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TITLE: KEZIAH COFFIN
AUTHOR: JOSEPH C. LINCOLN
EBOOK: E06779 (O'Briens Book Cellar)
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

KEZIAH COFFIN

by Joseph C. Lincoln

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I.--IN WHICH KEZIAH HEARS OF TWO PROPOSALS AND THE BEGINNING OF A
    THIRD

II.--IN WHICH KEZIAH UNEARTHS A PROWLER

III.--IN WHICH KEZIAH ASSUMES A GUARDIANSHIP

IV.--IN WHICH KEZIAH'S PARSON DECIDES TO RUN IT BLINDFOLD

V.--IN WHICH THE PARSON CRUISES IN STRANGE WATERS

VI.--IN WHICH OLD FRIENDS MEET

VII.--IN WHICH CAPTAIN NAT PICKS UP A DERELICT

VIII.--IN WHICH THE PARSON AND MR. PEPPER DECLARE THEIR INDEPENDENCE

IX.--IN WHICH MISS DANIELS DETERMINES TO FIND OUT

X.--IN WHICH KEZIAH'S TROUBLES MULTIPLY

XI.--IN WHICH CAPEN EBEN RECEIVES A CALLER

XII.--IN WHICH CAPTAIN EBEN MAKES PORT

XIII.--IN WHICH KEZIAH BREAKS THE NEWS

XIV.--IN WHICH THE SEA MIST SAILS

XV.--IN WHICH TRUMET TALKS OF CAPTAIN NAT

XVI--IN WHICH THE MINISTER BOARDS THE SAN JOSE

XVII.--IN WHICH EBENEZER CAPEN IS SURPRISED

XVIII.--IN WHICH KEZIAH DECIDES TO FIGHT

XIX.--IN WHICH A RECEPTION IS CALLED OFF

XX.--IN WHICH THE MINISTER RECEIVES A LETTER

XXI.--IN WHICH MR. STONE WASHES HIS HANDS

XXII.--IN WHICH KEZIAH'S PARSON PREACHES ONCE MORE

KEZIAH COFFIN

by Joseph C. Lincoln

CHAPTER I

IN WHICH KEZIAH HEARS TWO PROPOSALS AND THE BEGINNING OF A THIRD

Trumet in a fog; a fog blown in during the night by the wind from
the wide Atlantic.  So wet and heavy that one might taste the salt
in it.  So thick that houses along the main road were but dim
shapes behind its gray drapery, and only the gates and fences of
the front yards were plainly in evidence to the passers-by.  The
beach plum and bayberry bushes on the dunes were spangled with
beady drops.  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.  The brick walk leading to the
door of Captain Elkanah Daniels's fine residence held undignified
puddles in its hollows.  And, through the damp stillness, the
muttered growl of the surf, three miles away at the foot of the
sandy bluffs by the lighthouse, sounded ominously.

Directly opposite Captain Elkanah's front gate, on the other side
of the main road, stood the little story-and-a-half house, also the
captain's property, which for fourteen years had been tenanted by
Mrs. Keziah Coffin and her brother, Solomon Hall, the shoemaker.
But Solomon had, the month before, given up his fight with debt and
illness and was sleeping quietly in Trumet's most populous center,
the graveyard.  And Keziah, left alone, had decided that the rent
and living expenses were more than her precarious earnings as a
seamstress would warrant, and, having bargained with the furniture
dealer in Wellmouth for the sale of her household effects, was now
busy getting them ready for the morrow, when the dealer's wagon was
to call.  She was going to Boston, where a distant and
condescending rich relative had interested himself to the extent of
finding her a place as sewing woman in a large tailoring
establishment.

The fog hung like a wet blanket over the house and its small yard,
where a few venerable pear trees, too conservative in their old age
to venture a bud even though it was almost May, stood bare and
forlorn.  The day was dismal.  The dismantled dining room, its
tables and chairs pushed into a corner, and its faded ingrain
carpet partially stripped from the floor, was dismal, likewise.
Considering all things, one might have expected Keziah herself to
be even more dismal.  But, to all outward appearances, she was not.
A large portion of her thirty-nine years of life had been passed
under a wet blanket, so to speak, and she had not permitted the
depressing covering to shut out more sunshine than was absolutely
necessary.  "If you can't get cream, you might as well learn to
love your sasser of skim milk," said practical Keziah.

She was on her knees, her calico dress sleeves, patched and darned,
but absolutely clean, rolled back, uncovering a pair of plump,
strong arms, a saucer of tacks before her, and a tack hammer with a
claw head in her hand.  She was taking up the carpet.  Grace Van
Horne, Captain Eben Hammond's ward, who had called to see if there
was anything she might do to help, was removing towels,
tablecloths, and the like from the drawers in a tall "high-boy,"
folding them and placing them in an old and battered trunk.  The
pair had been discussing the subject which all Trumet had discussed
for three weeks, namely, the "calling" to the pastorate of the
"Regular" church of the Rev. John Ellery, the young divinity
student, who was to take the place of old Parson Langley, minister
in the parish for over thirty years.  Discussion in the village had
now reached a critical point, for the Reverend John was expected by
almost any coach.  In those days, the days of the late fifties, the
railroad down the Cape extended only as far as Sandwich; passengers
made the rest of their journey by stage.  Many came direct from the
city by the packet, the little schooner, but Mr. Ellery had written
that he should probably come on the coach.

"They say he's very nice-looking," remarked Miss Van Horne soberly,
but with a MISCHIEVOUS glance under her dark lashes at Keziah.  The
lady addressed paused long enough to transfer several tacks from
the floor to the saucer, and then made answer.

"Humph!" she observed.  "A good many years ago I saw a theater show
up to Boston.  Don't be shocked; those circumstances we hear so
much tell of--the kind you can't control--have kept me from goin'
to theaters much, even if I wanted to.  But I did see this
entertainment, and a fool one 'twas, too, all singin' instead of
talkin'--op'ra, I believe they called it.  Well, as I started to
say, one of the leadin' folks in it was the Old Harry himself, and
HE was pretty good-lookin'."

Grace laughed, even though she had been somewhat shocked.

"Why, Aunt Keziah!" she exclaimed--those who knew Keziah Coffin
best usually called her aunt, though real nephews and nieces she
had none--"why, Aunt Keziah!  What do you mean by comparing the--
the person you just mentioned with a MINISTER!"

"Oh, I wasn't comparin' 'em; I'll leave that for you Come-Outers to
do.  Drat this carpet!  Seems's if I never saw such long tacks; I
do believe whoever put 'em down drove 'em clean through the center
of the earth and let the Chinymen clinch 'em on t'other side.  I
haul up a chunk of the cellar floor with every one.  Ah, hum!" with
a sigh, "I cal'late they ain't any more anxious to leave home than
I am.  But, far's the minister's concerned, didn't I hear of your
Uncle Eben sayin' in prayer meetin' only a fortni't or so ago that
all hands who wa'n't Come-Outers were own children to Satan?  Mr.
Ellery must take after his father some.  Surprisin', ain't it, what
a family the old critter's got."

The girl laughed again.  For one brought up, since her seventh
year, in the strictest of Come-Outer families, she laughed a good
deal.  Many Come-Outers considered it wicked to laugh.  Yet Grace
did it, and hers was a laugh pleasant to hear and distinctly
pleasant to see.  It made her prettier than ever, a fact which, if
she was aware of it, should have been an additional preventive, for
to be pretty smacks of vanity.  Perhaps she wasn't aware of it.

"What do you think Uncle Eben would say if he heard that?" she
asked.

"Say I took after my father, too, I presume likely.  Does your
uncle know you come here to see me so often?  And call me 'aunt'
and all that?"

"Of course he does.  Aunt Keziah, you mustn't think Uncle Eben
doesn't see the good in people simply because they don't believe as
he does.  He's as sweet and kind as--"

"Who?  Eben Hammond?  Land sakes, child, don't I know it?  Cap'n
Eben's the salt of the earth.  I'm a Regular and always have been,
but I'd be glad if my own society was seasoned with a few like him.
'Twould taste better to me of a Sunday."  She paused, and then
added quizzically: "What d'you s'pose Cap'n Elkanah and the rest of
our parish committee would say if they heard THAT?"

"Goodness knows!  Still, I'm glad to hear you say it.  And uncle
says you are as good a woman as ever lived.  He thinks you're
misled, of course, but that some day you'll see the error of your
ways."

"Humph!  I'll have to hurry up if I want to see 'em without
spectacles.  See my errors!  Land sakes! much as I can do to see
the heads of these tacks.  Takin' up carpets is as hard a test of a
body's eyesight as 'tis of their religion."

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