g and their fleets, and that what came after
was _him_--a tinkerer with other men's boats, a ship's carpenter who'd
even work on _houses_. "Get Joe Doane to do it for you." And glad enough
was Joe Doane to do it. And a Portagee livin' to either side of him!

He laughed. "You've got a funny idea of what's a _joke_," his wife said
indignantly.

That seemed to be so. Things he saw as jokes weren't jokes to anybody
else. Maybe that was why he sometimes seemed to be all by himself. He
was beginning to get lost in an _In_--_Out_. Faintly he could hear Mrs.
Cadara crying--Joe Cadara was in the sea, and faintly he heard his wife
saying, "I suppose Agnes Cadara could wear Myrtie's shoes, only--the way
things are, seems Myrtie's got to wear out her _own_ shoes."

Next day when he came home at noon--he was at work then helping Ed.
Davis put a new coat on Still's store--he found his two boys--the boys
were younger than Myrtie--pressed against the picket fence that
separated Doanes from Cadaras.

"What those kids up to?" he asked his wife, while he washed up for
dinner.

"Oh, they just want to see," she answered, speaking into the oven.

"See _what_?" he demanded; but this Mrs. Doane regarded as either too
obvious or too difficult to answer, so he went to the door and called,
"Joe! Edgar!"

"What you kids rubberin' at?" he demanded.

Young Joe dug with his toe. "The Cadaras have got a lot of company,"
said he.

"They're _crying_!" triumphantly announced the younger and more truthful
Edgar.

"Well, suppose they are? They got a right to cry in their own house,
ain't they? Let the Cadaras be. Find some fun at home."

The boys didn't seem to think this funny, nor did Mrs. Doane, but the
father was chuckling to himself as they sat down to their baked
flounder.

But to let the Cadaras be and find some fun at home became harder and
harder to do. The _Lillie-Bennie_ had lost her men in early Summer and
the town was as full of Summer folk as the harbor was of whiting. There
had never been a great deal for Summer folk to do in Cape's End, and so
the Disaster was no disaster to the Summer's entertainment. In other
words, Summer folk called upon the Cadaras. The young Doanes spent much
of their time against the picket fence; sometimes young Cadaras would
come out and graciously enlighten them. "A woman she brought my mother a
black dress." Or, "A lady and two little boys came in automobile and
brought me kiddie-car and white pan