cocoanuts. She called 'em "barbarians, utter barbarians." Whenever she piped "James" her brother had to drop everything and report on deck. She was skipper of the Todd craft.
Them Todds was what Peter T. called "the limit, and a chip or two over." The other would-be gunners and fishermen were satisfied to slam shot after sandpeeps, or hook a stray sculpin or a hake. But t'wa'n't so with brother James Todd and sister Clarissa. "Ducks" it was in the advertising, and nothing BUT ducks they wanted. Clarissa, she commenced to hint middling p'inted concerning fraud.
Finally we lost patience, and Peter T., he said they'd got to be quieted somehow, or he'd do some shooting on his own hook; said too much Toddy was going to his head. Then I suggested taking 'em down the beach somewheres on the chance of seeing a stray coot or loon or something--ANYTHING that could be shot at. Jonadab and Peter agreed 'twas a good plan, and we matched to see who'd be guide. And I got stuck, of course; my luck again.
So the next morning we started, me and the Reverend James and Clarissa in the Greased Lightning, Peter's new motor launch. First part of the trip that Todd man done nothing but ask questions about the launch; I had to show him how to start it and steer it, and the land knows what all. Clarissa set around doing the heavy contemptuous and turning up her nose at creation generally. It must have its drawbacks, this roosting so fur above the common flock; seems to me I'd be thinking all the time of the bump that was due me if I got shoved off the perch.
Well, by and by Lonesome Huckleberries' shanty hove in sight, and I was glad to see it, although I had to answer a million questions about Lonesome and his history.
I told the Todds that, so fur as nationality was concerned he was a little of everything, like a picked-up dinner; principally Eyetalian and Portugee, I cal'late, with a streak of Gay Head Injun. His real name's long enough to touch bottom in the ship channel at high tide, so folks got to calling him "Huckleberries" because he peddles them kind of fruit in summer. Then he mopes around so with nary a smile on his face, that it seemed right to tack on the "Lonesome." So "Lonesome Huckleberries" he's been for ten years. He lives in the patchwork shanty on the beach down there, he is deaf and dumb, drives a liver-colored, balky mare that no one but himself and his daughter Becky can handle, and he has a love for bad rum and a temper that's landed him in the Wellmouth lock-up more than once or twice. He's one of the best gunners alongshore and at this time he owned a flock of live decoys that he'd refused as high as fifteen dollars apiece for. I told all this and a lot more.
When we struck the beach, Clarissa, she took her paint box and umbrella and mosquito 'intment, and the rest of her cargo, and went off by herself to "sketch." She was great on "sketching," and the way she'd use up good paint and spile nice clean paper was a sinful waste. Afore she went, she give me three fathom of sailing orders concerning taking care of "James." You'd think he was about four year old; made me feel like a hired nurse.
James and me went perusing up and down that beach in the blazing sun looking for something to shoot. We went 'way beyond Lonesome's shanty, but there wa'n't nobody to home. Lonesome himself, it turned out afterward, was up to the village with his horse and wagon, and his daughter Becky was over in the wood on the mainland berrying. Todd was a cheerful talker, but limited. His favorite remark was: "Oh, I say, my deah man." That's what he kept calling me, "my deah man." Now, my name ain't exactly a Claude de Montmorency for prettiness, but "Barzilla" 'll fetch ME alongside a good deal quicker'n "my deah man," I'll tell you that.
We frogged it up and down all the forenoon, but didn't git a shot at nothing but one stray "squawk" that had come over from the Cedar Swamp. I told James 'twas a canvasback, and he blazed away at it, but missed it by three fathom, as might have been expected.
Finally, my game leg--rheumatiz, you understand--begun to give out. So I flops down in the shade of a sand bank to rest, and the reverend goes poking off by himself.
I cal'late I must have fell asleep, for when I looked at my watch it was close to one o'clock, and time for us to be getting back to port. I got up and stretched and took an observation, but further'n Clarissa's umbrella on the skyline, I didn't see anything stirring. Brother James wa'n't visible, but I jedged he was within hailing distance. You can't see very fur on that point, there's too many sand hills and hummocks.
I started over toward the Greased Lightning. I'd gone only a little ways, and was down in a gully between two big hummocks, when "Bang! bang!" goes both barrels of a shotgun, and that Todd critter busts out hollering like all possessed.
"Hooray!" he squeals, in that squeaky voice of his. "Hooray! I've got 'em! I've got 'em!"
Thinks I, "What in the nation does the lunatic cal'late he's shot?" And I left my own gun laying where 'twas and piled up over the edge of that sand bank like a cat over a fence. And then I see a sight.
There was James, hopping up and down in the beach grass, squealing like a Guinea hen with a sore throat, and waving his gun with one wing--arm, I mean--and there in front of him, in the foam at the edge of the surf, was two ducks as dead as Nebuchadnezzar--two of Lonesome Huckleberries' best decoy ducks--ducks he'd tamed and trained, and thought more of than anything else in this world--except rum, maybe--and the rest of the flock was digging up the beach for home as if they'd been telegraped for, and squawking "Fire!" and "Murder!"
Well, my mind was in a kind of various state, as you might say, for a minute. 'Course, I'd known about Lonesome's owning them decoys--told Todd about 'em,