Captain Pott's Minister Part 15

Mr. McGowan was waiting for them at the end of the wharf. The skipper introduced them with a malicious wink at Miss Pipkin as he indicated the physical strength of the minister. Her face flushed as nearly crimson as it had in years. When they finally got into the dory she leaned close to the Captain and set his staid old heart palpitating. Mr.

McGowan was engaged, waving to the girls in the _Jennie P._

"You ain't going to tell him what I said about his being delicate, and the like, are you, Josiah?"

He answered with a vigorous shake of the head as he leaned back to draw the oars through the water. Each time he swung forward he looked into the eyes of Miss Pipkin. Did he imagine it, or did he see there something more than interest in her own question?

Aboard the _Jennie P._ the young ladies took charge of Miss Pipkin, and soon they were chatting companionably. The girls had removed the door to the cabin, and laying it from seat to seat, had improvised a table. Over it they had spread cloths, and on the cloths were plates piled high with good things. The odor of coffee greeted the Captain's nostrils, as he came forward after securing the dory.

"Well, I'd like to know! Where in tarnation did you get the stove to b'ile the coffee on?" he asked, sniffing the air.

"We brought it with us," replied Elizabeth.

"You fetched a stove in them baskets?"

"Certainly. Come and see it."

She drew her old friend toward the c.o.c.kpit. There stood the steaming coffee-pot over an alcohol flame.

"Well, I swan!"

Paper plates were scattered about over the improvised table, chicken piled high on some, sandwiches on others, doughnuts, cream-puffs, and apple tarts on still others. Indeed, not a thing had been left out, so far as the Captain could see.

"If this ain't the likeliest meal I ever see, then, I'd like to know. I feel right now as if I could eat the whole enduring lot, I'm that hungry," declared the skipper.

Elizabeth served, moving about as gracefully as a fawn. Mr. McGowan watched her with no attempt to hide his admiration. The one question in his mind all day had been: what did she think of him for his part in the affair at the Inn? He decided that he would take advantage of the first opportunity to prove to her that no other course had been left open for him.

Dinner over, the Captain filled his pipe, and stood in the door of the cabin. He smoked quietly, and watched the ladies put the things away.

Miss Pipkin was folding the cloths, and on her the seaman's gaze came to a rest. Would the old home seem different with her in it?

"Hadn't we better start?"

The Captain jumped. "I cal'late I'm getting nervous, jumping like that."

"Or in love?"

"Maybe you're right, Mack."

"Honest confession?"

"I ain't confessing nothing. I was referring to your idea that we'd best be under way," explained the Captain, with a wry smile.

As he spoke he leaned over the engine, and gave it a turn. Tommy, Miss Pipkin's black cat, was mincing contentedly at some sc.r.a.ps when the chug-chug of the exhaust shot from the side of the boat. Tommy shot from the c.o.c.kpit. He paused on the upper step, a startled glare in his eyes.

He forgot the tempting morsels; he forgot his rheumatism; he was bent on flight. And fly he did. With a wild yodeling yell he sprang forward.

Like a black cyclone he circled the deck. On his fourth time round he caught sight of the minister's legs. He and Elizabeth were standing at the wheel, ready to steer the boat out of the harbor. To the cat's excited glance the man's legs suggested the beginnings of tree trunks, at the top of which there was safety and repose from the spitting demon at the side of the boat. Like a flying bat he made the leap. But he had misjudged both the distance and his own rheumatic muscles. He landed on the girl, and came to a rest half-way to her shoulder. His claws sank into the thick folds of her sweater. Elizabeth released her hold on the wheel, and with a cry fell back against the minister. A pair of strong arms lost neither time nor opportunity. With a little persuasion Tommy saw his mistake, and dropped to the deck. He took up his interrupted flight, finally coming to an uncertain rest somewhere aloft.

Elizabeth looked up, smiled, blushed like a peony, took hold the wheel, and gently released herself.

"Oh, thank you! Wasn't it stupid of me to let that old cat frighten me so?"

Mr. McGowan declared that he was delighted to have been of service, and his emotions began to be very evident to him.

It took considerable coaxing on the part of the Captain, and more clawing on the part of Tommy, before he could be convinced that the cabin was as safe as the mast. At last he gave in and came down, and as the boat left the harbor he was purring contentedly, folded safely in the arms of Miss Pipkin.

Before they reached Little River harbor, Miss Pipkin had many times declared she was going to die. The Captain as many times remonstrated with her, but she only showed a greater determination to die. When the boat was anch.o.r.ed, she refused to move or be moved. The minister lifted her bodily, and carried her to the dory. As he was handing her over the side into the Captain's arms, she objected to the transference by a sudden lurch, which sent the minister to his knees. His foot caught on the gunwale, and his ankle was severely wrenched. On releasing his shoe string that night he discovered a serious sprain.

CHAPTER VII

"Lan' sakes!" exclaimed Miss Pipkin, who, fully recovered, was busily engaged in the kitchen on the following morning when the minister entered. "Now, what is the matter with you, Mr. McGowan?"

He was leaning on the back of a chair which he was sliding along the floor in front of him.

"I twisted my ankle last evening as I was leaving the boat."

"You did! And you never said one word! How did you do it?"

"I slipped just as I handed you over the side."

"It was my foolishness that made you do it. Josiah!" she called, as the Captain came down by the rear stair. "Get me a basin of water and the cayenne pepper, quick!"

The Captain obeyed with alacrity. Miss Pipkin soon had the ankle in the water, and the water was a fiery red in color.

"It'll take the swelling out," she affirmed.

"Ain't you got it a mite too hot with pepper, Clemmie?"

"No, I ain't. That's all you men know about such things."

"Well, I didn't know."

The swelling began to disappear according to the prophecy of the housekeeper, but the skin took on the color of the reddened water in the basin. An hour later Mr. McGowan was undecided which was the more undesirable, the pain from the sprain, or the blisters from the treatment.

"Cal'late I'll run down to the _Jennie P._," announced the Captain after breakfast. "You can't navigate that far, can you, Mack?"

"Josiah Pott! What on earth do you mean? Of course he can't, and you know it. I don't see what you want to go traipsing down to that thing for, anyhow; it ain't going to get loose, though it'd be a good loss if it did."

"It ain't likely she'll get away, that's sartin sure, but I thought I'd do a little work on her. I ain't had much time afore now, with all my cooking and keeping house. The minister said my engine wa'n't clean."

"Well, if you ain't been cooking better than you've been keeping house, the wonder is you ain't both dead," she said, peering about the room.

Fearing further comment, the Captain hastily left the house. On reaching the wharf, he was surprised to see Elizabeth walking from the far end to meet him.

"Morning, Beth. Out purty early for your const.i.tutional, ain't you?"

"Good morning, Uncle Josiah. I've been waiting for you an awful long time. Are you going out to the _Jennie P._?"