CAP'N ABE

"I see by the _Globe_ paper," Cap'n Abe observed, pushing up from his
bewhiskered visage the silver-bowed spectacles he really did not need,
"that them fellers saved from the wreck of the _Gilbert Gaunt_ cal'late
they went through something of an adventure."

"And they did," rejoined Cap'n Joab Beecher, "if they seen ha'f what they
tell about."

"I dunno," the storekeeper went on reflectively, staring at a huge
fishfly booming against one of the dusty window panes. "I dunno. Cap'n
Am'zon was tellin' me once't about what he and two others went through
with after the _Posy Lass,_ out o' Bangor, was smashed up in a big blow
off Hat'ras. What them fellers in the _Globe_ paper tell about ain't a
patch on what Cap'n Am'zon suffered."

There was an uncertain, troubled movement among Cap'n Abe's hearers.
Even the fishfly stopped droning. Cap'n Beecher looked longingly through
the doorway from which the sea could be observed as well as a strip of
that natural breakwater called "The Neck," a barrier between the tumbling
Atlantic and the quiet bay around which the main village of Cardhaven was
set.

All the idlers in the store on this June afternoon were not natives.
There were several young fellows from The Beaches--on the Shell Road to
which Cap'n Abe's store was a fixture. In sight of The Beaches the
wealthy summer residents had built their homes--dwellings ranging in
architectural design from the mushroom-roofed bungalow to a villa in the