Chapter Fifteen. An Old Acquaintance Turns Up

The Story of a Bad Boy

by Thomas Bailey Aldrich

A year had stolen by since the death of Binny Wallace-a year of
which I have nothing important to record.

The loss of our little playmate threw a shadow over our young
lives for many and many a month. The Dolphin rose and fell with the
tide at the foot of the slippery steps, unused, the rest of the
summer. At the close of November we hauled her sadly into the
boat-house for the winter; but when spring came round we launched the
Dolphin again, and often went down to the wharf and looked at her
lying in the tangled eel-grass, without much inclination to take a
row. The associations connected with the boat were too painful as
yet; but time, which wears the sharp edge from everything, softened
this feeling, and one afternoon we brought out the cobwebbed oars.

The ice once broken, brief trips along the wharves-we seldom
cared to go out into the river now-became one of our chief
amusements. Meanwhile Gypsy was not forgotten. Every clear morning I
was in the saddle before breakfast, and there are few roads or lanes
within ten miles of Rivermouth that have not borne the print of her
vagrant hoof.

I studied like a good fellow this quarter, carrying off a couple
of first prizes. The Captain expressed his gratification by
presenting me with a new silver dollar. If a dollar in his eyes was
smaller than a cart-wheel, it wasn't so very much smaller. I redeemed
my pencil-case from the treasurer of the Centipedes, and felt that I
was getting on in the world.

It was at this time I was greatly cast down by a letter from my
father saying that he should be unable to visit Rivermouth until the
following year. With that letter came another to Captain Nutter,
which he did not read aloud to the family, as usual. It was on
business, he said, folding it up in his wallet. He received several
of these business letters from time to time, and I noticed that they
always made him silent and moody.

The fact is, my father's banking-house was not thriving. The
unlooked-for failure of a firm largely indebted to him had crippled
"the house." When the Captain imparted this information to me I
didn't trouble myself over the matter. I supposed-if I supposed
anything-that all grown-up people had more or less money, when they
wanted it. Whether they inherited it, or whether government supplied
them, was not clear to me. A loose idea that my father had a private
gold-mine somewhere or other relieved me of all uneasiness.

I was not far from right. Every man has within himself a
gold-mine whose riches are limited only by his own industry. It is
true, it sometimes happens that industry does not avail, if a man
lacks that something which, for want of a better name, we call Luck.
My father was a person of untiring energy and ability; but he had no
luck. To use a Rivermouth saying, he was always catching sculpins
when everyone else with the same bait was catching mackerel.

It was more than two years since I had seen my parents. I felt
that I could not bear a longer separation. Every letter from New
Orleans-we got two or three a month-gave me a fit of homesickness;
and when it was definitely settled that my father and mother were to
remain in the South another twelvemonth, I resolved to go to them.

Since Binny Wallace's death, Pepper Whitcomb had been my fidus
Achates; we occupied desks near each other at school, and were always
together in play hours. We rigged a twine telegraph from his garret
window to the scuttle of the Nutter House, and sent messages to each
other in a match-box. We shared our pocket-money and our
secrets-those amazing secrets which boys have. We met in lonely
places by stealth, and parted like conspirators; we couldn't buy a
jackknife or build a kite without throwing an air of mystery and
guilt over the transaction.

I naturally hastened to lay my New Orleans project before Pepper
Whitcomb, having dragged him for that purpose to a secluded spot in
the dark pine woods outside the town. Pepper listened to me with a
gravity which he will not be able to surpass when he becomes Chief
Justice, and strongly advised me to go.

"The summer vacation," said Pepper, "lasts six weeks; that will
give you a fortnight to spend in New Orleans, allowing two weeks each
way for the journey."

I wrung his hand and begged him to accompany me, offering to
defray all the expenses. I wasn't anything if I wasn't princely in
those days. After considerable urging, he consented to go on terms so
liberal. The whole thing was arranged; there was nothing to do now
but to advise Captain Nutter of my plan, which I did the next day.

The possibility that he might oppose the tour never entered my
head. I was therefore totally unprepared for the vigorous negative
which met my proposal. I was deeply mortified, moreover, for there
was Pepper Whitcomb on the wharf, at the foot of the street, waiting
for me to come and let him know what day we were to start.

"Go to New Orleans? Go to Jericho I" exclaimed Captain Nutter.
"You'd look pretty, you two, philandering off, like the babes in the
wood, twenty-five hundred miles, 'with all the world before-you where
to choose!'"

And the Captain's features, which had worn an indignant air as
he began the sentence, relaxed into a broad smile. Whether it was at
the felicity of his own quotation, or at the mental picture he drew
of Pepper and myself on our travels

I couldn't tell, and I didn't care. I was heart-broken. How
could I face my chum after all the dazzling inducements I had held
out to him?

My grandfather, seeing that I took the matter seriously, pointed
out the difficulties of such a journey and the great expense
involved. He entered into the details of my father's money troubles,
and succeeded in making it plain to me that my wishes, under the
circumstances, were somewhat unreasonable. It was in no cheerful mood
that I joined Pepper at the end of the wharf.

I found that young gentleman leaning against the bulkhead gazing
intently towards the islands in the harbor. He had formed a telescope
of his hands, and was so occupied with his observations as to be
oblivious of my approach.

"Hullo!" cried Pepper, dropping his hands. "Look there! Isn't
that a bark coming up the Narrows?"

"Where?"

"Just at the left of Fishcrate Island. Don't you see the
foremast peeping above the old derrick?"

Sure enough it was a vessel of considerable size, slowly beating
up to town. In a few moments more the other two masts were visible
above the green hillocks.

"Fore-topmasts blown away," said Pepper. "Putting in for
repairs, I guess."

As the bark lazily crept from behind the last of the islands,
she let go her anchors and swung round with the tide. Then the
gleeful chant of the sailors at the capstan came to us pleasantly
across the water. The vessel lay within three quarters of a mile of
us, and we could plainly see the men at the davits lowering the
starboard long-boat. It no sooner touched the stream than a dozen of
the crew scrambled like mice over the side of the merchantman.

In a neglected seaport like Rivermouth the arrival of a large
ship is an event of moment. The prospect of having twenty or thirty
jolly tars let loose on the peaceful town excites divers emotions
among the inhabitants. The small shopkeepers along the wharves
anticipate a thriving trade; the proprietors of the two rival
boarding-houses-the "Wee Drop" and the "Mariner's Home"-hasten down
to the landing to secure lodgers; and the female population of Anchor
Lane turn out to a woman, for a ship fresh from sea is always full of
possible husbands and long-lost prodigal sons.

But aside from this there is scant welcome given to a ship's
crew in Rivermouth. The toil-worn mariner is a sad fellow ashore,
judging him by a severe moral standard.

Once, I remember, a United States frigate came into port for
repairs after a storm. She lay in the river a fortnight or more, and
every day sent us a gang of sixty or seventy of our country's gallant
defenders, who spread themselves over the town, doing all sorts of
mad things. They were good-natured enough, but full of old Sancho.
The "Wee Drop" proved a drop too much for many of them. They went
singing through the streets at midnight, wringing off door-knockers,
shinning up water-spouts, and frightening the Oldest Inhabitant
nearly to death by popping their heads into his second-story window,
and shouting "Fire!" One morning a blue-jacket was discovered in a
perilous plight, half-way up the steeple of the South Church,
clinging to the lightning-rod. How he got there nobody could tell,
not even blue-jacket himself. All he knew was, that the leg of his
trousers had caught on a nail, and there he stuck, unable to move
either way. It cost the town twenty dollars to get him down again. He
directed the workmen how to splice the ladders brought to his
assistance, and called his rescuers "butter-fingered land-lubbers"
with delicious coolness.

But those were man-of-war's men: The sedate-looking craft now
lying off Fishcrate Island wasn't likely to carry any such cargo.
Nevertheless, we watched the coming in of the long-boat with
considerable interest.

As it drew near, the figure of the man pulling the bow-oar
seemed oddly familiar to me. Where could I have seen him before? When
and where? His back was towards me, but there was something about
that closely cropped head that I recognized instantly.

"Way enough!" cried the steersman, and all the oars stood
upright in the air. The man in the bow seized the boat-hook, and,
turning round quickly, showed me the honest face of Sailor Ben of the
Typhoon.

"It's Sailor Ben!" I cried, nearly pushing Pepper Whitcomb
overboard in my excitement.

Sailor Ben, with the wonderful pink lady on his arm, and the
ships and stars and anchors tattooed all over him, was a well-known
hero among my playmates. And there he was, like something in a dream
come true!

I didn't wait for my old acquaintance to get firmly on the
wharf, before I grasped his hand in both of mine.

"Sailor Ben, don't you remember me?"

He evidently did not. He shifted his quid from one cheek to the
other, and looked at me meditatively.

"Lord love ye, lad, I don't know you. I was never here afore in
my life."

"What!" I cried, enjoying his perplexity. "Have you forgotten
the voyage from New Orleans in the Typhoon, two years ago, you lovely
old picture-book?"

Ah! then he knew me, and in token of the recollection gave my
hand such a squeeze that I am sure an unpleasant change came over my
countenance.

"Bless my eyes, but you have growed so. I shouldn't have knowed
you if I had met you in Singapore!"

Without stopping to inquire, as I was tempted to do, why he was
more likely to recognize me in Singapore than anywhere else, I
invited him to come at once up to the Nutter House, where I insured
him a warm welcome from the Captain.

"Hold steady, Master Tom," said Sailor Ben, slipping the painter
through the ringbolt and tying the loveliest knot you ever saw; "hold
steady till I see if the mate can let me off. If you please, sir," he
continued, addressing the steersman, a very red-faced, bow-legged
person, "this here is a little shipmate o' mine as wants to talk over
back times along of me, if so it's convenient."

"All right, Ben," returned the mate; "sha'n't want you for an
hour."

Leaving one man in charge of the boat, the mate and the rest of
the crew went off together. In the meanwhile Pepper Whitcomb had got
out his cunner-line, and was quietly fishing at the end of the wharf,
as if to give me the idea that he wasn't so very much impressed by my
intimacy with so renowned a character as Sailor Ben. Perhaps Pepper
was a little jealous. At any rate, he refused to go with us to the
house.

Captain Nutter was at home reading the Rivennouth Barnacle. He
was a reader to do an editor's heart good; he never skipped over an
advertisement, even if he had read it fifty times before. Then the
paper went the rounds of the neighborhood, among the poor people,
like the single portable eye which the three blind crones passed to
each other in the legend of King Acrisius. The Captain, I repeat, was
wandering in the labyrinths of the Rivermouth Barnacle when I led
Sailor Ben into the sitting-room.

My grandfather, whose inborn courtesy knew no distinctions,
received my nautical friend as if he had been an admiral instead of a
common forecastle-hand. Sailor Ben pulled an imaginary tuft of hair
on his forehead, and bowed clumsily. Sailors have a way of using
their forelock as a sort of handle to bow with.

The old tar had probably never been in so handsome an apartment
in all his days, and nothing could induce him to take the inviting
mahogany chair which the Captain wheeled out from the corner.

The abashed mariner stood up against the wall, twirling his
tarpaulin in his two hands and looking extremely silly. He made a
poor show in a gentleman's drawing-room, but what a fellow he had
been in his day, when the gale blew great guns and the topsails
wanted reefing! I thought of him with the Mexican squadron off Vera
Cruz, where,

'The rushing battle-bolt sung from the three-decker out of
the

foam,"

and he didn't seem awkward or ignoble to me, for all his
shyness.

As Sailor Ben declined to sit down, the Captain did not resume
his seat; so we three stood in a constrained manner until my
grandfather went to the door and called to Kitty to bring in a
decanter of Madeira and two glasses.

"My grandson, here, has talked so much about you," said the
Captain, pleasantly, "that you seem quite like an old acquaintance to
me."

"Thankee, sir, thankee," returned Sailor Ben, looking as guilty
as if he had been detected in picking a pocket.

"And I'm very glad to see you, Mr.-Mr.-"

"Sailor Ben," suggested that worthy.

"Mr. Sailor Ben," added the Captain, smiling. "Tom, open the
door, there's Kitty with the glasses."

I opened the door, and Kitty entered the room bringing the
things on a waiter, which she was about to set on the table, when
suddenly she uttered a loud shriek; the decanter and glasses fell
with a crash to the floor, and Kitty, as white as a sheet, was seen
flying through the hall.

"It's his wraith! It's his wraith!"' we heard Kitty shrieking in
the kitchen.

My grandfather and I turned with amazement to Sailor Ben. His
eyes were standing out of his head like a lobster's.

"It's my own little Irish lass!" shouted the sailor, and he
darted into the hall after her.

Even then we scarcely caught the meaning of his words, but when
we saw Sailor Ben and Kitty sobbing on each other's shoulder in the
kitchen, we understood it all.

"I begs your honor's parden, sir," said Sailor Ben, lifting his
tear-stained face above Kitty's tumbled hair; "I begs your honor's
parden for kicking up a rumpus in the house, but it's my own little
Irish lass as I lost so long ago!"

"Heaven preserve us!" cried the Captain, blowing his nose
violently-a transparent ruse to hide his emotion.

Miss Abigail was in an upper chamber, sweeping; but on hearing
the unusual racket below, she scented an accident and came ambling
downstairs with a bottle of the infallible hot-drops in her hand.
Nothing but the firmness of my grandfather prevented her from giving
Sailor Ben a table-spoonful on the spot. But when she learned what
had come about-that this was Kitty's husband, that Kitty Collins
wasn't Kitty Collins now, but Mrs. Benjamin Watson of Nantucket-the
good soul sat down on the meal-chest and sobbed as if-to quote from
Captain Nutter-as if a husband of her own had turned up!

A happier set of people than we were never met together in a
dingy kitchen or anywhere else. The Captain ordered a fresh decanter
of Madeira, and made all hands, excepting myself, drink a cup to the
return of "the prodigal sea-son," as he persisted in calling Sailor
Ben.

After the first flush of joy and surprise was over Kitty grew
silent and constrained. Now and then she fixed her eyes thoughtfully
on her husband. Why had he deserted her all these years? What right
had he to look for a welcome from one he had treated so cruelly? She
had been true to him, but had he been true to her? Sailor Ben must
have guessed what was passing in her mind, for presently he took her
hand and said- "Well, lass, it's a long yarn, but you shall have it
all in good time. It was my hard luck as made us part company, an' no
will of mine, for I loved you dear."

Kitty brightened up immediately, needing no other assurance of
Sailor Ben's faithfulness.

When his hour had expired, we walked with him down to the wharf,
where the Captain held a consultation with the mate, which resulted
in an extension of Mr. Watson's leave of absence, and afterwards in
his discharge from his ship. We then went to the "Mariner's Home" to
engage a room for him, as he wouldn't hear of accepting the
hospitalities of the Nutter House.

"You see, I'm only an uneddicated man," he remarked to my
grandfather, by way of explanation.