female housekeeper.

"Women aboard ship are a dum nuisance," he declared. "I've carried 'em
cabin passage and I know. Isaiah Chase is a good cook, and, besides, if
the biscuits are more fit for cod sinkers than they are for grub, I
can tell him so in the right kind of language. We don't want no woman
steward, Zoeth; you hear ME!"

Zoeth, although the Captain's seafaring language was a trial to his
gentle, churchly soul, agreed with his partner on the main point. His
experience with the other sex had not been such as to warrant further
experiment. So Isaiah was hired and had been cook and steward at the
South Harniss home for many years. But he made it a practice to assert
his independence at frequent intervals, although, as a matter of fact,
he would no more have dreamed of really leaving than his friends and
employers would of discharging him. Mr. Chase was as permanent a fixture
in that house as the ship's chronometer in the dining-room; and that was
screwed to the wall.

And, in spite of his grumbling, he and Mary-'Gusta were rapidly becoming
fast friends. Shadrach and Zoeth also were beginning to enjoy her
company, her unexpected questions, her interest in the house and the
store, and shrewd, old-fashioned comments on persons and things. She was
a "queer young-one"; they, like the people of Ostable, agreed on that
point, but Mr. Hamilton was inclined to think her ways "sort of takin'"
and the Captain admitted that maybe they were. What he would not admit
was that the girl's visit, although already prolonged for a fortnight,
was anything but a visit.

"I presume likely," hinted Zoeth, "you and me'll have to give the Judge