Capn Abe, Storekeeper | Page 6

"I see by the Globe paper," Cap'n Abe observed, pushing up from his
bewhiskered visage the silver-bowed spectacles he really did not need,
"that them fellers saved from the wreck of the Gilbert Gaunt cal'late
they went through something of an adventure."
"And they did," rejoined Cap'n Joab Beecher, "if they seen ha'f what
they tell about."

"I dunno," the storekeeper went on reflectively, staring at a huge fishfly
booming against one of the dusty window panes. "I dunno. Cap'n
Am'zon was tellin' me once't about what he and two others went
through with after the Posy Lass, out o' Bangor, was smashed up in a
big blow off Hat'ras. What them fellers in the Globe paper tell about
ain't a patch on what Cap'n Am'zon suffered."
There was an uncertain, troubled movement among Cap'n Abe's hearers.
Even the fishfly stopped droning. Cap'n Beecher looked longingly
through the doorway from which the sea could be observed as well as a
strip of that natural breakwater called "The Neck," a barrier between
the tumbling Atlantic and the quiet bay around which the main village
of Cardhaven was set.
All the idlers in the store on this June afternoon were not natives. There
were several young fellows from The Beaches--on the Shell Road to
which Cap'n Abe's store was a fixture. In sight of The Beaches the
wealthy summer residents had built their homes--dwellings ranging in
architectural design from the mushroom-roofed bungalow to a villa in
the style of the Italian Renaissance.
The villa in question had been built by I. Tapp, the Salt Water Taffy
King, and Lawford Tapp, only son of the house, was one of the
audience in Cap'n Abe's store.
"Cap'n Amazon said," boomed the storekeeper a good deal like the
fishfly--"Cap'n Amazon said the Posy Lass was loaded with lumber and
her cargo's 'bout all that kep' her afloat as fur as Hat'ras. Then the
smashin' big seas that come aboard settled her right down like a
wounded duck.
"The deck load went o' course; and about ev'rything else was cleaned
off the decks that warn't bolted to 'em. The seas rose up and picked off
the men, one after t'other, like a person'd clean off a beach plum bush."
"I shouldn't wonder," spoke up Cap'n Beecher, "if we seen some
weather 'fore morning."

He was squinting through the doorway at an azure and almost speckless
sky. There was an uneasy shuffling of boots. One of the boys from The
Beaches giggled. Cap'n Abe--and the fishfly--boomed on together, the
storekeeper evidently visualizing the scene he narrated and not the
half-lighted and goods-crowded shop. At its best it was never well
illumined. Had the window panes been washed there was little chance
of the sunshine penetrating far save by the wide open door. On either
hand as one entered were the rows of hanging oilskins, storm boots,
miscellaneous clothing and ship chandlery that made up only a part of
Cap'n Abe's stock.
There were blue flannel shirts dangling on wooden hangers to show all
their breadth of shoulder and the array of smoked-pearl buttons. Brown
and blue dungaree overalls were likewise displayed--grimly, like men
hanging in chains. At the end of one row of these quite ordinary
habiliments was one dress shirt with pleated bosom and cuffs as stiff as
a board. Lawford Tapp sometimes speculated on that shirt--how it
chanced to be in Cap'n Abe's stock and why it had hung there until the
flies had taken title to it!
Centrally located was the stove, its four heavily rusted legs set in a
shallow box which was sometimes filled with fresh sawdust. The
stovepipe, guyed by wires to the ceiling, ran back to the chimney
behind Cap'n Abe.
He stood at the one space that was kept cleared on his counter, hairy
fists on the brown, hacked plank--the notches of the yard-stick and
fathom-stick cut with a jackknife on its edge--his pale eyes sparkling as
he talked.
"There she wallered," went on the narrator of maritime disaster, "her
cargo held together by rotting sheathing and straining ribs. She was
wrung by the seas like a dishrag in a woman's hands. She no longer
mounted the waves; she bored through 'em. 'Twas a serious time--to
hear Cap'n Am'zon tell it."
"I guess it must ha' been, Abe," Milt Baker put in hastily. "Gimme a
piece o' that Brown Mule chewin' tobacker."

"I'll sell it to ye, Milt," the storekeeper said gently, with his hand on the
slide of the cigar and tobacco showcase.
"That's what I mean," rejoined Milt boldly, fishing in his pocket for the
required nickel.
"For fourteen days while the Posy Lass was drivin' off shore before an
easterly gale, Cap'n Am'zon an' two others, lashed to the stump o' the
fo'mast, ex-isted in a smother of foam