582 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Nov. 8, 1913. 
We assured him it was nothing as serious 
as that, and while he waved a flurry of children 
through a curtain into an adjoining room, and 
swung a pair of chairs up to the stove, we told 
him our trouble. 
“Well,” said he, with conviction, “I swun 
to jingo you must be empty. Hey, Mary,” he 
called, "here’s a couple of young city sports what’s 
starved nigh dead; get suthin’ stirred up for’m 
to eat.” 
From the shadows beyond the ship's lamp 
we saw appear the little woman with the calico 
dress, to which was now added a smile. 
"Got some buckwheats stirred up for to¬ 
morrow,” she said, “and there’s a plenty sausage 
if—” 
"This here’s my wife, Mrs. Wicks,” inter¬ 
rupted Cap’n Lige. “She’s got a big family, 
and she’s right pert for her age, which is fifty- 
six.” 
"Sausage an’ cakes ’ll do fust rate,” finished 
the captain, abruptly answering Mrs. Wicks’ half 
begun interrogation. 
“Much obliged to meet you,” said Mrs. 
Wicks, pleasantly. Then: “Here, Porgy, come 
outer there and help me with the pans. And 
you, Bergall, sit and entertain the boys, while 
Robin goes out to the ice chest for the sausage.” 
Instantly from behind the mysterious curtain 
through which we had seen the family vanishing 
as we entered came a short, chubby girl of per¬ 
haps sixteen, who hastened to a cupboard for a 
frying-pan, another blushing, and very pretty one 
who sat down uneasily upon a chair near 11s, 
and a thin youth with a large head, who went 
outside presumably for the sausage, and whom, 
therefore, we recognized as Robin. 
Evidently Cap’n Lige saw the surprise in 
our faces, for he hastened to remark: “Named 
’em all after fish,” he explained. “His,” and he 
indicated the door through which the boy had 
passed, “fust name is Sea, but we call him by 
his middle name, so’s he won’t get mixed up 
with Sea Trout, which is a girl. Ling an’ Cod 
an’ Bunker’s in the front room, an’ Macker’l 
an’ Drum is to work on the mainland.” 
“Oh, Lige, I wisht you’d keep still about 
that fool way of namin’ the family,” interrupted 
Mrs. Lige. 
“Hump,” retorted the captain with offended 
dignity, “I made my livin’ fishin’ for twenty 
years, an’ if that ain’t good enough reason—” 
But Mrs. Lige dropped the frying-pan on the 
stove with a clatter, and drowned out the dis¬ 
pute. 
“So you be a gunnin’,” said Cap’n Lige after 
we had downed our fifteenth buckwheat apiece, 
and Miss Bergall had again retired behind the 
curtain to join Cod, Bunker and her other 
brothers and sisters. 
“Well, the gunnin’ ain’t what it used to be, 
though you might run on to a leetle flight of 
burds down to Oyster Cove in the mornin’. But 
when I fust come over to this here beach, thirty- 
four years ago next winter, well, it was the 
greatest shootin’ ground, what there was.' Ducks 
a plenty, an’ geese an’ brant, an’ in the summer 
time so dol dinged many snipe it’d scarce you 
half to death. I certainly killed a pile of them 
fellers, too, until I got scurvy an’ lost my teeth. 
After that I was ’bout ns much of a pity as a 
begger chained up jest outer reach of a million 
dollars, an’ no file to cut himself loose with. 
Why? Because T couldn’t whistle nohow with¬ 
out my teeth. Afore I lost ’em I was about 
the most pow’ful whistlin’ thing along the beach, 
but with ’em gone I couldn’t pucker an’ git out 
no kind of a noise at all. The result was that 
where I’d been a killin’ all the burds I wanted 
the year before without anything but my 
whistle, I had to go to work an’ whittle out a 
lot of them wooden decoys, and even then I 
didn’t have no kind of luck. 
“By time come fall I was gittin’ so disgusted 
what with not havin’ no luck gunnin’ ’cause I 
couldn’t whistle, and not bein’ able to eat what 
few burds I killed without any way of chewin’ 
’em, that I was about ready to quit the beach, 
house an’ all. 
“Then come that piece o’ good luck I ain’t 
never forgit. A two-masted schooner went 
ashore down the beach about four mile. Wa’n’t 
nobody losted, and she didn’t have no cargo 
worth beachcombin’ after. But I kinder thought 
I’d take a walk down there anyhow, jest to see 
what I could see, an’ I was mighty glad I did, 
for what do you think I found a lyin’ there on 
high water mark? Why, a set of them store 
teeth, all glued together and ready for use. Jest 
about as soon as I seen ’em the luck of it hit 
me. I stopped jest long enough to knock the 
sand off’n ’em. Then I tried ’em on, and they 
fit perfect—all except a little piece in the back 
where they scraped. But I filed that off as soon 
as I got horn. I only had one disturbin’ feelin’; 
I couldn’t help feelin’ sorry for the poor feller 
on the schooner what lost ’em. But I oiled my 
conscience by thinkin’ of that there sayin’, ‘It’s 
a bad wind that don’t blow nobody good.’ 
“Well,” concluded Cap’n Lige, “them teeth 
worked fine, an’ they whistled jest as* fine as they 
chewed. I’m wearin’ ’em yet.” 
Quinker and I looked gravely at exhibit A 
which Cap’n Lige thereupon displayed to prove 
his contention, and then, as it was getting well 
along in the evening, but with a feeling of re¬ 
luctance because we believed the old captain 
would prove interesting, we suggested that we 
better start back to our cabin. 
“Hoi’ on,” affirmed Cap’n Lige; “I don’t get 
a chance more’n a few times every winter to 
talk to nobody except Mary, an’ Bunker an’ 
Bergall an’ ’em. You ain’t goin’ away afore I 
git half oiled up for a chin, be you?” So we 
stayed. 
“Let’s see,” resumed Cap’n Lige. “What 
was I sayin’? Oh, about them teeth. Yes, sir, 
they whistled fine most all the time. There was 
only one kind of occasion when they didn’t, and 
that was when I was eatin’. Howsoever, I guess 
that was nat’ral enough, for when a human 
critter can’t do two things to onct, how can you 
expect a poor dumb thing like them teeth to do 
it ? 
“As I was sayin’, I couldn’t whistle and eat 
to the same time. Furst time I tried I remem¬ 
ber I was down in the snipe pond sittin’ there 
in the bunk eatin’ my lunch, when all to oncet 
I see a bunch of yallerleg a cornin’. I’d jest 
taken a big bite outer a ham san’wich, an’ I 
didn’t have her pulverized sufficient to down 
quick, so I tried to whistle, holdin’ that chunk 
of san’wich in my cheek. But, dol ding if I 
could make a sound. Then I tried to take out 
the san’wich, an’ the teeth come out too. An’ 
when I tried to put ’em back, quicker’n you could 
say Jack Robinson, I got kinder kerflubbled, an’ 
put back the san’wich instead, an’ well, by the 
time I got straightened out, the flock of burds 
was gone, and I’d missed a mighty good shot. 
After that I was always careful when a gunnin’ 
to take a good look around before I set down 
with them teeth into any grub.” 
“How long have you been living here on 
the beach?” asked Quinker. “I should think 
you’d find it pretty lonesome.” 
Cap’n Lige stretched his long bony legs out 
to the range, plucked at the frightened little 
goatee on his chin, and spat deliberately and with 
amazing accuracy into a sand-box in the corner. 
“Naw,” said he, “ain’t got no time to git 
lonesome. What, with my boats an’ the family 
an’ with watchin’ things along the beach! 
“This here beach is a changin’ all the time, 
and it keeps a feller busy seein’ where a sand 
hill was cut down by a gale in a night, and 
wonderin’ where the next wind ’ll build a new 
one. Lonesome? Naw! 
“I come over here fust off,” he went on, 
“in the middle of the winter, an’ I stayed ’cause 
I couldn’t git off. I come in a scooter. The bay 
was full of ice an’ I intended stayin’ for a 
couple of days, an’ then goin’ back to the main¬ 
land. While I was here, though, I changed my 
plans. A ship come ashore somewhere up the 
beach, and all her load of lumber got adrift. 
Then come a stiff southerly blow, and piled all 
this here lumber up on the beach. 
“I see a good chance to make *a gunnin’ 
cabin, so I fished outer the surf about enough 
lumber to build a two-story house, an’ went to 
work makin’ my shack. I went up two miles 
to the Gov’ment Station, and borrowed some 
tools, an’ about the sixth day I had the frame 
together and two sides boarded. Then I took 
sick. 
“I felt it cornin’ on, an’ it scared me some. 
I didn't know what it was then, but afterward 
I found out it must a’ been the tumsolitus. 
Anyhow, I got powerful feverish, and awful dry 
in the mouth, and my head ached fit to bust. 
My throat got sorer and sorer, and by time come 
night I couldn’t hardly crawl. So I rigged up 
my bunk side of a big oil can I’d fixed up for 
a stove. Then I gathered a good supply o’ drift¬ 
wood and got in bed. I stayed there all night, 
an’ all the next day, an’ the next night. Well, 
the sand piled up around an’ over me. 
“By that time the wood run out, an’ I 
crawled out an’ got more. My throat was so 
sore I couldn’t swaller, an’ I was too sick to 
do any cookin’, so I didn’t eat nothin’ at all. 
The fourth day I sorter went outer my head 
an' I never knowed how long I stayed that way, 
but I guess it was some time, for all the fire 
was out, an’ the stove was pretty near covered 
with drift sand when I come to. I was so shaky 
I couldn’t stand, but I could crawl, an’ I crawled 
out an’ got a drink of water from the jug. Then 
I knowed I felt better, for my head was clear, 
an’ didn’t ache, an’ my throat was better. 
“All the trouble was, I was so shaky. Well, 
I crawled over toward the ocean side of the 
beach on my hands an’ knees, crawlin’ a few 
feet, then lyin’ down to git ’nough stronger to 
crawl again. An’ pretty soon I got over to the 
side of a bald sand hill, and I layed down on 
my back with the sun in my face an’ went to 
sleep. 
“When I woke up it was dark an’ I was a 
lot stronger. I got up an’ went back an’ cooked 
myself some grub. Then I says to myself, ‘If 
