“Only a woman!” she roared, sitting up with a jerk. “Does you say——”
“Why, ay, mum!” Skipper Tommy put in, mildly. “You isn’t a man, is you?”
She sat dumb and transfixed.
“Well, then,” said Skipper Tommy, in a mildly argumentative way, “’tis as I says. You must do as the women does, an’ not as a man might want to——”
“Mm-a-an!” she mocked, in a way that withered the poor skipper. “No, I isn’t a man! Was you hearin’ me say I was? Oh, you wasn’t, wasn’t you? An’ is you thinkin’ I’d be a man an I could? What!” she roared. “You isn’t sure about that, isn’t you? Oh, my! Isn’t you! Well, well! He isn’t sure,” appealing to me, with a shaking under lip. “Oh, my! There’s a man—he’s a man for you—there’s a man—puttin’ a poor woman t’ scorn! Oh, my!” she wailed, bursting into tears, as all women will, when put to the need of it. “Oh, dear!”
Skipper Tommy was vastly concerned for her. “My poor woman,” he began, “don’t you be cryin’, now. Come, now——”
“Oh, his poor woman,” she interrupted, bitingly. “His poor woman! Oh, my! An’ I s’pose you thinks ’tis the poor woman’s place t’ work in the splittin’ stage an’ not on the deck of a fore-an’-after. You does, does you? Ay, ’tis what I s’posed!” she said, with scorn. “An’ if you married me,” she continued, transfixing the terrified skipper with a fat forefinger, “I s’pose you’d be wantin’ me t’ split the fish you cotched. Oh, you would, would you? Oh, my! But I’ll have you t’ know, Skipper Thomas Lovejoy,” with a sudden and alarming change of voice, “that I’ve the makin’s of a better ship’s-master than you. An’ by the Lord Harry! I’m a better man,” saying which, she leaped from her chair with surprising agility, and began to roll up her sleeves, “an’ I’ll prove it on your wisage! Come on with you!” she cried, striking a belligerent attitude, her fists waving in a fashion most terrifying. “Come on an you dare!”
Skipper Tommy dodged behind the table in great haste and horror.
“Oh, dear!” cried she. “He won’t! Oh, my! There’s a man for you. An’ I’m but a woman, is I. His poor woman. Oh, his woman! Look you here, Skipper Thomas Lovejoy, you been stickin’ wonderful close alongside o’ me since you come t’ Wolf Cove, an’ I’m not quite knowin’ what tricks you’ve in mind. But I’m thinkin’ you’re like all the men, an’ I’ll have you t’ know this, that if ’tis marriage with me you’re thinkin’ on——”
But Skipper Tommy gasped and wildly fled.