Cap'N Warren's Wards by Joseph C. Lincoln — Read

November weather on Cape Cod is what Captain Elisha described as "considerable chancey. " "The feller that can guess it two days ahead of time," he declared, "is wastin' his talents; he could make a livin' prophesyin' most anything, even the market price of cranberries. " When Caroline, Sylvester, and the captain reached South Denboro after what seemed, to the two unused to the leisurely winter schedule of the railroad, an interminable journey from Fall River, the girl thought she had never seen a more gloomy sky or a more forbidding scene. Gray clouds, gray sea, brown bare fields; the village of white or gray-shingled houses set, for the most part, along the winding main street; the elms and silver-leaf poplars waving bare branches in the cutting wind; a picture of the fag end of loneliness and desolation, so it looked to her. She remembered Mr. Graves's opinion of the place, as jokingly reported by Sylvester, and she sympathized with the dignified junior partner.

But she kept her feelings hidden on her uncle's account. The captain was probably the happiest individual in the state of Massachusetts that morning. He hailed the train's approach to Sandwich as the entrance to Ostable County, the promised land, and, from that station on, excitedly pointed out familiar landmarks and bits of scenery and buildings with the gusto and enthusiasm of a school boy.