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He was not arrayed in the white flannels but was wearing a rather shabby but very comfortable tweed jacket and trousers and a white canvas hat of the kind which Hamilton and Company sold for fifty cents. His shirt was of the soft-collared variety and his shoes were what South Harniss called "sneakers." John Keith's visits to Cape Cod were neither very frequent nor lengthy.
That summer the summer preceding Mary-'Gusta's fifteenth birthday was the liveliest South Harniss had known. The village was beginning to feel the first symptoms of its later boom as a summer resort. A number of cottages had been built for people from Boston and New York and Chicago, and there was talk of a new hotel.
The cat wailed lugubriously at intervals. Zoeth made the next attempt at conversation. "Never been to South Harniss, have you, Mary-'Gusta?" he inquired. "No, sir," gravely. "But," remembering the housekeeper's final charge not to forget her manners, if she had any, "I'm sure I'll like it very much." "Oh, you are, eh? Well, that's nice. What makes you so sure?" Mary-'Gusta reflected.
That is, don't fall in love with New York so hard that you forget there is such a place as South Harniss." Albert smiled. "I've been in places farther away than New York," he said, "and I never forgot South Harniss." "Um-hm. . . . Well, I shouldn't be surprised if that was so. But you'll have better company in New York than you did in some of those places. Give my regards to Fosdick. So-long, Al."
Along the path skirting the edge of the bluff Albert strolled, his hands in his pockets and his thoughts almost anywhere except on the picnic and the picnickers of the South Harniss Congregational Church. His particular mood on this day was one of discontent and rebellion against the fate which had sentenced him to the assistant bookkeeper's position in the office of Z. Snow and Co.
At home, in South Harniss, they had met many times, but always at the store. He was pleasant and jolly and she liked him well enough, although she had refused his invitations to go on sailing parties and the like.
She was a wonder, that boat. Red hull, real lead on the keel, brass rings on the masts, reef points on the main and fore sail, jib, flying jib and topsails, all complete. And on the stern was the name, "Dusenberry. East Harniss." Captain Hiram set her down in front of him on the floor. "Gee!" he exclaimed, "won't his eyes stick out when he sees that rig, hey?
The very last of the summer cottages were closed. Orham settled down for its regular winter hibernation. This year it was a bit less of a nap than usual because of the activity at the aviation camp at East Harniss.
"The market price of JOHNNY-CAKE! He must have thought you was loony." "No. I'm the last man he'd think was loony. You see I met him a fore he came here to live at all." "You did? Where?" "Oh, over to Wellmouth. 'Twas the year afore I come back to East Harniss, myself, after my long stretch away from it. I never intended to see the Cape again, but I couldn't stay away somehow.
There's times when salt-water language is the only thing that seems to help me out . . . Well, Mother, what next? What'll we do now?" "You know just as well as I do, Zelotes. There's only one thing you can do. That's go out and beg her pardon this minute. There's a dozen places she could get right here in South Harniss without turnin' her hand over.
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