“Is Milt Baker there?  Ain’t none o’ you men seen him?  Land sakes! he’s as hard to hold as the greased pig on Fourth o’ July—­an’ jest ’bout as useful.”

“Milt,” said Cap’n Abe suggestively, “I b’lieve I hear Mandy callin’ you.”

“I’m a-comin’!—­I’m a-comin’, Mandy!” gurgled Milt, cognizant of the girl’s gay countenance turned upon him.

“What did you want, miss?” asked Cap’n Abe, as the recreant husband of the militant Mandy stumbled over his own feet getting out of the store.

Louise bubbled over with laughter; she could not help it.  Cap’n Abe’s bearded countenance broke slowly into an appreciative grin.

“Yes,” he said, “she does have him on a leadin’ string.  I do admit Mandy’s a card.”

The girl, quick-witted as she was bright looking, got his point almost at once.  “You mean she was a Card before she married him?”

“And she’s a Card yet,” Cap’n Abe said, nodding.  “Guess you know a thing or two, yourself.  What can I do for you?”

“You can say:  ‘Good-evening, Niece Louise,’” laughed the girl, coming closer to the counter upon which the storekeeper still leaned.

“Land sakes!”

“My mother was a Card.  That is how I came to see your joke, Uncle Abram.”

“Land sakes!”

“Don’t you believe me?”

“I—­I ain’t got but one niece in the world,” mumbled Cap’n Abe.  “An’—­an’ I never expected to see her.”

“Louise Grayling, daughter of Professor Ernest Grayling and Miriam Card—­your half-sister’s child.  See here—­and here.”  She snapped open her bag, resting it on the counter, and produced an old-fashioned photograph of her mother, a letter, yellowed by time, that Cap’n Abe had written Professor Grayling long before, and her own accident policy identification card which she always carried.

Cap’n Abe stretched forth a hairy hand, and it closed on Lou’s as a sunfish absorbs its prey.  The girl’s hand to her wrist was completely lost in the grip; but despite its firmness Cap’n Abe’s handclasp was by no means painful.  He released her and, leaning back, smiled benignly.

“Land sakes!” he said again.  “I’m glad to see little Mirry’s girl.  An’ you do favor her a mite.  But I guess you take mostly after the Graylings.”

“People say I am like my father.”

“An’ a mighty nice lookin’ man—­an’ a pleasant—­as I remember him,” Cap’n Abe declared.

“Come right in here, into my sittin’-room, Niece Louise, an’ lemme take a look at you.  Land sakes!”

He lifted the flap in the counter to let her through.  The doorway beyond gave entrance to a wide hall, or “entry,” between the store and the living-room.  The kitchen was in a lean-to at the back.  The table in the big room was already spread with a clean red-and-white checked tablecloth and set with heavy chinaware for a meal.  A huge caster graced the center of the table, containing glass receptacles for salt, red and black pepper, catsup, vinegar, and oil.  Knives, forks, and spoons for two—­all of utilitarian style—­were arranged with mathematical precision beside each plate.