" she faltered, "I CAN'T. Don't you KNOW I
can't? Everybody's got to take hands--and the lights must be turned way
down--and--and we've GOT to have some music."

The captain pulled his beard. "Humph!" he grunted. "That's so, I forgot.
Don't know what's the matter with me to-night, seem to be kind of--of
upset or somethin'. Zach, turn them lamps down; more'n that, way down
low.... That'll do. Now all hands hold hands. Make a--a kind of ring out
of yourselves. That's it. Now what else was it, Marietta?"

"Music," faltered Miss Hoag, who seemed rather overawed by the captain's
intensity and savage earnestness. "We always have music, you know, to
establish the--the contact. Have somebody play the organ. 'Phelia, you
play it; you know how."

Miss Ophelia Beebe, sister of the village storekeeper, was a tall,
angular woman garbed in black. Her facial expression was as mournful
as her raiment. She rose with a rustle and moved toward the ancient
melodeon. Lulie spoke hurriedly.

"No, no, Ophelia," she protested, "it isn't any use. That old thing has
been out of order for--why, for years. No one could possibly play on it.
No one has for ever and ever so long. Father knows it perfectly well."

Again Captain Jethro tugged at his beard.

"Humph!" he grunted. "'Tis out of order; I remember now.... Humph! I--I
forgot that. Well, we'll have to have some sort of music. Can anybody
that's here play on anything?"

There was silence for a moment. Then a thin masculine voice from the
dimness made proclamation.

"I can play on the fiddle," it said; and then added, as if in
afterthought, "some."

There was a rustle in the corner from which the voice had come.
Mutterings and whisperings arose. "Don't talk so foolish!" "Well, Sary,
he asked if anybody could play on anything and I--" "Be still, I tell
you! I declare if there's any chance for a person to make a jumpin'
numbskull out of himself in front of folks I'll trust you to be right on
deck." "Now, Sary, what are you goin' on like this for? I only just--"

The dispute was growing louder and more violent. Captain Jethro roared a
command for silence.

"What's all this?" he demanded. "Silence there for'ard!" He waited an
instant and then asked, "Who was it said they could play the fiddle? Was
it you, Abel Hardin'?"

Mr. Abel Harding, clam digger and fish purveyor, resident in South
Wellmouth, acknowledged his identity.

"Yus, Cap'n Jeth," he declared. "I said I could play the fi