e got
well of her lame foot after a while. I got to be ter'ble fond of her.
She was just the knowingest thing you ever saw, and she used to sleep
alongside of me in my bunk, and like as not she would go on deck with me
when it was my watch. I was coasting then for a year and eight months,
and I kept her all the time. We used to be in harbor consider'ble, and
about eight o'clock in the forenoon I used to drop a line and catch her
a couple of cunners. Now, it is cur'us that she used to know when I was
fishing for her. She would pounce on them fish and carry them off and
growl, and she knew when I got a bite,--she'd watch the line; but when
we were mackereling she never give us any trouble. She would never lift
a paw to touch any of our fish. She didn't have the thieving ways common
to most cats. She used to set round on deck in fair weather, and when
the wind blew she al'ays kept herself below. Sometimes when we were in
port she would go ashore awhile, and fetch back a bird or a mouse, but
she wouldn't eat it till she come and showed it to me. She never wanted
to stop long ashore, though I never shut her up; I always give her her
liberty. I got a good deal of joking about her from the fellows, but she
was a sight of company. I don' know as I ever had anything like me as
much as she did. Not to say as I ever had much of any trouble with
anybody, ashore or afloat. I'm a still kind of fellow, for all I look so
rough.

"But then, I han't had a home, what I call a home, since I was going on
nine year old."

"How has that happened?" asked Kate.

"Well, mother, she died, and I was bound out to a man in the tanning
trade, and I hated him, and I hated the trade; and when I was a little
bigger I ran away, and I've followed the sea ever since. I wasn't much
use to him, I guess; leastways, he never took the trouble to hunt me up.

"About the best place I ever was in was a hospital. It was in foreign
parts. Ye see I'm crippled some? I fell from the topsail yard to the
deck, and I struck my shoulder, and broke my leg, and banged myself all
up. It was to a nuns' hospital where they took me. All of the nuns were
Catholics, and they wore big white things on their heads. I don't
suppose you ever saw any. Have you? Well, now, that's queer! When I was
first there I was scared of them; they were real ladies, and I wasn't
used to being in a house, any way. One of them, that took care of me
most of the time, why, she would even set up half