rying to laugh. "Tell me what's
the tax, and how much you can take hold and do, without coming to me
for orders every hand's turn o' the day. I've had Silas Jinkins here,
one o' my old ship's cooks; he served well at sea, and I thought he
had some head; but we've been beat, I tell ye, and you'll find some
work to put things ship-shape. He's gitting in years, that's the
trouble; I oughtn't to have called on him," said Captain Ball, anxious
to maintain even so poorly the dignity of his sex.

"I like your looks; you seem a good steady hand, with no nonsense
about ye." He cast a shy glance at his companion, and would not have
believed that any woman could have come to the house a stranger, and
have given him such an immediate feeling of confidence and relief.

"I'll tell ye what's about the worst of the matter," and the captain
pulled a letter out of his deep coat pocket. His feelings had been
pent up too long. At the sight of the pretty handwriting and
aggravatingly soft-spoken sentences, Asaph Ball was forced to
inconsiderate speech. The would-be housekeeper pushed back her
rocking-chair as he began, and tucked her feet under, beside settling
her bonnet a little, as if she were close-reefed and anchored to ride
out the gale.

"I'm in most need of an able person," he roared, "on account of this
letter's settin' me adrift about knowing what to do. 'T is from a gal
that wants to come and make her home here. Land sakes alive, puts
herself right forrard! I don't want her, _an' I won't have her_. She
may be a great-niece; I don't say she ain't; but what should I do with
one o' them jiggetin' gals about? In the name o' reason, why should I
be set out o' my course? I'm left at the mercy o' you women-folks,"
and the captain got stiffly to his feet. "If you've had experience,
an' think you can do for me, why, stop an' try, an' I'll be much
obleeged to ye. You'll find me a good provider, and we'll let one
another alone, and get along some way or 'nother."

The captain's voice fairly broke; he had been speaking as if to a
brother man; he was tired out and perplexed. His sister Ann had saved
him so many petty trials, and now she was gone. The poor man had
watched her suffer and seen her die, and he was as tender-hearted and
as lonely as a child, however he might bluster. Even such infrequent
matters as family letters had been left to his busy sister. It
happened that they had inherited a feud with an elder half-brother's
family i