"That don't show nothin'," said Betty Gallup from the doorway. She had removed her hat and coat and was revealed now as a woman approaching seventy, her iron-gray hair twisted into a "bob" so that it could be completely hidden when she had the hat on her head. "That don't show nothin'," she repeated grimly.
Cap'n Amazon jerked his head around to look at her, demanding: "Why don't it, I want to know?"
"'Cause the bird's pretty near stone-blind."
"Blind!" gasped Louise, pity in her tone.
"It can't be," murmured the captain, hastily facing the window again.
"I found that out a year an' more ago," Betty announced. "Didn't want to tell Cap'n Abe—he was that foolish about the old bird. Jerry's used to Cap'n Abe chirping to him and putting his finger 'twixt the slats of the cage for him to perch on. He just thinks you're Cap'n Abe."
She clumped out into the kitchen again in her heavy shoes. Cap'n Amazon came slowly back to his chair. "Blind!" he repeated. "I want to know! Both his deadlights out. Too bad! Too bad!"
He did not seem to care for any more breakfast.
Footsteps in the store soon brought the substitute shopkeeper to his feet again.
"I s'pose that's somebody come aboard for a yard o' tape, or the seizings of a pair of shoes," he growled. "I'd ought to hauled in the gang-plank when we set down."