rtily now.

"'Twould not be a better world, thinks you?" said I. "Ay, but I could
do better than that! Hut!" I cried, at last utterly abandoned to my
imagination, "I'd have more things than potatoes grow in the ground an'
more things than berries grow on bushes. _What_ would I have grow in the
ground, says you? Is you thinkin' I don't _know_? Oh, ay, mum," I
protested, somewhat at a loss, but very knowingly, "_I_ knows!" I was
now getting rapidly beyond my depth; but I plunged bravely on, wondering
like lightning, the while, what else _could_ grow in the ground and on
bushes. "I'd have _flour_ grow in the ground, mum," I cried,
triumphantly, "an' I'd have sea-boots an' sou'westers grow on the
bushes. An', ecod!" I continued, inspired, "I'd have fishes grow on
bushes, already split an' cleaned!"

What other improvements I would have made on the good Lord's handiwork I
do not know. Skipper Tommy Lovejoy, being on the road to Trader's Cove
from the Rat Hole, where he lived alone with his twin lads, had spied us
from Needle Rock, and now came puffing up the hill to wish my mother
good-day: which, indeed, all true men of the harbour never failed to do,
whenever they came near. He was a short, marvellously broad, bow-legged
old man--but yet straight and full of strength and fine hope--all the
while dressed in tight white moleskin (much soiled by the slime of the
day's work), long skin boots, tied below the knees, and a ragged cloth
cap, which he kept pulled tight over his bushy grey hair. There was a
mild twinkle forever lying in the depths of his blue eyes, and thence,
at times, overflowing upon his broad brown face, which then rippled with
wrinkles, from the roots of his hair to the fringe of white beard under
his chin, in a way at once to make one laugh with him, though one could
not quite tell why. We lads of the harbour loved him very much, for his
good-humour and for his tenderness--never more so, however, than when,
by night, in the glow of the fire, he told us long tales of the fairies
and wicked elves he had dealt with in his time, twinkling with every
word, so that we were sorely puzzled to know whether to take him in jest
or earnest.

"I've a very bad son, the day, Skipper Tommy," said my mother, laying a
fond hand on my head.

"Have you, now, mum!" cried the skipper, with a wink. "'Tis hard t'
believe. He've been huntin' gulls' nests in parlous places on the cliff
o' the Watchman, I'm thinkin'."

"'Tis worse