tell you I saw
Matthew himself,' says she, 'and I want you to go right down to see if
there isn't a letter.' And she kept at him till he saddled the horse,
and he got down to the store before it was opened in the morning, and he
had to wait round, and when the man came over to unlock it he was 'most
ashamed to tell what his errand was, for he had been so many times, and
everybody supposed the boy was dead. When he asked for a letter, the man
said there was none there, and asked if he was expecting any particular
one. He didn't get many letters, I s'pose; all his folks lived about
here, and people didn't write any to speak of in those days. Gran'ther
said he thought he wouldn't make such a fool of himself again, but he
didn't say anything, and he waited round awhile, talking to one and
another who came up, and by and by says the store-keeper, who was
reading a newspaper that had just come, 'Here's some news for you,
Sands, I do believe! There are three vessels come into Boston harbor
that have been out whaling and sealing in the South Seas for three or
four years, and your son Matthew's name is down on the list of the
crew.' 'I tell ye,' says gran'ther, 'I took that paper, and I got on my
horse and put for home, and your grandmother she hailed me, and she
said, "You've heard, haven't you?" before I told her a word.'

"Gran'ther he got his breakfast and started right off for Boston, and
got there early the second day, and went right down on the wharves.
Somebody lent him a boat, and he went out to where there were two
sealers laying off riding at anchor, and he asked a sailor if Matthew
was aboard. 'Ay, ay,' says the sailor, 'he's down below.' And he sung
out for him, and when he come up out of the hold his hair was long, down
over his shoulders like a horse's mane, just as his mother saw it in the
dream. Gran'ther he didn't know what to say,--it scared him,--and he
asked how it happened; and father told how they'd been off sealing in
the South Seas, and he and another man had lived alone on an island for
months, and the whole crew had grown wild in their ways of living, being
off so long, and for one thing had gone without caps and let their hair
grow. The rest of the men had been ashore and got fixed up smart, but he
had been busy, and had put it off till that morning; he was just going
ashore then. Father was all struck up when he heard about the dream, and
said his mind had been dwellin' on his mother and going home, a