es look kind o' lonesome a-goin' ter rack an' ruin. Why, the winter I
was over here, every man had his wife an' young 'uns on the Beach,
'cept me an' Sam'l."

Again the keeper sighed, and drew his coverlid closer. "Now, it's just
men, men, nothing but men. Not a petticoat in five miles; and I tell
you, sometimes we get mad looking at one another, don't we, boys?"

The two young men had sobered, and their faces also had taken on that
look engendered by a life of dull routine among sand-hills at the edge
of a lonely sea, with seldom the sound of a woman's voice in their ears
or the prattle of little children.

"For two months last winter nobody came near us," said Havens, "and we
couldn't get off ourselves, either, half the time. The bay broke up into
porridge-ice after that big storm around New Year's; yew dasn't risk a
scooter on it or a cat-boat. Feels to me," he added, as he rose to his
feet, "as if it was blowin' up a genuwine old nor'-easter again."

The other man helped him clear the table. "I'm goin' to get married in
June," he said suddenly, "and give up this here blamed Service."

"A wife," pronounced Abe, carrying his own dishes into the kitchen, "is
dretful handy, onct yew git used to her."

The keeper went into the office with a somewhat hurried "Good-night,"
and soon Abe found himself alone again, the light in the kitchen beyond,
no sound in the room save that of the booming of the surf, the rattling
of the windows, and now and again the fall of a clinker in the stove.

The old man was surprised to find that he could not fall back into that
blissful slumber again. Not sleeping, he had to think. He thought and
thought,--sober night thoughts,--while the oysters "laid like a log in
his stummick" and the coffee seemed to stir his brain to greater
activity.

"Suppose," said the intoxicated brain, "another big storm should swoop
down upon you and the bay should break up, and you and Samuel should be
imprisoned on the beach for two or three months with a handful of
men-folks!"

"Moo! Moo!" roared the breakers on the shore. "Serve you right for
finding fault with the sisters!"

Come to think of it, if he had not been so ungracious of Miss Abigail's
concern for him, he would now be in possession of a hop pillow to lull
him back to sleep. Well, he had made his bed, and he would have to lie
on it, although it was a hard old carpet-covered lounge. Having no hop
pillow, he would count sheep--

One sheep goin