“Cal’late he won’t blame you,” said the seaman sympathetically.
“Why are things so upset in town against him?”
“I ain’t able to answer that, Eadie. It does seem that the old ark is going through quite a squall, don’t it?”
“Has Harry said anything to you?”
“Not yet, he ain’t, and if I sight him fust he ain’t going to say anything. I ain’t got time for him to get his pumps working on me.”
“You mark my word, he will say something, and don’t you believe one word when he does. I don’t see what’s got into him. Somebody has bewitched him.”
The Captain stared at her. Here were signs of a new kind of microbe, and he could make neither head nor tail of it. It was next 86 to the miraculous for Mrs. Beaver to espouse an unpopular cause when there was interesting gossip to repeat.
“You don’t say!” exclaimed the seaman.
“I do say. Hank Simpson is the only man in this town beside you who’s got back-bone enough to stand by himself! He’d struck Harry last night if that Hicks hadn’t held him off. I wish he had hit him hard, maybe it would have brought him to his senses.”
“Are you trying to tell me that Harry’s got the gossiping fever?”