Elizabeth laughed heartily.
“Oh! By the way, what did you and your handsome minister do to Father last night?”
“Is your pa ailing, too?”
“He says he is quite lame, and when I asked him what the matter was, he only smiled, and told me to find out from you. Did your minister take him for a burglar, too?”
“Is that all your father said about it?”
“Yes, except that it was his own fault.”
Captain Pott chuckled. “I feared he wa’n’t going to see it that way last night. Eadie Beaver put the parson in here while I was in the city on a special trip. She came over the day I left last week, and said it would be real nice if he could live with me and eat with her. I told her I’d see about shipping a parson in my house, meaning I’d have nothing to do with him. Well, she went ahead and bunked him here, thinking I’d meant it was all right. It ’pears she done it against your father’s ideas, too. So he come over last night and tried to get Mr. McGowan to move out. 21 That made me madder than what Eadie had done, so I asked him right then if he was willing to stay. He said he was. Your pa got sore, and started real dignified to go home. The candle that Mr. McGowan had been using was on the floor, and your pa’s heel hit it. His cane went up and he went down. His high hat took a swim in a bucket of soapy water that the parson had been using to swab decks with.”
“Father is so very dignified! It must have been quite funny,” she commented, between paroxysms of laughter. “I wish I could have seen him!”
“’Twas a mite funny. I fished his beaver out the pail, and he made off holding it away from him like it was p’ison.”
Sudden seriousness on the part of the girl caused the Captain to look in the direction of her gaze. A tall young man had emerged from the back door of the house, pail in hand. He came hurriedly toward the well.