u sartin you're that?' she wanted
to know.

"'Not since I been livin' here, I ain't,' I says. And that ended that
try of makin' up.

"And from then on it got worse and worse. There wan't much comfort at
home where the inventor was, so I took to stayin' out nights. Went down
to the store and hung around, listenin' to fools' gabble, and wishin'
I was dead. And the more I stayed out, the more Bennie D. laughed and
sneered and hinted. And then come that ridic'lous business about Sarah
Ann Christy. That ended it for good and all."

Seth paused in his long story and looked out across the starlit sea.

"Who was Sarah Ann?" asked Brown. The lightkeeper seemed much
embarrassed.

"She was a born fool," he declared, with emphasis; "born that way and
been developin' extry foolishness ever since. She was a widow, too; been
good lookin' once and couldn't forget it, and she lived down nigh the
store. When I'd be goin' down or comin' back, just as likely as not she
was settin' on the piazza, and she'd hail me. I didn't want to stop and
talk to her, of course."

"No, of course not."

"Well, I DIDN'T. And I didn't HAVE to talk. Couldn't if I wanted to;
she done it all. Her tongue was hung on ball-bearin' hinges and was
a self-winder guaranteed to run an hour steady every time she set it
goin'. Talk! my jiminy crimps, how that woman could talk! I couldn't
get away; I tried to, but, my soul, she wouldn't let me. And, if 'twas a
warm night, she'd more'n likely have a pitcher of lemonade or some sort
of cold wash alongside, and I must stop and taste it. By time, I can
taste it yet!

"Well, there wa'n't no harm in her at all; she was just a fool that had
to talk to somebody, males preferred. But my stayin' out nights wasn't
helpin' the joyfulness of things to home, and one evenin'--one evenin'
. . . Oh, there! I started to tell you this and I might's well get it
over.

"This evenin' when I came home from the store I see somethin' was extry
wrong soon's I struck the settin' room. Emeline was there, and Bennie
D., and I give you my word, I felt like turnin' up my coat collar, 'twas
so frosty. 'Twas hotter'n a steamer's stoke-hole outside, but that room
was forty below zero.

"Nobody SAID nothin', you know--that was the worst of it; but I'd have
been glad if they had. Finally, I said it myself. 'Well, Emeline,' says
I, 'here I be.'

"No answer, so I tried again. 'Well, Emeline,' says I, 'I've fetched
port finally.'

"She didn't