"This dratted girl!" said Sarah Petty. "Mebbe she did just the right thing for once. She put him in my best room. He's been treated nice right at the start, I must say. He can't make no complaint that we didn't meet him as relations should. If we treat him pleasant, but hint how it's sort o' puttin' us out, his being here, mebbe he'll make his visit and go, an' leave us in peace." Orrin Petty had been thinking. Rather, he had been scheming. Orrin seldom put his wits to work unless his intent was for his own betterment and to the undoing of somebody else. "Hush-a-that, Sarah!" he said. "What's this Uncle Jonah of yourn been all his life?" "Seafarin', I tell ye." "Before the mast?" "Owned his own craft, or had sheers in 'em. Been master of ships since before Tommy was born," Sarah said. "I know that much." "We know another thing," said the scheming Orrin. "If he 'cumulated two thousand dollars to lend your father once't, he might well have 'cumulated more since that time. Ye don't know what he's mebbe got laid away. Lots o' them old salts line their nests mighty well. Look at 'Liphalet Truitt--and him only a steward all the years he went to sea. Ain't you this here Uncle Jonah's only livin' rel'tive?" The three Pettys looked at each other silently for a full minute. They knew each other's minds so well that some things needed not to be said at all between them. Pearl came back into the kitchen and bustled about the stove with the preparations for supper. "Well, of course," Sarah Petty said in an entirely different tone, "Uncle Jonah's an old man now, and we air his only relatives. It's true. And it's quite according that he should come here to stay--for a while, anyway. "You be polite to him, Tommy. Better set the table with the gold-banded china to-night, Pearl. I'll beat up a mess of sour-milk pancakes. I warrant Uncle Jonah ain't had nothing like 'em on shipboard. An' step lively for once't--do!" For Pearl was staring at her, round-eyed. Sarah Petty's wind had shifted so startlingly that the girl felt quite confounded. * * * * * Cap'n Jonah Hand strode down the Shell Road, his cane tapping smartly and his blue-coated figure very erect. There was a nattiness in the captain's appearance not always found among masters in the merchant marine. His experience had been as varied as any skipper's who ever sailed from the Cape; but as he told Pearl, for many years he was master of passenger-carrying craft, and a certain behavior is demanded of a man in that position. On his quarterdeck and sitting at the head of his table in the saloon-cabin, Cap'n Jonah must display a courtesy, even an urbanity, not usually demanded of merchant skippers. A certain dignity sat upon Cap'n Jonah's countenance, and his manner impressed all who even casually met him. He came to the wide-porched store, over the steps of which was nailed the weather-beaten sign: