sometimes it isn’t what you don’t know about people but what you do know that makes them mysterious, as mermaid once said.

she did not say it respecting the senior dick hand but she might well have done so. richard hand[86] first was not only his proper designation but his motto, his war-cry, his watchword, and his slogan. richard hand first and everybody else nowhere, just about summed up the golden rule in blue port. richard made the rule and blue port lived up to it.

if blue port had been a pretty good-sized town, like near-by patchogue, with a couple of mills, two or three banks, an electric light company, and other rudiments of an american municipality, dick hand would have owned them all—not outright, of course, but as the heaviest shareholder and the preferred creditor. but blue port had none of these things. blue port had only a two-three of stores, a justice of the peace (judge hollaby), an unorganized oyster industry, a faded little railroad station, and a postoffice. nearly all the people in blue port got their living on or from the great south bay. they went oystering, fishing, eeling, clamming, duck shooting. they kept, some of them, a cow and a few pigs; all of them raised vegetables. thus there was plenty to eat. there was not so much to wear, but there was enough. as for making money, mostly no one made any money. there was no way to. a few hundred dollars in cash, to buy a few clothes and pay, perhaps, a low rent, was enough for a whole family from one year’s end to the other. such a place might be considered, and rightly, to offer very restricted opportunities for the capitalist, but dick hand made it do.

[87]he was not a daring financier. for years he had lived on a farm in the middle of long island, a farm in semi-hilly country, the farm left him by his father. it had to be worked hard, and when, after some dozen years of labour, the chance came to dick hand to sell it at a fabulous figure, he lost no time in doing so. a wealthy new yorker had come along and bought the place simply because he saw in the lie of the land possibilities for a corkingly good private golf course. the course was never laid out. the new yorker died while still quarrelling with his architect over the plans for a $200,000 summer “cottage,” and his executors and heirs looked ruefully at the large tract of land which had been his latest whim and which was difficult to “turn over”—even with a plough. but dick hand had received $20,000 in cold cash for 200 acres. he was satisfied.

it was an impressive lot of money. it would have been greeted respectfully in patchogue, and even in larger places. but the sudden possession of so much riches made mr. hand more cautious than ever. how to make it grow fastest?

he had had enough of land. by most wonderful fortune, he had been enabled to convert land into money. it was a miracle. water had been turned into wine; he would not depend upon it happening again. his wife, who had always been submissive to him, ventured a single suggestion:

[88]“now would be a good time to straighten out matters with hosea,” she remarked. dick hand looked at her coldly. she went on, uncomfortably: “i s’pose ’twouldn’t take so much. it wasn’t more’n $2,500, his share of father’s estate, was it?”

“he had no share of the estate,” her husband answered, shortly. “for god’s sake, fanny, how often have i got to tell you that there wa’n’t nothing for him.” under stress of emotion mr. hand used colloquial speech. “the will read plain: i was to have the farm and he was to have the rest to do as he pleased with, but after father’s debts had been paid there wa’n’t nothing. i stood ready to mortgage the farm if nec’ssary to give him what he’d oughter had,” said the man, virtuously and untruthfully—doubtless he thought his wife would readjust her recollection accordingly—“but he run away and went to sea. stayed away for years, and me struggling with the farm.” mr. hand began gradually doing himself justice as a heavily laden, plodding, self-sacrificing figure. “when he finally showed up i offered to do what was right and he sneered at me, the ongrateful and onnatural brother. i says to hosea, ‘i’m ready to forget and forgive. bygones kin be bygones.’ he was courting keturah smiley. it was before her aunt died, and she hadn’t a cent. o’ course it was plain she’d have prop’ty some day, though no one could foresee she’d have all the hawkins’s money. john[89] smiley hadn’t married that mary rogers then. so after i’d talked with hosea and offered to do right by him—and more’n right, considering how he’d acted—i went to keturah smiley, and told her just how things stood.”

“oh, richard, you hadn’t ought to have done that,” mrs. hand murmured. “you had ought to have kept out of it.”

“maybe i had, maybe i had,” retorted her husband. “but i was never one to reckon the consequences of doing a neighbourly act. i was trying to do the square thing, and more’n square, by hosea. so i went to keturah and i says to her: ‘hosea won’t take this money. of course,’ i says, ‘there’s no claim upon me for it, and never was a valid claim, but i always wanted to do the utmost by the boy and i want to be generous to the man; even if he has behaved badly and said things to me he oughter be ashamed of, and will be some day, i don’t hold it against him. i harbour no resentment,’ i says, ‘and if he won’t take this money i wish you would. every one knows,’ i went on, ‘that you’ll have prop’ty some day and you can pay me back then if you feel you should. or,’ i continued, wanting to make it as easy as i could for her, ‘you can give me your note o’ hand for the amount at six per cent., and i’ll promise you it won’t leave my hands. i’ll shave it for nobody,’ i says, reassuring her, ‘and nobody need ever know about it unless you[90] want to tell hosea about it afterward to bring him to a proper appreciation of the onnatural things he said to his brother.’”

mrs. hand, who had been clasping and unclasping her fingers, exclaimed: “but, richard! don’t you think ’twas a mistake to go to keturah with it? a girl is so likely to misunderstand such matters.”

a look of inscrutable sorrow crept into mr. hand’s crafty eyes. he hunched up his shrunken body and nodded earnestly.

“yes-yes!” he confirmed, using a characteristic ejaculation of the long islander. “keturah was never the woman to understand things in any but her own way. she flared right up at me and said some hard things. i won’t repeat’em, though i remember some of ’em to this day. for one thing,” he went on, disregarding his promise of the breath before, “she accused me of trying to cheat hosea—to cheat him! she p’tended to think i was trying to keep from hosea what was rightfully his, when i was right there trying to give it back! she says to me: ‘i’ve heard of folks who wanted to eat their cake and have it, too, but you’re the first ever i see that wanted to give someone else his bite and have it back.’ then she cried out: ‘i wouldn’t marry a man with a brother so mean as you!’ i went away a good deal upset, for i was real consarned to see her married to hosea and them both happy. hosea didn’t have nothing, but she was[91] sure to have plenty from her aunt, and i figgered ’twould be money in the family.” mr. hand shook his head regretfully and a sigh whistled between his teeth.

mrs. hand smoothed her apron. after a few moments’ silence she observed: “well, i s’pose it’s all for the best.” it was her favourite observation, and on the philosophy compressed into that one short sentence she had managed to live, hardly but not so unhappily, with richard hand for these many years. she wanted to ask him what he was going to do with the extraordinary sum of $20,000 of which he was now possessed, but she knew he would not tell her. afterward, she would learn, little by little. she did not have to worry, for he was not likely to lose it. she fell to speculating as to whether he would give her enough to buy a black silk dress for sundays—but it was an idle speculation.... her thoughts went along in an ineffectual fashion until she rose to get supper.

her husband ate in silence, undisturbed by his boy’s chatter about the people of blue port, to which they had just removed. his mind was already occupied with the possibilities of $20,000 carefully handled, as he would handle it. he would not buy land, he would buy people. he would look about for good mortgages that could be picked up cheap. there must be a few keturah smiley had not got hold of. he would go[92] slow and keep money in the savings bank for a while, even though it yielded him only a miserable four per cent. if something good came along he would have it handy. perhaps he could organize some industry and have people working for him directly. he liked to drive people. the oyster industry, for example—there ought to be something in that for a man who would use a little capital and get control of the trade. blue port oysters were famous the world over. a little legal work would be necessary; the thought of paying a lawyer hurt him, but there were papers that would have to be drawn up, articles of incorporation, etc. he would stop in and talk with judge hollaby to-morrow.

the upshot of this meditation ultimately was the formation of the blue port bivalve company, richard hand, president; horace hollaby, vice-president and secretary; richard hand, treasurer. the company gradually obtained liens on most of the boats in which the men of blue port went forth to dredge the oyster beds. it acquired these beds. there were also free beds, belonging to the township, but as richard hand’s company came to own the boats it suffered less and less competition. everything went on about as before; the only difference was that everybody came to be in debt to richard hand and worked for him. the only person in blue port who remained independent of him was keturah smiley.