d trig about him, including his
glazed, narrow-brimmed hat, his blue pilot-cloth coat, pleated shirt
front as white as snow, heavy silver watch chain festooned upon his
waist-coat, and blue-yarn socks showing between the bottom of his
full, gray trouser legs and his well-blacked low shoes.

For Cap'n Ira had commanded passenger-carrying craft in his day, and
was a bit of a dandy still. The niceties of maritime full dress were
as important to his mind now that he had retired from the sea to
spend his remaining days in the Ball homestead on Wreckers' Head as
when he had trod the quarter-deck of the old _Susan Gatskill_, or
had occupied the chief seat at her saloon table.

"I don't know what's to become of us," repeated Cap'n Ira, wagging a
thoughtful head, his gaze, as that of old people often is, fixed
upon a point too distant for youthful eyes to see.

"I can't see into the future, Ira, any clearer than you can,"
rejoined his wife, glancing at his sagging, blue-coated shoulders
with some gentle apprehension.

She was a frail, little, old woman, one of those women who, after a
robust middle age, seem gradually to shrivel to the figure of what
they were in their youth, but with no charm of girlish lines
remaining. Her face was wrinkled like a russet apple in February,
and it had the colorings of that grateful fruit. She sat on the
stone slab which served for a back door stoop peeling potatoes.

"I swan, Prue, you cut me in two places this mornin' when you shaved
me," said Cap'n Ira suddenly and in some slight exasperation. "And I
can't handle that dratted razor myself."

"Maybe you could get John-Ed Williams to come over and shave you,
Ira."

"John-Ed's got his work to do. Then again, how're we going to pay
him for such jobs? I swan! I can't afford a vally, Prue. Besides,
you need help about the house more than I need a steward. I can get
along without being shaved so frequent, I s'pose, but there's times
when you can't scurce lift a pot of potatoes off the stove."

"Oh, now, Ira, I ain't so bad as all that!" declared his wife
mildly.

"Yes, you be. I am always expecting you to fall down, or hurt
yourself some way. And as for looking out for the Queen of Sheby--"

"Now, Ira, Queenie ain't no trouble scurcely."

"Huh! She's more trouble than all our money, that's sure. And she's
eating her head off."

"Now, don't say that," urged his wife in that soothing tone which
often irritated Cap'n Ira more than it mo