Clever Betsy

"Hello there!" The man with grizzled hair and bronzed face under a shabby yachting-cap stopped in his leisurely ramble up the street of a seaport village, and his eyes lighted at sight of a spare feminine figure, whose lean vigorous arms were shaking a long narrow rug at a cottage gate. "Ahoy there-The Clever Betsy!" he went on. The energetic woman vouchsafed a sidewise twist of her mouth intended for a smile, but did not cease from her labors, and a cloud of dust met the hastened approach of the seaman. "Here, there's enough o' that! Don't you know your captain?" he went on, dodging the woolen fringe which snapped near his dark cheek. "My captain!" retorted the energetic one, while the rug billowed still more wildly. She was a woman of his own middle age, and the cloth tied around her head did not add to her charms; but the man's eyes softened as they rested on her. "Here! You carry too much sail. Take a reef!" he cried; and deftly snatching the rug, in an instant it was trailing on the walk behind him, while Betsy Foster stared, offended. "How long ye been here, Betsy?" "A couple o' days," replied the woman, adjusting the cheese-cloth covering more firmly behind her ears. "Why didn't ye let a feller know?" "Thought I wouldn't trouble trouble till trouble troubled me."