"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