Barnacles, Who Mutinied For Good Cause

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Title:     Barnacles, Who Mutinied For Good Cause
Author: Sewell Ford [More Titles by Ford]

With his coming to Sculpin Point there was begun for Barnacles the most surprising period of a more or less useful career which had been filled with unusual equine activities. For Barnacles was a horse, a white horse of unguessed breed and uncertain age.

Most likely it was not, but it may have been, Barnacles's first intimate connection with an affair of the heart. Said affair was between Captain Bastabol Bean, owner and occupant of Sculpin Point, and Mrs. Stashia Buckett, the unlamenting relict of the late Hosea Buckett.

Mrs. Buckett it was who induced Captain Bastabol Bean to purchase a horse. Captain Bean, you will understand, had just won the affections of the plump Mrs. Buckett. Also he had, with a sailor's ignorance of feminine ways, presumed to settle off-hand the details of the coming nuptials.

"I'll sail over in the dory Monday afternoon," said he, "and take you back with me to Sculpin Point. You can have your dunnage sent over later by team. In the evenin' we'll have a shore chaplain come 'round an' make the splice."

"Cap'n Bean," replied the rotund Stashia, "we won't do any of them things, not one."

"Wha-a-at!" gasped the Captain.

"Have you ever been married, Cap'n Bean?"

"N-n-no, my dear."

"Well, I have, and I guess I know how it ought to be done. You'll have the minister come here, and here you'll come to marry me. You won't come in no dory, either. Catch me puttin' my two hundred an' thirty pounds into a little boat like that. You'll drive over here with a horse, like a respectable person, and you'll drive back with me, by land and past Sarepta Tucker's house so's she can see."

Now for more than thirty years Bastabol Bean, as master of coasting schooners up and down the Atlantic seaboard, had given orders. He had taken none, except the formal directions of owners. He did not propose to begin taking them now, not even from such an altogether charming person as Stashia Buckett. This much he said. Then he added:

"Stashia, I give in about coming here to marry you; that seems no more than fair. But I'll come in a dory and you'll go back in a dory."

"Then you needn't come at all, Cap'n Bastabol Bean."

Argue and plead as he might, this was her ultimatum.

"But, Stashia, I 'ain't got a horse, never owned one an' never handled one, and you know it," urged the Captain.

"Then it's high time you had a horse and knew how to drive him. Besides, if I go to Sculpin Point I shall want to come to the village once in a while. I sha'n't sail and I sha'n't walk. If I can't ride like a lady I don't go to the Point."

The inevitable happened. Captain Bean promised to buy a horse next day. Hence his visit to Jed Holden and his introduction to Barnacles, as the Captain immediately named him.

As one who inspects an unfamiliar object, Captain Bean looked dazedly at Barnacles. At the same time Barnacles inspected the Captain. With head lowered to knee level, with ears cocked forward, nostrils sniffing and under-lip twitching almost as if he meant to laugh, Barnacles eyed his prospective owner. In common with most intelligent horses, he had an almost human way of expressing curiosity.

Captain Bean squirmed under the gaze of Barnacles's big, calm eyes for a moment, and then shifted his position.

"What in time does he want anyway, Jed?" demanded the Captain.

"Wants to git acquainted, that's all, Cap'n. Mighty knowin' hoss, he is. Now some hosses don't take notice of anything. They're jest naturally dumb. Then agin you'll find hosses that seem to know every blamed word you say. Them's the kind of hosses that's wuth havin."

"S'pose he knows all the ropes, Jed?"

"I should say he did, Cap'n. If there's anything that hoss ain't done in his day I don't know what 'tis. Near's I can find out he's tried every kind of work, in or out of traces, that you could think of."

"Sho!" The Captain was now looking at the old white horse in an interested manner.

"Yes, sir, that's a remarkable hoss," continued the now enthusiastic Mr. Holden. "He's been in the cavalry service, for he knows the bugle calls like a book. He's travelled with a circus--ain't no more afraid of elephants than I be. He's run on a fire engine--know that 'cause he wants to chase old Reliance every time she turns out. He's been a street-car hoss, too. You jest ring a door gong behind him twice an' see how quick he'll dig in his toes. The feller I got him off'n said he knew of his havin' been used on a milk wagon, a pedler's cart and a hack. Fact is, he's an all round worker."

"Must be some old by your tell," suggested the Captain. "Sure his timbers are all sound?"

"Dun'no' 'bout his timbers, Cap'n, but as fer wind an' limb you won't find a sounder hoss, of his age, in this county. Course, I'm not sellin' him fer a four-year-old. But for your work, joggin' from the P'int into the village an' back once or twice a week, I sh'd say he was jest the ticket; an' forty-five, harness an' all as he stands, is dirt cheap."

Again Captain Bean tried to look critically at the white horse, but once more he met that calm, curious gaze and the attempt was hardly a success. However, the Captain squinted solemnly over Barnacles's withers and remarked:

"Yes, he has got some good lines, as you say, though you wouldn't hardly call him clipper built. Not much sheer for'ard an' a leetle too much aft, eh?"

At this criticism Jed snorted mirthfully.

"Oh, I s'pose he's all right," quickly added the Captain. "Fact is, I ain't never paid much attention to horses, bein' on the water so much. You're sure he'll mind his helm, Jed?"

"Oh, he'll go where you p'int him."

"Won't drag anchor, will he?"

"Stand all day if you'll let him."

"Well, Jed, I'm ready to sign articles, I guess."

It was about noon that a stable-boy delivered Barnacles at Sculpin Point. His arrival caused Lank Peters to suspend peeling the potatoes for dinner and demand explanation.

"Who's the hoss for, Cap'n?" asked Lank.

It was a question that Captain Bean had been dreading for two hours. When he had given up coasting, bought the strip of Massachusetts seashore known as Sculpin Point, built a comfortable cottage on it and settled down within sight and sound of the salt water, he had brought with him Lank Peters, who for a dozen years had presided over the galley in the Captain's ship.

More than a mere sea-cook was Lank Peters to Captain Bean. He was confidential friend, advising philosopher, and mate of Sculpin Point. Yet from Lank had the Captain carefully concealed all knowledge of his affair with the Widow Buckett. The time of confession was at hand.

In his own way and with a directness peculiar to all his acts, did Captain Bean admit the full sum of his rashness, adding, thoughtfully: "I s'pose you won't have to do much cookin' after Stashia comes; but you'll still be mate, Lank, and there'll be plenty to keep you busy on the P'int."

Quietly and with no show of emotion, as befitted a sea-cook and a philosopher, Melankthon Peters heard these revelations. If he had his prejudices as to the wisdom or folly of marrying widows, he said no word. But in the matter of Barnacles he felt more free to express something of his uneasiness.

"I didn't ship for no hostler, Cap'n, an' I guess I'll make a poor fist at it, but I'll do my best," he said.

"Guess we'll manage him between us, Lank," cheerfully responded the Captain. "I ain't got much use for horses myself; but as I said, Stashia, she's down on boats."

"Kinder sot in her idees, ain't she, Cap'n?" insinuated Lank.

"Well, kinder," the Captain admitted.

Lank permitted himself to chuckle guardedly. Captain Bastabol Bean, as an innumerable number of sailor-men had learned, was a person who generally had his own way. Intuitively the Captain understood that Lank had guessed of his surrender. A grim smile was barely suggested by the wrinkles about his mouth and eyes.

"Lank," he said, "the Widow Buckett an' me had some little argument over this horse business an'--an'--I give in. She told me flat she wouldn't come to the P'int if I tried to fetch her by water in the dory. Well, I want Stashia mighty bad; for she's a fine woman, Lank, a mighty fine woman, as you'll say when you know her. So I promised to bring her home by land and with a horse. I'm bound to do it, too. But by time!" Here the Captain suddenly slapped his knee. "I've just been struck with a notion. Lank, I'm going to see what you think of it."

For an hour Captain and mate sat in the sun, smoked their pipes and talked earnestly. Then they separated. Lank began a close study of Barnacles's complicated rigging. The Captain tramped off toward the village.

Late in the afternoon the Captain returned riding in a sidebar buggy with a man. Behind the buggy they towed a skeleton lumber wagon--four wheels connected by an extension pole. The man drove away in the sidebar leaving the Captain and the lumber wagon.

Barnacles, who had been moored to a kedge-anchor, watched the next day's proceedings with interest. He saw the Captain and Lank drag up from the beach the twenty-foot dory and hoist it up between the wheels. Through the forward part of the keelson they bored a hole for the king-bolt. With nut-bolts they fastened the stern to the rear axle, adding some very seamanlike lashings to stay the boat in place. As finishing touches they painted the upper strakes of the dory white, giving to the lower part and to the running-gear of the cart a coat of sea-green.

Barnacles was experienced, but a vehicle such as this amphibious product of Sculpin Point he had never before seen. With ears pointed and nostrils palpitating from curiosity, he was led up to the boat-bodied wagon. Reluctantly he backed under the raised shafts. The practice-hitch was enlivened by a monologue, on the part of Captain Bean, which ran something like this:

"Now, Lank, pass aft that backstay [the trace] and belay; no, not there! Belay to that little yard-arm [whiffle-tree]. Got it through the lazy-jack [trace-bearer]? Now reeve your jib-sheets [lines] through them dead-eyes [hame rings] and pass 'em aft. Now where in Tophet does this thingumbob [holdback] go? Give it a turn around the port bowsprit [shaft]. There, guess everything's taut."

The Captain stood off to take an admiring glance at the turnout.

"She's down by the bow some, Lank, but I guess she'll lighten when we get aboard. See what you think."

Lank's inspection caused him to meditate and scratch his head. Finally he gave his verdict: "From midships aft she looks as trim as a liner, but from midships for'ard she looks scousy, like a Norwegian tramp after a v'yage round The Horn."

"Color of old Barnacles don't suit, eh? No, it don't, that's so. But I couldn't find no green an' white horse, Lank."

"Couldn't we paint him up a leetle, Cap'n?"

"By Sancho, I never thought of that!" exclaimed Captain Bean. "Course we can; git a string an' we'll strike a water-line on him."

With no more ado than as if the thing was quite usual, the preparations for carrying out this indignity were begun. Perhaps the victim thought it a new kind of grooming, for he made no protest. Half an hour later old Barnacles, from about the middle of his barrel down to his shoes, was painted a beautiful sea-green. Like some resplendent marine monster shone the lower half of him. It may have been a trifle bizarre, but, with the sun on the fresh paint, the effect was unmistakably striking. Besides, his color now matched that of the dory's with startling exactness.

"That's what I call real ship-shape," declared Captain Bean, viewing the result. "Got any more notions, Lank?"

"Strikes me we ought to ship a mast so's we could rig a sprit-sail in case the old horse should give out, Cap'n."

"We'll do it, Lank; fust rate idee!"

So a mast and sprit-sail were rigged in the dory. Also the lines were lengthened with rope, that the Captain might steer from the stern sheets.

"She's as fine a land-goin' craft as ever I see anywhere," said the Captain, which was certainly no extravagant statement.

How Captain Bean and his mate steered the equipage from Sculpin Point to the village, how they were cheered and hooted along the route, how they ran into the yard of the Metropolitan Livery Stable as a port of refuge, how the Captain escaped to the home of Widow Buckett, how the "splicin'" was accomplished--these are details which must be slighted.

The climax came when the newly made Mrs. Bastabol Buckett Bean, her plump hand resting affectionately on the sleeve of the Captain's best blue broadcloth coat, said, cooingly: "Now, Cap'n, I'm ready to drive to Sculpin Point."

"All right, Stashia, Lank's waitin' for us at the front door with the craft."

At first sight of the boat on wheels Mrs. Bean could do no more than attempt, by means of indistinct ejaculation, to express her obvious emotion. She noted the grinning crowd of villagers, Sarepta Tucker among them. She saw the white and green dory with its mast, and with Lank, villainously smiling, at the top of a step-ladder which had been leaned against the boat; she saw the green wheels, and the verdant gorgeousness of Barnacles's lower half. For a moment she gazed at the fantastic equipage and spoke not. Then she slammed the front door with an indignant bang, marched back into the sitting-room and threw herself on the haircloth sofa with an abandon that carried away half a dozen springs.

For the first hour she reiterated, between vast sobs, that Captain Bean was a soulless wretch, that she would never set foot on Sculpin Point, and that she would die there on the sofa rather than ride in such an outlandish rig.

Many a time had Captain Bean weathered Hatteras in a southeaster, but never had he met such a storm of feminine fury as this. However, he stood by like a man, putting in soothing words of explanation and endearment whenever a lull gave opportunity.

Toward evening the storm spent itself. The disturbed Stashia became somewhat calm. Eventually she laughed hysterically at the Captain's arguments, and in the end she compromised. Not by day would she enter the dory wagon, but late in the evening she would swallow her pride and go, just to please the Captain.

Thus it was that soon after ten o'clock, when the village folks had laughed their fill and gone away, the new Mrs. Bean climbed the step-ladder, bestowed herself unhandily on the midship thwart and, with Lank on lookout in the bow, and Captain Bean handling the reins from the stern sheets, the honeymoon chariot got under way.

By the time they reached the Shell Road the gait of the dejected Barnacles had dwindled to a deliberate walk which all of Lank's urgings could not hasten. It was a soft July night with a brisk offshore breeze and the moon had come up out of the sea to silver the highway and lay a strip of milk-white carpet over the waves.

"Ahoy there, Lank!" shouted the bridegroom. "Can't we do better'n this? Ain't hardly got steerage-way on her."

"Can't budge him, Cap'n. Hadn't we better shake-out the sprit-sail; wind's fair abeam."

"Yes, shake it out, Lank."

Mrs. Bean's feeble protest was unheeded. As the night wind caught the sail and rounded it out the flapping caused old Barnacles to cast an investigating glance behind him. One look at the terrible white thing which loomed menacingly above him was enough. He decided to bolt. Bolt he did to the best of his ability, all obstacles being considered. A down grade in the Shell Road, where it dipped toward the shore, helped things along. Barnacles tightened the traces, the sprit-sail did its share, and in an amazingly short time the odd vehicle was spinning toward Sculpin Point at a ten-knot gait. Desperately Mrs. Bean gripped the gunwale and lustily she screamed:

"Whoa, whoa! Stop him, Captain, stop him! He'll smash us all to pieces!"

"Set right still, Stashia, an' trim ship. I've got the helm," responded the Captain, who had set his jaws and was tugging at the rope lines.

"Breakers ahead, sir!" shouted Lank at this juncture.

Sure enough, not fifty yards ahead, the Shell Road turned sharply away from the edge of the beach to make a detour by which Sculpin Point was cut off.

"I see 'em, Lank."

"Think we can come about, Cap'n?" asked Lank, anxiously.

"Ain't goin to try, Lank. I'm layin' a straight course for home. Stand by to bail."

How they could possibly escape capsizing Lank could not understand until, just as Barnacles was about to make the turn, he saw the Captain tighten the right-hand rein until it was as taut as a weatherstay. Of necessity Barnacles made no turn, and there was no upset. Something equally exciting happened, though.

Leaving the road with a speed which he had not equalled since the days when he had figured in the "The Grand Hippodrome Races," his sea-green legs quickened by the impetus of the affair behind him, Barnacles cleared the narrow strip of beach-grass at a jump. Another leap and he was hock deep in the surf. Still another, and he split a roller with his white nose.

With a dull chug, a resonant thump, and an impetuous splash the dory entered its accustomed element, lifting some three gallons of salt water neatly over the bows. Lank ducked. The unsuspecting Stashia did not, and the flying brine struck fairly under her ample chin.

"Ug-g-g-gh! Oh! Oh! H-h-h-elp!" spluttered the startled bride, and tried to get on her feet.

"Sit down!" roared Captain Bean. Vehemently Stashia sat.

"W-w-w-we'll all b-b-be d-d-drowned, drowned!" she wailed.

"Not much we won't, Stashia. We're all right now, and we ain't goin' to have our necks broke by no fool horse, either. Trim in the sheet, Lank, an' then take that bailin' scoop." The Captain was now calmly confident and thoroughly at home.

Drenched, cowed and trembling, the newly made Mrs. Bean clung despairingly to the thwart, fully as terrified as the plunging Barnacles, who struck out wildly with his green legs, and snorted every time a wave hit him. But the lines held up his head and kept his nose pointing straight for the little beach on Sculpin Point, perhaps a quarter of a mile distant.

Somewhat heavy weather the deep-laden dory made of it, and in spite of Lank's vigorous bailing the water sloshed around Mrs. Bean's boot-tops, yet in time the sail and Barnacles brought them safely home.

"'Twa'n't exactly the kind of honeymoon trip I'd planned, Stashia," commented the Captain, as he and Lank steadied the bride's dripping bulk down the step-ladder, "and we did do some sailin', spite of ourselves; but we had a horse in front an' wheels under us all the way, just as I promised."

[The end]
Sewell Ford's short story: Barnacles, Who Mutinied For Good Cause

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