I? What is goin' on?"

There was not very much going on, so Kent said. Captain Lorenzo Taylor's
ship was due in New York almost any week or day now, and then the
captain would, of course, come home for a short visit. Mrs. Captain
Elkanah Wingate had a new silk dress, and, as it was the second silk
gown within a year, there was much talk at sewing circle and at the
store concerning it and Captain Elkanah's money. One of Captain Orrin
Eldridge's children was ill with scarlet fever. The young people of the
Universalist society were going to give some amateur theatricals at the
Town Hall some time in August, and the minister at the Orthodox
meeting-house had already preached a sermon upon the sin of theater
going.

"There," concluded George Kent, with another laugh. "That's about all
the local excitement, Cap'n. It won't keep you awake to-night, I hope."

Sears smiled. "Guess I'll drop off in spite of it," he observed. "But it
is kind of interestin', too, some of it. Hope Cap'n Lorenzo makes a good
voyage home. He's in the _Belle of the Ocean_, isn't he? Um-hm. Well,
she's a good able vessel and Lorenzo's a great hand to carry sail, so,
give him good weather, he'll bring her home flyin'. So the Universalists
have been behavin' scandalous, have they? Dear, dear! But what can you
expect of folks so wicked they don't believe in hell? Humph! I mustn't
talk that way. I forgot that you were a Universalist yourself, George."

Kent smiled. "Oh, I'm as wicked as anybody you can think of," he
declared. "Why, I'm going to take a part in those amateur theatricals,
myself."

"Are you? My, my! You'll be goin' to dancin'-school next, and then you
_will_ be bound for that place you don't believe in. When is this show
of yours comin' off? I'd like to see it, and shall, if Judah and the
Foam Flake will undertake to get me to the Town Hall and back."

"I think we'll give it the second week in August. We had a great
argument trying to pick a play. For a long time we were undecided
between 'Sylvia's Soldier' or 'Down by the Sea' or 'Among the Breakers.'
At last we decided on 'Down by the Sea.' It's quite new, been out only
four or five years, and it rather fits our company. Did you ever see it,
Cap'n?"

"No, I never did. I've been out _on_ the sea so much in my life that
when I got ashore I generally picked out the shows that hadn't anything
to do with it--'Hamlet,' or 'Lydia Thompson's British Blondes,' or
somethin' like that," with a