"when you start to spin a yarn how do you begin?"

"Hey?" he exclaimed. "How do I begin? Why, I just heave to and go to
work and begin, that's all."

"Yes, I know, but where do you begin?"

"At the beginnin', naturally. If you was cal'latin' to sail a boat race
you wouldn't commence at t'other end of the course, would you?"

"_I_ might; practical people wouldn't, I suppose. But--what IS the
beginning? Suppose there were a lot of beginnings and you didn't know
which to choose."

"Oh, we-ll, in that case I'd just sort of--of edge around till I found
one that--that was a beginnin' of SOMETHIN' and I'd start there. You
understand, don't you? Take that yarn I was spinnin' just now--that one
about Josiah Dimick's great uncle's pig on his mother's side. I mean
his uncle on his mother's side, not the pig, of course. Now I hadn't no
intention of tellin' about that hog; hadn't thought of it for a thousand
year, as you might say. I just commenced to tell about Angie Phinney,
about how fast she could talk, and that reminded me of a parrot
that belonged to Sylvanus Cahoon's sister--Violet, the sister's name
was--loony name, too, if you ask ME, 'cause she was a plaguey sight
nigher bein' a sunflower than she was a violet--weighed two hundred and
ten and had a face on her as red as--"

"Just a minute, Ase. About that pig?"

"Oh, yes! Well, the pig reminded me of Violet's parrot and the parrot
reminded me of a Plymouth Rock rooster I had that used to roost in the
pigpen nights--wouldn't use the henhouse no more'n you nor I would--and
that, naturally, made me think of pigs, and pigs fetched Josiah's
uncle's pig to mind and there I was all ready to start on the yarn. It
pretty often works out that way. When you want to start a yarn and you
can't start--you've forgot it, or somethin'--just begin somewhere, get
goin' somehow. Edge around and keep edgin' around and pretty soon you'll
fetch up at the right place TO start. See, don't you, Kent?"

I saw--that is, I saw enough. I came home and this morning I began the
"edging around" process. I don't seem to have "fetched up" anywhere in
particular, but I shall keep on with the edging until I do. As Asaph
says, I must begin somewhere, so I shall begin with the Saturday morning
of last April when Jim Campbell, my publisher and my friend--which is
by no means such an unusual combination as many people think--sat on the
veranda of my boathouse overlooking Cape Cod Bay and discussed my past