Produced by David Widger






THE VILLAGE CONVICT

By Heman White Chaplin

1887

First published in the “Century Magazine.”


“Wonder 'f Eph's got back; they say his sentence run out yisterday.”

The speaker, John Doane, was a sunburnt fisherman, one of a circle
of well-salted individuals who sat, some on chairs, some on boxes and
barrels, around the stove in a country store.

“Yes,” said Captain Seth, a middle-aged little man with ear-rings; “he
come on the stage to-noon. Would n't hardly speak a word, Jim says.
Looked kind o' sot and sober.”

“Wall,” said the first speaker, “I only hope he won't go to burnin'
us out of house and home, same as he burnt up Eliphalet's barn. I was
ruther in hopes he 'd 'a' made off West. Seems to me I should, in his
place, hevin' ben in State's-prison.”

“Now, I allers hed quite a parcel o' sympathy for Eph,” said a short,
thickset coasting captain, who sat tilted back in a three-legged chair,
smoking lazily. “You see, he wa'n't but about twenty-one or two then,
and he was allers a mighty high-strung boy; and then Eliphalet did act
putty ha'sh, foreclosin' on Eph's mother, and turnin' her out o' the
farm in winter, when everybody knew she could ha' pulled through by
waitin.' Eph sot great store by the old lady, and I expect he was putty
mad with Eliphalet that night.”

“I allers,” said Doane, “approved o' his plan o' leadin' out all the
critters, 'fore he touched off the barn. 'T ain't everybody 't would hev
taken pains to do that. But all the same, I tell Sarai 't I feel kind o'
skittish, nights, to hev to turn in, feelin' 't there's a convict in the
place.”

“I hain't got no barn to burn,” said Captain Seth; “but if he allots my
hen-house to the flames, I hope he'll lead out the hens and hitch 'em to
the apple-trees, same's he did Eliphalet's critters. Think he ought to
deal ekally by all.”

A mild general chuckle greeted this sally, cheered by which the speaker
added,--

“Thought some o' takin' out a policy o' insurance on my cockerel.”

“Trade's lookin' up, William,” said Captain Seth to the storekeeper,
as some one was heard to kick the snow off his boots on the door-step.
“Somebody 's found he's got to hev a shoestring 'fore mornin'.”

The door opened, and closed behind a strongly-made man of twenty-six
or seven, of homely features, with black hair, in clothes which he had
outgrown. It was a bitter night, but he had no coat over his flannel
jacket. He walked straight down the store, between the dry-goods
counters, to the snug corner at the rear, where the knot of talkers sat;
nodded, without a smile, to each of them, and then asked the storekeeper
for some simple articles of food, which he wished to buy. It was Eph.

While the purchases were being put up, an awkward silence prevailed,
which the oil-suits hanging on the walls, broadly displaying their arms
and legs, seemed to mock, in dumb show.

Nothing was changed, to Eph's eyes, as he looked about. Even the
handbill of familiar pattern--

     “STANDING  WOOD  FOR  SALE.
     Apply to J. CARTER, Admin'r,”

seemed to have always been there.

The village parliament remained spellbound. Mr. Adams tied up the
purchases, and mildly inquired,--

“Shall I charge this?”

Not that he was anxious to open an account, but that he would probably
have gone to the length of selling Eph a barrel of molasses “on tick”
 rather than run any risk of offending so formidable a character.

“No,” said Eph; “I will pay for the things.”

And having put the packages into a canvas bag, and selected some
fish-hooks and lines from the show-case, where they lay environed
by jack-knives, jews-harps, and gum-drops,--dear to the eyes of
childhood,--he paid what was due, said “Good-night, William,” to the
storekeeper, and walked steadily out into the night.

“Wall,” said the skipper, “I am surprised! I strove to think o' suthin'
to say, all the time he was here, but I swow I couldn't think o'
nothin'. I could n't ask him if it seemed good to git home, nor how the
thermometer had varied in different parts o' the town where he 'd been.
Everything seemed to fetch right up standin' to the State's-prison.”

“I was just goin' to say, 'How'd ye leave everybody?'” said Doane;
“but that kind o' seemed to bring up them he 'd left. I felt real bad,
though, to hev the feller go off 'thout none on us speakin' to him. He
's got a hard furrer to plough; and yet I don't s'pose there 's much
harm in him, 'f Eliphalet only keeps quiet.”

“Eliphalet!” said a young sailor, contemptuously. “No fear o' him!
They say he 's so sca't of Eph he hain't hardly swallowed nothin' for a
week.”

“But where will he live?” asked a short, curly-haired young man, whom
Eph had seemed not to recognize. It was the new doctor, who, after
having made his way through college and the great medical school in
Boston, had, two years before, settled in this village.

“I believe,” said Mr. Adams, rubbing his hands, “that he wrote to Joshua
Carr last winter, when his mother died, not to let the little place she
left, on the Salt Hay Road; and I understand that he is going to make
his home there. It is an old house, you know, and not worth much, but it
is weather-tight, I should say.”

“Speakin' of his writin' to Joshua,” said Doane, “I have heard such a
sound as that he used to shine up to Joshua's Susan, years back. But
that 's all ended now. You won't catch Susan marryin' no jailbirds.”

“But how will he live?” said the doctor. “Will anybody give him work?”

“Let him alone for livin',” said Doane. “He can ketch more fish than
any other two men in the place--allers seemed to kind o' hev a knack o'
whistlin' 'em right into the boat. And then Nelson Briggs, that settled
up his mother's estate, allows he 's got over a hundred and ten dollars
for him, after payin' debts and all probate expenses. That and the place
is all he needs to start on.”

“I will go to see him,” said the doctor to himself, as he went out upon
the requisition of a grave man in a red tippet, who had just come for
him. “He does n't look so very dangerous, and I think he can be tamed. I
remember that his mother told me about him.”

Late that night, returning from his seven miles' drive, as he left
the causeway, built across a wide stretch of salt-marsh, crossed the
rattling plank bridge, and ascended the hill, he saw a light in the
cottage window, where he had often been to attend Aunt Lois. “I will
stop now,” said he. And, tying his horse to the front fence, he went
toward the kitchen door. As he passed the window, he glanced in. A
lamp was burning on the table. On a settle, lying upon his face, was
stretched the convict, his arms beneath his head. The canvas bag lay on
the floor beside him. “I will not disturb him now,” said the doctor.

*****

A few days later Dr. Burt was driving in his sleigh with his wife along
the Salt Hay Road. It was a clear, crisp winter forenoon. As they neared
Eph's house, he said,--

“Mary, suppose I lay siege to the fort this morning. I see a curl of
smoke rising from the little shop in the barn. He must be making himself
a jimmy or a dark-lantern to break into our vegetable cellar with.”

“Well,” said she, “I think it would be a good plan; only, you know, you
must be very, very careful not to hint, even in the faintest way, at
his imprisonment. You mustn't so much as _suspect_ that he has ever been
away from the place. People hardly dare to speak to him, for fear he
will see some reference to his having been in prison, and get angry.”

“You shall see my sly tact,” said her husband, laughing. “I will be
as innocent as a lamb. I will ask him why I have not seen him at the
Sabbath-school this winter.”

“You may make fun,” said she, “but you will end by taking my advice, all
the same. Now, do be careful what you say.”

“I will,” he replied. “I will compose my remarks carefully upon the back
of an envelope and read them to him, so as to be absolutely sure. I will
leave on his mind an impression that I have been in prison, and that he
was the judge that tried me.”

He drove in at the open gate, hitched his horse in a warm corner by
the kitchen door, and then stopped for a moment to enjoy the view. The
situation of the little house, half a mile from any other, was beautiful
in summer, but it was bleak enough in winter. In the small front
dooryard stood three lofty, wind-blown poplars, all heading away from
the sea, and between them you could look down the bay or across the
salt-marshes, while in the opposite direction were to be seen the roofs
and the glittering spires of the village.

“It is social for him here, to say the least,” said the doctor, as he
turned and walked alone to the shop. He opened the door and went in. It
was a long, low lean-to, such as farmers often furnish for domestic work
with a carpenter's bench, a grindstone, and a few simple tools. It was
lighted by three square windows above the bench. An air-tight stove,
projecting its funnel through a hole in one of the panes, gave out a
cheerful crackling.

Eph, in his shirt-sleeves, his hands in his pockets, was standing, his
back against the bench, surveying, with something of a mechanic's eye,
the frame of a boat which was set up on the floor.

He looked up and colored slightly. The doctor took out a cigarette, lit
it, sat down on the bench, and smoked, clasping one knee in his hands
and eying the boat.

“Centre-board?” he asked, at length.

“Yes,” said Eph.

“Cat-rig?”

“Yes.”

“Going fishing?”

“Yes.”

“Alone?”

“Yes.”

“I was brought up to sail a boat,” said the doctor, “and I go fishing in
summer--when I get a chance. I shall try your boat, some time.”

No reply.

“The timbers aren't seasoned, are they? They look like pitch-pine, just
out of the woods. Won't they warp?”

“No. Pitch-pine goes right in, green. I s'pose the pitch keeps it, if
it's out of the sun.”

“Where did you cut it?”

Eph colored a little.

“In my back lot.”

The doctor smoked on calmly, and studied the boat.

“I don't know as I know you,” said Eph, relaxing a little.

“Good reason,” said the doctor. “I 've only been here two years;” and
after a moment's pause, he added: “I am the doctor here, now. You 've
heard of my father, Dr. Burt, of Broad River?”

Eph nodded assent; everybody knew him, all through the country,--a
fatherly old man, who rode on long journeys at everybody's call, and
never sent in his bills.

The visitor had a standing with Eph at once.

“Doctors never pick at folks,” he said to himself--“at any rate, not old
Dr. Burt's son.

“I used to come here to see your mother,” said the doctor, “when she was
sick. She used to talk a great deal about you, and said she wanted me to
get acquainted with you, when your time was out.”

Eph started, but said nothing.

“She was a good woman, Aunt Lois,” added the doctor; “one of the best
women I ever saw.”

“I don't want anybody to bother himself on my account,” said Eph. “I ask
no favors.”

“You will have to take favors, though,” said the doctor, “before the
winter is over. You will be careless and get sick; you have been living
for a long time entirely in-doors, with regular hours and work and
food. Now you are going to live out-of-doors, and get your own meals,
irregularly. You did n't have on a thick coat the other night, when I saw
you at the store.”

“I haven't got any that's large enough for me,” said Eph, a little less
harshly, “and I 've got to keep my money for other things.”

“Then look out and wear flannel shirts enough,” said the doctor, “if you
want to be independent. But before I go, I want to go into the house. I
want my wife to see Aunt Lois's room, and the view from the west window;”
 and he led the way to the sleigh.

Eph hesitated a moment, and then followed him.

“Mary, this is Ephraim Morse. We are going in to see the Dutch tiles I
have told you of.”

She smiled as she held out her mittened hand to Eph, who took it
awkwardly.

The square front room, which had been originally intended for a
keeping-room, but had been Aunt Lois's bedroom, looked out from two
windows upon the road, and from two upon the rolling, tumbling bay,
and the shining sea beyond. A tall clock, with a rocking ship above the
face, ticked in the corner. The painted floor with bright rag mats,
the little table with a lacquer work-box, the stiff chairs and the
old-fashioned bedstead, the china ornaments upon the mantel-piece, the
picture of “The Emeline G. in the Harbor of Canton,” were just as they
had been when the patient invalid had lain there, looking from her
pillow out to sea. In twelve rude tiles, set around the open fireplace,
the Hebrews were seen in twelve stages of their escape from Egypt. It
would appear from this representation that they had not restricted their
borrowings to the jewels of their oppressors, but had taken for the
journey certain Dutch clothing of the fashion of the seventeenth
century. The scenery, too, was much like that about Leyden.

“I think,” said the doctor's wife, “that the painter was just a little
absent-minded when he put in that beer-barrel. And a wharf, by the Red
Sea!”

“I wish you would conclude to rig your boat with a new sail,” said the
doctor, as he took up the reins, at parting. “There is n't a boat here
that 's kept clean, and I should like to hire yours once or twice a week
in summer, if you keep her as neat as you do your house. Come in and see
me some evening, and we 'll talk it over.”

*****

Eph built his boat, and, in spite of his evident dislike of visitors,
the inside finish and the arrangements of the little cabin were so
ingenious and so novel that everybody had to pay him a visit.

True to his plan of being independent, he built in the side of the hill,
near his barn, by a little gravelly pond, an ice-house, and with the
hardest labor filled it, all by himself. With this supply, he would not
have to go to the general wharf at Sandy Point to sell his fish, with
the other men, but could pack and ship them himself. And he could do
better, in this way, he thought, even after paying for teaming them to
the cars.

The knowing ones laughed to see that, from asking no advice, he had
miscalculated and laid in three times as much as he could use.

“Guess Eph cal'lates to fish with two lines in each hand an' another 'n
his teeth,” said Mr. Wing. “He 's plannin' out for a great lay o' fish.”

The spring came slowly on, and the first boat that went out that season
was Eph's. That day was one of unmixed delight to him. What a sense of
absolute freedom, when he was fairly out beyond the lightship, with the
fresh swiftness of the wind in his face! What an exquisite consciousness
of power and control, as his boat went beating through the long waves!
Two or three men from another village sailed across his wake. His boat
lay over, almost showing her keel, now high out of water, now settling
between the waves, while Eph stood easily in the stern, in his
shirt-sleeves, backing against the tiller, smoking a pipe, and ranging
the waters with his eyes.

“Takes it natural ag'in, don't he? Stands as easy as ef he was loafin'
on a wharf,” said one of the observers. “Expect it 's quite a treat to
be out. But they do say he 's gittin' everybody's good opinion. They
looked for a reg'-lar ruffi'n when he come home,--cuttin' nets, killin'
cats, chasin' hens, gittin' drunk! They say Eliphalet Wood didn't hardly
dare to go ou' doors for a month, 'thout havin' his hired man along. But
he 's turned out as peaceful as a little gal.”

*****

One June day, as Eph was slitting blue-fish at the little pier which he
had built on the bay shore, near his rude ice-house, two men came up.

“Hullo, Eph!”

“Hullo!”

“We 've got about sick, tradin' down to the wharf; we can't git no fair
show. About one time in three, they tell us they don't want our fish,
and won't take 'em unless we heave 'em in for next to nothin',--and we
know there ain't no sense in it. So we just thought we 'd slip down and
see 'f you would n't take 'em, seein's you 've got ice, and send 'em up
with yourn.”

Eph was taken all aback with this mark of confidence. The offer must be
declined. It evidently sprang from some mere passing vexation.

“I can't buy fish,” said he. “I have no scales to weigh 'em.”

“Then send ourn in separate berrels,” said one of the men.

“But I haven't any money to pay you,” he said. “I only get my pay once a
month.”

“We'll git tick at William's, and you can settle 'th us when you git
your pay.”

“Well,” said he, unable to refuse, “I 'll take 'em, if you say so.”

Before the season was over, he had still another customer, and could
have had three or four more, if he had had ice enough. He felt strongly
inclined that fall to build a larger icehouse; and although he was a
little afraid of bringing ridicule upon himself in case no fish should
be brought to him the next summer, he decided to do so, on the assurance
of three or four men that they meant to come to him. Nobody else had
such a chance,--a pond right by the shore.

One evening there was a knock at the door of Eliphalet Wood, the owner
of the burned barn. Eliphalet went to the door, but turned pale at
seeing Eph there.

“Oh, come in, come in!” he panted. “Glad to see you. Walk in. Have a
chair. Take a seat. Sit down.”

But he thought his hour had come: he was alone in the house, and there
was no neighbor within call.

Eph took out a roll of bills, counted out eighty dollars, laid the money
on the table, and said quietly,--

“Give me a receipt on account.”

When it was written he walked out, leaving Eliphalet stupefied.

*****

Joshua Carr was at work, one June afternoon, by the roadside, in front
of his low cottage, by an enormous pile of poles, which he was shaving
down for barrel-hoops, when Eph appeared.

“Hard at it, Joshua!” he said.

“Yes, yes!” said Joshua, looking up through his steel-bowed spectacles.
“Hev to work hard to make a livin'--though I don't know's I ought to
call it hard, neither; and yet it is ruther hard, too; but then, on t'
other hand, 't ain't so hard as a good many other things--though there
is a good many jobs that's easier. That's so! that 's so!

     'Must we be kerried to the skies
     On feathery beds of ease?'

Though I don't know's I ought to quote a hymn on such a matter; but
then--I don' know's there's any partic'lar harm in't, neither.”

Eph sat down on a pile of shavings and chewed a sliver; and the old man
kept on at his work.

“Hoop-poles goin' up and hoops goin' down,” he continued. “Cur'us,
ain't it? But then, I don' know as 'tis; woods all bein' cut off--poles
gittin' scurcer--hoops bein' shoved in from Down East. That don't seem
just right, now, does it? But then, other folks must make a livin', too.
Still, I should think they might take up suthin' else; and yet, they
might say that about me. Understand, I don't mean to say that they
actually do say so; I don't want to run down any man unless I know--”

“I can't stand this,” said Eph to himself; “I don't wonder that they
always used to put Joshua off at the first port, when he tried to go
coasting. They said he talked them crazy with nothing.

“I 'll go into the house and see Aunt Lyddy,” he said aloud. “I 'm
loafing, this afternoon.”

“All right! all right!” said Joshua. “Lyddy 'll be glad to see you--that
is, as glad as she would be to see anybody,” he added, reaching out for
a pole. “Now, I don't s'pose that sounds very well; but still, you know
how she is--she allers likes to hev folks to talk, and then she's allers
sayin' talkin' wears on her; but I ought not to say that to you, because
she allers likes to see you--that is, as much as she likes to see
anybody. In fact, I think, on the whole--”

“Well, I'll take my chances,” said Eph, laughing; and he opened the gate
and went in.

Joshua's wife, whom everybody called Aunt Lyddy, was rocking in a
high-backed-chair in the kitchen, and knitting. It was currently
reported that Joshua's habit of endlessly retracting and qualifying
every idea and modification of an idea which he advanced, so as to
commit himself to nothing, was the effect of Aunt Lyddy's careful
revision.

“I s'pose she thought 't was fun to be talked deef when they was
courtin',” Captain Seth had once sagely remarked. “Prob'ly it sounded
then like a putty piece on a seraphine; but I allers cal'lated she 'd
git her fill of it, sooner or later. You most gin'lly git your fill o'
one tune.”

“How are you this afternoon, Aunt Lyddy?” asked Eph, walking in without
knocking, and sitting down near her.

“So as to be able to keep about,” she replied. “It is a great mercy I
ain't afflicted with falling out of my chair, like Hepsy Jones, ain't
it?”

“I 've brought you some oysters,” he said. “I set the basket down on
the door-step. I just took them out of the water myself from the bed I
planted to the west of the water-fence.”

“I always heard you was a great fisherman,” said Aunt Lyddy, “but I
had no idea you would ever come here and boast of being able to catch
oysters. Poor things! How could they have got away? But why don't you
bring them in? They won't be afraid of me, will they?”

He stepped to the door and brought in a peck basket full of large,
black, twisted shells, and with a heavy clasp-knife proceeded to open
one, and took out a great oyster, which he held up on the point of the
blade.

“Try it,” he said; and then Aunt Lyddy, after she had swallowed it,
laughed to think what a tableau they had made,--a man who had been in
the State prison standing over her with a great knife! And then she
laughed again.

“What are you laughing at?” he said.

“It popped into my head, supposing Susan should have looked in at the
south window and Joshua in at the door, when you was feeding out that
oyster to me, what they would have thought!”

Eph laughed too; and, surely enough, just then a stout, light-haired,
rather plain-looking young woman came up to the south window and leaned
in. She had on a sun-bonnet, which had not prevented her from securing
a few choice freckles. She had been working with a trowel in her
flower-garden.

“What's the matter?” she said, nodding easily to Eph. “What do you two
always find to laugh about?”

“Ephraim was feeding me with spoon-meat,” said Aunt Lyddy, pointing to
the basket, which looked like a basket of anthracite coal.

“It looks like spoon-meat!” said Susan, and then she laughed too. “I 'll
roast some of them for supper,” she added,--“a new way that I know.”

Eph was not invited to stay to supper, but he stayed, none the less:
that was always understood.

“Well, well, well!” said Joshua, coming to the door-step, and washing
his hands and arms just outside, in a tin basin. “I thought I see you
set down a parcel of oysters--but there was sea-weed over 'em, and I
don' know's I could have said they was oysters; but then, if the square
question had been put to me, 'Mr. Carr, be them oysters or be they
not?' I s'pose I should have said they was; still, if they 'd asked me
how I knew--”

“Come, come, father!” said Aunt Lyddy, “do give poor Ephraim a little
peace. Why don't you just say you thought they were oysters, and done
with it?”

“Say I _thought_ they was?” he replied, innocently. “I knew well enough
they was--that is--knew? No, I did n't know, but--”

Aunt Lyddy, with an air of mock resignation, gave up, while Joshua
endeavored to fix, to a hair, the exact extent of his knowledge.

Eph smiled; but he remembered what would have made him pardon, a
thousand times over, the old man's garrulousness. He remembered who
alone had never failed, once a year, to visit a certain prisoner, at
the cost of a long and tiresome journey, and who had written to that
homesick prisoner kind and cheering letters, and had sent him baskets of
simple dainties for holidays.

Susan bustled about, and made a fire of crackling sticks, and began to
roast the oysters in a way that made a most savory smell. She set the
table, and then sat down at the melodeon, while she was waiting, and
sang a hymn; for she was of a musical turn, and was one of the choir.
Then she jumped up and took out the steaming oysters, and they all sat
down.

“Well, well, well!” said her father; “these be good! I did n't s'pose
you hed any very good oysters in your bed, Ephraim. But there, now--I
don't s'pose I ought to have said that; that was n't very polite;
but what I meant was, I did n't s'pose you hed any that was _real_
good--though I don' know but I 've said about the same thing, now. Well,
any way, these be splendid; they 're full as good as those co-hogs we
had t'other night.”

“Quahaugs!” said Susan. “The idea of comparing these oysters with
quahaugs!”

“Well, well! that's so!” said her father. “I did n't say right, did I,
when I said that! Of course, there ain't no comparison--that
is--_no_ comparison? Why, of course, they is a comparison between
everything,--but then, cohogs don't really compare with oysters! That's
true!”

And then he paused to eat a few.

He was silent so long at this occupation that they all laughed.

“Well, well!” he said, laying down his fork, and smiling innocently;
“what be you all laughin' at? Not but what I allers like to hev folks
laugh--but then, I did n't see nothin' to laugh at. Still, perhaps they
was suthin' to laugh at that I didn't see; sometimes one man 'll be
lookin' down into his plate, all taken up with his victuals, and others,
that's lookin' around the room, may see the kittens frolickin', or some
such thing. 'T ain't the fust time I 've known all hands to laugh all to
once-t, when I didn't see nothin'.”

Susan helped him again, and secured another brief respite.

“Ephraim,” said he, after a while, “you ain't skilled to cook oysters
like this, I don't believe. You ought to git married! I was sayin' to
Susan t'other day--well, now, mother, hev I said anything out o' the
way? Well, I don't s'pose 't was just _my_ place to have said anything
about gitt'n' married, to Ephraim, seein's--”

“Come, come, father,” said Aunt Lyddy, “that'll do, now. You must let
Ephraim alone, and not joke him about such things.”

Meanwhile Susan had hastily gone into the pantry to look for a pie,
which she seemed unable at once to find.

“Pie got adrift?” called out Joshua. “Seems to me you don't hook on to
it very quick. Now that looks good,” he added, when she came out.

“That looks like cookin'! All I meant was, 't Ephraim ought not to be
doin' his own cookin'--that is, 'f you can call it cookin. But then, of
course, 'tis cookin'--there's all kinds o' cookin'. I went cook myself,
when I was a boy.”

After supper, Aunt Lyddy sat down to knit, and Joshua drew his chair up
to an open window, to smoke his pipe. In this vice Aunt Lyddy encouraged
him. The odor of Virginia tobacco was a sweet savor in her nostrils.
No breezes from Araby ever awoke more grateful feelings than did the
fragrance of Uncle Joshua's pipe. To Aunt Lyddy it meant quiet and
peace.

Susan and Eph sat down on the broad flag door-stone, and talked quietly
of the simple news of the neighborhood, and of the days when they used
to go to school, and come home, always together.

“I did n't much think then,” said Eph, “that I should ever bring up
where I have, and get ashore before I was fairly out to sea!”

“Jehiel's schooner got ashore on the bar, years ago,” said Susan, “and
yet they towed her off, and I saw her this morning, from my chamber
window, before sunrise, all sail set, going by to the eastward.”

“I know what you mean,” said Eph. “But here--I got mad once, and I
almost had a right to, and I can't get started again; I never shall.
I can get a living, of course; but I shall always be pointed out as a
jailbird, and could no more get any footing in the world than Portuguese
Jim.”

Portuguese Jim was the sole professional criminal of the town,--a weak,
good-natured, knock-kneed vagabond, who stole hens, and spent every
winter in the House of Correction as an “idle and disorderly person.”

Susan laughed outright at the picture. Eph smiled too, but a little
bitterly.

“I suppose it was more ugliness than anything else,” he said, “that made
me come back here to live, where everybody knows I 've been in jail and
is down on me.”

“They are not down on you,” said Susan. “Nobody is down on you. It 's
all your own imagination. And if you had gone anywhere that you was a
stranger, you know that the first thing that you would have done would
have been to call a meeting and tell all the people that you had burned
down a man's barn and been in the State's-prison, and that you wanted
them all to know it at the start; and you wouldn't have told them why
you did it, and how young you was then, and how Eliphalet treated your
mother, and how you was going to pay him for all he lost Here, everybody
knows that side of it. In fact,” she added, with a little twinkle in her
eye, “I have sometimes had an idea that the main thing they don't like
is, to see you saving every cent to pay to Eliphalet.”

“And yet it was on your say that I took up that plan,” said Eph. “I
never thought of it till you asked me when I was going to begin to pay
him up.”

“And you ought to,” said Susan. “He has a right to the money--and then,
you don't want to be under obligations to that man all your life. Now,
what you want to do is to cheer up and go around among folks. Why, now
you 're the only fish-buyer there is that the men don't watch when he 's
weighing their fish. You'll own up to that, for one thing, won't you?”

“Well, they are good fellows that bring fish to me,” he said.

“They were n't good fellows when they traded at the great wharf,” said
Susan. “They had a quarrel down there once a week, regularly.”

“Well, suppose they do trust me in that,” said Eph. “I can never rub out
that I 've been in State's-prison.”

“You don't want to rub it out. You can't rub anything out that's ever
been; but you can do better than rub it out.”

“What do you mean?”

“Take things just the way they are,” said Susan, “and show what can be
done. Perhaps you 'll stake a new channel out for others to follow in,
that haven't half so much chance as you have. And that's what you will
do, too,” she added.

“Susan!” he said, “if there 's anything I can ever do, in this world or
the next, for you or your folks, that's all I ask for,--the chance to do
it. Your folks and you shall never want for anything while I'm alive.

“There's one thing sure,” he added, rising. “I'll live by myself and be
independent of everybody, and make my way all alone in the world; and
if I can make 'em all finally own up and admit that I'm honest with 'em,
I'm satisfied. That's all I 'll ever ask of anybody. But there's one
thing that worries me sometimes,--that is, whether I ought to come here
so often. I 'm afraid, sometimes, that it 'll hinder your father from
gettin' work, or--something--for you folks to be friends with me.”

“I think such things take care of themselves,” said Susan, quietly. “If
a chip won't float, let it sink.”

“Good-night,” said Eph; and he walked off, and went home to his echoing
house.

After that, his visits to Joshua's became less frequent.

*****

It was a bright day in March,--one of those which almost redeem the
reputation of that desperado of a month. Eph was leaning on his fence,
looking now down the bay and now to where the sun was sinking in the
marshes. He knew that all the other men had gone to the town-meeting,
where he had had no heart to intrude himself,--that free democratic
parliament where he had often gone with his father in childhood; where
the boys, rejoicing in a general assembly of their own, had played ball
outside, while the men debated gravely within. He recalled the time when
he himself had so proudly given his first vote for President, and how
his father had introduced him then to friends from distant parts of the
town. He remembered how he had heard his father speak there, and how
respectfully everybody had listened to him. That was in the long ago,
when they had lived at the great farm. And then came the thought of the
mortgage, and of Eliphalet's foreclosure, and--

“Hullo, Eph!”

It was one of the men from whom he took fish,--a plain-spoken, sincere
little man.

“Why wa'n't you down to town-meet'n'?”

“I was busy,” said Eph.

“How'd ye like the news?”

“What news?”

There was never any good news for him now.

“Hain't heard who 's elected town-clerk?”

“No.”

Had they elected Eliphalet, and so expressed their settled distrust of
him, and sympathy for the man whom he had injured?

“Who is elected?” he asked harshly.

“You be!” said the man; “went in flyin',--all hands clappin' and
stompin' their feet!”

*****

An hour later the doctor drove up, stopped, and walked toward the
kitchen door. As he passed the window, he looked in.

Eph was lying on his face, upon the settle, as he had first seen him
there, his arms beneath his head.

“I will not disturb him now,” said the doctor.

*****

One breezy afternoon, in the following summer, Captain Seth laid
aside his easy every-day clothes, and transformed himself into a stiff
broadcloth image, with a small silk hat and creaking boots. So attired,
he set out in a high open buggy, with his wife, also in black, but
with gold spectacles, to the funeral of an aunt. As they pursued their
jog-trot journey along the Salt Hay Road, and came to Ephraim Morse's
cottage, they saw Susan sitting in a shady little porch at the front
door, shelling peas and looking down the bay.

“How is everything, Susan?” called out Captain Seth; “'bout time for Eph
to be gitt'n' in?”

“Yes,” she answered, nodding and smiling, and pointing with a pea-pod;
“that's our boat, just coming to the wharf, with her peak down.”






End of Project Gutenberg's The Village Convict, by Heman White Chaplin