The Postmaster — Context and Discussion

supposed I should be brought to this. I am a man of family, Cap’n Snow."

"Yes," I says, "so’m I. Number eight in a family of thirteen. But that never helped me none. My experience is that you can’t count much on your relations."

Would I pardon him, but that was not the sense in which he had used the word "family." He meant that he came of the best blood in New England. His ancestors had made their marks and—

"Made their marks!" I put in. "Why? Couldn’t they write their names?"

He was dreadful shocked, but he explained. The Beanblossoms and their gang were big-bugs, fine folks. He was terrible proud of his family. During the latter part of his life in Boston he had become interested in genealogy. He had begun a "family tree"—whatever that was—but he never finished it. The smash came and shook him out of the branches; that wa’n’t what he said, but ’twas the way I sensed it. And now he had come to this. His money was gone; he couldn’t pay his debts; he couldn’t have any more credit. He must fail; he was bankrupt. Oh, the disgrace! and likewise oh, the poorhouse!

"But," says I, considerin’, "it can’t be so turrible bad. You don’t owe but a thousand dollars, this store’s the only one in town and Abial used to do pretty well with it. If your debts was paid, and you had a little cash to stock up with, seems to me you might make a decent v’yage yet. Couldn’t you?"

He didn’t know. Perhaps he could. But what was the use of talkin’ that way? For him to pick up a thousand would be about as easy as for a paralyzed man with boxin’ gloves on to pick up a flea, or words to that effect. No, no, ’twas no use! he must go to the poorhouse! and so forth and so on.

"You hold on," I says. "Don’t you engage your poorhouse berth yet. You keep mum and say nothin’ to nobody and let me think this over a spell. I need somethin’ to keep me interested and ... I’ll see you to-morrow sometime. Good night."

I went home thinkin’ and I thought till pretty nigh one o’clock. Then I decided I was a fool even to think for five minutes. Hadn’t I sworn to be careful and never take another risk? I was sorry for poor old Winthrop, but I couldn’t afford to mix pity and good legal tender; that was the sort of blue and yeller drink that filled the poor-debtors’ courts. And, besides, wasn’t I pridin’ myself on bein’ a gentleman of leisure. If I got mixed up in this, no tellin’ what I might be led into. Hadn’t I bragged to Pike about—Oh, I _was_ a fool!

Which was all right, only, after listenin’ to the breakfast conversation at the Poquit House, down I goes to the store and afore the forenoon was over I was Winthrop Adams Beanblossom’s silent partner to the extent of twenty-five hundred dollars. I was busy once more and glad of it, even though Pike _was_ goin’ to get a hat free.

This was in January. By early March I was twice as busy and not half as glad. You see I’d cal’lated that the store was all right, all it needed was financin’. Trade was just asleep, taking a nap, and I could wake it up. I was wrong. Trade was dead, and, barrin’ the comin’ of a prophet or some miracle worker to fetch it to life, what that shop was really sufferin’ for was an undertaker. My twenty-five hundred was funeral expenses, that’s all.

But the prophet came. Yes, sir, he came and fetched his miracle with him. One evenin’, after all the reg’lar customers, who set around in chairs borrowin’ our genuine tobacco and payin’ for it with counterfeit funny stories, had gone—after everybody, as we cal’lated, had cleared out—Beanblossom and I set down to hold our usual autopsy over the remains of the fortni’t’s trade. ’Twas a small corpse and didn’t take long to dissect. We’d lost twenty-one dollars and sixty-eight cents, and the only comfort in that was that ’twas seventy-six cents less than the two weeks previous. The weather had been some cooler and less stuff had sp’iled on our hands; that accounted for the savin’.

Beanblossom—I’d got into the habit of callin’ him "Pullet" ’cause his general build was so similar to a moultin’ chicken—he vowed he couldn’t understand it.

"I think I shall give up buyin’ so liberally, Cap’n Snow," says he. "If we didn’t keep on buyin’ we shouldn’t lose half so much," he says.

"Yes," says I, "that’s logic. And if we give up sellin’ we shouldn’t lose the other half. You and me are all right as fur as we go, Pullet, and I guess we’ve gone about as fur as we can."

"Please don’t call me ’Pullet,’" he says, dignified. "When I think of what I once was, it—"

"S-sh-h!" I broke in. "It’s what I am that troubles me. I don’t dare think of that when the minister’s around—he might be a mind-reader. No, Pul—Beanblossom, I mean—it’s no use. I imagined because I could run a three-masted schooner I could navigate this craft. I can’t. I know twice as much as you do about keepin’ store, but the trouble with that example is the answer, which is that you don’t know nothin’. We might just exactly as well shut up shop now, while there’s enough left to square the outstandin’ debts."

He turned white and began the hand-wringin’ exercise.

"Think of the disgrace!" he says.

"Think of my twenty-five hundred," says I.

"Excuse me, gentlemen," says a voice astern of us; "excuse me for buttin’ in; but I judge that what you need is a butter."

Pullet and I jumped and turned round. We’d supposed we was alone and to say we was surprised is puttin’ it mild. For a second I couldn’t make out what had happened, or where the voice came from, or who ’twas that had spoke—then, as he come across into the lamplight I recognized him. ’Twas Jim Henry Jacobs, the livin’ mystery.

Jim Henry was middlin’-sized, sharp-faced, dressed like a ready-tailored advertisement, and as smooth and slick as an eel in a barrel of sweet ile. Accordin’ to his entry on the books of the Poquit House he hailed from Chicago. He’d been in Ostable for pretty nigh a month and nobody had been able to find out any more about him than just that, which is a some miracle of itself—if you know Ostable. He was always ready to talk—talkin’ was one of his main holts—but when you got through talkin’ with him all you had to remember was a smile and a flow of words. He was at the seashore for his health, that he always give you to understand. You could believe it if you wanted to.

He’d got into the habit of spendin’ his evenin’s at Pullet’s store, settin’ around listenin’ and smilin’ and agreein’ with folks. He was the only feller I ever met who could say no and agree with you at the same time. Solon Saunders tried to borrow fifty cents of him once and when the pair of ’em parted, Saunders was scratchin’ his head and lookin’ puzzled. "I can’t understand it," says Solon. "I would have swore he’d lent it to me. ’Twas just as if I had the fifty in my hand. I—I thanked him for it and all that, but—but now he’s gone I don’t seem to be no richer than when I started. I can’t understand it."

Pullet and I had seen him settin’ abaft the stove early in the evenin’, but, somehow or other, we got the notion that he’d cleared out with the other loafers. However, he hadn’t, and he’d heard all we’d been sayin’.

He walked across to where we was, pulled a shoe box from under the counter, come to anchor on it and crossed his legs.

"Gentlemen," he says again, "you need a butter."

Poor old Pullet was so set back his brains was sort of scrambled, like a pan of eggs.

"Er-er, Mr. Jacobs," he says, "I am very sorry, extremely sorry, but we are all out just at this minute. I fully intended to order some to-day, but I—I guess I must have forgotten it."

Jacobs couldn’t seem to make any more out of this than I did.

"Out?" he says, wonderin’. "Out? Who’s out? What’s out? I guess I’ve dropped the key or lost the combination. What’s the answer?"

"Why, butter," says Pullet, apologizin’. "You asked for butter, didn’t you? As I was sayin’, I should have ordered some to-day, but—"

Jim Henry waved his hands. "Sh-h," he says, "don’t mention it. Forget it. If I’d wanted butter in this emporium I should have asked for somethin’ else. I’ve been givin’ this mart of trade some attention for the past three weeks and I judge that its specialty is bein’ able to supply what ain’t wanted. I hinted that you two needed a butter-in. All right. I’m the goat. Now if you’ll kindly give me your attention, I’ll elucidate."

We give the attention. After he’d "elucidated" for five minutes we’d have given him our clothes. You never heard such a mess of language as that Chicago man turned loose. He talked and talked and talked. He knew all about the store and the business, and what he didn’t know he guessed and guessed right. He knew about Pullet and his buyin’ the place, about my goin’ in as silent partner—though _that_ nobody was supposed to know. He knew the shebang wa’n’t payin’ and, also and moreover, he knew why. And he had the remedy buttoned up in his jacket—the name of it was James Henry Jacobs.

"Gentlemen," he says, "I’m a specialist. I’m a doctor of sick business. Ever since my medicine man ordered me to quit the giddy metropolis and the Grand Central Department Store, where I was third assistant manager, I’ve been driftin’ about seekin’ a nice, quiet hamlet and an opportunity. Here’s the ham and, if you say the word, here’s the opportunity. This shop is in a decline; it’s got creepin’ paralysis and locomotive hang-back-tia. There’s only one thing that can change the funeral to a silver weddin’—that’s to call in Old Doctor Jacobs. Here he is, with his pocket full of testimonials. Now you listen."

We’d been listenin’—’twas by long odds the easiest thing to do—and we kept right on. He had testimonials—he showed ’em to us—and they took oath to his bein’ honest and the eighth business wonder of the world. He went on to elaborate. He had a thousand to invest and he’d invest it provided we’d take him in as manager and give him full swing. He’d guarantee—etcetery and so on, unlimited and eternal.

"But," says I, when he stopped to eat a throat lozenge, "sellin’ goods is one thing; gettin’ the right goods to sell is another. Me and Pullet—Mr. Beanblossom here—have tried to keep a pretty fair-sized stock, but it’s the kind of stock that keeps better’n it sells."

"Sell!" he puts in. "You can sell anything, if you know how. See here, let me prove it to you. You think this over to-night and to-morrow forenoon I’ll be on hand and demonstrate. Just put on your smoked glasses and watch me. _I’ll_ show you."

He did. Next mornin’ old Aunt Sarah Oliver came in to buy a hank of black yarn to darn stockin’s with. With diplomacy and patience the average feller could conclude that dicker in an hour and a quarter—if he had the yarn. Pullet was just out of black, of course, but that Jim Henry Jacobs stepped alongside and within twenty minutes he sold Aunt Sarah two packages of needles, a brass thimble and a half dozen pair of blue and yellow striped stockin’s that had been on the shelves since Abial Beasley’s time, and was so loud that a sane person wouldn’t dare wear ’em except when it thundered. She went out of the store with her bundles in one hand and holdin’ her head with the other. Then that Jim Henry man turned to Pullet and me.

"Well?" he says, serene and smilin’.

It was well, all right. At just quarter to twelve that night the arrangements was made. Jacobs was partner in and manager of the "Ostable Grocery, Dry Goods, Boots and Shoes and Fancy Goods Store."

CHAPTER II—WHAT A "PULLET" DID TO A PEDIGREE

In less than two months that store of ours was a payin’ proposition. Jim Henry Jacobs was responsible, that is all I can tell you. Don’t ask me how he did it. ’Twas advertisin’, mainly. Advertisin’ in the papers, advertisin’ on the fences, things set out in the windows, a new gaudy delivery cart, special bargain days for special stuff—they all helped. Of course if we’d limited ourselves to Ostable the cargo wouldn’t have been so heavy that we’d get stoop-shouldered, but that Jim Henry was unlimited. He advertised in the county weekly and sent a special cart to take orders for twenty mile around. The early summer cottages was beginnin’ to open and ’twas summer trade, rich city folks’ trade, that the Jacobs man said we must have. And we got it, one way or another we got it all. Most of the swell big-bugs had been in the habit of orderin’ wholesale from Boston, but he soon stopped that. One after another Jim Henry landed ’em. When I asked him how, he just winked.

"Skipper," says he—he most generally called me "Skipper" same as I called Beanblossom "Pullet"—"Skipper," he says, "you can always hook a cod if there’s any around and you keepin’ changin’ bait; ain’t that so? Um-hm; well, I change bait, that’s all. Every man, woman and suffragette has got a weak p’int somewheres. I just cast around till I find that particular weak p’int; then they swaller hook, line and sinker."

"Humph!" I says, "Miss Letitia ain’t swallowed nothin’ yet, that I’ve noticed. Her weak p’ints all strong ones? or what is the matter?"

He made a face. "Sister Pendlebury," says he, "is the frostiest proposition I ever tackled outside of an ice chest. But I’ll get her yet. You wait and see. Why, man, we’ve _got_ to get her."

Well, I could find more truth in them statements than I could satisfaction. We’d got to get her—yes. But she wouldn’t be got. She was the richest old maid on the North Shore; lived in a stone and plaster house bigger’n the Ostable County jail, which she’d labeled "Pendlebury Villa"; had six servants, three cats and a poll parrot; and was so tipped back with dignity and importance that a plumb-line dropped from her after-hair comb would have missed her heels by three inches. Her winter port was Brookline; summers she condescended to shed glory over Ostable.

To get the trade of Pendlebury Villa had been Jim Henry’s dream from the start. And up to date he was still dreamin’. The other big-bugs he had caged, but Letitia was still flyin’ free and importin’ her honey from Boston, so to speak. Jacobs had tried everything he could think of, bribin’ the servants, sendin’ samples of fancy breakfast food and pickles free gratis, writin’ letters, callin’ with his Sunday clothes on, everything—but ’twas "Keep Off the Grass" at Pendlebury Villa so far as we was concerned. ’Twas the biggest chunk of trade under one head on the Cape and it hurt Jim Henry’s pride not to get it. However, he kept on tryin’.

One mornin’ he comes back to the store after a cruise to the Villa and it seemed to me that he looked happier than was usual after one of these trips.

"Skipper," says he, "I think—I wouldn’t bet any more’n my small change, but I _think_ I’ve laid a corner stone."

"With Miss Pendlebury?" says I, excited.

"With Letitia," he says, noddin’. "I haven’t got an order, but I have got a promise. She’s agreed to drop in one of these days and look us over."

"Well!" says I, "I should say that _was_ a corner stone."

"We’ll hope ’tis," he says. "Ho, ho! Skipper, I wish you might have been present at the exercises. They were funny."

Seems he’d managed—bribery and corruption of the hired help again—to see Letitia alone in what she called her "mornin’ room." He said that, if he’d paid any attention to the temperature of that room when he and she first met in it, he’d have figgered he’d struck the morgue; but he warmed it up a little afore he left. Miss Pendlebury just set and glared frosty while he talked and talked and talked. She said about three words to his two hundred thousand, but every one of hers was a "no." She didn’t care to patronize the local merchants. The city ones were bad enough—she had all the trouble she wanted with _them_. She was not interested; and would he please be careful when he went out and not step on the flower beds.

He was about ready to give it up when he happened to notice an ile portrait in a gorgeous gold frame hangin’ on the wall. ’Twas the picture of a man, and Jim Henry said there was a kind of great-I-am look to it, a combination of fatness and importance and wisdom, same as you see in a stuffed owl, that give him an idea. He started to go, stopped in front of the picture and began to look it over, admirin’ but reverent, same as a garter snake might look at a boa-constrictor, as proof of what the race was capable of.

"Excuse me, Miss Pendlebury," he says, "but that is a wonderful portrait. I have had some experience in judgin’ paintin’s—" he was clerk in the Grand Central Store framed picture department once—"and I think I know what I’m talkin’ about."

Would you believe it, she commenced to unbend right off.

"It is a Sargent," says she.

Now I should have asked: "Sergeant of militia, or what?" and upset the whole calabash; but Jim Henry knew better. He bows, solemn and wise, and says he’d been sure of it right along.

"But any painter," he says, "would have made a success with a subject like that gentleman before him. There is somethin’ about him, the height of his brow, and his wonderful eyes, etcetery, which reminds me—You’ll excuse me, Miss Pendlebury, but isn’t that a portrait of one of your near relatives?"

She unbent some more and almost smiled. The painted critter was her pa and he was considered a wonderful likeness.

Well, that was enough for your uncle Jim Henry. He settled down to his job then and the way he poured gush over that painted Pendlebury man was close to sacreligion. But Letitia never pumped up a blush; worship was what she expected for her and her pa. He’d been a member of the Governor’s staff and a bank president and a church warden and an alderman and land knows what. His daughter and Jacobs had a real sociable interview and it ended by her promisin’ to drop in at the store and look our stock over. ’Course ’twa’n’t likely ’twould suit her—she was very exacting, she said—but she’d look it over.