She beheld a breeze-swept sea from her window with no fishing boats
going out. There was nobody on the clam flats, although the tide was
just right at dawn. The surfman from the patrol station beyond The
Beaches paced to the end of his beat dressed in his best, like a man
merely taking a Sunday morning stroll.
The people she saw seemed to be changed out of their everyday selves.
Not only were they in Sabbath garb, but they had on their Sabbath
manner. Even to Milt Baker, the men were cleanly shaven and wore fresh
cotton shirts of their wives' laundering.
Cap'n Amazon appeared from his "cabin" when the first church bells
began to ring, arrayed in a much wrinkled but very good suit of "go
ashore" clothes of blue, which were possibly those he had worn when he
arrived at the store on the Shell Road. He wore a hard, glazed hat of
an old-fashioned naval shape and, instead of the usual red bandana, he
wore a black silk handkerchief tied about his head.
Just why he always kept his crown thus swathed, Louise was very
desirous of knowing.
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