For a moment there was silence, absolute silence, in the best parlor of the Fair Harbor for Mariners' Women. Then that silence was broken.

"What is he sayin'?" wailed Mrs. Aurora Chase. "Elviry Snowden, why don't you tell me what he's a-sayin'?"

CHAPTER VII

The bomb had burst, the debris had fallen, the smoke had to some extent cleared, the committee, still incoherent but by no means speechless, had retired to the dining room to talk it over. Mrs. Tidditt had accompanied them; and Sears Kendrick and Elizabeth Berry were saying good-by at the front door.

"Well," observed the captain, dubiously, "I'm glad you don't think I'm more than nine tenths idiot. It's some comfort to know you can see one tenth of common-sense in the thing. It's more than I can, and that's honest. I give you my word, Miss Elizabeth, when I set sail from Judah's back entry this mornin' I hadn't any more idea that I should undertake the job of handlin' the Fair Harbor than--well, than that Snowden woman had of kissin' that little spitfire that was flyin' up in her face every minute or two while she was tryin' to read that paper.... Ha-ha! that was awfully funny."

Elizabeth smiled. "It was," she agreed. "And it looks so much funnier to me now than it did then, thanks to you, Cap'n Kendrick. You have taken a great load off my mind."

"Um--yes, and taken it on my own, I shouldn't wonder. I do hope you'll make it clear to your mother that all I intend doin' is to keep a sort of weather eye on money matters, that's all. She is to have just the same ratin' aboard here that she has always had--and so will you, of course."

"But I haven't had any real rating, you know. And now I will be more of a fifth wheel than ever. You and mother can manage the Harbor. You won't need me at all. I can take a vacation, can't I? Won't that be wonderful!"

He looked at her in unfeigned alarm.

"Here, here!" he exclaimed. "Lay to! Come up into the wind! Don't talk that way, Miss Berry, or I'll jump over the rail before I've really climbed aboard this craft. I'm countin' on you to do three thirds of the work, just as I guess you've been doin' for a good while. All I shall be good for--if anything--is to be a sort of reef in the channel, as you might say, something for committees like this one to run their bows on if they get too far off the course."

"And that will be the most useful thing any one can do, Cap'n Kendrick.

Oh, I shall thank Judge Knowles--in my mind--so many, many times a day for sending you here, I know I shall. I guessed, when he told me you were going to call, that there was something behind that call. And there was. What a wise old dear he is, bless him."

"Is he? Well I wish I was surer of the wisdom in trappin' me into takin'

this command. However, I have taken it, so I'll have to do the best I can for a while, anyhow. Afterwards--well, probably I won't last _but_ a little while, so we won't worry about more than that. And you'll have to stand by the wheel, Miss Elizabeth. If it hadn't been for you--I mean for the way that committee lit into you--I don't think I should ever have taken charge."

"I know. And I sha'n't forget. You may count on me, Cap'n Kendrick, for anything I can do to help."

His face brightened. "Good!" he exclaimed. "That's as good as an insurance policy on the ship and cargo. With you to pilot and me to handle the crew she ought to keep somewhere in deep water.... Well, I'll be gettin' back to port. Judah's dinner will be gettin' cold and he won't like that. And to-morrow mornin' I'll come again and we'll have a look at the figures."

"Yes. I'll have the books and bills and everything ready.... Oh, be careful! Can't I help you down the step?"

He shook his head. "I can navigate after a fashion," he said, grimly. "I get along about as graceful as a brick sloop in a head tide, but, by the Lord Harry, I'll get along somehow.... No, don't, please. I'd rather you didn't help me, if you don't mind."

Slowly, painfully, and with infinite care he lowered himself down the step. On level ground once more, leaning heavily on his cane, he turned to her and smiled a somewhat shame-faced apology.

"It's silly, I know," he said, panting a little, "but I've always been used to doin' about as I pleased and it--somehow it plagues me to think I can't go it alone still. Just stubborn foolishness."

She shook her head. "No, it isn't," she said, quickly. "I understand.

And I do hope you will be better soon. Of course you will."

"Will I?... Well, maybe. Good mornin', Miss Berry. Be sure and tell your mother she's to be just as much cap'n as she ever was."

He hobbled along the walk to the gate. As he pa.s.sed beneath the sign he looked back. She was still standing in the doorway and when he limped in at the entrance of the General Minot place she was there yet, watching him.

He said no word to Judah of his acceptance of the post of commander of the Fair Harbor. He felt that Judge Knowles should be the first to know of it and that he, himself, should be the one to tell him. So, after dinner was over, and Judah had harnessed the old horse to go to the Minot wood lot for a load of pine boughs and brush for kindling, he asked his ex-cook to take him across to the judge's in the wagon, leave him there, and come for him later. Mr. Cahoon, of course, was delighted to be of service but, of course also, he was tremendously curious.

"Hum," he observed, "goin' to see the judge again, be you, Cap'n Sears?"

"Yes."

"Hum.... Ain't heard that he's any sicker, nor nothin' like that, have you?"

"No."

"I see.... Yus, yus.... Just goin' to make a--er--sort of--what you might call a--er--a call, I presume likely."

"I shouldn't wonder."

"Um-hm.... I see.... Yus, yus, I see.... Um-hm.... Well, I suppose we might as well--er--start now as any time, eh?"

"Better, I should say, Judah. Whenever you and the Foam Flake are ready, I am."

The Foam Flake was the name with which Judah had rechristened the old horse. The animal's name up to the time of the rechristening had been Pet, but this, Mr. Cahoon explained, he could _not_ stand.

"'Whatever else he is,' says I to young Minot, 'he ain't no pet--not of mine. The only way I ever feel like pettin' that oat barrel,' I says, 'is with a rope's end.' 'Well, why don't you give him a new name?' says he. 'What'll I call him?' says I. 'Anything you can think of,' he says.

'By Henry,' says I. 'I have called him about everything I can think of, already.' Haw, haw! That was a pretty good one, wan't it Cap'n Sears?"

"But where did you get 'Foam Flake' from?" the captain had wanted to know.

"Oh, it just come to me, as you might say, same as them things do come sometimes. I was tellin' the Methodist minister about it one day and he said 'twas a--er--one of them--er--inflammations. Eh? Don't seem as if it could have been 'inflammation,' but 'twas somethin' like it."

"Inspiration, maybe."

"That's the ticket, inspiration's what 'twas. Well, I was kind of draggin' a seine through my head, so to speak, tryin' to haul aboard a likely name for the critter, and fetchin' the net in empty every time, when one day that--er--what-d'ye-call-it?--inflammation landed on me.

I'd piloted 'Pet' and the truck wagon over to Harniss--and worked my pa.s.sage every foot of the way--and over there to Brett's store I met Luther Wixon, who was home from a v'yage to the West Indies. Lute and me had been to sea together half a dozen times, and we got kind of swappin' yarns about the vessels we'd been in.

"'Have you heard about the old _Foam Flake_?' says Lute. 'She was wrecked on the Jersey coast off Barnegat,' he says, 'and now they've made a barge out of her hull and she's freightin' hay in New York harbor,' he says.

"Well, sir, I hauled off and fetched the broadside of my leg a slap you could have heard to Jericho. 'By the creepin', jumpin',' says I. 'I've got it!' 'Yes,' he says, 'you act as if you had. But what do you take for it?' 'I wouldn't take a dollar note for it right now,' I told him.

And I wouldn't have, nuther. The old _Foam Flake_--maybe you remember her, Cap'n Sears--was the dumdest, lop-sidedest, crankiest old white tub of a bark that ever carried sail. When I was aboard of her she wouldn't steer fit to eat, always wanted to go to port when you tried to put her to starboard, walloped and slopped along awkward as a cow, was the slowest thing afloat, and all she was ever really fit for was what they are usin' her for now, and that was to stow hay in. If that wan't that old horse of Minot's all over then I hope I'll never smoke a five-cent cigar again. 'You ain't "Pet" no more,' says I to the critter; 'your name's "Foam Flake!"' Haw, haw! See now, don't you, Cap'n Sears?"

Foam Flake and the truck-wagon landed the captain at the Knowles gate and, a few minutes later, Kendrick was, rather shamefacedly, announcing to the judge his acceptance of the superintendency of the Fair Harbor.

The invalid, as grimly sardonic and indomitable as ever, chuckled between spasms of pain and weakness.

"Good! Good!" he exclaimed. "I thought you wouldn't say no if you once saw how things were over there. Congratulations on your good sense, Kendrick."

Sears shook his head. "Don't be any more sarcastic than you can help, Judge," he said.

"No sarcasm about it. If you hadn't stepped in to help that girl I should have known you didn't have any sense at all. By the way, I didn't praise her too highly when we talked before, did I? She is considerable of a girl, Elizabeth Berry, eh, Cap'n?"

The captain nodded.

"She is," he admitted. "And she was so confoundedly plucky, and she stood up against that crowd of--of----"

"Mariners' women. Yes. Ho, ho! I should like to have been there."