Uncle Abram. Lou Grayling," the girl begged, but
smiling.
"Then just you call me Cap'n Abe. I'm sort o' useter that," the
storekeeper said.
"Of course I will. But why haven't you been free?" she asked, reverting
to his previous topic. "Seems to me--down here on the Cape where the sea
breezes blow, and everything is open----"
"Yes, 'twould seem so," Cap'n Abe said, but he said it with hesitation.
"I been some hampered all my life, as ye might say. 'Tis something that
was bred in me. But as for Jerry------
"Jerry was give to me by a lady when he was a young bird. After a while
I got thinkin' a heap about him bein' caged, and one sunshiny day--it was
a marker for days down here on the Cape, an' we have lots on 'em! One
sunshiny day I opened his door and opened the window, and I says: 'Scoot!
The hull world's yourn!'"
"And didn't he go?" asked the girl, watching the rapt face of the old man.
"Did he go? Right out through that window with a song that'd break your
heart to hear, 'twas so sweet. He pitched on the old apple tree
yonder--the August sweet'nin'--and I thought he'd bust his throat
a-tellin' of how glad he was to be free out there in God's sunshine an'
open air.
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