ow that I'm getting to be along
in years myself, and likely to be some care to the folks before long. I
never could bear to see old folks neglected; nice old men and women who
have worked hard in their day and been useful and willin'. I've seen 'em
many a time when they couldn't help knowing that the folks would a
little rather they'd be in heaven, and a good respectable headstone put
up for 'em in the burying-ground.

"Well, now, I'm sure I've forgot what I was going to tell you. O, yes;
about grandmother dreaming about father when he come home from sea.
Well, to go back to the first of it, gran'ther never was rugged; he had
ship-fever when he was a young man, and though he lived to be so old, he
never could work hard and never got forehanded; and Aunt Hannah Starbird
over at East Parish took my sister to fetch up, because she was named
for her, and Melinda and Tobias stayed at home with the old folks, and
my father went to live with an uncle over in Riverport, whom he was
named for. He was in the West India trade and was well-off, and he had
no children, so they expected he would do well by father. He was
dreadful high-tempered. I've heard say he had the worst temper that was
ever raised in Deephaven.

"One day he set father to putting some cherries into a bar'l of rum, and
went off down to his wharf to see to the loading of a vessel, and afore
he come back father found he'd got hold of the wrong bar'l, and had
sp'ilt a bar'l of the best Holland gin; he tried to get the cherries
out, but that wasn't any use, and he was dreadful afraid of Uncle
Matthew, and he run away, and never was heard of from that time out.
They supposed he'd run away to sea, as he had a leaning that way, but
nobody ever knew for certain; and his mother she 'most mourned herself
to death. Gran'ther told me that it got so at last that if they could
only know for sure that he was dead it was all they would ask. But it
went on four years, and gran'ther got used to it some; though
grandmother never would give up. And one morning early, before day, she
waked him up, and says she, 'We're going to hear from Matthew. Get up
quick and go down to the store!' 'Nonsense,' says he. 'I've seen him,'
says grandmother, 'and he's coming home. He looks older, but just the
same other ways, and he's got long hair, like a horse's mane, all down
over his shoulders.' 'Well, let the dead rest,' says gran'ther; 'you've
thought about the boy till your head is turned.' 'I