Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper Part 7

"All hands called!" he called out at length. "I'm about to dish up."

"Shall I put on another plate, Cap'n Abe? You expected somebody else to supper?"

"Nope. All set. I'm always ready for a messmate; but 'tain't often one boards me 'cept Cap'n Joab now and then. His woman likes to git him out from under foot. You see, when a woman's been useter seein'

her husband only 'twixt v'y'ges for forty year, I 'spect 'tis something of a cross to have him litterin' up the house ev'ry day," he confessed.

"But as I can't leave the shop myself to go visitin' much in return, Joab acks offish. We Silts was always bred to be hospitable. Poor or rich, we could share what we had with another. So I keep an extry plate on the table.

"I've had occasion," pursued the philosophical storekeeper, drawing up his own chair across the table from the girl, "to be at some folks'

houses at meal time and had 'em ask me to set up and have a bite. But it never looked to me as if they meant it 'nless there was already an extry plate there.

"Just like having a spare bedroom. If you can say: 'Stay all night, we got a room for ye,' then that's what I call hospitality. I wouldn't live in a house that warn't big enough to have at least one spare room."

"I believe I must be very welcome here, Cap'n Abe," Louise said, smiling at the kindly old man.

"Land sakes, I sh'd hope ye felt so!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Cap'n Abe. "Now, if you don't mind, Niece Louise." He dropped his head suddenly and closed his eyes in reverence. "For what we are about to partake of, Lord, make us duly thankful. Amen!" His countenance became animated again.

"Try them biscuit. I made 'em this morning 'twixt Marcy Coe selectin'

that piece of gingham for a new dress and John Peckham buying cordage for his smack. But they warmed up right nice in the oven."

Meanwhile he heaped her plate with codfish and fried potatoes cooked to a delicate brown. There was good b.u.t.ter, fat doughnuts, and beach-plum preserve. It was a homely meal but Louise ate it graciously. Already the air of Cardhaven had sharpened her appet.i.te.

"Lend me your ap.r.o.n," insisted the girl when they had finished, "and I will wash these dishes."

"I us'ally let them go till Betty Gallup comes in the morning," the storekeeper said rather ruefully. "It don't look right to me that you should mess with these greasy dishes jest as we get under way, as ye might say."

"You must not make company of me, Cap'n Abe," Louise declared. "There, I hear a customer in the store," and she gave him a little pat on the shoulder as he delivered the huge ap.r.o.n into her hand.

"I dunno," he said, smiling upon her quizzically, "as I shall really want to cast off if Cap'n Am'zon _does_ come. Seems to me 'twould be hi-mighty nice to have a girl like you around the place, Louise."

"Then don't go," she said, briskly beginning to clear off. "_I_ sha'n't mind having two of you for me to boss. Two captains! Think of it."

"Yes. I know. But I got all my plans laid," he murmured, and then went slowly into the store.

There seemed to be some briskness in the after-supper trade, and Louise suspected that it was founded upon the news of her arrival at Cap'n Abe's store. Several of his rather tart rejoinders reached her ears as she went from kitchen to livingroom and back again. Finally removing the ap.r.o.n, her task done, she seated herself with Diddimus in her lap within the radiance of the lamp and within hearing of all that was said in the store.

"No. I dunno's I ever did tell ye quite all my business, Joab. Some things I missed, includin' the list of my relations."

"Yes, I hear tell most of these movin' picture actresses are pretty, Miz' Peckham. They pick 'em for that puppose, I shouldn't wonder. I didn't ask her what part she was goin' to play--_if_ any."

"Land sakes, Mandy, she's just got here! I ain't no idee how long she'll stay. If you think there's any danger of Milt not tendin' to his clammin' proper whilst she's here you'd better send him on a cruise with Cap'n Durgin. The _Tryout_ sails for the Banks to-morrow, I understand."

"No, Washy. That was my A'nt Matildy I went away to help bury ten years ago. She's still dead--an' this ain't her daughter. This is my ha'f sister's child, she that was Miriam Card. She got married to a scientific chap that works for the government, I guess when you write to Washington for your garden seeds next spring, you better ask about him, if ye want to know more'n _I_ can tell ye."

"You got it right for once't, Joab. I do expect Cap'n Am'zon. Mebbe to-night. He may come over from the depot with Perry Baker--I can't tell. What'll I do with the girl? Land sakes! ain't Cap'n Am'zon just as much her uncle as _I_ be? Some o' you fellers better stow your jaw-tackle if Cap'n Am'zon does heave to here. For he ain't no tame cat, like I told you."

"You back again, Lawford Tapp? Hi-mighty! what you forgot this time?

Fishhooks? Goin' fishin', be you? Wal, in my 'pinion you're throwin'

your hook into unproductive waters around here, as ye might say. Even chummin' won't sarve ye. _Good_-night!"

After getting rid of this importunate customer, Cap'n Abe closed his door and put out his store lights--an hour earlier than usual--and came back to sit down with Louise. His visage was red and determination sat on his brow.

"I snum!" he emphatically observed. "Cardhaven folks seem bit with some kind o' bug. Talk 'bout curiosity! 'Hem! I dunno what Cap'n Am'zon'll think of 'em."

"_I_ think they are funny," Louise retorted, her laughter bubbling up again.

"Likely it looks so to you," said Cap'n Abe. "They're pretty average funny I do guess to a stranger, as ye might say. But after you've summered 'em and wintered 'em for twenty-odd years like I have, land sakes! the humor's worn hi-mighty thin!"

CHAPTER V

WHAT HAPPENED IN THE NIGHT

Cap'n Abe produced a pipe. He looked at his niece tentatively.

"Do--do you mind tobacker smoke?"

"Daddy-prof is an inveterate," she laughed.

"Huh? An--an invet'rate _what_?"

"Smoker. I don't begrudge a man smoking tobacco as long as we women have our tea. A nerve tonic in both cases."

"I dunno for sure that I've got any nerves," Cap'n Abe said, the corners of his eyes wrinkling. "Mebbe I was behind the door when they was given out. But a pipeful o' tobacker this time o' the evening _does_ seem sort o' satisfyin'. That, and knittin'."

Having filled his pipe and lit it, he puffed a few times to get it well alight and then reached for a covered basket that Louise had noticed on a small stand under Jerry's cage. He drew from this a half-fashioned gray stocking that was evidently intended for his own foot and the needles began to click in his strong, capable hands.

"Supprise you some, does it, Louise?" Cap'n Abe said. "Cap'n Am'zon taught me. Most old whalers knit. That, an' doin' scrimshaw work, was 'bout all that kep' 'em from losing their minds on them long v'y'ges into the Pacific. An' I've seen the time myself when I was hi-mighty glad I'd l'arned to count st.i.tches.

"Land sakes! Some o' them whalin' v'y'ges lasted three-four years.

Cap'n Am'zon was in the old bark _Neptune's Daughter_ when she was caught in the ice and drifted pretty average close't to the south pole.

"You know," said Cap'n Abe reflectively, "the Antarctic regions ain't like the Arctic. 'Cause why? There ain't no folks there. Cap'n Am'zon says there ain't 'nough land at the south pole to make Marm Scudder's garden--and they say she didn't need more'n what her patchwork quilt would cover. Where there's land there's folks. And if there was land in the Antarctic there'd be Eskimos like there is up North.

"'Hem! Well, that wasn't what I begun on, was it? This knitting.

Cap'n Am'zon says that many's the time he's thanked his stars he knowed how to knit."

"I shall be glad to meet him," said Louise.

"If he comes," Cap'n Abe rejoined, "an' I go away as I planned to, 'twon't make a mite o' difference to you, Niece Louise. You feel right at home here--and so'll Cap'n Am'zon, though he ain't never been to Cardhaven yet. He'll be a lot better company for you than I'd be."

"Oh, Cap'n Abe, I can scarcely believe that!" cried the girl.

"You don't know Cap'n Am'zon," the storekeeper said. "I tell ye fair: he's ev'rything that I ain't! As a boy--'hem!--Am'zon was always leadin' an' me follerin'. I kinder took after my mother, I guess.

She was your grandmother. Your grandfather was a Card--and a nice man he was.

"Our father--me an' Am'zon's--was Cap'n Joshua Silt of the schooner _Bravo_. Hi-mighty trim and taut craft she was, from all accounts.

I--I warn't born when he died," added Cap'n Abe, hesitatingly.