ever gone to church by boat," said
the Commodore.

"Yes," answered Nautica, "and it was just the way to do it. We have
attended a colonial church in a quite colonial way."

When we sat down to our Thanksgiving dinner, we felt almost like
landlubbers again; for while our home acre was a watery one and
Gadabout, boat-like, swung and swayed, yet we had real neighbours up on
the bluff and there was even a church next door. Later, we saw coming
down the stream some good after-dinner cheer--our rowboat with mail
that had been accumulating for days at Westover. Letters and papers and
packages and magazines were welcomed aboard. Comfortably we settled
down for an evening of catching up with the world.

Next morning Gadabout made an uneventful run down the stream, anchored
just within the mouth of the creek, and sent Henry off into the country
foraging.

Of course certain provisioning arrangements followed Gadabout from
harbour to harbour. Boxes of groceries came up from Norfolk or down
from Richmond by steamer; and also every few days a big cake of ice
arrived in a travelling suit of burlap lined with sawdust. But that
still left many things to be obtained along the way. As most of the
country stores were back from the river, the sailor, on horseback or in
a cart, made many a long provisioning trip.

Toward evening when there came a gentle bump upon Gadabout's guard and
the rattle of a chain upon her cleat, we went out to see what the
supply boat had brought. As soon as we heard the troubled sputtering,
"An' I mos' give up gittin' anything," we knew that the little
shore-boat was a nautical horn of plenty. And so she proved as her
cargo came aboard to an accompaniment of running comment.

"I don' know _where_ I been, an' if I had to go back, I couldn' do it.
That's butter there--that'll do till the nex' box comes. The store
didn' have much of anything; an' I struck out into the country, I did,
an' mos' los' myse'f. But the horse he knowed the way. I got another
turkey, anyhow. I'm cert'nly glad we jes' begun to eat 'em if we got to
eat 'em steady. The man had done sold him; but I used my silver tongue,
I did, an' he let me have him. There's some apples an' turnips an'
sweet potatoes. I got them at the store. An' where I got them eggs at,
I could get a couple of chickens nex' week if I could jes' fin' the
place."

So the fruits of the foraging came tumbling aboard--a promising, goodly
array. And Gadabout had no troubled