Cap'n Abe reached for his spectacles and pulled them down upon his nose to look at his guest through the lenses. Not that they aided his sight in the least; but the act helped to cover the fact that he was startled.
"Stop here?" he repeated. "Where's your father? Ain't he with you up to the Inn?"
"No, Cap'n Abe. He is in Boston to-day. But he will sail to-morrow for a summer cruise with a party for scientific research. I am all alone. So I came down here to Cape Cod."
Louise said it directly and as simply as the storekeeper himself might have spoken. Yet it seemed really difficult for Cap'n Abe to get her meaning into his head.
"You mean you was intendin' to cast anchor here—withme?"
"If it is agreeable. Of course I'll pay my board if you'll let me.You have a room to spare, haven't you?"
"Land sakes, yes!"
"And I am not afraid to use my hands. I might even be of some slight use," and she smiled at him till his own slow smile responded, troubled and amazed though he evidently was by her determination. "I've roughed it a good deal with daddy-prof. I can cook—some things. And I can do housework——"
"Bet Gallup does that," interposed Cap'n Abe, finally getting his bearings. "Hi-mighty, ye did take me aback all standin', Niece Louise! Ye did, for a fac'. But why not? Land sakes, there's room enough, an' to spare! Ye don't hafter put them pretty han's to housework. Betty Gallup'll do all that. An' you don't have to pay no board money. As for cookin'——That remin's me. I'd better git to work on our supper. We'll be sharp for it 'fore long."
"And—and I may stay?" asked Louise, with some little embarrassment now. "You are sure it won't inconvenience you?"
"Bless you, no! I cal'late it's more likely to inconvenienceyou," and Cap'n Abe chuckled mellowly. "I don't know what sort o' 'roughin' it' you've done with your pa; but if there's anything much rougher than an ol' man's housekeepin' down here on the Cape, it must be pretty average rough!"
She laughed gayly. "You can't scare me!"
"Ain't a-tryin' to," he responded, eying her admiringly. "You're an able seaman, I don't dispute. An' we'll git along fine. Hi-mighty! there's Am'zon!"
Louise actually turned around this time to look at the door, expecting to see the mariner in question enter. Then she said, half doubtfully:
"Do you suppose your brother will object if he does come, Cap'n Abe?"
"Land sakes, no!" the storekeeper quickly assured her. "'Tain't that. But I cal'lated 'bout soon's Am'zon anchored here I'd cast off moorin's myself."
"Go away?" Louise demanded.
"Yes. Like poor old Jerry, mebbe," said Cap'n Abe, looking at the caged bird. "Mebbe I'll be glad to come back again—and in a hurry. But while Cap'n Am'zon is here I can take a vacation that I've long hankered for, Niece Louise. I—I got my plans all made."
"Don't for one moment think of changing them on my account," Louise said briskly. "I shall like Uncle Amazon immensely if he's anything like you, Cap'n Abe."
"He—he ain't somuchlike me," confessed the storekeeper. "Not in looks he ain't. But hi-mighty! I know he'll be as pleased as Punch to see ye."
"Are you sure of that?"
"Wait till you see how he takes to ye," declared her reassuring uncle."Now, lemme git my apern on and set to work on supper."
"Can't I help, Cap'n Abe?"
"In them things?" the storekeeper objected.
"Well—I'll have plenty of house dresses when my trunks come. I left my checks at the station for a man named Perry Baker. They said he'd bring them over to-night."
"He will," Cap'n Abe assured her. But he stopped a moment, stock-still in the middle of the room, and stared at her unseeingly. Evidently his mind was fixed upon an idea suddenly suggested by her speech. "He will," he repeated. Then:
"I'll get the fat kettle over an' the fry-cage ready. Amiel brought me a likely cod. 'Tain't been out o' the water two hours."
"I love fish," confessed Louise, following him to the kitchen door.
"Lucky you do, if you're going to stay a spell on Cape Cod. For that's what you'll eat mornin', noon, and night. Fish and clams, an' mebbe a pot o' baked beans on a Saturday, or a chicken for Sunday's dinner. I don't git much time to cook fancy."
"But can't this woman who comes to do the work cook for you?"
"She can't cook for me," snorted Cap'n Abe. "I respect my stomach too much to eat after Bet Gallup. She's as good a man afore the mast as airy feller in Cardhaven. An' that's where she'd oughter be. But never let her in the galley."
"Oh, well," Louise said cheerfully. "I'm a dab at camp cooking myself, as I told you. Uncle Amazon and I will make out—if he comes."
"Oh! Ah! 'Hem!" said Cap'n Abe, clearing his throat. He stooped to pick up a dropped potlid and came up very red in the face. "You needn't borrow any trouble on that score, Cap'n Am'zon's as good a cook as I be."
Only twice did Cap'n Abe make forced trips into the shop. The supper hour of Cardhaven was well established and the thoughtful housewives did not seek to make purchases while the fat was hot in Cap'n Abe's skillet. One of these untimely customers was a wandering child with a penny. "I might have waited on him, Cap'n Abe," Louise declared.
"Land sakes! so you might," the storekeeper agreed. "Though if he'd seen you behind my counter I reckon that young 'un of 'Liathel Grummet's would have been struck dumber than nature made him in the fust place."
The other customer was a gangling, half-grown youth after a ball of seine twine and the girl heard him say in a shocked whisper to Cap'n Abe:
"Say! is it true there's one o' them movin' picture actresses goin' to stop here with you, Cap'n Abe? Ma heard so."
"You tell your ma," Cap'n Abe said sternly, "that if she keeps on stretchin' her ears that a-way, she'll hear the kambuoy over Bartell Shoals in a dead calm!"
Cap'n Abe's bald poll began to shine with minute beads of perspiration. He looked over the bib of his voluminous apron like a bewhiskered gnome very busy at some mysterious task. Louise noticed that his movements about the kitchen were remarkably deft.
"All hands called!" he called out at length. "I'm about to dish up."
"Shall I put on another plate, Cap'n Abe? You expected somebody else to supper?"
"Nope. All set. I'm always ready for a messmate; but 'tain't often one boards me 'cept Cap'n Joab now and then. His woman likes to git him out from under foot. You see, when a woman's been useter seein' her husband only 'twixt v'y'ges for forty year, I 'spect 'tis something of a cross to have him litterin' up the house ev'ry day," he confessed. "But as I can't leave the shop myself to go visitin' much in return, Joab acks offish. We Silts was always bred to be hospitable. Poor or rich, we could share what we had with another. So I keep an extry plate on the table.
"I've had occasion," pursued the philosophical storekeeper, drawing up his own chair across the table from the girl, "to be at some folks' houses at meal time and had 'em ask me to set up and have a bite. But it never looked to me as if they meant it 'nless there was already an extry plate there.
"Just like having a spare bedroom. If you can say: 'Stay all night, we got a room for ye,' then that's what I call hospitality. I wouldn't live in a house that warn't big enough to have at least one spare room."
"I believe I must be very welcome here, Cap'n Abe," Louise said, smiling at the kindly old man.
"Land sakes, I sh'd hope ye felt so!" ejaculated Cap'n Abe. "Now, if you don't mind, Niece Louise." He dropped his head suddenly and closed his eyes in reverence. "For what we are about to partake of, Lord, make us duly thankful. Amen!" His countenance became animated again. "Try them biscuit. I made 'em this morning 'twixt Marcy Coe selectin' that piece of gingham for a new dress and John Peckham buying cordage for his smack. But they warmed up right nice in the oven."
Meanwhile he heaped her plate with codfish and fried potatoes cooked to a delicate brown. There was good butter, fat doughnuts, and beach-plum preserve. It was a homely meal but Louise ate it graciously. Already the air of Cardhaven had sharpened her appetite.
"Lend me your apron," insisted the girl when they had finished, "and I will wash these dishes."
"I us'ally let them go till Betty Gallup comes in the morning," the storekeeper said rather ruefully. "It don't look right to me that you should mess with these greasy dishes jest as we get under way, as ye might say."
"You must not make company of me, Cap'n Abe," Louise declared. "There, I hear a customer in the store," and she gave him a little pat on the shoulder as he delivered the huge apron into her hand.
"I dunno," he said, smiling upon her quizzically, "as I shall really want to cast off if Cap'n Am'zondoescome. Seems to me 'twould be hi-mighty nice to have a girl like you around the place, Louise."
"Then don't go," she said, briskly beginning to clear off. "Isha'n't mind having two of you for me to boss. Two captains! Think of it."
"Yes. I know. But I got all my plans laid," he murmured, and then went slowly into the store.
There seemed to be some briskness in the after-supper trade, and Louise suspected that it was founded upon the news of her arrival at Cap'n Abe's store. Several of his rather tart rejoinders reached her ears as she went from kitchen to livingroom and back again. Finally removing the apron, her task done, she seated herself with Diddimus in her lap within the radiance of the lamp and within hearing of all that was said in the store.
"No. I dunno's I ever did tell ye quite all my business, Joab. Some things I missed, includin' the list of my relations."
"Yes, I hear tell most of these movin' picture actresses are pretty, Miz' Peckham. They pick 'em for that puppose, I shouldn't wonder. I didn't ask her what part she was goin' to play—ifany."
"Land sakes, Mandy, she's just got here! I ain't no idee how long she'll stay. If you think there's any danger of Milt not tendin' to his clammin' proper whilst she's here you'd better send him on a cruise with Cap'n Durgin. TheTryoutsails for the Banks to-morrow, I understand."
"No, Washy. That was my A'nt Matildy I went away to help bury ten years ago. She's still dead—an' this ain't her daughter. This is my ha'f sister's child, she that was Miriam Card. She got married to a scientific chap that works for the government, I guess when you write to Washington for your garden seeds next spring, you better ask about him, if ye want to know more'nIcan tell ye."
"You got it right for once't, Joab. I do expect Cap'n Am'zon. Mebbe to-night. He may come over from the depot with Perry Baker—I can't tell. What'll I do with the girl? Land sakes! ain't Cap'n Am'zon just as much her uncle asIbe? Some o' you fellers better stow your jaw-tackle if Cap'n Am'zon does heave to here. For he ain't no tame cat, like I told you."
"You back again, Lawford Tapp? Hi-mighty! what you forgot this time? Fishhooks? Goin' fishin', be you? Wal, in my 'pinion you're throwin' your hook into unproductive waters around here, as ye might say. Even chummin' won't sarve ye.Good-night!"
After getting rid of this importunate customer, Cap'n Abe closed his door and put out his store lights—an hour earlier than usual—and came back to sit down with Louise. His visage was red and determination sat on his brow.
"I snum!" he emphatically observed. "Cardhaven folks seem bit with some kind o' bug. Talk 'bout curiosity! 'Hem! I dunno what Cap'n Am'zon'll think of 'em."
"Ithink they are funny," Louise retorted, her laughter bubbling up again.
"Likely it looks so to you," said Cap'n Abe. "They're pretty average funny I do guess to a stranger, as ye might say. But after you've summered 'em and wintered 'em for twenty-odd years like I have, land sakes! the humor's worn hi-mighty thin!"
Cap'n Abe produced a pipe. He looked at his niece tentatively."Do—do you mind tobacker smoke?"
"Daddy-prof is an inveterate," she laughed.
"Huh? An—an invet'ratewhat?"
"Smoker. I don't begrudge a man smoking tobacco as long as we women have our tea. A nerve tonic in both cases."
"I dunno for sure that I've got any nerves," Cap'n Abe said, the corners of his eyes wrinkling. "Mebbe I was behind the door when they was given out. But a pipeful o' tobacker this time o' the eveningdoesseem sort o' satisfyin'. That, and knittin'."
Having filled his pipe and lit it, he puffed a few times to get it well alight and then reached for a covered basket that Louise had noticed on a small stand under Jerry's cage. He drew from this a half-fashioned gray stocking that was evidently intended for his own foot and the needles began to click in his strong, capable hands.
"Supprise you some, does it, Louise?" Cap'n Abe said. "Cap'n Am'zon taught me. Most old whalers knit. That, an' doin' scrimshaw work, was 'bout all that kep' 'em from losing their minds on them long v'y'ges into the Pacific. An' I've seen the time myself when I was hi-mighty glad I'd l'arned to count stitches.
"Land sakes! Some o' them whalin' v'y'ges lasted three-four years. Cap'n Am'zon was in the old barkNeptune's Daughterwhen she was caught in the ice and drifted pretty average close't to the south pole.
"You know," said Cap'n Abe reflectively, "the Antarctic regions ain't like the Arctic. 'Cause why? There ain't no folks there. Cap'n Am'zon says there ain't 'nough land at the south pole to make Marm Scudder's garden—and they say she didn't need more'n what her patchwork quilt would cover. Where there's land there's folks. And if there was land in the Antarctic there'd be Eskimos like there is up North.
"'Hem! Well, that wasn't what I begun on, was it? This knitting. Cap'n Am'zon says that many's the time he's thanked his stars he knowed how to knit."
"I shall be glad to meet him," said Louise.
"If he comes," Cap'n Abe rejoined, "an' I go away as I planned to, 'twon't make a mite o' difference to you, Niece Louise. You feel right at home here—and so'll Cap'n Am'zon, though he ain't never been to Cardhaven yet. He'll be a lot better company for you than I'd be."
"Oh, Cap'n Abe, I can scarcely believe that!" cried the girl.
"You don't know Cap'n Am'zon," the storekeeper said. "I tell ye fair: he's ev'rything that I ain't! As a boy—'hem!—Am'zon was always leadin' an' me follerin'. I kinder took after my mother, I guess. She was your grandmother. Your grandfather was a Card—and a nice man he was.
"Our father—me an' Am'zon's—was Cap'n Joshua Silt of the schoonerBravo. Hi-mighty trim and taut craft she was, from all accounts. I—I warn't born when he died," added Cap'n Abe, hesitatingly.
"You were a posthumous child!" said Louise.
"Er—I guess so. Kinder 'pindlin', too. Yes! yes! Cap'n Am'zon's ahead o' me—in ev'ry way. When father died 'twas pretty average hard on mother," Cap'n Abe pursued. "We was llvin' at Rocky Head, I guess I told you b'fore?"
"Yes," Louise said, interested.
"TheBravowas makin' reg'lar trips from Newport to Bangor, Maine. Short-coastin' v'y'ges paid well in them days. There come a big storm in the spring—onexpected. Mother'd got a letter from Cap'n Josh—father he'd put out o' Newport with a sartain tide. He warn't jest a fair-weather skipper. Cap'n Am'zon gits his pluck an' darin' from Cap'n Josh.
"Well, mother knowed he must be out o' sight of Fort Adams and the Dumplin's when the storm burst, and that he'd take the inside passage, the wind bein' what it was. She watched from Rocky Head and she seen what she knowed to be theBravoheave in sight.
"There warn't no foolin' her," pursued Cap'n Abe, whose pipe had gone out but whose knitting needles twinkled the faster. "No. She knowed the schooner far's she could glim her. She watched the Bravo caught in the cross-current when the gale dropped sudden, and tryin' to claw off shore.
"But no use! She was doomed! There warn't no help for the schooner. She went right on to Toll o' Death Reef and busted up in an hour. Not a body ever was beached, for the current, tide,an' gale was all off shore. And it happened in plain sight of our windows.
"Two months later," Cap'n Abe said reflectively, "I come into the world. Objectin', of course, like all babies. Funny thing that. We all come into it makin' all kinds of a hullabaloo against anchorin' here; and we most of us kick just as hard against slippin' our moorin's to get out of it.
"Land sakes!" he exclaimed in conclusion. "There ye be. I guess my mother hated the sea 'bout as much as any longshore woman ever did. And there's a slew of 'em detest it worse'n cats. Why, ye couldn't hire some o' these Cape Cod females to get into a boat. Their men for generations was drowned and more'n forty per cent. of the stones in the churchyards along the coast, sacred to the mem'ry of the men of the fam'lies, have on 'em: 'Lost at sea.'
"Can't blame the women. Old Ella Coffin that lives on Narrer P'int over yonder ain't been to the main but once't in fifteen years. That was when an off-shore gale blew all the water out o' the breach 'twixt the p'int and the mainland.
"Ye see," said Cap'n Abe, smiling again, "Narrer P'int is re'lly an island, even at low water. Butthena hoss an' buggy can splatter across't the breach. But it makes Marm Coffin seasick even to ride through water in a buggy. Marked, she is, as you might say.
"Well, now, Louise, child," the storekeeper added, "I'm a-gassin' 'bout things that don't much int'rest you, I cal'late. I'll light a lamp an' show you up to your room. When Perry Baker comes by and by, I'll help him in with your trunks. You needn't worry about 'em."
It had been foggy on the Sound the night before and Louise had not slept until the boat had rounded Point Judith. So she was not averse to retiring at this comparatively early hour.
Cap'n Abe led her upstairs to a cool, clean, and comfortable chamber. The old four-posted, corded bedstead stood in the middle of the room, covered with a blue-and-white coverlet, with sheets and pillow cases as white as foam. It could not be doubted that Cap'n Abe had carried out his idea of hospitality. The spare room was always ready for the possible guest.
"Good-night, uncle," she said, smiling at him as he handed her the lamp. "I believe I am going to have a delightful time here."
"Of course you be! Of course!" he exclaimed. "An' if I ain't here,Cap'n Am'zon will show you a better time than I could. Good-night.Sleep well, Louise."
He kissed her on the forehead. But she, impulsively, pressed her fresh lips to the storekeeper's weather-beaten cheek. Before she closed the door of the bedroom she heard him clumping downstairs in his heavy boots.
After that he must have removed his footgear for, although she heard doors open and close, she could not distinguish his steps.
"I'm glad I came!" she told herself with enthusiasm as she prepared to retire. "What a delightful old place it is! And Uncle Abram—why, he's adear! Daddy-prof was not half enthusiastic enough about the Cape Cod folk. It has been a distinct loss to me that I was never here before."
She laid out her toilet requisites upon the painted pine bureau and hung her negligee over the back of a chair. As she retied the ribbon in one of the sleeves of her nightgown she thought:
"And that Tapp boy came back a second time! Some fisherman's son, I suppose. But exceedingly nice looking!"
A little later the feather bed had taken her into its arms and she almost instantly fell asleep. Occasionally through the night she was roused by unfamiliar sounds. There was a fog coming in from the sea and the siren at the lighthouse on the Neck began to bellow like a bereft cow.
There were movements downstairs. Once she heard a wagon stop, and voices. Then the bumping of heavy boxes on the side porch. Her trunks. Voices below in the living-room—gruff, yet subdued. Creaking footsteps on the stair; then Louise realized that they were carrying something heavy down and out to the waiting wagon. She was just dropping to sleep when the wagon was driven away.
There came a heavy summons on her door while it was still dark. But a glance at her watch assured Lou Grayling that it was the fog that made the light so dim.
"Yes, Cap'n Abe?" she called cheerfully, for even early rising could not quench her good spirits.
"'Tain't time to get up yet, Niece Louise," he told her behind the thin panel of the door. "Don't disturb yourself. Cap'n Amazon's come an' I'm off."
"You're what?" gasped the girl sitting up in her nest of feathers.
"I'm a-goin' to Boston. Jest got time to ketch the clam-train at the depot. Don't you bother; Cap'n Am'zon's here and he'll take care of you till I get back. Betty Gallup'll be here by six or a little after to do the work. You can have her stop at night, if you want to."
"But, Uncle——"
"Must hurry, Louise," hastily said Cap'n Abe as he heard the bedcords creak and the patter of the girl's feet on the matting. "Cap'n Am'zon knows of a craft that'll sail to-day from Boston and I must jine her crew. Good-bye!"
He was gone. Louise, throwing on the negligee, hurried to the screened window. The fog had breathed upon the wires and clouded them. She heard the door open below, a step on the porch, and then a muffled:
"Bye, Am'zon. Don't take no wooden money. I'm off."
A shrouded figure passed up the road and was quickly hidden by the fog.
Louise could not go back to sleep. She drew the ruffles of the negligee about her throat and removed the sliding screen the better to see into the outer world.
There was a movement in the fog, for the rising breeze ruffled, it. Full daybreak would bring its entire dissipation. Already the mist held a luster heralding the sun. The "hush-hush" of the surf along The Beaches was more insistent now than at any time since Louise had come to Cap'n Abe's store, while the moan of the breakers on the outer reefs was like the deep notes of a distant organ.
A cock crew, and at his signal outdoor life seemed to awaken. Other chanticleers sounded their alarms; a colt whistled in a paddock and his mother neighed softly from her stall; a cow lowed; then, sweet and clear as a mountain stream, broke forth the whistle of a wild bird in the marsh. This matin of the feathered songster rose higher and higher till he reached the very top note of his scale and then fell again, by cadences, until it mingled with the less compelling calls of other birds.
There was a warm pinkness spreading through the fog in one direction, and Louise knew it must be the reflection of the light upon the eastern horizon. The sun would soon begin a new day's journey.
The fog was fast thinning, for across the road she could see a spiral of blue smoke, mounting through it from the chimney of a neighbor. The kitchen fire there had just been lighted.
Below, and from the living-rooms behind the store, the girl heard some faint noises as though the early morning tasks of getting in wood and filling the coal scuttle were under way. Uncle Amazon must be "takin' holt" just as Cap'n Abe said he would.
Louise was curious to see the returned mariner; but it was too early to go down yet. She might really have another nap before she dressed, she thought, yawning behind a pink palm.
There was a step in the store. Her room overlooked by two windows the roof of the front porch and she could hear what went on below plainly. The step was lighter than Cap'n Abe's. The bolts of the two-leaved door rattled and it was set wide; she heard the iron wedges kicked under each to hold it open. Then a smell of pipe smoke was wafted to her nostrils.
A footstep on the Shell Road announced the approach of somebody from The Beaches. Louise yawned again and was on the point of creeping into bed once more when she descried the figure coming through the fog. She saw only the boots and legs of the person at first; but the fog was fast separating into wreaths which the rising breeze hurried away, and the girl at the window soon saw the full figure of the approaching man—and recognized him.
At almost the same moment Lawford Tapp raised his eyes and saw her; and his heart immediately beat the call to arms. Louise Grayling's morning face, framed by the sash and sill of her bedroom window, was quite the sweetest picture he had ever seen.
It was only for a moment he saw her, her bare and rounded forearm on the sill, the frilly negligee so loosened that he could see the column of her throat. Her gray eyes looked straight into his—then she was gone.
"Actress, or not," muttered the son of the Salt Water Taffy King, "there's nothing artificial about her. And she's Cap'n Abe's niece. Well!"
He saw the figure on the porch, smoking, and hailed it:
"Hey, Cap'n Abe! Those fishhooks you sold me last evening aren't whatI wanted—and there's theMerry Andrewwaiting out there for me now.I want——"
The figure in the armchair turned its head. It was not Cap'n Abe at all!
"Mornin', young feller," said the stranger cordially. "You'll have to explain a leetle about them hooks. I ain't had a chance to overhaul much of Abe's cargo yet. I don't even know where he stows his small tackle. Do you?"
Fully a minute did Lawford Tapp keep him waiting for an answer while he stared at the stranger. He was not a big man, but he somehow gave the impression of muscular power. He was dressed in shabby clothing—shirt, dungaree trousers, and canvas shoes such as sailors work and go aloft in. The pipe he smoked was Cap'n Abe's—Lawford recognized it.
There was not, however, another thing about this man to remind one of the old storekeeper. This stranger was burned to a rich mahogany hue. Not alone his shaven face, but his bared forearms and his chest where the shirt was left unbuttoned seemed stained by the tropical sun. Under jet-black brows the eyes that gazed upon Lawford Tapp seemed dark.
His sweeping mustache was black; and such hair as was visible showed none of the iron gray of advancing age in it. He wore gold rings in his ears and to cap his piratical-looking figure was a red bandana worn turbanwise upon his head.
"What's the matter with you, young feller? Cat got your tongue?" demanded the stranger.
"Well, of all things!" finally gasped Lawford. "I thought you wereCap'n Abe. But you're not. You must be Cap'n Amazon Silt."
"That's who I be," agreed the other.
"His brother!"
"Ain't much like Abe, eh?" and Cap'n Amazon smiled widely.
"Only your voice. That is a little like Cap'n Abe's. Well, I declare!" repeated Lawford, coming deliberately up the steps.
Cap'n Amazon rose briskly and led the way into the store. The fog was clearing with swiftness and a ray of sunlight slanted through a dusty window with sufficient strength to illumine the shelves behind the counter.
"Those boxes yonder are where Cap'n Abe keeps his fishhooks. But isn't he here?"
"He's off," Cap'n Amazon replied. "Up anchor'd and sailed 'bout soon's I come. Been ready to go quite a spell, I shouldn't wonder. Had his chest all packed and sent it to the depot by a wagon. Walked over himself airly to ketch the train. These the hooks, son?"
"But where's hegone?"
"On a v'y'ge," replied Cap'n Amazon. "Why shouldn't he? Seems he's been lashed here, tight and fast, for c'nsider'ble of a spell. He and this store of hisn was nigh 'bout spliced. I don't see how hehasweathered it so long."
"Gone away!" murmured Lawford.
Cap'n Amazon eyed him with a tilt to his head and possibly a twinkle of amusement in his eye. "Young man, what's your name?" he asked bluntly. Lawford told him. "Wal, it strikes me," Cap'n Amazon said, "that your tops'ls air slattin' a good deal. You ain't on the wind."
"I am upset, I declare!"
"Sure you got the right hooks this time?"
"Yes. I believe so."
"Then if yourMerry Andrew—what is she, cat-rigged or——"
"Sloop."
"Then if yourMerry Andrewsloop's a-waiting for you,that'sthe way out," said Cap'n Amazon coolly, pointing with his pipestem to the door. "Come again—when you want to buy anything in Abe's stock. Good day!"
Lawford halted a moment at the door to look back at the bizarre figure behind the counter, leaning on the scarred brown plank just as Cap'n Abe so often did. The amazing difference between the storekeeper's well remembered appearance and that of his substitute grew more startling.
As Cap'n Amazon stood there half stooping, leaning on his hairy fists, the picture rose in Lawford Tapp's mind of a pirate, cutlass in teeth and his sash full of pistols, swarming over the rail of a doomed ship. The young man had it in his mind to ask a question about that wonderfully pretty girl above. But, somehow, Cap'n Amazon did not appear to be the sort of person to whom one could put even a mildly impudent question.
The young man walked slowly down the road toward the shore where his boat was beached. He had no idea that a pair of gray eyes watched him from that window where he had glimpsed the vision of girlish beauty only a few minutes before.
The neighborhood was stirring now and Louise had not gone back to bed. Instead, she dressed as simply as she could until it would be possible to get at her trunks.
While thus engaged she observed the neighborhood as well as she could see it from the windows of her chamber. Down the Shell Road, in the direction of the sea, there were but two or three houses—small dwellings in wind-swept yards where beach grass was about all the verdure that would grow.
Across the road from the store, however, and as far as she could see toward Cardhaven, were better homes, some standing in the midst of tilled fields and orchards. Sandy lanes led to these homesteads from the highway. She could see the blunt spire of the Mariner's Chapel. Yet Cap'n Abe's house and store stood quite alone, for none of the other dwellings were close to the road.
She set her chamber door ajar and suddenly heard the clash of voices.The one that seemed nearest to the stair was gruff, but feminine.
"That must be Betty Gallup," thought Louise. "It is nearly six. I'll go down and interview the lady who Cap'n Abe said ought to sail before the mast."
The foot of the stairway was in the back entry which itself opened upon the rear porch. As she came lightly down the stairs Louise saw a squat, square figure standing in the open doorway. It was topped by a man's felt hat and was dressed in a loose, shapeless coat and a scant skirt down to the tops of a pair of men's shoes.
Over the shoulder of this queer looking person—of whose sex it was hard to be sure—Louise could see an open letter that was evidently being perused not for the first time.
The hands that held the letter were red and hard and blunt-fingered, but not large. They did not look feminine, however; not in the least.
The light tap of the girl's heels as she stepped on the bare floor at the foot of the stairway aroused this person, who turned, revealing a rather grim, weather-beaten face, lit by little sharp brown eyes that proceeded to stare at Louise Grayling with frank curiosity.
"Humph!" ejaculated the woman.
Oh, it was a woman, Louise could now see, although Betty Gallup boasted a pronounced mustache and a voice both deep and hoarse, while she looked every inch the able seaman she was.
"Humph!" she exclaimed again. "You don't look much like a pirate, that's one comfort!"
Louise burst into gay laughter—she could not help it.
"I see by this letter Cap'n Abe left for me that you're his niece—his ha'f sister's child—name, Louise Grayling; and that you've come to stay a spell."
"Yes," the girl rejoined, still dimpling. "And I know you must be Mrs.Gallup!"
"Bet Gallup. Yep. Ain't much chance of mistaking me," the woman said, still staring at Louise. "Humph! you're pretty 'nough not to need m'lasses to ketch flies. Why didn't Cap'n Abe stay to home when you come visiting him?"
"Why, he had his plans all laid to go away, if Uncle Amazon came."
"Ya-as. That's so. You arehisniece, too, I s'pose."
"Whose niece? Uncle Amazon's? I suppose I am," Louise gayly replied, "though when I came I had no idea there was a second uncle down here on the Cape."
"What's that?" demanded Betty Gallup, her speech crackling like a rifle shot.
"I had not heard before of Cap'n Amazon," the girl explained. "You see, for several reasons, I have known very little about my mother's kinfolk. She died when I was a baby. We have traveled a good deal, father and I."
"I see. I been told you worked for them movin' pictures. Mandy Card was over to my house last night. Well! what do you think of your Uncle Am'zon?"
"I can express no opinion until I have met him," Louise returned, again dimpling.
"Haven't ye seen him?" gasped Betty in astonishment.
"Not yet."
"Ye didn't see him when he came last night?"
"I was in bed."
"Then how—how d'ye know Cap'n Abe's gone? Or that this man is Am'zonSilt? Nobody ever seen this critter 'round Cardhaven before," BettyGallup declared with strong conviction.
"Oh, no; Uncle Amazon has never been here to visit Cap'n Abe before. Cap'n Abe told me all about it," the girl explained, fearing that scandal was to take root here and now if she did not discourage it. "Of course Uncle Abe went away. He came to my door and bade me good-bye."
Louise was puzzled. She saw an expression in Betty Gallup's face that she could not interpret.
"Ye heard Cap'n Abesayhe was goin'," muttered Betty. "Hisvoice sounds mighty like Cap'n Abe's. But mebbe Abe Silt didn't go after all—not rightly."
"Whatdoyou mean, Mrs. Gallup?" demanded Louise in bewilderment.
"Well, if you ask me, I should say we'd been boarded by pirates. Go take a look at that Uncle Am'zon of yourn. He's in the store."
"Uncle Amazon?" burst out Louise. "A pirate?"
"That's what he looks like," repeated Betty Gallup, nodding her head on which the man's hat still perched. "I never saw the beat! Why, that man give me the shock of my life when I came in here just now!"
"Whatdoyou mean?" the amazed girl asked,
"Why, as I come in—I was a lettle early, knowin' you was here—I heard as I s'posed Cap'n Abe in the sittin'-room. I saw this letter, sealed and directed to me, on the dresser there. 'Humph!' says I, 'Who's writin' billy-doos tome, I'd admire to know?' And I up and opened it and see it's in Cap'n Abe's hand. Just then I heard him behind me——"
"Heardwho? Not Cap'n Abe?"
"No, no! This other feller—this Cap'n Am'zon Silt, as he calls himself. But Ithought'twas Cap'n Abe's step I heard. He says: 'Oh! you've found the letter?' I declare I thought 'twas your uncle's voice!"
"But it was my uncle's voice, of course," Louise reminded her, much amused, "Cap'n Amazon Silt is my uncle, too."
"Humph! I s'pose so. Looks to be. If 'tis him. Anyhow," pursued the jerkily speaking Betty Gallup, "I turned 'round when he spoke spectin' to see Cap'n Abe—for I hadn't read this letter then—and there he warn't! Instead—of all the lookin' critters! There! you go take a peek at him and see what you think yourself. I'll put the breakfast on the table. He's made coffee and the mush is in the double-biler and the biscuits in the oven are just browning. I reckon he's as handy 'round the kitchen as Cap'n Abe is. Lots of these old sailors be."
"Fancy! an uncle who is a pirate!" giggled Louise and she ran through the living-room and the dividing hall to the door of the store. First she saw Cap'n Amazon from the rear. The red bandana swathing his bead, below which was a lank fringe of black hair, was the only bizarre thing she noticed about her new-found relative. He seemed to have very quick hearing for almost instantly he swung smartly around to face her.
"Oh!" was expelled from the girl's lips, for she was as startled asLawford Tapp and Betty Gallup had been.
Compared with the mild-appearing, heavily whiskered Cap'n Abe, this brother of the storekeeper was in looks what Betty had pronounced him. His dark complexion, the long mustache, as black and glossy as a crow's wing, the gold rings in his ears, with the red handkerchief to top it all, made Cap'n Amazon Silt as romantic a figure as ever peered out of a Blackbeard or a Henry Morgan legend.
There were intricate traceries on his forearms in red and blue ink; beneath the open collar of his shirt the girl gained a glimpse of other tattooing. There was a faint scar traced along his right jaw, almost from ear to chin, which added a certain grimness to his expression.
Yet his was not at all a sinister face. His eyes twinkled at her kindly—almost like Cap'n Abe's eyes—and the huge mustache lifted in a smile.
"Ahoy!" he cried jovially. "So this is my niece, Louise, is it? Well, to be sure! Abe didn't overpraise you. Youbea pretty tidy craft."
The girl dimpled, coming forward to give him her hand. As on the day before, her hand was lost in a warm, firm clasp, while her uncle continued to look her over with approval.
"Yes, sir!" he ejaculated. "You look to me like one o' the tidiest craft I ever clapped eyes on. I don't scarcely see how Abe could go away and leave you. Dunno's he's got an eye for a pretty woman like me. Bless you! I been a slave to the women all my life."
"Yet never married, Uncle Amazon?" she cried roguishly.
"Tell you how 'twas," he whispered hoarsely, his hand beside his mouth. "I never could decide betwixt and between 'em. No, sir! They are all so desir'ble that I couldn't make up my mind. So I stayed single."
"Perhaps you showed wisdom, Uncle Amazon," laughed the girl."Still—when you grow old——"
"Oh! there's plenty of sailors' snug harbors," he hastened to say."And time enough to worry about that when Ibeold."
"I thought——Why! you look younger than Cap'n Abe," she said.
"Ain't it a fact? He's let himself run to seed and get old lookin'. That's from stayin' ashore all his life. It's the feel of a heavin' deck under his feet that keeps the spring in a man's wishbone. Yes, sir! Abe's all right—good man and all that—but he's no sailor," Cap'n Amazon added, shaking his head.
"Now, here!" he went on briskly, "we ought to have breakfast, hadn't we? I left that woman Abe has pokin' around here, to dish up; and it's 'most six bells. Feel kind of peckish myself, Louise."
"I'll run to see if the biscuits are done," said the girl; and she hurried to the kitchen ahead of him. Betty Gallup was waiting for her.
"What d'ye think of him?" she whispered anxiously.
"Why, he's splendid!" the girl replied scarcely stifling her laughter."He's acharacter!"
"Humph! Mebbe. But even if he is your uncle, I got to say right now he ain't a man I'd trust. Nothin' a-tall like Cap'n Abe!"
"I think he seems a great deal like Uncle Abram."
"Humph! How long you knowed Abram Silt? Come here yesterday for the fust time. Lemme tell you, Miss Grayling, we've knowed Cap'n Abe around here for twenty year and more. Course, he ain't Cardhaven born; but we know him. He's as diff'rent from this pirate that calls himself Cap'n Am'zon Silt as chalk is from cheese."
The mush was on the table, Louise called Cap'n Amazon from the store. They sat down to the table just as she had sat opposite to Cap'n Abe the evening before. She thought, for a moment, that Cap'n Amazon was going to ask a blessing as her other uncle had. But no, he began spooning the mush into a rather capacious mouth.
Into the room from the rear strolled Diddimus, the tortoise-shell cat. Louise tried to attract his attention; but she was comparatively a stranger to turn. The cat went around to the chair where Cap'n Abe always sat. He leaped into Cap'n Amazon's lap.
"Well, I never!" said Cap'n Amazon. "Seems quite to home, doesn't he?"
Diddimus, preparing to "make his bed," looked up with topaz eyes into the face of the captain. Louise could see the cat actually stiffen with surprise. Then, with a "p-sst-maow!" he leaped down and ran out of the room at high speed.
"What—what do you think of that?" gasped Cap'n Amazon. "The cat's gone crazy!"
The girl was in a gale of laughter. "Of course he hasn't," she said. "He thought you were Cap'n Abe—till he looked into your face. You can't blame the cat, Uncle Amazon."
Cap'n Amazon smote his knee a resounding smack of appreciation. "You got your bearin's correct, Louise, I do believe. I must have surprised the critter. And Abe set store by him, I've no doubt."
"Diddimus will get over it," said the amused Louise.
"There's that bird," Cap'n Amazon said suddenly, looking around at the cage hanging in the sunlit window. "What's Abe call him?"
"Jerry."
"And he told me to be hi-mighty tender with that canary. Wouldn't trust nobody else, he said, to feed and water him." He rose from the table, leaving his breakfast. "I wonder what Jerry thinks of me?"
He whistled to the bird and thrust a big forefinger between the wires of the cage. Immediately, with an answering chirp, the canary hopped along his perch with a queer sidewise motion and, reaching the finger, sprang upon it with a little flutter of its wings.
"There!" cried Cap'n Amazon, with boyish relief. "Hetakes to me all right."
"That don't show nothin'," said Betty Gallup from the doorway. She had removed her hat and coat and was revealed now as a woman approaching seventy, her iron-gray hair twisted into a "bob" so that it could be completely hidden when she had the hat on her head. "That don't show nothin'," she repeated grimly.
Cap'n Amazon jerked his head around to look at her, demanding: "Why don't it, I want to know?"
"'Cause the bird's pretty near stone-blind."
"Blind!" gasped Louise, pity in her tone.
"It can't be," murmured the captain, hastily facing the window again.
"I found that out a year an' more ago," Betty announced. "Didn't want to tell Cap'n Abe—he was that foolish about the old bird. Jerry's used to Cap'n Abe chirping to him and putting his finger 'twixt the slats of the cage for him to perch on. He just thinks you're Cap'n Abe."
She clumped out into the kitchen again in her heavy shoes. Cap'n Amazon came slowly back to his chair. "Blind!" he repeated. "I want to know! Both his deadlights out. Too bad! Too bad!"
He did not seem to care for any more breakfast.
Footsteps in the store soon brought the substitute shopkeeper to his feet again.
"I s'pose that's somebody come aboard for a yard o' tape, or the seizings of a pair of shoes," he growled. "I'd ought to hauled in the gang-plank when we set down."
He disappeared into the store and almost at once a shrill feminine voice greeted him as "Cap'n Abe." Vastly abused, Louise arose and softly followed to the store.
"Give me coupla dozen clothespins and a big darnin' needle, Cap'n Abe. I got my wash ready to hang out and found them pesky young 'uns of Myra Stout's had got holt o' my pin bag and fouled the pins all up usin' 'em for markers in their garden. I want—land sakes! Who—what——Where'sCap'n Abe?"
"He ain't here just now," Cap'n Amazon replied. "I'm his brother. You'll have to pick out the needle you want. I can find and count the clothespins, I guess. Two dozen, you say?"
"Land sakes! Cap'n Abe gone away? Don't seem possible."
"There's a hull lot of seemin' impossible things in this world that come to pass just the same," the substitute storekeeper made answer, with some tartness. "Here's the needle drawer. Find what you want, ma'am."
Louise was frankly spying. She saw that the customer was a lanky young woman in a sunbonnet. When she dropped the bonnet back upon her narrow shoulders with an impatient jerk, the better to see the needles, it was revealed that her thin, light hair was drawn so tightly back from her face that it actually seemed to make her pop-eyed.
She had a rather pretty pink and white complexion, and aside from the defect of hairdressing might have been attractive. She possessed a thin and aquiline nose, however, the nostrils fairly quivering with eagerness and curiosity.
"Land sakes!" she was saying. "I know Cap'n Abe's been talkin' of goin' away—the longest spell! But so suddent—'twixt night and mornin' as ye might say———"
"Exactly," said Cap'n Amazon dryly, and went on counting the pins from the box into a paper sack.
"What 'bout the girl that's come here? That movie actress?" asked the young woman with added sharpness in her tone. "What you going to do withher?"
Cap'n Amazon came back to the counter and even his momentary silence was impressive. He favored the customer with a long stare.
"Course, 'tain't none o' my business. I was just askin'——"
"You made an int'restin' discovery, then, ma'am," he said. "Itain'tany of your business. Me and my niece'll get along pretty average well, I shouldn't wonder. Anything else, ma'am? I see the needle's two cents and the pins two cents a dozen. Six cents in all."
"Well, I run a book with Cap'n Abe. I ain't got no money with me," said the young woman defiantly.
"Le's see; what did you say your name was?" and Cap'n Amazon drew from the cash drawer a long and evidently fully annotated list of customers' names, prepared by Cap'n Abe.
"I'm Mandy Baker—she 'twas Mandy Card."
"Yes. I find you here all right. Your bill o' ladin' seems good.Good-mornin', ma'am. Call again."
Mandy Baker looked as though she desired to continue the conversation. But there was that in Cap'n Amazon's businesslike manner and speech that impressed Mrs. Baker—as it had Lawford Tapp—that here was a very different person from the easy-going, benign Cap'n Abe. Mandy sniffed, jerked her sunbonnet forward, and departed with her purchases.
Cap'n Amazon's quick eye caught sight of Louise's amused face in the doorway.
"Kind of a sharp craft that," he observed, watching' Mandy cross the road. "Reminds me some o' one o' them Block Island double-enders they built purpose for sword-fishing. When you strike on to a sword-fish you are likely to want to back water 'bout as often as shove ahead. I cal'late this here Mandy Baker is some spry in her maneuvers. And I bet she's got one o' the laziest husbands in this whole town. 'Most always happens that way," concluded the captain, who seemed quite as homely philosophical and observant as his brother.
As a stone thrown into a quiet pool drives circling ripples farther and farther away from the point of contact, so the news of Cap'n Abe's secret departure and the appearance of the strange brother in his place, spread through the neighborhood.
The coming of Louise to the store on the Shell Road had also set the tongues to clacking. Mandy Baker, who took her husband's rating in women's eyes at his own valuation, was up in arms. A pretty girl, and an actress at that!—for until recent years that was a word to be only whispered in polite society on the Cape—was considered by such as Mandy to be under suspicion right from the start.
The mystery of Cap'n Amazon, however, quite overtopped the gossip about Louise. Idlers who seldom dropped into the store before afternoon came on this day much earlier to have a look at Cap'n Amazon Silt. Women left their housework at "slack ends" to run over to the store for something considered suddenly essential to their work. Some of the clam-diggers lost a tide to obtain an early glimpse of Cap'n Amazon. Even the children came and peered in at the store door to see that strange, red-kerchief-topped figure behind Cap'n Abe's counter.
Cap'n Joab Beecher was one of the earliest arrivals. Cap'n Joab had been as close to Cap'n Abe as anybody in Cardhaven. There had been some little friction between him and the storekeeper on the previous evening. Cap'n Joab felt almost as though Cap'n Abe's sudden departure was a thrust at him.
But when he introduced himself to Cap'n Amazon the latter seized the caller's hand in a seaman's grip, and said heartily: "I want to know Cap'n Joab Beecher, of the oldSally Noble. I knowed the bark well, though I never happened to clap eyes onyou, sir. Abe give me a letter for you. Here 'tis. Said you was a good feller and might help wise me to things in the store here till I'd l'arned her riggin' and how to sail her proper."
Cap'n Joab was frankly pleased by this. He spelled out the note Cap'n Abe had addressed to him slowly, being without his reading glasses, and then said:
"I'm yours to command, Cap'n Silt. Land sakes! I s'pose your brother had a puffict right to go away. He'd talked about goin' enough. Where's he gone?"
"On a v'y'ge," said Cap'n Amazon.
"No! Gone to sea?"
"Yes. Sailing to-day—out o' Boston."
"I want to know! Abe Silt gone to sea! Wouldn't never believed it. Always 'peared to be afraid of gettin' his paws wet—same's a cat," ruminated Cap'n Joab. "What craft's he sailin' in?"
The Boston morning paper lay before Cap'n Amazon, opened at the page containing the shipping news. His glance dropped to the sailing notices and with scarcely a moment's hesitancy he said:
"Curlew, Ripley, master, out o' Boston. I knowed of her—knowed Cap'n Ripley," and he pointed to the very first line of the sailing list. "If Abe got there in time he like enough j'ined her crew."
"Shipped before the mast?" exploded Cap'n Joab.
"Well," Cap'n Amazon returned sensibly, "if you were skipper about where would you expect a lubber like Abe Silt to fit into your crew?"
"I swanny, that's so!" agreed Cap'n Joab. "But it's goin' to be hard lines for a man of his years—and no experience."
Cap'n Amazon sniffed. "I guess he'll get along," he said, seemingly less disturbed by his brother's plight than other people. "Three months of summer sailin' won't do him no harm."
That he was under fire he evidently felt, and resented it. His brother's old neighbors and friends desired to know altogether too much about his business and that of Cap'n Abe. He told Louise before night:
"I tell you what, Abe's got the best of it! If I'd knowed I was goin' to be picked to pieces by a lot of busybodies the way I be, I'd never agreed to stay by the ship till Abe got back. No, sir! These folks around here are the beatenest I ever see."
Yet Louise noticed that he seemed able to hold his own with the curious ones. His tongue was quite as nimble as Cap'n Abe's had been. On the day of her arrival, Lou Grayling had believed she would be amused at Cardhaven. Ere the second twenty-four hours of her stay were rounded out, she knew she would be.
During the day Cap'n Amazon and Amiel Perdue carried Louise's trunks upstairs and into the storeroom, handy to her own chamber. It seems Cap'n Amazon had not brought his own sea chest; only a "dunnage bag," as he called it.
"But there's plenty of Abe's duds about," he said; "and we're about of a size."
When Louise went to unpack her trunks she found a number of things in the storeroom more interesting even than her own pretty summer frocks. There were shells, corals, sea-ivory—curios, such as are collected by seamen the world over. Cap'n Abe was an indefatigable gatherer of such wares. There was a green sea chest standing with its lid wide open, tarred rope handles on its ends, that may have been around the world a score of times. It was half filled with old books.
All the dusty, musty volumes in the chest seemed to deal with the sea and sea-going. Many of them, long since out of print and forgotten, recounted strange and almost unbelievable romances of nautical life—stories of wrecks, fires, battles with savages and pirates, discoveries of lone islands and marvelous explorations in lands which, since the date of publication, have become semi-civilized or altogether so.
Here were narratives of men who had sailed around the world in tiny craft like Captain Slocum; stories of seamen who had become chiefs of cannibal tribes, like the famous Larry O'Brien; several supposedly veracious narratives of the survivors of the Bounty; stories of Arctic and Antarctic discovery and privation. There were also several scrapbooks filled with newspaper clippings of nautical wonders—many of these clipped from New Bedford and Newport papers which at one time were particularly rich in whalers' yarns.
Interested in skimming these wonderful stories, Lou Grayling spent most of the afternoon. Here was a fund of entertainment for rainy days—or wakeful nights, if she chanced to suffer such. She carried one of the scrapbooks into her bedroom that it might be under her hand if she desired such amusement.
In arranging her possessions in closet and bureau, she found no time on this first day at Cap'n Abe's store to stroll even as far as The Beaches; but the next morning she got up betimes, as soon as Cap'n Amazon himself was astir, dressed, and ran down and out of the open back door while her uncle was sweeping the store.
The sun was but then opening a red eye above the horizon. The ocean, away out to this line demarcating sea and sky, was perfectly flat. Unlike the previous dawn, this was as clear as a bell's note.
Louise had been wise enough to wear high shoes, so the sands above high-water mark did not bother her. The waves lapped in softly, spreading over the dimpling gray beach, their voice reduced to a whispering murmur.
Along the crescent of the sands, above on the bluffs, were set the homes of the summer residents—those whom Gusty Durgin, the waitress at the hotel, termed "the big bugs." On the farthest point visible in this direction was a sprawling, ornate villa with private dock and boathouses, and a small breakwater behind which floated a fleet of small craft. Louise heard the "put-put-a-put" of a motor and descried a swift craft coming from this anchorage.
She saw, by sweeping it with her glance, that not a soul but herself was on the shore—neither in the direction of the summer colony nor on the other hand where the beach curved sharply out to the lighthouse at the end of the Neck. The motor boat was fast approaching the spot where Louise stood.
It being the single moving object on the scene, save the gulls, she began to watch it. There was but one person in the motor boat. He was hatless and was dressed in soiled flannels. It was the young man, Lawford Tapp, of whom Cap'n Abe did not altogether approve.
"He must work for those people over there," Louise Grayling thought."He is nice looking."
It could not be possible that Lawford Tapp had descried and recognized the figure of the girl from the Tapp anchorage!
He no longer wore his hip boots. After shutting off his engine, he guided the sharp prow of the launch right up into the sand and leaped into shallow water, bringing ashore the bight of the painter to throw over a stub sunk above high-water mark.
"Good-morning! What do you think of it?" he asked Louise, with a cordial smile that belonged to him.
"It is lovely!" she said. "Really wonderful! I suppose you have lived here so long it does not appeal to you as strongly as to the new-beholder?"
"I don't know about that. It's the finest place in the world; I think.There's no prettier shore along the Atlantic coast than The Beaches."
"Perhaps you are right. I do not know much about the New England coast," she confessed. "And that—where the spray dashes up so high, even on this calm morning?"
"Gull Rocks. The danger spot of all danger spots along the outer line of the Cape. In rough weather all one can see out there is a cauldron of foam."
Before she could express herself again the purr of a swiftly moving motor car attracted her attention, and she turned to see a low gray roadster coming toward them from the north. The Shell Road, before reaching the shore, swerved northward and ran along the bluffs on which the bungalows and summer cottages were built. These dwellings faced the smooth white road, the sea being behind them.
As Louise looked the car slowed down and stopped, the engine still throbbing. A girl was at the wheel. She was perhaps fifteen, without a hat and with two plaits of yellow hair lying over her slim shoulders.
"Hey, Ford!" she shouted to the young man, "haven't you been up to Cap'n Abe's yet? Daddy's down at the dock now and he's in a tearing hurry."
She gazed upon Lou Grayling frankly but made no sign of greeting. She did not wait, indeed, for a reply from the young man but threw in the clutch and the car shot away.
"I've got to go up to the store," he said. "L'Enfant Terrible is evidently going to Paulmouth to meet the early train. Must be somebody coming."
Louise looked at him quickly, her expression one of perplexity. She supposed this child in the car was the daughter of Lawford's employer. But whoever before heard a fisherman speak just as he did? Had Cap'n Abe been at home she certainly would have tapped that fount of local knowledge for information regarding Lawford. He did not look so much the fisherman type without his jersey and high boots.
"How do you like the old fellow up at the store?" Lawford asked, as they strolled along together. "Isn't he a curious old bird?"
"You mean my Uncle Amazon?"
"Goodness! Heisyour uncle, too, isn't he?" and a flush of embarrassment came into his bronzed cheek. "I had forgotten he was Cap'n Abe's brother. He is so different!"
"Isn't he?" responded Louise demurely. "He doesn't look anything likeUncle Abram, at least."
"I should say not!" ejaculated Lawford. "Do you know, he's an awfully—er—romantic looking old fellow. Looks just as though he had stepped out of an old print"
"The frontispiece of a book about buccaneers, for instance?" she suggested gleefully.
"Well," and he smiled down upon her from his superior height, "I wasn't sure you would see it that way."
"Do you know," she told him, still laughing, "that Betty Gallup calls him nothing but 'that old pirate.' She has taken a decided dislike to him and I have to keep smoothing her ruffled feathers. And, really, Cap'n Amazon is the nicest man."
"I bet he's seen some rough times," Lawford rejoined with vigor. "We used to think Cap'n Abe told some stretchers about his brother; but Cap'n Amazon looks as though he had been through all that Cap'n Abe ever told about—and more."
"Oh, he's not so very terrible, I assure you," Louise said, much amused.
"Did you notice the scar along his jaw? Looks like a cutlass stroke to me. I'd like to know how he came by it. It must have been some fight!"
"You will make him out a much more terrible character than he can possibly be."
"Never mind. If he's anything at all like Cap'n Abe, we'll get it all out of him. I bet he can tell us some hair-raisers."
"I tell you he's a nice old man, and I won't have you talk so about him," Louise declared. "We must change the subject."
"We'll talk aboutyou," said Lawford quickly. "I'm awfully curious.When does your—er—work begin down here?"
"My work?" Then she understood him and dimpled. "Oh, just now is my playtime."
"Making pictures must be interesting."
"I presume it looks so to the outsider," she admitted. It amused her immensely that he should think her a motion picture actress.
"Your coming here and Cap'n Amazon exchanging jobs with his brother have caused more excitement than Cardhaven and the vicinity have seen in a decade. Or at least sinceIhave lived here."
"Oh! Then are you not native to the soil?"
"No, not exactly," he replied. And then after a moment he added: "It's a great old place, even in winter."
"Not dull at all?"
"Never dull," he reassured her. "Too much going on, on sea and shore, to ever be dull. Not for me, at least. I love it."
They reached the store. Louise bade the young man good-morning and went around to the back door to greet Betty.
Lawford made his purchases in rather serious mood and returned to his motor boat. His mind was fixed upon the way Louise Grayling had looked as he stepped ashore and greeted her.
He had been close enough to her now, and for time enough as well, to be sure that there was nothing artificial about this girl. She was as natural as a flower—and just as sweet! There was a softness to her cheek and to the curve of her neck like rich velvet. Her eyes were mild yet sparkling when she became at all animated. And that demure smile! And her dimples!
When a young man gets to making an accounting of a girl's charms in this way, he is far gone indeed. Lawford Tapp was very seriously smitten.
He saw his youngest sister, Cicely, whom the family always called L'Enfant Terrible, speeding back to the villa in the automobile. She had not gone as far as Paulmouth, after all, and she reached home long before he docked the launch. Lawford did not pay much attention to what went on in the big villa. His mother and sisters lived a social life of their own. He merely slept there, spending most of his days on the water.
The Salt Water Taffy King was not at the private dock when Lawford arrived. Mr. Israel Tapp was an irritable and impatient man. He "flew off the handle" at the slightest provocation. Many times a day he lost his temper and, as Lawford phlegmatically expressed it, "blew up."