Cape Cod (Mass.) -- Fiction; Short stories, American
“'Umph!' says he. 'You don't look like a man the girls would run after.
Lady your wife?'
“The little feller bobbed his specs up and down.
“'So?' says George. ''Ow can I bear to leave thee, 'ey? Well, ain't
you ashamed of yourself to be running off and leaving a nice, 'andsome,
able-bodied wife that like? Look at 'er now, over there on 'er knees a
praying for you to come back.'
“There was a little p'int making out from the beach close by the edge of
the channel and the woman was out on the end of it, down on all fours.
Her husband raised up and looked over the rail.
“'She ain't praying,' he pants, ducking down again quick. 'She's
a-picking up stones.'
“And so she was. Julius said he thought sure she'd cave in the Emily's
ribs afore she got through with her broadsides. The rocks flew like
hail. Everybody got their share, but Cap'n George got a big one in the
middle of the back. That took his breath so all the way he could express
his feelings was to reach out and give his new passenger half a dozen
kicks. But just as soon as he could he spoke, all right enough.
“'You mis'rable four-eyed shrimp!' he says. ''Twould serve you right if
I 'ove to and made you swim back to 'er. Blow me if I don't believe I
will!'
“'Aw, don't, Cap'n; PLEASE don't!' begs the feller. 'I'll be awful
grateful to you if you won't. And I'll make it right with you, too. I've
got a good thing in that bag of mine. Yes, sir! A beautiful good thing.'
“'Oh, well,' says the skipper, bracing up and smiling sweet as he could
for the ache in his back. 'I'll 'elp you out. You trust your Uncle
George. Not on account of what you're going to give me, you understand,'
says he. 'It would be a pity if THAT was the reason for 'elpin' a feller
creat--Sparrow, if you touch that bag I'll break your blooming 'ead.
'Ere! you 'and it to me. I'll take care of it for the gentleman.'
“All the rest of that day the Cap'n couldn't do enough for the
passenger. Give him a big dinner that took Teunis two hours to cook, and
let him use his own pet pipe with the last of Jule's tobacco in it, and
all that. And that evening in the cabin, Rosy told his story. Seems he
come from Bombay originally, where he was born an innocent and trained
to be a photographer. This was in the days when these hand cameras
wa'n't so common as they be now, and Rosy--his full name was Clarence
Rosebury, and he looked it--had a fine one. Also he had some plates and
photograph paper and a jug of 'developer' and bottles of stuff to make
more, wrapped up in an old overcoat and packed away in the carpetbag. He
had landed in the Fijis first-off and had drifted over to Hello Island,
taking pictures of places and natives and so on, intending to use 'em in
a course of lectures he was going to deliver when he got back home. He
boarded with the Kanaka lady at Hello till his money give out, and
then he married her to save board. He wouldn't talk about his married
life--just shivered instead.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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