The captain grunted. "Maybe so," he observed, "but it's one of the things that would keep the average man from going to sea. What's the news since I've been gone—anything?"
Judah nodded. "Um-hm," he said. "I cal'late 'twas the news that set me goin' about old Storm Along. Esther Tidditt's been over here half the forenoon, seemed so, tellin' about Elviry Snowden's aunt over to Ostable. She's dead, the old woman is, and she died slow and agonizin', 'cordin' to Esther. Elviry was all struck of a heap about it. And now she's gone."
"Gone! Elvira? Dead, you mean?"
"Hey? No, no! The aunt's dead, but Elviry ain't. She's gone over to Ostable to stay till after the funeral. She's about the only relation to the remains there is left, so Esther tells me. There was a reg'lar young typhoon over to the Harbor when the news struck. 'Twas too late for the up train so they had to hire a horse and team and then somebody had to be got to pilot it, 'cause Elviry wouldn't no more undertake to drive a horse than I would to eat one. And the trouble was that the livery stable boy—that Josiah Ellis—was off drivin' somebody else somewheres."
"Yes, I saw him."
"Hey? You did? Where? Who was he drivin'?"
"Never mind that. Heave ahead with your yarn."
"Well, the next thing they done was to come cruisin' over here to see if I wouldn't take the job. Hoppin', creepin', jumpin' Henry! I shut down on that notion almost afore they got their hatches open to tell me about it. Suppose likely I'd set in a buggy alongside of Elviry Snowden and listen to her clack from here to Ostable? Not by a two-gallon jugful! Creepin'! She'd have another corpse on her hands time we got there. So I said I was sick."
"Sick! Ha, ha! You're a healthy lookin' sick man, Judah."
"Um-hm. Mine must be one of them kind of diseases that don't show on the outside. But I was sick then, all right—at the very notion. And, Cap'n Sears, who do you cal'late finally did invite himself to drive that Snowden woman to Ostable? You'll never guess in this world."