One thing amazed him. The single item in his audit of Tom's character that placed that young man one degree above an idiot, was the revelation the evening before of what seemed to be Tom's admiration for Pearl. The lout had intimated that he desired Pearl for his own. "And if he loves a gal like her, mebbe there's some good in the scamp, after all," ruminated Cap'n Jonah. But this day had not passed before the captain saw so many exhibitions of meanness on Tom's part in relation to the pretty household drudge that he began to wonder if his hearing had not played him false on the previous evening when he had sat at his chamber window and overheard the conversation between the two young folks. When Sarah Petty broke out in scolding because of some real or fancied mistake of Pearl's, Cap'n Jonah expected Tom in some way to express sympathy with the girl, if he did not defend her. But the lout only grinned, lit his pipe, and left the house. Of course, her menfolk were well used to the vitriolic dripping from Sarah Petty's tongue, and bearing this in silence was perhaps the only logical way to get along with her. If Tom had a proper feeling for Pearl, however, the captain did not see how the fellow could listen to his mother's vituperations addressed to her innocent victim. The girl deserved no such tongue-lashings as she received, the captain was quite sure. He saw Pearl stepping lightly about her tasks--at sink, at stove, at ironing-board, or what-not--always brisk and ready, and either silent or with a pleasant word. She made no reply when Mrs. Petty's ill-humor dripped over like an overfull cup. But Cap'n Jonah missed the smile from her sweet face. The old mariner, as he expressed it, "kept out from under foot" as much as possible. He found that every time he went up to his room, Sarah Petty was right behind him with brush and pan, ostentatiously dusting imaginary dirt from the stair carpet. If he opened his window blind to see in his room, it was shut immediately, and with emphasis, when he departed. Before this first day was over his niece began sadly to get upon the captain's nerves. "The Lord sartainly does temper the wind to the shorn lamb--and to the man that ain't married," concluded Cap'n Jonah. "If I was Orrin Petty, I calc'late, I'd purty nigh live in the barn and never come into the house at all. Or I'd ship for a long v'y'ge." His sympathy for Orrin could not be deep, however; for Orrin Petty possessed ways fully as unpleasant as those of his wife. His penuriousness and his suspicion were raised to the _nth_ power, and his curiosity made him a pest. "I calc'late you seen many a chance't to turn a dollar over in them furrin' parts you was to, Cap'n Jonah," Orrin said. "Jest how did you do it?"