"Well, he's havin' one now," insisted Mrs. Crowell. "He come trampin' in an' says, 'Git right out o' my way, Mis' Crowell,' an' now he's a pacin' up an' down his room like a caged hyeny. You leave them onions, an' go an see what under the canopy ails him. I'll stand at the foot of the stairs ready to run for help, if he should be dangerous." Abner groaned. Reluctantly he brushed the dirt from his knees, and went into the house. Captain Enoch's heavy steps jarred the floor of his little room. Three times Abner knocked. Growing wrathful at being ignored, he applied his lips to the key-hole. "Hey, there," he bellowed. "You gone clean crazy, Enoch? It's only me--Abner--open the door!" Captain Enoch opened the door so suddenly Abner nearly fell over the threshold. "I didn't hear you," apologized Captain Enoch. "I dunno's I'd heard a fog horn. I'm going loony, I guess." Despondency suddenly overcame him. He sat down abruptly. "I'm afraid I'm love cracked," he groaned despairingly. "Love cracked!" repeated Abner in blank astonishment. "Wall, I snum! Love cracked!" Captain Enoch glared at him ferociously. "Stop that parrotin'," he commanded. "If you dare to grin, I'll larnbast you good an' plenty." As Abner appeared properly subdued, he went on explanatorily. "I've be'n callin' on M'lissy Macy reg'lar whenever I've be'n ashore for the last ten years. M'lissy makes the best doughnuts I ever e't, an' I calculated we'd be married sometime, though I ain't never mentioned it special. But when I went to call on M'lissy this afternoon, there set Tom Peters in the big rockin' chair holdin' M'lissy's yeller cat an' lookin' as cheerful as a rat in a shipload of cheese. It come over me all at once what a marryin' critter he is. The old punkin'-head's had two wives already, ain't he?" "Three," corrected Abner. "He's be'n a widower once an' a grass widower twice. Mebbe he's gittin' lonesome again. You'll have to git up your spunk and do some courtin'. Why don't you pop the question? It hadn't orter be so awful hard after you be'n goin' to see M'lissy ten years." "You talk like a nincompoop," snapped Captain Enoch. "I never asked a woman to marry me in my life. How be I goin' to know what to say? S'pose you tell me how you asked Mis' Crowell." Abner's face turned as red as Captain Enoch's. "Wall, I--er--er," he stammered. "That's about what I expected," said the captain sarcastically. "I s'pose Mis' Crowell did the askin' and you didn't dare to say 'No.'" Abner glanced toward the door where a board had creaked faintly. "She--she didn't really ask," he remarked hastily, "but she was pretty good at understandin' what I was thinkin' about." "If M'lissy understands, she's careful not to let me know it," said Captain Enoch sadly. "Mebbe she's afraid of being bold. Just to think of proposin' makes me feel as if somebody was pourin' cold water down the back of my neck."