et hum
in time; but he did. He jest come a sailin' into th' harbor, with every
mite o' sail the old brig 'd carry, two days afore Caley was born. An' the
next mornin',--oh, dear me! it don't seem no longer ago 'n
yesterday,--while he was a dressin', an' I lay lookin' at him, he tossed
that little thing over to me on the bed, 'n' sez he,--"

"T 'll be a boy, Mercy, I know 'twill; an' here's his bos'u'n's whistle
all ready for him,' an' that night he bought that very yard o' pink
rebbin, and tied it on himself, and laid it in the upper drawer into one
o' the little pink socks I'd got all ready. Oh, it don't seem any longer
ago 'n yesterday! An' sure enough it was a boy; an' your father he allus
used to call him 'Bos'u'n,' and he'd stick this ere whistle into his mouth
an' try to make him blow it afore he was a month old. But by the time he
was nine months old he'd blow it ez loud ez I could. And his father he'd
just lay back 'n his chair, and laugh 'n' laugh, 'n' call out, 'Blow away,
my hearty!' Oh, my! it don't seem any longer ago'n yesterday. I wish I'd
ha' known. I wa'n't never friends with Patience any more arter that. I
never misgave me but what she'd got the whistle. It was such a curious
cut thing, and cost a heap o' money. Your father wouldn't never tell what
he gin for 't. Oh, my! it don't seem any longer ago 'n yesterday," and the
old woman wiped her eyes on her apron, and struggling up on her feet took
the whistle again from Mercy's hands.

"How old would my brother Caley be now, if he had lived, mother?" said
Mercy, anxious to bring her mother gently back to the present.

"Well, let me see, child. Why, Caley--Caley, he'd be--How old am I, Mercy?
Dear me! hain't I lost my memory, sure enough, except about these ere old
things? They seem's clear's daylight."

"Sixty-five last July, mother," said Mercy. "Don't you know I gave you
your new specs then?"

"Oh, yes, child,--yes. Well, I'm sixty-five, be I? Then Caley,--Caley,
he'd be, let me see--you reckon it, Mercy. I wuz goin' on nineteen when
Caley was born."

"Why, mother," exclaimed Mercy, "is it really so long ago? Then my brother
Caleb would be forty-six years old now!" and mercy took again in her hand
the yellow ivory whistle, and ran her fingers over the faded and frayed
pink ribbon, and looked at it with an indefinable sense of its being a
strange link between her and a distant past, which, though she had never
shared it, belonged to her by right. H