as Lonesome likes Eben Salter's dog."

"I'm sorry. I like her ever so much."

"You DO? Go 'long! After the way she treated you, poor little thing!"

"She didn't treat me any worse than she does the other girls and boys
when they're naughty. And I did know the rule about whispering."

"Well, that's different. Comparin' you with that Bennie Edwards--the
idea! And then makin' you cry!"

"She didn't make me cry."

"Did, too. I heard you."

The child looked up at him and then hid her face in his waistcoat.

"I wasn't crying about her," she whispered. "It was you."

"ME!" The captain gasped. "Good land!" he muttered. "It's just as I
expected. She's studied too hard and it's touchin' her brain."

"No, sir, it isn't. It isn't truly. I did cry about you because I didn't
like to hear you talk so. And I was so sorry to have you come there."

"You WAS!"

"Yes, sir. Other children's folks don't come when they're bad. And I
kept feeling so sort of ashamed of you."

"Ashamed of ME?"

Bos'n nodded vigorously.

"Yes, sir. Everything teacher said sounded so right, and what you said
didn't. And I like to have you always right."

"Do, hey? Hum!" Captain Cy didn't speak again for some few minutes, but
he held the little girl very tight in his arms. At length he drew a long
breath.

"By the big dipper, Bos'n!" he exclaimed. "You're a wonder, you are.
I wouldn't be surprised if you grew up to be a mind reader, like that
feller in the show we went to at the townhall a spell ago. To tell you
the honest Lord's truth, I've been ashamed of myself ever since I come
out of that schoolhouse door. When that teacher woman sprung that on me
about my fo'mast hands aboard ship I was set back about forty fathom. I
never wanted to answer anybody so bad in MY life, and I couldn't 'cause
there wasn't anything to say. I cal'late I've made a fool of myself."

Bos'n nodded again.

"We won't do so any more, will we?" she said.

"You bet we won't! _I_ won't, anyhow. You haven't done anything."

"And you'll like teacher?"

The captain stamped his foot.

"No, SIR!" he declared. "She may be all right in her way--I s'pose she
is; but it's too Massachusettsy a way for me. No, sir! I don't like her
and I WON'T like her. No, sir-ee, never! She--she ain't my kind of a
woman," he added stubbornly. "That's what's the matter! She ain't my
kind of a woman."

CHAPTER IX

POLITICS AND BIRTHDAYS

"Town meeting" was called for the twenty-f