he went to inquiring round among the sailors' boarding houses
and places like that, to see if he could find out anything about the
crew of the Four Sisters. He'd better have let sleeping dogs lie, in
my opinion! Well, he went to one out-of-the-way place, and there he
found a man he knew at first sight it was Dick Moore, though he had a
big beard. Captain Jim got it shaved off and then there was no
doubt--Dick Moore it was--his body at least. His mind wasn't there--as
for his soul, in my opinion he never had one!"

"What had happened to him?"

"Nobody knows the rights of it. All the folks who kept the boarding
house could tell was that about a year before they had found him lying
on their doorstep one morning in an awful condition--his head battered
to a jelly almost. They supposed he'd got hurt in some drunken row,
and likely that's the truth of it. They took him in, never thinking he
could live. But he did--and he was just like a child when he got well.
He hadn't memory or intellect or reason. They tried to find out who he
was but they never could. He couldn't even tell them his name--he
could only say a few simple words. He had a letter on him beginning
'Dear Dick' and signed 'Leslie,' but there was no address on it and the
envelope was gone. They let him stay on--he learned to do a few odd
jobs about the place--and there Captain Jim found him. He brought him
home--I've always said it was a bad day's work, though I s'pose there
was nothing else he could do. He thought maybe when Dick got home and
saw his old surroundings and familiar faces his memory would wake up.
But it hadn't any effect. There he's been at the house up the brook
ever since. He's just like a child, no more nor less. Takes fractious
spells occasionally, but mostly he's just vacant and good humored and
harmless. He's apt to run away if he isn't watched. That's the burden
Leslie has had to carry for eleven years--and all alone. Old Abner
Moore died soon after Dick was brought home and it was found he was
almost bankrupt. When things were settled up there was nothing for
Leslie and Dick but the old West farm. Leslie rented it to John Ward,
and the rent is all she has to live on. Sometimes in summer she takes
a boarder to help out. But most visitors prefer the other side of the
harbor where the hotels and summer cottages are. Leslie's house is too
far from the bathing shore. She's taken care of Dick and she's never
been away fr