that draws womenfolks same as
molasses draws flies. Hailed from Philadelphy he did. I used to know a
good many Philadelphy folks myself once. Why, one time----"

The captain broke in to head off the Philadelphia reminiscence. Brought
back to Bayport and Egbert and Lobelia, Judah went on to tell what more
he knew of the Fair Harbor beginnings. Sears gathered that after the
marriage Egbert who, it seemed, was not in love with the Cape as a place
of residence, would have liked his wife to sell the old house and move
away. But there was a clause in the will of Captain Sylvanus which
prevented this. Under that will the property could not be sold while his
daughter lived. It was then that Lobelia was seized with her great idea.
She, a mariner's daughter, had--until the Providential appearance of the
peerless Egbert--faced a lonely old age. But she had at least a
comfortable home. There were so many women--sea-captains' widows and
sisters--who faced their lonely future without a home. Why not turn the
Seymour property into a home for them--a limited number of them?

"So she done it," said Judah. "And that's how the Fair Harbor got off
the ways."

"But you called it a home," objected Captain Sears. "The other day that
Snowden woman, the thin one, gave the other, the stout one--what's her
name?--Northern lights--Aurora, that's it--she gave Aurora fits for
speakin' of the place as a home. She declared it wasn't a home."

Mr. Caboon chuckled. "Did, eh?" he observed. "Well, you might call a
mackerel gull a canary bird, I presume likely, but 'twouldn't make the
thing sing no better. That Elviry critter likes to make believe she's
the Queen of Sheby. _She_ wouldn't live in no home--no sir-ee! 'Cordin'
to her the Fair Harbor ain't a home because they only take six or eight
passengers, or visitors, or patients, or jailbirds--whatever you might
to call 'em, and it costs four hundred dollars to pay your way in and a
hundred a year to keep you there. So 'tain't a home, you see. It's a--a
genteel henhouse, I'd say. That Elviry Snowden she----"

Then the captain asked the question to which he had been leading since
the beginning.

"That Berry girl's mother runs the place, doesn't she?" he asked.

Judah snorted. "Yeah," he drawled, "she runs it about the way the
skipper's poll parrot runs the vessel. The poll parrot talks a barrel a
minute and the skipper goes right along navigatin'. That's about the way
'tis over yonder," with a jerk