by Joseph C. Lincoln




CHAPTER I

IN WHICH KEZIAH HEARS TWO PROPOSALS AND THE BEGINNING OF A THIRD


Trumet in a fog; a fog blown in during the night by the wind from the
wide Atlantic. So wet and heavy that one might taste the salt in it.
So thick that houses along the main road were but dim shapes behind
its gray drapery, and only the gates and fences of the front yards
were plainly in evidence to the passers-by. The beach plum and bayberry
bushes on the dunes were spangled with beady drops. The pole on Cannon
Hill, where the beacon was hoisted when the packet from Boston dropped
anchor in the bay, was shiny and slippery. The new weathervane, a
gilded whale, presented to the "Regular" church by Captain Zebedee Mayo,
retired whaler, swam in a sea of cloud. The lichened eaves of the little
"Come-Outer" chapel dripped at sedate intervals. The brick walk leading
to the door of Captain Elkanah Daniels's fine residence held undignified
puddles in its hollows. And, through the damp stillness, the muttered
growl of the surf, three miles away at the foot of the sandy bluffs by
the lighthouse, sounded ominously.

Directly opposite Captain Elkanah's front gate, on the other side of the
main road, stood the little story-and-a-half house, also the captain's
property, which for fourteen years had been tenanted by Mrs. Keziah