Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper Part 24

"That surmise gained coinage when I first arrived at Cardhaven," Louise said, dimpling. "I did nothing to discourage the mistake, and I presume Gusty Durgin still believes I pose before the camera."

"Gusty has aspirations that way herself," chuckled Bane. "She is a character."

"I wonder what kind of screen actress I would make?"

He smiled down at her rather grimly. "The kind the directors call the appealing type, I fancy, Miss Grayling. Though I have no doubt you would do much better than most. Making big eyes at a camera is the limit of art achieved by many of our feminine screen stars. I do not expect to put in a very pleasant summer amid my present surroundings."

"Oh, then you are here for more than one picture."

"Several, if the weather proves propitious. I shall play the fisherman hero, or the villain, until my manager has my new play ready in the fall. Believe me, Miss Grayling, I am not in love with this picture drama. But when one is offered for his resting season half as much again as he can possibly earn during the run of a legitimate Broadway production he must not be blamed for accepting the contract. We all bow to the power of gold."

Louise, whose gaze was fixed upon the approaching sloop, smiled. She was thinking; "All but Lawford Tapp, the philosophic fisherman!"

"I believe," Bane said, with flattery, "that I should delight to play opposite to you, Miss Grayling, rank amateur though you would be. This Ans...o...b..really is a wonderful director and gets surprising results from material that cannot compare with you. I'll speak to him if you say the word. He'd oblige me, I am sure. One of the scripts he has told me about has a part fitted to you."

"Oh, Mr. Bane!" she cried. "I'd have to think about that, I fear. And such a tempting offer! Now, if you said that to Gusty Durgin----"

At the moment Betty Gallup came into view. Masculine in appearance at any time in her man's hat and coat, she was doubly so now. She frankly wore overalls, but had drawn a short skirt over them; and she wore gum boots. Bane stared at this apparition and gasped:

"Is--is it a man--or what?"

"Why, Mr. Bane! That is my chaperon."

"Chaperon! Ye G.o.ds and little fishes! Miss Grayling, no matter where you go, or with whom, you are perfectly safe with _that_ as a chaperon."

"How rediculous, Mr. Bane!" the girl cried, laughing. Betty strode through the sand to the spot where they stood. "This is Mr. Bane, Betty," Louise continued, "Mrs. Gallup, Mr. Bane."

The actor swept off his sou'wester with a flourish. Betty eyed him with disfavor.

"So you're one o' them play-actors, be you? Land sakes! And tryin' to look like a fisherman, too! I don't s'pose you know a grommet from the bight of a hawser."

"Guilty as charged," Bane admitted with a chuckle. "But we all must live, Mrs. Gallup."

"Humph!" grunted the old woman. "Are you sure that's so in ev'ry case?

There's more useless folks on the Cape now than the Recordin' Angel can well take care on."

"Oh, Betty!" Louise gasped.

But Bane was highly amused. "I'm not at all sure you're not right, Mrs. Gallup. I sometimes feel that if I were a farmer and raised onions, or a fisherman and caught the denizens of the sea, I might feel a deeper respect for myself. As it is, when I work I am only _playing_."

"Humph!" exploded Betty again. "'Denizens of the sea,' eh? New one on me. I ain't never heard of _them_ fish afore."

The sail of the sloop slatted and then came down with the rattle of new canvas. Having let go the sheet, Lawford ran forward and pitched the anchor over. Then he drew in the skiff that trailed the _Merry Andrew_, stepped in, and sculled himself ash.o.r.e, beaching the boat, just as Cap'n Amazon came down from the store with a second basket of supplies.

"Wish I was goin' with ye," he said heartily. "Would, too, if I could shut up shop. But I promised Abe I'd stay by the ship till he come home again."

Louise introduced her uncle to Mr. Bane; but during the bustle of getting into the skiff and pushing off she overlooked the fact that Lawford and the actor were not introduced.

"Bring us home a mess of tautog," Cap'n Amazon shouted. "I sartainly do fancy blackfish when they're cooked right. Bile 'em, an' serve with an egg sauce, is my way o' puttin' 'em on the table."

"That was Cap'n Abe's way, too," muttered Betty.

The cloud on Lawford Tapp's countenance did not lift immediately as he sculled them out to the anch.o.r.ed sloop. Louise saw quickly that his ill humor was for Bane.

"I must keep this young man at a distance," she thought, as she waved her hand to Uncle Amazon and Mr. Bane. "He takes too much for granted, I fear. Perhaps, after all, I should have excused myself from this adventure."

She eyed Lawford covertly as, with swelling muscles and lithe, swinging body, he drove his sculling oar. "But he does look more 'to the manner born'--much more the man, in fact--than that actor!"

Lawford could not for long forget his duty as host, and he was as cheerful and obliging as usual by the time the three had scrambled aboard the _Merry Andrew_.

Immediately Betty Gallup cast aside her skirt and stood forth untrammeled in the overalls. "Gimme my way and I'd wear 'em doin'

housework and makin' my garding," she declared. "Land sakes! I allus did despise women's fooleries."

Louise laughed blithely.

"Why, Betty," she said, "lots of city women who do their own housework don 'knickers' or gymnasium suits to work in. No excuse is needed."

"Humph!" commented the old woman. "I had no idee city women had so much sense. The ones I see down here on the Cape don't show it."

The morning breeze was light but steady. The _Merry Andrew_ was a sweetly sailing boat and Lawford handled her to the open admiration of Betty Gallup. The old woman's comment would have put suspicion in Louise's mind had the girl not been utterly blind to the actual ident.i.ty of the sloop's owner.

"Humph! you're the only furiner, Lawford Tapp, I ever see who could sail a smack proper. But you got Cape blood in you--that's what 'tis."

"Thank you, Betty," he returned, with the ready smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes. "That is a compliment indeed."

The surf only moaned to-day over Gull Rocks, for there was little ground swell. The waves heaved in, with an oily, leisurely motion and, it being full sea, merely broke with a streak of foam marking the ugly reef below.

A little to the seaward side of the apex of the reef Betty, at a word from Lawford, cast loose the sheet and then dropped the anchor.

"Mussel beds all about here," explained the young man to his guest.

"That means good feeding for the blackfish. Can't catch them anywhere save on a rock bottom, or around old spiles or sunken wrecks. Better let me rig your line, Miss Grayling. You'll need a heavier sinker than that for outside here--ten ounces at least. You see, the tug of the undertow is considerable."

Betty Gallup, looking every whit the "able seaman" now, rigged her own line quickly and opened the bait can.

"Land sakes!" she exclaimed. "Where'd you get scallop bait this time o' year, Lawford? You must be a houn' dog for smellin' 'em out."

"I am," he laughed. "I know that tautog will leave mussels for scallop any time. And we'll have the eyes of the scallops fried for lunch.

They're all ready in the cabin."

The pulpy, fat bodies of the scallop--a commercial waste--were difficult to hang upon the short, blunt hooks; but Lawford seemed to have just the knack of it. He showed Louise how to lower the line to the proper depth, advising:

"Remember, you'll only feel a nibble. The tautog is a shy fish. He doesn't swallow hook, line, and sinker like a hungry cod. You must snap him quick when he takes the hook, for his mouth is small and you must get him instantly--or not at all."

Louise found this to be true. Her hooks were "skinned clean" several times before she managed to get inboard her first fish.

She learned, too, why the tackle for tautog has to be so strong. Once hooked, the fish darts straight down under rocks or into creva.s.ses, and sulks there. He comes out of that ambush like a chunk of lead.

The party secured a number of these dainty fish; but to lend variety to the day's haul they got the anchor up after luncheon and ran down to the channels there to chum for snappers. Lawford had brought along rods; for to catch the young and gamey bluefish one must use an entirely different rigging from that used for tautog.