' `Were you scared?'
says I. `No, 'cause I had a big gun,' says Joe, `and I
shot the wolf dead, Uncle Jim,--solid dead--and then
he went up to heaven and bit God,' says he. Well, I
was fair staggered, Mistress Blythe."
The hours bloomed into mirth around the driftwood fire.
Captain Jim told tales, and Marshall Elliott sang old
Scotch ballads in a fine tenor voice; finally Captain
Jim took down his old brown fiddle from the wall and
began to play. He had a tolerable knack of fiddling,
which all appreciated save the First Mate, who sprang
from the sofa as if he had been shot, emitted a shriek
of protest, and fled wildly up the stairs.
"Can't cultivate an ear for music in that cat nohow,"
said Captain Jim. "He won't stay long enough to learn
to like it. When we got the organ up at the Glen
church old Elder Richards bounced up from his seat the
minute the organist began to play and scuttled down the
aisle and out of the church at the rate of
no-man's-business. It reminded me so strong of the
First Mate tearing loose as soon as I begin to fiddle
that I come nearer to laughing out loud in church than
I ever did before or since.
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