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Updated: June 22, 2025
Only the night before she and her uncle had figured out the Curlew's course homeward-bound from her last port of call. She might pass in sight of Cardhaven Head and the lighthouse any day now. The thought sobered Louise. Clinging to I. Tapp's arm she went nearer to the spot where the surfmen had brought their gear and boat.
Before Louise and her father were ready to leave Cardhaven most of the summer residents along The Beaches, including Aunt Euphemia, had gone. And the moving picture company had also flown. With the latter went Gusty Durgin, bravely refusing to have her artistic soul trammeled any longer by the claims of hungry boarders at the Cardhaven Inn.
"No. I never happened on Cap'n Am'zon when I was sea-farin'. And he ain't never been to Cardhaven to my knowledge." "Never been here?" murmured Lawford Tapp more than a little surprised. "Wasn't he born and brought up here?" "No. Neither was Cap'n Abe. The Silts flourish, as ye might say or, useter 'fore the fam'ly sort o' petered out down New Bedford way.
Halfway down the hill, just beyond the First Church and the post-office, was the rambling, galleried old structure across the face of which, and high under its eaves, was painted the name "Cardhaven Inn." A pungent, fishy smell swept up the street with the hot breeze. The tide was out and the flats were bare. The coach stopped before the post-office, and Louise got out briskly with her bag.
Louise gave him her hand with just a little apprehension. She realized that for a young man to make an evening call upon a girl in a simple community such as Cardhaven might cause comment which she did not care to arouse. But it seemed Lawford Tapp had an errand. "I do not know, Miss Grayling, whether you care to go out in my Merry Andrew now that your friends have arrived," he said.
Aunt Euphemia would never overlook such a thing. Louise was sure of that. But the idea that the Poughkeepsie lady would follow her to Cardhaven never for a moment entered Louise's thought. She had put off this reckoning until the fall until the return of daddy-professor. But here Aunt Euphemia had descended upon her as unexpectedly as the Day of Wrath spoken of in Holy Writ.
"Poor Jerry!" her uncle said, and in that single phrase all the outer husk of the rough and ready seaman the character he had assumed in playing his part for so many weeks sloughed away. He was the simple, tender-hearted, almost childish Cap'n Abe that she had met upon first coming to Cardhaven. Swiftly through her mind the incidents of that first night and morning flashed.
Even chummin' won't sarve ye. Good-night!" After getting rid of this importunate customer, Cap'n Abe closed his door and put out his store lights an hour earlier than usual and came back to sit down with Louise. His visage was red and determination sat on his brow. "I snum!" he emphatically observed. "Cardhaven folks seem bit with some kind o' bug. Talk 'bout curiosity! 'Hem!
Nobody ever seen this critter 'round Cardhaven before," Betty Gallup declared with strong conviction. "Oh, no; Uncle Amazon has never been here to visit Cap'n Abe before. Cap'n Abe told me all about it," the girl explained, fearing that scandal was to take root here and now if she did not discourage it. "Of course Uncle Abe went away. He came to my door and bade me good-bye." Louise was puzzled.
She did not hear the second automobile stop nor the cheerful voice of its gawky driver as he said to his fare: "This is the place, ma'am. This is Cap'n Abe's." His was the only car in public service at the Paulmouth railroad station and Willy Peebles seldom had a fare to Cardhaven. Noah Coffin's ark was good enough for most Cardhaven folk if they did not own equipages of their own.
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