t keep a tear from coming out upon his plump and rosy cheek.

"Good by," said Fred, and, as he said it, there were two tears at the
very least on his.

"Good by," dear little Alice would have said, though she didn't; but
instead she threw her arms about the old man's neck and kissed his
sunburnt cheek.

"Good by," the Captain was about to say again, but (he was always good
at getting out of scrapes) at that very moment he contracted a suspicion
that something moist was getting up into his own big hazel eyes; and so
he began to whistle briskly, and then to cry out, loud enough to call
all hands to close reef the topsails in a gale of wind: "Port and
Starboard! Port and Starboard! come here, old curs and landlubbers that
you are,--come, bear a hand and be lively there, and say 'good by.'"

And along Port and Starboard came, bounding at a tremendous rate,
barking "good by" at every bound, and with their great bushy tails
wagging "good by" besides.

The foreign ducks stopped shovelling and spattering mud, and quacked
"good by."

The chickens stopped stuffing themselves with grasshoppers, and, while
the hens cackled "good by," the roosters crowed it.

And, lastly, Main Brace came waddling along on his sausage legs, and
from his plum-duff head let off "good by" at intervals, as a revolving
gun lets off its balls, without appearing to have any more idea of what
it was all about than the gun itself, until he reached the arbor, when
he broke out into a loud "boo-hoo," which was the only "good by" he was
now equal to; and as the first "boo-hoo" let loose a second, and the
second a third, and the third a deluge and an earthquake all in one,
there is no knowing what might have happened, had not the children
scampered off and stopped the outburst,--Fred running on ahead, and
William following after, leading his sister Alice by the hand, while
the gentle little girl turned every dozen steps to throw back through
the tender evening air, from her dainty little fingertips, a loving
kiss (there was no laughing now) to the Ancient Mariner, whose face
beamed brightly on her from the arbor door, and whose lips were saying
plainly, "Good by, and God bless you till you come again!"

***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAST AWAY IN THE COLD***

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