"He's up-stairs, packing. He's going out with Cap'n Joel March," said the young woman, tragically. The boy by the stove broke into a wail, and she turned sharply toward him.
"Do stop it, Bobbie!" she exclaimed. Then she walked toward the door to call her husband.
She returned at once, her husband, tall, brown, and wiry, walking behind her with the subdued step of a culprit who feels that by stepping softly, smiling unobtrusively, and gainsaying no man, he may escape, through his humility, what he deserves for his misconduct. His good-natured face lighted up at sight of Medbury.
"Bob," said Medbury, without other prelude than a nod, "I want you to do me a favor: don't go out this trip with Cap'n Joel."
The other smiled uncertainly and seated himself.
"Why, that's a funny thing to ask, Tom," he said wonderingly. "Annie's been at me, of course; but I don't see what odds it makes to you. It's a good berth, and it don't seem right to let the chance go by. Besides, I've promised the old man. I can't back out now."
"But he promised me he'd stay home a spell," broke in his wife. "He thinks that's nothing. He's just got home, after being away eleven months. Why, baby didn't know him!"
Under the concentrated gaze of her elders, the child contemplated her father as a blinking puppy might have looked at an object that, from being unfamiliar and terrifying, had gradually become an accepted but still unexplained phenomenon. But presently she turned to Medbury.
"Him gived me a pen-n-y," she said, with a serene gravity that seemed to concern itself with the fact as a historical statement rather than as a personal gratification.
Medbury seized her and tossed her, giggling, in his arms.