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CAP'N ERI

By Joseph Crosby Lincoln

CONTENTS

I. A LAMB FOR THE SACRIFICE

II. THE TRAIN COMES IN

III. THE "COME-OUTERS'" MEETING

IV. A PICTURE SENT AND A CABLE TESTED

V. THE WOMAN FROM NANTUCKET

VI. THE SCHOOLHOUSE BELL RINGS

VII. CAPTAIN ERI FINDS A NURSE

VIII. HOUSEKEEPER AND BOOK AGENT

IX. ELSIE PRESTON

X. MATCHMAKING AND LIFE-SAVING

XI. HEROES AND A MYSTERY

XII. A LITTLE POLITICS

XIII. CAPTAIN JERRY MAKES A MESS OF IT

XIV. THE VOYAGE OF AN "ABLE SEAMAN"

XV. IN JOHN BAXTER'S ROOM

XVI. A BUSINESS CALL

XVII. THROUGH FIRE AND WATER

XVIII. THE SINS OF CAPTAIN JERRY

XIX. A "NO'THEASTER" BLOWS

XX. ERI GOES BACK ON A FRIEND

XXI. "DIME-SHOW BUS'NESS"

CAP'N ERI

CHAPTER I

A LAMB FOR THE SACRIFICE

"Perez," observed Captain Eri cheerfully, "I'm tryin' to average up with the mistakes of Providence."

The Captain was seated by the open door of the dining room, in the rocker with the patched cane seat. He was apparently very busy doing something with a piece of fishline and a pair of long-legged rubber boots. Captain Perez, swinging back and forth in the parlor rocker with the patch-work cushion, was puffing deliberately at a wooden pipe, the bowl of which was carved into the likeness of a very rakish damsel with a sailor's cap set upon the side of her once flaxen head. In response to his companion's remark he lazily turned his sunburned face toward the cane-seated rocker and inquired:

"What on airth are you doin' with them boots?"

Captain Eri tied a knot with his fingers and teeth and then held the boots out at arm's length.

"Why, Perez," he said, "I'm averagin' up, same as I told you. Providence made me a two-legged critter, and a two-legged critter needs two boots. I've always been able to find one of these boots right off whenever I wanted it, but it's took me so plaguey long to find the other one that whatever wet there was dried up afore I got out of the house. Yesterday when I wanted to go clammin' I found the left one on the mantelpiece, no trouble at all, but it was pretty nigh high water before I dug the other one out of the washb'iler. That's why I'm splicin' 'em together this way. I don't want to promise nothin' rash, but I'm in hopes that even Jerry can't lose 'em now."

"Humph!" grunted Captain Perez. "I don't think much of that plan. 'Stead of losin' one you'll lose both of 'em."

"Yes, but then I shan't care. If there ain't NO boots in sight; I'll go barefoot or stay at home. It's the kind of responsibleness that goes with havin' one boot that's wearin' me out. Where IS Jerry?"

"He went out to feed Lorenzo. I heard him callin' a minute ago. That cat ain't been home sence noon, and Jerry's worried."

A stentorian shout of "Puss! puss! Come, kitty, kitty, kitty!" came from somewhere outside. Captain Eri smiled.

"I'm 'fraid Lorenzo's gittin' dissipated in his old age," he observed. Then, as a fat gray cat shot past the door, "There he is! Reg'lar prodigal son. Comes home when the fatted ca'f's ready."

A moment later Captain Jerry appeared, milk pitcher in hand. He entered the dining room and, putting the pitcher down on the table, pulled forward the armchair with the painted sunset on the back, produced his own pipe, and proceeded to hunt through one pocket after the other with a troubled expression of countenance.

"Where in tunket is my terbacker?" he asked, after finishing the round of pockets and preparing to begin all over again.

"I see it on the top of the clock a spell ago," said Captain Perez.

"Was that yours, Jerry?" exclaimed Captain Eri. "Well, that's too bad! I see it there and thought 'twas mine. Here 'tis, or what's left of it."

Captain Jerry took the remnant of a plug from his friend and said in an aggrieved tone:

"That's jest like you, Eri! Never have a place for nothin' and help yourself to anything you happen to want, don't make no odds whose 'tis. Why don't you take care of your terbacker, same's I do of mine?"

"Now see here, Jerry! I ain't so sure that is yours. Let me see it. Humph! I thought so! This is 'Navy Plug' and you always smoke 'Sailor's Sweetheart.' Talk about havin' a place for things!"

"That's MY terbacker, if you want to know," observed Captain Perez. "I've got yours, Eri. Here 'tis."

"Well, then, where IS mine?" said Captain Jerry somewhat snappishly.

"Bet a dollar you've got it in your pocket," said Captain Eri.

"Bet ten dollars I ain't! I ain't quite a fool yit, Eri Hedge. I guess I know--well, I snum! I forgot that upper vest pocket!" and from the pocket mentioned Captain Jerry produced the missing tobacco.

There was a general laugh, in which Captain Jerry was obliged to join, and the trio smoked in silence for a time, while the expanse of water to the eastward darkened, and the outer beach became but a dusky streak separating the ocean from the inner bay. At length Captain Perez rose and, knocking the ashes from his pipe, announced that he was going to "show a glim."

"Yes, go ahead, Jerry!" said Captain Eri, "it's gittin' dark."

"It's darker in the grave," observed Captain Perez with lugubrious philosophy.

"Then for the land's sake let's have it light while we can! Here, Jerry! them matches is burnt ones. Try this, 'twon't be so damagin' to the morals."

Captain Jerry took the proffered match and lit the two bracket lamps, fastened to the walls of the dining room. The room, seen by the lamplight, was shiplike, but as decidedly not shipshape. The chronometer on the mantel was obscured by a thick layer of dust. The three gorgeous oil paintings--from the brush of the local sign painter--respectively representing the coasting packet Hannah M., Eri Hedge, Master, and the fishing schooners, Georgie Baker, Jeremiah Burgess, Master, and the Flying Duck, Perez Ryder, Master, were shrouded in a very realistic fog of the same dust. Even the imposing gilt-lettered set of "Lives of Great Naval Commanders," purchased by Captain Perez some months before, and being slowly paid for on an apparently never-ending installment plan, was cloaked with it. The heap of newspapers, shoved under the couch to get them out of the way, peeped forth in a tell-tale manner. The windows were not too clean and the floor needed sweeping. Incidentally the supper table had not been cleared. Each one of the three noted these things and each sighed. Then Captain Eri said, as if to change the subject, though no one had spoken:

"What started you talkin' about the grave, Perez? Was it them clam fritters of Jerry's?"

"No," answered the ex-skipper of the Flying Duck, pulling at his grizzled scrap of throat whisker and looking rather shamefaced. "You see, M'lissy Busteed dropped in a few minutes this mornin' while you fellers was out and--"

Both Captain Eri and Captain Jerry set up a hilarious shout.

"Haw! haw!" roared the former, slapping his knee. "I wouldn't be so fascinatin' as you be for no money, Perez. She'll have you yit; you can't git away! But say, I don't wonder you got to thinkin' 'bout the grave. Ten minutes of M'lissy gits me thinkin' of things way t'other side of that!"

"Aw, belay there, Eri" protested Captain Perez testily. "'Twan't my fault. I didn't see her comin' or I'd have got out of sight. She was cruisin' 'round the way she always does with a cargo of gabble, and, she put in here to unload. Talk! I never heard a woman talk the way she can! She'd be a good one to have on board in a calm. Git her talkin' abaft the mains'l and we'd have a twenty-knot breeze in a shake."

"What was it this time?" asked Captain Jerry.

"Oh, a little of everything. She begun about the 'beautiful' sermon that Mr. Perley preached at the last 'Come-Outers'' meetin'. That was what started me thinkin' about the grave, I guess. Then she pitched into Seth Wingate's wife for havin' a new bunnit this season when the old one wan't ha'f wore out. She talked for ten minutes or so on that, and then she begun about Parker's bein' let go over at the cable station and about the new feller that's been signed to take his place. She's all for Parker. Says he was a 'perfectly lovely' man and that 'twas outrageous the way he was treated, and all that sort of thing."

"She ain't the only one that thinks so," observed Captain Jerry. "There's a heap of folks in this town that think Parker was a mighty fine feller."

"Yes," said Captain Eri, "and it's worth while noticin' who they be. Perez' friend, M'lissy, thinks so, and 'Squealer' Wixon and his gang think so, and 'Web' Saunders thinks so, and a lot more like them. Parker was TOO good a feller, that's what was the matter with him. His talk always reminded me of washday at the poorhouse, lots of soft soap with plenty of lye in it."

"Well, M'lissy says that the men over to the station--all except Langley, of course--are mad as all git-out because Parker was let go, and she says somebody told somebody else, and somebody else told somebody else, and somebody else told HER--she says it come reel straight--that the men are goin' to make it hot for the new feller when he comes. She says his name's Hazeltine, or somethin' like that, and that he's goin' to get here to-morrer or next day."

"Well," said Captain Eri, "it's a mercy M'lissy found it out. If that man should git here and she not know it aforehand 'twould kill her sure as fate, and think what a blow that would be to you, Perez."

He took his old-fashioned watch from his pocket and glanced at the dial.

"I mustn't be settin' round here much longer," he added. "John Baxter's goin' to have that little patch of cranberry swamp of his picked to-morrer, and he's expectin' some barrels down on to-night's train. John asked me to git Zoeth Cahoon to cart 'em down for him, but I ain't got nothin' special to do to-night, so I thought I'd hitch up and go and git 'em myself. You and Jerry can match cents to see who does the dishes. I did 'em last night, so it's my watch below."

"Well, _I_ shan't do 'em," declared Captain Perez. "Blessed if I'd do the durn things to-night if the President of the United States asked me to."

"Humph!" sputtered Captain Jerry. "I s'pose you fellers think I'll do 'em all the time. If you do you're mistook, that's all. 'Twan't last night you done 'em, Eri; 'twas the night afore. I done 'em last night, and I'm ready to take my chances agin if we match, but I'm jiggered if I let you shove the whole thing off onto me. I didn't ship for cook no more 'n the rest of you."

Neither of the others saw fit to answer this declaration of independence and there was a pause in the conversation. Then Captain Jerry said moodily:

"It ain't no use. It don't work."

"What don't work?" asked Captain Eri.

"Why, this plan of ours. I thought when we fellers give up goin' to sea reg'lar and settled down here to keep house ourselves and live economical and all that, that 'twas goin' to be fine. I thought I wouldn't mind doin' my share of the work a bit, thought 'twould be kind of fun to swab decks and all that. Well, 'twas for a spell, but 'tain't now. I'm so sick of it that I don't know what to do. And I'm sick of livin' in a pigpen, too. Look at them dead-lights! They're so dirty that when I turn out in the mornin' and go to look through 'em, I can't tell whether it's foul weather or fair."

Captain Eri looked at the windows toward which his friend pointed and signed assent.

"There's no use talkin'," he observed, "we've got to have a steward aboard this craft."

"Yes," said Captain Perez emphatically, "a steward or a woman."

"A WOMAN!" exclaimed Captain Eri. Then he shook his head solemnly and added, "There, Jerry! What did I tell you? M'lissy!"

But Captain Perez did not smile.

"I ain't foolin'," he said; "I mean it."

Captain Jerry thought of the spick-and-span days of his wife, dead these twenty years, and sighed again. "I s'pose we might have a housekeeper," he said.

"Housekeeper!" sneered Captain Eri. "Who'd you hire? Perez don't, seemin'ly, take to M'lissy, and there ain't nobody else in Orham that you could git, 'less 'twas old A'nt Zuby Higgins, and that would be actin' like the feller that jumped overboard when his boat sprung a leak. No, sir! If A'nt Zuby ships aboard here I heave up MY commission."

"Who said anything about A'nt Zuby or housekeepers either?" inquired Captain Perez. "I said we'd got to have a woman, and we have. One of us 'll have to git married, that's all."

"MARRIED!" roared the two in chorus.

"That's what I said, married, and take the others to board in this house. Look here now! When a shipwrecked crew's starvin' one of 'em has to be sacrificed for the good of the rest, and that's what we've got to do. One of us has got to git married for the benefit of the other two."

Captain Eri shouted hilariously. "Good boy, Perez!" he cried. "Goin' to be the first offerin'?"

"Not unless it's my luck, Eri. We'll all three match for it, same as we do 'bout washin' the dishes."

"Where are you goin' to find a wife?" asked Captain Jerry.

"Now that's jest what I'm goin' to show you. I see how things was goin', and I've been thinkin' this over for a consid'rable spell. Hold on a minute till I overhaul my kit."

He went into the front bedroom, and through the open door they could see him turning over the contents of the chest with P. R. in brass nails on the lid. He scattered about him fish-lines, hooks, lead for sinkers, oilcloth jackets, whales' teeth, and various other articles, and at length came back bearing a much-crumpled sheet of printed paper. This he spread out upon the dining table, first pushing aside the dishes to make room, and, after adjusting his spectacles, said triumphantly:

"There! There she is! The Nup-ti-al Chime. A Journal of Matrimony. I see a piece about it in the Herald the other day, and sent a dime for a sample copy. It's chock-full of advertisements from women that wants husbands."

Captain Eri put on his spectacles and hitched his chair up to the table. After giving the pages of the Nuptial Chime a hurried inspection, he remarked:

"There seems to be a strong runnin' to 'vi-va-ci-ous brunettes' and 'blondes with tender and romantic dispositions.' Which of them kinds are you sufferin' for, Perez? Oh, say! here's a lady that's willin' to heave herself away on a young and handsome bachelor with a income of ten thousand a year. Seems to me you ought to answer that."

"Oh, hush up, Eri! 'Tain't likely I'd want to write to any of them in there. The thing for us to do would be to write out a advertisement of our own; tell what sort of woman we want, and then set back and wait for answers. Now, what do you say?"

Captain Eri looked at the advocate of matrimony for a moment without speaking. Then he said: "Do you really mean it, Perez?"

"Sartin I do."

"What do you think of it, Jerry?"

"Think it's a good idee," said that ancient mariner decisively. "We've got to do somethin', and this looks like the only sensible thing."

"Then Eri's GOT to do it!" asserted Captain Perez dogmatically. "We agreed to stick together, and two to one's a vote. Come on now, Eri, we'll match."

Captain Eri hesitated.

"Come on, Eri!" ordered Captain Jerry. "Ain't goin' to mutiny, are you?"

"All right!" said Captain Eri, "I'll stick to the ship. Only," he added, with a quizzical glance at his companions, "it's got to be settled that the feller that's stuck can pick his wife, and don't have to marry unless he finds one that suits him."

The others agreed to this stipulation, and Captain Perez, drawing a long breath, took a coin from his pocket, flipped it in the air and covered it, as it fell on the table, with a big hairy hand. Captain Eri did likewise; so did Captain Jerry. Then Captain Eri lifted his hand and showed the coin beneath; it was a head. Captain Jerry's was a tail. Under Captain Perez' hand lurked the hidden fate. The Captain's lips closed in a grim line. With a desperate glance at the others he jerked his hand away.

The penny lay head uppermost. Captain Jerry was "stuck."

Captain Eri rose, glanced at his watch, and, taking his hat from the shelf where the dishes should have been, opened the door. Before he went out, however, he turned and said:

"Perez, you and Jerry can be fixin' up the advertisement while I'm gone. You can let me see it when I come back. I say, Jerry," he added to the "sacrifice," who sat gazing at the pennies on the table in a sort of trance, "don't feel bad about it. Why, when you come to think of it, it's a providence it turned out that way. Me and Perez are bachelors, and we'd be jest green hands. But you're a able seaman, you know what it is to manage a wife."

"Yes, I do," groaned Captain Jerry lugubriously. "Durn it, that's jest it!"

Captain Eri was chuckling as, lantern in hand, he passed around the corner of the little white house on the way to the barn. He chuckled all through the harnessing of Daniel, the venerable white horse. He was still chuckling as, perched on the seat of the "truck wagon," he rattled and shook out of the yard and turned into the sandy road that led up to the village. And an outsider, hearing these chuckles, and knowing what had gone before, might have inferred that perhaps Captain Eri did not view the "matching" and the matrimonial project with quite the deadly seriousness of the other two occupants of the house by the shore.

CHAPTER II

THE TRAIN COMES IN

There is in Orham a self-appointed committee whose duty it is to see the train come in. The committeemen receive no salary for their services; the sole compensation is the pleasure derived from the sense of duty done. Rain, snow, or shine, the committee is on hand at the station--the natives, of course, call it the "deepo"--to consume borrowed tobacco and to favor Providence with its advice concerning the running of the universe. Also it discusses local affairs with fluency and more or less point.

Mr. "Squealer" Wixon, a lifelong member of this committee, was the first to sight Captain Eri as the latter strolled across the tracks into the circle of light from the station lamps. The Captain had moored Daniel to a picket in the fence over by the freight-house. He had heard the clock in the belfry of the Methodist church strike eight as he drove by that edifice, but he heard no whistle from the direction of the West Orham woods, so he knew that the down train would arrive at its usual time, that is, from fifteen to twenty minutes behind the schedule.

"Hey!" shouted Mr. Wixon with enthusiasm. "Here's Cap'n Eri! Well, Cap, how's she headin'?"

"'Bout no'theast by no'th," was the calm reply. "Runnin' fair, but with lookout for wind ahead."

"Hain't got a spare chaw nowheres about you, have you, Cap'n?" anxiously inquired "Bluey" Batcheldor. Mr. Batcheldor is called "Bluey" for the same reason that Mr. Wixon is called "Squealer," and that reason has been forgotten for years.

Captain Eri obligingly produced a black plug of smoking tobacco, and Mr. Batcheldor bit off two-thirds and returned the balance. After adjusting the morsel so that it might interfere in the least degree with his vocal machinery, he drawled:

"I cal'late you ain't heard the news, Eri. Web Saunders has got his original-package license. It come on the noon mail."

The Captain turned sharply toward the speaker. "Is that a fact?" he asked. "Who told you?"

"See it myself. So did Squealer and a whole lot more. Web was showin' it round."

"We was wonderin'," said Jabez Smalley, a member of the committee whose standing was somewhat impaired, inasmuch as he went fishing occasionally and was, therefore, obliged to miss some of the meetings, "what kind of a fit John Baxter would have now. He's been pretty nigh distracted ever sence Web started his billiard room, callin' it a 'ha'nt of sin' and a whole lot more names. There ain't been a 'Come-Outers' meetin' 'sence I don't know when that he ain't pitched into that saloon. Now, when he hears that Web's goin' to sell rum, he'll bust a biler sure."

The committee received this prophecy with an hilarious shout of approval and each member began to talk. Captain Eri took advantage of this simultaneous expression of opinion to walk away. He looked in at the window of the ticket-office, exchanged greetings with Sam Hardy, the stationmaster, and then leaned against the corner of the building furthest removed from Mr. Wixon and his friends, lit his pipe and puffed thoughtfully with a troubled expression on his face.

From the clump of blackness that indicated the beginning of the West Orham woods came a long-drawn dismal "toot"; then two shorter ones. The committee sprang to its feet and looked interested. Sam Hardy came out of the ticket office. The stage-driver, a sharp-looking boy of about fourteen, with a disagreeable air of cheap smartness sticking out all over him, left his seat in the shadow of Mr. Batcheldor's manly form, tossed a cigarette stump away and loafed over to the vicinity of the "depot wagon," which was backed up against the platform. Captain Eri knocked the ashes from his pipe and put that service-stained veteran in his pocket. The train was really "coming in" at last.

If this had been an August evening instead of a September one, both train and platform would have been crowded. But the butterfly summer maiden had flitted and, as is his wont, the summer man had flitted after her, so the passengers who alighted from the two coaches that, with the freight car, made up the Orham Branch train, were few in number and homely in flavor. There was a very stout lady with a canvas extension case and an umbrella in one hand and a bulging shawl-strap and a pasteboard box in the other, who panted and wheezed like the locomotive itself and who asked the brakeman, "What on airth DO they have such high steps for?" There was a slim, not to say gawky, individual with a chin beard and rubber boots, whom the committee hailed as "Andy" and welcomed to its bosom. There were two young men, drummers, evidently, who nodded to Hardy, and seemed very much at home. Also, there was another young man, smooth-shaven and square-shouldered, who deposited a suit-case on the platform and looked about him with the air of being very far from home, indeed.

The drummers and the stout lady got into the stage. The young man with the suit-case picked up the latter and walked toward the same vehicle. He accosted the sharp boy, who had lighted another cigarette.

"Can you direct me to the cable station?" he asked.

"Sure thing!" said the youth, and there was no Cape Cod twist to his accent. "Git aboard."

"I didn't intend to ride," said the stranger.

"What was you goin' to do? Walk?"

"Yes, if it's not far."

The boy grinned, and the members of the committee, who had been staring with all their might, grinned also. The young man's mention of the cable station seemed to have caused considerable excitement.

"Oh, it ain't too FAR!" said the stage-driver. Then he added: "Say, you're the new electrician, ain't you?"

The young man hesitated for a moment. Then he said, "Yes," and suggested, "I asked the way."

"Two blocks to the right; that's the main road, keep on that for four blocks, then turn to the left, and if you keep on straight ahead you'll get to the station."

"Blocks?" The stranger smiled. "I think you must be from New York."

"Do you?" inquired the youthful prodigy, climbing to the wagon seat. "Don't forget to keep straight ahead after you turn off the main road. Git dap! So long, fellers!" He leaned over the wheel, as the stage turned, and bestowed a wink upon the delighted "Squealer," who was holding one freckled paw over his mouth; then the "depot wagon" creaked away.

The square-shouldered young man looked after the equipage with an odd expression of countenance. Then he shrugged his shoulders, picked up the suitcase, and walked off the platform into the darkness.

Mr. Wixon removed the hand from his mouth and displayed a mammoth grin, that grew into a shriek of laughter in which every member of the committee joined.

"Haw! haw!" bellowed "Bluey," "so that's the feller that done Parker out of his job! Well, he may be mighty smart, but if that Joe Bartlett ain't smarter then I'm a skate, that's all! Smartest boy ever I see! 'If you keep on straight ahead you'll git to the station!' Gosh! he'll have to wear rubbers!"

"Maybe he's web-footed," suggested Smalley, and they laughed again.

A little later Captain Eri, with a dozen new, clean-smelling cranberry barrels in the wagon behind him, drove slowly down the "depot road." It was a clear night, but there was no moon, and Orham was almost at its darkest, which is very dark, indeed. The "depot road"--please bear in mind that there are no streets in Orham--was full of ruts, and although Daniel knew his way and did his best to follow it, the cranberry barrels rattled and shook in lively fashion. There are few homes near the station, and the dwellers in them conscientiously refrain from showing lights except in the ends of the buildings furthest from the front. Strangers are inclined to wonder at this, but when they become better acquainted with the town and its people, they come to know that front gates and parlors are, by the majority of the inhabitants, restricted in their use to occasions such as a funeral, or, possibly, a wedding. For the average Orham family to sit in the parlor on a week evening would be an act bordering pretty closely on sacrilege.

It is from the hill by the Methodist church that the visitor to Orham gets his best view of the village. It is all about him, and for the most part below him. At night the lights in the houses show only here and there through the trees, but those on the beaches and at sea shine out plainly. The brilliant yellow gleam a mile away is from the Orham lighthouse on the bluff. The smaller white dot marks the light on Baker's Beach. The tiny red speck in the distance, that goes and comes again, is the flash-light at Setuckit Point, and the twinkle on the horizon to the south is the beacon of the lightship on Sand Hill Shoal.

It is on his arrival at this point, too, that the stranger first notices the sound of the surf. Being a newcomer, he notices this at once; after he has been in the village a few weeks, he ceases to notice it at all. It is like the ticking of a clock, so incessant and regular, that one has to listen intently for a moment or two before his accustomed ear will single it out and make it definite. One low, steady, continuous roar, a little deeper in tone when the wind is easterly, the voice of the old dog Ocean gnawing with foaming mouth at the bone of the Cape and growling as he gnaws.

It may be that the young man with the square shoulders and the suit-case had paused at the turn of the road by the church to listen to this song of the sea; at any rate he was there, and when Captain Eri steered Daniel and the cranberry barrels around the corner and into the "main road," he stepped out and hailed.

"I beg your pardon," he said; "I'm afraid I'm mixed in my directions. The stage-driver told me the way to the cable station, but I've forgotten whether he said to turn to the right when I reached here, or to the left."

Captain Eri took his lantern from the floor of the wagon and held it up. He had seen the stranger when the latter left the train, but he had not heard the dialogue with Josiah Bartlett.

"How was you cal'latin' to go to the station?" he asked.

"Why, I intended to walk."

"Did you tell them fellers at the depot that you wanted to walk?"

"Certainly."

"Well, I swan! And they give you the direction?"

"Yes," a little impatiently; "why shouldn't they? So many blocks till I got to the main street, or road, and so many more, till I got somewhere else, and then straight on."

"Blocks, hey? That's Joe Bartlett. That boy ought to be mastheaded, and I've told Perez so more'n once. Well, Mister, I guess maybe you'd better not try to walk to the cable station to-night. You see, there's one thing they forgot to tell you. The station's on the outer beach, and there's a ha'f mile of pretty wet water between here and there."

The young man whistled. "You don't mean it!" he exclaimed.

"I sartin do, unless there's been an almighty drought since I left the house. I tell you what! If you'll jump in here with me, and don't mind waitin' till I leave these barrels at the house of the man that owns 'em, I'll drive you down to the shore and maybe find somebody to row you over. That is," with a chuckle, "if you ain't dead set on walkin'."

The stranger laughed heartily. "I'm not so stubborn as all that," he said. "It's mighty good of you, all the same."

"Don't say a word," said the Captain. "Give us your satchel. Now your flipper! There you are! Git dap, Dan'l!"

Daniel accepted the Captain's command in a tolerant spirit. He paddled along at a jog-trot for perhaps a hundred yards, and then, evidently feeling that he had done all that could be expected, settled back into a walk. The Captain turned towards his companion on the seat:

"I don't know as I mentioned it," he observed, "but my name is Hedge."

"Glad to meet you, Mr. Hedge," said the stranger. "My name is Hazeltine."

"I kind of jedged it might be when you said you wanted to git to the cable station. We heard you was expected."

"Did you? From Mr. Langley, I presume."

"No-o, not d'rectly. Of course, we knew Parker had been let go, and that somebody would have to take his place. I guess likely it was one of the operators that told it fust that you was the man, but anyhow it got as fur as M'lissy Busteed, and after that 'twas plain sailin'. You come from New York, don't you?"

"Yes."

"Well, you know how 'tis when a thing gits into the papers. Orham ain't big enough to have a paper of its own, so the Almighty give us M'lissy, I jedge, as a sort of substitute. She can spread a little news over more country than anybody I know. If she spreads butter the same way, she could make money keepin' boarders. Is this your fust visit to the Cape?"

"Yes. I hardly know why I'm here now. I have been with the Cable Company at their New York experimental station for some years, and the other day the General Manager called me into his office and told me I was expected to take the position of electrician here. I thought it might add to my experience, so I accepted."

"Humph! Did he say anything about the general liveliness of things around the station?"

Mr. Hazeltine laughed. "Why," he answered, "now that you speak of it, I remember that he began by asking me if I had any marked objection to premature burial."

The Captain chuckled. "The outer beach in winter ain't exactly a camp-meeting for sociableness," he said. "And the idea of that Bartlett boy tellin' you how to walk there!"

"Is he a specimen of your Cape Cod youngsters?"

"Not exactly. He's a new shipment from New York. Grand-nephew of a messmate of mine, Cap'n Perez Ryder. Perez, he's a bachelor, but his sister's daughter married a feller named Bartlett. Maybe you knew him; he used to run a tugboat in the Sound."

Mr. Hazeltine, much amused, denied the acquaintance.

"Well, I s'pose you wouldn't, nat'rally," continued the Captain. "Anyhow, Perez's niece's husband died, and the boy sort of run loose, as yer might say. Went to school when he had to, and raised Ned when he didn't, near's I can find out. 'Lizabeth, that's his ma, died last spring, and she made Perez promise--he being the only relation the youngster had--to fetch the boy down here and sort of bring him up. Perez knows as much about bringing up a boy as a hen does about the Ten Commandments, and 'Lizabeth made him promise not to lick the youngster and a whole lot more foolishness. School don't commence here till October, so we got him a job with Lem Mullett at the liv'ry stable. He's boardin' with Lem till school opens. He ain't a reel bad boy, but he knows too much 'bout some things and not ha'f enough 'bout others. You've seen fellers like that, maybe?"

Hazeltine nodded. "There are a good many of that kind in New York, I'm afraid," he said.

Captain Eri smiled. "I shouldn't wonder," he observed. "The boys down here think Josiah's the whole crew, and the girls ain't fur behind. There's been more deviltry in this village sence he landed than there ever was afore. He needs somethin', and needs it bad, but I ain't decided jest what it is yit. Are you a married man?"

"No."

"Same here. Never had the disease. Perez, he's had symptoms every once in a while, but nothin' lastin'. Jerry's the only one of us three that's been through the mill. His wife died twenty year ago. I don't know as I told you, but Jerry and Perez and me are keepin' house down by the shore. That is, we call it keepin' house, but--"

Here the Captain broke off and seemed to meditate.

Ralph Hazeltine forbore to interrupt, and occupied himself by scrutinizing the buildings that they were passing. They were nearing the center of the town now, and the houses were closer together than they had been on the "depot road," but never so close as to be in the least crowded. Each house had its ample front yard, and the new arrival could smell the box hedges and see, now and then, the whiteness of the kalsomined stones that bordered a driveway. It was too dark for the big seashells at the front steps to be visible, but they were there, all the same; every third house of respectability in Orham has them. There was an occasional shop, too, with signs like "Cape Cod Variety Store," or "The Boston Dry Goods Emporium," over their doors. On the platform of one a small crowd was gathered, and from the interior came shouts of laughter and the sound of a tin-panny piano.

"That's the billiard saloon," volunteered Captain Eri, suddenly waking from his trance. "Play pool, Mr. Hazeltine?"

"Sometimes."

"What d'ye play it with?"

"Why, with a cue, generally speaking."

"That so! Most of the fellers in there play it with their mouths. Miss a shot and then spend the rest of the evenin' tellin' how it happened."

"I don't think I should care to play it that way," said Ralph, laughing.

"Well, it has its good p'ints. Kind of all-round exercise; develops the lungs and strengthens the muscles, as the patent-medicine almanac says. Parker played it considerable."

"I judge that your opinion of my predecessor isn't a high one."

"Who? Oh, Parker! He was all right in his way. Good many folks in this town swore by him. I understand the fellers over at the station thought he was about the ticket."

"Mr. Langley included?"

"Oh, Mr. Langley, bein' manager, had his own ideas, I s'pose! Langley don't play pool much; not at Web Saunders' place, anyhow. We turn in here."

They rolled up a long driveway, very dark and overgrown with trees, and drew up at the back door of a good-sized two-story house. There was a light in the kitchen window.

"Whoa, Dan'l!" commanded the Captain. Then he began to shout, "Ship ahoy!" at the top of his lungs.

The kitchen door opened and a man came out, carrying a lamp, its light shining full upon his face. It was an old face, a stern face, with white eyebrows and a thin-lipped mouth. Just such a face as looked on with approval when the executioner held up the head of Charles I., at Whitehall. There was, however, a tremble about the chin that told of infirm health.

"Hello, John!" said Captain Eri heartily. "John, let me make you acquainted with Mr. Hazeltine, the new man at the cable station. Mr. Hazeltine, this is my friend, Cap'n John Baxter."

The two shook hands, and then Captain Eri said:

"John, I brought down them barrels for you. Hawkins got 'em here, same as he always does, by the skin of his teeth. Stand by now, 'cause I've got to deliver Mr. Hazeltine at the station, and it's gittin' late."

John Baxter said nothing, beyond thanking his friend for the good turn, but he "stood by," as directed, and the barrels were quickly unloaded. As they were about to drive out of the yard, Captain Eri turned in his seat and said:

"John, guess I'll be up some time to-morrow. I want to talk with you about that billiard-room business."

The lamp in Baxter's hand shook.

"God A'mighty's got his eye on that place, Eri Hedge," he shouted, "and on them that's runnin' it!"

"That's all right," said the Captain. "Then the job's in good hands, and we ain't got to worry. Good-night."

But, in spite of this assurance, Hazeltine noticed that his driver was silent and preoccupied until they reached the end of the road by the shore, when he brought the willing Daniel to a stand still and announced that it was time to "change cars."

It is a fifteen-minute row from the mainland to the outer beach, and Captain Eri made it on schedule time. Hazeltine protested that he was used to a boat, and could go alone and return the dory in the morning, but the Captain wouldn't hear of it. The dory slid up on the sand and the passenger climbed out. The sound of the surf on the ocean side of the beach was no longer a steady roar, it was broken into splashing plunges and hisses with, running through it, a series of blows like those of a muffled hammer. The wind was wet and smelt salty.

"There's the station," said the Captain, pointing to a row of lighted windows a quarter of a mile away. "It IS straight ahead this time, and the walkin's better'n it has been for the last few minutes. Good-night!"

The electrician put his hand in his pocket, hesitated, and then withdrew it, empty.

"I'm very much obliged to you for all this," he said. "I'm glad to have made your acquaintance, and I hope we shall see each other often."

"Same here!" said the Captain heartily. "We're likely to git together once in a while, seein' as we're next-door neighbors, right across the road, as you might say. That's my berth over yonder, where you see them lights. It's jest 'round the corner from the road we drove down last. Good-night! Good luck to you!"

And he settled himself for the row home.

CHAPTER III

THE "COME-OUTERS'" MEETING

The house where the three Captains lived was as near salt water as it could be and remain out of reach of the highest tides. When Captain Eri, after beaching and anchoring his dory and stabling Daniel for the night, entered the dining room he found his two messmates deep in consultation, and with evidences of strenuous mental struggle written upon their faces. Captain Perez's right hand was smeared with ink and there were several spatters of the same fluid on Captain Jerry's perspiring nose. Crumpled sheets of note paper were on the table and floor, and Lorenzo, who was purring restfully upon the discarded jackets of the two mariners, alone seemed to be enjoying himself.

"Well, you fellers look as if you'd had a rough v'yage," commented Captain Eri, slipping out of his own jacket and pulling his chair up beside those of his friends. "What's the trouble?"

"Gosh, Eri, I'm glad to see you!" exclaimed Captain Perez, drawing the hand, just referred to, across his forehead and thereby putting that portion of his countenance into mourning. "How do you spell conscientious?"

"I don't, unless it's owner's orders," was the answer. "What do you want to spell it for?"

"We've writ much as four hundred advertisements, I do believe!" said Captain Jerry, "and there ain't one of them fit to feed to a pig. Perez here, he's got such hifalutin' notions, that nothin' less than a circus bill 'll do him. _I_ don't see why somethin' plain and sensible like 'Woman wanted to do dishes and clean house for three men,' wouldn't be all right; but no, it's got to have more fancy trimmin's than a Sunday bunnit. Foolishness, I call it."

"You'd have a whole lot of women answerin' that advertisement, now wouldn't you?" snorted Captain Perez hotly. "'To do dishes for three men!' That's a healthy bait to catch a wife with, ain't it? I can see 'em comin'. I cal'late you'd stay single till Jedgment, and then you wouldn't git one. No, sir! The thing to do is to be sort of soft-soapy and high-toned. Let 'em think they're goin' to git a bargain when they git you. Make believe it's goin' to be a privilege to git sech a husband."

"Well, 'tis," declared the sacrifice indignantly. "They might git a dum-sight worse one."

"I cal'late that's so, Jerry," said Captain Eri. "Still, Perez ain't altogether wrong. Guess you'd better keep the dishwashin' out of it. I know dishwashin' would never git ME; I've got so I hate the sight of soap and hot water as bad as if I was a Portugee. Pass me that pen."

Captain Perez gladly relinquished the writing materials, and Captain Eri, after two or three trials, by which he added to the paper decorations of the floor, produced the following:

"Wife Wanted--By an ex-seafaring man of steady habbits. Must be willing to Work and Keep House shipshape and aboveboard. No sea-lawyers need apply. Address--Skipper, care the Nuptial Chime, Boston, Mass."

The line relating to sea-lawyers was insisted upon by Captain Jerry. "That'll shut out the tonguey kind," he explained. The advertisement, with this addition, being duly approved, the required fifty cents was inclosed, as was a letter to the editor of the matrimonial journal requesting all answers to be forwarded to Captain Jeremiah Burgess, Orham, Mass. Then the envelope was directed and the stamp affixed.

"There," said Captain Eri, "that's done. All you've got to do now, Jerry, is to pick out your wife and let us know what you want for a weddin' present. You're a lucky man."

"Aw, let's talk about somethin' else," said the lucky one rather gloomily. "What's the news up at the depot, Eri?"

They received the tidings of the coming of Hazeltine with the interest due to such an event. Captain Eri gave them a detailed account of his meeting with the new electrician, omitting, however, in consideration for the feelings of Captain Perez, to mention the fact that it was the Bartlett boy who started that gentleman upon his walk to the cable station.

"Well, what did you think of him?" asked Captain Perez, when the recital was finished.

"Seemed to me like a pretty good feller," answered Captain Eri deliberately. "He didn't git mad at the joke the gang played on him, for one thing. He ain't so smooth-tongued as Parker used to be and he didn't treat Baxter and me as if Cape Codders was a kind of animals, the way some of the summer folks do. He had the sense not to offer to pay me for takin' him over to the station, and I liked that. Take it altogether, he seemed like a pretty decent chap--for a New Yorker," he added, as an after thought.

"But say," he said a moment later, "I've got some more news and it ain't good news, either. Web Saunders has got his liquor license."

"I want to know!" exclaimed Captain Perez.

"You don't tell me!" said Captain Jerry.

Then they both said, "What will John Baxter do now?" And Captain Eri shook his head dubiously.

The cod bit well next morning and Captain Eri did not get in from the Windward Ledge until afternoon. By the way, it may be well to explain that Captain Jerry's remarks concerning "settlin' down" and "restin'," which we chronicled in the first chapter must not be accepted too literally. While it is true that each of the trio had given up long voyages, it is equally true that none had given up work entirely. Some people might not consider it restful to rise at four every weekday morning and sail in a catboat twelve miles out to sea and haul a wet cod line for hours, not to mention the sail home and the cleaning and barreling of the catch. Captain Eri did that. Captain Perez was what he called "stevedore"--that is, general caretaker during the owner's absence, at Mr. Delancy Barry's summer estate on the "cliff road." As for Captain Jerry, he was janitor at the schoolhouse.

The catch was heavy the next morning, as has been said, and by the time the last fish was split and iced and the last barrel sent to the railway station it was almost supper time. Captain Eri had intended calling on Baxter early in the day, but now he determined to wait until after supper.

The Captain had bad luck in the "matching" that followed the meal, and it was nearly eight o'clock before he finished washing dishes. This distasteful task being completed, he set out for the Baxter homestead.

The Captain's views on the liquor question were broader than those of many Orham citizens. He was an abstainer, generally speaking, but his scruples were not as pronounced as those of Miss Abigail Mullett, whose proudest boast was that she had refused brandy when the doctor prescribed it as the stimulant needed to save her life. Over and over again has Miss Abigail told it in prayer-meeting; how she "riz up" in her bed, "expectin' every breath to be the last" and said, "Dr. Palmer, if it's got to be liquor or death, then death referred to!"--meaning, it is fair to presume, that death was preferred rather than the brandy. With much more concerning her miraculous recovery through the aid of a "terbacker and onion poultice."

On general principles the Captain objected to the granting of a license to a fellow like "Web" Saunders, but it was the effect that this action of the State authorities might have upon his friend John Baxter that troubled him most.

For forty-five years John Baxter was called by Cape Cod people "as smart a skipper as ever trod a plank." He saved money, built an attractive home for his wife and daughter, and would, in the ordinary course of events, have retired to enjoy a comfortable old age. But his wife died shortly after the daughter's marriage to a Boston man, and on a voyage to Manila, Baxter himself suffered from a sunstroke and a subsequent fever, that left him a physical wreck and for a time threatened to unsettle his reason. He recovered a portion of his health and the threatened insanity disappeared, except for a religious fanaticism that caused him to accept the Bible literally and to interpret it accordingly. When his daughter and her husband were drowned in the terrible City of Belfast disaster, it is an Orham tradition that John Baxter, dressed in gunny-bags and sitting on an ash-heap, was found by his friends mourning in what he believed to be the Biblical "sackcloth and ashes." His little baby granddaughter had been looked out for by some kind friends in Boston. Only Captain Eri knew that John Baxter's yearly trip to Boston was made for the purpose of visiting the girl who was his sole reminder of the things that might have been, but even the Captain did not know that the money that paid her board and, as she grew older, for her gowns and schooling, came from the bigoted, stern old hermit, living alone in the old house at Orham.

In Orham, and in other sections of the Cape as well, there is a sect called by the ungodly, "The Come-Outers." They were originally seceders from the Methodist churches who disapproved of modern innovations. They "come out" once a week to meet at the houses of the members, and theirs are lively meetings. John Baxter was a "Come-Outer," and ever since the enterprising Mr. Saunders opened his billiard room, the old man's tirades of righteous wrath had been directed against this den of iniquity. Since it became known that "Web" had made application for the license, it was a regular amusement for the unregenerate to attend the gatherings of the "Come-Outers" and hear John Baxter call down fire from Heaven upon the billiard room, its proprietor, and its patrons. Orham people had begun to say that John Baxter was "billiard-saloon crazy."

And John Baxter was Captain Eri's friend, a friendship that had begun in school when the declaimer of Patrick Henry's "Liberty or Death" speech on Examination Day took a fancy to and refused to laugh at the little chap who tremblingly ventured to assert that he loved "little Pussy, her coat is so warm." The two had changed places until now it was Captain Eri who protected and advised.

When the Captain rapped at John Baxter's kitchen door no one answered, and, after yelling "Ship ahoy!" through the keyhole a number of times, he was forced to the conclusion that his friend was not at home.

"You lookin' fer Cap'n Baxter?" queried Mrs. Sarah Taylor, who lived just across the road. "He's gone to Come-Outers' meetin', I guess. There's one up to Barzilla Small's to-night."

Mr. Barzilla Small lived in that part of the village called "down to the neck," and when the Captain arrived there, he found the parlor filled with the devout, who were somewhat surprised to see him.

"Why, how do you do?" said Mrs. Small, resplendent in black "alpaca" and wearing her jet earrings. "I snum if you ain't a stranger! We'll have a reel movin' meetin' to-night because Mr. Perley's here, and he says he feels the sperrit a-workin'. Set right down there by the what-not. Luther," to her oldest but three, "give Cap'n Hedge your chair. You can set on the cricket. Yes, you can! Don't answer back!"

"Aw, ma!" burst out the indignant Luther, "how d'yer think I'm goin' to set on that cricket? My laigs 'll be way up under my chin. Make Hart set on it; he's shorter'n me."

"Shan't nuther, Lute Small!" declared Hartwell, a freckle-faced youngster, who was the next step downward in the family stair of children. "Set on it yourself. Make him, ma, now! You said he'd have to."

"Now, ma, I--"

"Be still, both of you! I sh'd think you'd be ashamed, with everybody here so! Oh, my soul and body!" turning to the company, "if it ain't enough to try a saint! Sometimes seems's if I SHOULD give up. You be thankful, Abigail," to Miss Mullett, who sat by the door, "that you ain't got nine in a family and nobody to help teach 'em manners. If Barzilla was like most men, he'd have some dis-CIP-line in the house; but no, I have to do it all, and--"

Mr. Small, thus publicly rebuked, rose from his seat in the corner by the melodeon and proclaimed in a voice that he tried hard not to make apologetic:

"Now, Luther, if I was you I'd be a good boy and mind ma."

Even this awe-inspiring command had little effect upon the reluctant Luther, but Captain Eri, who, smiling and bowing right and left, had been working his passage to the other side of the room, announced that he was all right and would "squeeze in on the sofy 'side of Cap'n Baxter." So there was peace once more, that is, as much peace as half a dozen feminine tongues, all busy with different subjects, would allow.

"Why, Eri" whispered John Baxter, "I didn't expect to see you here. I'm glad, though; Lord knows every God-fearin' man in this town has need to be on his knees this night. Have you heard about it?"

"Cap'n John means about the rum-sellin' license that Web Saunders has got," volunteered Miss Melissa Busteed, leaning over from her seat in the patent rocker that had been the premium earned by Mrs. Small for selling one hundred and fifty pounds of tea for a much-advertised house. "Ain't it awful? I says to Prissy Baker this mornin', soon 's I heard of it, 'Prissy,' s' I, 'there 'll be a jedgment on this town sure's you're a livin' woman,' s' I. Says she, 'That's so, M'lissy,' s' she, and I says--"

Well, when Miss Busteed talks, interruptions are futile, so Captain Eri sat silent, as the comments of at least one-tenth of the population of Orham were poured into his ears. The recitation was cut short by Mrs. Small's vigorous pounding on the center table.

"We're blessed this evenin'," said the hostess with emotion, "in havin' Mr. Perley with us. He's goin' to lead the meetin'."

The Reverend Mr. Perley--Reverend by courtesy; he had never been ordained--stood up, cleared his throat with vigor, rose an inch or two on the toes of a very squeaky pair of boots, sank to heel level again and announced that everyone would join in singing, "Hymn number one hundred and ten, omitting the second and fourth stanzas: hymn number one hundred and ten, second and fourth stanzas omitted." The melodeon, tormented by Mrs. Lurania Bassett, shrieked and groaned, and the hymn was sung. So was another, and yet another. Then Mr. Perley squeaked to his tiptoes again, subsided, and began a lengthy and fervent discourse.

Mr. Perley had been a blacksmith in Ostable before he "got religion," and now spent the major portion of his time in "boardin' 'round" with "Come-Outers" up and down the Cape and taking part in their meetings. His services at such gatherings paid for his food and lodging. He had been a vigorous horseshoer in the old days; now he preached just as vigorously.

He spoke of the faithful few here gathered together. He spoke of the scoffing of those outside the pale and hinted at the uncomfortable future that awaited them. He ran over the various denominations one by one, and one by one showed them to be worshipers of idols and followers after strange gods. He sank hoarsely into the bass and quavered up into falsetto and a chorus of "Amens!" and "Hallelujahs!" followed him.

"Oh, brothers and sisters!" he shouted, "here we are a-kneelin' at the altar's foot and what's goin' on outside? Why, the Devil's got his clutches in our midst. The horn of the wicked is exalted. They're sellin' rum--RUM--in this town! They're a-sellin' rum and drinkin' of it and gloryin' in their shame. But the Lord ain't asleep! He's got his eye on 'em! He's watchin' 'em! And some of these fine days he'll send down fire out of Heaven and wipe 'em off the face of the earth!" ("Amen! Glory! Glory! Glory!")

John Baxter was on his feet, his lean face working, the perspiration shining on his forehead, his eyes gleaming like lamps under his rough white eyebrows, and his clenched fists pounding the back of the chair in front of him. His hallelujahs were the last to cease. Captain Eri had to use some little force to pull him down on the sofa again.

Then Mrs. Small struck up, "Oh, brother, have you heard?" and they sang it with enthusiasm. Next, Miss Mullett told her story of the brandy and the defiance of the doctor. Nobody seemed much interested except a nervous young man with sandy hair and a celluloid collar, who had come with Mr. Tobias Wixon and was evidently a stranger. He had not heard it before and seemed somewhat puzzled when Miss Abigail repeated the "Death referred to" passage.

There was more singing. Mrs. Small "testified." So did Barzilla, with many hesitations and false starts and an air of relief when it was over. Then another hymn and more testimony, each speaker denouncing the billiard saloon. Then John Baxter arose and spoke.

He began by saying that the people of Orham had been slothful in the Lord's vineyard. They had allowed weeds to spring up and wax strong. They had been tried and found wanting.

"I tell you, brothers and sisters," he declaimed, leaning over the chair back and shaking a thin forefinger in Mr. Perley's face, "God has given us a task to do and how have we done it? We've set still and let the Devil have his way. We've talked and talked, but what have we done? Nothin'! Nothin' at all; and now the grip of Satan is tighter on the town than it ever has been afore. The Lord set us a watch to keep and we've slept on watch. And now there's a trap set for every young man in this c'munity. Do you think that that hell-hole down yonder is goin' to shut up because we talk about it in meetin'? Do you think Web Saunders is goin' to quit sellin' rum because we say he ought to? Do you think God's goin' to walk up to that door and nail it up himself? No, sir! He don't work that way! We've talked and talked, and now it's time to DO. Ain't there anybody here that feels a call? Ain't there axes to chop with and fire to burn? I tell you, brothers, we've waited long enough! I--old as I am--am ready. Lord, here I am! Here I am--"

He swayed, broke into a fit of coughing, and sank back upon the sofa, trembling all over and still muttering that he was ready. There was a hushed silence for a moment or two, and then a storm of hallelujahs and shouts. Mr. Perley started another hymn, and it was sung with tremendous enthusiasm.

Just behind the nervous young man with the celluloid collar sat a stout individual with a bald head. This was Abijah Thompson, known by the irreverent as "Barking" Thompson, a nickname bestowed because of his peculiar habit of gradually puffing up, like a frog, under religious excitement, and then bursting forth in an inarticulate shout, disconcerting to the uninitiated. During Baxter's speech and the singing of the hymn his expansive red cheeks had been distended like balloons, and his breath came shorter and shorter. Mr. Perley had arisen and was holding up his hand for silence, when with one terrific "Boo!" "Barking" Thompson's spiritual exaltation exploded directly in the ear of the nervous stranger.

The young man shot out of his chair as if Mr. Thompson had fired a dynamite charge beneath him. "Oh, the Devil!" he shrieked, and then subsided, blushing to the back of his neck.

Somehow this interruption took the spirit out of the meeting. Giggles from Luther and the younger element interfered with the solemnity of Mr. Perley's closing remarks, and no one else was brave enough to "testify" under the circumstances. They sang again, and the meeting broke up. The nervous young man was the first one to leave.

Captain Eri got his friend out of the clutches of the "Come-Outers" as quickly as possible, and piloted him down the road toward his home. John Baxter was silent and absent-minded, and most of the Captain's cheerful remarks concerning Orham affairs in general went unanswered. As they turned in at the gate the elder man said:

"Eri, do you believe that man's law ought to be allowed to interfere with God's law?"

"Well, John, in most cases it's my jedgment that it pays to steer pretty close to both of 'em."

"S'pose God called you to break man's law and keep His; what would you do?"

"Guess the fust thing would be to make sure 'twas the Almighty that was callin'. I don't want to say nothin' to hurt your feelin's, but I should advise the feller that thought that he had that kind of a call to 'beware of imitations,' as the soap folks advertise."

"Eri, I've got a call."

"Now, John Baxter, you listen. You and me have been sailin' together, as you might say, for forty odd years. I ain't a religious man 'cordin' to your way of thinkin', but I've generally found that the Lord runs things most as well as us folks could run 'em. When there's a leak at one end of the schooner it don't pay to bore a hole at the other end to let the water out. Don't you worry no more about Web Saunders and that billiard saloon. The s'lectmen 'll attend to them afore very long. Why don't you go up to Boston for a couple of weeks? 'Twill do you good."

"Do you think so, Eri? Well, maybe 'twould--maybe 'twould. Sometimes I feel as if my head was kind of wearin' out. I'll think about it."

"Better not think any more; better go right ahead."

"Well, I'll see. Good-night."

"Good-night, John."

"Perez," said Captain Eri, next day, "seems to me some kinds of religion is like whisky, mighty bad for a weak head. I wish somebody 'd invent a gold cure for Come-Outers."

CHAPTER IV

A PICTURE SENT AND A CABLE TESTED

Something over a fortnight went by and the three captains had received no answers from the advertisement in the Nuptial Chime. The suspense affected each of them in a different manner. Captain Jerry was nervous and apprehensive. He said nothing, and asked no questions, but it was noticeable that he was the first to greet the carrier of the "mail box" when that individual came down the road, and, as the days passed and nothing more important than the Cape Cod Item and a patent-medicine circular came to hand, a look that a suspicious person might have deemed expressive of hope began to appear in his face.

Captain Perez, on the contrary, grew more and more disgusted with the delay. He spent a good deal of time wondering why there were no replies, and he even went so far as to suggest writing to the editor of the Chime. He was disposed to lay the blame upon Captain Eri's advertisement, and hinted that the latter was not "catchy" enough.

Captain Eri, alone of the trio, got any amusement out of the situation. He pretended to see in Captain Jerry an impatient bridegroom and administered comfort in large doses by suggesting that, in all probability, there had been so many replies that it had been found necessary to charter a freight-car to bring them down.

"Cheer up, Jerry!" he said. "It's tough on you, I know, but think of all them poor sufferin' females that's settin' up nights and worryin' for fear they won't be picked out. Why, say, when you make your ch'ice you'll have to let the rest know right off; 'twould be cruelty to animals not to. You ought to put 'em out of their misery quick's possible."

Captain Jerry's laugh was almost dismal.

The first batch of answers from the Chime came by an evening mail. Captain Eri happened to beat the post-office that night and brought them home himself. They filled three of his pockets to overflowing, and he dumped them by handfuls on the dining table, under the nose of the pallid Jerry.

"What did I tell you, Jerry?" he crowed. "I knew they was on the way. What have you got to say about my advertisement now, Perez?"

There were twenty-six letters altogether. It was surprising how many women were willing, even anxious, to ally themselves with "an ex-seafaring man of steady habbits." But most of the applicants were of unsatisfactory types. As Captain Perez expressed it, "There's too many of them everlastin' 'blondes' and things."

There was one note, however, that even Captain Eri was disposed to consider seriously. It was postmarked Nantucket, was written on half a sheet of blue-lined paper, and read as follows:

"MR. SKIPPER:

"Sir: I saw your advertisements in the paper and think perhaps you might suit me. Please answer these questions by return mail. What is your religious belief? Do you drink liquor? Are you a profane man? If you want to, you might send me your real name and a photograph. If I think you will suit maybe we might sign articles.

"Yours truly,

"MARTHA B. SNOW.

"NANTUCKET, MASS."

"What I like about that is the shipshape way she puts it," commented Captain Perez. "She don't say that she 'jest adores the ocean.'"

"She's mighty handy about takin' hold and bossin' things; there ain't no doubt of that," said Captain Eri. "Notice it's us that's got to suit her, not her us. I kind of like that 'signin' articles,' too. You bet she's been brought up in a seagoin' family."

"I used to know a Jubal Snow that hailed from Nantucket," suggested Perez; "maybe she's some of his folks."

"'Tain't likely," sniffed Captain Jerry. "There's more Snows in Nantucket than you can shake a stick at. You can't heave a rock without hittin' one."

"I b'lieve she's jest the kind we want," said Captain Perez with conviction.

"What do you say, Jerry?" asked Captain Eri. "You're goin' to be the lucky man, you know."

"Oh, I don't know. What's the use of hurryin'? More 'n likely the next lot of letters 'll have somethin' better yit."

"Now, that's jest like you, Jerry Burgess!" exclaimed Perez disgustedly. "Want to put off and put off and put off. And the house gittin' more like the fo'castle on a cattleboat every day."

"I don't b'lieve myself you'd do much better, Jerry," said Captain Eri seriously. "I like that letter somehow. Seems to me it's worth a try."

"Oh, all right! Have it your own way. Of course, _I_ ain't got nothin' to say. I'm only the divilish fool that's got to git married and keep boarders; that's all _I_ am!"

"Be careful! She asked if you was a profane man."

"Aw, shut up! You fellers are enough to make a minister swear. _I_ don't care what you do. Go ahead and write to her if you want to, only I give you fair warnin', I ain't goin' to have her if she don't suit. I ain't goin' to marry no scarecrow."

Between them, and with much diplomacy, they soothed the indignant candidate for matrimony until he agreed to sign his name to a letter to the Nantucket lady. Then Captain Perez said:

"But, I say, Jerry; she wants your picture. Have you got one to send her?"

"I've got that daguerreotype I had took when I was married afore."

He rummaged it out of his chest and displayed it rather proudly. It showed him as a short, sandy-haired youth, whose sunburned face beamed from the depths of an enormous choker, and whose head was crowned with a tall, flat-brimmed silk hat of a forgotten style.

"I s'pose that might do," said Cap'n Perez hesitatingly.

"Do! 'Twill HAVE to do, seein' it's all he's got," said Captain Eri. "Good land!" he chuckled; "look at that hat! Say, Jerry, she'll think you done your seafarin' in Noah's ark."

But Captain Jerry was oblivious to sarcasm just then. He was gazing at the daguerreotype in a sentimental sort of way, blowing the dust from the glass, and tilting it up and down so as to bring it to the most effective light.

"I swan!" he mused, "I don't know when I've looked at that afore. I remember when I bought that hat, jest as well. Took care of it and brushed it--my! my! I don't know but it's somewheres around now. I thought I was jest about the ticket then, and--and I wa'n't BAD lookin', that's a fact!"

This last with a burst of enthusiasm.

"Ho, ho! Perez," roared Captain Eri; "Jerry's fallin' in love with his own picture. Awful thing for one so young, ain't it?"

"I ain't such a turrible sight older 'n you be, Eri Hedge," sputtered the prospective bridegroom with righteous indignation. Then he added in a rather crestfallen tone, "But I am a heap older 'n I was when I had that daguerreotype took. See here; if I send that Nantucket woman this picture won't she notice the difference when she sees me?"

"What if she does?" broke in Captain Perez. "You can tell her how 'twas. Talk her over. A feller that's been married, like you, ought to be able to talk ANY woman over."

Captain Jerry didn't appear sanguine concerning his ability to "talk her over," but his fellow-conspirators made light of his feeble objections, and the daguerreotype, carefully wrapped, was mailed the next morning, accompanied by a brief biographical sketch of the original and his avowed adherence to the Baptist creed and the Good Templar's abstinence.

"I hope she'll hurry up and answer," said the impatient Captain Perez. "I want to get this thing settled one way or another. Don't you, Jerry?"

"Yes," was the hesitating reply. "One way or another."

Captain Eri had seen John Baxter several times since the evening of the "Come-Outers'" meeting. The old man was calmer apparently, and was disposed to take the billiard-saloon matter less seriously, particularly as it was reported that the town selectmen were to hold a special meeting to consider the question of allowing Mr. Saunders to continue in business. The last-named gentleman had given what he was pleased to call a "blow-out" to his regular patrons in celebration of the granting of the license, and "Squealer" Wixon and one or two more spent a dreary day and night in the town lock-up in consequence. Baxter told the Captain that he had not yet made up his mind concerning the proposed Boston trip, but he thought "more 'n likely" he should go.

Captain Eri was obliged to be content with this assurance, but he determined to keep a close watch on his friend just the same.

He had met Ralph Hazeltine once or twice since the latter's arrival in Orham, and, in response to questions as to how he was getting on at the station, the new electrician invariably responded, "First-rate." Gossip, however, in the person of Miss Busteed, reported that the operators were doing their best to keep Mr. Hazeltine's lot from being altogether a bed of roses, and there were dark hints of something more to come.

On the morning following the receipt of the letter from the Nantucket lady, Captain Eri was busy at his fish shanty, putting his lines in order and sewing a patch on the mainsail of his catboat. These necessary repairs had prevented his taking the usual trip to the fishing grounds. Looking up from his work, he saw, through the open door, Ralph Hazeltine just stepping out of the cable-station skiff. He tucked his sail needle into the canvas and hailed the young man with a shouted "Good-morning!"

"How do you do, Cap'n Hedge?" said Hazeltine, walking toward the shanty. "Good weather, isn't it?"

"Tip-top. Long 's the wind stays westerly and there ain't no Sunday-school picnics on, we don't squabble with the weather folks. The only thing that 'll fetch a squall with a westerly wind is a Sunday-school picnic. That 'll do it, sure as death. Busy over across?"

"Pretty busy just now. The cable parted day before yesterday, and I've been getting things ready for the repair ship. She was due this morning, and we're likely to hear from her at any time."

"You don't say! Cable broke, hey? Now it's a queer thing, but I've never been inside that station since 'twas built. Too handy, I guess. I've got a second cousin up in Charlestown, lived there all his life, and he's never been up in Bunker Hill monument yit. Fust time I landed in Boston I dug for that monument, and I can tell you how many steps there is in it to this day. If that cable station was fifty mile off I'd have been through it two weeks after it started up, but bein' jest over there, I ain't ever done it. Queer, ain't it?"

"Perhaps you'd like to go over with me. I'm going up to the post-office, and when I come back I should be glad of your company."

"Well, now, that's kind of you. I cal'late I will. You might sing out as you go past. I've got a ha'f-hour job on this sail and then it's my watch below."

The cable station at Orham is a low whitewashed building with many windows. The vegetation about it is limited exclusively to "beach grass" and an occasional wild-plum bush. The nearest building which may be reached without a boat is the life-saving station, two miles below. The outer beach changes its shape every winter. The gales tear great holes in its sides, and then, as if in recompense, throw up new shoals and build new promontories. From the cable-station doorway in fair weather may be counted the sails of over one hundred vessels going and coming between Boston and New York. They come and go, and, alas! sometimes stop by the way. Then the life-saving crews are busy and the Boston newspapers report another wreck. All up and down the outer beach are the sun-whitened bones of schooners and ships; and all about them, and partially covering them, is sand, sand, sand, as white and much coarser than granulated sugar.

Hazeltine's post-office trip and other errands had taken much more time than he anticipated, and more than two hours had gone by before he called for Captain Eri. During the row to the beach the electrician explained to the Captain the processes by which a break in the cable is located and repaired.

"You see," he said, "as soon as the line breaks we set about finding where it is broken. To do this we use an instrument called the Wheatstone bridge. In this case the break is about six hundred miles from the American shore. The next thing is to get at the company's repair ship. She lies, usually, at Halifax when she isn't busy, and that is where she was this time. We wired her and she left for the spot immediately. It was up to me to get ready the testing apparatus--we generally set up special instruments for testing. Judging by the distance, the ship should have been over the break early this morning. She will grapple for the broken cable ends, and as soon as she catches our end she'll send us a message. It's simple enough."

"Like takin' wormwood tea--easy enough if you've been brought up that way. I think I'd make more money catchin' codfish, myself," commented the Captain dryly.

Ralph laughed. "Well, it really is a very simple matter," he said. "The only thing we have to be sure of is that our end of the line is ready by the time the ship reaches the break. If the weather is bad the ship can't work, and so, when she does work, she works quick. I had my instruments in condition yesterday, so we're all right this time."

They landed at the little wharf and plodded through the heavy sand.

"Dismal-looking place, isn't it?" said Hazeltine, as he opened the back door of the station.

"Well, I don't know; it has its good p'ints," replied his companion. "Your neighbors' hens don't scratch up your garden, for one thing. What do you do in here?"

"This is the room where we receive and send. This is the receiver."

The captain noticed with interest the recorder, with its two brass supports and the little glass tube, half filled with ink, that, when the cable was working, wrote the messages upon the paper tape traveling beneath it.

"Pretty nigh as finicky as a watch, ain't it?" he observed.

"Fully as delicate in its way. Do you see this little screw on the centerpiece? Turn that a little, one way or the other, and the operator on the other side might send until doomsday, we wouldn't know it. I'll show you the living rooms and the laboratory now."

Just then the door at the other end of the room opened, and a man, whom Captain Eri recognized as one of the operators, came in. He started when he saw Hazeltine and turned to go out again. Ralph spoke to him:

"Peters," he said, "where is Mr. Langley?"

"Don't know," answered the fellow gruffly.

"Wait a minute. Tell me where Mr. Langley is."

"I don't know where he is. He went over to the village a while ago."

"Where are the rest of the men?"

"Don't know."

The impudence and thinly veiled hostility in the man's tone were unmistakable. Hazeltine hesitated, seemed about to speak, and then silently led the way to the hall.

"I'll show you the laboratory later on," he said. "We'll go up to the testing room now." Then he added, apparently as much to himself as to his visitor, "I told those fellows that I wouldn't be back until noon."

There was a door at the top of the stairs. Ralph opened this quietly. As they passed through, Captain Eri noticed that Peters had followed them into the hall and stood there, looking up.

The upper hall had a straw matting on the floor. There was another door at the end of the passage, and this was ajar. Toward it the electrician walked rapidly. From the room behind the door came a shout of laughter; then someone said:

"Better give it another turn, hadn't I, to make sure? If two turns fixes it so we don't hear for a couple of hours, another one ought to shut it up for a week. That's arithmetic, ain't it?"

The laugh that followed this was cut short by Hazeltine's throwing the door wide open.

Captain Eri, close at the electrician's heels, saw a long room, empty save for a few chairs and a table in the center. Upon this table stood the testing instruments, exactly like those in the receiving room downstairs. Three men lounged in the chairs, and standing beside the table, with his fingers upon the regulating screw at the centerpiece of the recorder, was another, a big fellow, with a round, smooth-shaven face.

The men in the chairs sprang to their feet as Hazeltine came in. The face of the individual by the table turned white and his fingers fell from the regulating screw, as though the latter were red hot. The Captain recognized the men; they were day operators whom he had met in the village many times. Incidentally, they were avowed friends of the former electrician, Parker. The name of the taller one was McLoughlin.

No one spoke. Ralph strode quickly to the table, pushed McLoughlin to one side and stooped over the instruments. When he straightened up, Captain Eri noticed that his face also was white, but evidently not from fear. He turned sharply and looked at the four operators, who were doing their best to appear at ease and not succeeding. The electrician looked them over, one by one. Then he gave a short laugh.

"You damned sneaks!" he said, and turned again to the testing apparatus.

He began slowly to turn the regulating screw on the recorder. He had given it but a few revolutions when the point of the little glass siphon, that had been tracing a straight black line on the sliding tape, moved up and down in curving zigzags. Hazeltine turned to the operator.

"Palmer," he said curtly, "answer that call."

The man addressed seated himself at the table, turned a switch, and clicked off a message. After a moment the line on the moving tape zigzagged again. Ralph glanced at the zigzags and bit his lip.

"Apologize to them," he said to Palmer. "Tell them we regret exceedingly that the ship should have been kept waiting. Tell them our recorder was out of adjustment."

The operator cabled the message. The three men at the end of the room glanced at each other; this evidently was not what they expected.

Steps sounded on the stairs and Peters hurriedly entered.

"The old man's comin'," he said.

Mr. Langley, the superintendent of the station, had been in the company's employ for years. He had been in charge of the Cape Cod station since it was built, and he liked the job. He knew cable work, too, from A to Z, and, though he was a strict disciplinarian, would forgive a man's getting drunk occasionally, sooner than condone carelessness. He was eccentric, but even those who did not like him acknowledged that he was "square."

He came into the room, tossed a cigar stump out of the window, and nodded to Captain Eri.

"How are you, Captain Hedge?" he said. Then, stepping to the table, he picked up the tape.

"Everything all right, Mr. Hazeltine?" he asked. "Hello! What does this mean? They say they have been calling for two hours without getting an answer. How do you explain that?"

It was very quiet in the room when the electrician answered.

"The recorder here was out of adjustment, sir," he said simply.

"Out of adjustment! I thought you told me everything was in perfect order before you left this morning."

"I thought so, sir, but I find the screw was too loose. That would account for the call not reaching us."

"Too loose! Humph!" The superintendent looked steadfastly at Hazeltine, then at the operators, and then at the electrician once more.

"Mr. Hazeltine," he said at length, "I will hear what explanations you may have to make in my office later on. I will attend to the testing myself. That will do."

Captain Eri silently followed his young friend to the back door of the station. Hazeltine had seen fit to make no comment on the scene just described, and the captain did not feel like offering any. They were standing on the steps when the big operator, McLoughlin, came out of the building behind them.

"Well," he said gruffly to the electrician. "Shall I quit now or wait until Saturday?"

"What?"

"Shall I git out now or wait till Saturday night? I suppose you'll have me fired."

Then Hazeltine's pent-up rage boiled over.

"If you mean that I'll tell Mr. Langley of your cowardly trick and have you discharged--No! I don't pay my debts that way. But I'll tell you this,--you and your sneaking friends. If you try another game like that,--yes, or if you so much as speak to me, other than on business while I'm here, I WILL fire you--out of the window. Clear out!"

"Mr. Hazeltine," said Captain Eri a few moments later, "I hope you don't mind my sayin' that I like you fust-rate. Me and Perez and Jerry ain't the biggest bugs in town, but we like to have our friends come and see us. I wish you'd drop in once 'n a while."

"I certainly will," said the young man, and the two shook hands. That vigorous handshake was enough of itself to convince Ralph Hazeltine that he had made, at any rate, one friend in Orham.

And we may as well add here that he had made two. For that evening Jack McLoughlin said to his fellow conspirators:

"He said he'd fire me out of the window,--ME, mind you! And, by thunder! I believe he'd have DONE it too. Boys, there ain't any more 'con' games played on that kid while I'm around--Parker or no Parker. He's white, that's what HE is!"

CHAPTER V

THE WOMAN FROM NANTUCKET

Conversation among the captains was, for the next two days, confined to two topics, speculation as to how soon they might expect a reply from the Nantucket female and whether or not Mr. Langley would discharge Hazeltine. On the latter point Captain Eri was decided.

"He won't be bounced," said the Captain; "now you just put that down in your log. Langley ain't a fool, and he can put two and two together as well as the next feller. If I thought there was any need of it, I'd just drop him a hint myself, but there ain't, so I shan't put my oar in. But I wish you two could have heard that youngster talk to that McLoughlin critter; 'twould have done you good. That boy's all right."

Captain Jerry was alone when the expected letter came. He glanced at the postmark, saw that it was Nantucket, and stuck the note behind the clock. He did his best to forget it, but he looked so guilty when Captain Perez returned at supper time that that individual suspected something, made his friend confess, and, a little later when Captain Eri came in, the envelope, bearing many thumb-prints, was propped up against the sugar bowl in the middle of the table.

"We didn't open it, Eri," said Perez proudly. "We did want to, but we thought all hands ought to be on deck when anything as important as this was goin' to be done."

"He's been holdin' it up to the light for the last ha'f hour," sneered Captain Jerry. "Anybody 'd think it had a million dollars in it. For the land's sake, open it, Eri, 'fore he has a fit!"

Captain Eri picked up the letter, looked it over very deliberately, and then tore off the end of the envelope. The inclosure was another sheet of note paper like the first epistle. The Captain took out his spectacles, wiped them, and read the following aloud:

"CAPTAIN JEREMIAH BURGESS.

"Sir: I like your looks well enough, though it don't pay to put too much dependence in looks, as nobody knows better than me. Besides, I judge that picture was took quite a spell ago. Anyway, you look honest, and I am willing to risk money enough to carry me to Orham and back, though the dear land knows I ain't got none to throw away. If we don't agree to sign articles, I suppose likely you will be willing to stand half the fare. That ain't any more than right, the way I look at it. I shall come to Orham on the afternoon train, Thursday. Meet me at the depot.

"Yours truly,

"MARTHA B. SNOW.

"P. S.--I should have liked it better if you was a Methodist, but we can't have everything just as we want it in this world."

Nobody spoke for a moment after the reading of this intensely practical note. Captain Eri whistled softly, scratched his head, and then read the letter over again to himself. At length Captain Perez broke the spell.

"Jerusalem!" he exclaimed. "She don't lose no time, does she?"

"She's pretty prompt, that's a fact," assented Captain Eri.

Captain Jerry burst forth in indignation:

"Is THAT all you've got to say?" he inquired with sarcasm, "after gittin' me into a scrape like this? Well now, I tell you one thing, I--"

"Don't go on your beam ends, Jerry," interrupted Captain Eri. "There ain't no harm done yit."

"Ain't no harm done? Why how you talk, Eri Hedge! Here's a woman that I ain't never seen, and might be a hundred years old, for all I know, comin' down here to-morrow night to marry me by main force, as you might say, and you set here and talk about--"

"Now, hold on, hold on, Jerry! She ain't goin' to marry you unless you want her to, 'tain't likely. More I think of it, the more I like the woman's way of doin' things. She's got sense, there's no doubt of that. You can't sell HER a cat in a bag. She's comin' down here to see you and talk the thing over, and I glory in her spunk."

"Wants me to pay her fare! I see myself doin' it! I've got ways enough to spend my money without paying fares for Nantucket folks."

"If you and she sign articles, as she calls it, you'll have to pay more than fares," said Captain Perez, in a matter-of-fact tone. "I think same as Eri does; she's a smart woman. We'll have to meet her at the depot, of course."

"Well _I_ won't! Cheeky thing! Let her find out where I am! I cal'late she'll have to do some huntin'."

"Now, see here, Jerry," said Captain Eri, "you was jest as anxious to have one of us get married as anybody else. You haven't got to marry the woman unless you want to, but you have got to help us see the thing through. I wish myself that we hadn't been quite so pesky anxious to give her the latitude and longitude, and had took some sort of an observation ourselves; but we didn't, and now we've got to treat her decent. You'll be at that depot along with Perez and me."

When Captain Eri spoke in that tone his two cronies usually obeyed orders. Even the rebellious Jerry, who had a profound respect for his younger friend, gave in after some grumbling.

They sat up until late, speculating concerning the probable age and appearance of the expected visitor. Captain Perez announced that he didn't know why it was, but he had a notion that she was about forty and slim. Captain Jerry, who was in a frame of mind where agreement with anyone was out of the question, gave it as his opinion that she was thirty odd and rather plump. Captain Eri didn't hazard a guess, but suggested that they wait and see.

But even Captain Eri's calmness was more or less assumed, for he did not go fishing the next morning, but stayed about the house, whittling at the model of a clipper ship and tormenting Captain Jerry. The model was one that he had been at work upon at odd times ever since he gave up sea-going. It had never been completed for the very good reason that when one part was finished the Captain tore another part to pieces, and began over again. It was a sort of barometer of his feelings, and when his companions saw him take down the clipper and go to work, they knew he was either thinking deeply upon a perplexing problem or was troubled in his mind.

Captain Perez sang a good deal, principally confining his musical efforts to a ballad with a chorus of,

| "Storm along, John; | John, storm along; | Ain't I glad my day's work's done!"

Also, he glanced at his watch every few minutes and then went to consult the chronometer to make sure of the time.

Captain Jerry went up to the schoolhouse and gave its vacant rooms a thorough sweeping for no particular reason except to be doing something. His appetite was poor, and he actually forgot to feed Lorenzo, a hitherto unheard-of slight, and one that brought down upon him a long lecture from Captain Eri, who vowed that loss of memory was a sure sign of lovesickness.

They started for the railway station immediately after supper. As they passed John Baxter's house they noticed a light in an upper chamber, and wondered if the old man was ill. Captain Eri would have stopped to find out, but Captain Perez insisted that it could be done just as well when they came back, and expressed a fear that they might miss the train. Captain Jerry hadn't spoken since they left home, and walked gloomily ahead with his hands in his pockets.

Mr. "Web" Saunders, fat and in his pink-striped shirtsleeves, sat upon the steps of his saloon as they went by. He wished them an unctuous good-evening. The oily smoothness of Mr. Saunders' voice cannot be described with plain pen and ink; it gurgled with sweetness, like molasses poured from a jug. This was not a special tone put on for the occasion; no one except his wife ever heard him speak otherwise.

The response from the three captains was not enthusiastic, but Mr. Saunders continued to talk of the weather, the fishing, and the cranberry crop until a customer came and gave them a chance to get away.

"Slick! slick! slick!" commented Captain Eri, as they hurried along. "Blessed if he don't pretty nigh purr. I like a cat fust-rate, but I'm always suspicious of a cat-man. You know he's got claws, but you can't tell where he's goin' to use 'em. When a feller like that comes slidin' around and rubbin' his head against my shin, I always feel like keepin' t'other foot ready for a kick. You're pretty sartin to need it one time or another."

The train was nearly an hour late this evening, owing to a hot box, and the "ex-seafaring man" and his two friends peered anxiously out at it from around the corner of the station. The one coach stopped directly under the lights, and they could see the passengers as they came down the steps. Two or three got out, but these were men. Then came an apparition that caused Captain Jerry to gasp and clutch at Perez for support.

Down the steps of the car came a tall, coal-black negress, and in her hand was a canvas extension case, on the side of which was blazoned in two-inch letters the fateful name, "M. B. Snow, Nantucket."

Captain Eri gazed at this astounding spectacle for a full thirty seconds. Then he woke up.

"Godfrey domino!" he ejaculated. "BLACK! BLACK! Run! Run for your lives, 'fore she sees us!"

This order was superfluous. Captain Jerry was already half-way to the fence, and going at a rate which bid fair to establish a record for his age. The others fell into his wake, and the procession moved across country like a steeplechase.

They climbed over stone walls and splashed into meadows. They took every short cut between the station and their home. As they came in sight of the latter, Captain Perez' breath gave out almost entirely.

"Heave to!" he gasped. "Heave to, or I'll founder. I wouldn't run another step for all the darkies in the West Indies."

Captain Eri paused, but it was only after a struggle that Captain Jerry was persuaded to halt.

"I shan't do it, Eri!" he vowed wildly. "I shan't do it! There ain't no use askin' me; I won't marry that black woman! I won't, by thunder!"

"There! there! Jerry!" said Captain Eri soothingly. "Nobody wants you to. There ain't no danger now. She didn't see us."

"Ain't no danger! There you go again, Eri Hedge! She'll ask where I live and come right down in the depot wagon. Oh! Lordy! Lordy!"

The frantic sacrifice was about to bound away again, when Captain Eri caught him by the arm.

"I'll tell you what," he said, "we'll scoot for Eldredge's shanty and hide there till she gits tired and goes away. P'raps she won't come, anyhow."

The deserted fish shanty, property of the heirs of the late Nathaniel Eldredge, was situated in a hollow close to the house. In a few moments the three were inside, with a sawhorse against the door. Then Captain Eri pantingly sat down on an overturned bucket and laughed until the tears came into his eyes.

"That's it, laff!" almost sobbed Captain Jerry. "Set there and tee-hee like a Bedlamite. It's what you might expect. Wait till the rest of the town finds out about this; they'll do the laffin' then, and you won't feel so funny. We'll never hear the last of it in this world. If that darky comes down here, I'll--I'll drown her; I will--"

"I don't blame Jerry," said Perez indignantly. "I don't see much to laff at. Oh, my soul and body there she comes now."

They heard the rattle of a heavy carriage, and, crowding together at the cobwebbed window, saw the black shape of the "depot wagon" rock past. They waited, breathless, until they saw it go back again up the road.

"Did you lock the dining-room door, Perez?" asked Captain Eri.

"Course I didn't. Why should I?"

It was a rather senseless question. Nobody locks doors in Orham except at bedtime.

"Humph!" grunted Captain Eri. "She'll see the light in the dining room, and go inside and wait, more 'n likely. Well, there's nothin' for us to do but to stay here for a while, and then, if she ain't gone, one of us 'll have to go up and tell her she won't suit and pay her fare home, that's all. I think Jerry ought to be the one," he added mischievously. "He bein' the bridegroom, as you might say."

"Me!" almost shouted the frantic Captain Jerry. "You go to grass! You fellers got me into this scrape, and now let's see you git me out of it. I don't stir one step."

They sat there in darkness, the silence unbroken, save for an occasional chuckle from the provoking Eri. Perez, however, was meditating, and observed, after a while:

"Snow! That's a queer name for a darky, ain't it?"

"That colored man up at Barry's place was named White," said Captain Jerry, "and he was black as your hat. Names don't count."

"They say colored folks make good cooks, Jerry," slyly remarked Eri. "Maybe you'd better think it over."

The unlucky victim of chance did not deign an answer, and the minutes crept slowly by. After a long while they heard someone whistling. Perez went to the window to take an observation.

"It's a man," he said disappointedly. "He's been to our house, too. My land! I hope he didn't go in. It's that feller Hazeltine; that's who 'tis."

"Is it?" exclaimed Eri eagerly. "That's so! so 'tis. Let's give him a hail."

Before he could be stopped he had pulled the saw-horse from the door, had opened the latter a little way, and, with his face at the opening, was whistling shrilly.

The electrician looked up and down the dark road in a puzzled sort of way, but evidently could not make up his mind from what quarter the whistles came.

"Mr. Hazeltine!" hailed the Captain, in what might be called a whispered yell or a shouted whisper. "Mr. Hazeltine! Here, on your lee bow. In the shanty."

The word "shanty" was the only part of the speech that brought light to Ralph's mind, but that was sufficient; he came down the hill, left the road, and plunged through the blackberry vines to the door.

"Who is it?" he asked. "Why, hello, Captain! What on earth--"

Captain Eri signaled him to silence, and then, catching his arm, pulled him into the shanty and shut the door. Captain Jerry hastened to set the saw-horse in place again.

"Mr. Hazeltine," said Captain Eri, "let me make you acquainted with Cap'n Perez and Cap'n Jerry, shipmates of mine. You've heard me speak of 'em."

Ralph, in the darkness, shook two big hands and heard whispered voices express themselves as glad to know him.

"You see," continued Eri in a somewhat embarrassed fashion, "we're sort of layin' to, as yer might say, waitin' to git our bearin's. We ain't out of our heads; I tell you that, 'cause I know that's what it looks like."

The bewildered Hazeltine laughed and said he was glad to hear it. To tell the truth, he had begun to think that something or other had suddenly driven his nearest neighbors crazy.

"I--I--I don't know how to explain it to you," the Captain stumbled on. "Fact is, I guess I won't jest yit, if you don't mind. It does sound so pesky ridic'lous, although it ain't, when you understand it. What we want to know is, have you been to our house and is there anybody there?"

"Why, yes, I've been there. I rowed over and dropped in for a minute, as you suggested the other day. The housekeeper--I suppose it was the housekeeper--that opened the door, said you were out, and I--"

He was interrupted by a hopeless groan.

"I knew it!" wailed Captain Jerry. "I knew it! And you said there wa'n't no danger, Eri!"

"Hush up, Jerry, a minute, for the love of goodness! What was she doin', Mr. Hazeltine, this woman you thought was the housekeeper? Did she look as if she was gettin' ready to go out? Did she have her bunnit on?"

"No. She seemed to be very much at home. That's why I thought--"

But again Captain Jerry broke in, "Well, by mighty!" he ejaculated. "That's nice, now, ain't it! SHE goin' away! You bet she ain't! She's goin' to stay there and wait, if it's forever. She's got too good a thing. Jest as like 's not, M'lissy Busteed, or some other gab machine like her, 'll be the next one to call, and if they see that great black critter! Oh! my soul!"

"Black!" said Ralph amazedly. "Why, the woman at your house isn't black. She's as white as I am, and not bad-looking for a woman of her age."

"WHAT?" This was the trio in chorus. Then Captain Eri said:

"Mr. Hazeltine, now, honest and true, is that a fact?"

"Of course it's a fact."

The Captain wiped his forehead. "Mr. Hazeltine," he said, "if anybody had told me a fortn't ago that I was one of the three biggest fools in Orham, I'd have prob'ly rared up some. As 'tis now, I cal'late I'd thank him for lettin' me off so easy. You'll have to excuse us to-night, I'm afraid. We're in a ridic'lous scrape that we've got to git out of all alone. I'll tell you 'bout it some day. Jest now wish you'd keep this kind of quiet to oblige me."

Hazeltine saw that this was meant as a gentle hint for his immediate departure, and although he had a fair share of curiosity, felt there was nothing else to do. He promised secrecy, promised faithfully to call again later in the week, and then, the sawhorse having been removed by Captain Perez,--Captain Jerry was apparently suffering from a sort of dazed paralysis,--he went away. As soon as he had gone, Captain Eri began to lay down the law.

"Now then," he said, "there's been some sort of a mistake; that's plain enough. More 'n likely, the darky took the wrong satchel when she got up to come out of the car. That woman at the house is the real Marthy Snow all right, and we've got to go right up there and see her. Come on!"

But Captain Jerry mutinied outright. He declared that the sight of that darky had sickened him of marrying forever, and that he would not see the candidate from Nantucket, nor any other candidate. No persuasion could budge him. He simply would not stir from that shanty until the house had been cleared of female visitors.

"Go and see her yourself, if you're so set on it," he declared. "I shan't!"

"All right," said Captain Eri calmly. "I will. I'll tell her you're bashful, but jest dyin' to be married, and that she can have you if she only waits long enough."

With this he turned on his heel and walked out.

"Hold on, Eri!" shouted the frantic Jerry. "Don't you do it! Don't you tell her that! Land of love, Perez, do you s'pose he will?"

"I don't know," was the answer in a disgusted tone. "You hadn't ought to have been so pig-headed, Jerry."

Captain Eri, with set teeth and determination written on his face, walked straight to the dining-room door. Drawing a long breath, he opened it and stepped inside. A woman, who had been sitting in Captain Perez' rocker, rose as he entered.

The woman looked at the Captain and the Captain looked at her. She was of middle age, inclined to stoutness, with a pair of keen eyes behind brass-rimmed spectacles, and was dressed in a black "alpaca" gown that was faded a little in places and had been neatly mended in others. She spoke first.

"You're not Cap'n Burgess?" she said.

"No, ma'am," said the Captain uneasily. "My name is Hedge. I'm a sort of messmate of his. You're Miss Snow?"

"Mrs. Snow. I'm a widow."

They shook hands. Mrs. Snow calmly expectant; the Captain very nervous and not knowing how to begin.

"I feel as if I knew you, Cap'n Hedge," said the widow, as the Captain slid into his own rocker. "The boy on the depot wagon told me a lot about you and Cap'n Ryder and Cap'n Burgess."

"Did, hey?" The Captain inwardly vowed vengeance on his chum's grandnephew. "Hope he gave us a clean bill."

"Well, he didn't say nothin' against you, if that's what you mean. If he had, I don't think it would have made much diff'rence. I've lived long enough to want to find out things for myself, and not take folks' say-so."

The lady seeming to expect some sort of answer to this statement, Captain Eri expressed his opinion that the plan of finding out things for one's self was a good "idee." Then, after another fidgety silence, he observed that it was a fine evening. There being no dispute on this point, he endeavored to think of something else to say. Mrs. Snow, however, saved him the trouble.

"Cap'n Hedge," she said, "as I'm here on what you might call a bus'ness errand, and as I've been waitin' pretty nigh two hours already, p'raps we'd better talk about somethin' besides fine evenin's. I've got to be lookin' up a hotel or boardin' house or somewheres to stay to-night, and I can't wait much longer. I jedge you got my letter and was expectin' me. Now, if it ain't askin' too much, I'd like to know where Cap'n Burgess is, and why he wa'n't at the depot to meet me."

This was a leading question, and the Captain was more embarrassed than ever. However, he felt that something had to be done and that it was wisest to get it over with as soon as possible.

"Well, ma'am," he said, "we--we got your letter all right, and, to tell you the truth, we was at the depot--Perez and me and Jerry."

"You WAS! Well, then, for the land of goodness, why didn't you let me know it? Such a time as I had tryin' to find out where you lived and all!"

The Captain saw but one plausible explanation, and that was the plain truth. Slowly he told the story of the colored woman and the extension case. The widow laughed until her spectacles fell off.

"Well, there!" she exclaimed. "If that don't beat all! I don't blame Cap'n Burgess a mite. Poor thing! I guess I'd have run, too, if I'd have seen that darky. She was settin' right in the next seat to me, and she had a shut-over bag consid'rable like mine, and when she got up to git out, she took mine by mistake. I was a good deal put out about it, and I expect I talked to her like a Dutch uncle when I caught up with her. Dear! dear! Where is Cap'n Burgess?"

"He's shut up in a fish shanty down the road, and he's so upsot that I dunno's he'll stir from there tonight. Jerry ain't prejudiced, but that darky was too much for him."

And then they both laughed, the widow because of the ludicrous nature of the affair and the Captain because of the relief that the lady's acceptance of it afforded his mind.

Mrs. Snow was the first to become grave. "Cap'n Hedge," she said, "there's one or two things I must say right here. In the first place, I ain't in the habit of answerin' advertisements from folks that wants to git married; I ain't so hard up for a man as all that comes to. Next thing, I didn't come down here with my mind made up to marry Cap'n Burgess, not by no means. I wanted to see him and talk with him, and tell him jest all about how things was with me and find out about him and then--why, if everything was shipshape, I might, p'raps, think about--"

"Jest so, ma'am, jest so," broke in her companion. "That's about the way we felt. You see, there's prob'ly a long story on both sides, and if you'll excuse me I'll go down to the shanty and see if I can't git Jerry up here. It'll be a job, I'm 'fraid, but--"

"No, you shan't either. I'll tell you what we'll do. It's awful late now and I must be gittin' up to the tavern. S'pose, if 'tain't too much trouble, you walk up there with me and I'll stay there to-night and to-morrer I'll come down here, and we'll all have a common-sense talk. P'raps by that time your friend 'll have the darky woman some off his mind, too."

Needless to say Captain Eri agreed to this plan with alacrity. The widow carefully tied on a black, old-fashioned bonnet, picked up a fat, wooden-handled umbrella and the extension case, and said that she was ready.

They walked up the road together, the Captain carrying the extension case. They talked, but not of matrimonial prospects. Mrs. Snow knew almost as much about the sea and the goings and comings thereon as did her escort, and the conversation was salty in the extreme. It developed that the Nantucket lady had a distant relative who was in the life-saving service at Cuttyhunk station, and as the Captain knew every station man for twenty miles up and down the coast, wrecks and maritime disasters of all kinds were discussed in detail.

At the Traveler's Rest Mrs. Snow was introduced by the unblushing Eri as a cousin from Provincetown, and, after some controversy concerning the price of board and lodging, she was shown up to her room. Captain Eri walked home, absorbed in meditation. Whatever his thoughts were they were not disagreeable, for he smiled and shook his head more than once, as if with satisfaction. As he passed John Baxter's house he noticed that the light in the upper window was still burning.

Captain Perez was half asleep when Eri opened the door of the shanty. Captain Jerry, however, was very much awake and demanded to be told things right away. His friend briefly explained the situation.

"I don't care if she stays here till doomsday," emphatically declared the disgruntled one, "I shan't marry her. What's she like, anyhow?"

He was surprised at the enthusiasm of Captain Eri's answer.

"She's a mighty good woman; that's what I think she is, and she'd make a fust-class wife for any man. I hope you'll say so, too, when you see her. There ain't nothin' hity-tity about her, but she's got more common-sense than any woman I ever saw. But there! I shan't talk another bit about her to-night. Come on home and turn in."

And go home and turn in they did, but not without protestation from the pair who had yet to meet the woman from Nantucket.

CHAPTER VI

THE SCHOOLHOUSE BELL RINGS

"All hands on deck! Turn out there! Turnout!"

Captain Eri grunted and rolled over in his bed; for a moment or two he fancied himself back in the fo'castle of the Sea Mist, the bark in which he had made his first voyage. Then, as he grew wider awake, he heard, somewhere in the distance, a bell ringing furiously.

"Turn out, all hands! Turn out!"

Captain Eri sat up. That voice was no part of a dream. It belonged to Captain Jerry, and the tone of it meant business. The bell continued to ring.

"Aye, aye, Jerry! What's the matter?" he shouted.

"Fire! There's a big fire up in the village. Look out of the window, and you can see. They're ringing the schoolhouse bell; don't you hear it?"

The Captain, wide awake enough by this time, jumped out of bed, carrying the blankets with him, and ran to the window. Opening it, he thrust out his head. The wind had changed to the eastward, and a thick fog had come in with it. The house was surrounded by a wet, black wall, but off to the west a red glow shone through it, now brighter and now fainter. The schoolhouse bell was turning somersaults in its excitement.

Only once, since Captain Jerry had been janitor, had the schoolhouse bell been rung except in the performance of its regular duties. That once was on a night before the Fourth of July, when some mischievous youngsters climbed in at a window and proclaimed to sleeping Orham that Young America was celebrating the anniversary of its birth. Since then, on nights before the Fourth, Captain Jerry had slept in the schoolhouse, armed with a horsewhip and an ancient navy revolver. The revolver was strictly for show, and the horsewhip for use, but neither was called into service, for even if some dare-devil spirits did venture near the building, the Captain's snores, as he slumbered by the front door, were danger signals that could not be disregarded.

But there was no flavor of the Fourth in the bell's note this night. Whoever the ringer might be, he was ringing as though it was his only hope for life, and the bell swung back and forth without a pause. The red glow in the fog brightened again as the Captain gazed at it.

Captain Jerry came tumbling up the stairs, breathless and half dressed.

"Where do you make it out to be?" he panted.

"Somewhere's nigh the post-office. Looks 's if it might be Weeks's store. Where's Perez?"

Captain Eri had lighted a lamp and was pulling on his boots, as he spoke.

"Here I be!" shouted the missing member of the trio from the dining room below. "I'm all ready. Hurry up, Eri!"

Captain Eri jumped into his trousers, slipped into a faded pea-jacket and clattered downstairs, followed by the wildly excited Jerry.

"Good land, Perez!" he cried, as he came into the dining room, "I thought you said you was all ready!"

Captain Perez paused in the vain attempt to make Captain Jerry's hat cover his own cranium and replied indignantly, "Well, I am, ain't I?"

"Seems to me I'd put somethin' on my feet besides them socks, if I was you. You might catch cold."

Perez glanced down at his blue-yarn extremities in blank astonishment. "Well, now," he exclaimed, "if I hain't forgot my boots!"

"Well, git 'em on, and be quick. There's your hat. Give Jerry his."

The excited Perez vanished through the door of his chamber, and Captain Eri glanced at the chronometer; the time was a quarter after two.

They hurried out of the door and through the yard. The wind, as has been said, was from the east, but there was little of it and, except for the clanging of the bell, the night was very still. The fog was heavy and wet, and the trees and bushes dripped as if from a shower. There was the salt smell of the marshes in the air, and the hissing and splashing of the surf on the outer beach were plainly to be heard. Also there was the clicking sound of oars in row-locks.

"Somebody is comin' over from the station," gasped Captain Jerry. "Don't run so, Eri. It's too dark. I've pretty nigh broke my neck already."

They passed the lily pond, where the frogs had long since adjourned their concert and gone to bed, dodged through the yard of the tightly shuttered summer hotel, and came out at the corner of the road, having saved some distance by the "short-cut."

"That ain't Weeks's store," declared Captain Perez, who was in the lead. "It's Web Saunders's place; that's what it is."

Captain Eri paused and looked over to the left in the direction of the Baxter homestead. The light in the window was still burning.

They turned into the "main road" at a dog trot and became part of a crowd of oddly dressed people, all running in the same direction.

"Web's place, ain't it?" asked Eri of Seth Wingate, who was lumbering along with a wooden bucket in one hand and the pitcher of his wife's best washstand set in the other.

"Yes," breathlessly answered Mr. Wingate, "and it's a goner, they tell me. Every man's got to do his part if they're going to save it. I allers said we ought to have a fire department in this town."

Considering that Seth had, for the past eight years, persistently opposed in town-meeting any attempt to purchase a hand engine, this was a rather surprising speech, but no one paid any attention to it then.

The fire was in the billiard saloon sure enough, and the back portion of the building was in a blaze when they reached it. Ladders were placed against the eaves, and a line of men with buckets were pouring water on the roof. The line extended to the town pump, where two energetic youths in their shirtsleeves were working the handle with might and main. The houses near at hand were brilliantly illuminated, and men and women were bringing water from them in buckets, tin pails, washboilers, and even coalscuttles.

Inside the saloon another hustling crowd was busily working to "save" Mr. Saunders' property. A dozen of the members had turned the biggest pool table over on its back and were unscrewing the legs, heedless of the fact that to attempt to get the table through the front door was an impossibility and that, as the back door was in the thickest of the fire, it, too, was out of the question. A man appeared at the open front window of the second story with his arms filled with bottles of various liquids, "original packages" and others. These, with feverish energy, he threw one by one into the street, endangering the lives of everyone in range and, of course, breaking every bottle thrown. Some one of the cooler heads calling his attention to these facts, he retired and carefully packed all the empty bottles, the only ones remaining, into a peach basket and tugged the latter downstairs and to a safe place on a neighboring piazza. Then he rested from his labors as one who had done all that might reasonably be expected.

Mr. Saunders himself, lightly attired in a nightshirt tucked into a pair of trousers, was rushing here and there, now loudly demanding more water, and then stopping to swear at the bottle-thrower or some other enthusiast. "Web's" smoothness was all gone, and the language he used was, as Abigail Mullett said afterward, "enough to bring down a jedgment on anybody."

Captain Eri caught him by the sleeve as he was running past and inquired, "How'd it start, Web?"

"How'd it START? I know mighty well HOW it started, and 'fore I git through I'll know WHO started it. Somebody 'll pay for this, now you hear me! Hurry up with the water, you--"

He tore frantically away to the pump and the three captains joined the crowd of volunteer firemen. Captain Eri, running round to the back of the building, took in the situation at once. Back of the main portion of the saloon was an ell, and it was in this ell that the fire had started. The ell, itself, was in a bright blaze, but the larger building in front was only just beginning to burn. The Captain climbed one of the ladders to the roof and called to the men at work there.

"That shed's gone, Ben," he said. "Chuck your water on the main part here. Maybe, if we had some ropes we might be able to pull the shed clear, and then we could save the rest."

"How'd you fasten the ropes?" was the panted reply. "She's all ablaze, and a rope would burn through in a minute if you tied it anywheres."

"Git some grapples and anchors out of Rogers' shop. He's got a whole lot of 'em. Keep on with the water bus'ness. I'll git the other stuff."

He descended the ladder and explained his idea to the crowd below. There was a great shout and twenty men and boys started on a run after ropes, while as many more stormed at the door of Nathaniel Rogers' blacksmith shop. Rogers was the local dealer in anchors and other marine ironwork. The door of the shop was locked and there was a yell for axes to burst it open.

Then arose an agonized shriek of "Don't chop! don't chop!" and Mr. Rogers himself came struggling to the defense of his property. In concert the instant need was explained to him, but he remained unconvinced.

"We can't stay here arguin' all night!" roared one of the leaders. "He's got to let us in. Go ahead and chop! I'll hold him."

"I give you fair warnin', Squealer Wixon! If you chop that door, I'll have the law onto you. I just had that door painted, and--STOP! I've got the key in my pocket!"

It was plain that the majority were still in favor of chopping, as affording a better outlet for surplus energy, but they waited while Mr. Rogers, still protesting, produced the key and unlocked the door. In another minute the greater portion of the ironwork in the establishment was on its way to the fire.

The rope-seekers were just returning, laden with everything from clothes-lines to cables. Half a dozen boat anchors and a grapnel were fastened to as many ropes, and the crowd pranced gayly about the burning ell, looking for a chance to make them fast. Captain Eri found a party with axes endeavoring to cut a hole through the side of the saloon in order to get out the pool table. After some endeavor he persuaded them to desist and they came around to the rear and, taking turns, ran in close to the shed and chopped at it until the fire drove them away. At last they made a hole close to where it joined the main building, large enough to attach the grapnel. Then, with a "Yo heave ho!" everyone took hold of the rope and pulled. Of course the grapnel pulled out with only a board or two, but they tried again, and, this time getting it around a beam, pulled a large portion of the shed to the ground.

Meanwhile, another ax party had attached an anchor to the opposite side, and were making good progress. In due time the shed yawned away from the saloon, tottered, and collapsed in a shower of sparks. A deluge of water soon extinguished these. Then everyone turned to the main building, and, as the fire had not yet taken a firm hold of this, they soon had it under control.

Captain Eri worked with the rest until he saw that the worst was over. Then he began the search that had been in his mind since he first saw the blaze. He found Captain Jerry and Captain Perez perspiringly passing buckets of water from hand to hand in the line, and, calling them to one side, asked anxiously:

"Have either of you fellers seen John Baxter tonight?"

Captain Perez looked surprised, and then some of the trouble discernible in Eri's face was apparent in his own.

"Why, no," he replied slowly, "I ain't seen him, now you speak of it. Everybody in town's here, too. Queer, ain't it?

"Haven't you seen him, either, Jerry?"

Captain Jerry answered with a shake of the head. "But then," he said, "Perez and me have been right here by the pump ever sence we come. He might be 'most anywheres else, and we wouldn't see him. Want me to ask some of the other fellers?"

"No!" exclaimed his friend, almost fiercely. "Don't you mention his name to a soul, nor let 'em know you've thought of him. If anybody should ask, tell 'em you guess he's right around somewheres. You two git to work ag'in. I'll let you know if I want you."

The pair took up their buckets, and the Captain walked on from group to group, looking carefully at each person. The Reverend Perley and some of his flock were standing by themselves on a neighboring stoop, and to them the searcher turned eagerly.

"Why, Cap'n Eri!" exclaimed Miss Busteed, the first to identify him, "how you've worked! You must be tired pretty nigh to death. Ain't it awful! But it's the Lord's doin's; I'm jest as sure of that as I can be, and I says so to Mr. Perley. Didn't I, Mr. Perley? I says--"

"Lookin' for anybody, Cap'n?" interrupted the reverend gentleman.

"No," lied the Captain calmly, "jest walkin' around to git cooled off a little. Good-night."

There was the most likely place, and John Baxter was not there. Certainly every citizen in Orham, who was able to crawl, would be out this night, and if the old puritan hermit of the big house was not present to exult over the downfall of the wicked, it would be because he was ill or because--The Captain didn't like to think of the other reason.

Mrs. "Web" Saunders, quietly weeping, was seated on a knoll near the pump. Three of the Saunders' hopefuls, also weeping, but not quietly, were seated beside her. Another, the youngest of the family, was being rocked soothingly in the arms of a stout female, who was singing to it as placidly as though fires were an every day, or night, occurrence. The Captain peered down, and the stout woman looked up.

"Why, Mrs. Snow!" exclaimed Captain Eri.

The lady from Nantucket made no immediate reply. She rose, however, shook down the black "alpaca" skirt, which had been folded up to keep it out of the dew, and, still humming softly to the child, walked off a little way, motioning with her head for the Captain to follow. When she had reached a spot sufficiently remote from Mrs. Saunders, she whispered:

"How d'ye do, Cap'n Hedge? I guess the wust is over now, isn't it? I saw you workin' with them ropes; you must be awful tired."

"How long have you been here?" asked the Captain somewhat astonished at her calmness.

"Oh, I come right down as soon as I heard the bell. I'm kind of used to fires. My husband's schooner got afire twice while I was with him. He used to run a coal vessel, you know. I got right up and packed my bag, 'cause I didn't know how the fire might spread. You never can tell in a town like this. Ssh'h, dearie," to the baby, "there, there, it's all right. Lay still."

"How'd you git acquainted with her?" nodding toward the wife of the proprietor of the scorched saloon.

"Oh, I see the poor thing settin' there with all them children and nobody paying much attention to her, so I went over and asked if I couldn't help out. I haven't got any children of my own, but I was number three in a fam'ly of fourteen, so I know how it's done. Oh! that husband of hers! He's a nice one, he is! Would you b'lieve it, he come along and she spoke to him, and he swore at her somethin' dreadful. That's why she's cryin'. Poor critter, I guess by the looks she's used to it. Well, I give HIM a piece of my mind. He went away with a flea in his ear. I do despise a profane man above all things. Yes, the baby's all right, Mrs. Saunders. I'm a-comin'. Good-night, Cap'n Hedge. I s'pose I shall see you all in the mornin'. You ought to be careful and not stand still much this damp night. It's bad when you're het up so."

She went back, still singing to the baby, to where Mrs. Saunders sat, and the Captain looked after her in a kind of amazed fashion.

"By mighty!" he muttered, and then repeated it. Then he resumed his search.

He remembered that there had been a number of people on the side of the burning shed opposite that on which he had been employed, and he determined to have one look there before going to the Baxter homestead. Almost the first man he saw as he approached the dying fire was Ralph Hazeltine. The electrician's hands and face were blackened by soot, and the perspiration sparkled on his forehead.

"Hello, Captain!" he said, holding out his hand. "Lively for a while, wasn't it? They tell me you were the man who suggested pulling down the shed. It saved the day, all right enough."

"You look as if you'd been workin' some yourself. Was you one of the fellers that got that anchor in on this side?"

"He was THE one," broke in Mr. Wingate, who was standing at Hazeltine's elbow. "He waded in with an ax and stayed there till I thought he'd burn the hair off his head. Web ought to pay you and him salvage, Eri. The whole craft would have gone up if it hadn't been for you two."

"I wonder if they got that pool table out," laughed Ralph. "They did everything but saw it into chunks."

"I never saw Bluey Bacheldor work so afore," commented the Captain. "I wish somebody'd took a photograph of him. I'll bet you could sell 'em round town for curiosities. Well, I can't be standin' here."

"If you're going home I'll go along with you. I may as well be getting down toward the station. The excitement is about over."

"I ain't goin' right home, Mr. Hazeltine. I've got an errand to do. Prob'ly I'll be goin' pretty soon, though."

"Oh, all right! I'll wait here a while longer then. See you later perhaps."

The fog had lifted somewhat and as the Captain, running silently, turned into the "shore road," he saw that the light in the Baxter homestead had not been extinguished. The schoolhouse bell had ceased to ring, and the shouts of the crowd at the fire sounded faintly. There were no other sounds.

Up the driveway Captain Eri hurried. There were no lights in the lower part of the house and the dining-room door was locked. The kitchen door, however, was not fastened and the Captain opened it and entered. Shutting it carefully behind him, he groped along to the entrance of the next room.

"John!" he called softly. There was no answer, and the house was perfectly still save for the ticking of the big clock. Captain Eri scratched a match and by its light climbed the stairs. His friend's room was empty. The lamp was burning on the bureau and a Bible was open beside it. The bed had not been slept in.

Thoroughly alarmed now, the Captain, lamp in hand, went through one room after the other. John Baxter was not at home, and he was not with the crowd at the fire. Where was he? There was, of course, a chance that his friend had passed him on the way or that he had been at the fire, after all, but this did not seem possible. However, there was nothing to do but go back, and this time the Captain took the path across the fields.

The Baxter house was on the "shore road," and the billiard room and post-office were on the "main road." People in a hurry sometimes avoided the corner by climbing the fence opposite the Baxter gate, going through the Dawes' pasture and over the little hill back of the livery stable, and coming out in the rear of the post-office and close to the saloon.

Captain Eri, worried, afraid to think of the fire and its cause, and only anxious to ascertain where his friend was and what he had been doing that night, trotted through the pasture and over the hill. Just as he came to the bayberry bushes on the other side he stumbled and fell flat.

He knew what it was that he had stumbled over the moment that he fell across it, and his fingers trembled, so that he could scarcely scratch the match that he took from his pocket. But it was lighted at last and, as its tiny blaze grew brighter, the Captain saw John Baxter lying face downward in the path, his head pointed toward his home and his feet toward the billiard saloon.

CHAPTER VII

CAPTAIN ERI FINDS A NURSE

For a second, only, Captain Eri stood there motionless, stooping over the body of his friend. Then he sprang into vigorous action. He dropped upon his knees and, seizing the shoulder of the prostrate figure, shook it gently, whispering, "John! John!" There was no answer and no responsive movement, and the Captain bent his head and listened. Breath was there and life; but, oh, so little of either! The next thought was, of course, to run for help and for a doctor, but he took but a few steps when a new idea struck him and he came back.

Lighting another match he examined the fallen man hurriedly. The old "Come-Outer" lay in the path with his arms outstretched, as if he had fallen while running. He was bare-headed, and there was no sign of a wound upon him. One coat-sleeve was badly scorched, and from a pocket in the coat protruded the neck of a bottle. The bottle was empty, but its odor was strong; it had contained kerosene. The evidence was clear, and the Captain knew that what he had feared was the truth.

For a moment he stood erect and pondered as to what was best to do. Whatever it was, it must be done quickly, but if the doctor and those that might come with him should find the burned coat and the tell-tale bottle, it were better for John Baxter that consciousness and life never were his again. There might, and probably would, be suspicion; but here was proof absolute that meant prison and disgrace for a man whom all the community had honored and respected.

Captain Eri weighed the chances, speculated on the result, and then did what seemed to him right. He threw the bottle as far away from the path as he could and then stripped off the coat, and, folding it into a small bundle, hid it in the bushes near by. Then he lifted the limp body, and turned it so that the gray head was toward the billiard saloon instead of from it.

Perez and Jerry were still busy with the water buckets when their friend came panting up the knoll to the pump.

"Hello, Eri!" said the former, wiping his forehead with his arm. "It's 'bout out, ain't it? Why, what's the matter?"

"Nothin'; nothin' to speak of. Put down them buckets, and you and Jerry come with me. I've got somethin' that I want you to do."

Nodding and exchanging congratulations with acquaintances in the crowd on the success of the fire-fighting, Captain Eri led his messmates to a dark corner under a clump of trees. Then he took each of them by the arm and whispered sharply:

"Dr. Palmer's somewheres in this crowd. I want each of you fellers to go diff'rent ways and look for him. Whichever one finds him fust can bring him up to the corner by the post-office. Whistle when you git there and the rest of us 'll come. Don't stop to ask questions. I ain't hurt, but John Baxter's had a stroke or somethin'. I can't tell you no more now. Hurry! And say, don't you mention to a soul what the matter is."

A sea-faring life has its advantages. It teaches prompt obedience, for one thing. The two mariners did not hesitate an instant, but bolted in opposite directions. Captain Eri watched them go, and then set off in another. He was stopped every few moments and all sorts of questions and comments concerning the fire and its cause were fired at him, but he put off some inquiries with a curt "Don't know" and others with nods or negatives, and threaded his way from one clump of townspeople to another. As he came close to the blackened and smoking billiard saloon, Ralph Hazeltine caught him by the arm.

"Hello!" said the electrician. "Haven't you gone home yet?"

"No, not yit. Say, I'll ask you, 'cause I cal'late you can keep your mouth shut if it's necessary: Have you seen the Doctor anywheres 'round lately? He was here, 'cause I saw him when I fust come."

"Who, Dr. Palmer? No; I haven't seen him. Is anyone hurt? Can I help?"

"I guess not. John Baxter's sick, but--oh, Lord! Here comes Wingate. He'll talk for a week."

Seth, panting and excited, was pushing his way toward them, shouting the Captain's name at the top of his voice.

"Hey, Eri!" he hailed. "I want to know if you'll sign a petition to git the town a fire ingyne? I've been talkin' to a couple of the s'lectmen and they--"

"Oh, Mr. Wingate," interrupted Ralph, "Mr. Mullett's been looking for you. He's over there by the pump, I think."

"Who, Lem Mullett? Is that so! He's jest the feller I want to see. See you later, Eri."

The Captain grinned appreciatively as the convert to the hand-engine proposal disappeared.

"That wasn't so bad," he said. "I'm much obliged. Hey! There's the whistle. Come on, Mr. Hazeltine, if you ain't in a special hurry. Maybe we WILL need you."

They reached the corner by the post-office to find Dr. Palmer, who had practiced medicine in Orham since he received his diploma, waiting for them. Captain Perez, who had discovered the physician on the Nickerson piazza, was standing close by with his fingers in his mouth, whistling with the regularity of a foghorn.

"Cut it short, Perez!" commanded Eri. "We're here now."

"Yes, but Jerry ain't." And the whistling began again.

"Dry up, for the land's sake! D'you want to fetch the whole tribe here? There's Jerry, now. Come on, Doctor."

John Baxter was lying just as the Captain had left him, and the others watched anxiously as the doctor listened at the parted lips, and thrust his hand inside the faded blue waistcoat.

"He's alive," he said after a moment, "but unconscious. We must get him home at once."

"He heard the bell and was runnin' to the fire when he was took," said Captain Jerry. "Run out in his shirt sleeves, and was took when he got as fur as here."

"That's the way I figger it," said Eri unblushingly. "Lift him carefully, you fellers. Now then!"

"I warned him against over-exertion or excitement months ago," said the Doctor, as they bore the senseless burden toward the big house, now as black as the grave that was so near its owner. "We must find someone to take care of him at once. I don't believe the old man has a relation within a hundred miles."

"Why don't we take him to our house?" suggested Captain Jerry. "'Twouldn't seem so plaguey lonesome, anyhow."

"By mighty!" ejaculated Captain Eri in astonishment. "Well, Jerry, I'll be switched if you ain't right down brilliant once in a while. Of course we will. He can have the spare room. Why didn't I think of that, I wonder?"

And so John Baxter, who had not paid a visit in his native village since his wife died, came at last to his friend's home to pay what seemed likely to be a final one. They carried him up the stairs to the spare room, as dismal and cheerless as spare rooms in the country generally are, undressed him as tenderly as their rough hands would allow, robed him in one of Captain Jerry's nightshirts--the buttons that fastened it had been sewed on by the Captain himself, and were all sizes and colors--and laid him in the big corded bedstead. The Doctor hastened away to procure his medicine case. Ralph Hazeltine, having been profusely thanked for his services and promising to call the next day, went back to the station, and the three captains sat down by the bedside to watch and wait.

Captain Eri was too much perturbed to talk, but the other two, although sympathetically sorry for the sufferer, were bursting with excitement and curiosity.

"Well, if THIS ain't been a night!" exclaimed Captain Jerry. "Seem's if everything happened at once. Fust that darky and then the fire and then this. Don't it beat all?

"Eri," said Captain Perez anxiously, "was John layin' jest the same way when you found him as he was when we come?"

"Right in the same place," was the answer.

"I didn't say in the same place. I asked if he was layin' the same way."

"He hadn't moved a muscle. Laid jest as if he was dead."

It will be noticed that Captain Eri was adhering strictly to the truth. Luckily, Perez seemed to be satisfied, for he asked no further questions, but observed, "It's a good thing we've got a crowd to swear how we found him. There's a heap of folks in this town would be sayin' he set that fire if 'twa'n't for that."

"Some of 'em will be sayin' it anyhow," remarked Jerry.

"Some folks 'll say anything but their prayers," snapped Eri savagely. "They won't say it while I'm around. And look here! if you hear anybody sayin' it, you tell 'em it's a lie. If that don't keep 'em quiet, let me know."

"Oh, all right. WE know he didn't set it. I was jest sayin'--"

"Well, don't say it."

"My, you're techy! Guess fires and colored folks don't agree with you. What are we goin' to do now? If John don't die, and the Lord knows I hope he won't, he's likely to be sick here a long spell. Who are we goin' to git to take care of him? That's what I want to know. Somebody's got to do it and we ain't fit. If Jerry 'd only give in and git married now--"

But Captain Jerry's protest against matrimony was as obstinate as ever. Even Perez gave up urging after a while and conversation lagged again. In a few minutes the Doctor came back, and his examination of the patient and demands for glasses of water, teaspoons, and the like, kept Perez and Jerry busy. It was some time before they noticed that Captain Eri had disappeared. Even then they did not pay much attention to the circumstance, but watched the physician at work and questioned him concerning the nature of their guest's illness.

"D'you think he'll die, Doctor?" inquired Jerry in a hushed voice, as they came out of the sick room into the connecting chamber.

"Can't say. He has had a stroke of paralysis, and there seem to be other complications. If he regains consciousness I shall think he has a chance, but not a very good one. His pulse is a little stronger. I don't think he'll die to-night, but if he lives he will need a good nurse, and I don't know of one in town."

"Nor me neither," said Captain Perez.

"Well, A'nt Zuby might come," suggested Jerry, "but I should hate to have her nuss me, and as for bein' WELL in a house where she was--whew!"

"A'nt Zuby!" sneered his messmate. "If Lorenzo had a fit and they called A'nt Zuby he'd have another one and die. A'nt Zuby! I'd 'bout as soon have M'lissy and be done with it."

"Yes, I don't doubt YOU WOULD," was the anything but gentle retort.

What Perez would have said to this thrust must be surmised, for just then the dining-room door opened and closed again.

"There's Eri," said Captain Jerry. Then he added in an alarmed whisper, "Who on airth has he got with him?"

They heard their friend's voice warning someone to be careful of the top step, and then the chamber door opened and Captain Eri appeared. There were beads of perspiration on his forehead, and he was carrying a shabby canvas extension-case. Captain Jerry gazed at the extension-case with bulging eyes.

Captain Eri put down the extension-case and opened the door wide. A woman came in; a stout woman dressed in black "alpaca" and wearing brass-rimmed spectacles. Captain Jerry gasped audibly.

"Dr. Palmer," said Captain Eri, "let me make you acquainted with Mrs. Snow of Nantucket. Mrs. Snow, this is Dr. Palmer."

The Doctor and the lady from Nantucket shook hands, the former with a puzzled expression on his face.

"Perez," continued the Captain, "let me make you known to Mrs. Snow--Mrs. Marthy B. Snow,"--this with especial emphasis,--"of Nantucket. Mrs. Snow, this is Cap'n Perez Ryder."

They shook hands; Captain Perez managed to say that he was glad to meet Mrs. Snow. Captain Jerry said nothing, but he looked like a criminal awaiting the fall of the drop.

"Doctor," continued the Captain, paying no attention to the signals of distress displayed by his friend, "I heard you say a spell ago that John here needed somebody to take care of him. Well, Mrs. Snow--she's a--a--sort of relation of Jerry's"--just a suspicion of a smile accompanied this assertion--"and she's done consid'rable nussin' in her time. I've been talkin' the thing over with her and she's willin' to look out for John till he gits better."

The physician adjusted his eyeglasses and looked the volunteer nurse over keenly. The lady paid no attention to the scrutiny, but calmly removed her bonnet and placed it on the bureau. The room was Captain Eri's, and the general disarrangement of everything movable was only a little less marked than in those of his companions. Mrs. Snow glanced over the heap of odds and ends on the bureau and picked up a comb. There were some teeth in it, but they were distant neighbors.

"I don't use that comb very much," said Captain Eri rather apologetically. "I gin'rally use the one downstairs."

The new-found relative of Captain Jerry said nothing, but, laying down the ruin, marched over to the extension-case, opened it, and took out another comb--a whole one. With this she arranged the hair on her forehead. It, the hair, was parted in the middle and drawn back smoothly at the sides, and Captain Eri noticed that it was brown with a little gray in it. When the last stray wisp was in place, she turned calmly to the Doctor and said:

"Cap'n Baxter's in here, I s'pose. Shall I walk right in?"

The man of medicine seemed a little surprised at the lady's command of the situation, but he said:

"Why, yes, ma'am; I guess you may. You have nursed before, I think the Captain said."

"Five years with my husband. He had slow consumption. Before that with my mother, and most of my brothers and sisters at one time or another. I've seen consid'rable sickness all my life. More of that than anything else, I guess. Now, if you'll come in with me, so's to tell me about the medicine and so on."

With a short "Humph!" the physician followed her into the sick room, while the three mariners gazed wide-eyed in at the door. They watched, as Doctor Palmer explained medicines and gave directions. It did not need an expert to see that the new nurse understood her business.

When the Doctor came out his face shone with gratification.

"She'll do," he said emphatically. "If all your relatives are like that, Cap'n Burgess, I'd like to know 'em; 'twould help me in my business." Then he added in response to a question, "He seems to be a little better just now. I think there will be no change for a while; if there should be, send for me. I'll call in the morning. Gracious! it's almost daylight now."

They saw him to the door and then came back upstairs. Mrs. Snow was busy, arranging the pillows, setting the room in something like order, and caring for her patient's garments, that had been tossed helter-skelter on the floor in the hurry of undressing. She came to the door as they entered Captain Eri's chamber.

"Mrs. Snow," said the Captain, "you'd better sleep in my room here long's you stay. I'll bunk in with Perez downstairs. I'll git my dunnage out of here right off. I think likely you'll want to clean up some."

The lady from Nantucket glanced at the bureau top and seemed about to say something, but checked herself. What she did say was:

"P'raps you'd better introduce me to Cap'n Burgess. I don't think we've ever met, if we ARE relations."

Captain Eri actually blushed a little. "Why, of course," he said. "Excuse me, ma'am. Jerry, this is Mrs. Snow. I don't know what's got into me, bein' so careless."

The sacrifice shook the nurse's hand and said something, nobody knew exactly what. Mrs. Snow went on to say, "Now, I want you men to go right on to bed, for I know you're all tuckered out. We can talk to-morrow--I mean to-day, of course: I forgot 'twas next-door to daylight now. I shall set up with Cap'n Baxter, and if I need you I'll call you. I'll call you anyway when I think it's time. Good-night."

They protested, of course, but the lady would not listen. She calmly seated herself in the rocker by the bed and waved to them to go, which two of them reluctantly did after a while. The other one had gone already. It would be superfluous to mention his name.

Downstairs again and in Perez' room Captain Eri came in for a questioning that bade fair to keep up forever. He shut off all inquiries, however, with the announcement that he wouldn't tell them a word about it till he'd had some sleep. Then he would explain the whole thing, and they could decide whether he had done right or not. There were all sorts of things to be considered, he said, and they had better take a nap now while they could.

"Well, I'd jest like to ask you this, Eri Hedge," demanded Captain Jerry. "What in time did you tell the Doctor that she was a relation of mine for? That was a nice thing to do, wa'n't it? I'll have to answer more fool questions 'bout that than a little. What sort of a relation shall I tell folks she is? Jest tell me that, will you?"

"Oh, tell 'em she's a relation by marriage," was the answer, muffled by the bed clothes. "Maybe that 'll be true by the time they ask you."

"I'll BET it won't!" snorted the rebel.

Captain Perez fell asleep almost immediately. Captain Jerry, tired out, did the same, but Captain Eri's eyes did not close. The surf pounded and grumbled. A rooster, early astir, crowed somewhere in the distance. Daniel thumped the side of his stall and then subsided for another nap. The gray morning light brightened the window of the little house.

Then Captain Eri slid silently out of bed, dressed with elaborate precautions against noise, put on his cap, and tiptoed out of the house. He walked through the dripping grass, climbed the back fence and hurried to the hill where John Baxter had fallen. Once there, he looked carefully around to be sure that no one was watching. Orham, as a rule, is an early riser, but this morning most of the inhabitants, having been up for the greater part of the night, were making up lost sleep and the Captain was absolutely alone.

Assured of this, he turned to the bush underneath which he had hidden the burned coat, pushed aside the drenched boughs with their fading leaves and reached down for the tell-tale garment.

And then he made an unpleasant discovery. The coat was gone.

He spent an agitated quarter of an hour hunting through every clump of bushes in the immediate vicinity, but there was no doubt of it. Someone had been there before him and had taken the coat away.

CHAPTER VIII

HOUSEKEEPER AND BOOK AGENT

There was a knock on the door of Captain Perez's sleeping apartment.

"Cap'n Hedge," said Mrs. Snow, "Cap'n Hedge! I'm sorry to wake you up, but it's 'most ten o'clock and--"

"What? Ten o'clock! Godfrey scissors! Of all the lazy--I'll be out in a jiffy. Perez, turn out there! Turn out, I tell you!"

Captain Eri had fallen asleep in the rocker where he had seated himself upon his return from the fruitless search for the coat. He had had no intention of sleeping, but he was tired after his strenuous work at the fire, and had dropped off in the midst of his worry. He sprang to his feet, and tried to separate dreams from realities.

"Land of love, Perez!" he ejaculated. "Here you and me have been sleepin' ha'f the forenoon. We'd ought to be ashamed of ourselves. Let's git dressed quicker 'n chain lightnin'."

"Dressed?" queried Perez, sitting up in bed. "I should think you was dressed now, boots and all. What are you talkin' 'bout?"

The Captain glanced down at his clothes and seemed as much surprised as his friend. He managed to pull himself together, however, and stammered:

"Dressed? Oh, I'm dressed, of course. It's you I'm tryin' to git some life into."

"Well, why didn't you call a feller, 'stead of gittin' up and dressin' all by yourself. I never see such a critter. Where's my socks?"

To avoid further perplexing questions Captain Eri went into the dining room. The table was set, really set, with a clean cloth and dishes that shone. The knives and forks were arranged by the plates, not piled in a heap for each man to help himself. The Captain gasped.

"Well, I swan to man!" he said. "Has Jerry had a fit or what's struck him? I ain't seen him do anything like this for I don't know when."

"Oh, Cap'n Burgess didn't fix the table, if that's what you mean," said the new nurse. "Cap'n Baxter seemed to be sleepin' or in a stupor like, and the Doctor, when he come, said I might leave him long enough to run downstairs for a few minutes, so--"

"The Doctor? Has the Doctor been here this mornin'?"

"Yes, he come 'bout an hour ago. Now, if you wouldn't mind goin' up and stayin' with Cap'n Baxter for a few minutes while I finish gettin' breakfast. I've been up and down so many times in the last ha'f hour, I don't know's I'm sartin whether I'm on my head or my heels."

The Captain went upstairs in a dazed state. As he passed through what had been his room he vaguely noticed that the bureau top was clean, and that most of the rubbish that had ornamented it had disappeared.

The sick man lay just as he had left him, his white face as colorless as the clean pillow case against which it rested. Captain Eri remembered that the pillow cases in the spare room had looked a little yellow the night before, possibly owing to the fact that, as the room had not been occupied for months, they had not been changed. He reasoned that the improvement was another one of the reforms instituted by the lady from Nantucket.

He sat down in the rocker by the bed and thought, with a shiver, of the missing coat. There were nine chances out of ten that whoever found it would recognize it as belonging to the old "Come-Outer." The contents of the pocket would be almost certain to reveal the secret if the coat itself did not. It remained to be seen who the finder was and what he would do. Meanwhile there was no use worrying. Having come to this conclusion the Captain, with customary philosophy, resolved to think of something else.

Mrs. Snow entered and announced that breakfast was ready and that he must go down at once and eat it while it was hot. She, having breakfasted some time before, would stay with the patient until the meal was over. Captain Eri at first flatly declined to listen to any such arrangement, but the calm insistence of the Nantucket visitor prevailed as usual. The Captain realized that the capacity for "bossin' things," that he had discerned in the letter, was even more apparent in the lady herself. One thing he did insist upon, however, and this was that Mrs. Snow should "turn in" as soon as breakfast was over. One of the three would take the watch in the sick room while the other two washed the dishes. The nurse was inclined to balk on the dishwashing proposition, saying that she could do it herself after she had had a wink or two, but this the Captain wouldn't hear of. He went away, however, with an unsettled conviction that, although he and his partners might wash the dishes, Mrs. Snow would wash them again as soon as she had an opportunity. "She didn't say so, but she sort of looked it," he explained afterward.

He found his friends seated at the table and feasting on hot biscuits, eggs, and clear, appetizing coffee. They greeted him joyously.

"Hey, Eri!" hailed Captain Perez. "Ain't this gay? Look at them eggs; b'iled jest to a T. Ain't much like Jerry's h'af raw kind."

"Humph! You needn't say nothin', Perez," observed Captain Jerry, his mouth full of biscuit. "When you was cook, you allers b'iled 'em so hard they'd dent the barn if you'd fired 'em at it. How's John, Eri?"

Captain Eri gave his and the Doctor's opinion of his friend's condition and then said, "Now, we've got to have some kind of a settlement on this marryin' question. Last night, when I was up in the room there, it come acrost me all of a sudden that, from what I'd seen of this Nantucket woman, she'd be jest the sort of nurse that John needed. So I skipped out while you fellers was busy with the Doctor, found her at the hotel, explained things to her, and got her to come down. That's all there is to that. I ain't made no arrangement with her, and somethin's got to be done. What do you think of her, jedgin' by what you've seen?"

Captain Perez gave it as his opinion that she was "all right," and added, "If Jerry here wa'n't so pigheaded all at once, he'd marry her without waitin' another minute."

Eri nodded. "That's my idee," he said emphatically.

But Captain Jerry was as obstinate as ever. He simply would not consider immediate marriage. In vain his comrades reminded him of the original compact, and the fact that the vote was two to one against him; he announced that he had changed his mind, and that that was all there was about it.

At length Captain Eri lost patience.

"Jerry," he exclaimed, "you remind me of that old white hen we used to have. When we didn't want her to set she'd set on anything from a doorknob to a rock, couldn't keep her off; but when we give in finally and got a settin' of eggs for her, she wouldn't come nigher to 'em than the other end of the hen-yard. Now you might as well make up your mind that somethin's got to be done. This Mrs. Snow ain't nobody's fool. We put out a bait that anybody with sense would say couldn't catch nothin' but sculpin, and, by mighty, we hooked a halibut! If the woman was anything like what you'd think she'd be, answerin' an advertisement like that, I'd be the fust to say let her go, but she ain't; she's all right, and we need her to nuss John besides."

"Tell you what we might do," said Perez slowly; "we might explain to her that Jerry don't feel that 'twould be right to think of marryin' with Cap'n Baxter so sick in the house and that, if she's willin', we'll put it off till he dies or gets better. Meantime, we'll pay her so much to stay here and nuss. Seems to me that's about the only way out of it."

So they agreed to lay this proposal before the Nantucket lady, Captain Jerry reluctantly consenting. Then Captain Eri took up another subject.

John Baxter, as has been said, had one relative, a granddaughter, living somewhere near Boston. Captain Eri felt that this granddaughter should be notified of the old man's illness at once. The difficulty was that none of them knew the young lady's address.

"Her fust name's Elizabeth, same as her mothers was," said Eri, "and her dad's name was Preston. They called her Elsie. John used to write to her every once in a while. P'raps Sam would know where she lived."

"Jest' cause Sam's postmaster," observed Perez, "it don't foller that he reads the name on every letter that goes out and remembers 'em besides."

"Well, if he don't," said Captain Jerry decidedly, "Mary Emma does. She reads everything, postals and all."