ars and over, and comes home night before last; his lay 'll figure
out five hundred dollars; and the biggest thing is"--here the Captain
brought down his heavy hand, for emphasis, on Uncle Silas's knee--"that
Delia 's kept herself and the children, and never drawn one cent against
the voyage; so they've got the whole clear, and they 've been up this
morning early and traded for the Callender place, and they 're going to
move in to-morrow. And I guess he means business now."

"But they don't git paid off till Monday," said Uncle Silas. "They 're
all goin' up to town to be paid off then."

"Well, he moves in to-morrow, anyway," said Captain Bennett. "Monday
night, I believe, he's going to pay down what he has, and take a deed,
and give a mortgage back for the balance."

But Uncle Silas gravely shook his head.

"I can't indorse this runnin' in haste," he said. "I never, in all my
experience, knew a man before to buy real estate without sort of goin'
up street and talkin' it over, and comparin' notes 'round generally.
Now, we could have given him points down here about the Callender
place."

"Oh, he's made a good trade there," said Captain Bennett.

"That all may be," said Uncle Silas, "but it 's the principle, not the
five cents, I 'm lookin' at. I should have hed more faith in his holdin'
out if he hed n't jumped quite so quick. 'Slow bind, fast find,' I say."

Captain Bennett rose, and drew on a grass-cloth coat that showed his
suspenders through.

"I must be on my winding way," he said. "But did you hear how close he
came to never coming back? No? Well, it was like this: It was blowing
a gale, and considerable sea on, one night when they were rounding Cape
Horn on the home voyage, and she was pitching pretty bad, and David was
out on the jib-boom taking in jib, and somehow she pitched with a jerk,
so he lost his hold and went off, and, as he fell in the dark, naturally
he struck out both hands, blind, like this; and he just happened to
catch, by sheer accident, a gasket that was hanging from the jib-boom,
and so he saved himself by a hair's breadth. And when he came up they
thought it was his ghost."

"Well, I always make it a point to look on the bright side, without
exception," said Uncle Silas; "nevertheless, I prophesy it won't be two
years before he 'll have the place all eat up, and sold out under the
mortgage. This jumpin' so quick,--looks as if he was sca't to trust
himself for a day."

"Well, we sha