Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper Part 21

"You have promised more than you can perform. Aunt Euphemia," Louise replied shortly. "I will remain here."

"Louise!"

"I will remain here with Cap'n Amazon. And with Uncle Abram when he returns. They are both dear old men----"

"That awful looking pirate!" gasped Mrs. Conroth.

"You do not know him," returned the girl. "You do not know how worthy and now kind he is."

"You have only known him a week yourself," remarked Aunt Euphemia. "What can a young girl like you know about these awful creatures--fishermen, sailors, and the like? How can you judge?"

Louise laughed. "Why, Auntie, you know I have seen much of the world and many more people than you have. And if I have not learned to judge those I meet by this time I shall never learn, though I grow to be as old as"--she came near saying "as you are," but subst.i.tuted instead--"as Mrs.

Methuselah. I shall remain here. I would not insult Cap'n Amazon or Cap'n Abe, by leaving abruptly and going with you to the Perritons'

bungalow."

"But what shall I say to them?" wailed Aunt Euphemia.

"What have you already said?"

"I said I expected you were waiting for me at Cardhaven. I would not come over from Paulmouth in their car, but hurried on ahead. I wished to save you the disgrace--yes, _disgrace_!--of being found here in this--this country store. Ugh!" She shuddered again.

"I am determined that they shall not know your poor, dear father unfortunately married beneath him."

"Aunt Euphemia!" exclaimed Louise, her gray eyes flashing now. "Don't say that. It offends me. Daddy-prof never considered my mother or her people beneath his own station."

"Your father, Louise, is a fool!" was the lady's tart reply.

"As he is your brother as well as my father," Louise told her coldly, "I presume you feel you have a right to call him what you please. But I a.s.sure you, Aunt Euphemia, it does not please me to hear you do so."

"You are a very obstinate girl!"

"That attribute of my character I fancy I inherit from daddy-professor's side of the family," the girl returned bluntly.

"I shall be shamed to death! I must accept the Perritons' invitation. I already have accepted it. They will think you a very queer girl, to say the least."

"I am," her niece told her, the gray eyes smiling again, for Louise was soon over her wrath. "Even daddy-prof says that."

"Because of his taking you all over the world with him as he did. I only wonder he did not insist upon your going on this present horrid cruise.

"No. I have begun to like my comfort too well," and now Louise laughed outright. "A mark of oncoming age, perhaps."

"You are a most unpleasant young woman, Louise."

Louise thought she might return the compliment with the exchange of but a single word; but she was too respectful to do so.

"I am determined to remain here," she repeated, "so you may as well take it cheerfully, auntie. If you intend staying with the Perritons any length of time, of course I shall see you often, and meet them. I haven't come down here to the Cape to play the hermit, I a.s.sure you. But I am settled here with Cap'n Amazon, and I am comfortable. So, why should I make any change?"

"But in this common house! With that awful looking old sailor! And the way he talks! The rough adventures he has experienced--and the way he relates them!"

"Why, I think he is charming. And his stories are jolly fun. He tells the most thrilling and interesting things! I have before heard people tell about queer corners of the world--and been in some of them myself.

Only the romance seems all squeezed out of such places nowadays. But when Cap'n Amazon was young!" she sighed.

"You should hear him tell of having once been wrecked on an island in the South Seas where there were only women left of the tribe inhabiting it, the men all having been killed in battle by a neighboring tribe. The poor sailors did not know whether those copper-colored Eves would decide to kill and eat them, or merely marry them."

"Louise!" Aunt Euphemia rose and fairly glared at her niece. "You show distinctly that a.s.sociation with these horrid people down here has already contaminated your mind. You are positively vulgar!"

She sailed out of the room, descended the stairs, and "beat up" through the living-room and store, as Betty Gallup said "with ev'ry st.i.tch of canvas drawin' and a bone in her teeth." Louise agreed about the "bone"--she had given her Aunt Euphemia a hard one to gnaw on.

The girl followed Mrs. Conroth to the automobile and helped her in.

Cap'n Amazon came to the store door as politely as though he were seeing an honored guest over the ship's side.

"Ask your A'nt 'Phemie to come again. Too bad she ain't satisfied to jine us here. Plenty o' cabin room. But if she's aimin' to anchor near by she'll be runnin' in frequent I cal'late. Good-day to ye, ma'am!"

Aunt Euphemia did not seem even to see him. She was also afflicted with sudden deafness.

"Louise! I shall never forget this--never!" she declared haughtily, as w.i.l.l.y Peebles started the car and it rumbled on down the Sh.e.l.l Road.

Unable to face Cap'n Amazon just then for several reasons, Louise did not re-enter the store but strolled down to the sands. There was a skiff drawn up above high-water mark and the hoop-backed figure of Washy Gallup sat in it. He was mending a net. He nodded with friendliness to Louise, his jaw working from side to side like a cow chewing her cud--and for the same reason. Washy had no upper teeth left.

"How be you this fine day, miss?" the old fellow asked sociably. "It's enough to put new marrer in old bones, this weather. Cold weather lays me up same's any old hulk. An' I been used to work, I have, all my life.

Warn't none of 'em any better'n me in my day."

"You have done your share, I am sure, Mr. Gallup," the girl said, smiling cheerfully down upon him. "Yours is the time for rest."

"Rest? How you talk!" exclaimed Washy. "A man ought to be able to aim his own pollock and potaters, or else he might's well give up the ship.

I tell 'em if I was only back in my young days where I could do a full day's work, I'd be satisfied."

Louise had turned up a fiddler with the toe of her boot. As the creature scurried for sanctuary, Washy observed:

"Them's curious critters. All crabs is."

"I think they are curious," Louise agreed. "Like a cross-eyed man. Look one way and run another."

"Surely--surely. Talk about a curiosity--the curiousest-osity I ever see was a crab they have in j.a.panese waters; big around's a clam-bucket and dangling gre't long laigs to it like a sea-going giraffe."'

Louise was thankful for this opportunity for laughter, for that "curiousest-osity" was too much for her sense of the ludicrous.

Like almost every other man of any age that Louise had met about Cardhaven--save Cap'n Abe himself--Washy had spent a good share of his life in deep-bottomed craft. But he had never risen higher than petty officer.

"Some men's born to serve afore the mast--or how'd we git sailors?"

observed the old fellow, with all the philosophy of the unambitious man.

"Others get into the afterguard with one, two, three, and a jump!" His trembling fingers knotted the twine dexterously. "Now, there's your uncle."

"Uncle Amazon?" asked Louise.

"No, miss. Cap'n Abe, I mean. This here Am'zon Silt, 'tis plain to be seen, has got more salt water than blood in _his_ veins. Cap'n Abe's a nice feller--not much again him here where he's lived and kep' store for twenty-odd year. 'Ceptin' his yarnin' 'bout his brother all the time.

But from the look of Cap'n Am'zon I wouldn't put past him anything that Cap'n Abe says he's done--and more.