



Produced by Roger Frank, Mary Meehan, and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net.

                          BY JOSEPH C. LINCOLN

          Author of "The Depot Master," "Cap'n Warrens Wards,"
                     "Cap'n Eri," "Mr. Pratt," etc.

                       _With Four Illustrations_
                           _By_ HOWARD HEATH

                           A. L. BURT COMPANY
                         _Publishers New York_

                         _Copyright, 1912, by_
                        D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

        Copyright, 1911, 1912, by the Curtis Publishing Company
         Copyright, 1911, 1912, by the Ainslee Magazine Company
                Copyright, 1912, by the Ridgeway Company

                         Published, April, 1912

                Printed in the United States of America

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[Illustration: _Seems to me I never saw her look prettier._]

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CONTENTS


    CHAPTER I--I MAKE TWO BETS--AND LOSE ONE OF 'EM
    CHAPTER II--WHAT A "PULLET" DID TO A PEDIGREE
    CHAPTER III--I GET INTO POLITICS
    CHAPTER IV--HOW I MADE A CLAM CHOWDER; AND WHAT A CLAM CHOWDER MADE
    OF ME
    CHAPTER V--A TRAP AND WHAT THE "RAT" CAUGHT IN IT
    CHAPTER VI--I RUN AFOUL OF COUSIN LEMUEL
    CHAPTER VII--THE FORCE AND THE OBJECT
    CHAPTER VIII--ARMENIANS AND INJUNS; LIKEWISE BY-PRODUCTS
    CHAPTER IX--ROSES--BY ANOTHER NAME
    CHAPTER X--THE SIGN OF THE WINDMILL
    CHAPTER XI--COOKS AND CROOKS
    CHAPTER XII--JIM HENRY STARTS SCREENIN'
    CHAPTER XIII--WHAT CAME THROUGH THE SCREEN
    CHAPTER XIV--THE EPISTLE TO ICHABOD
    CHAPTER XV--HOW IKE'S LOSS TURNED OUT TO BE MY GAIN
    CHAPTER XVI--I PAY MY OTHER BET

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                             THE POSTMASTER

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CHAPTER I--I MAKE TWO BETS--AND LOSE ONE OF 'EM


"So you're through with the sea for good, are you, Cap'n Zeb," says Mr.
Pike.

"You bet!" says I. "Through for good is just _what_ I am."

"Well, I'm sorry, for the firm's sake," he says. "It won't seem natural
for the _Fair Breeze_ to make port without you in command. Cap'n, you're
goin' to miss the old schooner."

"Cal'late I shall--some--along at fust," I told him. "But I'll get over
it, same as the cat got over missin' the canary bird's singin'; and I'll
have the cat's consolation--that I done what seemed best for me."

He laughed. He and I were good friends, even though he was ship-owner
and I was only skipper, just retired.

"So you're goin' back to Ostable?" he says. "What are you goin' to do
after you get there?"

"Nothin'; thank you very much," says I, prompt.

"No work at _all_?" he says, surprised. "Not a hand's turn? Goin' to be
a gentleman of leisure, hey?"

"Nigh as I can, with my trainin'. The 'leisure' part'll be all right,
anyway."

He shook his head and laughed again.

"I think I see you," says he. "Cap'n, you've been too busy all your life
even to get married, and--"

"Humph!" I cut in. "Most married men I've met have been a good deal
busier than ever I was. And a good deal more worried when business was
dull. No, sir-ee! 'twa'n't that that kept me from gettin' married. I've
been figgerin' on the day when I could go home and settle down. If I'd
had a wife all these years I'd have been figgerin' on bein' able to
settle up. I ain't goin' to Ostable to get married."

"I'll bet you do, just the same," says he. "And I'll bet you somethin'
else: I'll bet a new hat, the best one I can buy, that inside of a year
you'll be head over heels in some sort of hard work. It may not be
seafarin', but it'll be somethin' to keep you busy. You're too good a
man to rust in the scrap heap. Come! I'll bet the hat. What do you say?"

"Take you," says I, quick. "And if you want to risk another on my
marryin', I'll take that, too."

"Go you," says he. "You'll be married inside of three years--or five,
anyway."

"One year that I'll be at work--steady work--and five that I'm married.
You're shipped, both ways. And I wear a seven and a quarter, soft hat,
black preferred."

"If I don't win the first bet I will the second, sure," he says,
confident. "'Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands,' you know.
Well, good-by, and good luck. Come in and see us whenever you get to New
York."

We shook hands, and I walked out of that office, the office that had
been my home port ever since I graduated from fust mate to skipper. And
on the way to the Fall River boat I vowed my vow over and over again.

"Zebulon Snow," I says to myself--not out loud, you understand; for,
accordin' to Scriptur' or the Old Farmers' Almanac or somethin', a
feller who talks to himself is either rich or crazy and, though I was
well enough fixed to keep the wolf from the door, I wa'n't by no means
so crazy as to leave the door open and take chances--"Zebulon Snow,"
says I, "you're forty-eight year old and blessedly single. All your life
you've been haulin' ropes, or bossin' fo'mast hands, or tryin' to make
harbor in a fog. Now that you've got an anchor to wind'ard--now that the
one talent you put under the stock exchange napkin has spread out so
that you have to have a tablecloth to tote it home in, don't you be a
fool. Don't plant it again, cal'latin' to fill a mains'l next time,
'cause you won't do it. Take what you've got and be thankful--and
careful. You go ashore at Ostable, where you was born, and settle down
and be somebody."

That's about what I said to myself, and that's what I started to do. I
made Ostable on the next mornin's train. The town had changed a whole
lot since I left it, mainly on account of so many summer folks buyin'
and buildin' everywhere, especially along the water front. The few
reg'lar inhabitants that I knew seemed to be glad to see me, which I
took as a sort of compliment, for it don't always foller by a
consider'ble sight. I got into the depot wagon--the same horse was
drawin' it, I judged, that Eben Hendricks had bought when I was a
boy--and asked to be carted to the Travelers' Inn. It appeared that
there wa'n't any Travelers' Inn now, that is to say, the name of it had
been changed to the Poquit House; "Poquit" bein' Injun or Portygee or
somethin' foreign.

But the name was the only thing about that hotel that was changed. The
grub was the same and the wallpaper on the rooms they showed to me
looked about the same age as I was, and wa'n't enough handsomer to
count, either. I hired a couple of them rooms, one to sleep in and smoke
in, and t'other to entertain the parson in, if he should call,
which--unless the profession had changed, too--I judged he would do
pretty quick. I had the rooms cleaned and papered, bought some dyspepsy
medicine to offset the meals I was likely to have, and settled down to
be what Mr. Pike had called a "gentleman of leisure."

Fust three months 'twas fine. At the end of the second three it
commenced to get a little mite dull. In about two more I found my mind
was shrinkin' so that the little mean cat-talks at the breakfast table
was beginnin' to seem interestin' and important. Then I knew 'twas time
to doctor up with somethin' besides dyspepsy pills. Ossification was
settin' in and I'd got to do somethin' to keep me interested, even if I
paid for Pike's hats for the next generation.

You see, there was such a sameness to the programme. Turn out in the
mornin', eat and listen to gossip, go out and take a walk, smoke, talk
with folks I met--more gossip--come back and eat again, go over and
watch the carpenters on the latest summer cottage, smoke some more, eat
some more, and then go down to the Ostable Grocery, Dry Goods, Boots and
Shoes and Fancy Goods Store, or to the post-office, and set around with
the gang till bedtime. That may be an excitin' life for a jellyfish, or
a reg'lar Ostable loafer--but it didn't suit me.

I was feelin' that way, and pretty desperate, the night when Winthrop
Adams Beanblossom--which wa'n't the critter's name but is nigh enough to
the real one for him to cruise under in this yarn--told me the story of
his life and started me on the v'yage that come to mean so much to me. I
didn't know 'twas goin' to mean much of anything when I started in. But
that night Winthrop got me to paddlin', so's to speak, and, later on,
come Jim Henry Jacobs to coax me into deeper water; and, after that, the
combination of them two and Miss Letitia Lee Pendlebury shoved me in all
under, so 'twas a case of stickin' to it or swimmin' or drownin'.

I was in the Ostable Store that evenin', as usual. 'Twas almost nine
o'clock and the rest of the bunch around the stove had gone home. I was
fillin' my pipe and cal'latin' to go, too--if you can call a tavern like
the Poquit House a home. Beanblossom was in behind the desk, his funny
little grizzly-gray head down over a pile of account books and papers,
his specs roostin' on the end of his thin nose, and his pen scratchin'
away like a stray hen in a flower bed.

"Well, Beanblossom," says I, gettin' up and stretchin', "I cal'late it's
time to shed the partin' tear. I'll leave you to figger out whether to
spend this week's profits in government bonds or trips to Europe and go
and lay my weary bones in the tomb, meanin' my private vault on the
second floor of the Poquit. Adieu, Beanblossom," I says; "remember me at
my best, won't you?"

He didn't seem to sense what I was drivin' at. He lifted his head out of
the books and papers, heaved a sigh that must have started somewheres
down along his keelson, and says, sorrowful but polite--he was always
polite--"Er--yes? You were addressin' me, Cap'n Snow?"

"Nothin' in particular," I says. "I was just askin' if you intended
spendin' your profits on a trip to Europe this summer."

Would you believe it, that little storekeepin' man looked at me through
his specs, his pale face twitchin' and workin' like a youngster's when
he's tryin' not to cry, and then, all to once, he broke right down,
leaned his head on his hands and sobbed out loud.

I looked at him. "For the dear land sakes," I sung out, soon's I could
collect sense enough to say anything, "what is the matter? Is anybody
dead or--"

He groaned. "Dead?" he interrupted. "I wish to heaven, I was dead."

"Well!" I gasps. "_Well!_"

"Oh, why," says he, "was I ever born?"

That bein' a question that I didn't feel competent to answer, I didn't
try. My remark about goin' to Europe was intended for a joke, but if my
jokes made grown-up folks cry I cal'lated 'twas time I turned serious.

"What _is_ the matter, Beanblossom?" I says. "Are you in trouble?"

For a spell he wouldn't answer, just kept on sobbin' and wringin' his
thin hands, but, after consider'ble of such, and a good many
unsatisfyin' remarks, he give in and told me the whole yarn, told me all
his troubles. They were complicated and various.

Picked over and b'iled down they amounted to this: He used to have an
income and he lived on it--in bachelor quarters up to Boston. Nigh as I
could gather he never did any real work except to putter in libraries
and collect books and such. Then, somehow or other, the bank the heft of
his money was in broke up and his health broke down. The doctors said he
must go away into the country. He couldn't afford to go and do nothin',
so he has a wonderful inspiration--he'll buy a little store in what he
called a "rural community" and go into business. He advertises, "Country
Store Wanted Cheap," or words to that effect. Abial Beasley's widow had
the "Ostable Grocery, Dry Goods, Boots and Shoes and Fancy Goods Store"
on her hands. She answers the ad and they make a dicker. Said dicker
took about all the cash Beanblossom had left. For a year he had been
fightin' along tryin' to make both ends meet, but now they was so fur
apart they was likely to