Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper: A Story of Cape CodCooper, James A.
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Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper: A Story of Cape Cod
Cooper, James A.
Cape Cod (Mass.) -- Fiction
Lawford waved a hand to her at her chamber window early on Monday
morning as L'Enfant Terrible drove him in the roadster to Paulmouth to
catch the milk train. All the girls were proud of their brother
because, as Cecile said, he was proving himself to be "such a perfectly
good sport after all." And perhaps I. Tapp himself admired his son for
the pluck he was showing.
They corresponded after that--Louise and Lawford. As she could not
hope to hear from the _Curlew_ again until the schooner made the port
of Boston, Lawford's letters were the limit of her correspondence.
Louise had always failed to make many close friends among women.
Her interests aside from those at the store and with the movie people
were limited, too. The butterfly society of The Beaches did not much
attract Louise Grayling.
Aunt Euphemia manifestly disapproved of her niece at every turn. The
Lady from Poughkeepsie had remained on the Cape for the full season in
the hope of breaking up the intimacy between Louise and Lawford Tapp.
His absence, which she had believed so fortunate, soon proved to be
merely provocative of her niece's interest in the heir of the Taffy
King.
Nor could she wean Louise from association with the piratical looking
mariner at Cap'n Abe's store. The girl utterly refused to be guided by
the older woman in either of these particulars.
"You are a reckless, abandoned girl!" Aunt Euphemia declared. "I am
sure, no matter what others may say, that awful sailor is no fit
companion for you.
"And as, for Lawford Tapp----Why, his people are impossible, Louise.
Wherever you have your establishment, if you marry him, his people,
when they visit you will have to be apologized for," the indignant
woman continued.
"Let--me--see," murmured Louise. "How large an 'establishment' should
you think, auntie, we could keep up on eighteen dollars a week?"
"Eighteen dollars a week!" exclaimed Aunt Euphemia, aghast.
"Yes. That is Lawford's present salary. Wages, I think they call it
at the factory. He gets it in cash--in a pay envelope."
"Mercy, Louise! You are not in earnest?"
"Certainly. My young man is going to earn our living. If he marries
me his father will cut him off with the proverbial shilling. I. Tapp
has other matrimonial plans for Lawford."
"What?" gasped the horrified Mrs. Conroth. "He does not approve of
you?"
"Too true, auntie. I have driven poor Lawford to work in a candy
factory."
"That--that upstart!" exploded the lady. But she did not refer to
Lawford.
It was evident that Aunt Euphemia saw nothing but the threat of storm
clouds for her niece in the offing. Trouble, deep and black, seemed,
to her mind to be hovering upon the horizon of the future,
As it chanced, the weather about this time seemed to reflect Aunt
Euphemia's mood. The summer had passed with but few brief tempests.
Seldom had Louise seen any phase of the sea in its wrath.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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