The conjecture of Spratt, that Pergamos was near Pyrgos Pori is only a conjecture, Pyrgos being too common a name for any strongly situated village or ruin to have any significance. A city at that locality would, moreover, have been cut off from all sea approach by the Iardanos in its ancient course; and as Pergamos was one of those cities founded by the wanderers from Troy,—either, they say, by Agamemnon or AEneas,—it would probably not have been founded on an inland site, or even on a river navigable, as the Iardanos must have been, for small craft, the access to which would be commanded by Aptera, Minoa, and Cydonia. So far as conjecture goes, it seems to me much more likely that Hagia Irene—which Spratt supposes the ancient city—was Achaia, the location of which he avoids by supposing it a district, rather than a city, forgetting that in those days no one dwelt outside of city walls. My hypothesis, coupled with that of the identity of Platania with Pergamos, would satisfy all the exigencies of the case, which that of neither Spratt nor Pashley does. For the rest, Pergamos is mainly interesting as the burial-place of Lycurgus.

From our point of view on the Akroteri, we see the whole domain of Cydonia,—as at our left Suda Bay terminates the view, (on the first plateau eastward of the bay Aptera presided,) while the Dictynnian hills divide it from the plain of Kisamos to the west, and the mountains rise abruptly to the south;—a little kingdom well defined, one of the most perfectly beautiful territories the tourist can find, and still fertile,—though the hills have forgotten their fruit and the plain its river,—and capable of sustaining a much larger population than it now supports, if the Mohammedan blight were off it.

Almost at the foot of the ridge where we stand is a beautiful example of a Venetian fortified country-house,—a little castle, turreted and loop-holed, with a drawbridge thrown from a tower rising opposite the doorway, and still in excellent preservation. Other similar houses may be seen, but I have nowhere in the island found one so fine as this. At the farther edge of the plain, lying along under the hills, is a succession of white villages,—Zukalaria, Nerokouro (running water), Murnies, celebrated for its oranges and the brutal and gratuitous massacre by Mustapha Pacha (late Imperial Commissioner), in 1833, Boutzounaria (dripping water), first place of assembling of the Cretan malcontents in 1866, Perivolia, Galatas, Hagia Marina, and Platania, by the sea.

Off Platania is the island of St. Theodore, whose fortress, defended by the Venetian mercenaries against the Turks, showed one of those examples of heroic constancy we so generally and erroneously attribute to patriotic courage; for, defying the enemy to the last, the garrison defended the castle until the Turks had stormed and filled it with their numbers, and then blew it up, destroying every one within the walls. The foundations still remain, but level with the cemented floor; everything is razed cleanly, while the fragments lie along the slopes like the ejections of a volcano.

Midway between the Akroteri and Canea lies Kalepa, a suburb where most of the foreign consuls reside in summer, with many of the wealthier Khaniotes, and the only place in the vicinity where the summer can be passed in comfort. A few houses are fitted with European improvements, but the greater part are the simple and cheerless residences of the Cretan peasant, furnished with the merest necessities of existence. Even here, in the most prosperous of the villages I have been in, life is, for most of the people, only a struggle against poverty, thrift being impossible where every surplus meets a new impost. Many houses are still in ruins from the devastations of 1821-1830, showing how incompletely the island had recovered from that war before being plunged into another more destructive still. From the ravages of this, however, Kalepa is saved so far,—thanks to a few consular residents,—but saved alone of all the villages of the plain country.

If it be true that civilization is determined by natural advantages, it must be that Cydonia was the "mother of cities," at least of all the Hellenic realm, for no more enchanting or tempting site have I ever known through travel or description. With its climate of paradisiacal softness and healthfulness, and the beauty of its framing hills,—fanned in summer by the north winds from the AEgean and by south winds tempered by the snows of the Aspravouna,—with a winter in which vegetation never ceases and frost never comes,—with its garden-like plain and its old-time river, and its port unexceptionable in ancient times,—nothing was wanting to render prosperity and security complete in former days, as nothing but freedom is wanting now to restore both, and make the city the most attractive place in the classical world. Hitherto, its charms have but tempted invasion, and its fertility has only grown harvests for the sword. Here began the Cretan conquest by Metellus; here began the movements which, one after the other, have shaken the Ottoman chain only to make it heavier; and here began the latest struggle, which, so long and gallantly upheld, may finally bring back to Crete the civilization born on her shores, but for so many centuries an exile.

II.

THE AKROTERI.

Not to make one's first excursion from Canea to the Akroteri, with its convent of the Hagia Triada (Holy Trinity), and its sacred Grotto of St. John, would be lesa maesta to the Khaniotes, who regard a pilgrimage to the latter as entitling one to a Hadjiship.

The ride (or walk, which I recommend, in preference, to good pedestrians) is a delightful one in early summer; and, even after the heats of August have browned the plain of the Akroteri, an early start from Canea will leave a memory of breezy upland with wide expanse of mountain and sea,—including some of the most picturesque views to be found in Crete,—and of the rich odors of many aromatic herbs and flowers, through whose rifled sweets the Akroteri is famous for its honey. A three hours' ride—first up the zigzag road that climbs the ridge above Kalepa, and then over an undulating plain sparsely dotted with hamlets and clouded here and there with olive-orchards—brings one, with a sufficient appreciation of good cheer, and clean, cool rooms, shade, and quiet, into the cloistered court of Hagia Triada, a semi-military building of the Venetian days. Still unfinished, the Turkish conquest having interrupted its progress, with all other in the seventeenth century. In the centre of the quadrangle, round which are the rooms of the monks and the guest-rooms, stands the church, an edifice nondescript as to style, with a facade of a species of Venetian Doric, fronting a building whose plan is a Latin cross, and whose roof observes Byzantine tradition. On the entablature over the doorway are the dedicatory Greek capitals, [Greek: BGYTHTP],—the meaning of which none of the priests could tell me, though a duplicate inscription in Latin and Greek beside the door told by whom the convent was built; and the Hegoumenos added the tradition, that the two founders, being converted by an extraordinary illumination from the Latin to the Greek Church, gave an edifying proof of their devotion to their new creed by erecting this convent.

The Hegoumenos was a Sphakiote, a very shrewd, clear-headed and energetic man, and, though betraying no great familiarity with books or dogmas, showed that he was a better fisher in those waters where men are to be caught than most of his confreres of any creed. He had that manner of innate authority which never fails to impose itself on the indecisions and self-distrusts of the mass of men, and which in a wider circle of ambition would certainly have won him a larger place. Like the Hegoumenos of every other Greek convent, he was elected by the monks, and, though completely in the hands of his brethren, and at any time liable to be removed by another election, the subordination to him was perfect as could have been imagined. It was a curious exemplification of the force of democracy. Yet not only in Hagia Triada, but in other Cretan convents, I have seen how the mass of men find their governors as surely and wisely, and often more fitly, than if they had had men born to the place, or appointed by some superior hierarchy.

In Italy I had always been accustomed to find the convents posted on the hill-tops, and almost inaccessible; but in Crete the loveliest valleys are almost certain to have been chosen as their locations. The convent of the Hagia Triada is indeed on a plain, but at the foot of the range of hills which skirts the Akroteri to the north, and is thus almost shut in from two sides, while to the south the plain extends to Suda Bay, which is hidden in the chasm between the Akroteri and Mount Malaxa, and beyond which the mountains of Sphakia rise in picturesque and alluring redundance of ravine and massive rock. All the nearer plain is green with the olive-orchards, and the road which approaches the front entrance is flanked with two lines of cypresses, and carob-trees grow up the rocky heights overlooking the convent, where no other tree will grow. The hum of bees filled the air, and mingled with the notes of nightingales (poetically fabled to sing only by night), the chirping of multitudinous sparrows, wrens, and linnets, and the twittering of swallows. At the outer gate sat two or three aged monks, picturesque and sculpturesque at once, like enchanted porters at the doors of some spellbound palace, their long, gray beards and sunken, listless eyes according with their own and the convent's external dilapidation.

The beauty and quiet of the place were almost enchantment enough to account for the gray-headed porters, their immobility and longevity, and I longed to draw the charm over me. But I was one of a party which had come under the inspiration of the most inane motive of travel,—the desire to see all there was to be seen; and so, after a half-hour's repose, and the usual refreshments,—preserved fruits and a glass of water, followed by coffee,—we enlisted the Hegoumenos in our party, and set out for the grotto, taking in the way Hagios Joannes, a still more incomplete and still more secluded convent than Hagia Triada, among the hills between the latter and the sea. The road which we followed would be called by no means a bad road for Crete, but anywhere else would be execrable,—a mere bridle-path through a gorge in a range of hills from which all the soil seems to have been washed with most of the small stones, and where, with much precaution, your beast goes picking his way as if in a laborious, slow-paced minuet. The convent stands in an opening of the hills, on a little bit of comparatively plain land,-a half-finished battlemented square pile, offering defence against a slight attack; but the monks said that the Turks always found the road so bad that they never came to attack them during any of the island wars, though Hagia Triada was twice pillaged. The comparative poverty of Hagios Joannes may have had something to do with its exemption, but the road would defend it from my encroachments forever; and, in fact, visitors only pass it on the way to the grottoes and convent of Katholikon, which lie near the opening of the gorge, where it becomes a wild glen, and approaches the sea. The path, descending, led us to the Cave of the Bear, where we had arranged to lunch, and the bounties of Canea, spread on the ground in the mouth of the cave, went to repair the wear and tear of body and temper caused by the badness of the road. The cave derives its name from a mass of stalactite which has a traceable resemblance to a bear, but it had no further interest than being our lunching-place. Here the road became so bad that even a donkey could not follow it, and we clambered down on foot by zigzag and rock stair to the mouth of the Cave of St. John. Caves per se have no kind of attraction to me. Stalactite and stalagmite are pretty much the same: so, half the way in, I made excuse of the fatigue of some of the ladies, and, determining to go no farther, proved my gallantry by stopping to keep them company, thus abandoning my Hadjiship, which can only be claimed when the inner chamber is attained. If, then, the reader would know more, he must consult the guide-book, when there is one; and meanwhile let me assure him, on the authority of Pashley, that the cave is four hundred and seventy feet deep, and, on that of my more persevering fellow-visitors, that at the bottom is a chamber, very fine and imposing by torchlight, where is a couch of natural formation on which died the saint, leaving his name with his bones and the odor of his sanctity. The story is that this St. John—neither the Baptist nor the Evangelist, but a hermit of Crete—centuries ago made his abode here, and lived many years without seeing the face of another man. Lest he should in daylight chance upon his abhorred and outcast brethren, or any of them, he only ventured out at night, and lived on what he could find in other people's gardens or orchards. Happening one night to be discovered in the act of laying in a provision of corn, he was mistaken for a thief, and received an arrow from the owner of the provision. He crawled back, mortally wounded, to his grotto, and never came out again except in the shape of relics.

The convent of Katholikon, long abandoned, did not invite entrance: a Venetian bridge spans the ravine, and gave access to the chapel for the hermits whose little dens still remain on the other side, the denizens having long since deserted them. Down by the sea are some Venetian ruins, a boat-house, and some masonry of a landing. I advise travellers who will visit Katholikon, its cave and hermitages, to order a boat round from Canea to meet them at this place, and then go home in comfort,—the only point to be gained from going back by land being a more thorough experience of Cretan roads. To those who intend seeing the rest of the island, opportunities will not lack for this; to others, the knowledge is superfluous. A careful horse will make his way down, but he ought to be strong to get up. Mine was not; and, in climbing, his force or his footing failed him, and over he went backwards, and I narrowly escaped being crushed under him. Stunned and half bewildered by the fall,—for I had struck on my back amongst sharp stones, with one of which my head had made intimate acquaintance,—I managed, I know not how, to extricate myself from the flourish of legs; the horse lying more helpless than myself in the narrow path between two slopes of stone, and vainly plunging to get over on his side. He finally completed his somerset, to the confusion of the line of equestrians behind, the nearest of whom were speedily dismounted; and the chances of a kicking match among the quadrupeds were good for a moment, until two prompt Arabs, in attendance on Miss T——, restored the disorderly elements to peace. Sore, bleeding, and faint, I lay awhile on a bed of wild thyme, until I began to feel the good effects of a cordial administered by the pateras, and we resumed our file, most of the party returning directly to Canea,—myself, with a companion who served as guide and interpreter, passing the night at the convent, the good Hegoumenos being urgent in his entreaties that the whole company would likewise honor his roof. None of the ladies felt inclined to do so, and perhaps it was just as well for their repose that they did not; for, clean as the rooms of the convent were, and white as was the linen, there were discomforts which, though infinitely small, were infinitely numerous, and, by the law of majorities, our tormentors turned us out of bed to pass the night in the open air,—a change always safe, and even delightful at this season, in Crete.

The Greek convent is a true hostel; no one is refused admission and hospitality,—no restrictions on the gentler sex make it impossible for real parties of pleasure to visit its beautiful valley,—no Pharisaic rigidity of self-denial makes it imperative to refuse visitors good cheer, though the community observe their long and trying fasts with a severity which puts to shame abstinence in Catholic countries. (The Greek fasts two hundred and forty-six days out of three hundred and sixty-five, and most of this time not even fish is allowed, while part of the time oil, milk, and shell-fish are also forbidden.) And the welcome is no mere show of kindliness; the longer you stay at the convent, the better the monks are pleased, and staying longer than you intended is the highest compliment you can pay them. What change a larger acquaintance with the world will produce, of course I cannot say, or how much the spirit of hospitality will diminish by an increase of the calls on it; but now no English country-house makes you more at home than a Cretan convent.

In the morning, the pateras guided us to a peak, near the northeastern point of the Akroteri, whence we could overlook, not only the peninsula and Suda Bay, but the Apokorona, the coast from Cape Spada to Cape Stavros, the Rhiza as far as the mountains of Kisamos, Mount Ida, and the mountains of Sphakia, Lampe, and even, in the dim distance, Lassithe. Included in the field of view were the sites of seven of the Cretan cities of early days, not counting Minoa and Canea, hidden from view. On the north, we had the Greek islands Cerigotto, Cerigo, Milo, Santorini, and others less prominent. It was my intention to return by the shore of Suda Bay, in order to visit Minoa, but the badness of the roads, and the utter want of interest in the intermediate distance, determined me to visit that part of the Akroteri by boat at a later period.

Returning to the convent, we had not long to wait for a capital dinner,—soup, a boiled chicken, mutton stewed with artichokes and beans, new honey, and rice prepared with milk, sugar, and spices, with a dessert of figs and grapes. The wine of the convent had a bitter taste, from an herb steeped in it, which was preferable to the pitch of Greek wines, but still not a desirable addition. One of the monks, who had a small property close by the convent, brought us a bottle of wine of his own production, which was one of the best I have ever tasted in the East, and to my mind better than that of Cyprus. With coffee and cigarettes we stretched ourselves on the sofas before the windows, through which the east wind blew the odors extorted from the fragrant herbs and flowers by the overpowering sun. No other sound than the hum of the bees darting past with unwearying haste, and the chirping of a few birds amongst the olives, disturbed the air, and the monks left us to dream or doze as we pleased. The charm of the place was complete, and it would not have been a penance to make the convent a summer's abode. The fleas were a drawback, surely; but nowhere in Crete can one get away from that plague, and at Hagia Triada they were less offensive, as I learned by later experience, than in many other convents, and even in most private houses.

When, the sun cooling his fires, we ordered our steeds out, and prepared to return, the whole personnel of the convent came to assist, with the inhabitants of a little village adjoining, which finds protection and Christian charity from the convent. The monks, excepting two or three, seemed of an ignorant and boorish quality, but hard-working and kind-hearted. Here, evidently, a certain kind of bliss was in ignorance, and the most learned were not wise enough to be accused of much folly. The Hegoumenos, in bidding us good by, begged us warmly to come again and stay long,—a month at least. All joined in the kindly wish; and we rode back through the lengthening olive shadows, which never had fitter accompaniment than in the peace and content which the convent promised us, and I am sure not vainly. Not that I am a believer in the peace that does not come of fighting,—the retreat before battle,—or think that quiet and laziness are one. Content is a piggish virtue and one which no earnest soul can abide in, and unsleeping ambition is the only Jacob's ladder; but when my reader is tired of struggling, and must repose, I am sure that he (or she, even) would find in Hagia Triada such peace and content as may be healthfully known, and no begrudging of the solace and satisfaction to heretics. It seems to me that only those who have no right to a quiet life envy it in others, and, as our monks earn their right to be charitable, they are not envious, even with sinners.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] As I shall have constant occasion to draw from Pashley information and quotations which my own classical reading, time, and library facilities do not permit me even to verify, I shall, once for all, confess indebtedness for almost all the classical knowledge I possess of the island, as well as for almost all the topographical information and direction in my visits to antique sites, to either him or Spratt, without whose invaluable researches the half of Crete would still be in a measure terra incognita. What I hope to add to the knowledge of Crete will be in a different vein from theirs.

[B] Consult Marsh's "Man and Nature."



CHANSON WITHOUT MUSIC.

BY THE PROFESSOR EMERITUS Of DEAD AND LIVE LANGUAGES.

([Greek: Phi. Beta. Kappa.]—CAMBRIDGE, 1867.)

You bid me sing,—can I forget The classic ode of days gone by,— How belle Fifine and jeune Lisette Exclaimed, "Anacreon, geron ei"? "Regardez donc," those ladies said,— "You're getting bald and wrinkled too: When summer's roses all are shed, Love's nullum ite, voyez-vous!"

In vain ce brave Anacreon's cry, "Of Love alone my banjo sings" (Erota mounon). "Etiam si,— Eh b'en?" replied the saucy things,— "Go find a maid whose hair is gray, And strike your lyre,—we sha'n't complain; But parce nobis, s'il vous plait,— Voila Adolphe! Voila Eugene!"

Ah, jeune Lisette! Ah, belle Fifine! Anacreon's lesson all must learn; 'O kairos oxus; Spring is green; But Acer Hyems waits his turn! I hear you whispering from the dust, "Tiens, mon cher, c'est toujours so,— The brightest blade grows dim with rust, The fairest meadow white with snow!"

You do not mean it! Not encore? Another string of playday rhymes? You've heard me—nonne est?—before, Multoties,—more than twenty times; Non possum,—vraiment,—pas du tout, I cannot! I am loath to shirk; But who will listen if I do, My memory makes such shocking work?

Ginosko, Scio. Yes, I'm told Some ancients like my rusty lay, As Grandpa Noah loved the old Red-sandstone march of Jubal's day I used to carol like the birds, But time my wits has quite unfixed, Et quoad verba,—for my words,— Ciel! Eheu! Whe-ew!—how they're mixed!

Mehercle! Zeu! Diable! how My thoughts were dressed when I was young But tempus fugit! see them now Half clad in rags of every tongue! O philoi, fratres, chers amis! I dare not court the youthful Muse, For fear her sharp response should be, "Papa Anacreon, please excuse!"

Adieu! I've trod my annual track How long!—let others count the miles,— And peddled out my rhyming pack To friends who always paid in smiles. So, laissez-moi! some youthful wit No doubt has wares he wants to show; And I am asking, "Let me sit," Dum ille clamat, "Dos pou sto!"



THE ROSE ROLLINS.

PART II.

"It was a Sunday evening that was coming on, you see, and there was a full moon, and all the willagers would be out to church, because there was a rewival a-going on, and, thinks says I, he'll walk into his sleep, like as not, and he'll be wisible to one and he'll be wisible to all, and I must adopt the adwice that's been adwised me, whether it's quite adwisable or not; so I gets the clothes-line, and I cuts off about five yards, and I slips it under my piller before I goes to—before I retires to rest. The clothes-line was a new hempen one, and strong as could be. Well, he was no sooner asleep than up I riz, and slips the line from under my piller, and I ties my arm to his'n with a knot that couldn't be ontied easy. And now, thinks says I to myself, you get away and walk into your sleep if you can! But you'll see directly that I was adwised bad.

"Just as the meetin' folks was a-goin' home, I, bein' about half asleep, feels somethin' pullin' and pullin' onto my arm, and says I, 'Let go!' and nothin' answered, and then says I, 'Let go, I tell you!' and, bless you! I had no more than got the words out of my mouth when down I comes onto the floor, piller and all! I knowed then, right away, what was the matter,—he was a-walkin' into his sleep. 'O, stop,' says I, 'just for a minute, till I ontie myself!'

"'Divel a bit!' says he, and with that he strode off, and me headlong at his heels!"

"My little wentersome one!" says John; and finding that that but very inadequately expressed what he felt, he repeated it, with slight alteration, "My wentersome little one!" at the same time lifting his eyes to heaven and shaking his finger in a menacing way at the air.

"Me—your own—headlong at his heels," whispered the widow, softly. And then she boxed his ear with the tips of her fingers, and then he said he would love to have her a-boxin' on 'em forever, and then she laughed incredulously, and then she went on:—

'Stop, you willain, till I ontie myself,' says I.

"'Ontie me, you wixen!' says he, 'who cares whether you are ontied or not?' and he histed the winder,—a two-story winder it was,—and out he went!"

"My brain is a-reelin'!" cries John. "You poor dewoted dove!"

"Dewoted, sure enough," says the widow, "and dewoted you'd 'a' thought if you'd 'a' seen me; for up he hists the winder, and out he goes. Now there was the framework of a new house—a great skeleton like—standin' alongside of us, and into that he waults, and I waults after him,—for what could I do but wault?—and away he goes from beam to beam, and from jice to jice, and from scantlin' to scantlin', waultin' up and up, and me waultin' after,—for what could I do but wault?—and cryin' with all my might, 'You willain!' and he a-cryin' back, 'You wixen!' and the moon a-shinin' like a blaze, and the meetin' folks goin' by, and my night-gownd a-floppin', and both of us plain wisible!

"'Help! murder!' I cries, for my salwation depended on it, and, seein' the meetin' folks adwance, he just waulted from the timber onto which we stood right into the thin and insupportable air—"

"And dragged you after him? Lord 'a' mercy!" cried John.

"No," says the widow, speaking with great calmness; "my presence of mind never forsook me,—I was an undertaker's daughter, and adwantage of birth prewailed over the disadwantage of position,—I waulted down the tother side; and there we hung balanced into the air, and there we would have hung all night but for the accident of the rewival.

"When they cut us down,—which one of the rewival folks did with his jack-knife,—I woluntarily fainted away, and was carried in for dead, and didn't rewive, and wouldn't rewive, for hours and hours. La me! I was so ashamed!"

"I wish it had been my forten to carry you into the house," says John.

"So do I," says the widow; "but let us be thankful that the wicissitudes of life have driv us together at last."

"At last, sure enough," says John; "you speak wisdom when you don't know on 't, you dove of doves!"

She bent her eyes upon him in tender inquiry, in answer to which he said, "At last it is, sweetheart, for you don't know that I loved you when I was a youngster not more 'n a dozen year old!"

"Loved me, captain! It isn't creditable! Tell me all about it. Are you sure?"

"Just as sure on 't as I be of anything; just as sure as I be that I love you now."

"Tell me all about it, I'm dying to know; it seems like some wild novelty, to be sure."

"Yes, you're right, it is like a novelty if it was only writ out, and it don't seem creditable, but it's true; I'm just as sure on 't as I be of anything,—just as sure as I be that I love you now!"

"O captain!"

"Yes, my own Rose, I loved you when I was a little lad,—loved you just as I did the mornin' star,—loved you and worshipped you from far away. What a spry little thing you was, a-hoppin' about among the mahogany and walnut stuff like a young sparrer! O, how I've watched and follered you with my eyes when you didn't dream on 't!"

"But, John, my nerves are a woman's, remember, and you mustn't keep them a-strain so long; they're wery much weakened by all this."

"Ay, to be sure," says John; "your nerves be a woman's, to say nothin' of your curosity bein' a woman's!"

And he laughed with as much heartiness at her expense as though she had been his wife already.

"John!" This with tender reproach, and he resumed, in a tone of respectful and lover-like humility.

"Wa'n't your name Rose Rollins afore you was jined to the vagabond,—wagabond, that is to say,—afore you was dethroned; and didn't you live in Fust Street, opposite them old tenement housen knowed as Baker's Row?"

"Of course I did, John, in the yaller brick with the shop in the corner, and the entrance embellished with a beautiful sign,—three coffins, with their leds turned back so as to reweal the satin linin's, and my father's name in letters that represented silver screws! A stroke of genius that design was!—the sign of the three coffins, two of them sideways and one end; my father's name—Farewell Rollins, wery appropriate to his business as it turned out—in letters that they was modelled after silver screws."

"Three on 'em, two sideways and one end?" says John; "and the name, Farewell Rollins, shaped arter silver screws! Why, as you be a livin' cretur, you're the very—wery—little gal I was in love with; and many a day, dark enough otherwise with poverty and sorrer, you've lighted up with your purty golden head!" And then he tells her, by way of illustrating the depth and sincerity of his early attachment, that it once happened to him to have an orange given him at Christmas time; and that, although he had never tasted an orange in all his born days, except through a confectioner's window-glass, he without hesitation tossed it over the wall into her father's yard, hoping that she, who ate oranges every day, might possibly have his added to the rest. And he concluded with, "Such was the nater of my feelin's for you even then."

"And the nater of your feelin's, John, was not only wergin' close upon the feelin's of love," says the milliner, deeply touched, "but they was love,—love of the wiolentest kind!"

And then she says that, if she can only find in the town an orange as big as the full moon, she'll buy it, let it cost what it will, and give it to him.

And then she says, playfully tapping his chin, "I only wish them feelin's had hild."

"You wish them feelin's had hild!" says John, leaning his face still lower to the touches of her pretty hands; and then in his reverence he addressed her in the third person, saying, "How sweetly prowokin' she is!"

Then, very earnestly, "They hev hild all these years, them feelin's hev, and they hev been rewived this day in all their wiolence; and the beautiful curls that used to shine down all the daffodils are just as soft and as golden as ever!" Here he ventured to touch the ends of the long-admired tresses; but he did not see that they were both thin and faded, and that the parting was very, very wide. "Ay, it's the same bright head," he went on, "that's been a-shinin' all these years so far away that I never expected to put my rough hand on 't,—not, anyhow, afore I'd crossed the dark ferry, and got refined into a spirit. And now, just think! here you be, a-sailin' in my little wessel, that I'd christened 'The Rose Rollins' for your memory's sake,—a-sailin' by my side in all the freshness and bloom of your perfect beauty!"

The milliner laughed, well pleased with the compliment, and said that, when one charm wanished, another took its place sometimes; so that, if we only kept up our witality, we didn't look much the worse for all our years. "Now you, for instance, could never have been handsomer than you are to-day!" she concluded, pointing her theory with that kindly method so characteristic of women.

His face had been drawing nearer to hers all the while she spoke, so that his eyes were quite looking into hers now. "I'm broke a leetle," says he, "I know it; but when I see myself in these lovely lookin'-glasses I do look right nice, for all." And then he went on with his story.

"I was a'most forgettin' on 't," he said; "but what wonder!

"My father was a sailor; and the last time he ever went out was as one of the crew of the Dauphin, of Nantucket, Captain Griscom,—how well I remember it! though I was a little chap then,—about seven year old, I guess. The Dauphin was a whaler, you must know, and Captain Griscom as rough and hard as the sea-rocks themselves. I seen him once; and I've got a picter in my mind of his furrered, weather-beat face, and eyes that was more like the bulb of some pison plant than anything else,—so blue, and dull, and lackin' all human expression. His ear was like a dry knot,—seemed as if 't would break off if you touched it, and his nose wa' n't much better. He wa' n't a man that any child would ever go nigh,—anyhow I couldn't. My father was high-sperited,—too high-sperited for his sitooation, as'll be showed by an' by.

"My mother was a little, pale woman, with blue eyes, and hair as soft as flax. You've seen her, I dare say, for she took in washin', and used to hang the things on the ruf, and I would go up with her under pertence of helpin', but more, I'm afeard, because I could the better see into your door-yard, and maybe get a glimpse o' you. Well, my father used to tell her, 'Katura,' he would say, 'arter one more voyage I'll leave the sea, for then I shall be rich enough to buy an acre o' ground somewheres where I can hear the waters a-lappin' on the sand; and we'll build a snug little house, and send our boy to school, and you sha' n't wash no more, for you ain't strong, Katura,—not nigh so strong as you used to be,—I can see that plain enough.' Then the tears would come to my mother's eyes; for a tender word was always touchin' to her, and seein' on 'em my father would make haste to say, pattin' of her cheek, that, although some o' the airly roses was gone, she wa' n't a mite less purty than she used to be! and then she'd wipe her eyes and smile agin, and arter a little smoothin' up of her hair, or carefuller pinnin' of her handkerchief, light his pipe for him, and fetch the big chair out of the corner; and then she'd set herself to darnin' of his socks, or patchin' of his jackets, and so they'd pass an evenin' happy as could be,—my father singin' a sea-song, or a love-song, maybe, first or last.

"We lived in the last house o' the Row,—the housen was all poor enough, you mind, but ourn was the very poorest on 'em, and then we had the top floor,—one room and a pantry bein' all, exceptin' the ruf, which was flat, and which we had the privilege on for a yard, in consideration of a dollar extra a month. 'Have the ruf, be sure, Katura!' my father would say. 'What's a dollar?' and he'd slap his hand down as though 't was full o' dollars, but 't wa' n't, and mother always paid the extra dollar out of her own airnin's, but feelin' all the time a'most as if he'd paid it, just because of the generous way he had o' speekin'. I remember the last time father sailed with the Dauphin, as I was sayin' afore,—remember it just as though it was yesterday. It was a mornin' in winter,—the twenty-third o' December, and snow a-lyin' on the ground. I could see his tracks along the walk for a week arter he was gone, and then the snow begun to melt; thawin' and freezin' together at first, and then a clean thaw, so the tracks filled up with water, and arter another week I couldn't find no trace on 'em.

"'Take good care o' your mother, my lad!' he said, 'take the best o' care on her! I'll be home afore long, for good and all, to take care on her myself; it won't be but two or three year at the outside,'—and he give my shoulder a little shake, and then he slipped a quarter-dollar into my hand. And then he turned to her. 'Three year ain't long, Katura,' he says; 'why, they'll fly round just like so many hours, a'most, and fust thing you know you'll hear my step a-comin' up the stair! Have everything you want, good wife, and don't work hard; you know its agin my will that you should,—these pale cheeks make me a little afeard; but, arter all, you'll come round with the daisies, I guess.' And with that he turned from her, and writ a little with his finger on the table, and then he chirked up like, and buttoned his jacket quick, and went out the door just as though he wa' n't a-goin' no furder than across the street.

"The minute follerin', mother went up to the house-ruf. She wanted to see arter the washed things, she said, how they was a-dryin' and all; but I knowd well enough she wanted to see arter him, and didn't pull at her skirt and foller, as I generally did. I stayed down stairs, and, to kind o' break up my sorrer, I chucked my head aginst the knob that was atop o' the andiron! A curus way to git relief; but my diversions, them times, was somewhat limited.

"When my mother came down agin, there wa' n't no tears in her eyes, but they had a kind of a fur-reachin' look, as if they was a-gazin' clear across the salt seas; and they never lost that look arterwards. It was wofuller than tears, that look was,—'cause it seemed as if it was arter somethin' that wa'n't to be found on this airth.

"I hung round her, and when she did n't say nothin' I told her I was goin' to be the best boy that ever was, and build all the fires, and help her to keep things snug; and that I could make my old shoes last three year, till father would come home. I was sure on 't, with one new pair o' half-soles, and one new pair o' toe-caps, anyhow.

"Then she took me on her knee, and leaned her face agin mine, and said I was the best child in all the world, and she hoped yet to see the time that I'd hev as nice shoes and other things as I deserved. I slipped the ring up and down her finger, as she held me so, a-talkin' to me, and at last I said, 'This ring is too big, mother; what made you get such a big one?' And then she said, 'Your father give it to me long ago, my child, and it wa'n't none too big at fust; it's the fault of the finger,—that is getting too thin'; and then she took the ring off,—it was a leetle slim thing,—and put it in an old teapot that was kept on the top shelf of the cupboard. She was afeared she'd either lose it off her hand, she said, or break it on the washboard. She didn't say nothin' furder, but I see she thought that the losin' on 't would be the dreadfullest misfortin that could happen to her.

"It would take too long, and wear out your patience, I calculate, if I was to tell you of all the troubles we hed arter the sailin' of the Dauphin, and troubles ain't interestin' to hear on, nohow; so I'll pass 'em by, trustin' your lively imagination to picter on 'em out.

"Well, when the three year was purty near up, she used to say to me every day, 'Where do you 'spose poor father is? And what will he think of his little boy when he sees him?' And then she would answer her own question, and say, 'He'll think he's a little man,—that 's what he'll think.' And with such like talk she seemed to get a sort of comfort, somehow. From her, more than from anything I knowed myself, I got a fine notion o' my father; among other things, I thought he was the biggest man in the world, and I used to spekilate as to whether Mr. Farewell Rollins had a coffin in his shop that would be long enough for him, if he should happen to die at home. I didn't s'pose he had, and the thought of what it would cost to get one big enough caused me a good deal of sorrer. More 'n this, I thought he must have wonderful powers, and that he could make me a kite that would fly to the moon, or, if he chose, dip all the water out o' the sea with mother's long-handled gourd.

"These thoughts give me a good deal o' satisfaction, but there was times that nothin' I could git out o' myself could chirk me up; and them times I always betook myself to the andirons, and bobbed my head agin the top on 'em, and that was sure to fetch me round.

"I longed for my father to come back, as much, maybe, that Rose Rollins might see what a big man he was, as for anything else. I guessed she'd begin to notice of us some when the Dauphin come in! Hows'ever, the three year went by, and no Dauphin come in; and then the eyes o' my mother began to look, not only as if they was a-gazin' away across the salt sea, but clean into eternity. Her cheeks fell in like a pie that has been sot in a cellar for a week arter the bakin' on't, and her arm showed in her sleeve no bigger than a broomstick. I was a'most afeared on her sometimes, her forehead come to look so like yaller glass, and as if I could see right into it, if I only tried; and them times I thumped my head uncommon hard on the knobs of the andirons,—they was a blessin', Rose,—and I used to spekilate as to what folks did that wa' n't rich enough to hev 'em. My mother got so weak, arter a while, that she would sometimes sit by the side o' the tub and wash; and it was astonishin' to me to see what great sheets and bed-quilts she could wring dry them times; and it was astonishin', too, that she could keep her hands in freezin' water, day arter day, and be none the wuss for it; but she always said she wa' n't,—in, fact, she used to tell me she thought it done her good; and, happy enough for me! I never thought o' doubtin' of her for many a long day arterwards.

"Many a time she give me the last bit o' bread, and said she wa' n't hungry, and once when I broke my slice in two, and offered her part back, she said, 'No, Johnny, I don't think I feel so well for eatin'. Rich food,' she said, 'didn't suit her constitution. And so, if we happened to hev meat or butter, she put it all on my plate. When it come to be my share to work without eatin', then I understood.

"Many a time o' nights I heard her a-turnin' and moanin' in her sleep, as if soul and body was clean wore out; and at last I went to the lady that lived in the house with the painted door, and fitted young ladies with corsets, and sold them pomatum that made the hair grow to their heels,—so she said,—and told how my mother moaned in the night as if she was a-bein' drownded in the sea; and she told me it was a nasty habit some folks had,—mostly because they slept too sound,—and that, if I would give her a rough shake, she guessed she would come out all right. I tried to believe her on account o' the pomatum and the painted door, partly; but it wa'n't in the heart o' me to give the rough shake, and I never done it, thank the Lord!

"Sometimes the fine lady would come in with her sewin'-work to bring us a little sunshine, she used to say, and I'm sure she never brought nothin' else, nor that neither, that anybody could see; and I always noticed that my mother felt a good deal less cheerful arter one o' these visits.

"'Why don't you ride out, Mrs. Chidlaw?' she would say, 'and why don't you call the doctor? and why don't you wear warm flannels?' and then why didn't she do a thousand things that wa'n't to be thought on, 'cause they wa'n't in the nater o' the case; and then she would go away, sayin' she would run in another time and bring more sunshine!

"My mother generally cried for a spell arter one o' these bright mornin's; and I didn't wonder, for it seemed to me as if the scent o' the pomatum was pison, and all the air was heavy like, arter one o' the visits.

"She used to set up o'nights, a-workin', my mother did, long beyond midnight sometimes. 'What makes you, mother?' I would say. 'O, 'cause I like it, John!' she 'd answer, so lively like; and then she 'd begin to hum a tune, maybe, as if she was overflowin' with sperits.

"She didn't seem to need sleep no more, she said, and, besides, she wanted to be wide awake when father come. So night arter night she would set by our one taller candle, a-mendin' of my jackets, and a-darnin' of my stockin's, and a-straightenin' and a stiffenin' up of the run-down heels of my old shoes.

"'I don't care nothin' about 'em, mother,' I would say. 'I 'd just as lives be a wearin' on 'em ragged as not, and you 've chores enough without a-mindin' of me so much.' But she always said that, whether or not I cared for myself, she cared for me, and that she wanted I should look as smart as anybody's boy, so that father would be proud on me when he come home; concludin' with 'He must sartainly come now afore long.'

"Many a time I've waked up of a winter night and found her woollen petticoat spread onto my bed, and she ashiverin' by the dyin' fire. One mornin' she surprised me uncommon by holdin' of a cap afore my eyes. 'A new one made of the old one,' says she, 'but you 'd never dream on 't, would you, Johnny?'

"I hung it on the chair-post, and then I stood off, fairly dazzled, so gret was my admiration on 't. It was my old cap, be sure; but then it was all brushed up and pressed into shape, and lined anew with one o' the sleeves of my mother's silk weddin'-gown.. It wa' n't to be wore no longer every day, so she said, but must be put on the upper shelf o' the cupboard with her ring and her Sunday shawl, and kep' nice agin the time father should come home. I suffered, on givin' on 't up, the most tormentin' pangs, and had to bob my head agin the andirons considerable longer than common afore I come round. I was bent on wearin' on't in the sight of Rose Rollins,—that's you,—and forcin' on her to see the silk linin' some ways, and I planned out warious stratagems to that end. But mother said, 'No, Johnny, keep it nice just a leetle bit, till poor father comes.' And arter that she pacified me by takin' on 't down from time to time and allowin' of me to wear it as much as two or three minutes sometimes. The linin' was pea-green; and I've often thought since it was a leetle too fine for the tother part, which was seal-skin, and wore tolerable bare,—I havin' wore it, not off and on, but steady on, from the time I left off my bunnet that was made of the end of my cradle-quilt; but I didn't calculate it was too fine then, and I made a pint o' standin' on a chair afore the lookin'-glass, or else afore the winder towards your 'us, all the whilst I was a-wearin' on 't. It worried me a good deal, them times, to decide which I 'd rather do,—look at myself, or hev you look at me!

"I used to tease mother to put the white shawl round her shoulders. 'Just for a minute,' I would say; but she always answered, 'One of these days, Johnny; it 's all wrapt up with camp-phire, and I don't want to be gettin' on 't down!' I understood well enough that it was to be got out when the great day come.

"'Suppose, Johnny,' says she, one day, 'we cut off some of our luxuries, and save up to buy somethin' nice for poor father agin he comes home!' I was struck favorable with the idee of the present, but what luxuries was to be cut off I didn't see clear.

"There's the candle, for one thing!' says mother. 'Taller's taller, at the best o' times; and the few chores I do at night I can do just as well by the light of a pine-knot.'

"Butter, she said, wa' n't healthy for her, nor milk, nor meat, nor sugar, nor no such things, so it would all be easy enough for her. She only hesitated on my account. But I spoke up ever so brave. 'I don't mind,' says I; 'it'll be good fun, in fact, just to see how leetle we can live on!' And I think yet my mind was some expanded by that experience,—it driv me to such curus devices. At fust I took leetle bites off my cake, and leetle sips of my porridge; but I found a more effective plan afore long, for looks goes a good ways, and even when we deceive ourselves it kind o' helps us. Well, I took to hevin' my porridge in a shaller plate, so that there seemed twice as much on 't as there really was, and to hollerin' my cake out from the under side, so that, when it was reduced to a mere shell, it still represented what it wa' n't; a trick that I found to work very slick, especially when I imagined Rose a-lookin' at my shaller plate, and not knowin' how deep it was.

"'Won't we hev a beautiful surprise, though, for poor father!' my mother would say, when my spoon touched bottom, and it always touched bottom premature; and then we would talk of what we should buy, and I would be carried away like, and forget myself.

"A fur hat was talked on in our fust wild enthusiasm, but that idee was gin up arter we'd gone about among the stores; and we settled final on 't a pair o' square-toed brogans, with nails in the heels on 'em.

"'Let 'em be good sewed shoes, and not peg,' says my mother, when she give the shoemaker his order, 'and make 'em up just as soon as possible. You see my husband may be here any day now; and we mean to hev a great surprise for him,—Johnny and me.'

"The shoemaker, to my surprise,—for I expected him to enter into it with as much enthusiasm as we,—hesitated, said he was pressed heavy with work just then, and that he thought she had best go to some other shop! I didn't understand the meanin' on 't at all; but my mother did, and told him she could pay him aforehand, if he wanted it; at which he brightened up, and said, come to think on 't, he could make the brogans right away.

"Sure enough, they was finished at the appinted time, and I carried 'em home, with the money that come back in change inside o' one on 'em.

"'Why, Johnny,' says mother, when she counted it, her face all a-glowin', 'here's enough left to buy a handkerchief for your father!'

"Then she counted it agin, and said there was enough, she was a'most sure on 't. It mightn't get a silk one, not pure silk, but if she could only find somethin' with a leetle mixter o' cotton in 't, why it would look nearly as well,—the difference would never be knowed across the house.

"She wanted a new gingham apron for herself; but that wa' n't bought, and all the money, as I have guessed sence, went into the handkerchief. And a purty one it was, too,—yaller-colored, with a red border, and an anchor worked in one corner on 't with blue-silk yarn.

"So the fine presents was put away on the top shelf o' the cupboard, with the cap and the ring and the shawl, and there they stayed, week in and week out, and still the Dauphin didn't come in. I could see that my mother was a-growin' uneasy, more and more, though she never said nothin' to me that was discouragin'. She'd set sometimes for an hour a-lookin' straight into the air, and then she went up to the ruf more 'n common to look arter the things a-dryin' there.

"One day there come on snow and sleet, but for all that she stayed aloft, just as though the sun had been a-shinin'; and at last, when the dusk had gathered so that she couldn't see no longer, she come down with a gret heap o' wet things, in her arms, and all of a shiver.

"Her hand shook as she sot down to bind shoes,—she had took to bindin' of shoes some them times, not bein' so strong as she used to be for the washin'; but arter a while she fell of a tremble all over. 'It's no use,' says she, 'I ain't good for nothin' no more,' and she put away the bindin' and cowered close over the ashes.

"I wanted to lay on a big stick, but she said no, she'd go to bed, and get warm there; but she didn't get warm, not even when I had piled all the things I could rake and scrape over the bed-quilt, for I could see them tremblin' together like a heap o' dry leaves.

"I went to the lady with the painted door, and she promised to come in and see my mother early in the mornin'; but in the mornin', when I went agin, she said she had so many corsets to fit that it wa' n't possible,—that I must tell my mother she sent a great deal o' love, and hoped she'd be better very soon.

"I didn't go arter her no more, and all that day and the next my poor mother lay, now a-burnin' and now a-freezin', but by and by she got better, and sot up in bed some, havin' my little chair agin her back; and so she finished bindin' o' the shoes, and I carried on 'em home, she a-chargin' me twenty times afore I sot out to take care and not lose the money I got for bindin' on 'em. 'And don't forget to stop at the store,' she said, 'and buy me a quarter o' tea, as you come back, Johnny.'

"But, after all, I went home without the tea, or the money either.

"In the fust place, the shoemaker said my mother had disappinted him in not sendin' the work home when she promised; and when I said she was sick, he answered that that wa 'n't his look-out; and then he eyed the work sharply, sayin', at last, that he couldn't pay for them sort o' stitches, and he wouldn't give out no more bindin' neither, and that I might go with a hop, skip, and jump, and tell my mother so; and he waved his hand, with a big boot-last in it, as though, if I didn't hop quick, he'd be glad to help me for'a'd himself.

"'Never mind, Johnny,' says mother, as I leaned my head on her piller, a-cryin', and told her what the shoemaker had said, 'it'll all be right when father comes back.'

"She didn't mind about the tea, she said, water would serve just as well; and then, arter pickin' at the bed-clothes a leetle, she said she felt sleepy, and turned her face to the wall.

"All winter long she was sick, and there was heart-breakin' things all the while comin' to pass; but I'd rather not tell on 'em.

"Spring come round at last,—as come it will, whether them that watch for its comin' are cryin' or laughin',—and the sun shined in at the south winder and made a patch o' gold on the floor,—all we had, to be sure,—when one day comes the news we had been a-lookin' for so long,—the Dauphin was a-comin' in!

"'And me here in bed!' says my mother; 'that'll never do. How good-for-nothin' I be!'

"Then she told me to run and fetch her best gown out of the chest, and she was out o' bed the next minute; and though she looked as pale as the sheet she managed somehow to dress herself. Then she told me to fetch her the lookin'-glass where she sot by the bedside; and when she seen her face the tears came to her eyes, and one little low moan, that seemed away down in her heart, made me shudder. 'I don't care for my own sake,' she said, puttin' her arm across my neck; 'but what will your father think o' me?'

"Then she sot the glass up afore her, and combed her hair half a dozen different ways, but none on 'em suited. She didn't look like herself, she said, nohow; and then she told me to climb to the upper shelf and git down the fine shawl, and see if that would mend matters any.

"I fetched the ring too; but it wouldn't stay on a single finger; and so she give it to me, smilin', and sayin' I might wear it till she got well.

"I sot the house in order myself, with her a-tellin' on me some about things. The two silver teaspoons was burnished up, and stuck for show into the edge of the dresser; the three glass tumblers was sot forth in full view; and the tin coffee-pot, so high and so narrer at the top, was turned sideways on the shelf, so as to make the most on 't; and the little brown earthen-ware teapot was histed atop o' that. We had a dozen eggs we had been a-savin', for we kep' a hen on the ruf, and them I took and sot endwise in the sand-bowl, so that, to all appearance, the whole bowl was full of eggs; and I raly thought the appintments, one and all, made us look considerable like rich folks.

"'Do go up to the ruf, Johnny, my child,' says my mother, at last, 'and see what you will see.'

"She had sot two hours, with her shawl held just so across her bosom, and was a-growin' impatient and faint like.

"She looked at me so eager, when I come down, I could hardly bear to tell her that I could only just see the Dauphin a-lyin' out, and that she looked black and ugly, and that I couldn't see nothin' furder. But I did tell it, and then come another o' them little low moans away down in her heart. Directly, though, she smiled agin, and told me to go to the chest and open the till, and get the table-cloth and the pewter platter that I would find there. 'We must have our supper-table shine its best to-night,' she said.

"Agin and agin I went up to the ruf, but I didn't see nothin' no time except the whaler a-lyin' a little out, and lookin' black and ugly, as if there wa'n't no good a-comin' with her.

"At last evenin' fell, and then my mother crept to the winder, and got her face agin the pane, and such a look of wistfulness come to her eyes as I had never seen in 'em afore.

"She didn't say nothin' no more, and I didn't say nothin'; it was an awful silence, but somethin' appeared to keep us from breakin' on 't.

"The shadders had gathered so that the street was all dusky; for there wa'n't no lamps at our end o' the street,—when all at once mother was a-standin' up, and holdin' out her arms. The next minute she says, 'Run to the door, Johnny; I ain't quite sure whether or not it's him!' And she sunk down, tremblin', and all of a heap.

"I could hear the stairs a creakin' under the tread of heavy steps, and when I got to the door there was two men a comin' up instead o' one. 'It's him! mother! it's him!' I shouted with all my might, for I see a sailor's cap and jacket, and took the rest for granted. I swung the door wide, and stood a-dancin' in it, and yet I didn't like the looks o' neither on 'em; only I thought I ought to be glad, and so I danced for pertended joy. 'Get out o' the way! you sassy lad!' says one o' the men, and he led the tother right past me into the house, I follerin' along behind, but neither on 'em noticin' of me in the least; and there sot my mother, dead still on her chair, just as if she was froze into stone. 'Here he is,' says the man that was leadin' of him,—'here's John Chidlaw, what there is left on him!' Then he give me a push toward him, and nodded to my mother like, a-drawin' his mouth into such queer shapes that I couldn't tell whether he was a-laughin' or cryin', and I didn't know which I ought to do neither.

"By this time the man that I partly took to be my father was a-backin' furder and furder from us, and at last he got clean agin the jamb o' the chimney, and then he looked up wild, as if he was a looking at the sky, and directly he spoke. 'This'll be a stiff blow,' says he. 'We're struck aft, and we'll be in the trough of the sea in a minute! God help us all!' And with that he began to climb up the shelves o' the cupboard, as though he was a climbin' into a ship's riggin'.

"Next thing I seen, mother had got to him, somehow, and was a-holdin' round his neck, and talkin' to him in tones as sweet and coaxin' as though he had been a sick baby. 'Don't you know me, John?' she says,—'your own Katura, that you left so long ago!' He didn't answer her at all; he didn't seem to see her, but kep' right on, a-talkin' about the ship not bein' able to lift herself, and about the rudder bein' tore away, and a leak som'er's, and settin' of a gang o' hands at the pumps, and gettin' of the cargo up, and the dear knows what all! I didn't understand a word on 't, and, besides that, I was afeard on him.

"'Tell 'em about the last whale we ketched, Jack,—that big bull that so nigh upsot us all. Come, that's a story worth while!' It was the man that had led him in who said this; and he laughed loud, and slapped him on the shoulder as he said it; and then he looked at my mother and winked, and drawed his mouth queer agin.

"My father kind o' come to himself like now, and seatin' himself astride a chair, and with his face to the back on 't, he began:—

"We was a cruisin' about in the South Pacific, when, between three and four in the afternoon of an August day, we bein' in latitude forty at the time, the man on the look-out at the fore-topmast-head cried out that a whale had broke water in plain view of our ship, and on her weather bow.

"'Where away, sir? and what do you call her?' shouts the captain, hailin' the mast-head.

"'Sperm whale, sir, three pints on the weather-bow, and about two miles off!'

"'Keep a sharp eye, and sing out when the ship heads for her!'

"'Ay, ay, sir.'

"The captain went aloft with his spy-glass. 'Keep her away!' was his next order to the man at the helm.

"'Steady!' sung out the mast-head.

"'Steady it is!' answered the wheel.

"'Square in the after-yards, and call all hands!'

"'Ay, ay, sir.'

"'Forward there! Haul the mainsail up, and square the yards!'

"'Steady, steady!' sings out the mast-head.

"'Steady it is!' answers the wheel.

"'Call all hands!' shouts the captain, in a voice like a tempest.

"The main hatches was off, and the men mostly in the blubber-room, engaged, some on 'em, in mincin' and pikin' pieces of blanket and horse from one tub to another, and some was a-tendin' fires, and some a-fillin' casks with hot ile from the cooler; but quick as lightnin' all the deck is thronged, like the street of a city when there is a cry of fire.

"'There she blows! O, she's a beauty, a regular old sog!' sings the mast-head.

"'Slack down the fires! Quick, by G—!' shouts the captain in a voice like thunder.

"'She peaks her flukes, and goes down!' cries the mast-head.

"'A sharp eye, sir! Mind where she comes up!'

"'Ay, ay, sir!'

"'Get your boats ready, lads, and stand by to lower away!'

"The men work as for life,—the boat-bottoms are tallered, the boat-tackle-falls laid down, so as to run clear, the tub o' line and the harpoons got in, the gripes cast clear, and each boat's crew by the side o' their boat.

"'Hoist and swing! Lower away!'

"In a moment we're off, bendin' to our oars, every man on us, eager to see who will be up first. The whale was under half an hour; but at last we get sight o' the signal at the main, which tells us that she's up agin.

"'Down to your oars, lads! Give way hard!' says the captain.

"I got the palm o' my hand under the abaft oar, so as with each stroke to throw a part of my weight agin it, and our boat leapt for'a'd across the water, spring arter spring, like a tiger,—her length and twice her length afore the others in a minute.

"'She's an eighty-barrel! right ahead! Give way, my boys!' cries the captain, encouragin' on us. And all our strength was put to the oar.

"'Spring harder, boys! Harder! If she blows agin, some on you'll have an iron into her afore five minutes!' Then to the whale,—a-standin' with his legs wide, and bendin' for'a'd like,—'O, you're a beauty! Ahoy! ahoy! and let us fasten!'

"We was nearly out of sight of our ship now, but we could see the smoke of her try-works still standin' black above her, though the fires had been slacked so long.

"All at once the whale blowed agin; and we could see her plain now, lyin' like a log, not more 'n twenty rods ahead. A little more hard pullin', and 'Stand up!' says the Captain, and then, 'Give me the first chance at her!' I was a-steerin' and I steered him steady, closer, closer, alongside a'most, and give his iron the best chance possible; but it grazed off, and she settled quietly under, all but her head.

"'That wa'n't quite low enough,' says he. 'Another lance!'

"This failed too, and she settled clean under. Every man was quiverin' with excitement; but I watched calmly, and, as soon as I spied her whitenin' under water, I sent my lance arter her without orders, and by good forten sunk it into her very life—full length.

"She throwed out a great spout o' blood, and dashed furiously under.

"'God help us! She'll come up so as to upset our boat!' cries the captain. 'Every man here at her, when she comes in sight!'

"He had hardly done speakin' when I felt a great knock, and at the same time seen somethin' a-flyin' through the air. She had just grazed us, shovin' our boat aside as a pig shoves his trough, and was breakin' water not a stone's throw ahead.

"The captain had gone overboard; but we obeyed his last words before we looked arter him, and had a dozen irons into her afore you could 'a' said Jack Robinson! Down she went agin, pullin' the line arter her, coil on coil; but the pain wouldn't allow her to stay down long, and directly she was out agin, thrashin' the water with her flukes till it was all churned up like blubbers o'blood,—for her side was bristlin' with harpoons, and the life pourin' out on her like rain out of a thunder-cloud.

"Meantime the captain had been hauled aboard, and as he sunk down on an oar,—for he couldn't stand,—all his shirt and hair a-drippin' red, his cold, spiteful eye shot into me like a bullet, and says I to the mate, 'I'm a doomed man.'"

"Then my father began ramblin' wildly about goin' overboard himself, and how he seen a stream o' fire afore his eyes as he sunk into the cold and dark; and how there came an awful pressure on his brain, and a roarin' in his ears; and how the strength went out of his thighs, and was as if the marrer was cut,—how he heard a gurglin', and felt suffocation, and then clean lost himself!"

At this point John Chidlaw ceased to be master of his voice, and all at once hid his face in his arms. When the woman who had been listening so attentively, getting one of his rough hands upon her knee, stroked it gently, without a word, and by and by he returned her a little pressure, and then, steadying himself up, he said: "It ain't no use to think on't, Rose,—it's all over now, and they've met beyond the seas o' time, my poor father and mother, for they both crossed long ago,—met, and knowed each other, I hope, but the one never come to himself here, nor recognized the other. My mother took straight to her bed; and when she wore the white shawl agin, and had it drawed across her bosom, it was for that journey from which none on us come back."

"Dear John," says Rose, very softly,—all the coquette gone,—only the woman left. And presently he was strong enough to go on.

"It was a good many year," he said, "not till I was a'most a man, before I came to understand rightly what it was that sot my father crazy. The captain had been agin him all along on account of his too much sperit, and that capterin' o' the whale finished up the business, and pinted his fate. It wa'n't long arter this till Captain Griscom found occasion to treat him very hardly, which bein' resented only by a look, he ordered him down below to be flogged! This, Rose, was what broke the spirit on him; he was never himself arterwards, never knowed nothin' at all clear, exceptin' about the takin' o' that whale; and that he told over and over a hundred times, arter that fust time, just as I've told it to you, but all before it and all behind it was shadders, till the great shadder of all came over him.

"When I come to hear on 't, I said I hoped my father would meet that 'ere captain som'er's on the seas of eternity, and flog him within an inch of his life; and I ha'n't repented the sayin' on't yet."

The tide had come up while John Chidlaw was telling his story, and his little boat slid off the bar directly, when, taking up the oars, he soon brought her to land.

"Bless your dear heart, John!" says Rose, pointing back to the boat's name, as he handed her ashore, "would you believe I was so stupid as not to see that the name o' your wessel was the same as my own? I read it the Rose Rolling, to be sure!"

But John maintained that she was not stupid a single bit nor mite, but, on the contrary, smart altogether beyond the common. "To come so nigh the truth," says he, "and yet not get hold on 't, arter all, is a leetle the slickest thing yet!"

And then he told, as they walked home together,—he with three bandboxes in one arm, and her on the other,—all about his weary years of hardship and poverty, and all about the beginning of his good fortune, the running away of the horse and of the little girl who drew him after her, because she reminded him so much of Rose herself as she used to be when he looked down upon her so fondly from the roof in Baker's Row,—told her of the child's father, and how he set him up in business,—of his prosperity since, ending with her taking passage with him, which he said was the best fortune of all.

"That was luck," says he, "that no words can shadder forth!" And then he said, "I oughtn't to call it luck, my dear; it was just an intervention of Divine Providence!" Then he corrected himself. "An interwention o' Diwine Providence," says he,—"that's what it was!" And he hugged the very bandboxes till he fairly stove them in.

About a month after this blessed luck, the milliner's shop was closed one day at an unusually early hour, and the white-muslin curtains at the parlor windows above might have been noticed to nutter and sway, as with some gay excitement indoors. And so indeed there was. John had taken his Rose for good and all, and the little parlor was full of glad hearts and merry feet. All the milliner's apprentices and sewing-girls of the neighborhood were there, bright as so many butterflies, laughing, and nodding, and whispering one another, and dropping their eyes before the young sailors, and teamsters, and other fine fellows, who were serving them with a generosity that was only equalled by their admiration. Coffee, cakes, cheese, chowder, bottled beer, fruits, and hot bannocks,—the lasses had them all at once, and the lads would have been glad to give them even more.

And John, grown ten years younger that day, kept all the while (being forced to turn his head away now and then to receive congratulations) one foot under the table, and against the soft slipper and silken stocking of Rose, lest at any moment she might be caught up into heaven, and so vanish out of his sight; and she, in turn, kept fond watch of him, pressing the oranges upon him with almost importunate solicitude. Perhaps she remembered that one which he had parted with for her sake, when he used to look down upon her from the roof of Baker's Row with such hopeless and helpless admiration.



ARE THE CHILDREN AT HOME?

Each day when the glow of sunset Fades in the western sky, And the wee ones, tired of playing, Go tripping lightly by, I steal away from my husband, Asleep in his easy-chair, And watch from the open doorway Their faces fresh and fair.

Alone in the dear old homestead That once was full of life, Ringing with girlish laughter, Echoing boyish strife, We two are waiting together; And oft, as the shadows come, With tremulous voice he calls me, "It is night! are the children home?"

"Yes, love!" I answer him gently, "They're all home long ago";— And I sing, in my quivering treble, A song so soft and low, Till the old man drops to slumber, With his head upon his hand, And I tell to myself the number Home in the better land.

Home, where never a sorrow Shall dim their eyes with tears! Where the smile of God is on them Through all the summer years!

I know!—yet my arms are empty, That fondly folded seven, And the mother heart within me Is almost starved for heaven.

Sometimes, in the dusk of evening, I only shut my eyes, And the children are all about me, A vision from the skies: The babes whose dimpled fingers Lost the way to my breast, And the beautiful ones, the angels, Passed to the world of the blessed.

With never a cloud upon them, I see their radiant brows: My boys that I gave to freedom,— The red sword sealed their vows! In a tangled Southern forest, Twin brothers, bold and brave, They fell; and the flag they died for, Thank God! floats over their grave.

A breath, and the vision is lifted Away on wings of light, And again we two are together, All alone in the night. They tell me his mind is failing, But I smile at idle fears; He is only back with the children, In the dear and peaceful years.

And still as the summer sunset Fades away in the west, And the wee ones, tired of playing, Go trooping home to rest, My husband calls from his corner, "Say, love! have the children come?" And I answer, with eyes uplifted, "Yes, dear! they are all at home!"



IN THE GRAY GOTH.

If the wick of the big oil lamp had been cut straight, I don't believe it would ever have happened.

Where is the poker, Johnny? Can't you push back that for'ard log a little? Dear, dear! Well, it doesn't make much difference, does it? Something always seems to ail your Massachusetts fires; your hickory is green, and your maple is gnarly, and the worms eat out your oak like a sponge. I haven't seen anything like what I call a fire,—not since Mary Ann was married, and I came here to stay. "As long as you live, father," she said; and in that very letter she told me I should always have an open fire, and how she wouldn't let Jacob put in the air-tight in the sitting-room, but had the fireplace kept on purpose. Mary Ann was a good girl always, if I remember straight, and I'm sure I don't complain. Isn't that a pine-knot at the bottom of the basket? There! that's better.

Let me see; I began to tell you something, didn't I? O yes; about that winter of '41. I remember now. I declare, I can't get over it, to think you never heard about it, and you twenty-four year old come Christmas. You don't know much more, either, about Maine folks and Maine fashions than you do about China,—though it's small wonder, for the matter of that, you were such a little shaver when Uncle Jed took you. There were a great many of us, it seems to me, that year, I 'most forget how many;—we buried the twins next summer, didn't we?—then there was Mary Ann, and little Nancy, and—well, coffee was dearer than ever I'd seen it, I know, about that time, and butter selling for nothing; we just threw our milk away, and there wasn't any market for eggs; besides doctor's bills and Isaac to be sent to school; so it seemed to be the best thing, though your mother took on pretty badly about it at first. Jedediah has been good to you, I'm sure, and brought you up religious,—though you've cost him a sight, spending three hundred and fifty dollars a year at Amherst College.

But, as I was going to say, when I started to talk about '41,—to tell the truth, Johnny, I'm always a long while coming to it, I believe. I'm getting to be an old man,—a little of a coward, maybe, and sometimes, when I sit alone here nights, and think it over, it's just like the toothache, Johnny. As I was saying, if she had cut that wick straight, I do believe it wouldn't have happened,—though it isn't that I mean to lay the blame on her now.

I'd been out at work all day about the place, slicking things up for to-morrow; there was a gap in the barn-yard fence to mend,—I left that till the last thing, I remember,—I remember everything, some way or other, that happened that day,—and there was a new roof to put on the pig-pen, and the grape-vine needed an extra layer of straw, and the latch was loose on the south barn door; then I had to go round and take a last look at the sheep, and toss down an extra forkful for the cows, and go into the stall to have a talk with Ben, and unbutton the coop door to see if the hens looked warm,—just to tuck 'em up, as you might say. I always felt sort of homesick—though I wouldn't have owned up to it, not even to Nancy—saying good by to the creeturs the night before I went in. There, now! it beats all, to think you don't know what I'm talking about, and you a lumberman's son. "Going in" is going up into the woods, you know, to cut and haul for the winter,—up, sometimes, a hundred miles deep,—in in the fall and out in the spring; whole gangs of us shut up there sometimes for six months, then down with the freshets on the logs, and all summer to work the farm,—a merry sort of life when you get used to it, Johnny; but it was a great while ago, and it seems to me as if it must have been very cold.—Isn't there a little draft coming in at the pantry door?

So when I'd said good by to the creeturs,—I remember just as plain how Ben put his great neck on my shoulder and whinnied like a baby,—that horse knew when the season came round and I was going in, just as well as I did,—I tinkered up the barn-yard fence, and locked the doors, and went in to supper.

I gave my finger a knock with the hammer, which may have had something to do with it, for a man doesn't feel very good-natured when he's been green enough to do a thing like that, and he doesn't like to say it aches either. But if there is anything I can't bear it is lamp-smoke; it always did put me out, and I expect it always will. Nancy knew what a fuss I made about it, and she was always very careful not to hector me with it I ought to have remembered that, but I didn't. She had lighted the company lamp on purpose, too, because it was my last night. I liked it better than the tallow candle.

So I came in, stamping off the snow, and they were all in there about the fire,—the twins, and Mary Ann, and the rest; baby was sick, and Nancy was walking back and forth with him, with little Nancy pulling at her gown. You were the baby then, I believe, Johnny; but there always was a baby, and I don't rightly remember. The room was so black with smoke, that they all looked as if they were swimming round and round in it. I guess coming in from the cold, and the pain in my finger and all, it made me a bit sick. At any rate, I threw open the window and blew out the light, as mad as a hornet.

"Nancy," said I, "this room would strangle a dog, and you might have known it, if you'd had two eyes to see what you were about. There, now! I've tipped the lamp over, and you just get a cloth and wipe up the oil."

"Dear me!" said she, lighting a candle, and she spoke up very soft, too. "Please, Aaron, don't let the cold in on baby. I'm sorry it was smoking, but I never knew a thing about it; he's been fretting and taking on so the last hour, I didn't notice anyway."

"That's just what you ought to have done," says I, madder than ever. "You know how I hate the stuff, and you ought to have cared more about me than to choke me up with it this way the last night before going in."

Nancy was a patient, gentle-spoken sort of woman, and would bear a good deal from a fellow; but she used to fire up sometimes, and that was more than she could stand. "You don't deserve to be cared about, for speaking like that!" says she, with her cheeks as red as peat-coals.

That was right before the children. Mary Ann's eyes were as big as saucers, and little Nancy was crying at the top of her lungs, with the baby tuning in, so we knew it was time to stop. But stopping wasn't ending; and folks can look things that they don't say.

We sat down to supper as glum as pump-handles; there were some fritters—I never knew anybody beat your mother at fritters—smoking hot off the stove, and some maple molasses in one of the best chiny teacups; I knew well enough it was just on purpose for my last night, but I never had a word to say, and Nancy crumbed up the children's bread with a jerk. Her cheeks didn't grow any whiter; it seemed as if they would blaze right up,—I couldn't help looking at them, for all I pretended not to, for she looked just like a pictur. Some women always are pretty when they are put out,—and then again, some ain't; it appears to me there's a great difference in women, very much as there is in hens; now, there was your aunt Deborah,—but there, I won't get on that track now, only so far as to say that when she was flustered up she used to go red all over, something like a piny, which didn't seem to have just the same effect.

That supper was a very dreary sort of supper, with the baby crying, and Nancy getting up between the mouthfuls to walk up and down the room with him; he was a heavy little chap for a ten-month-old, and I think she must have been tuckered out with him all day. I didn't think about it then; a man doesn't notice such things when he's angry,—it isn't in him. I can't say but she would if I'd been in her place. I just eat up the fritters and the maple molasses,—seems to me I told her she ought not to use the best chiny cup, but I'm not just sure,—and then I took my pipe, and sat down in the corner.

I watched her putting the children to bed; they made her a great deal of bother, squirming off of her lap and running round barefoot. Sometimes I used to hold them and talk to them and help her a bit, when I felt good-natured, but I just sat and smoked, and let them alone. I was all worked up about that lamp-wick, and I thought, you see, if she hadn't had any feelings for me there was no need of my having any for her,—if she had cut the wick, I'd have taken the babies; she hadn't cut the wick, and I wouldn't take the babies; she might see it if she wanted to, and think what she pleased. I had been badly treated, and I meant to show it.

It is strange, Johnny, it really does seem to me very strange, how easy it is in this world to be always taking care of our rights. I've thought a great deal about it since I've been growing old, and there seems to me a good many things we'd better look after fust.

But you see I hadn't found that out in '41, and so I sat in the corner, and felt very much abused. I can't say but what Nancy had pretty much the same idea; for when the young ones were all in bed at last, she took her knitting and sat down the other side of the fire, sort of turning her head round and looking up at the ceiling, as if she were trying her best to forget I was there. That was a way she had when I was courting, and we went along to huskings together, with the moon shining round.

Well, I kept on smoking, and she kept on looking at the ceiling, and nobody said a word for a while, till by and by the fire burnt down, and she got up and put on a fresh log.

"You're dreadful wasteful with the wood, Nancy," says I, bound to say something cross, and that was all I could think of.

"Take care of your own fire, then," says she, throwing the log down and standing up as straight as she could stand. "I think it's a pity if you haven't anything better to do, the last night before going in, than to pick everything I do to pieces this way, and I tired enough to drop, carrying that great crying child in my arms all day. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Aaron Hollis!"

Now if she had cried a little, very like I should have given up, and that would have been the end of it, for I never could bear to see a woman cry; it goes against the grain. But your mother wasn't one of the crying sort, and she didn't feel like it that night.

She just stood up there by the fireplace, as proud as Queen Victory,—I don't blame her, Johnny,—O no, I don't blame her; she had the right of it there, I ought to have been ashamed of myself; but a man never likes to hear that from other folks, and I put my pipe down on the chimney-shelf so hard I heard it snap like ice, and I stood up too, and said—but no matter what I said, I guess. A man's quarrels with his wife always make me think of what the Scripture says about other folks not intermeddling. They're things, in my opinion, that don't concern anybody else as a general thing, and I couldn't tell what I said without telling what she said, and I'd rather not do that. Your mother was as good and patient-tempered a woman as ever lived, Johnny, and she didn't mean it, and it was I that set her on. Besides, my words were worst of the two.

Well, well, I'll hurry along just here, for it's not a time I like to think about; but we had it back and forth there for half an hour, till we had angered each other up so I couldn't stand it, and I lifted up my hand,—I would have struck her if she hadn't been a woman.

"Well," says I, "Nancy Hollis, I'm sorry for the day I married you, and that's the truth, if ever I spoke a true word in my life!"

I wouldn't have told you that now if you could understand the rest without. I'd give the world, Johnny,—I'd give the world and all those coupon bonds Jedediah invested for me if I could anyway forget it; but I said it, and I can't.

Well, I've seen your mother look 'most all sorts of ways in the course of her life, but I never saw her before, and I never saw her since, look as she looked that minute. All the blaze went out in her cheeks, as if somebody had thrown cold water on it, and she stood there stock still, so white I thought she would drop.

"Aaron—" she began, and stopped to catch her breath, "Aaron—" but she couldn't get any farther; she just caught hold of a little shawl she had on with both her hands, as if she thought she could hold herself up by it, and walked right out of the room. I knew she had gone to bed, for I heard her go up and shut the door. I stood there a few minutes with my hands in my pockets, whistling Yankee Doodle. Your mother used to say men were queer folks, Johnny; they always whistled up the gayest when they felt the wust. Then I went to the closet and got another pipe, and I didn't go up stairs till it was smoked out.

When I was a young man, Johnny, I used to be that sort of fellow that couldn't bear to give up beat. I'd acted like a brute, and I knew it, but I was too spunky to say so. So I says to myself, "If she won't make up first, I won't, and that's the end on't." Very likely she said the same thing, for your mother was a spirited sort of woman when her temper was up; so there we were, more like enemies sworn against each other than man and wife who had loved each other true for fifteen years,—a whole winter, and danger, and death perhaps, coming between us, too.

It may seem very queer to you, Johnny,—it did to me when I was your age, and didn't know any more than you do,—how folks can work themselves up into great quarrels out of such little things; but they do, and into worse, if it's a man who likes his own way, and a woman that knows how to talk. It's my opinion, two thirds of all the divorce cases in the law-books just grow up out of things no bigger than that lamp-wick.

But how people that ever loved each other could come to hard words like that, you don't see? Well, ha, ha! Johnny, that amuses me, that really does amuse me, for I never saw a young man nor a young woman either,—and young men and young women in general are very much like fresh-hatched chickens, to my mind, and know just about as much of the world, Johnny,—well, I never saw one yet who didn't say that very thing. And what's more, I never saw one who could get it into his head that old folks knew better.

But I say I had loved your mother true, Johnny, and she had loved me true, for more than fifteen years; and I loved her more the fifteenth year than I did the first, and we couldn't have got along without each other, any more than you could get along if somebody cut your heart right out. We had laughed together and cried together; we had been sick, and we'd been well together; we'd had our hard times and our pleasant times right along, side by side; we'd christened the babies, and we'd buried 'em, holding on to each other's hand; we had grown along year after year, through ups and downs and downs and ups, just like one person, and there wasn't any more dividing of us. But for all that we'd been put out, and we'd had our two ways, and we had spoken our sharp words like any other two folks, and this wasn't our first quarrel by any means.

I tell you, Johnny, young folks they start in life with very pretty ideas,—very pretty. But take it as a general thing, they don't know any more what they're talking about than they do about each other, and they don't know any more about each other than they do about the man in the moon. They begin very nice, with their new carpets and teaspoons, and a little mending to do, and coming home early evenings to talk; but by and by the shine wears off. Then come the babies, and worry and wear and temper. About that time they begin to be a little acquainted, and to find out that there are two wills and two sets of habits to be fitted somehow. It takes them anywhere along from one year to three to get jostled down together. As for smoothing off, there's more or less of that to be done always.

Well, I didn't sleep very well that night, dropping into naps and waking up. The baby was worrying over his teeth every half-hour, and Nancy getting up to walk him off to sleep in her arms,—it was the only way you would be hushed up, and you'd lie and yell till somebody did it.

Now, it wasn't many times since we'd been married that I had let her do that thing all night long. I used to have a way of getting up to take my turn, and sending her off to sleep. It isn't a man's business, some folks say. I don't know anything about that; maybe, if I'd been broiling my brain in book learning all day till come night, and I was hard put to it to get my sleep anyhow, like the parson there, it wouldn't; but all I know is, what if I had been breaking my back in the potato-patch since morning? so she'd broken her's over the oven; and what if I did need nine hours' sound sleep? I could chop and saw without it next day, just as well as she could do the ironing, to say nothing of my being a great stout fellow,—there wasn't a chap for ten miles round with my muscle,—and she with those blue veins on her forehead. Howsomever that may be, I wasn't used to letting her do it by herself, and so I lay with my eyes shut, and pretended that I was asleep; for I didn't feel like giving in, and speaking up gentle, not about that nor anything else.

I could see her though, between my eyelashes, and I lay there, every time I woke up, and watched her walking back and forth, back and forth, up and down, with the heavy little fellow in her arms, all night long.

Sometimes, Johnny, when I'm gone to bed now of a winter night, I think I see her in her white nightgown with her red-plaid shawl pinned over her shoulders and over the baby, walking up and down, and up and down. I shut my eyes, but there she is, and I open them again, but I see her all the same.

I was off very early in the morning; I don't think it could have been much after three o'clock when I woke up. Nancy had my breakfast all laid out overnight, except the coffee, and we had fixed it that I was to make up the fire, and get off without waking her, if the baby was very bad. At least, that was the way I wanted it; but she stuck to it she should be up,—that was before there'd been any words between us.

The room was very gray and still,—I remember just how it looked, with Nancy's clothes on a chair, and the baby's shoes lying round. She had got him off to sleep in his cradle, and had dropped into a nap, poor thing! with her face as white as the sheet, from watching.

I stopped when I was dressed, halfway out of the room, and looked round at it,—it was so white, Johnny! It would be a long time before I should see it again,—five months were a long time; then there was the risk, coming down in the freshets, and the words I'd said last night. I thought, you see, if I should kiss it once,—I needn't wake her up,—maybe I should go off feeling better. So I stood there looking: she was lying so still, I couldn't see any more stir to her than if she had her breath held in. I wish I had done it, Johnny,—I can't get over wishing I'd done it, yet. But I was just too proud, and I turned round and went out, and shut the door.

We were going to meet down at the post-office, the whole gang of us, and I had quite a spell to walk. I was going in on Bob Stokes's team. I remember how fast I walked with my hands in my pockets, looking along up at the stars,—the sun was putting them out pretty fast,—and trying not to think of Nancy. But I didn't think of anything else.

It was so early, that there wasn't many folks about to see us off; but Bob Stokes's wife,—she lived nigh the office, just across the road,—she was there to say good by, kissing of him, and crying on his shoulder. I don't know what difference that should make with Bob Stokes, but I snapped him up well, when he came along, and said good morning.