n't exactly it," he shouted. "I was takin' a little walk,
that's all. I have to navigate pretty slow for my legs aren't just
right."

"What did he say wa'n't right?" demanded the plump female.

"His legs."

"Eh! Legs! What's he talkin' about his legs for?"

"Oh, I don't know! Do be still a minute. It's his head that isn't right,
I guess he means.... Don't you know you're trespassing? What do you
mean by coming in here?"

"Well, ma'am, I didn't mean anything in particular. I just happened in
by accident. I'm sorry."

"Humph! You didn't come in here to run off with anything that didn't
belong to you, I hope."

The captain looked at her for a moment. Then his lip twitched.

"No, ma'am," he said, solemnly, "I didn't come with that idea--but--"

"But? What do you mean by 'but'?"

"But I didn't realize what there was in here to run off with. If I
had.... There, I guess I'd better go. Good day, ladies. Sorry I troubled
you."

He lifted his cap, turned, and limped out of sight around the clump of
lilacs. From behind him came a series of indignant gasps and
exclamations.

"Why--why--Well, I never in all my born days! The saucy, impudent--"

And the voice of the moon-faced one raised in bewildered entreaty:

"What was it? What did he say? Elviry Snowden, why don't you tell me
what 'twas he _said_?"

Captain Kendrick hobbled back to the Minot yard. He hobbled through the
orchard gate, leaving it ajar, and reaching the bench beneath the locust
tree, collapsed upon it. For some time he was conscious of very little
except the ache in his legs and the fact that breathing was a difficult
and jerky operation. Then, as the fatigue and pain ceased to be as
insistent, the memory of his interview with the pair in the Eyrie
returned to him and he began to chuckle. After a time he fancied that he
heard a sympathetic chuckle behind him. It seemed to come from the
vegetable garden, Judah's garden, which, so Mr. Cahoon told his former
skipper, he had set out himself and was "sproutin' and comin' up
better'n ary other garden in the town of Bayport, if I do say it as
shouldn't."

Kendrick could not imagine who could be chuckling in that garden. Also
he could not imagine where the chuckler could be hiding, unless it was
behind the rows of raspberry and currant bushes. Slowly and painfully he
rose to his feet and peered over the bushes. Then the mystery was
explained. The "chuckles" were clucks. A flock of at least a dozen
heal