Read Ebook: By The Sea 1887 by Chaplin Heman White

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Ebook has 143 lines and 14004 words, and 3 pages

While Joe's mother was lying ill, and after it had become certain that she would soon leave this world forever, the question had been freely-discussed as to what her boy's future should be. In Captain Joseph Pelham's mind there was only-one answer to this question,--that the lad should come to him. He bore the Captain's name; he represented the Captain's son; he should take a place now in the Captain's home.

It was now about three weeks since Joe's mother had been buried. The stone had not yet been cut and set over her grave. But the Captain thought it time to drive over to James Parsons's and take the boy. That James would make any serious opposition perhaps never entered his mind. It was a bright, charming afternoon; with his shining horse, in a bright, well-varnished buggy, the Captain drove over the seven miles of winding roads through the woods, and along the sea, to the village where James Parsons lived. He tied his horse to the hitching-post in front of the broad cottage house, went down the path to the L door, knocked, and went in.

James was sitting in a large room which served in winter as a kitchen and in summer as a sort of sitting-room, smoking a pipe and gazing vacantly into the pine-branches in the open fireplace before him. He had been out all day on his marsh, but he had been home a couple of hours. His wife--kindly soul--received Captain Pelham at the door, wiping her hands upon her apron, and modestly showed him into the sitting-room; then she retired to her tasks in the shed kitchen. She moved about mechanically for a moment; then she ran hastily out into the lean-to wood-shed, shut the door behind her, sat down on the worn floor where it gives way with a step to the floor of earth by the wood-pile, hid her face in her apron, and burst into tears.

Joe was at the wharf with his comrades playing at war.

Now, if there ever was a hospitable man,--a man who gave a welcome,--a rough but merry welcome to every one who entered his doors, it was James Parsons. He had a homely, jocose saying that you must either make yourself at home or go home. But on this occasion he rose with a somewhat forced and awkward air, laid his pipe down on the mantel-piece, and nodded to the Captain with an air of embarrassed inquiry. Then he bethought himself, and asked the Captain to sit down. The Captain took the nearest chair, beside the table, where Mrs. Parsons had lately been sitting at her work. James's chair was directly opposite. The table was between them.

James rose and went to the mantel-piece, scratched a match upon his boot-heel, and undertook to light his pipe. It did not light; he did not notice it, but put the pipe in his mouth as if it were lighted.

It occurred to Captain Pelham now, for the first time, absorbed as he had been with exclusive thoughts of the boy, that he should first say something to this old man about the daughter whom he had lost: and he made some expressions of sympathy. The old man nodded, but said nothing.

There was silence for two or three minutes.

The subject in order now was inevitably the boy. Captain Pelham opened his lips to claim him; but, almost to his own surprise, he found himself making some common remark about the affairs of the neighborhood. It came in harsh and forced, as if it were a fragment of conversation floated in by the breeze from the street outside. Then the Captain waited a moment, looking out of the window.

James took his pipe from his mouth and leaned his elbows on the table. "Why don't you go take him?" he suddenly said: "he's probably down to the wharf. Ef you have got the claim to him, why don't you go take him? You 've got your team here,--drive right down there and put him in and drive off; if you 've got the right to him, why don't you go take him? But ef you 've come for my consent, you can set there till the chair rots beneath you."

With this, James rose and took the felt hat which was lying by him on the table, and saying not another word, went out of the door. He went down to the shore, and affected to busy himself with his boat.

There was nothing for Captain Pelham to do but to take his hat, untie his horse, and drive home.

The Captain well knew that nobody in the world had a legal right to the child until a guardian should be appointed. A plain and simple path was open before him: it was his only path. James Parsons had proved wilful and wrong-headed; there was nothing now but to take out letters as guardian of the boy. Then James would acquiesce without a word.

Immediately after breakfast the Captain went down the street. He opened his letters and attended to the first routine of business; then he went across the way and up a flight of stairs to a lawyer's office.

If you had happened to read the county papers at about this time, you would have seen among the legal notices two petitions, identical in form,--the one by Joseph Pelham, the other by James Parsons,--each applying for guardianship of Joseph Pelham, the younger of that name, with an order upon each petition for all persons interested to come in on the first Tuesday of the following month and show cause why the petitioner's demand should not be granted.

There were fifteen or twenty people from different towns in attendance when the court opened on the important first Tuesday. As one after another transacted his affairs and went away, others would come in. Three or four lawyers sat at tables talking with clients, or stood about the judge's desk. There was a sprinkling of women in new mourning. Printed papers, filled out with names and dates,--petitions and bonds and executors' accounts,--were being handed in to the judge and receiving his signature of approval.

The routine business was transacted first. It was almost noon when the judge was at last free to attend to contested matters. There was a small audience by that time,--only ten or a dozen people, some of whom were waiting for train-time, while others, who had come upon their own affairs, lingered now from curiosity.

The judge was a tall, spare, old-fashioned man; he had held the office for above thirty years. He was a man of much native force, of sound learning within the range of his judicial duties, and of strong common-sense. He was often employed by Captain Pelham in his own affairs, and more particularly in bank and insurance matters,--for the probate judges are free to practise at the bar in matters not connected with their judicial duties,--and Captain Pelham had always retained him in important cases as counsel for the town. He had a large practice throughout the county; he knew its people, their ideas, their traditions, and their feelings. He understood their social organization to the core.

"Now," said the judge, laying aside some papers upon which he had been writing, and taking off his glasses, "we will take up the two petitions for guardianship of Joseph Pelham."

Captain Pelham and the lawyer whom he had employed took seats at a small table before the judge; James Parsons timidly took a seat at another. His petition had been filled out for him by one of his neighbors: he had no counsel.

Captain Pelham's lawyer rose; he had been impressed by the Captain with the importance of the matter, and he was about to make a formal opening. But the judge interrupted him. "I think," he said, "that we may assume that I know in a general way about these two petitioners. I shall assume, unless something is shown to the contrary, that they are both men of respectable character, and have proper homes for a boy to grow up in. And I suppose there is no controversy that Captain Pelham is a man of some considerable means, and that the other petitioner is a man of small property.

"Now," he went on, leaning forward with his elbow on his desk, and gently waving his glasses with his right hand, "did the father of this boy ever express any wish as to what should be done with him in case his mother should die?" Nobody answered. "It would be of no legal effect," he said, "but it would have weight with me. Now, is there any evidence as to what his mother wanted? A boy's mother can tell best about these things, if she is a sensible woman. Mr. Baker," he said to Captain Pelham's lawyer, "have you any evidence as to what his mother wanted to have done with him?"

Mr. Baker conversed for a moment with Captain Pelham and then called him to the stand.

Captain Pelham testified as to his frequent visits to the boy's mother, and to her unbroken friendly relations with him. She had never said in so many words what she wanted to have done for the boy, but he always understood that she meant to have the child come to him; he could not say, however, that she had said anything expressly to that effect.

James sat before him not many feet away, in his old-fashioned broadcloth coat with a velvet collar. He cross-examined Captain Pelham a little.

"She did n't never tell you," he said, "that she was going to give you the boy, did she?"

"No, sir;" said Captain Pelham.

"How often did your wife come over to see her?"

"I could n't tell you, sir," said the Captain.

"Not very often, did she?"

"I think not," the Captain admitted.

"The boy's mother did n't never talk much about Mis' Captain Pelham, did she?"

"I don't remember that she did."

"She did n't never have her over to talk with her about what she was going to do with the boy, did she?"

"I don't know that she did," said the Captain. "She is here; you can ask her."

"You didn't never hear of her leaving no word with Mis' Captain Pelham about taking care of the boy, did you?"

"I can't say that I did," said Captain Pelham.

The old man nodded his head with a satisfied air. His cross-examination was done.

The Captain retired from the witness-stand; his lawyer whispered with him a moment and then went over and whispered for two or three minutes with Mrs. Pelham; then he said he had no more evidence to offer.

"Mr. Parsons," said the judge, "do you wish to testify?"

James went to the witness-stand and was sworn.

"Did n't your daughter ever talk about what she wanted done with the boy?"

"Talk about it?" said James. "Why, she didn't talk about nothing else. She used to have it all over every time we went in. It was all about how mother 'n me must do this with him and do that with him,--how he was to go to school, what room he was going to sleep in to our house, and all that."

Mr. Baker desired to make no cross-examination, and James's wife was called, and testified in her quaint way to the same effect.

Mr. Baker ventured out upon the thin ice of cross-examination.

"She must have talked about her father-in-law, Captain Pelham?" he said.

"Oh, yes," said the woman, "often."

"She seemed to be attached to him?"

"Yes, indeed," said the woman, quickly; "she was always telling how good he was to her; I have heard her say there was n't no better man in the world."

"She must have talked about what he could do for the boy?"

"Yes," said the woman. "She expected him to do for Joe."

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