Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper Part 17

"Well----Where was I? Oh, yes! We had light airs in the Caribbean for once, and didn't make no more headway in a day than a brick barge goin'

upstream. We come to an island--something more than a key--and Cap'n Braman ordered a boat's crew ash.o.r.e for water. I was in the second's boat so I went. We found good water easy and the second officer, who was a nice young chap, let us scour around on our own hook for fruit and such, after we'd filled the barrels.

"I was all for sh.e.l.lfish them days, and I see some big mussels attached to the rocks, it bein' low water. Some o' them mussels, when ye gut 'em same as ye would deep-sea clams, make the nicest fry you ever tasted.

"Wal," said Cap'n Amazon, walking sedately home from church with his amused niece on his arm, "I wanted a few of them mussels. There was a mud bottom and so the water was black. Just as I reached for the first mussel I felt something creeping around my left leg. I thought it was eel-gra.s.s; then I thought it was an eel.

"Next thing I knowed it took holt like a leech in half a dozen places.

I jumped; but I didn't jump far. There was two o' the things had me, and that left leg o' mine was fast as a duck's foot in the mud!"

"Oh, Uncle Amazon!" gasped Louise.

"Yep. A third arm whipped out o' the water had helt me round the waist tighter'n any girl of my acquaintance ever lashed her best feller.

Land sakes, that devilfish certainly give me a hi-mighty hug!

"But I had what they call down in the Spanish speakin' islands a machette--a big knife for cuttin' your way through the jungle. I hauled that out o' the waistband of my pants and I began slicing at them snake-like arms of the critter and yelling like all get-out.

"More scare't than hurt, I reckon. I was a young feller, as I tell you, and hadn't seen so much of the world as I have since," continued Cap'n Amazon. "But the arms seemed fairly to grow on that devilfish.

I wasn't hacked loose when the second officer come runnin' with his gun. I dragged the critter nearer insh.o.r.e and he got a look at it.

Both barrels went into that devilfish, and that was more than it could stomach; so it let go," finished the captain.

"Mercy! what an experience," commented Louise, wondering rather vaguely why the minister of the First Church had reminded her uncle of this octopus.

"Yes. 'Twas _some_," agreed Cap'n Amazon. "But let's step along a little livelier, Niece Louise. I'm goin' to give you a re'l fisherman's chowder for dinner, an' I want to git the pork and onions over. I like my onions well browned before I slice in the potaters."

Cap'n Amazon insisted on doing most of the cooking, just as Cap'n Abe had. Louise had baked some very delicate pop-overs for breakfast that morning and the captain ate his share with appreciation.

"Pretty average nice, I call 'em, for soft-fodder," he observed. "But, land sakes! give me something hearty and kind of solid for reg'lar eating. Ordinary man would starve pretty handy, I guess, on breadstuff like this."

The chowder was both as hearty and as appetizing as one could desire.

Nor would the captain allow Louise to wash the dishes afterward.

"No, girl. I'll clean up this mess. You go out and see how fur you can walk on that hard beach now it's slack tide. You ain't been up there to Tapp P'int yit and seen that big house that belongs to the candy king. Neither have I, of course," he added; "but they been tellin' me about it in the store."

Louise accepted the suggestion and started to walk up the beach; but she did not get far. There was a private dock running out beyond low-water mark just below the very first bungalow. She saw several men coming down the steps from the top of the bluff to the sh.o.r.e and the bathhouses; a big camera was set up on the sands. This must be Bozewell's bungalow, she decided; the one engaged by the moving picture people.

If Judson Bane was to be leading man of the company the picture was very likely to be an important production; for Bane would not leave the legitimate stage for any small salary. Seeing no women in the party and that the men were heading up the beach, Louise went no farther in that direction, and instead walked out upon the private dock to its end.

It was not until then that she saw, shooting insh.o.r.e, the swift launch in which Lawford Tapp had come over in the morning previous. The wind being off the land she had not heard its exhaust. In three minutes the launch glided in beside the dock where she stood.

"Come for a sail, Miss Grayling?" he asked her, with his very widest smile. "I'll take you out around Gull Rocks."

"Oh! I am not sure----"

"Surely you're not down here to work on Sunday?" and he glanced at the actors.

She laughed. "Oh, no, Mr. Tapp. I do not work on Sundays. Uncle Amazon would not even let me wash the dishes."

"I should think not," murmured Lawford with an appreciative glance at her ungloved hands. "He's a pretty decent old fellow, I guess. Will you come aboard? She's perfectly safe, Miss Grayling."

If he had invited her to enter the big touring car he had driven that morning, to go for a "joy ride," Louise Grayling would certainly have refused. To go on a pleasure trip at the invitation of a chauffeur in his employer's car was quite out of consideration.

But this was somehow different, or so it seemed. She hesitated not because of who or what he was (or what she believed him to be), but because she had seen something in his manner and expression of countenance that warned her he was a young man not to be lightly encouraged.

In that moment of reflection Louise Grayling, asked herself if she felt that he possessed a more interesting personality than almost any man she had ever met socially before. She did so consider him, she told herself, and so--she stepped aboard the launch.

She did not need his hand to help her to the seat beside him. She was boatwise. He pushed off, starting his engine; and they were soon chug-chugging out upon the limitless sea.

CHAPTER XI

THE LEADING MAN

"I saw you with Cap'n Amazon going to church this morning," Lawford said. "To the First Church, I presume?"

"And you?"

"Oh, I drove the folks over to Paulmouth. There is an Episcopal Church there and the girls think it's more fashionable. You don't see many soft-collared shirts among the Paulmouth Episcopalians."

There spoke the "native," Louise thought; and she smiled.

"It scarcely matters, I fancy, which denomination one attends. It is the spirit in which we worship that counts."

He gazed upon her seriously. "You're a thoughtful girl, I guess. I should not have looked for that--in your business."

"In my business? Oh!"

"We outsiders have an idea that people in the theatrical line are a peculiar cla.s.s unto themselves," Lawford went on.

"But I----" On the point of telling him of his mistake she hesitated.

He was un.o.bservant of her amus.e.m.e.nt and went on with seriousness:

"I guess I'm pretty green after all. I don't know much about the world--your world, at least. I love the sea, and sailing, and all the seash.o.r.e has to offer. Sometimes I'm out here alone all day long."

"But what is it doing for you?" she asked him rather sharply. "Surely there can be very little in it, when all's said and done. A man with your intelligence--you have evidently had a good education."

"I suppose I don't properly appreciate that," he admitted.

"And to really waste your time like this--loafing longsh.o.r.e, and sailing boats, and--and driving an automobile. Why! you are a regular beach comber, Mr. Tapp. It's not much of an outlook for a man I should think."

She suddenly stopped, realizing that she was showing more interest than the occasion called for. Lawford was watching her with smoldering eyes.

"Don't you think it is a nice way to live?" he asked. "The sea is really wonderful. I have learned more about sea and sh.o.r.e already than you can find in all the books. Do you know where the gulls nest, and how they hatch their young? Did you ever watch a starfish feeding? Do you know what part of the sh.e.l.lfish is the scallop of commerce? Do you know that every seventh wave is almost sure to be larger than its fellows? Do you----"

"Oh, it may be very delightful," Louise interrupted this flow of badly catalogued information to say. He expressed exactly her own desires.

Nothing could be pleasanter than spending the time, day after day, learning things "at first hand" about nature. For her father--and of course for her--to do this was quite proper, Louise thought. But not for this young fisherman, who should be making his way in the world.

"Where is it getting you?" she demanded.