Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper Part 22

"But Abe himself, now, I'd never believed would trust himself on open water."

"Yet," cried Louise, "he's shipped on a sailing vessel, Uncle Amazon says. He's gone for a voyage."

"Ye-as. But _has_ he?" Washy retorted, his head on one side and his rheumy old eyes looking up at her as sly as a ferret's.

"What do you mean?"

"We none of us--none of the neighbors, I mean--seen him go. As fur's we know he didn't go away at all. We're only taking his brother's word for it."

"Why, Mr. Gallup! You're quite as bad as Betty. One would think to hear you and her talk that Cap'n Amazon was a fratricide."

"Huh?"

"That he had murdered his brother," explained the girl.

"That's fratter side, is it? Well, I don't take no stock in such foolishness. Them's Bet Gallup's notions, Cap'n Am'zon's all right, to _my_ way o' thinkin'. I was talkin' about Cap'n Abe."

"I do not understand you at all, then," said the puzzled girl.

"I see you don't just foller me," he replied patiently. "I ain't casting no alligators at your Uncle Am'zon. It's Cap'n Abe. I doubt his goin'

to sea at all. I bet he never shipped aboard that craft his brother tells about."

"Goodness! Why not?"

"'Cause he ain't a sea-goin' man. There's a few o' such amongst Cape Codders. Us'ally they go away from the sea before they git found out, though."

"'Found out?'" the girl repeated with exasperation. "Found out in _what_?"

"That they're _scare't_ o' blue water," Washy said decidedly. "n.o.body 'round here ever seen Cap'n Abe outside the Haven. He wouldn't no more come down here, push this skiff afloat, and row out to deep water than he'd go put his hand in a wild tiger's mouth--no, ma'am!"

"Why, isn't that very ridiculous?" Louise said, not at all pleased. "Of course Cap'n Abe shipped on that boat just as Cap'n Amazon said he was going to. Otherwise he would have been back--or we would have heard from him."

"He did, hey?" responded Washy sharply, springing the surprise he had been leading up to. "Then why didn't he take his chist with him? It's come back to the Paulmouth depot, so Perry Baker says, it not being claimed down to Boston."

CHAPTER XIV

A CHOICE OF CHAPERONS

Washy Gallup's gossip should not have made much impression upon Louise Grayling's mind, but it fretted her. Perhaps her recent interview with Aunt Euphemia had rasped the girl's nerves. She left the old fisherman with a tart speech and returned to the store.

There were customers being waited upon, so she had no opportunity to mention the matter of Cap'n Abe's chest to the subst.i.tute storekeeper at once. Then, when she had taken time to consider it, she decided not to do so.

It really was no business of hers whether Cap'n Abe had taken his chest with him when he sailed from Boston or not. She had never asked Cap'n Amazon the name of the vessel his brother was supposed to have shipped on. Had she known it was the _Curlew_, the very schooner on which Professor Grayling had sailed, she would, of course, have shown a much deeper interest. And had Cap'n Amazon learned from Louise the name of the craft her father was aboard, he surely would have mentioned the coincidence.

It stuck in the girl's mind--the puzzle about Cap'n Abe's chest--but it did not come to her lips. Looking across the table that evening, after the store was closed, as they sat together under the hanging lamp, she wondered that Cap'n Amazon did not speak of it if he knew his brother's chest had been returned to the Paulmouth express agent.

Without being in the least grim-looking in her eyes, there was an expression on Cap'n Amazon's face, kept scrupulously shaven, that made one hesitate to pry into or show curiosity regarding any of his private affairs.

He might be perfectly willing to tell her anything she wished to know.

He was frank enough in relating his personal experiences up and down the seas, that was sure!

Cap'n Amazon puffed at his pipe and tried to engage the attention of Diddimus. The big tortoise-sh.e.l.l ran from him no longer; but he utterly refused to be petted. He now lay on the couch and blinked with a bored manner at the captain.

If Louise came near him he purred loudly, putting out a hooked claw to catch her skirt and stop her, and so get his head rubbed. But if Cap'n Amazon undertook any familiarities, Diddimus arose in dignified silence and changed his place or left the room.

"Does beat all," the Captain said reflectively, reaching for his knitting, "what notions dumb critters get. We had a black man and a black dog with us aboard the fo'master _Sally S. Stern_ when I was master, out o' Baltimore for Chilean ports. Bill was the blackest negro, I b'lieve, I ever see. You couldn't see him in the dark with his mouth and eyes both shut. And that Newfoundland of his was just as black and his coat just as kinky as Bill's wool. The crew called 'em the two s...o...b..a.l.l.s."

"What notion did the dog take, Uncle Amazon?" Louise asked as he halted. Sometimes he required a little urging to "get going." But not much.

"Why, no matter what Bill did around the deck, or below, or overside, or what not, the dog never seemed to pay much attention to him. But the minute Bill started aloft that dog began to cry--whine and bark--and try to climb the shrouds after that n.i.g.g.e.r. Land sakes, you never in your life saw such actions! Got so we had to chain the dog s...o...b..ll whenever it came on to blow, for there's a consarned lot o'

reefin' down and hoistin' sail on one o' them big fo'masters. The skipper't keeps his job on a ship like the _Sally S. Stern_ must get steamboat speed out o' her.

"So, 'twas 'all hands to stations!' sometimes three and four times in a watch. Owners ain't overlib'ral in matter of crew nowadays. Think because there's a donkey-engine on deck and a riggin' to hoist your big sails, ye don't re'lly need men for'ard at all.

"That v'y'ge out in pertic'lar I remember that there was two weeks on a stretch that not a soul aboard had more'n an hour's undisturbed sleep.

And that dog! Poor brute, I guess he thought Bill was goin' to heaven and leavin' him behind ev'ry time the n.i.g.g.e.r started for the masthead.

"I most always," continued Cap'n Amazon, "seen to it myself that the dog was chained when Bill was likely to go aloft. I liked that dog.

He was a gentleman, if he was black. And Bill was a good seaman, and with a short tongue. The dog was about the only critter aboard he seemed to cotton to. Nothin' was too good for the dog, and the only way I got Bill to sign on was by agreeing to take the Newfoundland along.

"Well, we got around the Horn much as us'al. Windjammers all have their troubles there. And then, not far from the western end o' the Straits we got into a belt of light airs--short, gusty winds that blew every which way. It kept the men in the tops most of the time. Some of 'em vowed they was goin' to swing their hammocks up there.

"Come one o' those days, with the old _Sally_ just loafin' along,"

pursued Cap'n Amazon, sucking hard on his pipe, "when I spied a flicker o' wind comin', and the mate he sent the men gallopin' up the shrouds.

I'd forgot the dog. So had n.i.g.g.e.r Bill, I reckon.

"Bill was one o' the best topmen aboard. He was up there at work before the dog woke up and started ki-yi-ing. He bayed Bill like a beagle hound at the foot of a c.o.o.n tree. Then, jumping, he caught the lower shrouds with his forepaws.

"The new slant of the wind struck us at the same moment. The old _Sally S._ heeled to larboard and that Newfoundland was jerked over the rail."

"The poor thing!" Louise cried.

"You'd ha' thought so. I wouldn't have felt no worse if one of the men had gone over. Owner's business, or not, I sung out to the second to get his boat out and I kicked off my shoes, grabbed a life-ring, and jumped myself."

"You! Uncle Amazon?" gasped his niece.

"Yep. The mate had the deck and I was the only man free. There wasn't much of a sea runnin', anyway. No pertic'lar danger. That is, not commonly.

"But the minute I come up to the surface and rose breast-high, dashin'

the water out o' my eyes so's to look around for the dog, I seen I'd been a leetle mite too previous, as the feller said. I hadn't taken into consideration one pertic'lar chance--like the feller't married one o' twins an' then couldn't tell which from t'other.

"I see s...o...b..ll the dog, all right; but headin' for him like a streak o' greased lightin' was the triandicular fin of a shark. I'd forgot all about those fellers; and we hadn't see one for weeks, anyway. In warmer waters than them the _Sally S. Stern_ was then in, the sharks will come right up and stand with their noses out o' the sea begging like a dog for sc.r.a.ps. They'd bark, if they knew how, by gravy!

"Well," went on Cap'n Amazon while Louise listened spellbound, "that dog s...o...b..ll was in a bad fix. A dog's a dog--almost human as you might say. But I wasn't aimin' puttin' myself in a shark's mouth for a whole kennel full o' dogs.

"Mind you, not minutes but only seconds had pa.s.sed since the dog shot outboard. The ship was not movin' fast. She heeled over again' and her spars and flappin' canvas was almost over my head as I glanced up.