of late years, was soon worn smooth. It was a shorter way from the
town than the wagon road.

The errands invented by the youthful and more or less unattached
male inhabitants of the port to bring them by this path through the
Ball premises were most ingenious indeed. Early on Monday morning,
while Sheila was hanging out her first lineful of clothes, Andrew
Roby, clam basket and hoe on arm, appeared as the first of a long
line of itinerant pedestrians who more or less bashfully bade Cap'n
Ira good day as he sat in his armchair in the sun.

"What's the matter?" asked the old man soberly. "All the clams give
out down to the cove? I heard they was getting scarce. You got to
come clean over here to the beaches, I cal'late, to find you a mess
for dinner, Andy?"

"Well--er--Cap'n Ira, mother was wishing for some big chowder
clams," said young Roby, his eyes squinting sidewise at the slim
figure of Sheila on tiptoe to reach the line.

"Ye-as," considered the old man. "You got that cat still, Andy?"

"The _Maybird?_ Oh, yes, sir!"

"And there's a fair wind. She'd have taken you in half the time to
the outer beaches, and saved your legs," said the caustic speaker.
"But exercise is good for you, I don't dispute."

A match, one might think, could easily have been touched off at
Andrew's face. He had not much more to say, and went on without
having the joy of more than a nod and smile from the busy Sheila.

Then came Joshua Jones. Joshua usually was to be found behind his
father's counter, the elder Jones being proprietor of one of the
general stores in Big Wreck Cove. Joshua was a bustling young man
with a reddish ruff of hair back of a bald brow, "side tabs" of the
same hue as his hair before each red and freckled ear, and a nose a
good deal like an eagle's beak. In fact, the upper part of his
face--Cap'n Ira had often remarked it--was of noble proportions,
while the lower part fell away surprisingly in a receding chin which
seemed saved from being swallowed completely only by a very
prominent Adam's apple.

"I swan!" the captain had said judiciously. "It's more by good luck
than good management that Josh's chin didn't fall into his stomach.
Only that knob in his neck acts like a stopper."

But when the lanky young storekeeper appeared on this occasion,
Cap'n Ira hailed him cheerfully before Joshua could reach the back
door.

"Hi, Josh! You ain't goin' for clams, too, be ye?"

"No, no, Cap'n Ira!" cried young Jone