ifted the
bag of meal bodily from the coachman's wagon with his teeth, and,
depositing it silently upon the ground by the roadside, paused of his
own accord and gravely waited for us to do the rest.

The coachman was pursuing his way, unconscious, insolent, whistling.

"She'll take it out o' yer wages; she 's dreadful close," chuckled
Captain Pharo, as we tucked the bag of meal away on the carriage floor.
"See when ye'll scoff in my sails, and block up the ship's channel
ag'in! Now then; touch and go is a good pilot," and we struck off on a
divergent road at a rattling pace.

But these adventures had exhausted so much time, when we arrived at
Crooked River it was high tide, and the bridge was already elevated for
the passage of a schooner approaching in the distance.

"See, now, what ye done, don't ye?" said Captain Pharo--I must say
it--with mean reproach, to his wife; "we've got to wait here an hour
an' a half."

"Wal, thar, Cap'n Pharo Kobbe, seems to me I wouldn't say nothin'
'g'inst Providence nor nobody else, for once, ef I'd jest got two
dollars' worth o' meal, jest for pickin' it up off'n the road."

Touched by this view of the case, the captain sang with great
cheerfulness that his days were as the grass or as the morning
flower--when an inspiration struck him.

"I don' know," said he, "why we hadn't just as well turn here and go up
Artichoke road, and git baited at Coffin's, 'stid er stoppin' to see
'em on the way home. I'm feelin' sharp as a meat-axe ag'in."

"I don' know whether the rest of ye are hungry or not," said plump
little Mrs. Kobbe; "but I'm gittin as long-waisted as a
knittin'-needle."

The language of vivid hyperbole being exhausted, Mrs. Lester and I
expressed ourselves simply to the same effect. We turned, heedful no
longer of the tides, and travelled delightfully along the Artichoke
road until we reached a brown dwelling that I knew could be none other
than theirs--Uncle Coffin's and Aunt Salomy's; they were in their sunny
yard, and before I knew them, I loved them.

"Dodrabbit ye!" cried Uncle Coffin Demmin, springing out at us in
hospitable ecstasy, Salomy beside him; "git out! git out quick! The
sight on ye makes me sick, in there. Git out, I say!" he roared.

"No-o; guess not, Coffin," said Captain Pharo, with gloomy observance
of formalities; "guess I ca-arnt; goin' up to the Point to git a nail
put in my hoss's shu-u."

But Uncle Coffin was already leading the horse a