pen with the evening
that would be really worth chronicling, for the sake of the excellent
results to which they are sure to lead. My tendency is to be too
sanguine about everything, I know; but I am, nevertheless, firmly
persuaded that I can see a new way out of our present difficulties--a
way of getting money enough to keep us all in comfort at the farmhouse
until William's eyes are well again.

The new project which is to relieve us from all uncertainties for the
next six months actually originated with _me!_ It has raised me many
inches higher in my own estimation already. If the doctor only agrees
with my view of the case when he comes to-morrow, William will allow
himself to be persuaded, I know; and then let them say what they please,
I will answer for the rest.

This is how the new idea first found its way into my head:

We had just done tea. William, in much better spirits than usual, was
talking with the young sailor, who is jocosely called here by the very
ugly name of "Foul-weather Dick." The farmer and his two eldest sons
were composing themselves on the oaken settles for their usual nap. The
dame was knitting, the two girls were beginning to clear the tea-table,
and I was darning the children's socks. To all appearance, this was not
a very propitious state of things for the creation of new ideas, and yet
my idea grew out of it, for all that. Talking with my husband on various
subjects connected with life in ships, the young sailor began giving us
a description of his hammock; telling us how it was slung; how it was
impossible to get into it any other way than "stern foremost" (whatever
that may mean); how the rolling of the ship made it rock like a cradle;
and how, on rough nights, it sometimes swayed to and fro at such a
rate as to bump bodily against the ship's side and wake him up with the
sensation of having just received a punch on the head from a remarkably
hard fist. Hearing all this, I ventured to suggest that it must be an
immense relief to him to sleep on shore in a good, motionless, solid
four-post bed. But, to my surprise, he scoffed at the idea; said he
never slept comfortably out of his hammock; declared that he quite
missed his occasional punch on the head from the ship's side; and ended
by giving a most comical account of all the uncomfortable sensations
he felt when he slept in a four-post bed. The odd nature of one of the
young sailor's objections to sleeping on shore reminded my husban