CHAPTER I

THE PERFECT BOARDING HOUSE


It is queer, but Captain Cy himself doesn't remember whether the day was
Tuesday or Wednesday. Asaph Tidditt's records ought to settle it, for
there was a meeting of the board of selectmen that day, and Asaph has
been town clerk in Bayport since the summer before the Baptist meeting
house burned. But on the record the date, in Asaph's handwriting, stands
"Tuesday, May 10, 189-" and, as it happens, May 10 of that year fell on
Wednesday, not Tuesday at all.

Keturah Bangs, who keeps "the perfect boarding house," says it was
Tuesday, because she remembers they had fried cod cheeks and cabbage
that day--as they have every Tuesday--and neither Mr. Tidditt nor Bailey
Bangs, Keturah's husband, was on hand when the dinner bell rang. Keturah
says she is certain it was Tuesday, because she remembers smelling the
boiled cabbage as she stood at the side door, looking up the road to
see if either Asaph or Bailey was coming. As for Bailey, he says he
remembers being late to dinner and his wife's "startin' to heave a
broadsides into him" because of it, but he doesn't remember what day it
was. This isn't surprising; Keturah's verbal cannonades are likely to
make one forgetful of trifles.

At any rate, whether Tuesday or Wednesday, it is certain that it was
quarter past twelve, according to the clock presented to the Methodist
Society by the Honorable Heman Atkins, when Asaph Tidditt came down the