United States or Turkmenistan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"Ain't a-tryin' to," he responded, eying her admiringly. "You're an able seaman, I don't dispute. An' we'll git along fine. Hi-mighty! there's Am'zon!" Louise actually turned around this time to look at the door, expecting to see the mariner in question enter. Then she said, half doubtfully: "Do you suppose your brother will object if he does come, Cap'n Abe?"
"So I heard unendin' experiences of men who had gone to sea. And at night I read everything I could get touchin' on, an' appertainin' to, sea-farin'. In my mind I've sailed the seven seas, charted unknown waters, went through all the perils I tell 'bout. Yes, sir, I don't dispute I'm a hi-mighty liar," he repeated, sighing and shaking his head.
An' hi-mighty!" exploded Cap'n Abe, with a great laugh, "I have give 'em a taste of him, I vum!" "Oh, you have, Uncle Abram! You have!" agreed Louise, and burst, into laughter herself. "It is wonderful how you did it! It is marvelous! How could you?" "Nothin' easier, when you come to think on't," replied Cap'n Abe. "I'd talked so much 'bout Cap'n Am'zon that he was a fixed idea in people's minds.
I had a feelin' that I'd swoon away an' fall right down in my tracks if I undertook to face such a sea as that was t'other day. "And see! Nothing of the kind happened! I knew I'd got to make good Cap'n Am'zon's character, or not hold up my head in Cardhaven again. I don't dispute I've been a hi-mighty liar, Niece Louise. But but it's sort o' made a man o' me for once, don't ye think? "I dunno.
"But when the Curlew arrives home?" queried the girl suddenly. "Hi-mighty, ye-as! I see that," he groaned. "Looks to me as though somethin'll have to happen to Abe Silt 'twixt Boston and this port. And you'll have to stop your father's mouth, Louise. I depend upon you to help me. Otherwise I shall be undone completely undone." "Goodness!" cried the girl, choked with laughter again.
"And he told me to be hi-mighty tender with that canary. Wouldn't trust nobody else, he said, to feed and water him." He rose from the table, leaving his breakfast. "I wonder what Jerry thinks of me?" He whistled to the bird and thrust a big forefinger between the wires of the cage.
I dunno what Cap'n Am'zon'll think of 'em." "I think they are funny," Louise retorted, her laughter bubbling up again. "Likely it looks so to you," said Cap'n Abe. "They're pretty average funny I do guess to a stranger, as ye might say. But after you've summered 'em and wintered 'em for twenty-odd years like I have, land sakes! the humor's worn hi-mighty thin!" Cap'n Abe produced a pipe.
But after a couple of days, on an occasion when she was feeding him broth, he suddenly sputtered and put away the spoon with a vexed gesture. "What's the matter, Uncle Abram?" she asked him. "Isn't it good?" "The soup's all right, Niece Louise. 'Tain't so fillin' as chowder, I cal'late, but it'll keep a feller on deck for a spell. That ain't it. I was just a-thinkin'." "Of what?" "Hi-mighty!
"There, I hear a customer in the store," and she gave him a little pat on the shoulder as he delivered the huge apron into her hand. "I dunno," he said, smiling upon her quizzically, "as I shall really want to cast off if Cap'n Am'zon does come. Seems to me 'twould be hi-mighty nice to have a girl like you around the place, Louise." "Then don't go," she said, briskly beginning to clear off.
Cap'n Abe said: "Land sakes! you come 'way down here to the Cape to be took in by a feller like Ford Tapp, Niece Louise? I thought you was a girl with too much sense for that!" "But what has love to do with sense, uncle?" she asked him, dimpling. "Hi-mighty! I s'pect that's so. An', anyway, he does seem to improve. He's really gone to work, they tell me, in one of his father's candy factories."
Word Of The Day