Keziah Coffin

“I hope you won't be alarmed,” continued the voice, broken by panting pauses, as if the speaker was struggling into a garment. “I know this must seem strange. You see, I came on the coach as far as Bayport and then we lost a wheel in a rut. There was a—oh, dear! where IS that—this is supremely idiotic!—I was saying there happened to be a man coming this way with a buggy and he offered to help me along. He was on his way to Wellmouth. So I left my trunk to come later and took my valise. It rained on the way and I was wet through. I stopped at Captain Daniels's house and the girl said he had gone with his daughter to the next town, but that they were to stop here at the parsonage on their way. So—there! that's right, at last!—so I came, hoping to find them. The door was open and I came in. The captain and his daughter were not here, but, as I was pretty wet, I thought I would seize the opportunity to change my clothes. I had some dry—er—things in my valise and I—well, then you came, you see, and—I assure you I—well, it was the most embarrassing—I'm coming now.”

The door opened. The two in the sitting room huddled close together, Keziah holding the broom like a battle-ax, ready for whatsoever might develop. From the dimness of the tightly shuttered study stepped the owner of the voice, a stranger, a young man, his hair rumpled, his tie disarranged, and the buttons of his waistcoat filling the wrong buttonholes. Despite this evidence of a hasty toilet in semidarkness, he was not unprepossessing. Incidentally, he was blushing furiously.

“I'm—I'm sure I beg your pardon, ladies,” he stammered. “I scarcely know what to say to you. I—”

His eyes becoming accustomed to the light in the sitting room, he was now able to see his captors more clearly. He looked at Keziah, then at Miss Van Horne, and another wave of blushes passed from his collar up into the roots of his hair. Grace blushed, too, though, as she perfectly well knew, there was no reason why she should.

Mrs. Coffin did not blush. This young fellow, although evidently not a tramp or a burglar, had caused her some moments of distinct uneasiness, and she resented the fact.

“Well,” she observed rather tartly, “I'm sorry you don't know what to say, but perhaps you might begin by telling us who you are and what you mean by makin' a—er—dressin' room of a house that don't belong to you, just because you happened to find the door unlocked. After that you might explain why you didn't speak up when we first come, instead of keepin' so mighty quiet. That looks kind of suspicious to me, I must say.”

The stranger's answer was prompt enough now. It was evident he resented the suspicion.

“I didn't speak,” he said, “because you took me by surprise and I wasn't, as I explained—er—presentable. Besides, I was afraid of frightening you. I assure you I hurried as fast as I could, quietly, and when you began to talk”—his expression changed and there was a twitch at the corner of his mouth—“I tried to hurry still faster, hoping you might not hear me and I could make my appearance—or my escape—sooner. As for entering the house—well, I considered it, in a way, my house; at least, I knew I should live in it for a time, and—”

“Live in it?” repeated Keziah. “LIVE in it? Why! mercy on us! you don't mean to say you're—”

She stopped to look at Grace. That young lady was looking at her with an expression which, as it expressed so very much, is beyond ordinary powers of description.

“My name is Ellery,” said the stranger. “I am the minister—the new minister of the Regular society.”

Then even Keziah blushed.

CHAPTER III

IN WHICH KEZIAH ASSUMES A GUARDIANSHIP

Didama would have given her eyeteeth—and, for that matter, the entire upper set—to have been present in that parsonage sitting room when the Rev. John Ellery made his appearance. But the fates were against Didama that day and it was months afterwards before she, or any of what Captain Zeb Mayo called the “Trumet Daily Advertisers,” picked up a hint concerning it. Keziah and Grace, acquainted with the possibilities of these volunteer news gatherers, were silent, and the Reverend John, being in some respects a discreet young man with a brand-new ministerial dignity to sustain, refrained from boasting of the sensation he had caused. He thought of it very often, usually at most inconvenient times, and when, by all the requirements of his high calling, his thought should have been busy with different and much less worldly matters.

“I declare!” said Mrs. Thankful Payne, after the new minister's first call at her residence, a week after his arrival at Trumet, “if Mr. Ellery ain't the most sympathetic man. I was readin' out loud to him the poem my cousin Huldy B.—her that married Hannibal Ellis over to Denboro—made up when my second husband was lost to sea, and I'd just got to the p'int in the ninth verse where it says:

And 'twas, too, and the last, poor thing! Well, I just got fur as this when I looked up and there was the minister lookin' out of the window and his face was just as red, and he kept scowlin' and bitin' his lips. I do believe he was all but sheddin' tears. Sympathy like that I appreciate.”

As a matter of fact, Mr. Ellery had just seen Grace Van Horne pass that window. She had not seen him, but for the moment he was back in that disgusting study, making a frenzied toilet in the dusk and obliged to overhear remarks pointedly personal to himself.

Grace left the parsonage soon after the supposed tramp disclosed his identity. Her farewells were hurried and she firmly refused Mrs. Coffin's not too-insistent appeal to return to the house “up street” and have supper. She said she was glad to meet Mr. Ellery. The young minister affirmed his delight in meeting her. Then she disappeared in the misty twilight and John Ellery surreptitiously wiped his perspiring forehead with his cuff, having in his late desire for the primal necessities forgotten such a trifling incidental as a handkerchief.

“Well, Mr. Ellery,” observed Keziah, turning to her guest, or employer, or incumbrance—at present she was more inclined to consider him the latter—“well, Mr. Ellery, this has been kind of unexpected for all hands, ain't it? If I'd known you was comin' to-day, I'd have done my best to have things ready, but Cap'n Elkanah said not before day after to-morrow and—but there, what's the use of talkin' that way? I didn't know I was goin' to keep house for you till this very forenoon. Mercy me, what a day this has been!”

The minister smiled rather one-sidedly.

“It's been something of a day for me,” he admitted. “I am ahead of time and I've made a lot of trouble, I'm afraid. But yesterday afternoon I was ready and, to tell the truth, I was eager to come and see my new home and get at my work. So I started on the morning train. Then the stage broke down and I began to think I was stranded at Bayport. But this kind-hearted chap from Wellmouth—I believe that's where he lived—happened to pull up to watch us wrestling with the smashed wheel, and when he found I was in a hurry to get to Trumet, offered to give me a lift. His name was—was Bird. No, that wasn't it, but it was something like Bird, or some kind of a bird.”

“Bird?” repeated Keziah thoughtfully. “There's no Birds that I know of in Wellmouth. Hum! Hey? 'Twa'n't Sparrow, was it?”

“That was it—Sparrow.”

“Good land! Emulous Sparrow. Run consider'ble to whiskers and tongue, didn't he?”

“Why, yes; he did wear a beard. As for tongue—well, he was conversational, if that's what you mean.”

“That's what I mean. If you rode twelve mile with Emulous, you must have had an earache for the last six. Did he ask a question or two about your personal affairs, here and there between times?”

Mr. Ellery laughed.

“Yes, one or two, between times,” he admitted.

“I shan't die of surprise. Did you tell him who you was?”

“No-o, to be honest, I didn't. He was so very anxious to find out, that—well, I dodged. I think he believed I was going to visit Captain Daniels.”

“Good enough! If I was governor of this state I wouldn't send any Thanksgivin' proclamations down this way. I'd just write Em Peters and Didama Rogers and a couple more like them and save myself the trouble. They'd have all I wanted to proclaim spread from one end of the county to the other in less'n a day, and a peck or two of extrys pitched in for good measure. I'm awful glad you didn't tell Emulous you was the minister. You see, Trumet's Trumet, and, considerin' everything, maybe it's just as well nobody knows about your bein' shut up in that study. Not but what 'twas all right, you know, but—”

“I understand. I'm not proud of it. Still, some one may have seen me come here.”

“No, no, they didn't. This fog is as thick as Injun-meal puddin'. Nobody saw you.”

“Well,” with some hesitation, “the young lady who was here with you—”

“Oh, Grace Van Horne! She's all right. She won't tell. She ain't that kind.”

“Van Horne? That doesn't sound like a New England name.”

“'Tisn't. Her folks come from Jersey somewheres. But she was adopted by old Cap'n Hammond, who keeps the tavern down on the bay shore by the packet wharf, and she's lived in Trumet since she was six years old. Her father was Teunis Van Horne, and he was mate on Cap'n Eben's coastin' schooner and was drowned off Hatteras. Eben was saved just by the skin of his teeth and got a broken hip and religion while it happened. His hip's better except that he's some lame; but his religion's been more and more feverish ever since. He's one of the head Come-Outers, and built their chapel with his own money. You mustn't think I'm speakin' lightly of religion, nor of Cap'n Eben, either. He's a dear good soul as ever was, but he is the narrowest kind of Come-Outer. His creed is just about as wide as the chapel door, and that's as narrow as the way leadin' to salvation; it IS the way, too, so the Come-Outers think.”

“What are Come-Outers? Some new sect?”

“Sakes alive! Haven't you heard of Come-Outers? Cat's foot! Well, you'll hear of 'em often enough from now on. They're folks who used to go to our church, the Regular, but left because the services was too worldly, with organs and choir singin', and the road to paradise too easy. No need for me to tell you any more. You'll learn.”

Mr. Ellery was interested. He had been in Trumet but once before, on the occasion when he preached his trial sermon, and of that memorable visit remembered little except the sermon itself, the pews filled with captains and their families, and the awe-inspiring personality of Captain Elkanah Daniels, who had been his host. To a young man, the ink upon his diploma from the theological school still fresh, a trial sermon is a weighty matter, and the preaching of it weightier still. He had rehearsed it over and over in private, had delivered it almost through clinched teeth, and had returned to his room in the Boston boarding house with the conviction that it was an utter failure. Captain Elkanah and the gracious Miss Annabel, his daughter, had been kind enough to express gratification, and their praise alone saved him from despair. Then, to his amazement, the call had come. Of casual conversation at the church and about the Daniels's table he could recall nothing. So there was another religious organization in town and that made up of seceders from his own church. He was surprised.

“Er—this Miss Van Horne?” he asked. “Is she a—Come-Outer?”

Mrs. Coffin nodded.

“Yes,” she said. “She's one. Couldn't be anything else and live with her Uncle Eben, as she calls him.”

The minister experienced a curious feeling of disappointment and chagrin. This young person, already predisposed to regard a clergyman of his denomination with disapproval, had seen him for the first time under most humiliating circumstances. And he should never have the opportunity to regain her favor, or his own self-respect, by his efforts in the pulpit. No matter how well he might preach she would never hear him.

“Has this Captain Hammond no children of his own?” he asked.

Keziah's answer was short for her.

“Yes,” she said. “One.”

“Ah! another daughter?”

“No, a son. Name's Nathaniel, and he's a sea captain. He's on his way from Surinam to New York now. They expect him to make port most any time, I believe. Now, Mr. Ellery, I s'pose we've got to arrange for your supper and stayin' overnight; and with this house the way 'tis and all, I don't see—”

But the minister was still interested in the Hammond household.

“This Nathaniel Hammond?” he asked. “You don't seem enthusiastic over him. Is he a black sheep?”

This reply also was short, but emphatic.

“No,” said Keziah. “He's a fine man.”

Then she resumed her semisoliloquy concerning her companion's entertainment.

“I guess,” she said, “that the best thing for you to do will be to go to Cap'n Elkanah's. They'll be real glad to see you, I know, and you'll be in time for supper, for Elkanah and Annabel have been to Denboro and they'll be late home. They can keep you overnight, too, for it's a big house with lots of rooms. Then, after breakfast to-morrow you come right here. I'll have things somewhere near shipshape by then, I guess, though the cleanin'll have to be mainly a lick and a promise until I can really get at it. Your trunk'll be here on the coach, I s'pose, and that'll be through early in the forenoon. Get on your hat and coat and I'll go with you to Elkanah's.”

The young man demurred a little at thrusting himself upon the hospitality of the Daniels's home, but Keziah assured him that his unexpected coming would cause no trouble. So he entered the now dark study and came out wearing his coat and carrying his hat and valise in his hand.

“I'm sure I'm ever so much obliged to you,” he said. “And, as we are going to be more or less together—or at least I guess as much from what you say—would you mind if I suggest a mutual introduction. I'm John Ellery; you know that already. And you—”

Keziah stopped short on her way to the door.

“Well, I declare!” she exclaimed. “If I ain't the very worst! Fact is, you dropped in so ahead of time and in such a irregular sort of way, that I never once thought of introducin' anybody; and I'm sure Grace didn't. I'm Keziah Coffin, and Cap'n Elkanah and I signed articles, so to speak, this mornin', and I'm goin' to keep house for you.”

She explained the reason upsetting the former arrangement by which Lurania Phelps was to have had the position.

“So I'm to keep house for you,” she concluded. Adding: “For a spell, anyhow.”

“Why do you say that?” asked the minister.

“Well, you might not like me. You may be particular, you know.”

“I think I can run that risk.”

“Yes; well, you can't tell. Or I might not like you. You see, I'm pretty particular myself,” she added with a laugh.

At the Daniels's door Keziah turned her new charge over to Matilda Snow, the hired girl. It was an indication of the family's social position that they kept “hired help.” This was unusual in Trumet in those days, even among the well to do.

“Good night,” said the young man, extending his hand. “Good night, Miss—or is it Mrs.—Coffin?”

“Mrs. Good night.”

“She's a widow,” explained Matilda. “Husband died 'fore she come back here to live. Guess he didn't amount to much; she never mentions his name.”

“There was one thing I meant to tell her,” mused the minister, hesitating on the threshold. “I meant to tell her not to attempt any cleaning up at the parsonage to-night. To-morrow will do just as well.”

“Heavens to Betsy!” sniffed the “hired help,” speaking from the depths of personal conviction, “nobody but a born fool would clean house in the night, 'specially after the cleanin' she's been doin' at her own place. I guess you needn't worry.”

So Mr. Ellery did not worry. And yet, until three o'clock of the following morning, the dull light of a whale-oil lantern illuminated the rooms of the parsonage as Keziah scrubbed and swept and washed, giving to the musty place the “lick and promise” she had prophesied. If the spiders had prepared those ascension robes, they could have used them that night.

After breakfast the wagons belonging to the Wellmouth furniture dealer drove in at the gate of the little house opposite Captain Elkanah's, and Keziah saw, with a feeling of homesickness which she hid beneath smiles and a rattle of conversation, the worn household treasures which had been hers, and her brother's before her, carried away out of her life. Then her trunks were loaded on the tailboards of the wagons, to be left at the parsonage, and with a sigh and a quick brush of her hand across her eyes, she locked the door for the last time and walked briskly down the road. Soon afterwards John Ellery, under the eminently respectable escort of Captain Elkanah and Miss Annabel, emerged from the Daniels's gate and followed her. Mrs. Didama Rogers, thankful for a clear atmosphere and an unobstructed view, saw them pass and recognized the stranger. And, within a quarter of an hour, she, arrayed in a hurried calling costume, was spreading the news along the main road. The “Trumet Daily Advertiser” had, so to speak, issued an extra.

Thus the new minister came to Trumet and thus Keziah Coffin became his housekeeper. She entered upon her duties with the whole-hearted energy peculiar to her. She was used to hard work, and, as she would have said, felt lonesome without it. She cleaned that parsonage from top to bottom. Every blind was thrown open and the spring sunshine poured in upon the braided mats and the rag carpets. Dust flew in clouds for the first day or two, but it flew out of windows and doors and was not allowed to settle within. The old black walnut furniture glistened with oil. The mirrors and the crockery sparkled from baths of hot water and soap. Even St. Stephen, in the engravings on the dining-room wall, was forced to a martyrdom of the fullest publicity, because the spots and smears on the glass covering his sufferings were violently removed. In the sleeping rooms upstairs the feather beds were beaten and aired, the sheets and blankets and patchwork comforters exposed to the light, and the window curtains dragged down and left to flap on the clothesline. The smell of musty dampness disappeared from the dining room and the wholesome odors of outdoors and of good things cooking took its place.

Keziah, in the midst of her labors, found time to coach her employer and companion in Trumet ways, and particularly in the ways which Trumet expected its clergymen to travel. On the morning following his first night in the parsonage, he expressed himself as feeling the need of exercise. He thought he should take a walk.

“Well,” said his housekeeper from her station opposite him at the breakfast table, “if I was you I wouldn't take too long a one. You'd better be back here by ten, anyhow. Where was you thinkin' of goin'?”

Mr. Ellery had no particular destination in mind. He would like to see something of the village and, perhaps, if she could give him the names of a few of his parishioners, he might make a few calls. Keziah shook her head.

“Gracious goodness!” she exclaimed. “I wouldn't advise you to do that. You ain't been here long enough to make forenoon calls. If you should catch some of the women in this town with aprons and calico on, they'd never forgive you in this world. Wait till afternoon; they'll be expectin' you then and they'll be rigged out in their best bibs and tuckers. S'pose you found Annabel Daniels with her hair done up in curl papers; what do you think would happen? Mornin's are no time for ministers' calls. Even old Mr. Langley never made calls in the forenoon—and he'd been here thirty-odd years.”

“All right, you know best. Much obliged for the advice. Then I'll simply take my walk and leave the calls until later.”

“I'd be back by ten, though. Folks'll begin callin' on you by that time.”

“They will? Doesn't the rule work both ways?”

“Not with new ministers it don't. Cat's foot! You don't s'pose Didama Rogers and Laviny Pepper and their kind'll wait any longer'n they can help afore they come to see what you look like, do you?”

“Well, they must have seen me when I preached here before. I remember—”

“Mercy on us! that was in meetin'. Meetin's diff'rent. All they could say to you then was how much they liked your sermon. They say that to every minister that comes, no matter how they may pick him to pieces afterwards. But here they can ask you questions; about how you came to come here and what you think of it far's you've got, and what your views are on certain points in the creed. Likewise, who your folks were and whether they was well off, and a few things like that. Then they'll want to see what kind of clothes you wear and—”

“Whew!” Ellery whistled. “You're unfolding a pleasant prospect for me, I must say. Am I supposed to be catechized on all of my private affairs?”

“Of course! A minister hasn't got any private affairs; he's a public character. There!” she laughed, as she poured the coffee, “I mustn't discourage you. But don't you see that every mother's son—and, for that matter, every daughter and children's child unto the third and fourth generation—feel that, so long as they pay pew rent or put a cent in the collection, they own a share in you. And we always keep a watch on our investments down this way. That's the Yankee shrewdness you read so much about, I guess.”

The minister absently played with his spoon.

“I'm afraid you're a cynic,” he said.

“No, no, I ain't. Though sometimes, considerin' everything, I feel as though I had excuse enough if I wanted to belong to that tribe. But you're young. You mustn't mind my sayin' that; if you was old, of course, I wouldn't talk about ages. But you are young and this is your first church. So you must start right. I'm no cynic, bless you. I've got trust in human nature left—most kinds of human nature. If I hadn't, I'd have more money, I s'pose. Perhaps you've noticed that those who trust a good deal are usually poor. It's all right, Mr. Ellery; you go and take your walk. And I'll walk into that pantry closet. It'll be a good deal like walkin' into the Slough of Despond, but Christian came out on the other side and I guess likely I will, if the supply of soapsuds holds out.”

When, promptly at ten o'clock, the minister returned from his walk, he found Mrs. Rogers waiting in the sitting room. It is a prime qualification of an alert reporter to be first on the scene of sensation. Didama was seldom beaten. Mr. Ellery's catechism began. Before it was over Keziah opened the door to admit Miss Pepper and her brother. “Kyan” was nervous and embarrassed in the housekeeper's presence. Lavinia was a glacier, moving majestically and freezing as it moved. Keziah, however, was not even touched by the frost; she greeted the pair cordially, and begged them to “take off their things.”

It was dinner time before the catechizers departed. The catechized came to the table with an impaired appetite. He looked troubled.

“Don't let it worry you, Mr. Ellery,” observed Keziah calmly. “I think I can satisfy you. Honest and true, I ain't half as bad as you might think.”

The minister looked more troubled than before; also surprised.

“Why, Mrs. Coffin!” he cried. “Could you hear—”

“No, no! I couldn't hear nothin' in that closet except my own opinion on dirt and dust. But if I was as deaf as the man that set on the powder keg and dropped his pipe ashes into it, it wouldn't have made any difference. The man said after they picked him up that they needn't have been so rough, he'd have moved without bein' pushed if they'd have made signs they wanted to use the keg. And if I was out in the next lot I'd have known what you was listenin' to in that sittin' room. They hinted that they were real sorry for you, but 'twasn't any of THEIR doin's. The parish committee, bein' just men, was apt to make mistakes in certain matters. Of course everything MIGHT be well enough, and if you wa'n't TOO particular about cookin' and so on, why—Anyhow, you mustn't think that THEY were criticisin'. 'Twas only that they took an interest and—That was about it, wasn't it?”

“Mrs. Coffin, I—I hope you don't think I paid any attention to their remarks—of that kind, I mean. Honestly, I did my best to stop them. I said—”

“Man alive! I'm not worried. Why should you be? We were talkin' about trust just now—or I was. Well, you and I'll have to take each other on trust for a while, until we see whether we're goin' to suit. If you see anything that I'm goin' wrong in, I wish you'd tell me. And I'll do the same by you, if that's agreeable. You'll hear a lot of things said about me, but if they're very bad I give you my word they ain't true. And, to be real frank, I'll probably hear some about you, which I'll take for what they're worth and considerin' who said 'em. That's a good wholesome agreement, I think, for both of us. What do you think?”

John Ellery said, with emphasis, that he thought well of it. He began to realize that this woman, with her blunt common sense, was likely to be a pilot worth having in the difficult waters which he must navigate as skipper of the Regular church in Trumet. Also, he began to realize that, as such a skipper, he was most inexperienced. And Captain Daniels had spoken highly—condescendingly but highly—of his housekeeper's qualifications and personality. So the agreement was ratified, with relief on his part.

The first Sunday came and with it the first sermon. He read that sermon to Keziah on Saturday evening and she approved of it as a whole, though she criticised some of its details.

“Don't be afraid to put in plenty of salt,” she said. “Where you've got the Christian life and spirit written down as bein' like a quiet, peaceful home, free from all distrust, and like that, why don't you change it to a good safe anchorage, where the soul can ride forever without fear of breakers or no'theasters or the dangers besettin' the mariner on a lee shore. They'll understand that; it gets right home to 'em. There's scarcely a man or a woman in your congregation that ain't been out of sight of land for weeks on a stretch.”

The breakfast hour on Sunday would be at nine o'clock, instead of seven, as on week days, she told him.

“Trumet lays to bed Sunday mornin's,” she explained. “It's almost a part of its religion, as you might say, and lived up to more conscientious than some other parts, I'm afraid. Six days shalt thou labor and wear comfort'ble clothes; and on the seventh you must be lazy and dress up. Likewise you must have baked beans Saturday for supper, as we're havin' 'em, and more beans with fish balls next mornin'. That is, if you want to be orthodox.”

The service began at eleven o'clock. At half past ten the sexton, old Mr. Jubal Knowles, rang the “first bell,” a clanging five-minute reminder. Twenty minutes later he began on the second and final call. Mr. Ellery was ready—and nervous—before the first bell had finished ringing. But Keziah, entering the sitting room dressed in black alpaca and carrying the hymn book with her name in gilt letters on the cover, forbade his leaving the parsonage thus early.

“I shall go pretty soon,” she said, “but you mustn't. The minister ain't expected until the last bell's 'most done. Parson Langley used to wait until the Winslows went in. Gaius Winslow is a widower man who lives up to the west end of the town and he's got nine children, all boys. You'll know 'em because they always drive down to meetin' in one carryall with a white horse. Gaius is as punctual as a boardin'-house dinner. The old parson used to wait until the last Winslow had toddled up the meetin'-house steps and then he'd come out of this side door with his sermon in his hand. It's a pretty good rule to remember and saves watchin' the clock. Besides, it's what we've been used to, and that goes a good ways with some folks. Good-by, Mr. Ellery. You'll see me in the third pew from the back, on the right side, wishin' you luck just as hard as I can.”

So, as in couples or family groups, afoot or in all sorts of vehicles, the members of Trumet's Regular society came to the church to hear their new minister, that functionary peeped under the parlor window shade of the parsonage and waited, fidgetting and apprehensive, for the Winslows. They arrived at last, and were not hard to recognize, for ten individuals packed into one carriage are hard to overlook anywhere. As Gaius, with the youngest in his arms, passed in at the church door, John Ellery passed out of the parsonage gate. The last bell clanged its final stroke, the vibrations ceased, the rustle of skirts and the sounds of decorous coughing subsided and were succeeded by the dry rattle of the hymn-book pages, the organ, presented by Captain Elkanah and played by his daughter, uttered its preliminary groan, the service began.

Outside the spring breeze stirred the budding silver-leafs, the distant breakers grumbled, the crows in the pines near Captain Eben Hammond's tavern cawed ribald answers to the screaming gulls perched along the top of the breakwater. And seated on one of the hard benches of the little Come-Outer chapel, Grace Van Horne heard her “Uncle Eben,” who, as usual, was conducting the meeting, speak of “them who, in purple and fine linen, with organs and trumpets and vain shows, are gathered elsewhere in this community to hear a hired priest make a mock of the gospel.” (A-MEN!)

But John Ellery, the “hired priest,” knew nothing of this. He did know, however, that he was the center of interest for his own congregation, the people among whom he had been called to labor. Their praise or criticism meant everything to him; therefore he preached for dear life.

And Keziah Coffin, in the third pew from the back, watched him intently, her mind working in sympathetic unison with his. She was not one to be greatly influenced by first impressions, but she had been favorably impressed by this young fellow, and had already begun to feel that sense of guardianship and personal responsibility which, later on, was to make Captain Zebedee Mayo nickname the minister “Keziah's Parson.”

The sermon was a success.

CHAPTER IV

IN WHICH KEZIAH'S PARSON DECIDES TO RUN IT BLINDFOLD

On Monday afternoon the minister made a few calls. Keziah made out a short list for him to follow, a “sort of chart of the main channel,” she called it, “with the safe ports marked and the shoals and risky places labeled dangerous.”

“You see,” she said, “Trumet ain't a course you can navigate with your eyes shut. We divide ourselves into about four sets—aristocrats, poor relations, town folks, and scum. The aristocrats are the big bugs like Cap'n Elkanah and the other well-off sea captains, afloat or ashore. They 'most all go to the Regular church and the parish committee is steered by 'em. The poor relations are mainly widows and such, whose husbands died or were lost at sea. Most of them are Regulars. The town folks are those that stay ashore and keep store or run salt works or somethin'. And the scum work around on odd jobs or go fishin'. So, if you really want to be safe, you must call on the aristocrats first, after that on the poor relations, and so on down. You won't be bothered with scum much; they're mainly Come-Outers.”

Ellery took the list from her hand and looked it over.

“Hum!” he said musingly. “Am I supposed to recognize these—er—class distinctions?”

“Yes. That is, not in meetin' or sewin' circle or anything like that, or not out and out and open anywhere. But you want to cultivate a sort of different handshake and how-dy-do for each set, so's to speak. Gush all you want to over an aristocrat. Be thankful for advice and always SO glad to see 'em. With the poor relations you can ease up on the gush and maybe condescend some. Town folks expect condescension and superiority; give it to 'em. When it comes to scum, why—well, any short kind of a bow and a 'Mornin' 'll do for them. 'Course the Lord, in His infinite mercy, made 'em, same as He did potato bugs, but it's necessary to keep both bugs and them down to their proper place.”

She delivered this in the intervals between trips to the kitchen with the dinner dishes. The minister listened with a troubled expression on his face.

“Mrs. Coffin,” he said, “I guess I'm dull. There was a Scotch professor at college and the fellows used to say his bump of humor was a dent. Maybe mine isn't much better. Are you joking?”

Keziah stacked the cups and saucers.

“I ain't jokin',” she declared. “I've been a poor relation in this village for a good while and my brother was a shoemaker and on the upper fringe of the town-folk class. My humor bump would have to stick up like Cannon Hill afore I could see any joke in that.”

“But you're not seriously advising me to treat a rich man differently from a poor one?”

“Not openly different—no. But if you want to steer a perfectly SAFE course, one that'll keep deep water under your keel the whole voyage, why, there's your chart.”

Mr. Ellery promptly tore the “chart” into small pieces.

“I'm going out,” he said. “I shall be back by supper time.”

Mrs. Coffin eyed him grimly.

“Goin' to run it blindfold, are you?” she asked.

“Yes, I am.”

Her grimness disappeared and she smiled.

“I'll have your supper ready for you,” she said. “Bring back a good appetite.”

The young man hesitated on the threshold.

“Mrs. Coffin,” he demanded, “would YOU have called only on the aristocrats at first?”

She shook her head, smiling still.

“No,” she replied, “not me. I've always taken risks. But I didn't know but you might be a safe sailor. It saves a lot of trouble in this world.”

“How about the next?”

“Oh, well, perhaps even the scum may count for somethin' over there.” She turned to face him and her smile vanished. “Go on, Mr. Ellery,” she said. “Go and call where you please. Far be it from me that I should tell you to do anything else. I suppose likely you hope some day to be a great preacher. I hope you will. But I'd enough sight rather you was a good man than the very greatest. No reason why you can't be both. There was a preacher over in Galilee once, so you told us yesterday, who was just good. 'Twa'n't till years afterwards that the crowd came to realize that he was great, too. And, if I recollect right, he chummed in with publicans and sinners. I'm glad you tore up that fool paper of mine. I hoped you might when I gave it to you. Now you run along, and I'll wash dishes. If cleanliness is next to godliness, then a parson ought to eat out of clean plates.”

As a matter of fact, the minister's calls were in the nature of a compromise, although an unintentional one. He dropped in on Zebedee Mayo, owner of the big house on the slope of the hill. Captain Zeb took him up into what he called his “cupoler,” the observatory on the top of the house, and showed him Trumet spread out like a map. The main road was north and south, winding and twisting its rutted, sandy way. Along it were clustered the principal houses and shops, shaded by silver-leaf poplars, a few elms, and some willows and spruces. Each tree bent slightly away from the northeast, the direction from which blew the heavy winter gales. Beyond the main road were green slopes and pastures, with swamps in the hollows, swamps which were to be cranberry bogs in the days to come. Then the lower road, with more houses, and, farther on, the beach, the flats—partially uncovered because it was high tide—and the bay.

Behind the Mayo house was the crest of Cannon Hill, more hills, pastures and swamps, scattered houses and pine groves. Then began the tumbled, humped waste of sand dunes, and, over their ragged fringes of beach plum and bayberry bushes, the deep blue of the wide Atlantic. The lighthouse was a white dot and the fish shanties a blotch of brown. Along the inner edge of the blue were scars of dancing white, the flashing teeth of hungry shoals which had torn to pieces and swallowed many a good ship. And, far out, dotted and sprinkled along the horizon, were sails.

“See?” said Captain Zeb, puffing still from the exertion of climbing the ladder to the “cupoler,” for he was distinctly “fleshy.” “See? The beacon's up. Packet come in this mornin'. There she is. See her down there by the breakwater?”

Sure enough, the empty barrel, painted red, was hoisted to the top of its pole on the crest of Cannon Hill. And, looking down at the bay and following the direction of the stubby pointing finger, Ellery saw a little schooner, with her sails lowered, lying, slightly on her side, in a shallow pool near a long ridge of piled stones—the breakwater. A small wharf made out from the shore and black figures moved briskly upon it. Carts were alongside the schooner and there more dots were busy.

“Eben's pennant's flyin',” said Captain Zeb. “He always sets colors when the packet's in. Keeps packet tavern, Eben does. That's it, that old-fashioned, gambrel-roofed house on the rise by the wharf. Call it 'Saints' Rest,' they do now, 'cause Eben's so mighty religious.”

The minister saw the long, rambling house, with one lonely, twisted tree in its yard, a flag flying from a pole beside it. So that was where the Hammonds lived. And where the girl lived who was certain he was a “conceited snippet.” Whatever he might be in reality he hoped it was not that. “Snippet” was not in his dictionary, but he didn't like the sound of it.

“Who owns the packet?” he asked, to make conversation.

“Zach Foster. Married Freewill Doane's daughter over to Harniss. She's dead now.”

“A good sailor, is he?”

Captain Zeb spat in supreme disgust.

“Good farmer!” he snorted. “Zach took over the packet for a debt when the chap that used to run her died. His dad, old man Foster, raised garden truck at the same time mine went to sea. Both of us took after our fathers, I guess. Anyhow, my wife says that when I die 'twill be of salt water on the brain, and I'm sure Zach's head is part cabbage. Been better for him if he'd stuck to his garden. However, I s'pose he does his best.”

“They say angels can do no more.”

“Um-m. Well, Zach'll be an angel pretty soon if he keeps on cruisin' with that old hooker as she is. 'Bijah Perry, he's mate and the only good seaman aboard, tells me that most of the riggin's rotten and the main topmast ain't sound, by a good deal. The old man's put off havin' her overhauled for two reasons, one that repairs cost money, and t'other that puttin' off is the main sheet of his gospel. When there's no rain the roof don't leak and long's it don't blow too hard 'most any kind of gear'll hold. That's philosophy—cabbage philosophy.”

Ellery decided that he should like Captain Zeb, although it was evident that the old whaler had decided opinions of his own which he did not hesitate to express. He judged that the Mayos were of the so-called aristocracy, but undoubtedly unique specimens. He visited four more households that afternoon. The last call was at Mrs. Thankful Payne's, and while there, listening to the wonderful “poem,” he saw Miss Van Horne pass the window, as has already been told. He came home to a Cape Cod supper of scalloped clams, hot biscuits, and baked Indian pudding, and Keziah greeted him with a cheery smile which made him feel that it WAS home. His summary disposal of the “chart” had evidently raised him in his housekeeper's estimation. She did not ask a single question as to where he had been.

Next day he had a taste of Trumet's real aristocracy, the genuine article. Captain Elkanah Daniels and his daughter made their first formal call. The captain was majestic in high hat, fur-collared cape, tailed coat, and carrying a gold-headed cane. Miss Annabel wore her newest gown and bonnet and rustled as she walked. They entered the sitting room and the lady glanced superciliously about the apartment.

“Hum—ha!” barked Captain Elkanah. “Ahem! Mr. Ellery, I trust you're being made comfortable. The parish committee are—hum—ah—anxious that you should be. Yes?”

The minister said that he was very comfortable indeed.

“It isn't what you've been used to, we know,” observed Miss Annabel. “Mr. Langley, our former pastor, was a sweet old gentleman, but he was old-fashioned and his tastes were queer, especially in art. Have you noticed that 'fruit piece' in the dining room? Isn't it too ridiculous?”

Ellery admitted that the fruit piece was rather funny; but no doubt it had been a gift and so

—“Yes, indeed. I guess it was a present, fast enough. Nobody would buy such a thing. It seems strange to pa and me that, although so many of our people have been abroad, they have such strange ideas of art. Do you remember the beautiful marbles in the palaces at Florence, Mr. Ellery? Of course you've seen them?”

The minister was obliged to admit that he had never been abroad.

“Oh, is that so? I've been so many times with pa that it seems almost as if everybody was as familiar with Yurrup as I am. You remember what I said about the marbles, pa?”

Her parent nodded.

“Hum—ha! Oh, yes, yes,” he said. “That was when I was in the fruit-carrying trade and made a voyage to Valenchy.”

“Valencia, pa,” corrected Annabel. “And Valencia is in Spain.”

“I know it. But we went to Leghorn afterwards. I sailed to Cronstadt for some years regular. Cronstadt is in Rooshy, Mr. Ellery.”

“Russia, pa,” snapped his daughter. Then she changed the subject to church and parish affairs. They spoke of the sewing circle and the reading society and the Friday-evening meetings.

“The Come-Outers are so vexed with us,” tittered Miss Annabel, “that they won't even hold prayer meeting on the same night as ours. They have theirs on Thursday nights and it's as good as a play to hear them shout and sing and carry on. You'll enjoy the Come-Outers, Mr. Ellery. They're a perfect delight.”

And as they rose to go Captain Elkanah asked:

“Is there anything you'd like done about the parsonage, Mr. Ellery? If so, it shall be done immejitly. How are you satisfied with your housekeeper?”

“Very well, indeed, Captain Daniels,” was the prompt reply.

“She's a character, isn't she?” giggled Annabel. “She was born here in Trumet, but went away to New Bedford when she was young and grew up there. Her maiden name was Hall, but while she was away she married a man named Ansel Coffin. They didn't live together very long and weren't happy, I guess. I don't know whose fault it was, nobody knows much of anything about it, for that's the one thing she won't talk about. Anyhow, the Coffin man was lost to sea, and after a while she came back to keep house for her brother Solomon. She's an awful odd stick, but she's a good cook, I believe; though I'm afraid you won't get the meals people such as ourselves, who've been so much in the city, are used to.”

Ellery thought of the meals at his city boarding house and shuddered. He was an orphan and had boarded for years. Incidentally, he had worked his way through college. Captain Elkanah cleared his throat.

“Keziah,” he commanded. “Hum—ha! Keziah, come in here a minute.”

Keziah came in response to the call, her sewing in her hand. The renovation of the parsonage had so far progressed that she could now find time for a little sewing, after the dinner dishes were done.

“Keziah,” said the captain pompously, “we expect you to look out for Mr. Ellery in every respect. The parish committee expects that—yes.”

“I'll try,” said Mrs. Coffin shortly.

“Yes. Well, that's all. You can go. We must be going, too, Mr. Ellery. Please consider our house at your disposal any time. Be neighborly—hum—ha!—be neighborly.”

“Yes,” purred Annabel. “DO come and see us often. Congenial society is very scarce in Trumet, for me especially. We can read together. Are you fond of Moore, Mr. Ellery? I just dote on him.”

The last “hum—ha” was partially drowned by the click of the gate. Keziah closed the dining-room door.

“Mrs. Coffin,” said the minister, “I shan't trouble the parish committee. Be sure of that. I'm perfectly satisfied.”

Keziah sat down in the rocker and her needle moved very briskly for a moment. Then she said, without looking up:

“That's good. I own up I like to hear you say it. And I am glad there are some things I do like about this new place of mine. Because—well, because there's likely to be others that I shan't like at all.”

On Friday evening the minister conducted his first prayer meeting. Before it, and afterwards, he heard a good deal concerning the Come-Outers. He learned that Captain Eben Hammond had preached against him in the chapel on Sunday. Most of his own parishioners seemed to think it a good joke.

“Stir 'em up, Mr. Ellery,” counseled Lavinia Pepper. “Stir 'em up! Don't be afraid to answer em from the pulpit and set 'em where they belong. Ignorant, bigoted things!”

Others gave similar counsel. The result was that the young man became still more interested in these people who seemed to hate him and all he stood for so profoundly. He wished he might hear their side of the case and judge it for himself. It may as well be acknowledged now that John Ellery had a habit of wishing to judge for himself. This is not always a politic habit in a country minister.

The sun of the following Thursday morning rose behind a curtain of fog as dense as that of the day upon which Ellery arrived. A flat calm in the forenoon, the wind changed about three o'clock and, beginning with a sharp and sudden squall from the northwest, blew hard and steady. Yet the fog still cloaked everything and refused to be blown away.

“There's rain astern,” observed Captain Zeb, with the air of authority which belongs to seafaring men when speaking of the weather. “We'll get a hard, driving rain afore mornin', you see. Then, if she still holds from the northwest'ard, it'll fair off fine.”

“Goin' out in this, Mr. Ellery!” exclaimed Keziah, in amazement, as the minister put on his hat and coat about seven that evening. “Sakes alive! you won't be able to see the way to the gate. It's as dark as a nigger's pocket and thicker than young ones in a poor man's family, as my father used to say. You'll be wet through. Where in the world are you bound for THIS night?”

The minister equivocated. He said he had been in the house all day and felt like a walk.

“Well, take an umbrella, then,” was the housekeeper's advice. “You'll need it before you get back, I cal'late.”

It was dark enough and thick enough, in all conscience. The main road was a black, wet void, through which gleams from lighted windows were but vague, yellow blotches. The umbrella was useful in the same way that a blind man's cane is useful, in feeling the way. The two or three stragglers who met the minister carried lanterns. One of these stragglers was Mr. Pepper. Kyan was astonished.

“Well, I snum!” cried Kyan, raising the lantern. “If 'tain't Mr. Ellery. Where you bound this kind of night?”

Before the minister could answer, a stately figure appeared and joined the pair. Lavinia, of course.

“Well, Mr. Ellery,” she said. “Ain't you lost, out in this fog? Anybody sick?”

No, no one was sick.

“That's a mercy. Goin' callin', be you?”

“No.”

“Hum! Queer weather for a walk, I call it. Won't be many out to-night, except Come-Outers goin' to holler their lungs loose at prayer meetin'. He, he! You ain't turned Come-Outer, have you, Mr. Ellery? You've headed right for the chapel.”

Ellery's reply was hurried and a bit confused. He said good night and went on.

“Laviny,” whispered the shocked Kyan, “do you think that was a—er—polite thing to say to a parson? That about his turnin' Come-Outer? He didn't make much answer, seemed to me. You don't think he was mad, do ye?”

“I don't care if he was,” snorted Miss Pepper. “He could tell a body where he was goin' then. Nobody can snub me, minister or not. I think he's kind of stuck-up, if you want to know, and if he is, he'll get took down in a hurry. Come along, don't stand there with your mouth open like a flytrap. I'd like to know what he was up to. I've a precious good mind to follow him; would if 'twa'n't so much trouble.”

She didn't. Yet, if she had, she would have deemed the trouble worth while. For John Ellery stumbled on through the mist till he reached the “Corners” where the store was located and the roads forked. There, he turned to the right, into the way called locally “Hammond's Turn-off.” A short distance down the “Turn-off” stood a small, brown-shingled building, its windows alight. Opposite its door, on the other side of the road, grew a spreading hornbeam tree surrounded by a cluster of swamp blackberry bushes. In the black shadow of the hornbeam Mr. Ellery stood still. He was debating in his mind a question: should he or should he not enter that building?

As he stood there, groups of people emerged from the fog and darkness and passed in at the door. Some of them he had seen during his fortnight in Trumet. Others were strangers to him. A lantern danced and wabbled up the “Turn-off” from the direction of the bay shore and the packet wharf. It drew near, and he saw that it was carried by an old man with long white hair and chin beard, who walked with a slight limp. Beside him was a thin woman wearing a black poke bonnet and a shawl. In the rear of the pair came another woman, a young woman, judging by the way she was dressed and her lithe, vigorous step. The trio halted on the platform of the building. The old man blew out the lantern. Then he threw the door open and a stream of yellow light poured over the group.

The young woman was Grace Van Horne. The minister recognized her at once. Undoubtedly, the old man with the limp was her guardian, Captain Eben Hammond, who, by common report, had spoken of him, Ellery, as a “hired priest.”

The door closed. A few moments thereafter the sound of a squeaky melodeon came from within the building. It wailed and quavered and groaned. Then, with a suddenness that was startling, came the first verse of a hymn, sung with tremendous enthusiasm: