A whole month more went by afore Jim Henry Jacobs was well enough to come home. When he got off the train at the Ostable depot, thin and white and lookin' as if he'd been hauled through a knothole, I was waitin' for him. Maybe we wa'n't glad to see each other! We shook hands for pretty nigh five minutes, I cal'late. I loaded him into my buggy and drove him down to the Poquit House and took him upstairs to his room, which had been made as comf'table and cozy as it's possible to make a room in that kind of a boardin'-house.

He set down in a big chair and looked around him.

"By George, Skipper!" he says, fetchin' a long breath, "this is home, and I'm mighty glad to be here. Where'd all the flowers come from?"

"Mary is responsible for them," I told him. "She thought they'd sort of brighten up things."

"They do, all right," says he, grateful. "And now tell me about business. How is everything?"

I told him that everything was fine; trade was tip-top, and so on. He listened and was pleased, but I could see there was somethin' else on his mind.

"There's just one thing more," he said, soon's he got the chance. "I knew the store must be O. K.; your letters told me that. But—er—but—" tryin' hard to be casual and not too interested, "how is Frank doin' with his restaurant? How's the 'Sign of the Windmill' gettin' on?"

Then I told him the whole yarn, almost as I've told it here. He listened, breakin' out with exclamations and such every little while. When I got to where the Washburn man told who Frank and the stewardess was, he couldn't hold in any longer.

"A crook!" he sung out. "A crook! And she was his wife!"

"So it seems," says I. "And that ain't all of it, neither. You remember the doctor said he'd drawn his account out of the Ostable bank. Yes. Well, that account didn't amount to much; he'd used it about all, anyway. But there was another account in his wife's name at the Sandwich bank, and that was fairly good size."

"Did you get hold of that?" he asked, excited.

"No, we didn't. 'Twas in her name and we wouldn't have touched it, if we'd wanted to; but we didn't get the chance. She drew it all the very next mornin' and the pair of 'em cleared out. I judge they'd planned to skip in a few days anyhow, and our creditors' raid only hurried things up a little mite. The whole thing was a skin game—Frank and his precious wife had seen ruination comin' on and they'd laid plans to feather their own nest and let the rest of us whistle. We ain't seen 'em from that day to this."

He was shakin' all over. "You ain't?" he shouted, jumpin' from the chair. "You ain't? Why not? What did you let 'em get away for? Why didn't you set the police after 'em? What sort of managin' do you call that? I—I—"

"Hush!" says I, surprised to see him act so. "Hush, Jim! you ain't heard the whole of it yet. Our bill—"

"Bill be hanged!" he broke in. "I don't care a continental about the bill. I invested fifteen hundred dollars of my own money in that road-house, and you let that fakir get away with the whole of it. You're a nice partner!"

I was surprised now, and a good deal cut up and hurt. 'Twas an understandin' between us—not a written one, but an understandin' just the same—that neither should go into any outside deal without tellin' the other. We'd agreed to that after the row concernin' Taylor and the "Palace Parlors." So I was surprised and hurt and mad. But I held in well as I could.

"That's enough of that, Jim Henry!" says I. "I'll talk about that later. Now I'll tell you the rest of the yarn I started with. After that critter who called himself Frank, but whose name, it seemed, was Francis, had galloped away with the stewardess woman, there was consider'ble excitement around that dinin'-room, now I tell you. However, Johnson and Washburn and me managed to get together in the private office and I told 'em all about how we come to be there, and about our gettin' their dinner, and all the rest of it. They seemed to think 'twas funny, laughed liked a pair of loons, but I was a long ways from laughin'.

"'Well, well, well!' says Johnson, when I'd finished, 'that's the best joke I've heard in a month of Sundays. You sartinly have your own ways of doin' business down here, Cap'n Snow. But the dinner was a good one and I'll pay you for it now. How much?'

"'Well,' says I, 'I suppose I ought to get what I can for our crowd to leave with their wives and relations afore we're carted to jail. Course the meal we got for you wa'n't what you expected and I can't charge that Frank thief's price for it; but I've got to charge somethin'. If you think a dollar a head wouldn't be too much, I—'

"'A dollar!' says both of 'em. 'A dollar!'

"'Do you mean that's all you'll charge?' says Johnson. 'A dollar for that dinner! It was the best—'

"'You bet it was!' says Washburn.

"'Look here!' goes on Johnson. 'I was to pay Frank, or whatever his real name is, two-fifty a plate. Yours was wuth three of any meal I ever got here, but, if you will be satisfied with the contract price I made with him, I'll give you a check now. And, Cap'n Snow, let me give you a piece of advice. Now you've got this hotel, keep it; keep it and run it. If you can furnish dinners like this one every day in the week durin' the summer and fall you'll have customers enough. Why, I'll engage twenty-five plates for next Sunday, myself. I've got another week-end party, haven't I, Wash?'

"'If you haven't I can get one for you,' says Washburn. 'Johnson's advice is good, Cap'n. Keep this place and run it yourself. Don't be afraid of Francis. Confound him! I ought to have him jailed. The Club would pitch me out if they knew I had the chance and didn't take it. But I won't, for your sake. So long as he doesn't trouble you I'll keep quiet. But if he does trouble you, if he ever comes back, just send for me. However, you won't have to send; he'll never come back.'

"And," says I, to Jim Henry, "he ain't ever come back. I talked the matter over with Mary and Alpheus and a few of the others and, after consider'ble misgivin's on my part, we reached an agreement. I decided to run the 'Sign of the Windmill' myself. We bounced the chef and his helpers and the foreign waiters and hired Alpheus's wife and Cahoon's daughter and four or five more. We fed ten folks that next day and they all said they was comin' again. They did and they fetched others. The upshot of it is that all that hotel's outstandin' bills have been paid, the place is out of debt, and the outlook for next season is somethin' fine. There, Jim Henry, that's the yarn. I went through Purgatory because I figgered that you had trusted the store business in my hands and the Windmill's bill was so large and I thought I was responsible for it. If I'd known you'd put money into the shebang without tellin' me, your partner, a word about it, maybe I'd have felt worse. I should have felt worse—I do now—but in another way. I didn't think you'd do such a thing, Jim! I honestly didn't."

He'd set down while I was talkin'. Now he got up again.

"Skipper," he says, sort of broken, "I—I don't know what to say to you. I—"

"It's all right," says I, pretty sharp. "Your fifteen hundred's all right, I cal'late. The furniture and fixin's are wuth that, I guess. Is there anything else you want to ask me? If not I'm goin' to the store."

I was turnin' to go, but he stepped for'ard and stopped me.

"Zeb," he says, his face workin', "don't go away mad. I've been a chump. You ought to hate me, but I—I hope you won't. I was a fool. I thought because you was country that you hadn't any head for business, and when you wouldn't invest in that Windmill proposition I was sore and went into it myself. My conscience has plagued me ever since. I'm a low-down chump. I deserve to lose the fifteen hundred and I'm glad I did. By the Lord Harry! you've got more real business instinct than I ever dreamed of."

He looked so sort of weak and sick and pitiful that I was awful sorry for him, in spite of everything.

"Don't talk foolish," says I. "You ain't lost your money. It's yours now; at least I don't think Brother Fred George Eben Frank Francis'll ever turn up to claim it."

He shook his head. "Not much!" he says. "You don't suppose I'll take a share in that hotel, after you and your smart managin' saved it, do you? I ain't quite as mean as that, no matter what you think. No, sir, you've made good and the whole property is yours. All I want you to do is to give me another chance. If I live I'll show you how thankful I—"

"There! there!" says I, all upset, "don't say another word. Of course we'll hang together in this, same as in everything else. Shake, and let's forget it."

We shook hands and his was so thin and white I felt worse than ever.

"Skipper," he says, "I can't thank—"

"No need to thank me," I cut in. "If you've got to thank anybody, thank Mary Blaisdell. She's been the brains of that eatin'-house concern ever since I took hold of it. She's a wonder, that woman. If she'd been my own sister she couldn't have done more. I wish she was."

He looked at me, pretty queer.

"Skipper," says he, smilin', "if you wish that you're a bigger chump than I've been, and that's sayin' a heap."

What in the world he meant by that I didn't know—but I didn't ask him. Not that I didn't think. I'd been thinkin' a lot of foolish things lately, but you could have cut my head off afore I said 'em out loud, even to myself.

He came down to the store the next mornin' and the sight of it seemed to be the very tonic he needed. He got better day by day and pretty soon was his own brisk self again. "The Sign of the Windmill"—by the way, I'd changed the name on my own hook and 'twas the "Sign of the Bluefish" now—done fust rate all through the fall and when we closed it we was sure that next summer it would be a little gold mine for us. In fact, everything in the trade line looked good, by-products and all, and I ought to have been a happy man. But I wa'n't exactly. Somehow or other I couldn't feel quite contented. I didn't know what was the matter with me and when I hinted as much to Jacobs he just looked at me and laughed.

"You're lonesome, that's what's the matter with you," he says. "You're too good a man to be boardin' at a one-horse ranch like the Poquit."

"I'll admit that," says I. "I'll give in that I'm next door to an angel and ought to wear wings, if it'll please you any to have me say so. And the Poquit ain't a paradise, by no means. But I've sailed salt water for the biggest part of my life and it ain't poor grub that ails me."

"Who said it was?" says he. "I said you were lonesome. You ought to have a home."

"Old Mans' Home you mean, I s'pose. Well, I ain't goin' there yet."

He laughed again and walked off.

In October he went up to Boston and came back with his head full of new ideas and his pockets full of notions. He'd been to what the advertisements called the Industrial Exhibition in Mechanics' Buildin' up there, and had fetched back every last thing he could get for nothin' and some few that he bought cheap. He had a sample trap that, accordin' to the circular, would catch all the able-bodied rats in a township the fust night and make all the crippled and bedridden ones grieve themselves to death of disappointment because they couldn't get into it afore closin' hours. And he had the Gunners' Pocket Companion, which was a foldin' hatchet and butcher knife, with a corkscrew in the handle; and samples of "cereal coffee" that didn't taste like either cereal or coffee; and safety razors that were warranted not to cut—and wouldn't; and—and I don't know what all. These was side issues, however, as you might say. What he was really enthusiastic over was the Eureka Adjustable Aluminum Window Screen. If he'd been a mosquito he couldn't have been more anxious about them screens.

"They're the greatest ever, Skipper!" he says to me, enthusiastic. "Fit any window; can't rust—and a child of twelve can put 'em up."

"That part don't count," says I. "Nowadays if a child of twelve ain't halfway through Harvard his folks send for the doctor. I may be a hayseed, but I read the magazines."

He went right along, never payin' no attention, and praisin' up them screens as if he was nominatin' 'em for office. Finally he made proclamation that he'd applied—in the store name, of course—for the Ostable County agency for 'em.

"But why?" says I. "We've got an adjustable screen agency now. And they're good screens, too. No mosquito can get through them—unless it takes to usin' a can-opener, which wouldn't surprise me a whole lot."

"I know they are good screens," says he; "but there's nothin' new or novel about 'em. And, I tell you, Cap'n Zeb, it's novelty that catches the coin. We want to get the contract for screenin' that new hotel at West Ostable. It'll be ready in a couple of months and there's two hundred rooms in it. Let's say there are two windows to a room; that's four hundred screens—besides doors and all the rest. That hotel will need screens, won't it?"

"Need 'em!" says I. "In West Ostable! In among all them salt meadows and cedar swamps! It'll need screens and nettin's and insect powder and 'intment—and even then nobody but the hard-of-hearin' bo'rders'll be able to sleep on account of the hummin'. Need screens! That hotel! My soul and body!"

Well, then, we must get the contract—that's all. It was well wuth the trouble of gettin'. And with the Adjustable Aluminum to start with, and he, Jim Henry, to do the talkin', we would get it. He'd applied for the county agency and the Adjustable folks had about decided to give it to him. They'd write and let us know pretty soon.

A week went by and we didn't hear a word. Then, on the followin' Monday but one, come a letter. Jim Henry was openin' the mail and I heard him rip loose a brisk remark.

"What's the matter?" says I.

"Matter!" he snarls. "Why, the miserable four-flushers have turned me down—that's all. Read that!"

I took the letter he handed me. It was type-wrote on a big sheet of paper, with a printed head, readin': "Ormstein & Meyer, Hardware and Tools. Manufacturers of Eureka Adjustable Aluminum Window Screens." And this is what it said:

Mr. J. H. Jacobs,

Ostable Grocery, Dry Goods, Boots and Shoes and Fancy Goods Store, Ostable, Mass.

Dear Sir: Regarding your application for Ostable County ag'y Eureka Adjustable Aluminum Window Screens, would say that we have decided to give ag'y to party named Geo. Lentz, who will give entire time to it instead making it a side issue as per your conversation with our Mr. Meyer. Regretting that we cannot do business together in this regard, but trusting for a continuance of your valued patronage, we remain

Yours truly,

Ormstein & Meyer.

Dic. M—L. G.

"Now what do you think of that?" snaps Jim, mad as he could stick. "What do you think of that!"

"Well," says I, slow, "I think that, speakin' as a man in the crosstrees, it looks as if you and me wouldn't furnish screens for the West Ostable Hotel."

He half shut his eyes and stared at me hard.

"Oh!" says he. "That's what you think, hey?"

"Why, yes," I says. "Don't you?"

"No!" he sings out, so loud that 'Dolph Cahoon, our new clerk, who'd been half asleep in the lee of the gingham and calico dressgoods counter, jumped up and stepped on the store cat. The cat beat for port down the back stairs, whoopin' comments, and 'Dolph begun measurin' calico as if he was wound up for eight days.

"No!" says Jacobs again, soon as the cat's opinion of 'Dolph had faded away into the cellar—"No!" he says. "I don't think it at all. We may not sell Eureka Adjustables to that hotel, but we'll sell screens to it—and don't you forget that. I'll make it my business to get that contract if I don't do anything else. I'm no quitter, if you are!"

"Nary quit!" says I. "I'll stand by to pull whatever rope I can; but it does seem to me that this agent, whoever he is, will have an eye on that hotel. And, accordin' to your accounts, he's got better goods than we have."

"Maybe. But if he's a better salesman than I am he'll have to go some to prove it. I'll beat him, by fair means or foul, just to get even. That's a promise, Skipper, and I call you to witness it."

"Wonder who this Geo. Lentz is," says I. "'Tain't a Cape name, that's sure."

"I don't care who he is. I only wish he'd have the nerve to come into this store—that's all. He'd go out on the fly—I tell you that! And that's another promise."

Maybe 'twas; but, if so—However, I'm a little mite ahead of myself; fust come fust served, as the youngest boy said when the father undertook to thrash the whole family. The fust thing that happened after our talk and the Eureka folks' letter was Jim Henry's goin' over to West Ostable to see Parkinson, the hotel man. He went in the new runabout automobile that he'd bought since he got back from the West, and was gone pretty nigh all day. When he got back he was hopeful—I could see that.

"Well," says he, "I've laid the cornerstone. I've talked the Nonesuch"—that was the brand of screen we carried—"to beat the cars; and we'll have a show to get in a bid, at any rate. It'll be six weeks more afore the contract's given out, and meantime yours truly will be on the job. If our old college chum, G. Lentz, Esquire, don't hustle he'll be left at the post."

"What sort of a chap is this Parkinson man?" I asked.

"Oh, he's all right; big and fat and good-natured. A good feller, I should say. Likes automobilin', too, and thinks my car is a winner."

"Married, is he?" says I.

"No; he's a widower. That's a good thing, too."

"Why? What's that got to do with it?"

"A whole lot. If he was married I'd have to take Mrs. P. along on our auto rides; and—let alone the fact that there wouldn't be room—she'd want to talk scenery instead of screens. Women and business don't mix. That's one reason why I've never married."

I couldn't help thinkin' of some of the hints he'd been heavin' at me—the "home" remarks and so on—but I never said nothin'.

This was a Tuesday. And when, on Thursday afternoon, I walked into the store, after havin' had dinner at the Poquit, I found 'Dolph Cahoon—our new clerk I've mentioned already—leanin' graceful and easy over the candy counter and talkin' with a young woman I'd never seen afore. I didn't look at her very close, but I got a sort of general observation as I walked aft to the post-office department; and, sifted down, that observation left me with remembrances of a blue serge jacket and skirt, cut clipper fashion and fittin' as if they was built for the craft that was in 'em; a little blue hat—a real hat; not a velvet tar barrel upside down—with a little white gull's wing on it; brown eyes and brown hair, and a white collar and shirtwaist. I didn't stop to hail, you understand; but I judged that the stranger's home port wa'n't Ostable or any of the Cape towns. Ostable outfitters don't rig 'em that way.

I come in the side door, and 'Dolph or his customer didn't notice me. The young woman was lookin' into the showcase; and, as for 'Dolph, he wouldn't have noticed the President of the United States just then. He was twirlin' his red mustache with the hand that had the rock-crystal ring on the finger of it, and his talk was a sort of sugared purr—at least, that's the nighest description of it that I can get at.

I set down in my chair at the postmaster's desk and begun to turn over some papers. Mary had gone to dinner and Jim Henry was away in his auto; so I was all alone. I turned over the papers, but I couldn't get my mind on 'em—the talk outside was too prevailin', so to speak.

'Dolph was doin' the heft of it. The young woman's answers was short and not too interested. 'Dolph was remarkin' about the weather and what a dull winter we'd had, and how glad he'd be when spring really set in and the summer folks begun to come—and so on.

"Really," says he, and though I couldn't see him I'd have bet that the mustache and ring was doin' business—"Really," he says, "there's a dreadful lack of cultivated society in this town, Miss—er—"

He held up here, waitin', I judged, for the young woman to give her name. However, she didn't; so he purred ahead.

"There's so few folks," he says, "for a young feller like me—used to the city—to associate with. This is a jay place all right. I'm only here temporary. I shall go back to Brockton in the fall, I guess."

I guessed he'd go sooner; but I kept still.

"Are you goin' to remain here for some time?" he asked.

"Possibly," says the girl.

"I'm 'fraid you'll find it pretty dull, won't you?"

"Perhaps."

"I should be glad to introduce you to the folks that are worth knowin'. Are you fond of dancin'? There's a subscription ball at the town hall to-night."

This was what a lawyer'd call a leadin' question, seemed to me; but the answer didn't seem to lead to anything warmer than the North Pole. The young woman said, "Indeed?" and that was all.

"I'm perfectly dippy about waltzin'," says 'Dolph. "By the way, won't you have some confectionery? These chocolates are pretty fair."

I riz to my feet. I don't mind bein' a philanthropist once in a while, but I like to do my philanthropin' fust-hand. And them chocolates sold for sixty cents a pound!

I had my hand on the doorknob. Just as I turned it I heard the young woman say, crisp and cold as a fresh cucumber:

"Pardon me, but will your employer be in soon? If not I'll call again—when he is in."

"You won't have to," says I, steppin' out of the post-office room and walkin' over toward the candy counter. "One of him's in now. 'Dolph, you can put them chocolates back in the case. Oh, yes—and you might associate yourself with the broom and waltz out and sweep the front platform. It's been needin' your cultivated society bad."

The rest of that clerk's face turned as red as his mustache, and the way he slammed the chocolate box into the showcase was a caution! Then I turned to the young woman, who was as sober as a deacon, except for her eyes, which were snappin' with fun, and says I:

"You wanted to see me, I believe, miss. My name's Zebulon Snow and I'm one of the partners in this jay place. What can I do for you?"

She waited until 'Dolph and the broom had moved out to the platform. Then she turned to me and she says:

"Captain Snow," she says, "I understand that your firm here is intendin' puttin' in a bid for the window screens at the new hotel at West Ostable. Is that so?"

I was consider'ble surprised, but I didn't see any reason why I shouldn't tell the truth.

"Why, yes, ma'am," says I; "we are figgerin' on the job. Are you interested in that hotel? If you are I'd be glad to show you samples of the Nonesuch screen. We cal'late that it's a mighty slick article."

She smiled, pretty as a picture.

"I am interested in the hotel," she says; "and in screens, though not exactly in the way you mean, perhaps. Here is my card."

She took a little leather wallet out of her jacket-pocket and handed me a card. I took it. 'Twas printed neat as could be; but it wa'n't the neatness of the printin' that set me all aback, with my canvas flappin'—'twas what that printin' said:

"What?—What!—Hey?" says I.

"Yes," says she.

"Agent for the Eureka Adjusta—You!"

"Why, yes; of course. The Eureka people wrote you that they had given me the agency, didn't they?"

I rubbed my forehead.

"They wrote my partner and me," I stammered, "that they'd given it to—to a feller named George—er—that is—"

"Not George—Georgianna. Oh, I see! They abbreviated the name and so you thought—Of course you did. How odd!"

She laughed. I'd have laughed too, maybe, if I'd had sense enough to think of it; but I hadn't, just then.

"You the agent!" says I. "A—a woman!"

"Yes."

"But—but a woman!"

"Well?" pretty crisp. "I admit I am a woman; but is that any reason why I should not sell window screens?"

I rubbed my forehead some more. These are progressive days we're livin' in, and sometimes I have to hustle to keep abreast of 'em.

"Why, no," says I, slow; "I cal'late 'tain't. I suppose there's no law against a woman's sellin' 'most any article that is salable, window screens or anything else if she wants to; but I can't see—"

"Why she should want to? Perhaps not. However, we needn't go into that just now. The fact is I do want to and intend to. I have secured a boardin' place here in Ostable and shall make the town my headquarters. This is a small community and one naturally prefers to be friendly with all the people in it. So, after thinkin' the matter over, I decided that it was best to begin with a clear understandin'. Do you follow me?"

"I—I guess so. Heave ahead; I'll do my best to keep you in sight. If the weather gets too thick I'll sound the foghorn. Go on."

"I am naturally desirous of securin' the hotel screen contract. So, I understand, are you. I have seen Mr. Parkinson, the hotel man, and he tells me that your firm and mine will probably be the only bidders. Now that makes us rivals, but it need not necessarily make us enemies. My proposition is this: You will submit your bid and I will submit mine. The party submittin' the lowest bid—quality of product considered—will win. I propose that we let it go in that way. We might, of course, do a great many other things—might attempt to bring influence to bear; might—well, might cultivate Mr. Parkinson's acquaintance, and—and so on. You might do that—so might I, I suppose; but, for my part, I prefer to make this a fair, honorable business rivalry, in which the best man—er—"

"Or woman," I couldn't help puttin' in.

"In which the best bid wins. I have already demonstrated the Eureka for Mr. Parkinson's benefit and left a sample with him. He tells me that you have done the same with the Nonesuch. I will agree—if you will—to let the matter rest there, submittin' our respective bids when the time comes and abidin' by the result. Now what do you say?"

'Twas pretty hard to say anything. I wanted to laugh; but I couldn't do that. If there ever was anybody in dead earnest 'twas this partic'lar young woman. And she wa'n't the kind to laugh at either. She might be in a queer sort of business for a female—but she was nobody's fool.

"Well," she asks again, "what do you say?"

I shook my head. "I can't say anything very definite just this minute," I told her. "I've got a partner, and naturally I can't do much without consultin' him; but I will say this, though," noticin' that she looked pretty disappointed—"I'll say that, fur's I'm concerned, I'm agreeable."

She smiled and, as I cal'late I've said afore, her smile was wuth lookin' at.

"Thank you so much, Cap'n Snow," she says. "Then we shall be friends, sha'n't we? Except in business, I mean."

"I hope so—sartin," says I. "Now it ain't none of my affairs, of course, but I am curious. How did you ever happen to take the agency for—for window screens?"

That made her serious right off. She might smile at other things, but not at her trade; that was life and death for sure.

"I took it," she says, "for several reasons. My mother died recently and I was left alone. My means were not sufficient to support me. I have done office work, typewritin', and so on, for some years; but I felt that the opportunities in the positions I held were limited and I determined to take up sellin'—that is where the larger returns are. Don't you think so?"

"Oh, yes—sartin."

"Yes. I knew Mr. Meyer slightly in a business way. I took the Eureka screen and sold it on commission about Boston for a time. Then I applied for the Ostable County agency and got it—that's all."

"I see," says I. "Yes, yes. Well, I must say that, for a girl, you—"

She interrupted me quick.

"I don't see that my bein' a girl has anything to do with it," she says. "And in this agreement of ours, if it is made, I don't wish the difference of sex considered at all. This is a business proposition and sex has nothin' to do with it. Is that plain?"

"Yes," says I, considerin', "it's plain; but I ain't sure that—"

"I am sure," she interrupts—"and you must be. I wish to be treated in this matter exactly as if I were a man. I wish I were one!"

"I doubt if you'd get most men to agree with you in that wish," I says. "However, never mind. I'll do my best to get Mr. Jacobs, my partner, to say 'Yes' to your proposal. And I hope you'll do fust-rate, even if we are what you call rivals. Drop in any time, Miss Georg—Georgianna, I mean."

We shook hands and she went away. I went as fur as the platform with her. When I turned to go in again I noticed 'Dolph Cahoon starin' after her, with his eyes and mouth open.

"Gosh!" says he, grinnin'. "By gosh! She's a peach! Ain't she, Cap'n Zeb?"

"Maybe so," says I, pretty short; "but I don't recollect that we hired you as a judge of fruit. Has that broom took root in the dirt on this platform? Or what is the matter?"