Capn Abe, Storekeeper | Page 5

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 neither an assumption of familiarity nor any bucolic
embarrassment. "I am bound that way myself."
"Thank you!" she said with just enough dignity to warn him to keep his
distance if he chanced to be contemplating anything familiar. "But I
shall dine at the hotel first."
A brighter color flooded into his cheeks and Louise felt that she might
have been too sharp with him. She mended this by adding:
"You may tell me how to get to the Shell Road and Mr. Silt's, if you
will be so kind."
He smiled at that. Really, he was an awfully nice-looking youth! She
had no idea that these longshore fishermen would be so gentlemanly
and so good looking.
"Oh, you can't miss it. Take the first left-hand street, and keep on it.
Cap'n Abe's store is the only one beyond the Mariner's Chapel."
"Thank you," she said again and mounted the broad steps of the Inn.
The young fellow hesitated as though he were inclined to enter too. But
when Louise reached the piazza and glanced quickly down at him, he
was moving on.
The cool interior of a broad hall with a stairway mounting out of it and
a screened dining-room at one side, welcomed the girl. A bustling
young woman in checked gingham, which fitted her as though it were a
mold for her rather plump figure, met the visitor.
"How-do!" she said briskly. "Goin' to stop?"
"Only for dinner," Louise said, smiling--and when she smiled her gray

eyes made friends.
"Almost over. But I'll run an' tell the cook to dish you up something hot.
Come right this way an' wash. I'll fix you a table where it's cool. This is
'bout the first hot day we've had."
She showed the visitor into the dressing-room and then bustled away.
Later she hovered about the table where Louise ate, the other boarders
having departed.
"My name's Gusty Durgin," she volunteered. "I reckon you're one o'
them movin' picture actresses they say are goin' to work down to The
Beaches this summer."
"What makes you think so?" asked Louise, somewhat amused.
"Why--you kinder look it. I should say you had 'screen charm.' Oh! I
been readin' up about you folks for a long time back. I subscribed to
The Fillum Universe that tells all about you. I'd like to try actin' before
the cam'ra myself. But I cal'late I ain't got much 'screen charm,'" the
waitress added seriously. "I'm too fat. And I wouldn't do none of them
comedy pictures where the fat woman always gets the worst of it. But
you must take lovely photographs."
"I'm not sure that I do," laughed Louise.
"Land sakes! Course you do. Them big eyes o' yourn must just look
fetchin' in a picture. I don't believe I've ever seen you in a movie, have I,
Miss------?"
"Grayling."
"'Grayling'! Ain't that pretty?" Gusty Durgin gave an envious sigh. "Is
it your honest to goodness, or just your fillum name?"
"My 'honest to goodness,'" the visitor confessed, bubbling with
laughter.
"Land sakes! I should have to change mine all right. The kids at school

useter call me 'Dusty Gudgeon.' Course, my right name's Augusta; but
nobody ever remembers down here on the Cape to call anybody by
such a long name. Useter be a boy in our school who was named
'Christopher Columbus George Washington Marquis de Lafayette
Gallup.' His mother named him that. But everybody called him
'Lafe'--after Lafayette, ye see.
"Land sakes! I should just have to change my name if I acted in the
pictures. Your complexion's real, too, ain't it?" pursued this waitress
with histrionic ambitions. "Real pretty, too, if 'tis high colored. I expect
you have to make up for the pictures, just the same."
"I suppose I should. I believe it is always necessary to accentuate the
lights and shadows for the camera."
"'Accentuate'--yep. That's a good word. I'll remember that," said Gusty.
"You goin' to stay down to The Beaches long---and will you like it?"
"The Beaches?"
"That's where you'll work. At the Bozewell house. Swell bungalow. All
the big bugs live along The Beaches."
"I am not sure just how long I shall stay," confessed Louise Grayling;
"but I know I am going to like it."
CHAPTER II
CAP'N ABE