An exclamation from the kitchen interrupted what the seaman was doing. The minister had retired thither to clear the mist from his eyes which had gathered there at signs of spring-time in the fall of these dear old lives. He now stood in the door, holding a dripping coffee-pot.
“Oh, my coffee!” cried the housekeeper. “It’s boiled all over the place.”
“Drat the coffee. Let her b’ile!”
Boil it certainly had, over the stove, on to the floor, and had collected in a puddle at the threshold.
“That’s what comes of not attending to your cooking,” observed the practical Miss Pipkin. The other Miss Pipkin, who had been sleeping for years in the living sepulcher of her heart, was saying and doing many things quite different.
From the cross-roads came the sound of the church-bell, calling the people of Little River Parish to worship.
“There’s the bell!” exclaimed Miss Pipkin. “It’s only a half-hour before service. If you’ll excuse me, Mack, I don’t think I’ll go this morning. You don’t mind if I call you Mack here at home, do you?”
“I want you to call me that, Aunt Clemmie.” He gave her a hurried kiss, and started toward his room. At the corner of the upset table he paused. “If I didn’t have to preach this morning I’d stay home, too.”
“You mean you’d go walking down ’long the beach,” corrected the Captain.