The Skipper and the Skipped | Page 9

Ward has trompled round this town for twenty-five years, and bossed and browbeat and cussed, and got the best end of every trade. If there's some one come along that can put the wickin' to him in good shape, I swow if this town don't owe him a vote of thanks."
"There's a movement on already to ask Cap'n Sproul to take the office of first s'lec'man at the March meetin'," said one of the loafers.
"I sha'n't begretch him one mite of his popularity," vowed the storekeeper. "Any man that can put Kun'l Gid Ward where he belongs is a better thing for the town than a new meetin'-house would be."
But during all this flurry of gossip Cap'n Aaron Sproul spent his bland and blissful days up under the shade of the big maple in the Ward dooryard, smoking his pipe, and gazing out over the expanse of meadow and woodland stretching away to the horizon.
Most of the time his wife was at his elbow, peering with a species of adoration into his browned countenance as he related his tales of the sea. She constantly carried a little blank-book, its ribbon looped about her neck, and made copious entries as he talked. She had conceived the fond ambition of writing the story of his life. On the cover was inscribed, in her best hand:
FROM SHORE TO SHORE
LINES FROM A MARINER'S ADVENTURES
The Life Story of the Gallant Captain Aaron Sproul
Written by His Affectionate Wife
"I reckon that Providunce put her finger on my compass when I steered this way. Louada Murilla," said the Cap'n one day, pausing to relight his pipe.
He had insisted on renaming his wife "Louada Murilla," and she had patiently accepted the new name with the resignation of her patient nature. But the name pleased her after her beloved lord had explained.
"I was saving that name for the handsomest clipper-ship that money could build," he said. "But when I married you, little woman, I got something better than a clipper-ship; and when you know sailorman's natur' better, you'll know what that compliment means. Yes, Providunce sent me here," continued the Cap'n, poking down his tobacco with broad thumb. "There I was, swashin' from Hackenny to t'other place, livin' on lobscouse and hoss-meat; and here you was, pinin' away for some one to love you and to talk to you about something sensibler than dropped stitches and croshayed lamp-mats. Near's I can find out about your 'sociates round here, you would have got more real sense out of talkin' with Port and Starboard up there," he added, pointing to his pet parrots, which had followed him in his wanderings. "We was both of us hankerin' for a companion--I mean a married companion. And I reckon that two more suiteder persons never started down the shady side--holt of hands, hey?"
He caught her hands and pulled her near him, and she bent down and kissed his weather-beaten forehead.
At that instant Col. Gideon Ward came clattering into the yard in his tall wagon. He glared at this scene of conjugal affection, and then lashed his horse savagely and disappeared in the direction of the barn.
"I read once about a skelington at a feast that rattled his dry bones every time folks there started in to enjoy themselves," said the Cap'n, after he watched the scowling Colonel out of sight. "For the last two weeks, Louada Murilla, it don't seem as if I've smacked you or you've smacked me but when I've jibed my head I've seen that ga'nt brother-in-law o' mine standing off to one side sourer'n a home-made cucumber pickle."
"It's aggravatin' for you, I know it is," she faltered. "But I've been thinkin' that perhaps he'd get more reconciled as the time goes on."
"Reconciled?" snapped the Cap'n, a little of the pepper in his nature coming to the surface. "If it was any one but you little woman, that talked about me as though I was death or an amputated leg in this family, I'd get hot under the collar. But I tell ye, we ain't got many years left to love each other in. We started pritty late. We can't afford to waste any time. And we can't afford to have the edge taken off by that Chinese image standin' around and makin' faces. I've been thinkin' of tellin' him so. But the trouble is with me that when I git to arguin' with a man I'm apt to forgit that I ain't on shipboard and talkin' to a tar-heel."
He surveyed his brown fists with a certain apprehensiveness, as though they were dangerous parties over whom he had no control.
"I should dretfully hate to have anything come up between you and Gideon, Cap'n," she faltered, a frightened look in her brown eyes. "It wouldn't settle anything to have trouble. But you've been