and truck. We didn't think anything of it then, but when we got home
at noon, there was the best dinner ever you see all ready for us. Fried
fish, and some kind of beans cooked up with peppers, and tea--real store
tea--and a lot more things. Land, how we did eat! We kept smacking our
lips and rubbing our vests to show we was enjoying everything, and the
old gal kept bobbing her head and grinning like one of them dummies you
wind up with a key.

"'Well,' says Hammond, 'we've got a cook at last. Ain't we,
old--old--Blimed if we've got a name for 'er yet! Here!' says he,
pointing to me. 'Looky here, missis! 'Edge! 'Edge! that's 'im! 'Ammond!
'Ammond! that's me. Now, 'oo are YOU?'

"She rattled off a name that had more double j'ints in it than an eel.

"'Lordy!' says I; 'we never can larn that rigamarole. I tell you! She
looks for all the world like old A'nt Lobelia Fosdick at home down on
Cape Cod. Let's call her that.'

"'She looks to me like the mother of a oysterman I used to know in
Liverpool. 'Is name was 'Ankins. Let's split the difference and call 'er
Lobelia 'Ankins.'

"So we done it.

"Well, Hammond and me pounded and patched away at the schooner for the
next three or four days, taking plenty of time off to sleep in, 'count
of the heat, but getting along fairly well.

"Lobelia 'Ankins cooked and washed dishes for us. She done some noble