by the lady's account of it.

"I never see such a man in my born days," declared Angie disgustedly.
"You couldn't get nothin' out of him. Not that he wan't pleasant and
sociable; land sakes! he acted as glad to see me as if I was his rich
aunt come on a visit. And he was willin' to talk, too. That's the
trouble; he done ALL the talkin'. I happened to mention, just as a sort
of starter, you know, somethin' about the cranb'ry crop this fall; and
after that all he could say was 'cranb'ries, cranb'ries, cranb'ries!'
'Hear you've got comp'ny,' says I. 'Did you?' says he. 'Now ain't it
strange how things'll get spread around? Only yesterday I heard that Joe
Dimick's swamp was just loaded down with "early blacks." And yet when
I went over to look at it there didn't seem to be so many. There ain't
much better cranb'ries anywhere than our early blacks,' he says. 'You
take 'em--' And so on, and so on, and so on. _I_ didn't care nothin'
about the dratted early blacks, but he didn't seem to care for nothin'
else. He talked cranb'ries steady for an hour and a half and I left
that house with my mouth all puckered up; it's tasted sour ever sence. I
never see such a man!"

When Captain Cy was questioned by Asaph concerning the acid
conversation, he grinned.

"I didn't know you was so interested in cranb'ries," observed Tidditt.

"I ain't," was the reply; "but I'm more interested in 'em than I am in
Angie. I see she was sufferin' from a rush of curiosity to the head
and I cured her by homeopath doses. Every time she opened her mouth I
dropped an 'early black' into it. It's a good receipt; you tell Bailey
to try it on Ketury some time."

To his chums the captain was emphatic in his orders that secrecy be
preserved. No one was to be told who the child was or where she came
from. "What they don't know won't hurt 'em any," declared Captain Cy.
And Emily's answer to inquiring souls who would fain have delved into
her past was to the effect that "Uncle Cyrus" didn't like to have her
talk about herself.

"I don't know's I'm ashamed of anything I've done so far," said the
captain; "but I ain't braggin', either. Time enough to talk when I send
her back to Betsy."

That time, apparently, was not in the near future. The girl stayed on
at the Whittaker place and grew to be more and more a part of it. At the
end of the second week Captain Cy began calling her "Bos'n."

"A bos'n's a mighty handy man aboard ship," he explained, "and you're