"Yes, 'twould seem so," Cap'n Abe said, but he said it with hesitation. "I been some hampered all my life, as ye might say. 'Tis something that was bred in me. But as for Jerry------ "Jerry was give to me by a lady when he was a young bird. After a while I got thinkin' a heap about him bein' caged, and one sunshiny day--it was a marker for days down here on the Cape, an' we have lots on 'em! One sunshiny day I opened his door and opened the window, and I says: 'Scoot! The hull world's yourn!'" "And didn't he go?" asked the girl, watching the rapt face of the old man. "Did he go? Right out through that window with a song that'd break your heart to hear, 'twas so sweet. He pitched on the old apple tree yonder--the August sweet'nin'--and I thought he'd bust his throat a-tellin' of how glad he was to be free out there in God's sunshine an' open air." "He came back, I see," said Louise thoughtfully. "That's just it!" cried Cap'n Abe, shaking his head till the tarpaulin fell off and he forgot to pick it up. "That's just it. He come back of his own self. I didn't try to ketch him. When it grew on toward sundown an' the air got kinder chill, I didn't hear Jerry singin' no more. I'd seen him, off'n on, flittin' 'bout the yard all day. When I come in here to light the hangin'-lamp cal'latin' to make supper, I looked over there at the window. I'd shut it. There was Jerry on the window sill, humped all up like an old woman with the tisic." "The poor thing!" was Lou's sympathetic cry. "Yes," said Cap'n Abe, nodding. "He warn't no more fit to be let loose than nothin' 'tall. And I wonder if _I_ be," added the storekeeper. "I've been caged quite a spell how. "But now tell me, Niece Louise," he added with latent curiosity, "how did you find your way here?" "Father says--'Daddy-professor,' you know is what I call him. He says if we had not always been traveling when I was not at school, I should have known you long ago. He thinks very highly of my mother's people." "I wanter know!" "He says you are the 'salt of the earth'--that is his very expression." "Yes. We're pretty average salt, I guess," admitted Cap'n Abe. "I never seen your father but once or twice. You see, Louise, your mother was a lot younger'n me an' Am'zon." "Who?" "Cap'n Am'zon. Oh! _I_ ain't the only uncle you got," he said, watching her narrowly. "Cap'n Am'zon Silt----" "Have I another relative? How jolly!" exclaimed Louise, clasping her hands. "Ye-as. Ain't it? Jest," Cap'n Abe said. "Ahem! your father never spoke of Cap'n Am'zon?". "I don't believe daddy-prof even knew there was such a person." "Mebbe not. Mebbe not," Cap'n Abe agreed hastily. "And not to be wondered at. You see, Am'zon went to sea when he was only jest a boy." "Did he?"