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Cooper, James A.

"Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper"

Besides,
there's that half-grown lout, Amiel Perdue. Abe said he sometimes
helped around. He knows the ship, alow and aloft, and how the stores
is stowed."
The morning was still young when Betty came downstairs in hot rage and
attacked Cap'n Amazon. It seemed she had gone up to give the chambers
their usual weekly cleaning, and had found the room in which the
captain slept locked against her. It was Cap'n Abe's room and it
seemed it was Cap'n Abe's custom--as it was Cap'n Amazon's--to make his
own bed and keep his room tidy during the week. But Betty had always
given it a thorough cleaning and changed the bed linen on Saturdays.
"What's that room locked for? I want to know what you mean?" the woman
demanded of Cap'n Amazon. "Think I'm goin' to work in a house where
doors is locked against me? I'm as honest as any Silt that ever
hobbled on two laigs. Nex' thing, I cal'late, you'll be lockin' the
coal shed and countin' the sticks in the woodpile."
She had much more to say--and said it. It seemed to make her feel
better to do so.


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