how to knit."

"I shall be glad to meet him," said Louise.

"If he comes," Cap'n Abe rejoined, "an' I go away as I planned to,
'twon't make a mite o' difference to you, Niece Louise. You feel right
at home here--and so'll Cap'n Am'zon, though he ain't never been to
Cardhaven yet. He'll be a lot better company for you than I'd be."

"Oh, Cap'n Abe, I can scarcely believe that!" cried the girl.

"You don't know Cap'n Am'zon," the storekeeper said. "I tell ye fair:
he's ev'rything that I ain't! As a boy--'hem!--Am'zon was always
leadin' an' me follerin'. I kinder took after my mother, I guess.
She was your grandmother. Your grandfather was a Card--and a nice man
he was.

"Our father--me an' Am'zon's--was Cap'n Joshua Silt of the schooner
_Bravo_. Hi-mighty trim and taut craft she was, from all accounts.
I--I warn't born when he died," added Cap'n Abe, hesitatingly.

"You were a posthumous child!" said Louise.

"Er--I guess so. Kinder 'pindlin', too. Yes! yes! Cap'n Am'zon's
ahead o' me--in ev'ry way. When father died 'twas pretty average hard
on mother," Cap'n Abe pursued. "We was llvin' at Rocky Head, I guess I
told you b'fore?"

"Yes," Louise said, interested.