The Project Gutenberg EBook of Five Hundred Dollars, by Heman White Chaplin

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Title: Five Hundred Dollars
First published in the "Century Magazine"

Author: Heman White Chaplin

Release Date: October 12, 2007 [EBook #23006]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS ***

Produced by David Widger

FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS

By Heman White Chaplin

1887

First published in the "Century Magazine."

I.

Captain Philo's sail-loft was a pleasant place to sit in, and it was
much frequented. At one end was a wide, sliding door, that opened on the
water, and through it you saw the little harbor and the low, glistening
sand-bar at its entrance, and whitecaps in the sea beyond, and shining
sails. At the other end another wide door led, by a gently descending
cleated platform, to the ground.

It was a pleasant place to rest and refresh the mind in, whether you
chose to look in or out. You could rock in the hair-cloth chair by the
water door, and join in conversation with more active persons mending
seines upon the wharf; or you could dangle your heels from the
work-bench, and listen to stories and debates inside, and look on
Captain Philo sewing upon a mainsail.

It was a summer afternoon: warm under the silver poplars, hot in the
store, and hotter in the open street; but in the sail-loft it was cool.

"More than once," Captain Bennett was remarking from the rocking-chair,
while his prunella shoes went up and down,--"more than once I've wished
that I could freight this loft to Calcutta on speculation, and let it
out, so much a head, for so long a time, to set in and cool off."

"How about them porious water-jars they hev there?" asked Uncle Silas,
who had never sailed beyond Cape Pogue; "how do they work?"

"Well," said the captain, "they 're so-so. But you set up this loft,
both doors slid open, air drawing through and all, right on Calcutta
main street, or what they call the Maiden's Esplanade, and fit it up
with settees like a conference-meeting, and advertise, and you could let
out chances to set for twenty cents an hour."

"You 'd hev to hev a man to take ticket