"'What's the use of quittin',' says he, 'while there's bait left and the fish are bitin'? Why not keep her goin' through September and October? Two or three ads--MY ads--in the papers, hintin' that the ducks and wild geese are beginnin' to keep the boarders awake by roostin' in the back yard and hollerin' at night--two or three of them, and we'll have gunners here by the regiment. Other summer hotels do it, the Wapatomac House and the rest, so why not us? It hurts my conscience to see good money gettin' past the door 'count of the "Not at Home" sign hung on the knob. What d'you say, partners?' says he.
"Well, we had consider'ble to say, partic'lar Cap'n Jonadab. 'Twas too risky and too expensive. Gunnin' was all right except for one thing--that is, that there wa'n't none wuth mentionin'.
"'Ducks are scurser round here than Democrats in a Vermont town-meetin',' growled the Cap'n. 'And as for geese! How long has it been since you see a goose, Barzilla?'
"'Land knows!' says I. 'I can remember as fur back as the fust time Washy Sparrow left off workin', but I can't--'
"Brown told us to shut up. Did we cal'late he didn't know what he was talkin' about?
"'I can see two geese right now,' he snaps; 'but they're so old and leather-headed you couldn't shoot an idea into their brains with a cannon. Gunnin' ain't the whole thing. My makin' a noise like a duck is only to get the would-be Teddy Roosevelts headed for this neck of the woods. After they get here, it's up to us to keep 'em.
And I can think of as many ways to do that as the Cap'n can of savin' a quarter. Our baseball team's been a success, ain't it?
Sure thing! Then why not a football team? Parker says he'll get it together, and coach and cap'n it, too. And Robinson and his daughter have agreed to stay till October fifteenth. So there's a start, anyhow.'
"'Twas a start, and a pretty good one. The Robinsons had come to the Old Home about the fust of August, and they was our star boarders. 'G. W. Robinson' was the old man's name as entered on the hotel log, and his daughter answered to the hail of 'Grace'--that is, when she took a notion to answer at all. The Robinsons was what Peter T. called 'exclusive.' They didn't mix much with the rest of the bunch, but kept to themselves in their rooms, partic'lar when a fresh net full of boarders was hauled aboard.
Then they seemed to take an observation of every arrival afore they mingled; questioned the pedigree and statistics of all hands, and acted mighty suspicious.
"The only thing that really stirred Papa Robinson up and got him excited and friendly was baseball and boat racin'. He was an old sport, that was plain, the only real plain thing about him; the rest was mystery. As for Grace, she wa'n't plain by a good sight, bein' what Brown called a 'peach.' She could have had every single male in tow if she'd wanted 'em. Apparently she didn't want em, preferrin' to be lonesome and sad and interestin'. Yes, sir, there was a mystery about them Robinsons, and even Peter T. give in to that.
"'If 'twas anybody else,' says he, 'I'd say the old man was a crook, down here hidin' from the police. But he's too rich for that, and always has been. He ain't any fly-by-night. I can tell the real article without lookin' for the "sterlin'" mark on the handle. But I'll bet all the cold-storage eggs in the hotel against the henyard--and that's big odds--that he wa'n't christened Robinson. And his face is familiar to me. I've seen it somewhere, either in print or in person. I wish I knew where.'
"So if the Robinsons had agreed to stay--them and their two servants--that was a big help, as Brown said. And Parker would help, too, though we agreed there wa'n't no mystery about him. He was a big, broad-shouldered young feller just out of college somewheres, who had drifted our way the fortni't after the Robinsons came, with a reputation for athletics and a leanin' toward cigarettes and Miss Grace. She leaned a little, too, but hers wa'n't so much of a bend as his was. He was dead gone on her, and if she'd have decided to stay under water, he'd have ducked likewise. 'Twas easy enough to see why HE believed in a 'supplementary season.'
"Me and Jonadab argued it out with Peter, and finally we met halfway, so's to speak. We wouldn't keep the whole shebang open, but we'd shut up everything but one Annex cottage, and advertise that as a Gunner's Retreat. So we done it.
"And it worked. Heavens to Betsy--yes! It worked so well that by the second week in September we had to open t'other Annex. The gunnin' was bad, but Peter's ads fetched the would-be's, and his 'excursions' and picnics and the football team held 'em. The football team especial. Parker cap'ned that, and, from the gunnin' crew and the waiters and some fishermen in the village, he dug up an eleven that showed symptoms of playin' the game. We played the Trumet High School, and beat it, thanks to Parker, and that tickled Pa Robinson so that he bought a two-handled silver soup tureen--'lovin' cup,' he called it--and agreed to give it to the team round about that won the most of the series. So the series was arranged, the Old Home House crowd and the Wapatomac House eleven and three high-school gangs bein' in it. And 'twas practice, practice, practice, from then on.
"When we opened the second Annex, the question of help got serious.
Most of our college waiters had gone back to school, and we was pretty shy of servants. So we put some extry advertisin' in the Cape weeklies, and trusted in Providence.
"The evenin' followin' the ad in the weeklies, I was settin' smokin' on the back piazza of the shut-up main hotel, when I heard the gate click and somebody crunchin' along the clam-shell path. I sung out: 'Ahoy, there!' and the cruncher, whoever he was, come my way.
Then I made out that he was a tall young chap, with his hands in his pockets.
"'Good evenin',' says he. 'Is this Mr. Brown?'
"'Thankin' you for the compliment, it ain't,' I says. 'My name's Wingate.'
