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She was not one to be greatly influenced by first impressions, but she had been favorably impressed by this young fellow, and had already begun to feel that sense of guardianship and personal responsibility which, later on, was to make Captain Zebedee Mayo nickname the minister "Keziah's Parson." The sermon was a success. On Monday afternoon the minister made a few calls.
So Zebedee had a conversation one day with the Captain of the Nancy Johnson, and found out from him that he had taken the latitude and longitude of the coast where they took away the shipwrecked sailors.
The pole on Cannon Hill, where the beacon was hoisted when the packet from Boston dropped anchor in the bay, was shiny and slippery. The new weathervane, a gilded whale, presented to the "Regular" church by Captain Zebedee Mayo, retired whaler, swam in a sea of cloud. The lichened eaves of the little "Come-Outer" chapel dripped at sedate intervals.
Black clothes! And your hair oiled?" "No, not so bad as that. My mother was a very particular lady." "Can you tell us about her?" Helen asked. "I don't know that I can." "You oughtn't to have suggested it," Miriam said in a reproof which was ready to turn to mockery at a hint from Zebedee. "He won't tell us if he doesn't want to. You wouldn't be hurt by anything we said, would you?"
Men and women flitted like shadows between him and Helen, but she saw plainly enough. Zebedee was interested: he nodded twice, looked at the girl and laughed, while she walked sideways in her eagerness. She was young and pretty: no one, Helen thought, had ever married her. The noise of the street rushed on her again, and she heard the shopman say, "That's a case, I think.
He went round the back of the cart and lighted the other lamp. "Now I'm going to drive you home. That basket's heavy." "I have been shopping," she explained. "Tomorrow a visitor is coming." "Your father?" he asked quickly. "No; he hasn't been again. He's ill, Notya says, and it's too cold for him here. Dr. Zebedee, aren't you glad to be back on the moor?" "Well, I don't see much of it, you know.
The sound of a sharp voice was heard echoing down the stairs and along the passage, a sharp, high-pitched voice, accompanied by the sharper, shriller barking of a small dog. "Zeb! I say, Zeb! Zebedee, if you have taken that young girl into your sanctum, I desire you to send her out this moment." The little man's face grew pale; he pushed his spectacles still higher on his forehead.
For an instant, Helen felt old and forgotten; she remembered Notya, who was in trouble, and she herself was shrouded by her own readiness to see misfortune; all her little preparations, the flowers on the table, the scones before the fire, her pretty dress, were gathered into one foolishness when she saw Zebedee pushing open the gate and looking down at Miriam.
He saw, too, that with some native intuition she seemed to divine this, and to assume command even of those older than herself. Thus Wish Wright and his brother, Welcome, both her seniors by several years, were her awe-bound slaves; and the twin daughters of Zebedee Bloom obeyed her least whim without question, even when it involved them in situations more or less delicate.
"She was all right yesterday." "You'll have to see her tomorrow. Then you'll come here, too." "There isn't any need." "But Notya likes to see you. Come and see her now." She sighed when they walked downstairs together as though things had never changed. "Oh, Zebedee, I wanted you to come today. You have made me feel clean again. Notya oh !" She shuddered.
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