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Young Si
by
“Well, the shore ain’t far away, and it’s pretty–though maybe us folks here don’t appreciate it rightly, being as we’re so used to it. Strangers are always going crazy over its ‘picturesqueness,’ as they call it. As for ‘character,’ I reckon you’ll find all you want of that among the Pointers; anyway, I never seed such critters as they be. When you get tired of painting, maybe you can amuse yourself trying to get to the bottom of our mystery.”
“Oh, have you a mystery? How interesting!”
“Yes, a mystery–a mystery,” repeated Mr. Bentley solemnly, “that nobody hain’t been able to solve so far. I’ve give it up–so has everyone else. Maybe you’ll have better luck.”
“But what is it?”
“The mystery,” said Mr. Bentley dramatically, “is–Young Si. He’s the mystery. Last spring, just when the herring struck in, a young chap suddenly appeared at the Point. He appeared–from what corner of the globe nobody hain’t ever been able to make out. He bought a boat and a shanty down at my shore and went into a sort of mackerel partnership with Snuffy Curtis–Snuffy supplying the experience and this young fellow the cash, I reckon. Snuffy’s as poor as Job’s turkey; it was a windfall for him. And there he’s fished all summer.”
“But his name–Young Si?”
“Well, of course, that isn’t it. He did give himself out as Brown, but nobody believes that’s his handle–sounds unnatteral here. He bought his establishment from ‘old Si,’ who used to fish down there and was a mysterious old critter in a way too. So when this young fellow stepped in from goodness knows where, some of the Pointers christened him Young Si for a joke, and he never gets anything else. Doesn’t seem to mind it. He’s a moody, keep-to-himself sort of chap. Yet he ain’t unpopular along shore, I believe. Snuffy was telling me they like him real well, considering his unsociableness. Anyways, he’s as handsome a chap as I ever seed, and well eddicated too. He ain’t none of your ordinary fishermen. Some of us kind of think he’s a runaway–got into some scrape or another, maybe, and is skulking around here to keep out of jail. But wife here won’t give in to that.”
“No, I never will,” said Mrs. Bentley firmly. “Young Si comes here often for milk and butter, and he’s a perfect gentleman. Nobody’ll ever convince me that he has done anything to be ashamed of, whatever’s his reason for wasting his life down there at that shore.”
“He ain’t wasting his life,” chuckled Mr. Bentley. “He’s making money, Young Si is, though he don’t seem to care about that a mite. This has been a big year for mackerel, and he’s smart. If he didn’t know much when he begun, he’s ahead of Snuffy now. And as for work, I never saw his beat. He seems possessed. Up afore sunrise every blessed morning and never in bed till midnight, and just slaving away all between time. I said to him t’other day, says I: ‘Young Si, you’ll have to let up on this sort of thing and take a rest. You can’t stand it. You’re not a Pointer. Pointers can stand anything, but it’ll kill you.’
“He give one of them bitter laughs of his. Says he: ‘It’s no difference if it does. Nobody’ll care,’ and off he walks, sulky like. There’s something about Young Si I can’t understand,” concluded Mr. Bentley.
Ethel Lennox was interested. A melancholy, mysterious hero in a setting of silver-rimmed sand hills and wide blue sweeps of ocean was something that ought to lend piquancy to her vacation.
“I should like to see this prince in disguise,” she said. “It all sounds very romantic.”
“I’ll take you to the shore after tea if you’d like,” said Agnes eagerly. “Si’s just splendid,” she continued in a confidential aside as they rose from the table. “Pa doesn’t half like him because he thinks there’s something queer about him. But I do. He’s a gentleman, as Ma says. I don’t believe he’s done anything wrong.”