and a smuggler on guard with menacing rifle. He lost his fear of fear;
he ceased to think about his accustomed life of two aisles and the
show-case of new models and the background of boxes and boxes and boxes
of shoes--tokens of the drudgery that was ground into him like grit. The
Father who worried was changing into the adventurous wanderer that
henceforward he would be--for two weeks. He stretched out his short arms
and breathed deeply of the night wind.

Half an hour later he was asleep. But not, it must be confessed, in the
aristocratic seclusion of his own berth. He was downily curled beside
Mother, his cheek nuzzled beside her delicate old hand.

CHAPTER III

They changed from steamer to railroad; about eleven in the morning they
stepped out at West Skipsit, Cape Cod. Uncle Joe Tubbs and Mrs. Tubbs
were driving up, in a country buggy. Father and Mother filled their
nostrils with the smell of the salt marshes, their ears with the long
murmur of the mile-distant surf, their eyes with the shine of the great
dunes and the demure peace of a New England white cottage standing among
firs and apple-trees--scent and sound and sight of their freedom.

"Father, we're here!" Mother whispered, her eyes wet. Then, "Oh, do be
careful of that box. There's a hat there that's going to make Matilda
Tubbs catch her death from envy!"

To the Tubbses, though they were cynical with a hoary wisdom in regard
to New-Yorkers and summerites and boarders in general, the annual coming
of the Applebys was welcome as cider and buttered toast--yes, they even
gave Father and Mother the best chamber, with the four-poster bed and
the mirror bordered with Florida shells, at a much reduced rate. They
burrowed into their grim old hearts as Uncle Joe Tubbs grubbed into the
mud for clams, and brought out treasures of shy affection.

As soon as they reached the Tubbs farm-house the two women went off
together to the kitchen, while the men sneaked toward the inlet. Mother
didn't show her new hat as yet; that was in reserve to tantalize Mrs.
Tubbs with the waiting. Besides, for a day or two the women couldn't
take down the bars and say what they thought. But the men immediately
pounded each other on the back and called each other "Seth" and "Joe,"
and, keeping behind banks lest they be seen by young uns, they
shamefacedly paddled barefoot--two old men with bare feet and silvery
shanks, chuckling and catching crabs, in a salt inlet among roll