Chapter 7 UNDER FIRE

"Uncle Amazon?" burst out Louise. "A pirate?"

"That's what he looks like," repeated Betty Gallup, nodding her head on which the man's hat still perched. "I never saw the beat! Why, that man give me the shock of my life when I came in here just now!"

"What do you mean?" the amazed girl asked,

"Why, as I come in-I was a lettle early, knowin' you was here-I heard as I s'posed Cap'n Abe in the sittin'-room. I saw this letter, sealed and directed to me, on the dresser there. 'Humph!' says I, 'Who's writin' billy-doos to me, I'd admire to know?' And I up and opened it and see it's in Cap'n Abe's hand. Just then I heard him behind me--"

"Heard who? Not Cap'n Abe?"

"No, no! This other feller-this Cap'n Am'zon Silt, as he calls himself. But I thought 'twas Cap'n Abe's step I heard. He says: 'Oh! you've found the letter?' I declare I thought 'twas your uncle's voice!"

"But it was my uncle's voice, of course," Louise reminded her, much amused, "Cap'n Amazon Silt is my uncle, too."

"Humph! I s'pose so. Looks to be. If 'tis him. Anyhow," pursued the jerkily speaking Betty Gallup, "I turned 'round when he spoke spectin' to see Cap'n Abe-for I hadn't read this letter then-and there he warn't! Instead-of all the lookin' critters! There! you go take a peek at him and see what you think yourself. I'll put the breakfast on the table. He's made coffee and the mush is in the double-biler and the biscuits in the oven are just browning. I reckon he's as handy 'round the kitchen as Cap'n Abe is. Lots of these old sailors be."

"Fancy! an uncle who is a pirate!" giggled Louise and she ran through the living-room and the dividing hall to the door of the store. First she saw Cap'n Amazon from the rear. The red bandana swathing his bead, below which was a lank fringe of black hair, was the only bizarre thing she noticed about her new-found relative. He seemed to have very quick hearing for almost instantly he swung smartly around to face her.

"Oh!" was expelled from the girl's lips, for she was as startled as

Lawford Tapp and Betty Gallup had been.

Compared with the mild-appearing, heavily whiskered Cap'n Abe, this brother of the storekeeper was in looks what Betty had pronounced him. His dark complexion, the long mustache, as black and glossy as a crow's wing, the gold rings in his ears, with the red handkerchief to top it all, made Cap'n Amazon Silt as romantic a figure as ever peered out of a Blackbeard or a Henry Morgan legend.

There were intricate traceries on his forearms in red and blue ink; beneath the open collar of his shirt the girl gained a glimpse of other tattooing. There was a faint scar traced along his right jaw, almost from ear to chin, which added a certain grimness to his expression.

Yet his was not at all a sinister face. His eyes twinkled at her kindly-almost like Cap'n Abe's eyes-and the huge mustache lifted in a smile.

"Ahoy!" he cried jovially. "So this is my niece, Louise, is it? Well, to be sure! Abe didn't overpraise you. You be a pretty tidy craft."

The girl dimpled, coming forward to give him her hand. As on the day before, her hand was lost in a warm, firm clasp, while her uncle continued to look her over with approval.

"Yes, sir!" he ejaculated. "You look to me like one o' the tidiest craft I ever clapped eyes on. I don't scarcely see how Abe could go away and leave you. Dunno's he's got an eye for a pretty woman like me. Bless you! I been a slave to the women all my life."

"Yet never married, Uncle Amazon?" she cried roguishly.

"Tell you how 'twas," he whispered hoarsely, his hand beside his mouth. "I never could decide betwixt and between 'em. No, sir! They are all so desir'ble that I couldn't make up my mind. So I stayed single."

"Perhaps you showed wisdom, Uncle Amazon," laughed the girl.

"Still-when you grow old--"

"Oh! there's plenty of sailors' snug harbors," he hastened to say.

"And time enough to worry about that when I be old."

"I thought--Why! you look younger than Cap'n Abe," she said.

"Ain't it a fact? He's let himself run to seed and get old lookin'. That's from stayin' ashore all his life. It's the feel of a heavin' deck under his feet that keeps the spring in a man's wishbone. Yes, sir! Abe's all right-good man and all that-but he's no sailor," Cap'n Amazon added, shaking his head.

"Now, here!" he went on briskly, "we ought to have breakfast, hadn't we? I left that woman Abe has pokin' around here, to dish up; and it's 'most six bells. Feel kind of peckish myself, Louise."

"I'll run to see if the biscuits are done," said the girl; and she hurried to the kitchen ahead of him. Betty Gallup was waiting for her.

"What d'ye think of him?" she whispered anxiously.

"Why, he's splendid!" the girl replied scarcely stifling her laughter.

"He's a character!"

"Humph! Mebbe. But even if he is your uncle, I got to say right now he ain't a man I'd trust. Nothin' a-tall like Cap'n Abe!"

"I think he seems a great deal like Uncle Abram."

"Humph! How long you knowed Abram Silt? Come here yesterday for the fust time. Lemme tell you, Miss Grayling, we've knowed Cap'n Abe around here for twenty year and more. Course, he ain't Cardhaven born; but we know him. He's as diff'rent from this pirate that calls himself Cap'n Am'zon Silt as chalk is from cheese."

The mush was on the table, Louise called Cap'n Amazon from the store. They sat down to the table just as she had sat opposite to Cap'n Abe the evening before. She thought, for a moment, that Cap'n Amazon was going to ask a blessing as her other uncle had. But no, he began spooning the mush into a rather capacious mouth.

Into the room from the rear strolled Diddimus, the tortoise-shell cat. Louise tried to attract his attention; but she was comparatively a stranger to turn. The cat went around to the chair where Cap'n Abe always sat. He leaped into Cap'n Amazon's lap.

"Well, I never!" said Cap'n Amazon. "Seems quite to home, doesn't he?"

Diddimus, preparing to "make his bed," looked up with topaz eyes into the face of the captain. Louise could see the cat actually stiffen with surprise. Then, with a "p-sst-maow!" he leaped down and ran out of the room at high speed.

"What-what do you think of that?" gasped Cap'n Amazon. "The cat's gone crazy!"

The girl was in a gale of laughter. "Of course he hasn't," she said. "He thought you were Cap'n Abe-till he looked into your face. You can't blame the cat, Uncle Amazon."

Cap'n Amazon smote his knee a resounding smack of appreciation. "You got your bearin's correct, Louise, I do believe. I must have surprised the critter. And Abe set store by him, I've no doubt."

"Diddimus will get over it," said the amused Louise.

"There's that bird," Cap'n Amazon said suddenly, looking around at the cage hanging in the sunlit window. "What's Abe call him?"

"Jerry."

"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. Immediately, with an answering chirp, the canary hopped along his perch with a queer sidewise motion and, reaching the finger, sprang upon it with a little flutter of its wings.

"There!" cried Cap'n Amazon, with boyish relief. "He takes to me all right."

"That don't show nothin'," said Betty Gallup from the doorway. She had removed her hat and coat and was revealed now as a woman approaching seventy, her iron-gray hair twisted into a "bob" so that it could be completely hidden when she had the hat on her head. "That don't show nothin'," she repeated grimly.

Cap'n Amazon jerked his head around to look at her, demanding: "Why don't it, I want to know?"

"'Cause the bird's pretty near stone-blind."

"Blind!" gasped Louise, pity in her tone.

"It can't be," murmured the captain, hastily facing the window again.

"I found that out a year an' more ago," Betty announced. "Didn't want to tell Cap'n Abe-he was that foolish about the old bird. Jerry's used to Cap'n Abe chirping to him and putting his finger 'twixt the slats of the cage for him to perch on. He just thinks you're Cap'n Abe."

She clumped out into the kitchen again in her heavy shoes. Cap'n Amazon came slowly back to his chair. "Blind!" he repeated. "I want to know! Both his deadlights out. Too bad! Too bad!"

He did not seem to care for any more breakfast.

Footsteps in the store soon brought the substitute shopkeeper to his feet again.

"I s'pose that's somebody come aboard for a yard o' tape, or the seizings of a pair of shoes," he growled. "I'd ought to hauled in the gang-plank when we set down."

He disappeared into the store and almost at once a shrill feminine voice greeted him as "Cap'n Abe." Vastly abused, Louise arose and softly followed to the store.

"Give me coupla dozen clothespins and a big darnin' needle, Cap'n Abe. I got my wash ready to hang out and found them pesky young 'uns of Myra Stout's had got holt o' my pin bag and fouled the pins all up usin' 'em for markers in their garden. I want-land sakes! Who-what-- Where's Cap'n Abe?"

"He ain't here just now," Cap'n Amazon replied. "I'm his brother. You'll have to pick out the needle you want. I can find and count the clothespins, I guess. Two dozen, you say?"

"Land sakes! Cap'n Abe gone away? Don't seem possible."

"There's a hull lot of seemin' impossible things in this world that come to pass just the same," the substitute storekeeper made answer, with some tartness. "Here's the needle drawer. Find what you want, ma'am."

Louise was frankly spying. She saw that the customer was a lanky young woman in a sunbonnet. When she dropped the bonnet back upon her narrow shoulders with an impatient jerk, the better to see the needles, it was revealed that her thin, light hair was drawn so tightly back from her face that it actually seemed to make her pop-eyed.

She had a rather pretty pink and white complexion, and aside from the defect of hairdressing might have been attractive. She possessed a thin and aquiline nose, however, the nostrils fairly quivering with eagerness and curiosity.

"Land sakes!" she was saying. "I know Cap'n Abe's been talkin' of goin' away-the longest spell! But so suddent-'twixt night and mornin' as ye might say---"

"Exactly," said Cap'n Amazon dryly, and went on counting the pins from the box into a paper sack.

"What 'bout the girl that's come here? That movie actress?" asked the young woman with added sharpness in her tone. "What you going to do with her?"

Cap'n Amazon came back to the counter and even his momentary silence was impressive. He favored the customer with a long stare.

"Course, 'tain't none o' my business. I was just askin'--"

"You made an int'restin' discovery, then, ma'am," he said. "It ain't any of your business. Me and my niece'll get along pretty average well, I shouldn't wonder. Anything else, ma'am? I see the needle's two cents and the pins two cents a dozen. Six cents in all."

"Well, I run a book with Cap'n Abe. I ain't got no money with me," said the young woman defiantly.

"Le's see; what did you say your name was?" and Cap'n Amazon drew from the cash drawer a long and evidently fully annotated list of customers' names, prepared by Cap'n Abe.

"I'm Mandy Baker-she 'twas Mandy Card."

"Yes. I find you here all right. Your bill o' ladin' seems good.

Good-mornin', ma'am. Call again."

Mandy Baker looked as though she desired to continue the conversation. But there was that in Cap'n Amazon's businesslike manner and speech that impressed Mrs. Baker-as it had Lawford Tapp-that here was a very different person from the easy-going, benign Cap'n Abe. Mandy sniffed, jerked her sunbonnet forward, and departed with her purchases.

Cap'n Amazon's quick eye caught sight of Louise's amused face in the doorway.

"Kind of a sharp craft that," he observed, watching' Mandy cross the road. "Reminds me some o' one o' them Block Island double-enders they built purpose for sword-fishing. When you strike on to a sword-fish you are likely to want to back water 'bout as often as shove ahead. I cal'late this here Mandy Baker is some spry in her maneuvers. And I bet she's got one o' the laziest husbands in this whole town. 'Most always happens that way," concluded the captain, who seemed quite as homely philosophical and observant as his brother.

As a stone thrown into a quiet pool drives circling ripples farther and farther away from the point of contact, so the news of Cap'n Abe's secret departure and the appearance of the strange brother in his place, spread through the neighborhood.

The coming of Louise to the store on the Shell Road had also set the tongues to clacking. Mandy Baker, who took her husband's rating in women's eyes at his own valuation, was up in arms. A pretty girl, and an actress at that!-for until recent years that was a word to be only whispered in polite society on the Cape-was considered by such as Mandy to be under suspicion right from the start.

The mystery of Cap'n Amazon, however, quite overtopped the gossip about Louise. Idlers who seldom dropped into the store before afternoon came on this day much earlier to have a look at Cap'n Amazon Silt. Women left their housework at "slack ends" to run over to the store for something considered suddenly essential to their work. Some of the clam-diggers lost a tide to obtain an early glimpse of Cap'n Amazon. Even the children came and peered in at the store door to see that strange, red-kerchief-topped figure behind Cap'n Abe's counter.

Cap'n Joab Beecher was one of the earliest arrivals. Cap'n Joab had been as close to Cap'n Abe as anybody in Cardhaven. There had been some little friction between him and the storekeeper on the previous evening. Cap'n Joab felt almost as though Cap'n Abe's sudden departure was a thrust at him.

But when he introduced himself to Cap'n Amazon the latter seized the caller's hand in a seaman's grip, and said heartily: "I want to know Cap'n Joab Beecher, of the old Sally Noble. I knowed the bark well, though I never happened to clap eyes on you, sir. Abe give me a letter for you. Here 'tis. Said you was a good feller and might help wise me to things in the store here till I'd l'arned her riggin' and how to sail her proper."

Cap'n Joab was frankly pleased by this. He spelled out the note Cap'n Abe had addressed to him slowly, being without his reading glasses, and then said:

"I'm yours to command, Cap'n Silt. Land sakes! I s'pose your brother had a puffict right to go away. He'd talked about goin' enough. Where's he gone?"

"On a v'y'ge," said Cap'n Amazon.

"No! Gone to sea?"

"Yes. Sailing to-day-out o' Boston."

"I want to know! Abe Silt gone to sea! Wouldn't never believed it. Always 'peared to be afraid of gettin' his paws wet-same's a cat," ruminated Cap'n Joab. "What craft's he sailin' in?"

The Boston morning paper lay before Cap'n Amazon, opened at the page containing the shipping news. His glance dropped to the sailing notices and with scarcely a moment's hesitancy he said:

"Curlew, Ripley, master, out o' Boston. I knowed of her-knowed Cap'n Ripley," and he pointed to the very first line of the sailing list. "If Abe got there in time he like enough j'ined her crew."

"Shipped before the mast?" exploded Cap'n Joab.

"Well," Cap'n Amazon returned sensibly, "if you were skipper about where would you expect a lubber like Abe Silt to fit into your crew?"

"I swanny, that's so!" agreed Cap'n Joab. "But it's goin' to be hard lines for a man of his years-and no experience."

Cap'n Amazon sniffed. "I guess he'll get along," he said, seemingly less disturbed by his brother's plight than other people. "Three months of summer sailin' won't do him no harm."

That he was under fire he evidently felt, and resented it. His brother's old neighbors and friends desired to know altogether too much about his business and that of Cap'n Abe. He told Louise before night:

"I tell you what, Abe's got the best of it! If I'd knowed I was goin' to be picked to pieces by a lot of busybodies the way I be, I'd never agreed to stay by the ship till Abe got back. No, sir! These folks around here are the beatenest I ever see."

Yet Louise noticed that he seemed able to hold his own with the curious ones. His tongue was quite as nimble as Cap'n Abe's had been. On the day of her arrival, Lou Grayling had believed she would be amused at Cardhaven. Ere the second twenty-four hours of her stay were rounded out, she knew she would be.