f what you've done, Cap'n Abe," Louise urged. "You feared
the sea--and you overcame that fear. All your life you shrank from
venturing on the water; yet you went out in that lifeboat and played
the hero. Oh, I think it is fine, Cap'n Abe! It's wonderful!"

"Wonderful?" repeated Cap'n Abe. "P'r'aps 'tis. Mebbe I've been too
timid all my life. P'r'aps I could ha' been a sailor and cruised in
foreign seas if I'd just _had_ to.

"But mother allus was opposed. She kept talkin' against it when I was
a boy--and later, too. She told how scar't she was when Cap'n Josh and
the _Bravo_ went down in sight of her windows. And mebbe I ketched it
more from her talkin' than aught else.

"But I never realized that stress of circumstances could push me into
it an' make a man of me. I had a feelin' that I'd swoon away an' fall
right down in my tracks if I undertook to face such a sea as that was
t'other day.

"And see! Nothing of the kind happened! I knew I'd got to make good
Cap'n Am'zon's character, or not hold up my head in Cardhaven again. I
don't dispute I've been a hi-mighty liar, Niece Louise. But--but it's
sort o' made a man o' me for once, don't ye think?

"I dunno. Good comes out o' bad sometimes. Bitter from the sweet as
well. And when a man's got a repertation to maintain----There was that
feller Hanks, on the _Lunette_, out o' Nantucket. I've heard Cap'n
Am'zon tell it----"

"Cap'n Abe!" gasped Louise.

"Hi-mighty! There I go again," said the storekeeper mournfully. "You
can't teach an old dog new tricks--nor break him of them he's l'arned!"

Louise and her father remained at the store on the Shell Road until
Cap'n Abe was up and about again. Then they could safely leave him to
the ministrations of Betty Gallup.

"Somehow," confessed that able seaman, "he don't seem just like he used
to. He speaks quicker and sharper--more like that old pirate, Am'zon
Silt, though I shouldn't be sayin' nothin' harsh of the dead, I s'pose.
I don't dispute that Cap'n Am'zon was muchly of a man, when ye come to
think on't.

"But Cap'n Abe's more to my taste. Now the place seems right again
with him in the house. Cap'n Abe's as easy as an old shoe. And, land
sakes! I ain't locked out o' _his_ bedroom when I want to clean!

"One thing puzzles me, Miss Lou. I thought Cap'n Abe would take on
c'nsiderable about Jerry. But when I told him the canary was dead he
up and said that mebbe 'twas better so, seem' the