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Cooper, James A.

"Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper"


His seamanship, his speech, his masterful manner, were assumed. And in
the matter of his related adventures the girl was confident that they
were mere repetitions of what he had read.
Now Louise suddenly remembered how Cap'n Abe had welcomed her here at
the old store, and how cheerfully and tenderly this piratical looking
substitute for the storekeeper had assumed her care. No relative or
friend could have been kinder to her than Cap'n Amazon.
How could she, then, stand before him and say: "Cap'n Amazon, you are
an impostor. You have assumed a character that is not your own. You
tell awful stories about adventures that never befell you. What do you
mean by it all? And, in conclusion and above all, _Where is Cap'n
Abe_?"
This had been Louise's intention when she came downstairs on this
morning. The nagging of Betty Gallup, the gossip of the other
neighbors, the wild suspicions whispered from lip to lip did not
influence her so much. It was what she had herself discovered the
evening before in the captain's "cabin" that urged her on.


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