You know how pleasantly Daddy speaks to people, and how they detect under
his words a firmness which effectively prevents long discussion.
Stefansson is really a racing skipper, but he likes his berth on the
_Snowbird_ and said nothing more. We reached this place where, for lack
of level ground, the few houses use all sorts of stilts and crutches, and
invaded the village to the intense amazement of the populace and its
dogs.
Then came Daddy's genius for organization. Within two hours we had rented
a little house for next to nothing a week, furnished it in sixty minutes
with odds and ends from the yacht, including our little brass bedsteads,
which the people here firmly believe to be pure gold, A wild daughter of
the Cove, a descendant of the family that gave it its extraordinary name,
was engaged as a general servant. Daddy's valet and the cook had wept
when they saw the place, and Father informed them that they were rubbish
and might go back with the _Snowbird_, which presently sailed off for the
scraping it appears to be entitled to.
Daddy at once selected a rod with all the care such affairs of state
require, and set forth across the cove with two natives, in a dory. They
went ashore on the banks of the little river and began to clamber over a
terrific jumble of rocks. A salmon was caught so quickly that Father grew
boyish with enthusiasm and capered over more rocks.
And then came the accident, Aunt Jennie, and I am still shaky, and
tearful, and though I try to write like a normal human being I am
desirous of shrieking.
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