WHAT HAPPENED IN THE NIGHT
Cap'n Abe produced a pipe. He looked at his niece tentatively.
"Do--do you mind tobacker smoke?"
"Daddy-prof is an inveterate," she laughed.
"Huh? An--an invet'rate _what_?"
"Smoker. I don't begrudge a man smoking tobacco as long as we women
have our tea. A nerve tonic in both cases."
"I dunno for sure that I've got any nerves," Cap'n Abe said, the
corners of his eyes wrinkling. "Mebbe I was behind the door when they
was given out. But a pipeful o' tobacker this time o' the evening
_does_ seem sort o' satisfyin'. That, and knittin'."
Having filled his pipe and lit it, he puffed a few times to get it well
alight and then reached for a covered basket that Louise had noticed on
a small stand under Jerry's cage. He drew from this a half-fashioned
gray stocking that was evidently intended for his own foot and the
needles began to click in his strong, capable hands.
"Supprise you some, does it, Louise?" Cap'n Abe said. "Cap'n Am'zon
taught me. Most old whalers knit. That, an' doin' scrimshaw work, was
'bout all that kep' 'em from losing their minds on them long v'y'ges
into the Pacific. An' I've seen the time myself when I was hi-mighty
glad I'd l'arned to count stitches.
"Land sakes! Some o' them whalin' v'y'ges lasted three-four years.
Cap'n Am'zon was in the old bark _Neptune's Daughter_ when she was
caught in the ice and drifted pretty average close't to the south pole.
"You know," said Cap'n Abe reflectively, "the Antarctic regions ain't
like the Arctic. 'Cause why? There ain't no folks there. Cap'n
Am'zon says there ain't 'nough land at the south pole to make Marm
Scudder's garden--and they say she didn't need more'n what her
patchwork quilt would cover. Where there's land there's folks. And if
there was land in the Antarctic there'd be Eskimos like there is up
North.
"'Hem! Well, that wasn't what I begun on, was it? This knitting.
Cap'n Am'zon says that many's the time he's thanked his stars he knowed
how to knit."
"I shall be glad to meet him," said Louise.
"If he comes," Cap'n Abe rejoined, "an' I go away as I planned to,
'twon't make a mite o' difference to you, Niece Louise. You feel right
at home here--and so'll Cap'n Am'zon, though he ain't never been to
Cardhaven yet. He'll be a lot better company for you than I'd be."
"Oh, Cap'n Abe, I can scarcely believe that!" cried the girl.
"You don't know Cap'n Am'zon," the storekeeper said. "I tell ye fair:
he's ev'rything that I ain't! As a boy--'hem!--Am'zon was always
leadin' an' me follerin'. I kinder took after my mother, I guess.
She was your grandmother. Your grandfather was a Card--and a nice man
he was.
"Our father--me an' Am'zon's--was Cap'n Joshua Silt of the schooner
_Bravo_. Hi-mighty trim and taut craft she was, from all accounts.
I--I warn't born when he died," added Cap'n Abe, hesitatingly.
"You were a posthumous child!" said Louise.
"Er--I guess so. Kinder 'pindlin', too. Yes! yes! Cap'n Am'zon's
ahead o' me--in ev'ry way. When father died 'twas pretty average hard
on mother," Cap'n Abe pursued. "We was llvin' at Rocky Head, I guess I
told you b'fore?"
"Yes," Louise said, interested.
"The _Bravo_ was makin' reg'lar trips from Newport to Bangor, Maine.
Short-coastin' v'y'ges paid well in them days. There come a big storm
in the spring--onexpected. Mother'd got a letter from Cap'n
Josh--father he'd put out o' Newport with a sartain tide. He warn't
jest a fair-weather skipper. Cap'n Am'zon gits his pluck an' darin'
from Cap'n Josh.
"Well, mother knowed he must be out o' sight of Fort Adams and the
Dumplin's when the storm burst, and that he'd take the inside passage,
the wind bein' what it was. She watched from Rocky Head and she seen
what she knowed to be the _Bravo_ heave in sight.
"There warn't no foolin' her," pursued Cap'n Abe, whose pipe had gone
out but whose knitting needles twinkled the faster. "No. She knowed
the schooner far's she could glim her. She watched the Bravo caught in
the cross-current when the gale dropped sudden, and tryin' to claw off
shore.
"But no use! She was doomed! There warn't no help for the schooner.
She went right on to Toll o' Death Reef and busted up in an hour. Not
a body ever was beached, for the current, tide, _an_' gale was all off
shore. And it happened in plain sight of our windows.
"Two months later," Cap'n Abe said reflectively, "I come into the
world. Objectin', of course, like all babies. Funny thing that. We
all come into it makin' all kinds of a hullabaloo against anchorin'
here; and we most of us kick just as hard against slippin' our moorin's
to get out of it.
"Land sakes!" he exclaimed in conclusion. "There ye be. I guess my
mother hated the sea 'bout as much as any longshore woman ever did.
And there's a slew of 'em detest it worse'n cats. Why, ye couldn't
hire some o' these Cape Cod females to get into a boat. Their men for
generations was drowned and more'n forty per cent. of the stones in
the churchyards along the coast, sacred to the mem'ry of the men of the
fam'lies, have on 'em: '_Lost at sea_.'
"Can't blame the women. Old Ella Coffin that lives on Narrer P'int
over yonder ain't been to the main but once't in fifteen years. That
was when an off-shore gale blew all the water out o' the breach 'twixt
the p'int and the mainland.
"Ye see," said Cap'n Abe, smiling again, "Narrer P'int is re'lly an
island, even at low water. But _then_ a hoss an' buggy can splatter
across't the breach. But it makes Marm Coffin seasick even to ride
through water in a buggy. Marked, she is, as you might say.
"Well, now, Louise, child," the storekeeper added, "I'm a-gassin' 'bout
things that don't much int'rest you, I cal'late. I'll light a lamp an'
show you up to your room. When Perry Baker comes by and by, I'll help
him in with your trunks. You needn't worry about 'em."
It had been foggy on the Sound the night before and Louise had not
slept until the boat had rounded Point Judith. So she was not averse
to retiring at this comparatively early hour.
Cap'n Abe led her upstairs to a cool, clean, and comfortable chamber.
The old four-posted, corded bedstead stood in the middle of the room,
covered with a blue-and-white coverlet, with sheets and pillow cases as
white as foam. It could not be doubted that Cap'n Abe had carried out
his idea of hospitality. The spare room was always ready for the
possible guest.
"Good-night, uncle," she said, smiling at him as he handed her the
lamp. "I believe I am going to have a delightful time here."
"Of course you be! Of course!" he exclaimed. "An' if I ain't here,
Cap'n Am'zon will show you a better time than I could. Good-night.
Sleep well, Louise."
He kissed her on the forehead. But she, impulsively, pressed her fresh
lips to the storekeeper's weather-beaten cheek. Before she closed the
door of the bedroom she heard him clumping downstairs in his heavy
boots.
After that he must have removed his footgear for, although she heard
doors open and close, she could not distinguish his steps.
"I'm glad I came!" she told herself with enthusiasm as she prepared to
retire. "What a delightful old place it is! And Uncle Abram--why,
he's a _dear_! Daddy-prof was not half enthusiastic enough about the
Cape Cod folk. It has been a distinct loss to me that I was never here
before."
She laid out her toilet requisites upon the painted pine bureau and
hung her negligee over the back of a chair. As she retied the ribbon
in one of the sleeves of her nightgown she thought:
"And that Tapp boy came back a second time! Some fisherman's son, I
suppose. But exceedingly nice looking!"
A little later the feather bed had taken her into its arms and she
almost instantly fell asleep. Occasionally through the night she was
roused by unfamiliar sounds. There was a fog coming in from the sea
and the siren at the lighthouse on the Neck began to bellow like a
bereft cow.
There were movements downstairs. Once she heard a wagon stop, and
voices. Then the bumping of heavy boxes on the side porch. Her
trunks. Voices below in the living-room--gruff, yet subdued. Creaking
footsteps on the stair; then Louise realized that they were carrying
something heavy down and out to the waiting wagon. She was just
dropping to sleep when the wagon was driven away.
There came a heavy summons on her door while it was still dark. But a
glance at her watch assured Lou Grayling that it was the fog that made
the light so dim.
"Yes, Cap'n Abe?" she called cheerfully, for even early rising could
not quench her good spirits.
"'Tain't time to get up yet, Niece Louise," he told her behind the thin
panel of the door. "Don't disturb yourself. Cap'n Amazon's come an'
I'm off."
"You're what?" gasped the girl sitting up in her nest of feathers.
"I'm a-goin' to Boston. Jest got time to ketch the clam-train at the
depot. Don't you bother; Cap'n Am'zon's here and he'll take care of
you till I get back. Betty Gallup'll be here by six or a little after
to do the work. You can have her stop at night, if you want to."
"But, Uncle----"
"Must hurry, Louise," hastily said Cap'n Abe as he heard the bedcords
creak and the patter of the girl's feet on the matting. "Cap'n Am'zon
knows of a craft that'll sail to-day from Boston and I must jine her
crew. Good-bye!"
He was gone. Louise, throwing on the negligee, hurried to the screened
window. The fog had breathed upon the wires and clouded them. She
heard the door open below, a step on the porch, and then a muffled:
"Bye, Am'zon. Don't take no wooden money. I'm off."
A shrouded figure passed up the road and was quickly hidden by the fog.