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    <title>
      By The Sea By Heman White Chaplin
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The Project Gutenberg EBook of By The Sea, by Heman White Chaplin

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org


Title: By The Sea
       1887

Author: Heman White Chaplin

Release Date: October 12, 2007 [EBook #23001]
Last Updated: March 8, 2018


Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BY THE SEA ***




Produced by David Widger





</pre>
    <div style="height: 8em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h1>
      BY THE SEA
    </h1>
    <p>
      <br />
    </p>
    <h2>
      By Heman White Chaplin
    </h2>
    <p>
      <br /> <br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <br /> <br />
    </p>
    <h2>
      Contents
    </h2>
    <table summary="" style="margin-right: auto; margin-left: auto">
      <tr>
        <td>
          <p class="toc">
            <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> I. </a>
          </p>
          <p class="toc">
            <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> II. </a>
          </p>
          <p class="toc">
            <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> III. </a>
          </p>
          <p class="toc">
            <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> IV. </a>
          </p>
          <p class="toc">
            <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> V. </a>
          </p>
        </td>
      </tr>
    </table>
    <p>
      <br /> <br />
    </p>
    <hr />
    <p>
      <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      I.
    </h2>
    <p>
      On the southeastern coast of Massachusetts is a small village with which I
      was once familiarly acquainted. It differs little in its general aspect
      from other hamlets scattered along that shore. It has its one long,
      straggling street, plain and homelike, from which at two or three
      different points a winding lane leads off and ends abruptly in the water.
    </p>
    <p>
      Fifty years ago the village had a business activity of its own. There
      still remain the vestiges of a wharf at a point where once was a hammering
      ship-yard. Here and there, in bare fields along the sea, are the ruins of
      vats and windmills,&mdash;picturesque remains of ancient salt-works.
    </p>
    <p>
      There is no visible sign left now of the noisy life of the ship-yards,
      except a marble stone beneath a willow in the burying-ground on the hill,
      which laments the untimely death of a youth of nineteen, killed in 1830 in
      the launching of a brig. But traces of the salt-works everywhere remain,
      in frequent sheds and small barns which are wet and dry, as the saying is,
      all the time, and will not hold paint. They are built of salt-boards.
    </p>
    <p>
      There were a good many of the people of the village and its adjoining
      country who interested me very greatly. I am going to tell you a simple
      event which happened in one of its families, deeply affecting its little
      history.
    </p>
    <p>
      James Parsons was a man perhaps sixty years of age, strongly built,
      gray-haired, cleanshaven except for the conventional seaman's fringe of
      beard below the chin, and always exquisitely neat. Whether you met him in
      his best suit, on Sunday morning, or in his old clothes, going to his
      oyster-beds or his cranberry-marsh, it was always the same. He was usually
      in his shirt-sleeves in summer. His white cotton shirt, with its easy
      collar and wristbands, seemed always to have just come from the
      ironing-board. &ldquo;It ain't no trouble at all to keep James clean,&rdquo; I have
      heard Mrs. Parsons say, in her funny little way; &ldquo;he picks his way round
      for all the world just like a pussycat, and never gets no spots on him,
      nowhere.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      You saw at once, upon the slightest acquaintance with James, that while he
      was of the same general civilization as his neighbors, he was of a
      different type. In his narrowness, there was a peculiar breadth and vigor
      which characterized him. He had about him the atmosphere of a wider ocean.
    </p>
    <p>
      His early reminiscences were all of that picturesque and adventurous life
      which prevailed along our coasts to within forty years, and his
      conversation was suggestive of it He held a silver medal from the Humane
      Society for conspicuous bravery in the rescue of the crew of a ship
      stranded in winter in a storm of sleet off Post Hill Bar. He had a
      war-hatchet, for which he had negotiated face to face with a naked
      cannibal in the South Sea. He was familiar with the Hoogly.
    </p>
    <p>
      His language savored always of the sea. His hens &ldquo;turned in,&rdquo; at night. He
      was full of sayings and formulas of a maritime nature; there was one which
      always seemed to me to have something of a weird and mystic character:
      &ldquo;South moon brings high water on Coast Island Bar.&rdquo; In describing the
      transactions of domestic life, he used words more properly applicable to
      the movements of large ships. He would speak of a saucepan as if it
      weighed a hundred tons. He never tossed or threw even the slightest
      object; he hove it. &ldquo;Why, father!&rdquo; said Mrs. Parsons, surprised at seeing
      him for a moment untidy; &ldquo;what have you ben doing? Your boots and
      trousers-legs is all white!&rdquo; &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Mr. Parsons, apologetically,
      looking down upon his dusty garments, &ldquo;I just took that bucket of ashes
      and hove 'em into the henhouse.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The word &ldquo;heave,&rdquo; in fact, was always upon his tongue. It applied to
      everything. &ldquo;How was this road straightened out?&rdquo; I asked him one day;
      &ldquo;did the town vote to do it?&rdquo; &ldquo;No, no,&rdquo; he said quickly; &ldquo;there was n't
      never no vote. The se-lec'men just come along one day, and got us all
      together, and hove in and hove out; and we altered our fences to suit.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I remember hearing him testify as a witness to a will. It appeared that
      the testator was sick in bed when he signed the instrument. He was
      suffering greatly, and when he was to sign, it was necessary to lift him
      with the ex-tremest care, to turn him to the light-stand. &ldquo;State what was
      done next,&rdquo; the lawyer asked of James. &ldquo;Captain Frost was laying on his
      left side,&rdquo; said James. &ldquo;Two of us took a holt of him and rolled him
      over.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He had probably not the least suspicion that his language had a maritime
      flavor. I asked him one night, as we coasted along toward home, &ldquo;What do
      seafaring men call the track of light that the moon makes on the water?
      They must have some name for it&rdquo; &ldquo;No, no,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;they don't have no
      name for it; they just call it 'the wake of the moon.'&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      James's learning had been chiefly gained from the outside world and not
      from books. I have heard him lay it down as a fact that the word &ldquo;Bible&rdquo;
       had its etymology from the word &ldquo;by-bill&rdquo; (hand-bill). &ldquo;It was writ,&rdquo; he
      said, &ldquo;in small parcels, and they was passed around by them that writ 'em,
      like by-bills; and so when they hove it all into one, they called it the
      Bible.'&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But while James had little learning himself, he appreciated it highly in
      others. I had occasion to ask him once why it was that the son of one of
      his neighbors, in closing up his father's estate, had not settled his
      accounts regularly in the probate court. &ldquo;Oh, I know how that was,&rdquo; he
      replied; &ldquo;he settled 'em the other way. You see, he went to the college at
      Woonsocket, and he learned there how to settle accounts the other way: and
      that's the way he settled 'em.&rdquo; And then he added, &ldquo;When Alvin left the
      college, they giv' him a book that tells how to do all kinds of business,
      and what you want to do so's to make money; and Alvin has always followed
      them rules. The consequence is, he's made money, and what he 's made, he
      's kep' it. I suppose he's worth not less than sixteen hundred dollars.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Sometimes he would venture a remark of a gallant nature. &ldquo;They don't
      generally git the lights in the hall so as to suit me,&rdquo; he once said. &ldquo;I
      don't want it too light, because then it hurts my eyes; but I want it
      light enough so as 't I can see the women!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      James was a large, strong man, but Mrs. Parsons, although she was little
      and slight, and was always ailing, constantly assumed the rôle of her
      husband's nurse and protector, not only in household matters, but in other
      affairs of life. Whenever she had visitors,&mdash;and she and James were
      hospitable in the extreme,&mdash;she was pretty sure to end up, sooner or
      later, if James were present, with some droll criticism of him, as much to
      his delight as to hers.
    </p>
    <p>
      James sometimes liked to affect a certain harshness of demeanor; but the
      disguise was a transparent one. How well do I remember the time&mdash;oh,
      so long ago!&mdash;when for some reason or other I happened to have his
      boat instead of my own, one day, with one of the boys of the village, to
      go to Matamet, twelve miles off, to visit certain lobster-pots which we
      had set. We were delayed there by breaking our boom, in jibing. We should
      have been at home at noon; at seven in the evening we were not yet in
      sight. When we got in, rather crestfallen at our disaster, particularly as
      the boat was wanted for the next day, James met us at the pier. We were
      boys then, and his tongue was free. As he stood there on the shore,
      bare-headed, hastily summoned from his house, with his hair blowing in the
      wind, waving his hands and addressing first us and then a knot of men who
      stood smoking by, no words of censure were too harsh, no comment on our
      carelessness too cutting, no laments too keen over the irreparable loss of
      that particular boom. The next time I could take my own boat, if I were
      going to get cast away. And I remember well how he ended his tirade. &ldquo;I
      did n't care nothing about you two,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;If you want to git
      drownded, git drownded; it ain't nothing to me. All I was afraid of was
      that you 'd gone and capsized my boat, and would n't never turn up to tell
      where you sunk her. But as for you&mdash;&rdquo; and he laughed a laugh of
      heartless indifference.
    </p>
    <p>
      But ten minutes later, and right before his face, at his own front gate,
      Mrs. Parsons betrayed him. &ldquo;I never see father so worried,&rdquo; she said,
      &ldquo;sence the time he heard about Thomas; why, he 's spent the whole
      afternoon as nervous as a hawk, going up on the hill with his spy-glass;
      and I don't feel so sure but what he was crying. He said he did n't care
      nothing about the boat,&mdash;'What 's that old boat!' says he; but if you
      boys was drownded out of her, he would n't never git over it.&rdquo; At which
      James, being so unmasked, laughed in a shamefaced way, and shook us by the
      shoulders. He had a son who carried on some sort of half-maritime business
      on one of the wharves, in the city, and lived over his shop. When James
      went at intervals to visit him, he made his way at once from the railway
      station to the nearest wharf; then he followed the line of the water
      around to the shop. Where jib-booms project out over the sidewalk, one
      feels so thoroughly at home! From the shop he would make short adventurous
      excursions up Commercial Street and State Street, sometimes going no
      farther than the nautical-instrument store on the corner of Broad Street,
      sometimes venturing to Washington Street, or even moving for a short
      distance up or down in the current of that gay thoroughfare. He loved to
      comment satirically on the city, with a broad humorous sense of his own
      strangeness there. &ldquo;The city folks don't seem to have nothing to do,&rdquo; he
      said. &ldquo;They seem to be all out, walking up and down the streets. Come
      noon, I thought there'd be some let-up for dinner; but they did n't seem
      to want nothing to eat; they kep' right on walking.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      I must not leave James Parsons without telling you of two whale's teeth
      which stand on his parlor mantel-piece; he ornamented them himself,
      copying the designs from cheap foreign prints. One of them is what he
      calls &ldquo;the meeting-house.&rdquo; It is the high altar of the Cathedral of
      Seville. On the other is &ldquo;the wild-beast tamer.&rdquo; A man with a feeble,
      wishy-washy expression holds by each hand a fierce, but subjugated tiger.
      His legs dangle loosely in the air. There is nothing to suggest what
      upholds him in his mighty contest.
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      II.
    </h2>
    <p>
      Now we must turn from James Parsons to a man of a different type, or
      rather of a different variety of the same type; for they descend alike
      from original founders of the town, and, like most of their
      fellow-townsmen, are both of unqualified Pilgrim stock.
    </p>
    <p>
      To get to Captain Joseph Pelham's house, you have to drive along a range
      of hills for some miles, skirting the sea; then you come, half-way, to a
      bright modern village with trees along the main street, with houses and
      fences kept painted up, for the most part, but here and there relieved by
      an unpainted dwelling of a past generation.
    </p>
    <p>
      Here you have an option. You may either pursue your road through the
      high-lying prosperous street, with peeps of salt water to the right, or
      you may turn sharply off at a little store and descend to the lower road.
      It is always a struggle to choose.
    </p>
    <p>
      The road to the beach descends a sharp, gravelly hill, and crosses a
      bridge. Then you come out on a waste of salt-marsh, threaded by the creek,
      broken by wild, fantastic sand-hills, grown over by beach-grass which will
      cut your fingers like a knife. You drive close along the white,
      precipitous beach; you pass the long, shaky pier, with half-decayed
      fish-houses at the other end, and picturesque heaps of fish-cars, seines,
      and barrels. Then the road, following the shore a little longer, climbs
      the hill and enters the woods. Two miles more and you come out to fields
      with mossy fences, and occasional houses.
    </p>
    <p>
      The houses begin to be more frequent. All at once you enter the main
      street of W&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;.
    </p>
    <p>
      In a moment you see that you have come into a new atmosphere. There is a
      large modern church among the older ones. There are large, fine houses,
      some old-fashioned, others new. By some miraculous intervention Queen Anne
      has not as yet made her appearance. There are handsome, well-filled
      stores, going into no little refinement in stock. There is, of course, a
      small brick library, built by the bounty of a New Yorker who was born
      here. There is a brick national bank, and a face brick block occupied
      above by Freemasons, orders of Red Men, Knights Templars, and the Pool of
      Siloam Lodge, I. O. O. F., and below by a savings bank and a local marine
      insurance company.
    </p>
    <p>
      It is here that we shall find Captain Joseph Pelham. If a stranger has
      occasion to inquire for the leading men of the place he is always first
      referred to him. It is he who heads every list and is the chairman of
      every meeting. When a certain public man, commanding but a small following
      here, appeared, upon his campaign tour, and found no one to escort him to
      the platform and preside, so that he was obliged to justify his appearance
      here by the Scripture passage, &ldquo;They that are whole need not a physician,
      but they that are sick;&rdquo; at the moment of entering the hall, closely
      packed with curious opponents, disposed perhaps to be derisive when the
      situation for the visitor was embarrassing in the extreme,&mdash;it was
      Captain Joseph Pelham who, though the bitterest opponent of them all, rose
      from his seat, gave the speaker his arm, escorted him to the platform,
      presented him with grave courtesy to the audience, and sat beside him
      through the entire discourse.
    </p>
    <p>
      While Captain Pelham continued to go to sea, and after that, until he was
      made president of the insurance company, he lived a mile or two out of the
      town, in a house he had inherited. It is picturesquely situated, on a bare
      hill, with a wide view of the inland and the ocean. As you look down from
      its south windows, the cluster of houses nestling together at the shore
      below stand sharply out against the water. It is one of those white houses
      common in our older towns,&mdash;two-storied, long on the street, with the
      front door in the middle. Of the interior it is enough to say that its
      owner had sailed for thirty years to Hong-Kong, Calcutta and Madras. It
      had a prevailing odor of teak and lacquer. In the front hall was a vast
      china cane-holder; a turretted Calcutta hat hung on the hat-tree; a heavy,
      varnished Chinese umbrella stood in a corner; a long and handsome settee
      from Java stood against the wall. In the parlors, on either hand, were
      Chinese tables shutting up like telescopes, elaborate rattan chairs of
      different kinds, and numberless other things of this sort, which had
      plainly been honestly come by, and not bought.
    </p>
    <p>
      Then, if you met the Captain's favor, he would show you with becoming
      pride some family relics, and tell you about them. They came mostly from
      his paternal grandfather, who was a shipmaster too, had commanded a
      privateer in the Revolution, and made a fortune. There were a number of
      pieces of handsome furniture,&mdash;these you could see for yourself What
      would be shown you, with a half-diffident air, would be: a silver mug; two
      Revere tablespoons; a few tiny teaspoons marked F.; a handsome sword and
      scabbard; a yellow satin waistcoat and small-clothes; portraits, not
      artistic, but effective, of his grandfather, in a velvet coat and
      knee-breeches, with a long spyglass in his hand, and of his grandmother, a
      strong, matter-of-fact looking woman, handsomely dressed.
    </p>
    <p>
      But the thing which the Captain secretly treasured most, but brought out
      last, was his grandmother's Dutch Bible. It is a curious old book; you can
      see it still if you wish. It has an elaborate frontispiece. Sixteen cuts
      of leading incidents in Scripture history conduct you by gentle stages,
      from Eden, through the offering of Isaac, to the close of the Evangelists,
      and surround Dr. Martin Luther, who, in a gown, holds back the curtains of
      a pillared alcove, to show you, through two windows, an Old and a New
      Testament landscape, and a lady sitting beneath a canopy, with an open
      volume. The covers are of thick bevelled board covered with leather. There
      was once a heavy clasp. The edges are richly gilded, and figures are
      pricked in the gilding. It is very handsomely printed. It was in the
      possession, in 1760, of a young New England girl, the Captain's
      grandmother. There is a story about it,&mdash;a story too long to tell
      here. Suffice it to say that the Captain's ancestor, who settled early in
      New England, came from Leyden shortly after Mr. John Robinson. A hundred
      years later and more, in the oddest way, an acquaintance sprang up with
      certain Dutch connections, and in the course of it this Bible, then new
      and elegant, found its way over the sea as a gift to young Mistress
      Preston. In New England, and as a relic of the early ties of our people
      with Holland, momentarily renewed after a century had passed away, it is
      probably unique. It was a last farewell from Holland to her English
      children, before she parted company with them forever.
    </p>
    <p>
      I have told you about this house, as I recall it, although Captain Pelham
      had now ceased to live there, because it was there alone that he seemed
      completely at home. Furnished as it was from the four quarters of the
      globe, everything seemed to fit in with his ways. He supplemented the
      Chinese tables, and they supplemented him. But when he ceased to go to
      sea, in late middle life, and settled down at home upon his competency,
      and began a little later to become interested in public matters; when he
      was at last made president of the insurance company, a director in the
      bank, and a trustee in the savings bank, and when affairs were left more
      and more to his control, it became convenient for him to get into town;
      and his wife and daughter were perhaps ambitious for the change.
    </p>
    <p>
      So he had sold his house by the sea, and had bought a large and somewhat
      pretentious one on the main street, with a cast-iron summer arbor, and a
      bay-window closed in for a conservatory. He had furnished it from the city
      with new Brussels carpet, with a parlor set, a sitting-room set, a
      dining-room set, and chamber sets; and the antique things which had given
      his former home an air of charming picturesqueness were for the most part
      tucked away in unnoticed corners.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Captain never seemed to me to have become quite naturalized in his new
      home. He never belonged to the furniture, or the furniture to him. The
      place where you saw him best in these later days was in the office of his
      insurance company, or in the little business-room of one of the banks,
      surrounded by a knot of more substantial townsmen, or talking patiently
      with some small farmer or seafaring man seeking for insurance or a loan.
      One of the most marked features of his character was a certain patience
      and considerateness which made all borrowers apply by preference to him.
      He would sit down at his little table with a plain man whose affairs were
      in disorder, and listen with close attention to his application for a
      loan. Somehow the man would find himself disclosing all the particulars of
      his distress. Then Captain Pelham, in his quiet way, would go over the
      whole matter with him; would plan with him on his concerns; would try to
      see if it were not possible to postpone a little the payment of debts and
      to hasten the collection of claims; to get a part of the money for a short
      time from a son in Boston or a married daughter in New Bedford; and so, by
      pulling and hauling, to weather the Cape.
    </p>
    <p>
      I must say a word about his position in town matters. He had been at sea
      the greater part of the time from sixteen to fifty-two. During that time
      he had had absolutely no concern with political affairs. He had never
      voted: for he had never, as it had happened, been ashore at the time of an
      election. And yet before he had been at home six years he was one of the
      selectmen of the town and overseer of the poor, and had become familiar
      with the details of Massachusetts town government, superficially so
      simple, in fact so complex. It was a large town, of no small wealth. Lying
      as it did along the seaboard, where havoc was always being made by
      disasters of the sea, there was not only a larger number than in an inland
      town of persons actually quartered in the poorhouse, but there were many
      broken families who had to be helped in their own homes. And it was to me
      an interesting fact that in dealing with two score households of this
      class, Captain Pel-ham, who had spent most of his time at sea, was able to
      display the utmost tact and judgment. He applied to their affairs that
      same plain kindliness and sound sense which he showed in the matter of
      discounts at the bank.
    </p>
    <p>
      While the friendships of Captain Pelham were chiefly in his own town, his
      acquaintance was not confined to it. In his own quiet, unpretending way he
      was something of a man of the world. He was known in the marine insurance
      offices in the large cities. He had been familiar all his life with large
      affairs; he had commanded valuable ships, loaded with fortunes in teas and
      silks, in the days when an India captain was a merchant.
    </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      III.
    </h2>
    <p>
      You will ask me why it is that I have been telling you about these men,
      and what it is that connects them.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was now ten years since Captain Pelham's only son, himself at
      twenty-two the master of a vessel, had married a daughter of James
      Parsons,&mdash;a tall, impulsive, and warm-hearted girl,&mdash;one of
      those girls to whom children always cling. Both James Parsons's daughters
      had proved attractive and had married well. It had been a disappointment
      in Captain Pelham's household, perhaps, that this son, their especial
      pride, should not have married into one of the wealthy families in his own
      village. At first there had been a little visiting to and fro; it had
      lasted but a little time, and then the two households had settled down, as
      the way is in the country, to follow each its own natural course of
      living. George Pelham's wife had always lived in an odd little house, all
      doors and windows, near by her father, in her native village.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was from Porto Cabello that that message came,&mdash;yellow fever&mdash;a
      short sickness&mdash;a burial in a stranger's grave. George Pelham's wife
      had been for two or three years of less than her usual strength. It was
      not long after that news came,&mdash;came so suddenly, with no warning,&mdash;that
      she began to fade away; and after ten months she died.
    </p>
    <p>
      I remember seeing her a week or two before her death. Her bed had been set
      up in her little parlor for the convenience of those who were attending
      upon her. She lay on her back, bolstered up. The paleness of her face was
      intensified by her coal-black hair, lying back heavy on the pillow. Her
      hands were thin and transparent, and I remember well the straining look in
      her eyes as she talked with me about the boy whom she was going to leave.
    </p>
    <p>
      She was living, as I have said, close by her father. It was natural that
      in the last few days of her illness the child should be taken to her
      father's house, and when she died and the funeral was over, it was there
      that he returned.
    </p>
    <p>
      Picture now to yourself a boy toward nine years old, symmetrically made,
      firm and hard. His head is round, his features are good, his hair is fine
      and lies down close. He is clothed in a neat print jacket, with a collar
      and a little handkerchief at the neck, and a pair of short trousers
      buttoned on to the jacket. He is barefoot. He is tanned but not burnt. His
      complexion is of a rich dark brown. He is always fresh and clean. But the
      great charm about him is the expression of infinite fun and mirth that is
      always upon his face. Never for a moment while he is awake is his face
      still. Always the same, yet always shifting, with a thousand varying
      shades of roguish joy. Quick, bright, full of boyish repartee, full of
      shouts and laughter. And the same incessant life which plays upon his face
      shows itself in every movement of his limbs. Never for a moment is he
      still unless he has some work upon his hands. He has his little routine of
      tasks, regularly assigned, which he goes through with the most amusing
      good-humor and attention. It is his duty to see that the skiffs are not
      jammed under the wharf on the rising tide; to sweep out the &ldquo;Annie&rdquo; when
      she comes in, and to set her cabin to rights; to set away the dishes after
      meals, and to feed the chickens. Aside from a few such tasks, his time in
      summer is his own. The rest of the year he goes to the &ldquo;primary,&rdquo; and
      serves to keep the whole room in a state of mirth. He has the happy gift
      that to put every one in high spirits he has only to be present. Such an
      incessant flow of life you rarely see. His manners are good, and he comes
      honestly by them.
    </p>
    <p>
      There is an amusing union in him of the baby and the man. While the
      children of his age at the summer hotel walk about for the most part with
      their nurses, he is turned loose upon the shore, and has been, from his
      cradle. He can dive and swim and paddle and float and &ldquo;go steamboat.&rdquo; He
      can row a boat that is not too heavy, and up to the limit of his strength
      he can steer a sail-boat with substantial skill. He knows the currents,
      the tides, and the shoals about his shore, and the nearer landmarks. He
      knows that to find the threadlike entrance to the bay you bring the
      flag-staff over Cart-wright's barn. He has vague theories of his own as to
      the annual shifting of the channel. He knows where to take the city
      children to look for tinkle-shells and mussels. He knows what winds bring
      in the scallops from their beds. He knows where to dig for clams, and
      where to tread for quahaugs without disturbing the oysters. He has a good
      deal of fragmentary lore of the sea.
    </p>
    <p>
      Every morning you will hear his cry, a sort of yodel, or bird-call,
      peculiar to him, with which he bursts forth upon the world. Then you will
      hear, perhaps, loud peals of laughter at something that has excited his
      sense of the absurd,&mdash;contagious laughter, full of innocent fun.
    </p>
    <p>
      Then he will appear, perhaps, with his wooden dinner-bucket,&mdash;he is
      going off with his grandfather for the day,&mdash;and will yodel to the
      old man as a signal to make haste. Then you will hear him consulting with
      some one upon the weather.
    </p>
    <p>
      All this time he will be going; through various evolutions, swinging in
      the hammock, sitting on the fence, opening his bucket to show you what he
      has to eat, closing the bucket and sitting down upon the cover, or turning
      somersaults upon the grass. Then he will encamp under an apple-tree to
      wait until his grandfather appears, enlivening the time by a score of
      minute excursions after hens and cats. Then he will go into the house
      again, and rock while the old man finishes his coffee, sure of a greeting,
      confident in a sense of entire good-fellowship, until the meal is
      finished, and James Parsons is ready to take his coat and a red-bladed
      oar, and set out. Then the boy is like a setter off for a walk,&mdash;all
      sorts of whimsical expressions in his face, of absolute delight; every
      form of extravagance in his bearing. The only trouble is, one has to laugh
      too much; but with all this, something so manly, so companionable.
    </p>
    <p>
      He is no little of a philosopher in his way. He has been a great deal with
      older people, and has caught the habit of discussion of affairs, or
      rather, perhaps, of unconsciously reflecting forth discussions which he
      has heard. He has an infinite curiosity upon all matters of human life. He
      likes, within limits, to discuss character.
    </p>
    <p>
      In the boat his chief delights are to talk, to eat cookies, and to steer.
      When it is not blowing too hard for him to stand at the tiller, he will
      steer for an hour together, watching with the most constant care the
      trembling of the leach.
    </p>
    <p>
      It makes no difference to him at what hour he returns,&mdash;from
      oystering or from the cranberry-bog. If it is in the middle of the
      afternoon, good and well. Instantly upon landing he will collect a troop
      of urchins; in an incredibly short space of time there will be a heap of
      little clothes upon the bank; in a moment a procession of small naked
      figures will go running down to the wharf, diving, one after the other. If
      distance or tide or a calm keeps him out late, so much the better. In that
      case there is the romance of coasting along the shore by night; of
      counting and distinguishing the lights; of guessing the nearness to land
      from the dull roar of the sea breaking on the beach. &ldquo;Don't you think,&rdquo; he
      will sometimes say, &ldquo;that we are nearer shore than we think we are?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      It is amusing sometimes, on a distant voyage of fifteen or twenty miles,
      after seed oysters, when a landing is made at some little port, to see him
      drop the mariner at once and become a child, with a burning desire to find
      a shop where he can buy animal-crackers. Finding such a place,&mdash;and
      usually it is not difficult,&mdash;he will lay in a supply of lions and
      tigers, and then go marching about with great delight, with mockery in his
      eyes, keenly appreciating the satire involved in eating the head off a
      cooky lion, incapable of resistance.
    </p>
    <p>
      No picture of Joe would be complete which left out his dog. Kit was a
      black, fine-haired creature, smaller than a collie, but of much the same
      gentle disposition,&mdash;a present from Captain Pelham. When Kit was
      first presented to the boy he domesticated himself at once, and in a week
      it was impossible to tell, from his relations with the household, which
      was boy and which was dog. They were both boys and they were both dogs.
      Kit had an unqualified sense of being at home, and of being beloved and
      indispensable. It was long before he became a sailor. When, at the outset,
      it was attempted to make a man of him by taking him when they went out to
      fish, the failure seemed to be complete. He was a little sea-sick. Then he
      was sad, and sighed and groaned as dogs never do on shore. He would not
      lie still, but was nervous and feverish. Once he leaped out of the boat
      and made for shore, and had to be pursued and rescued, exhausted and
      half-drowned. Still, whenever he had to be left at home, it was a struggle
      every time to reconcile him and leave him. Once he pursued a boat which he
      mistook for James's along the shore of the bay, half down to Benson's
      Narrows, got involved in the creeks which the tide was beginning to fill,
      and had to be brought ingloriously home by a farmer, made fast on the top
      of a load of sweet, salt hay.
    </p>
    <p>
      He would tease like a child to be allowed to go. He would listen with an
      unsatisfied and appealing look while Joe, with an exuberant but regretful
      air, explained to him in detail the reasons which made it impossible for
      him to go. But in a few months, as the dog grew older, he prevailed, and
      although he would generally retire into the shelter of the cabin, he was
      nevertheless the boy's almost inseparable companion on the water as on the
      shore. The relation between the two was always touching. It evidently
      never crossed the dog's mind that he was not a younger brother.
    </p>
    <p>
      Now, to complete the picture of James Par-sons's household, add in this
      boy; for while it is but just now that he is strictly of it, he has been
      for years its mirth and life.
    </p>
    <p>
      I remember that quiet household before it knew him,&mdash;cosey, homelike,
      with a pervading air even then of genial humor, but with long hours of
      silence and repose,&mdash;geraniums and the click of knitting-needles in
      the sitting-room; faint odors of a fragrant pipe from the shed kitchen; no
      stir of boisterous fun, except when some bronzed, solemn joker, with his
      wife, came in for a formal call, and solemnity gave way, by a gradual
      descent, to merriment. Joe had given no new departure, only an impulse.
      &ldquo;James used to behave himself quite well,&rdquo; Mrs. Parsons would say, archly
      raising her eyebrows, &ldquo;before Joe's time; but now there 's two boys of 'em
      together, and the one as bad as the other, and I can't do nothing with
      'em. And then,&rdquo;&mdash;with a mock gesture of despair,&mdash;&ldquo;that dog!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      IV.
    </h2>
    <p>
      While Joe's mother was lying ill, and after it had become certain that she
      would soon leave this world forever, the question had been
      freely-discussed as to what her boy's future should be. In Captain Joseph
      Pelham's mind there was only-one answer to this question,&mdash;that the
      lad should come to him. He bore the Captain's name; he represented the
      Captain's son; he should take a place now in the Captain's home.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was now about three weeks since Joe's mother had been buried. The stone
      had not yet been cut and set over her grave. But the Captain thought it
      time to drive over to James Parsons's and take the boy. That James would
      make any serious opposition perhaps never entered his mind. It was a
      bright, charming afternoon; with his shining horse, in a bright,
      well-varnished buggy, the Captain drove over the seven miles of winding
      roads through the woods, and along the sea, to the village where James
      Parsons lived. He tied his horse to the hitching-post in front of the
      broad cottage house, went down the path to the L door, knocked, and went
      in.
    </p>
    <p>
      James was sitting in a large room which served in winter as a kitchen and
      in summer as a sort of sitting-room, smoking a pipe and gazing vacantly
      into the pine-branches in the open fireplace before him. He had been out
      all day on his marsh, but he had been home a couple of hours. His wife&mdash;kindly
      soul&mdash;received Captain Pelham at the door, wiping her hands upon her
      apron, and modestly showed him into the sitting-room; then she retired to
      her tasks in the shed kitchen. She moved about mechanically for a moment;
      then she ran hastily out into the lean-to wood-shed, shut the door behind
      her, sat down on the worn floor where it gives way with a step to the
      floor of earth by the wood-pile, hid her face in her apron, and burst into
      tears.
    </p>
    <p>
      Joe was at the wharf with his comrades playing at war.
    </p>
    <p>
      Now, if there ever was a hospitable man,&mdash;a man who gave a welcome,&mdash;a
      rough but merry welcome to every one who entered his doors, it was James
      Parsons. He had a homely, jocose saying that you must either make yourself
      at home or go home. But on this occasion he rose with a somewhat forced
      and awkward air, laid his pipe down on the mantel-piece, and nodded to the
      Captain with an air of embarrassed inquiry. Then he bethought himself, and
      asked the Captain to sit down. The Captain took the nearest chair, beside
      the table, where Mrs. Parsons had lately been sitting at her work. James's
      chair was directly opposite. The table was between them.
    </p>
    <p>
      James rose and went to the mantel-piece, scratched a match upon his
      boot-heel, and undertook to light his pipe. It did not light; he did not
      notice it, but put the pipe in his mouth as if it were lighted.
    </p>
    <p>
      It occurred to Captain Pelham now, for the first time, absorbed as he had
      been with exclusive thoughts of the boy, that he should first say
      something to this old man about the daughter whom he had lost: and he made
      some expressions of sympathy. The old man nodded, but said nothing.
    </p>
    <p>
      There was silence for two or three minutes.
    </p>
    <p>
      The subject in order now was inevitably the boy. Captain Pelham opened his
      lips to claim him; but, almost to his own surprise, he found himself
      making some common remark about the affairs of the neighborhood. It came
      in harsh and forced, as if it were a fragment of conversation floated in
      by the breeze from the street outside. Then the Captain waited a moment,
      looking out of the window.
    </p>
    <p>
      James took his pipe from his mouth and leaned his elbows on the table.
      &ldquo;Why don't you go take him?&rdquo; he suddenly said: &ldquo;he's probably down to the
      wharf. Ef you have got the claim to him, why don't you go take him? You
      've got your team here,&mdash;drive right down there and put him in and
      drive off; if you 've got the right to him, why don't you go take him? But
      ef you 've come for my consent, you can set there till the chair rots
      beneath you.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      With this, James rose and took the felt hat which was lying by him on the
      table, and saying not another word, went out of the door. He went down to
      the shore, and affected to busy himself with his boat.
    </p>
    <p>
      There was nothing for Captain Pelham to do but to take his hat, untie his
      horse, and drive home.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Captain well knew that nobody in the world had a legal right to the
      child until a guardian should be appointed. A plain and simple path was
      open before him: it was his only path. James Parsons had proved wilful and
      wrong-headed; there was nothing now but to take out letters as guardian of
      the boy. Then James would acquiesce without a word.
    </p>
    <p>
      Immediately after breakfast the Captain went down the street. He opened
      his letters and attended to the first routine of business; then he went
      across the way and up a flight of stairs to a lawyer's office.
    </p>
    <p>
      If you had happened to read the county papers at about this time, you
      would have seen among the legal notices two petitions, identical in form,&mdash;the
      one by Joseph Pelham, the other by James Parsons,&mdash;each applying for
      guardianship of Joseph Pelham, the younger of that name, with an order
      upon each petition for all persons interested to come in on the first
      Tuesday of the following month and show cause why the petitioner's demand
      should not be granted.
    </p>
    <p>
      The county court-house was a new brick building, of modest size, fifteen
      miles from W&mdash;&mdash;&mdash;, and twenty miles from the village where
      James Parsons lived.
    </p>
    <p>
      There were fifteen or twenty people from different towns in attendance
      when the court opened on the important first Tuesday. As one after another
      transacted his affairs and went away, others would come in. Three or four
      lawyers sat at tables talking with clients, or stood about the judge's
      desk. There was a sprinkling of women in new mourning. Printed papers,
      filled out with names and dates,&mdash;petitions and bonds and executors'
      accounts,&mdash;were being handed in to the judge and receiving his
      signature of approval.
    </p>
    <p>
      The routine business was transacted first. It was almost noon when the
      judge was at last free to attend to contested matters. There was a small
      audience by that time,&mdash;only ten or a dozen people, some of whom were
      waiting for train-time, while others, who had come upon their own affairs,
      lingered now from curiosity.
    </p>
    <p>
      The judge was a tall, spare, old-fashioned man; he had held the office for
      above thirty years. He was a man of much native force, of sound learning
      within the range of his judicial duties, and of strong common-sense. He
      was often employed by Captain Pelham in his own affairs, and more
      particularly in bank and insurance matters,&mdash;for the probate judges
      are free to practise at the bar in matters not connected with their
      judicial duties,&mdash;and Captain Pelham had always retained him in
      important cases as counsel for the town. He had a large practice
      throughout the county; he knew its people, their ideas, their traditions,
      and their feelings. He understood their social organization to the core.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Now,&rdquo; said the judge, laying aside some papers upon which he had been
      writing, and taking off his glasses, &ldquo;we will take up the two petitions
      for guardianship of Joseph Pelham.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Captain Pelham and the lawyer whom he had employed took seats at a small
      table before the judge; James Parsons timidly took a seat at another. His
      petition had been filled out for him by one of his neighbors: he had no
      counsel.
    </p>
    <p>
      Captain Pelham's lawyer rose; he had been impressed by the Captain with
      the importance of the matter, and he was about to make a formal opening.
      But the judge interrupted him. &ldquo;I think,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;that we may assume
      that I know in a general way about these two petitioners. I shall assume,
      unless something is shown to the contrary, that they are both men of
      respectable character, and have proper homes for a boy to grow up in. And
      I suppose there is no controversy that Captain Pelham is a man of some
      considerable means, and that the other petitioner is a man of small
      property.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Now,&rdquo; he went on, leaning forward with his elbow on his desk, and gently
      waving his glasses with his right hand, &ldquo;did the father of this boy ever
      express any wish as to what should be done with him in case his mother
      should die?&rdquo; Nobody answered. &ldquo;It would be of no legal effect,&rdquo; he said,
      &ldquo;but it would have weight with me. Now, is there any evidence as to what
      his mother wanted? A boy's mother can tell best about these things, if she
      is a sensible woman. Mr. Baker,&rdquo; he said to Captain Pelham's lawyer, &ldquo;have
      you any evidence as to what his mother wanted to have done with him?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Mr. Baker conversed for a moment with Captain Pelham and then called him
      to the stand.
    </p>
    <p>
      Captain Pelham testified as to his frequent visits to the boy's mother,
      and to her unbroken friendly relations with him. She had never said in so
      many words what she wanted to have done for the boy, but he always
      understood that she meant to have the child come to him; he could not say,
      however, that she had said anything expressly to that effect.
    </p>
    <p>
      James sat before him not many feet away, in his old-fashioned broadcloth
      coat with a velvet collar. He cross-examined Captain Pelham a little.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;She did n't never tell you,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;that she was going to give you the
      boy, did she?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;No, sir;&rdquo; said Captain Pelham.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;How often did your wife come over to see her?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I could n't tell you, sir,&rdquo; said the Captain.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Not very often, did she?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I think not,&rdquo; the Captain admitted.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;The boy's mother did n't never talk much about Mis' Captain Pelham, did
      she?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I don't remember that she did.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;She did n't never have her over to talk with her about what she was going
      to do with the boy, did she?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I don't know that she did,&rdquo; said the Captain. &ldquo;She is here; you can ask
      her.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You didn't never hear of her leaving no word with Mis' Captain Pelham
      about taking care of the boy, did you?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I can't say that I did,&rdquo; said Captain Pelham.
    </p>
    <p>
      The old man nodded his head with a satisfied air. His cross-examination
      was done.
    </p>
    <p>
      The Captain retired from the witness-stand; his lawyer whispered with him
      a moment and then went over and whispered for two or three minutes with
      Mrs. Pelham; then he said he had no more evidence to offer.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Mr. Parsons,&rdquo; said the judge, &ldquo;do you wish to testify?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      James went to the witness-stand and was sworn.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Did n't your daughter ever talk about what she wanted done with the boy?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Talk about it?&rdquo; said James. &ldquo;Why, she didn't talk about nothing else. She
      used to have it all over every time we went in. It was all about how
      mother 'n me must do this with him and do that with him,&mdash;how he was
      to go to school, what room he was going to sleep in to our house, and all
      that.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Mr. Baker desired to make no cross-examination, and James's wife was
      called, and testified in her quaint way to the same effect.
    </p>
    <p>
      By a keen, homely instinct James had half consciously foreseen what would
      be the controlling element of the case; and while he had not formulated it
      to himself he had brought with him one of his neighbors, who had watched
      with his daughter through the last nights of her life. She was one of the
      poorest women of the village. Her husband was shiftless, and was somewhat
      given to drink. She had a large family, with little to bring them up on.
      Her life had been one long struggle. She was extremely poorly dressed, and
      although she was neat, there was an air of unthrift or discouragement
      about her dress. She wore an oversack which evidently had originally been
      made for some one else; it lacked one button. She was faded and worn and
      homely; but the moment she spoke she impressed you as a woman of
      conscience. She had talked in the long watches of the night with the boy's
      mother, and she confirmed what James and his wife had said. There could be
      no question what the mother had desired.
    </p>
    <p>
      Mr. Baker ventured out upon the thin ice of cross-examination.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;She must have talked about her father-in-law, Captain Pelham?&rdquo; he said.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, yes,&rdquo; said the woman, &ldquo;often.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;She seemed to be attached to him?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes, indeed,&rdquo; said the woman, quickly; &ldquo;she was always telling how good
      he was to her; I have heard her say there was n't no better man in the
      world.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;She must have talked about what he could do for the boy?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said the woman. &ldquo;She expected him to do for Joe.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Did n't she ever say,&rdquo; and the lawyer looked round at James,&mdash;&ldquo;did
      n't you ever hear her say that she was worried sometimes for fear her
      father would not be careful enough about the boy?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The woman hesitated a moment. &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I have heard her say so,
      but that 's what every mother says.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;What reason did you ever hear her give,&rdquo; the lawyer asked, &ldquo;why she would
      rather have him stay over there than to go and be brought up by his
      grandfather Pelham?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      The woman looked around timidly at the judge. &ldquo;Be I obliged to answer?&rdquo;
       she said.
    </p>
    <p>
      The judge nodded.
    </p>
    <p>
      The woman looked toward Captain Pelham with an embarrassed air. He was the
      best friend she had in the world.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;I rather not say nothing about that,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;it 's no account,
      anyway.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Oh, tell us what she said,&rdquo; said Mr. Baker.
    </p>
    <p>
      He felt that he had made some progress up to that point with his
      cross-examination.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Well, it was n't much,&rdquo; said the woman; &ldquo;it was only like this. I have
      heard her say that Miss Captain Pelham was a good woman and meant to do
      what was right, but she was n't a woman that knew how to mother a little
      boy.&rdquo; And here the witness began to cry.
    </p>
    <p>
      The judge moved slightly in his chair.
    </p>
    <p>
      There was more or less rambling talk about the way the boy was allowed to
      run loose on the shore, and some suggestions were made in the way of
      conversational argument about his being allowed to go barefoot, and to go
      in swimming when he pleased; but the judge seemed to pay very little
      attention to that. &ldquo;That 's the way we were all brought up,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;It
      is good for the boy; he 'll learn to take care of himself, and his mother
      knew all about it.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;It is plain enough,&rdquo; he said at last, &ldquo;that there would be some
      advantages to the boy in going to live with Captain Pelham; but there is
      one thing that has been overlooked which would probably have been
      suggested if the petitioner Parsons had had counsel. It has been assumed
      that the boy would be cut loose in future from his grandfather Pelham
      unless he was put under his guardianship; but that is n't so. All his
      grandparents will look out for him, and when he gets older, and wants to
      go into business, here or elsewhere, Captain Pelham will look after him
      just the same as if he were his guardian. The other grandfather has n't
      got the means to advance him. I am not at all afraid about that,&rdquo; he said;
      &ldquo;the only question here is, where he shall be deposited for the next five
      or six years. Either place is good enough. His father had a right to fix
      it by will if he had chosen to; but he did n't, and I think we must
      consider it a matter for the women to settle: they know best about such
      things. It is plain that his mother thought it would be best for him to
      stay where he is, and she knew best. He 's wonted there, and wants to
      stay.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      Then he took up his pen and wrote on Captain Pelham's petition an order of
      dismissal. On the other he filled out and signed the decree granting
      guardianship to James Parsons, and approved the bond. Then he handed the
      papers to the register and called the next case.
    </p>
    <p>
      From this day on, little was seen of Captain Pelham at James's house.
      Sometimes he would stop in his buggy and take the boy off with him for a
      little stay; but Joe soon wearied of formality, and grew restless for
      James, for his grandmother Parsons, for the free life of the little wharf
      and the shore. Life always opened fresh to him on his return.
    </p>
    <p>
      Once and only once Captain Pelham entered James's door-yard. James was
      sitting in an armchair under an apple-tree by the well, smoking and
      reading the paper. The Captain began, this time, with no introduction.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Fred Gooding,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;tells me you are talking of letting Joe go out
      with Pitts in his boat You know Pitts is no fit man.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You tell Fred Gooding he don't know what he 's talking about,&rdquo; said
      James, as he rose from his chair, holding the paper in his hand. &ldquo;What I
      told Pitts was just the contr'y,&mdash;the boy should n't go along o'
      him.&rdquo; Then his anger began to rise. &ldquo;But what right you got,&rdquo; he demanded,
      &ldquo;to interfere? 'T ain 't none of your business who I let him go along of.
      It's me that's the boy's guardeen.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Very well,&rdquo; said the Captain. &ldquo;Only I tell you fairly,&mdash;the first
      time I get word of anything, I 'll go to the probate court and have you
      removed!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      James followed him down the path with derisive laughter. &ldquo;Why don't you go
      to the probate court?&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;you hed great luck before!&rdquo; And as the
      Captain drove away, James shouted after him, &ldquo;Go to the probate court! Go
      to the probate court!&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005">
      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
    </p>
    <div style="height: 4em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
    <h2>
      V.
    </h2>
    <p>
      There is a low, pleasant boat-shop, close on the shore of a little arm of
      the sea. The tide ebbs and flows before its wide double doors, and
      sometimes rises so high as to flow the sills; then you have to walk across
      in front of the shop on a plank, laid upon iron ballast. There is a little
      wharf or pier close at hand, the outer end of which is always going to be
      repaired. There are two or three other shops near by, and about them is
      the pleasant litter of a boat-yard. In the cove before them lie at their
      moorings in the late afternoon a fleet of fifteen or twenty fishing and
      pleasure boats, all cat-rigged, all of one general build, wide, shoal,
      with one broad sail, all painted white, by the custom of the place, and
      all or nearly all kept neat and clean: they are all likely enough to be
      called upon now and then for sailing-parties. Often of a bright afternoon
      in summer the sails will all be up, as the boats swing at their floats:
      then you have all the effect of a regatta in still life.
    </p>
    <p>
      The shop faces down the bay of which this inlet is the foot, and as you
      look out from your seat within, on a wooden stool, the great door frames
      in a landscape of peaceful beauty. The opening to the sea is closed to the
      view. Simply you can see the two white sand-cliffs through which it makes.
      The bay is a mile in length, perhaps, and of half that width. From its
      white, sandy shores rise gentle hills, bare to the sun or covered with a
      low growth of woods. To the right are low-lying pastures and marshes, with
      here and there a grazing cow. At the head of the bay the valley of a
      stream can be faintly distinguished, while in the distance there is a
      faint suggestion of a few scattered houses on the upper waters. At one or
      two points masts of boats rise from the grass of the inland, and sometimes
      a sail is seen threading its slow way amid the trees.
    </p>
    <p>
      The shop is a favorite resort. You may go there in the early morning, in
      the late forenoon, or in the afternoon; whenever you go you will find
      there more or less company. There is a sort of social, hospitable
      atmosphere about the place which is attractive in the extreme. Sometimes
      there is a good deal of conversation; sometimes there is a comfortable
      silence of good-fellowship. There is more or less knitting there and
      crocheting; often in the afternoon the women from near by take their work
      there to enjoy the view, and the fresh air which draws up there as nowhere
      else.
    </p>
    <p>
      There is a good deal of religious discussion there, although the
      atmosphere of the shop is not entirely religious, as you may see by some
      of the papers lying about, and the cuts pasted up on the walls. Chief is a
      picture representing a scene in the life of the prophet Jonah. Jonah and
      the seamen are drawing lots to see who shall be cast over. Jonah has just
      drawn the ace of spades.
    </p>
    <p>
      There are various other pictures on the walls,&mdash;prints of famous
      yachts, charts, advertisements of regattas, sailing rules of yacht-clubs.
      Nowhere is the science of boat-building and boat-sailing studied with
      greater closeness than in that shop. Many a successful racer has been
      built there. There are models of boats pinned up against the wall,&mdash;models
      which to the common eye hardly vary at all, but to a trained perception
      differ widely. There are oars lying about the shop, oil-skin suits, a
      compass, charts, in round tin cases, boat hardware, and coils of new rope.
    </p>
    <p>
      The little pier has its periods of activity and life, like the great world
      outside. At three or four o'clock, in the gray dawn, fishermen appear,
      singly, or two by two; there is often then a failure of wind, and they
      have to get out to sea by heavy rowing or by the drift of the tide. Then
      there is silence for some hours, and when the world awakes the cove is
      nearly deserted. At seven o'clock begins the life of the shop. Amateur
      fishermen appear,&mdash;boarders from New York or visiting sons from
      Brockton. Later still, little parties come down,&mdash;a knot of young
      fellows and laughing girls with bright-colored wraps, bound on a
      sailing-party to Katameset, with a matron, and with some well-salted man
      to steer the boat, perhaps in slippers and a dressing-gown. They go
      singing out to sea. Then come a party of bathers,&mdash;ladies and little
      children, with towels and blue suits, and all the paraphernalia of pails
      and wooden shovels. Then will come perhaps a couple of girls, to sketch.
      They will encamp anywhere upon the shore, call into their service some
      small amphibious creature to tip a skiff up on its side to make an
      effective scene, and proceed with the wonders of their art. Soon the
      bathers return. They have been only a little way down the narrows, and
      come back to dinner at one. The fishermen come in from three to four,
      unless they happen to be becalmed; there is a bustle then of getting out
      ice; of slitting and weighing and packing fish, and loading them into
      wagons to be carted to the railway. Then there is a lull until the
      sailing-parties return, perhaps at five, perhaps at six, perhaps not until
      the turn of the tide or the evening breeze brings them home.
    </p>
    <p>
      All the time the quiet life of the boat-shop goes on,&mdash;its labor, its
      discussions on politics and religion, its criticism of yachts. All day
      long small boys play about the pier, race in skiffs or in such
      insignificant sailing-craft as may be available, and every half-hour, at
      the initiative of some infant leader, all doff their little print waists
      and short trousers and &ldquo;go in,&rdquo; regardless of the sketchers on the shore.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was a bright, fresh day. The air was as clear as crystal. Joe had been
      gone since dawn with Henry Price. The wind had been blowing hard from the
      north for a dozen hours, and, as the saying is, had kicked up a sea. On
      the shoal the waves were rolling heavily, and since three o'clock the tide
      had been running against the wind, and the seas had been broken every way.
      But to Henry Price, and with that boat, rough seas, from March to
      November, were only what a rude mountain road would be to you or me. If
      his wife, toward afternoon, shading her eyes at the south door, ever felt
      anxious about him, it was a woman's foolish fear; it was only because she
      thought with concern of that&mdash;internal neuralgia was it?&mdash;which
      her husband brought back from the war; which seized him at rare intervals
      and enfeebled him for days. He made light of it, and never spoke of it out
      of the house. There was no better boatman on that shore. Let alone that
      one possibility of weakness, and the ocean had a hard man to deal with
      when it dealt with him.
    </p>
    <p>
      They had been gone all day. It had been rough, and they would come in wet.
      This wind would not die down; they were sure to make a quick run, and
      would be in before dark.
    </p>
    <p>
      It was late in the afternoon. James was sitting in the shop with one or
      two companions, engaged in a loud discussion. He had been discoursing upon
      all his favorite themes. He had been declaiming upon the dangers from
      Catholic supremacy and the subserviency of the Irish vote to the Church of
      Rome, and upon the absolute necessity of the supremacy of the Democratic
      party; upon the Apocalypse and the seven seals. He had been maintaining
      the literal infallibility of the Scriptures, and the necessity of treating
      some portions as legendary. It would be hard to say what inconsistent
      views he had not set forth within the space of the past hour; and all this
      with the utmost intensity, and yet with the utmost good-humor, always
      ready to acknowledge a point against himself,&mdash;the more readily if
      entirely fallacious,&mdash;with a burst of hearty laughter.
    </p>
    <p>
      At last there was a pause. Something had called out of doors the two or
      three men who were within. There was nothing to disturb the peaceful
      beauty of the afternoon. It was blowing hard outside, but this was a
      sheltered spot, and the wind was little felt.
    </p>
    <p>
      As James sat there silent, with no one at hand but the owner of the shop,
      who was busy upon the keel of a new boat, a fisherman came in and took a
      seat, with an affectation of ease and nonchalance; in a moment another
      followed; two or three more came in, then others.
    </p>
    <p>
      The carpenter stopped his work, and shading his eyes with his hand, seemed
      to be looking down the bay.
    </p>
    <p>
      There was a dead silence for a few moments. Then James spoke. But it was
      not the voice of James. It was not that cheery and hearty voice which had
      just been filling the shop with mirth. It was a voice harsh, forced,
      mechanical,&mdash;the voice of a man paralyzed with terror.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Why don't you tell me?&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;is it Henry, or&mdash;is it the boy?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      But no one spoke.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;You don't need to tell me nothing,&rdquo; he said, in the same strange tone of
      paralysis and fear, &ldquo;I knowed it when Bassett first come in. I knowed it
      when the rest come in and closed in round me and did n't say nothing.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      He sat still a moment. Then he rose abruptly and turned to the landward
      door. He stumbled over a stool which was in his way, and would have fallen
      but that one of the men sprang forward and held him. He plunged hastily
      out of the door. Just outside, in the shade of a small wild cherry-tree,
      was a bucket of clams which he had dug; across the bucket was an old hoe
      worn down to nothing. He stopped and mechanically took up the pail and
      hoe. Bassett stood by the door and looked after him as he went along the
      foot-path toward his home. There was a scantling fence close by. He went
      over it in his old habitual fashion: first he set over the bucket of clams
      and the hoe; then one leg went over and then the other; he sat for an
      instant on the top slat and then slid down. He took up his burden and went
      his way over the fields. In a moment he was lost to sight behind a bit of
      rising ground. Then he reappeared, making his way over the fields at his
      own heavy gait, until he was lost to sight behind a clump of trees close
      to his own door.
    </p>
    <p>
      They did not find Henry and the boy that night. It was not until the next
      day that the bodies were washed ashore. One of the searchers, walking
      along the beach in the early dawn, found them both. He came upon Henry
      first; he was lying on the sand upon his face. A little farther on, gently
      swayed by the rising tide, lay Joe and his dog. Joe lay on his side,
      precisely as if asleep; the dog was in his arms.
    </p>
    <p>
      The boy lies in the burying-ground on the hill, near the stone and the
      weeping-willow which mourn the youth who met his untimely death in 1830,
      in the launching of the brig. There is a rose-bush at the grave, and few
      bright days pass in summer that there is not a bunch of homely flowers
      laid at its foot. It is the spot to which all Mrs. Parsons's thoughts now
      tend, and her perpetual pilgrimage. It is too far for her to walk both
      there and back; but often a neighbor is going that way, with a lug-wagon
      or an open cart or his family carriage,&mdash;it makes no difference
      which,&mdash;and it is easy to get a ride. It is a good-humored village.
      Everybody stands ready to do a favor, and nobody hesitates to ask one.
      Often on a bright afternoon Mrs. Parsons will watch from her front window
      the &ldquo;teams&rdquo; that pass, going to the bay. When she sees one which is likely
      to go in the right direction on its return from the bay,&mdash;everybody
      knows in which direction she will wish to go,&mdash;she will run hastily
      to the door, and hail it.
    </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Whoa! Sh-h! Whoa! How d'do, Mis' Parsons?&rdquo;
     </p>
    <p>
      &ldquo;Be you going straight home when you come back? Well, then, if it won't
      really be no trouble at all, I 'll be at the gap when you come by; I won't
      keep you waiting a minute. It 's such a nice, sunshiny afternoon, I
      thought I 'd like to go up and sit awhile, and take some posies.&rdquo;
     </p>
    <div style="height: 6em;">
      <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
    </div>
<pre xml:space="preserve">





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