Cap'n Dan's Daughter

erfully, "I'm tryin' to average u

ubber boots. Captain Perez, swinging back and forth in the parlor rocker with the patch-work cushion, was puffing deliberately at a wooden pipe, the bowl of which was carved into the likeness of a v

are you doin' w

s fingers and teeth and then he

t, but it's took me so plaguey long to find the other one that whatever wet there was dried up afore I got out of the house. Yesterday when I wanted to go clammin' I found the left one on the mantelpiece, no trouble at all,

n't think much of that plan. 'Stead o

l go barefoot or stay at home. It's the kind of responsibleness tha

m callin' a minute ago. That cat ain't b

me, kitty, kitty, kitty!" came from s

erved. Then, as a fat gray cat shot past the door, "There he is!

itcher down on the table, pulled forward the armchair with the painted sunset on the back, produced his ow

ked, after finishing the round of pocket

f the clock a spell ag

"Well, that's too bad! I see it there and thou

t of a plug from his friend a

yourself to anything you happen to want, don't make no odds whose 't

it. Humph! I thought so! This is 'Navy Plug' and you always sm

to know," observed Captain Perez

mine?" said Captain Je

got it in your pock

uess I know-well, I snum! I forgot that upper vest pocket!" and fr

e expanse of water to the eastward darkened, and the outer beach became but a dusky streak separating the ocean from the i

y!" said Captain Eri

" observed Captain Perez w

le we can! Here, Jerry! them matches is burnt one

ah M., Eri Hedge, Master, and the fishing schooners, Georgie Baker, Jeremiah Burgess, Master, and the Flying Duck, Perez Ryder, Master, were shrouded in a very realistic fog of the same dust. Even the imposing gilt-lettered set of "Lives of Great Naval Commanders," purchased by Captain Perez some months before, and being slowly paid for on an apparently never-ending installment pla

ut the grave, Perez? Was it t

scrap of throat whisker and looking rather shamefaced. "You see, M'lissy B

Captain Jerry set u

money, Perez. She'll have you yit; you can't git away! But say, I don't wonder you got to think

cruisin' 'round the way she always does with a cargo of gabble, and, she put in here to unload. Talk! I never heard a woman talk the way

is time?" asked

into Seth Wingate's wife for havin' a new bunnit this season when the old one wan't ha'f wore out. She talked for ten minutes or so on that, and then she begun about Parker's bein' let go over at the cable

Captain Jerry. "There's a heap of folks in this

and his gang think so, and 'Web' Saunders thinks so, and a lot more like them. Parker was TOO good a feller, that's what wa

ody told somebody else, and somebody else told somebody else, and somebody else told HER-she says it come reel straight-that the men are goin' to make

at man should git here and she not know it aforehand 'twould kill h

d watch from his pocket

expectin' some barrels down on to-night's train. John asked me to git Zoeth Cahoon to cart 'em down for him, but I ain't got nothin' special to do to-night,

"Blessed if I'd do the durn things to-night if

'Twan't last night you done 'em, Eri; 'twas the night afore. I done 'em last night, and I'm ready to take my chances agin if

aration of independence and there was a pause in

o use. It d

work?" asked

I wouldn't mind doin' my share of the work a bit, thought 'twould be kind of fun to swab decks and all that. Well, 'twas for a spell, but 'tain't now. I'm so sick of it that I don't know what to do

ndows toward which his frien

observed, "we've got to have

erez emphatically, "a

e shook his head solemnly and added, "Th

n Perez di

in'," he said

his wife, dead these twenty years, and sighed agai

dy else in Orham that you could git, 'less 'twas old A'nt Zuby Higgins, and that would be actin' like the feller t

inquired Captain Perez. "I said we'd got to have a woman,

oared the tw

a shipwrecked crew's starvin' one of 'em has to be sacrificed for the good of the rest, and th

. "Good boy, Perez!" he cried.

'll all three match for it, same

' to find a wife?"

ings was goin', and I've been thinkin' this over for a co

red about him fish-lines, hooks, lead for sinkers, oilcloth jackets, whales' teeth, and various other articles, and at length came back bearing a much-crumpled she

a piece about it in the Herald the other day, and sent a dime for a sampl

chair up to the table. After giving the pages of t

ns.' Which of them kinds are you sufferin' for, Perez? Oh, say! here's a lady that's willin' to heave herself aw

thing for us to do would be to write out a advertisement of our own; tell what so

rimony for a moment without speaking. The

tin

u think of

ariner decisively. "We've got to do somethin'

dogmatically. "We agreed to stick together, and tw

Eri he

Captain Jerry. "Ain't go

izzical glance at his companions, "it's got to be settled that the feller that's s

able, with a big hairy hand. Captain Eri did likewise; so did Captain Jerry. Then Captain Eri lifted his hand and showed the coin beneath; it was a head. Captain Jerry

uppermost. Captai

t from the shelf where the dishes should have been, opened

rifice," who sat gazing at the pennies on the table in a sort of trance, "don't feel bad about it. Why, when you come to think of it, it's a provide

ain Jerry lugubriously. "

till chuckling as, perched on the seat of the "truck wagon," he rattled and shook out of the yard and turned into the sandy road that led up to the village. And an outsider, hearing these chuckles, and knowing