and get rested up from your troubles."

"And she has gone back to her work, I suppose?"

"No, she is still on her job at Maquoit, sir--calls it her real job. She
isn't a quitter, Polly isn't. She says they need her."

"Like the song says, 'The flowers need the sunshine and the roses need
the dew,' that's how they need her," averred Oakum Otie. "Though them
Hue and Cry women and children can't be said to be much like roses and
geraniums! But they're more like it than they ever was before, since
Miss Polly has taken hold of 'em. It's wonderful what a good girl can do
when she tries, Captain Mayo!"

Resuming his life on the fishing-schooner was like slipping on a pair of
old shoes, and Mayo was grateful for that New England stoicism which had
greeted him in such matter-of-fact fashion.

"What you want to tell me is all right and what you don't want to tell
me is still better," stated Captain Candage. "Because when you ain't
talking about it you ain't stirring it!"

So, in that fashion, he came back into the humble life of Maquoit. There
had been no awkwardness in his meeting with Captain Candage; it had been
man to man, and they understood how to dispense with words. But Mayo
looked forward to his meeting with Polly Candage without feeling that
equanimity which the father had inspired.

He felt an almost overmastering desire to confide to her his troubles of
the heart. But he knew that he would not be able to do that. His little
temple had been so cruelly profaned. His humiliation was too great.

He was conscious that some other reason was operating to hold him back
from explaining to her; and because he did not understand just what it
was he was ill at ease when he did come face to face with her. He
was grateful for one circumstance--their first meeting was in the old
fish-house at Maquoit, under the hundred curious eyes of the colony. He
had rowed ashore in his dory and went to seek her in the midst of
her activities. She put out both her hands and greeted him with frank
pleasure and seemed to understand his constraint, to anticipate his own
thoughts, to respect his reticence.

"I'm glad you have come back to wait till all your troubles are settled.
The most consoling friends are those who know and who sympathize and who
keep still! Now come with me and listen to the children and see what
the women are doing. You will be proud and glad because you spoke up for
them that day when we went over to Hue and Cry."