They gave up calling him by his first name, because of the Captain's invariably answering when the baby was wanted and not answering when he himself was wanted. Sophronia would have liked to call him Joash, but her husband wouldn't hear of it. At length the father took to calling him "Dusenberry," and this nickname was adopted under protest.
Captain Hiram sang the baby to sleep every night. There were three songs in the Captain's repertoire. The first was a chanty with a chorus of John, storm along, storm along, John, Ain't I glad my day's work's done.
The second was the "Bowline Song."
Haul on the bowline, the 'Phrony is a-rollin', Haul on the bowline! the bowline HAUL!
At the "haul!" the Captain's foot would come down with a thump.
Almost the first word little Hiram Joash learned was "haul!" He used to shout it and kick his father vigorously in the vest.
These were fair-weather songs. Captain Hiram sang them when everything was going smoothly. The "Bowline Song" indicated that he was feeling particularly jubilant. He had another that he sang when he was worried. It was a lugubrious ditty, with a refrain beginning:
Oh, sailor boy, sailor boy, 'neath the wild billow, Thy grave is yawnin' and waitin' for thee.
He sang this during the worst of the teething period, and, later, when the junior partner wrestled with the whooping cough. You could always tell the state of the baby's health by the Captain's choice of songs.
Meanwhile Dusenberry grew and prospered. He learned to walk and to talk, after his own peculiar fashion, and, at the mature age of two years and six months, formally shipped as first mate aboard his father's dory. His duties in this responsible position were to sit in the stern, securely fastened by a strap, while the Captain and his two assistants rowed out over the bar to haul the nets of the deep water fish weir.
The first mate gave the orders, "All hands on deck! 'Tand by to det ship under way!" There was no "sogerin'" aboard the Hiram Junior--that was the dory's name--while the first officer had command.
Captain Hiram, always ready to talk of the wonderful baby, told the depot master of the youngster's latest achievement, which was to get the cover off the butter firkin in the pantry and cover himself with butter from head to heel.
"Ho, ho, ho!" he roared, delightedly, "when Sophrony caught him at it, what do you s'pose he said? Said he was playin' he was a slice of bread and was spreadin' himself. Haw! haw!"
Captain Sol laughed in sympathy.
"But he didn't mean no harm by it," explained the proud father.
"He's got the tenderest little heart in the world. When he found his ma felt bad he bust out cryin' and said he'd scrape it all off again and when it come prayer time he'd tell God who did it, so He'd know 'twa'n't mother that wasted the nice butter. What do you think of that?"
"No use talkin', Hiram," said the depot master, "that's the kind of boy to have."
"You bet you! Hello! here's the train. On time, for a wonder.
See you later, Sol. You take my advice, get married and have a boy of your own. Nothin' like one for solid comfort."
The train was coming and they went out to meet it. The only passenger to alight was Mr. Barzilla Wingate, whose arrival had been foretold by Bailey Stitt the previous evening. Barzilla was part owner of a good-sized summer hotel at Wellmouth Neck. He and the depot master were old friends.
After the train had gone Wingate and Captain Sol entered the station together. The Captain had insisted that his friend come home with him to breakfast, instead of going to the hotel. After some persuasion Barzilla agreed. So they sat down to await Issy's arrival. The depot master could not leave the station until the "assistant" arrived.
"Well, Barzilla," asked Captain Sol, "what's the newest craze over to the hotel?"
"The newest," said Wingate, with a grin, "is automobiles."
"Automobiles? Why, I thought 'twas baseball."
"Baseball was last summer. We had a championship team then. Yes, sir, we won out, though for a spell it looked pretty dubious. But baseball's an old story. We've had football since, and now--"
"Wait a minute! Football? Why, now I do remember. You had a football team there and--and wa'n't there somethin' queer, some sort of a--a robbery, or stealin', or swindlin' connected with it?
Seems's if I'd heard somethin' like that."
Mr. Wingate looked his friend over, winked, and asked a question.
"Sol," he said, "you ain't forgot how to keep a secret?"
The depot master smiled. "I guess not," he said.
"Well, then, I'm goin' to trust you with one. I'm goin' to tell you the whole business about that robbin'. It's all mixed up with football and millionaires and things--and it's a dead secret, the truth of it. So when I tell you it mustn't go no further.
"You see," he went on, "it was late into August when Peter T. was took down with the inspiration. Not that there was anything 'specially new in his bein' took. He was subject to them seizures, Peter was, and every time they broke out in a fresh place. The Old Home House itself was one of his inspirations, so was the hirin' of college waiters, the openin' of the two 'Annex' cottages, the South Shore Weather Bureau, and a whole lot more. Sometimes, as in the weather-bureau foolishness, the disease left him and t'other two patients--meanin' me and Cap'n Jonadab--pretty weak in the courage, and wasted in the pocketbook; but gen'rally they turned out good, and our systems and bank accounts was more healthy than normal.
One of Peter T.'s inspirations was consider'ble like typhoid fever--if you did get over it, you felt better for havin' had it.
"This time the attack was in the shape of a 'supplementary season.'
'Twas Peter's idea that shuttin' up the Old Home the fust week in September was altogether too soon.
