Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper Part 48

It was just at daybreak that the wind subsided and the tide was so that the lifeboat could be launched again. Wellriver station owned no motor-driven craft at this time, or Cap'n Jim Trainor and his men would have been able to reach the wreck at the height of the gale.

It was no easy matter even now to bring the lifeboat under the lee of the battered schooner. Her masts and shrouds were overside, anchoring her to the reef. Not a sign of life appeared anywhere upon her.

One of the crew of the lifeboat leaped for the rail and clambered aboard. Down in the scuppers, in the wash of each wave that climbed aboard the wreck, he spied a huddled bundle.

"Here's one of 'em, sure 'nough!" he sang out.

Making his way precariously down the slanting deck, he reached in a minute the spot where the unfortunate lay. The man had washed back and forth in the sea water so long that he was all but parboiled. The rescuer seized him by the shoulders and drew him out of this wash.

He was a very bald man with gray hair, a stubble of beard on his cheeks, and a straggling gray mustache.

"Why, by golly!" yelled the surfman. "This here's Cap'n Abe Silt!"

"Ain't his brother Am'zon there?"

"No, I don't see his brother nowhere."

"Take a good look."

"Trust me to do that," answered the surfman.

But the search was useless. n.o.body ever saw Cap'n Amazon again. He had gone, as he had come--suddenly and in a way to shock the placid thoughts of Cardhaven people. A stone in the First Church graveyard is all the visible reminder there remains of Cap'n Amazon Silt, who for one summer amazed the frequenters of the store on the Sh.e.l.l Road.

The life-savers brought Cap'n Abe, the storekeeper, back from the wreck, the last survivor of the _Curlew's_ crew. He was in rather bad shape, for his night's experience on the wreck had been serious indeed.

They put him to bed, and Louise and Betty Gallup took turns in nursing him, while Cap'n Joab Beecher puttered about the store, trying to wait on customers and keep things straight.

At first, as he lay in his "cabin," Cap'n Abe did not have much to say--not even to Louise. But after a couple of days, on an occasion when she was feeding him broth, he suddenly sputtered and put away the spoon with a vexed gesture.

"What's the matter, Uncle Abram?" she asked him. "Isn't it good?"

"The soup's all right, Niece Louise. 'Tain't so fillin' as chowder, I cal'late, but it'll keep a feller on deck for a spell. That ain't it.

I was just a-thinkin'."

"Of what?"

"Hi-mighty! It's all over, ain't it?" he said in desperation. "Can't never bring forward Cap'n Am'zon again, can I? I _got_ to be Cap'n Abe hereafter, whether I want to be or not. It's a turrible dis'pointment, Louise--turrible!

"I ain't sorry I went out there in that boat. No. For I got your father off, an' he'd been carried overboard if he'd been let stay in them shrouds.

"But land sakes! I _did_ fancy bein' Cap'n Am'zon 'stead o' myself.

And the worst of it is, Niece Louise, I can't have nothin' new to tell 'bout Cap'n Am'zon's adventures. He's drowned, an' he can't never go rovin' no more."

"But think of what you've done, Cap'n Abe," Louise urged. "You feared the sea--and you overcame that fear. All your life you shrank from venturing on the water; yet you went out in that lifeboat and played the hero. Oh, I think it is fine, Cap'n Abe! It's wonderful!"

"Wonderful?" repeated Cap'n Abe. "P'r'aps 'tis. Mebbe I've been too timid all my life. P'r'aps I could ha' been a sailor and cruised in foreign seas if I'd just _had_ to.

"But mother allus was opposed. She kept talkin' against it when I was a boy--and later, too. She told how scar't she was when Cap'n Josh and the _Bravo_ went down in sight of her windows. And mebbe I ketched it more from her talkin' than aught else.

"But I never realized that stress of circ.u.mstances could push me into it an' make a man of me. I had a feelin' that I'd swoon away an' fall right down in my tracks if I undertook to face such a sea as that was t'other day.

"And see! Nothing of the kind happened! I knew I'd got to make good Cap'n Am'zon's character, or not hold up my head in Cardhaven again. I don't dispute I've been a hi-mighty liar, Niece Louise. But--but it's sort o' made a man o' me for once, don't ye think?

"I dunno. Good comes out o' bad sometimes. Bitter from the sweet as well. And when a man's got a repertation to maintain----There was that feller Hanks, on the _Lunette_, out o' Nantucket. I've heard Cap'n Am'zon tell it----"

"Cap'n Abe!" gasped Louise.

"Hi-mighty! There I go again," said the storekeeper mournfully. "You can't teach an old dog new tricks--nor break him of them he's l'arned!"

Louise and her father remained at the store on the Sh.e.l.l Road until Cap'n Abe was up and about again. Then they could safely leave him to the ministrations of Betty Gallup.

"Somehow," confessed that able seaman, "he don't seem just like he used to. He speaks quicker and sharper--more like that old pirate, Am'zon Silt, though I shouldn't be sayin' nothin' harsh of the dead, I s'pose.

I don't dispute that Cap'n Am'zon was muchly of a man, when ye come to think on't.

"But Cap'n Abe's more to my taste. Now the place seems right again with him in the house. Cap'n Abe's as easy as an old shoe. And, land sakes! I ain't locked out o' _his_ bedroom when I want to clean!

"One thing puzzles me, Miss Lou. I thought Cap'n Abe would take on c'nsiderable about Jerry. But when I told him the canary was dead he up and said that mebbe 'twas better so, seem' the old bird couldn't see no more. Now, who would ha' told him Jerry was blind?"

There were a few other things about the returned Cap'n Abe that might have amazed his neighbors. He seemed to possess an almost uncanny knowledge of what had happened during the summer. Besides, he seemed to have achieved Cap'n Amazon's manner of "looking down" a too inquisitive inquirer into personal affairs and refusing to answer.

Because of this, perhaps, n.o.body was ever known to ask the storekeeper why he had filled his sea chest with bricks and useless dunnage when he shipped it to Boston. That mystery was never explained.

Before Louise and her father were ready to leave Cardhaven most of the summer residents along The Beaches, including Aunt Euphemia, had gone.

And the moving picture company had also flown.

With the latter went Gusty Durgin, bravely refusing to have her artistic soul trammeled any longer by the claims of hungry boarders at the Cardhaven Inn.

"I don't never expect to be one of these stars on the screen," she confided to Louise. "But I can make a good livin', an' ma's childern by her second husband, Mr. Vleet, has got to be eddicated.

"I'm goin' to make me up a fancy name and make a repertation. They ain't goin' to call me 'Dusty Gudgeon' no more. Miss Louder tells me I can 'bant'--whatever that is--to take down my flesh, and mebbe you'll see me some day, Miss Lou, in a re'l ladylike part. An' I can always cry. Even Mr. Bane says I'm wuth my wages when it comes to the tearful parts."

The Tapps were flitting to Boston, Mrs. Tapp and the girls sure of "getting in" with the proper set at last. Their summer's campaign, thanks to Louise, had been successful to that end.

Louise and Lawford walked along the strand below the cottages. The candy cutting machine had proved a success and Lawford was giving his attention to a new "mechanical wrapper" for salt water taffy that would do away with much hand labor.

On the most prominent outlook of Tapp Point were piles of building material and men at work. The pudgy figure of I. Tapp was visible walking about, importantly directing the workmen.

"It's going to be a most, wonderful house, Louise dear," sighed Lawford. "Do you suppose you can stand it? The front elevation looks like a French chateau of the Middle Ages, and there ought to be a moat and a portcullis to make it look right."

"Never mind," she responded cheerfully. "We won't have to live in it--much. See. We have all this to live in," with a wide gesture.

"The sea and the sh.o.r.e. Cape Cod forever! I shall never be discontented here, Lawford."

They wandered back to the store on the Sh.e.l.l Road. There was a chill in the fall air and Cap'n Abe had built a small fire in the rusty stove. About it were gathered the usual idlers. A huge fishfly droned on the window pane.

"It's been breedin' a change of weather for a week," said Cap'n Joab.

"Right ye air, sir," agreed Washy Gallup, wagging his head.

"I 'member hearin' Cap'n Am'zon tell 'bout a dry spell like this,"