Well, I suppose we didn't. You see, Jonadab and me, like the rest of the
folks around Wellmouth, had come to take Beriah Crocker and his weather
notions as the regular thing, like baked beans on a Saturday night.
Beriah, he--
But there! I've been sailing stern first. Let's get her headed right, if
we ever expect to turn the first mark. You see, 'twas this way:
'Twas in the early part of May follering the year that the "Old Home
House" was opened. We'd had the place all painted up, decks holy-stoned,
bunks overhauled, and one thing or 'nother, and the "Old Home" was all
taut and shipshape, ready for the crew--boarders, I mean. Passages was
booked all through the summer and it looked as if our second season
would be better'n our first.
Then the Dillaway girl--she was christened Lobelia, like her mother,
but she'd painted it out and cruised under the name of Belle since the
family got rich--she thought 'twould be nice to have what she called a
"spring house-party" for her particular friends 'fore the regular season
opened. So Peter--he being engaged at the time and consequent in that
condition where he'd have put on horns and "mooed" if she'd give the
order--he thought 'twould be nice, too, and for a week it was "all hands
on deck!" getting ready for the "house-party."
Two days afore the thing was to go off the ways Brown gets a letter from
Belle, and in it says she's invited a whole lot of folks from Chicago
and New York and Boston and the land knows where, and that they've never
been to the Cape and she wants to show 'em what a "quaint" place it
is.
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