e just why I did it, for I was wet
through an' most froze, an' what I'd pulled out looked like a feather
bed tied round with a cord, but I out with my knife an' cut the cords,
an' thar in the middle o' two feather beds was a box, an' in the box a
baby alive an' squallin'!

"I didn't stop to take the rope off my waist, but grabbed the box an'
ran for the house with Lissy after me. We had a fire in the stove, an'
Lissy warmed a blanket and wrapped the poor thing up an' held it over
the stove an' kissed it and took on just as wimmin will. When I see it
was safe I cut for the pint, thinkin' to wave my hat an' show 'em we had
saved the baby, but a squall o' snow had struck in an' when it let up
the vessel was gone. Thar was bits o' wreck cum ashore, pieces o' spars,
a boat all stove in, an' the like, an' a wooden shoe. In the box the
baby was in was two little blankets, an', tied in a bit o' cloth, two
rings an' a locket with two picters in it, an' a paper was pinned to the
baby's clothes with furrin writin' on it. It said the baby's name was
Etelka Peterson, an' 'To God I commend my child,' an' signed, 'A
despairin' mother.' From bits o' the wreck we learned the vessel was
from Stockholm, an' named 'Peterson.'

"The paper was sech a heart-techin' appeal, an' as we'd just buried our
only child, a six-year-old gal, we was glad to adopt this 'un an' bring
her up. In due course o' time I made a report o' the wreck to the
Lighthouse Board, an' that we had saved one life, a gal baby, an' give
all the facts. Nothin' ever came on't, though, an' we was glad thar
didn't. We kep' the little gal, an' she wa'n't long in growin' into our
feelin's, an' the older she growed, the more we thought o' her."

Of course the history of Uncle Terry's protegee was known to every
resident of the island, and as she grew into girlhood and attended
school at the Cape--as the little village a quarter mile back of the
point was called--until she matured into a young lady, every one came to
feel that, in a way, she belonged to the kindly lighthouse keeper and
his wife Melissa.

To them she was all that a devoted daughter could be, and when school
days were over she became Uncle Terry's almost constant companion. On
pleasant days she went with him to attend his traps, and on his daily
drive to the head of the island. She was welcome in every house and well
beloved by all those simple, kindly people, who felt an unusual interest
in her existence. Of ten