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Cooper, James A.

"Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper"

I ain't ever been so busy in my life as I be in this
store--'nless it was when I shipped a menagerie for a feller at a Dutch
Guinea port and his monkeys broke out o' their cages when we was two
days at sea and they tried to run the ship.
"That was some v'y'ge, as the feller said," continued Cap'n Amazon,
getting well under way as he lit his after-breakfast pipe. "Them
monkeys kep' all the crew on the jump and the afterguard scurcely got a
meal in peace, I was----"
"Belay there!" advised Cap'n Joab, with disgust. "Save that yarn for
the dog watch. What was it ye said that craft was named Cap'n Abe
sailed in?"
Cap'n Amazon stopped in his story-telling and was silent for an
instant. Louise, who had stood at the inner doorway listening, turned
to go, when she heard the substitute storekeeper finally say:
"_Curlew_, out o' Boston."
The name caught the girl's instant attention and she felt suddenly
apprehensive.
"Here's news o' her," Cap'n Joab said in a hushed voice. "And it ain't
good news, Cap'n Silt.


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