Keziah Coffin   By: Joseph Crosby Lincoln (1870-1944)

by Joseph C. Lincoln

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I. IN WHICH KEZIAH HEARS OF TWO PROPOSALS AND THE BEGINNING OF A THIRD

II. IN WHICH KEZIAH UNEARTHS A PROWLER

III. IN WHICH KEZIAH ASSUMES A GUARDIANSHIP

IV. IN WHICH KEZIAH'S PARSON DECIDES TO RUN IT BLINDFOLD

V. IN WHICH THE PARSON CRUISES IN STRANGE WATERS

VI. IN WHICH OLD FRIENDS MEET

VII. IN WHICH CAPTAIN NAT PICKS UP A DERELICT

VIII. IN WHICH THE PARSON AND MR. PEPPER DECLARE THEIR INDEPENDENCE

IX. IN WHICH MISS DANIELS DETERMINES TO FIND OUT

X. IN WHICH KEZIAH'S TROUBLES MULTIPLY

XI. IN WHICH CAPEN EBEN RECEIVES A CALLER

XII. IN WHICH CAPTAIN EBEN MAKES PORT

XIII. IN WHICH KEZIAH BREAKS THE NEWS

XIV. IN WHICH THE SEA MIST SAILS

XV. IN WHICH TRUMET TALKS OF CAPTAIN NAT

XVI IN WHICH THE MINISTER BOARDS THE SAN JOSE

XVII. IN WHICH EBENEZER CAPEN IS SURPRISED

XVIII. IN WHICH KEZIAH DECIDES TO FIGHT

XIX. IN WHICH A RECEPTION IS CALLED OFF

XX. IN WHICH THE MINISTER RECEIVES A LETTER

XXI. IN WHICH MR. STONE WASHES HIS HANDS

XXII. IN WHICH KEZIAH'S PARSON PREACHES ONCE MORE

KEZIAH COFFIN

by Joseph C. Lincoln

CHAPTER I

IN WHICH KEZIAH HEARS TWO PROPOSALS AND THE BEGINNING OF A THIRD

Trumet in a fog; a fog blown in during the night by the wind from the wide Atlantic. So wet and heavy that one might taste the salt in it. So thick that houses along the main road were but dim shapes behind its gray drapery, and only the gates and fences of the front yards were plainly in evidence to the passers by. The beach plum and bayberry bushes on the dunes were spangled with beady drops. The pole on Cannon Hill, where the beacon was hoisted when the packet from Boston dropped anchor in the bay, was shiny and slippery. The new weathervane, a gilded whale, presented to the "Regular" church by Captain Zebedee Mayo, retired whaler, swam in a sea of cloud. The lichened eaves of the little "Come Outer" chapel dripped at sedate intervals. The brick walk leading to the door of Captain Elkanah Daniels's fine residence held undignified puddles in its hollows. And, through the damp stillness, the muttered growl of the surf, three miles away at the foot of the sandy bluffs by the lighthouse, sounded ominously.

Directly opposite Captain Elkanah's front gate, on the other side of the main road, stood the little story and a half house, also the captain's property, which for fourteen years had been tenanted by Mrs. Keziah Coffin and her brother, Solomon Hall, the shoemaker. But Solomon had, the month before, given up his fight with debt and illness and was sleeping quietly in Trumet's most populous center, the graveyard. And Keziah, left alone, had decided that the rent and living expenses were more than her precarious earnings as a seamstress would warrant, and, having bargained with the furniture dealer in Wellmouth for the sale of her household effects, was now busy getting them ready for the morrow, when the dealer's wagon was to call. She was going to Boston, where a distant and condescending rich relative had interested himself to the extent of finding her a place as sewing woman in a large tailoring establishment.