WHAT LOUISE THINKS
Sunday morning such a hush pervaded the store on the Shell Road, and
brooded over its surroundings, as Lou Grayling had seldom experienced
save in the depths of the wilderness.
She beheld a breeze-swept sea from her window with no fishing boats
going out. There was nobody on the clam flats, although the tide was
just right at dawn. The surfman from the patrol station beyond The
Beaches paced to the end of his beat dressed in his best, like a man
merely taking a Sunday morning stroll.
The people she saw seemed to be changed out of their everyday selves.
Not only were they in Sabbath garb, but they had on their Sabbath
manner. Even to Milt Baker, the men were cleanly shaven and wore fresh
cotton shirts of their wives' laundering.
Cap'n Amazon appeared from his "cabin" when the first church bells
began to ring, arrayed in a much wrinkled but very good suit of "go
ashore" clothes of blue, which were possibly those he had worn when he
arrived at the store on the Shell Road. He wore a hard, glazed hat of
an old-fashioned naval shape and, instead of the usual red bandana, he
wore a black silk handkerchief tied about his head.
Just why he always kept his crown thus swathed, Louise was very
desirous of knowing. Yet she did not feel like asking him such a very
personal question. Had it been Cap'n Abe she would not for a moment
have hesitated. Louise had heard of men being scalped by savages and
she was almost tempted to believe that this had happened to Cap'n
Amazon in one of his wild encounters.
"We'll go to the First Church, Niece Louise," he said firmly. "Abe
always did. These small-fry craft, like the Mariner's Chapel, are all
right, I don't dispute; but they are lacking in ballast. It's in my
mind to attend the church that's the most like a well-founded, deep-sea
craft."
Louise was more impressed than amused by this philosophy. The captain
seemed to have put on his "Sunday face" like everybody else. As they
came out of the yard old Washington Gallup hobbled by, but instead of
stopping to chatter inconsequently, for he was an inveterate gossip, he
saluted the captain respectfully and hobbled on.
Indeed, the captain was a figure on this day to command profound
respect. It is no trick at all for a big man to look dignified and
impressive; but Cap'n Amazon was not a big man. However, in his blue
pilot-cloth suit, cut severely plain, and with his hard black hat on
his head he made a veritable picture of what a master-mariner should be.
On his quarter-deck, in fair or foul weather, Louise was sure that he
had never lacked the respect of his crew or their confidence. He was
distinctly a man to command--a leader and director by nature. He was,
indeed, different from the seemingly easy-going, gentle-spoken Cap'n
Abe, the storekeeper.
They had scarcely started up the Shell Road when the whir of a
fast-running automobile sounded behind them and the mellow hoot of a
horn. Louise turned to see a great touring car take the curve from the
direction of The Beaches and glide swiftly toward them. Lawford Tapp
was guiding the car.
"Then he's a chauffeur as well as fisherman and boatman," she thought.
She could not see how he was dressed under the coat he wore; but he
touched his cap to her and Cap'n Amazon as he drove by.
Beside Lawford on the driving seat was a plump little man who seemed to
be violently quarreling with the chauffeur. In the tonneau was a
matronly woman and three girls including "L'Enfant Terrible," all,
Louise thought, rather overdressed.
"Those folks, so I'm told," said Cap'n Amazon placidly, "come from that
big house on the p'int--as far as you can see from our windows. More
money than good sense, I guess. Though the man, he comes of good old
Cape stock. But I guess that blood can de-te-ri-orate, as the feller
said. Ain't much of it left in the young folks, pretty likely. They
just laze around and play all the time. If 'All work and no play makes
Jack a dull boy,' you can take it from me, Niece Louise, that all play
and no work makes Jill a pretty average useless girl. Yes, sir!"
To the First Church it was quite a walk, up Main Street beyond the Inn
and the post-office. There was some little bustle on Main Street at
church-going time for some of the vacation visitors--those of more
modest pretensions than the occupants of the cottages at The
Beaches--had already arrived.
At the head of the church aisle Cap'n Amazon spoke apologetically to
the usher:
"Young man, my brother, Mr. Abram Silt, hires a pew here; but I don't
rightly know its bearings. Would you mind showin' me and my niece the
course?"
They were accommodated. After service several shook hands with them;
but Louise noticed that many cast curious glances at the black silk
handkerchief on Cap'n Amazon's head and did not come near. Despite his
dignity and the reverence of his bearing, he did look peculiar with
that 'kerchief swathing his crown.
Gusty Durgin, the waitress at the Cardhaven Inn, claimed
acquaintanceship after church with Louise.
"There's goin' to be more of your crowd come to-morrow, Miss Grayling,"
she said. "Some of 'em's goin' to stop with us at the Inn. How you
makin' out down there to Cap'n Abe's? Land sakes! _that_ ain't Cap'n
Abe!"
"It is his brother, Cap'n Amazon Silt," explained Louise.
"I want to know! He looks amazin' funny, don't he? Not much like
Cap'n Abe. You see, my folks live down the Shell Road. My ma married
again. D'rius Vleet. Nice man, but a Dutchman. I don't take up much
with these furiners.
"Now! what was I sayin'? Oh! The boss tells me there's a Mr. Judson
Bane of your crowd goin' to stop with us. Sent a telegraph dispatch
for a room to be saved for him. With bath! Land sakes! ain't the
whole ocean big enough for him to take a bath in? We ain't got nothing
like that. And two ladies--I forget their names. You know Mr. Bane?".
"I have met him--once," confessed Louise.
"Some swell he is, I bet," Gusty declared. "I'm goin' to speak to him.
Mebbe he can get me into the company. I ain't so _aw_-ful fat. I seen
a picture over to Paulmouth last night where there was a girl bigger'n
I am, and she took a re'l sad part.
"She cried re'l tears. _I_ can do that. All I got to do is to think
of something re'l mis'rable--like the time our old brahma hen, Beauty,
got bit by Esek Coe's dog, and ma had to saw her up. Then the tears'll
squeeze right out, _just as ea'sy_!"
Louise thought laughter would overcome her "just as easy" despite the
day and place. She knew a hearty burst of laughter in the church
edifice would amaze and shock the lingering congregation.
Seeing that Cap'n Amazon was busy with some men he had met, the girl
walked out to the little vestibule of the church. Here a number of
women and men were discussing various matters--the sermon, the weather,
clamming, boating, and the colony at The Beaches. Two women stood
apart from the others and presently Louise was attracted to them by the
sound of Lawford Tapp's name.
"I dunno who he is exactly, bein' somethin' o' a stranger here," one of
the women said. "But I was told he was some poor relation who allers
lived among the fisher folk. But he does seem to know how to run thet
autermobile, don't he?"
"I should say!" returned the other woman. "An' he's well spoken,
too--from what I heard him say down to the store."
"Yes, I know that too. Well, I hope he buys the outfit--Jimmy wants to
sell it bad enough--an' needs the money, believe me!" And thereupon
the two women took their departure.
The conversation hung in Louisa's mind and she looked exceedingly
thoughtful when Cap'n Amazon broke away from those with whom he had
been talking and joined her.
"Nice man, that Reverend Jimson, I guess," the captain said, as they
wended their way homeward; "but he's got as many ways of holdin' a
feller as an octopus. And lemme tell you, that's a plenty! Arms seem
to grow on devilfish 'while you wait' as the feller said.
"I sha'n't ever forget the time I was a boy in the old _Mary Bedloe_
brig, out o' Boston, loaded with sundries for Jamaica, to bring back
molasses--and something a leetle mite stronger. That's 'bout as near
as I ever got to having traffic with liquor--and 'twas an unlucky
v'y'ge all the way through.
"Before we ever got the rum aboard," pursued Cap'n Amazon, "on our way
down there, our water went bad. Yes, sir! Water does get stringy
sometimes on long v'y'ges. It useter on whalin' cruises--get all
stringy and bad; but after she'd worked clear she'd be fit to drink
again.
"But this time in the _Mary Bedloe_ it was something mysterious
happened to the drinking water. Made the hull crew sick. Cap'n Jim
Braman was master. He was a good navigator, but an awful profane man.
Swore without no reason to it.
"Well----Where was I? Oh, yes! We had light airs in the Caribbean for
once, and didn't make no more headway in a day than a brick barge goin'
upstream. We come to an island--something more than a key--and Cap'n
Braman ordered a boat's crew ashore for water. I was in the second's
boat so I went. We found good water easy and the second officer, who
was a nice young chap, let us scour around on our own hook for fruit
and such, after we'd filled the barrels.
"I was all for shellfish them days, and I see some big mussels attached
to the rocks, it bein' low water. Some o' them mussels, when ye gut
'em same as ye would deep-sea clams, make the nicest fry you ever
tasted.
"Wal," said Cap'n Amazon, walking sedately home from church with his
amused niece on his arm, "I wanted a few of them mussels. There was a
mud bottom and so the water was black. Just as I reached for the first
mussel I felt something creeping around my left leg. I thought it was
eel-grass; then I thought it was an eel.
"Next thing I knowed it took holt like a leech in half a dozen places.
I jumped; but I didn't jump far. There was two o' the things had me,
and that left leg o' mine was fast as a duck's foot in the mud!"
"Oh, Uncle Amazon!" gasped Louise.
"Yep. A third arm whipped out o' the water had helt me round the waist
tighter'n any girl of my acquaintance ever lashed her best feller.
Land sakes, that devilfish certainly give me a hi-mighty hug!
"But I had what they call down in the Spanish speakin' islands a
machette--a big knife for cuttin' your way through the jungle. I
hauled that out o' the waistband of my pants and I began slicing at
them snake-like arms of the critter and yelling like all get-out.
"More scare't than hurt, I reckon. I was a young feller, as I tell
you, and hadn't seen so much of the world as I have since," continued
Cap'n Amazon. "But the arms seemed fairly to grow on that devilfish.
I wasn't hacked loose when the second officer come runnin' with his
gun. I dragged the critter nearer inshore and he got a look at it.
Both barrels went into that devilfish, and that was more than it could
stomach; so it let go," finished the captain.
"Mercy! what an experience," commented Louise, wondering rather vaguely
why the minister of the First Church had reminded her uncle of this
octopus.
"Yes. 'Twas _some_," agreed Cap'n Amazon. "But let's step along a
little livelier, Niece Louise. I'm goin' to give you a re'l
fisherman's chowder for dinner, an' I want to git the pork and onions
over. I like my onions well browned before I slice in the potaters."
Cap'n Amazon insisted on doing most of the cooking, just as Cap'n Abe
had. Louise had baked some very delicate pop-overs for breakfast that
morning and the captain ate his share with appreciation.
"Pretty average nice, I call 'em, for soft-fodder," he observed. "But,
land sakes! give me something hearty and kind of solid for reg'lar
eating. Ordinary man would starve pretty handy, I guess, on breadstuff
like this."
The chowder was both as hearty and as appetizing as one could desire.
Nor would the captain allow Louise to wash the dishes afterward.
"No, girl. I'll clean up this mess. You go out and see how fur you
can walk on that hard beach now it's slack tide. You ain't been up
there to Tapp P'int yit and seen that big house that belongs to the
candy king. Neither have I, of course," he added; "but they been
tellin' me about it in the store."
Louise accepted the suggestion and started to walk up the beach; but
she did not get far. There was a private dock running out beyond
low-water mark just below the very first bungalow. She saw several men
coming down the steps from the top of the bluff to the shore and the
bathhouses; a big camera was set up on the sands. This must be
Bozewell's bungalow, she decided; the one engaged by the moving picture
people.
If Judson Bane was to be leading man of the company the picture was
very likely to be an important production; for Bane would not leave the
legitimate stage for any small salary. Seeing no women in the party
and that the men were heading up the beach, Louise went no farther in
that direction, and instead walked out upon the private dock to its end.
It was not until then that she saw, shooting inshore, the swift launch
in which Lawford Tapp had come over in the morning previous. The wind
being off the land she had not heard its exhaust. In three minutes the
launch glided in beside the dock where she stood.
"Come for a sail, Miss Grayling?" he asked her, with his very widest
smile. "I'll take you out around Gull Rocks."
"Oh! I am not sure----"
"Surely you're not down here to work on Sunday?" and he glanced at the
actors.
She laughed. "Oh, no, Mr. Tapp. I do not work on Sundays. Uncle
Amazon would not even let me wash the dishes."
"I should think not," murmured Lawford with an appreciative glance at
her ungloved hands. "He's a pretty decent old fellow, I guess. Will
you come aboard? She's perfectly safe, Miss Grayling."
If he had invited her to enter the big touring car he had driven that
morning, to go for a "joy ride," Louise Grayling would certainly have
refused. To go on a pleasure trip at the invitation of a chauffeur in
his employer's car was quite out of consideration.
But this was somehow different, or so it seemed. She hesitated not
because of who or what he was (or what she believed him to be), but
because she had seen something in his manner and expression of
countenance that warned her he was a young man not to be lightly
encouraged.
In that moment of reflection Louise Grayling, asked herself if she felt
that he possessed a more interesting personality than almost any man
she had ever met socially before. She did so consider him, she told
herself, and so--she stepped aboard the launch.
She did not need his hand to help her to the seat beside him. She was
boatwise. He pushed off, starting his engine; and they were soon
chug-chugging out upon the limitless sea.