Page:O'Higgins--From the life.djvu/244

 "Well," she said, taken aback, "he's pretty feeble, ain't he?" "No!" the captain cried. "Feeble! I thought it was Johnny had me by the neck. Feeble nothin'! He works 's good 's the best o' them—where he knows how."

"He won't chop the wood," she said. The whole village had discovered his aversion to the use of an ax.

"No," he reflected. "He's a bit queer about that. He ain't strong in his top story. But he's harmless, girl. An' we've treated him like a dog—leavin' him live in that

"He wouldn't let you do anything else."

"That's so. That's right. Well, I'll make him come if I have to move the shack to do it."

The captain's house was a relic of the ante-railroad, days of Port Derby's prosperity. It was a building of some pretensions, with a Colonial pillared porch and a roof-top belvedere. And his daughter was a middle-aged spinster of precise habits who was a neat housekeeper and proud of her house. She did not relish the prospect of admitting this uncanny old outcast to a place in it; the room over her kitchen was her sewing-room, stored with blankets, winter bedding, household linen, and a thousand things that she did not wish to remove. Moreover, one fanciful old man at a time was all she desired under her care—for the captain had his peculiarities.