There was an uncertain, troubled movement among Cap’n Abe’s hearers.  Even the fishfly stopped droning.  Cap’n Beecher looked longingly through the doorway from which the sea could be observed as well as a strip of that natural breakwater called “The Neck,” a barrier between the tumbling Atlantic and the quiet bay around which the main village of Cardhaven was set.

All the idlers in the store on this June afternoon were not natives.  There were several young fellows from The Beaches—­on the Shell Road to which Cap’n Abe’s store was a fixture.  In sight of The Beaches the wealthy summer residents had built their homes—­dwellings ranging in architectural design from the mushroom-roofed bungalow to a villa in the style of the Italian Renaissance.

The villa in question had been built by I. Tapp, the Salt Water Taffy King, and Lawford Tapp, only son of the house, was one of the audience in Cap’n Abe’s store.

“Cap’n Amazon said,” boomed the storekeeper a good deal like the fishfly—­“Cap’n Amazon said the Posy Lass was loaded with lumber and her cargo’s ‘bout all that kep’ her afloat as fur as Hat’ras.  Then the smashin’ big seas that come aboard settled her right down like a wounded duck.

“The deck load went o’ course; and about ev’rything else was cleaned off the decks that warn’t bolted to ’em.  The seas rose up and picked off the men, one after t’other, like a person’d clean off a beach plum bush.”

“I shouldn’t wonder,” spoke up Cap’n Beecher, “if we seen some weather ’fore morning.”

He was squinting through the doorway at an azure and almost speckless sky.  There was an uneasy shuffling of boots.  One of the boys from The Beaches giggled.  Cap’n Abe—­and the fishfly—­boomed on together, the storekeeper evidently visualizing the scene he narrated and not the half-lighted and goods-crowded shop.  At its best it was never well illumined.  Had the window panes been washed there was little chance of the sunshine penetrating far save by the wide open door.  On either hand as one entered were the rows of hanging oilskins, storm boots, miscellaneous clothing and ship chandlery that made up only a part of Cap’n Abe’s stock.

There were blue flannel shirts dangling on wooden hangers to show all their breadth of shoulder and the array of smoked-pearl buttons.  Brown and blue dungaree overalls were likewise displayed—­grimly, like men hanging in chains.  At the end of one row of these quite ordinary habiliments was one dress shirt with pleated bosom and cuffs as stiff as a board.  Lawford Tapp sometimes speculated on that shirt—­how it chanced to be in Cap’n Abe’s stock and why it had hung there until the flies had taken title to it!

Centrally located was the stove, its four heavily rusted legs set in a shallow box which was sometimes filled with fresh sawdust.  The stovepipe, guyed by wires to the ceiling, ran back to the chimney behind Cap’n Abe.