with ev'ry stitch of
canvas drawin' and a bone in her teeth." Louise agreed about the
"bone"--she had given her Aunt Euphemia a hard one to gnaw on.

The girl followed Mrs. Conroth to the automobile and helped her in.
Cap'n Amazon came to the store door as politely as though he were seeing
an honored guest over the ship's side.

"Ask your A'nt 'Phemie to come again. Too bad she ain't satisfied to
jine us here. Plenty o' cabin room. But if she's aimin' to anchor near
by she'll be runnin' in frequent I cal'late. Good-day to ye, ma'am!"

Aunt Euphemia did not seem even to see him. She was also afflicted with
sudden deafness.

"Louise! I shall never forget this--never!" she declared haughtily, as
Willy Peebles started the car and it rumbled on down the Shell Road.

Unable to face Cap'n Amazon just then for several reasons, Louise did not
re-enter the store but strolled down to the sands. There was a skiff
drawn up above high-water mark and the hoop-backed figure of Washy Gallup
sat in it. He was mending a net. He nodded with friendliness to Louise,
his jaw working from side to side like a cow chewing her cud--and for the
same reason. Washy had no upper teeth left.

"How be you this fine day, miss?" the old fellow asked sociably. "It's
enough to put new marrer in old bones, this weather. Cold weather lays
me up same's any old hulk. An' I been used to work, I have, all my life.
Warn't none of 'em any better'n me in my day."

"You have done your share, I am sure, Mr. Gallup," the girl said, smiling
cheerfully down upon him. "Yours is the time for rest."

"Rest? How you talk!" exclaimed Washy. "A man ought to be able to aim
his own pollock and potaters, or else he might's well give up the ship.
I tell 'em if I was only back in my young days where I could do a full
day's work, I'd be satisfied."

Louise had turned up a fiddler with the toe of her boot. As the creature
scurried for sanctuary, Washy observed:

"Them's curious critters. All crabs is."

"I think they are curious," Louise agreed. "Like a cross-eyed man. Look
one way and run another."

"Surely--surely. Talk about a curiosity--the curiousest-osity I ever
see was a crab they have in Japanese waters; big around's a clam-bucket
and dangling gre't long laigs to it like a sea-going giraffe."'

Louise was thankful for this opportunity for laughter, for that
"curiousest-osity" was too much for her sense of the ludicrous.

Like almost ever