Capn Abe, Storekeeper | Page 4

provocative of genre pictures which would remain in her memory long afterward. There were woods and fields, cranberry bogs and sand dunes, between the hamlets; and always through the open window the salt tang of the air delighted her. She was almost prepared to say she was glad she had ventured when she left the train at Paulmouth and saw her trunks put off upon the platform.
A teetering stage, with a rack behind for light baggage, drawn by a pair of lean horses, waited beside the station. The stage had been freshened for the season with a thin coat of yellow paint. The word "Cardhaven" was painted in bright blue letters on the doors of this ancient coach.
"No, ma'am! I can't possibly take your trunks," the driver said, politely explanatory. "Ye see, miss, I carry the mail this trip an' the parcel-post traffic is right heavy, as ye might say. . . . Belay that, Jerry!" he observed to the nigh horse that was stamping because of the pest of flies. "We'll cast off in a minute and get under way. . . . No, miss, I can't take 'em; but Perry Baker'll likely go over to the Haven to-night and he'll fetch 'em for ye. I got all the cargo I can load."
Soon the horses shacked out of town. The sandy road wandered through the pine woods where the hot June sunshine extracted the scent of balsam until its strength was almost overpowering. Louise, alone in the interior of the old coach, found herself pitching and tossing about as though in a heavy sea.
"It is fortunate I am a good sailor," she told herself, somewhat ruefully.
The driver was a large man in a yellow linen duster. He was not especially communicative--save to his horses. He told them frankly what he thought of them on several occasions! But "city folks" were evidently no novelty for him. As he put Louise and her baggage into the vehicle he had asked:
"Who you cal'latin' to stop with, miss?"
"I am going to Mr. Abram Silt's," Louise had told him.
"Oh! Cap'n Abe. Down on the Shell Road. I can't take ye that fur--ain't allowed to drive beyond the tavern. But 'tain't noways a fur walk from there."
He expressed no curiosity about her, or her business with the Shell Road storekeeper. That surprised Louise a little. She had presumed all these people would display Yankee curiosity.
It was not a long journey by stage, for which she was thankful. The noonday sun was hot and the interior of the turnout soon began to take on the semblance of a bake-oven. They came out at last on a wind-swept terrace and she gained her first unobstructed view of the ocean.
She had always loved the sea--its wideness, its mystery, its ever changing face. She watched the sweep of a gull following the crested windrow of the breakers on a near-by reef, busy with his fishing. All manner of craft etched their spars and canvas on the horizon, only bluer than the sea itself. Inshore was a fleet of small fry--catboats, sloops, dories under sail, and a smart smack or two going around to Provincetown with cargoes from the fish pounds.
"I shall like it," she murmured after a deeper breath.
They came to the outlying dwellings of Cardhaven; then to the head of Main Street that descended gently to the wharves and beaches of the inner harbor. Halfway down the hill, just beyond the First Church and the post-office, was the rambling, galleried old structure across the face of which, and high under its eaves, was painted the name "Cardhaven Inn." A pungent, fishy smell swept up the street with the hot breeze. The tide was out and the flats were bare.
The coach stopped before the post-office, and Louise got out briskly with her bag. The driver, backing down from his seat, said to her:
"If ye wait till I git out the mail I'll drive ye inter the tavern yard in style. I bait the horses there."
"Oh, I'll walk," she told him brightly. "I can get dinner there, I suppose?"
"Warn't they expectin' you at Cap'n Abe's?" the stage driver asked. "I want to know! Oh, yes. You can buy your dinner at the tavern. But 'tain't a long walk to Cap'n Abe's. Not fur beyond the Mariner's Chapel."
Louise thanked him. A young man was coming down the steps of the post-office. He was a more than ordinarily good-looking young fellow, deeply tanned, with a rather humorous twist to his shaven lips, and with steady blue eyes. He was dressed in quite common clothing: the jersey, high boots, and sou'wester of a fisherman.
He looked at Louise, but not offensively. He did not remove his hat as he spoke.
"I heard Noah say you wished to go to Cap'n Abe's store," he observed with