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Cooper, James A.

"Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper"

Louise was unable to shake off the burden of doubt of Cap'n
Amazon's character and good intentions. She felt that she could not
spend the long evening in his company, and bidding him good-night
through the open store door she retired to the upper floor.
She felt that sleep was far from her eyelids on this night; therefore
she lit a candle and went into the storeroom to get something to read.
She selected a much battered volume, printed in an early year of the
nineteenth century, its title being:
LANDSMEN'S TALES:
Seafaring Yarns of a Lubber.
Louise became enthralled by the narratives of perilous adventure and
odd happenings on shipboard which the author claimed to have himself
observed. She read for an hour or more, while the sounds in the store
below gradually ceased and she heard Cap'n Amazon close and lock the
front door for the night.
Silence below. Outside the lap, lap, lap of the waves on the strand
and the rising moan of the surf over Gulf Rocks.
Louise turned a page. She plunged into another yarn.


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