“Yup. Be sure and use a flannel rag, and red flannel if you've got it; that acts quicker'n the other kinds. Fifteen cent bottle?”
“I guess so. Might's well give me some sass'p'rilla, while you're about it; always handy to have in the house. And—er—say, is that canned soup you've got up on that shelf?”
The astonished clerk admitted that it was.
“Well, give me a can of the chicken kind.”
Mr. Smalley, standing on a chair to reach the shelf where the soup was kept, shook his head.
“Now, that's too bad, Cap'n,” he said, “but we're all out of chicken just now. Fact is, we ain't got nothin' but termatter and beef broth. Yes, and I declare if the termatter ain't all gone.”
“Humph! then I guess I'll take the beef. Needn't mind wrappin' it up. So long.”
He departed bearing his purchases. When Mr. Simmons, proprietor of the store, returned, Alpheus told him that he “cal'lated” Captain Cy Whittaker was preparing to “go into a decline, or somethin'.”
“Anyhow,” said Alpheus, “he bought sass'p'rilla and 'Arabian Balsam,' and I sold him a can of that beef soup you bought three year ago last summer, when Alicia Atkins had the chicken pox.”
The captain entered the house quietly and tiptoed to the door of the bedroom. Emily was asleep, and the sight of the childish head upon the pillow gave him a start as he peeped in at it. It looked so natural, almost as if it belonged there. It had been in a bed like that and in that very room that he had slept when a boy.