Capn Abe, Storekeeper | Page 4

at first meeting
as well as those utterly impossible. Of whatever nation and color they
might be, she had learned that under their skins they were all just
human beings.
But Nature--ah! she was ever changing. This girl who had seen so
much of the world had never seen anything quite like the bits of scene
she observed from the narrow window of the car. Not beautiful,
perhaps, but suggestive and 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