Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper Part 42

"But I know I. Tapp is sorry for what he's done. Only there's no use expectin' him to admit it, or that he'll change. If Fordy won't marry Dot Johnson I. Tapp will never forgive him. I don't know what I shall say to her when she does come."

"Maybe she will not appear at all," Louise suggested comfortingly.

"I don't know. I got a letter from her mother putting the visit off till later. But it can't be put off forever. Anyhow, when she comes Lawford says he won't be at home. I hope the girls will act nice to her."

"_I_ will," Louise a.s.sured her. "And I'll make Mr. Tapp like me yet; you see if I don't."

"Oh, I can't hope for that much, my dear," sighed the lachrymose lady, shaking her head; but she kissed Louise again.

Lawford waved a hand to her at her chamber window early on Monday morning as L'Enfant Terrible drove him in the roadster to Paulmouth to catch the milk train. All the girls were proud of their brother because, as Cecile said, he was proving himself to be "such a perfectly good sport after all." And perhaps I. Tapp himself admired his son for the pluck he was showing.

They corresponded after that--Louise and Lawford. As she could not hope to hear from the _Curlew_ again until the schooner made the port of Boston, Lawford's letters were the limit of her correspondence.

Louise had always failed to make many close friends among women.

Her interests aside from those at the store and with the movie people were limited, too. The b.u.t.terfly society of The Beaches did not much attract Louise Grayling.

Aunt Euphemia manifestly disapproved of her niece at every turn. The Lady from Poughkeepsie had remained on the Cape for the full season in the hope of breaking up the intimacy between Louise and Lawford Tapp.

His absence, which she had believed so fortunate, soon proved to be merely provocative of her niece's interest in the heir of the Taffy King.

Nor could she wean Louise from a.s.sociation with the piratical looking mariner at Cap'n Abe's store. The girl utterly refused to be guided by the older woman in either of these particulars.

"You are a reckless, abandoned girl!" Aunt Euphemia declared. "I am sure, no matter what others may say, that awful sailor is no fit companion for you.

"And as, for Lawford Tapp----Why, his people are impossible, Louise.

Wherever you have your establishment, if you marry him, his people, when they visit you will have to be apologized for," the indignant woman continued.

"Let--me--see," murmured Louise. "How large an 'establishment' should you think, auntie, we could keep up on eighteen dollars a week?"

"Eighteen dollars a week!" exclaimed Aunt Euphemia, aghast.

"Yes. That is Lawford's present salary. Wages, I think they call it at the factory. He gets it in cash--in a pay envelope."

"Mercy, Louise! You are not in earnest?"

"Certainly. My young man is going to earn our living. If he marries me his father will cut him off with the proverbial shilling. I. Tapp has other matrimonial plans for Lawford."

"What?" gasped the horrified Mrs. Conroth. "He does not approve of you?"

"Too true, auntie. I have driven poor Lawford to work in a candy factory."

"That--that upstart!" exploded the lady. But she did not refer to Lawford.

It was evident that Aunt Euphemia saw nothing but the threat of storm clouds for her niece in the offing. Trouble, deep and black, seemed, to her mind to be hovering upon the horizon of the future,

As it chanced, the weather about this time seemed to reflect Aunt Euphemia's mood. The summer had pa.s.sed with but few brief tempests.

Seldom had Louise seen any phase of the sea in its wrath.

September, however, is an uncertain month at best. For several days a threatening haze shrouded the distant sea line. The kildees, fluttered and shrieked over the booming surf.

Washy Gallup, meeting Louise as she strolled on the beach, prognosticated:

"Shouldn't be surprised none, Miss Lou, if we had a spell of weather.

Mebbe we'll have an airly equinoctooral. We sometimes do.

"Then ye'll hear the sea sing psalms, as the feller said, an' no mistake. Them there picture folks'll mebbe git a show at a re'l storm.

That's what they been wishin' for--an' a wreck off sh.o.r.e. Land sakes!

if they'd ever _seed_ a ship go to pieces afore their very eyes they wouldn't ask for a second helpin'--no, ma'am!"

That evening threatening clouds rolled up from seaward and mantled the arch of the sky. The fishing boats ran to cover in the harbor before dark. The surf rumbled louder and louder along the sh.o.r.e.

And all night the sea mourned its dead over Gull Rocks.

CHAPTER XXIX

THE SCAR

Another fishfly (or was it the same that had droned accompaniment to Cap'n' Abe's story-telling upon a former occasion?) boomed against the dusty panes of the window while the fretful, sand-laden wind swept searchingly about the store on the Sh.e.l.l Road.

It was early afternoon; but a green and dreary light lay upon sea and land as dim as though the hour was that of sunset. In the silence punctuating the desultory conversation, the sharp _swish, swish_ of the sand upon the panes almost drowned the complaint of the fishfly.

"We're going to have a humdinger of a gale," announced Milt Baker, the last to enter and bang the store door. "She's pullin' 'round into the no'th-east right now, and I tell Mandy she might's well make up her mind to my lyin' up tight an' dry for a while. Won't be no clams shipped from _these_ flats to-morrow."

"High you'll likely be," agreed the storekeeper. "How _dry_ ye'll be, Milt, remains to be seen."

"_In_-side, or _aout_?" chuckled Cap'n Joab, for

Milt Baker's failing was not hidden under a bushel.

Amiel hastened to toll attention away from his side partner. "This wind's driv' them picture folks to cover," he said. "They was makin'

some fillums over there on the wreck of the _Goldrock_, that's laid out four year or so in Ham Cove------"

"Nearer five year," put in Cap'n Joab, a stickler for facts.

"You air right, cap'n," agreed Washy Gallup.

"Well," said Amiel, "four _or_ five. The heave of her made ha'f of 'em sick, and that big actor man, Bane, got knocked off into the water an'

'twas more by good luck than good management he warn't drowned. I cal'late _he's_ got enough."

"The gale that brought the _Goldrock_ ash.o.r.e had just such another beginning as this," Cap'n Joab said reflectively. "But she'd never been wrecked on a lee sh.o.r.e if her crew had acted right. They mutineed, you know."

"The sculpins!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the storekeeper briskly. "Can't excuse that. Anything but a crew that'll turn on the afterguard that they've signed on for to obey!"

"That's right, Cap'n Am'zon," said Cap'n Joab. "Ye say a true word."

"An' for good reason," declared the mendacious storekeeper. "I've had experience with such sharks," and he ran his finger reflectively down the old scar upon his jaw.