"Goshamighty!" rose Orrin's querulous voice on the frosty air, "barn pump's froze tighter'n a drumhead. Bring a kittle of boilin' water, Tom." Sarah Petty's heels were now heard tapping over the kitchen floor. For once Pearl came last. Cap'n Jonah, overhead, did not hear a word spoken between the two women. The silence he thought seemed ominous. What was about to occur? Would there be a flare-up between Sarah and her little drudge and would Cap'n Jonah immediately have to make good his threat of taking Pearl away? "And me on a lee shore the way I be!" groaned Cap'n Jonah. "No two ways about it: I have got myself into a mess." How would he be able to act independently, or to aid Pearl in any way, if he was flat on his back? Why, he could not even get down to Cap'n Abe's to see if the storekeeper had thought up any scheme to help him, as he had promised. The preparations for breakfast went on. He could hear the rattling of dishes and pans; the sound of the pump at the spout of which the tea-kettle had to be filled for a second time; the sputtering of sausages in the pan. Then the odors rose to him in that mysterious way they have of penetrating old houses; the aroma of coffee; the spicy smell of home-made sausage meat; the odor of cornmeal johnny-cakes, white as snow in the middle, baked brown on both sides, ready to split and be deluged with "white gravy." Cap'n Jonah heard Sarah go to the front stairs and call Helmford. Then she went to the door of the covered porch and shouted for Orrin and Tom. There followed a murmur of voices below; then came Pearl's light step upon the back stairs. "Cap'n Jonah!" she called outside his door. "Whatever!" groaned the old seaman. "Hullo! Ouch! Ain't so spry this mornin' as us'al, Pearly." Pearl heard his bed creak and knew he was not up. She opened the door and peered in. "Oh, Cap'n Jonah! is anything the matter?" "Guess so. Rheumatics, Pearly. They've got me laid by the heels." "Dear me! So bad you can't get up?" queried the girl. "I'll get up by and by. Don't bother 'bout me. Ouch! Whatever!" "My! you must be pretty bad, Cap'n Jonah. Do you want I should do anything for you?" "Not a thing, my gal," declared the independent old skipper. "I ain't quite scuttled yet--no sir! I'll warp myself out o' here by noon. Don't you fuss none." Pearly returned below stairs and before sitting down to eat her own breakfast she arranged a tray for Cap'n Jonah and carried it up to him. She propped him up in bed with a chair and pillows at his back, and helped him get the tray in position. She brought him a warmer quilt from her own room. "It's cold enough in here to freeze the coffee 'fore you can drink it," Pearl declared. "Let me wrap this around you, Cap'n Jonah." "Thank you, my gal," said the old man. "I won't forgit your kindness." "Nor I won't forget yours," she whispered before she left him, and patted his mahogany cheek lightly.