A Croesus Of Gingerbread Cove
by
My name’s Race. I’ve traded these here Newfoundland north-coast outports for salt-fish for half a lifetime. Boy and youth afore that I served Pinch-a-Penny Peter in his shop at Gingerbread Cove. I was born in the Cove. I knowed all the tricks of Pinch-a-Penny’s trade. And I tells you it was Pinch-a-Penny Peter’s conscience that made Pinch-a-Penny rich. That’s queer two ways: you wouldn’t expect a north-coast trader to have a conscience; and you wouldn’t expect a north-coast trader with a conscience to be rich. But conscience is much like the wind: it blows every which way; and if a man does but trim his sails to suit, he can bowl along in any direction without much wear and tear of the spirit. Pinch-a-Penny bowled along, paddle-punt fisherman to Gingerbread merchant. He went where he was bound for, wing-and-wing to the breeze behind, and got there with his peace of mind showing never a sign of the weather. In my day the old codger had an easy conscience and twenty thousand dollars.
Long Tom Lane, of Gingerbread Cove, vowed in his prime that he’d sure have to even scores with Pinch-a-Penny Peter afore he could pass to his last harbor with any satisfaction.
“With me, Tom?” says Pinch-a-Penny. “That’s a saucy notion for a hook-an’-line man.”
“Ten more years o’ life,” says Tom, “an’ I’ll square scores.”
“Afore you evens scores with me, Tom,” says Peter, “you’ll have t’ have what I wants an’ can’t get.”
“There’s times,” says Tom, “when a man stands in sore need o’ what he never thought he’d want.”
“When you haves what I needs,” says Peter, “I’ll pay what you asks.”
“If ’tis for sale,” says Tom.
“Money talks,” says Peter.
“Ah, well,” says Tom, “maybe it don’t speak my language.”
Pinch-a-Penny Peter’s conscience was just as busy as any other man’s conscience. And it liked its job. It troubled Pinch-a-Penny. It didn’t trouble un to be honest; it troubled un to be rich. And it give un no rest. When trade was dull–no fish coming into Pinch-a-Penny’s storehouses and no goods going out of Pinch-a-Penny’s shop–Pinch-a-Penny’s conscience made un grumble and groan like the damned. I never seed a man so tortured by conscience afore nor since. And to ease his conscience Pinch-a-Penny would go over his ledgers by night; and he’d jot down a gallon of molasses here, and a pound of tea there, until he had made a good day’s trade of a bad one. ‘Twas simple enough, too; for Pinch-a-Penny never gived out no accounts to amount to nothing, but just struck his balances to please his greed at the end of the season, and told his dealers how much they owed him or how little he owed them.
In dull times Pinch-a-Penny’s conscience irked him into overhauling his ledgers. ‘Twas otherwise in seasons of plenty. But Pinch-a-Penny’s conscience kept pricking away just the same–aggravating him into getting richer and richer. No rest for Pinch-a-Penny! He had to have all the money he could take by hook and crook or suffer the tortures of an evil conscience. Just like any other man, Pinch-a-penny must ease that conscience or lose sleep o’ nights. And so in seasons of plenty up went the price of tea at Pinch-a-Penny’s shop. And up went the price of pork. And up went the price of flour. All sky-high, ecod! Never was such harsh times, says Peter; why, my dear man, up St. John’s way, says he, you couldn’t touch tea nor pork nor flour with a ten-foot sealing-gaff; and no telling what the world was coming to, with prices soaring like a gull in a gale and all the St. John’s merchants chary of credit!
“Damme!” said Pinch-a-Penny; “’tis awful times for us poor traders. No tellin’ who’ll weather this here panic. I’d not be surprised if we got a war out of it.”
Well, now, on the Newfoundland north-coast in them days ’twasn’t much like the big world beyond. Folk didn’t cruise about. They was too busy. And they wasn’t used to it, anyhow. Gingerbread Cove folk wasn’t born at Gingerbread Cove, raised at Rickity Tickle, married at Seldom-Come-By, aged at Skeleton Harbor, and buried at Run-by-Guess; they were born and buried at Gingerbread Cove. So what the fathers thought at Gingerbread Cove the sons thought; and what the sons knowed had been knowed by the old men for a good many years. Nobody was used to changes. They was shy of changes. New ways was fearsome. And so the price of flour was a mystery. It is, anyhow–wherever you finds it. It always has been. And why it should go up and down at Gingerbread Cove was beyond any man of Gingerbread Cove to fathom. When Pinch-a-Penny said the price of flour was up–well, then, she was up; and that’s all there was about it. Nobody knowed no better. And Pinch-a-Penny had the flour.