. He watched it thoughtfully, wondering.... There had been
such an abounding insolence of life in big Mark Shore.... It was hard to
believe that he was surely dead.

A woman passed along the street below the house, and looked up and saw
him at the window. He did not see her. Two boys crawled along the white
picket fence, and pricked their fingers as they broke half-open clusters
from the rambler without molestation. A gray squirrel, when the boys had
gone, came down from an elm across the street and sprinted desperately to
the foot of the great oak below the house. When it was safe in the oak's
upper branches, it scolded derisively at the imaginary terrors it had
escaped. A blue jay, with ruffled feathers--a huge, blue ball in the
air--rocketed across from the elm, and established himself near the
squirrel, and they swore at each other like coachmen. The squirrel swore
from temper and disposition; the jay from malice and derision. The bird
seemed to have the better of the argument, for the squirrel suddenly fell
silent and departed, his emotions revealing themselves only in the angry
flicks of his tail. When he was gone, the jay began to investigate a knot
in a limb of the oak. The bird climbed around this knot with slow motions
curiously like those of a parrot.

A half-grown boy came up the street and turned in at the gate. Joel
remained where he was until the boy manipulated the knocker on the door;
then he went down and opened. He knew the boy; Peter How. Peter was thin
and freckled and nervous; and he was inclined to stammer. When Joel
opened the door, Peter was at first unable to speak. He stood on the
step, jerking his chin upward and forward as though his collar irked him.
Joel smiled slowly.

"Come in, Peter," he said.

Peter jerked his chin, jerked his whole head furiously. "C--C--C--" he
said. "Asa W-W-Worthen wants to s-s-see you."

Asa Worthen was the owner of the _Martin Wilkes_, and of the _Nathan
Ross_. Joel nodded gently.

"Thank you, Peter," he told the boy. "I'll get my hat and come."

Peter jerked his head. He seemed to be choking. "He's a-a-a-a-at his
office," he blurted.

Joel had found his hat. He closed the door of the house behind him, and
he and Peter went down the shady street together.

II

Asa Worthen was a small, lean, strong old man, immensely voluble. He must
have been well over sixty years old; and he had grown rich by harvesting
the living treasures of the sea. At thi