re, Sim and Samuel, I'd say to her, 'Show
me the Mary Sands in petticoats and if she was agreeable I'd never need
to be called rover again."

"Why," began Mr. Sim again; but again his cousin cut him short with less
than her usual courtesy. "She must be a picture of a vessel, surely, Mr.
Parks. And how come you to leave, if you liked the life so well? I'm
sure Cousins want to hear about that, and I should be pleased too."

Calvin pulled at his pipe in silence for several minutes.

"'Tis hard to explain," he said at last. "I don't know as I can make it
clear to you, Miss Hands; but it's a fact that a seaman, and especially
a coastwise seaman, now and then takes a hankerin' after the land.
Deep-sea voyages, you just don't think about it, and 'twouldn't make no
difference if you did. But slippin' along shore, seein' handsome
prospects, you know, and hills risin' up and ro'ds climbin' over them
and goin' somewhere, you don't know where--and now and then a village,
and mebbe hear the church bells ringin' and you forgettin' 'twas
Sunday--now and then, some ways, it gets a holt of you.

"Well, it's goin' on a year now that one of them spells come over me. I
rec'lect well, 'twas a hot day in August. We was becalmed off the mouth
of the river, and the Mary couldn't make no headway, 'peared as though.
The crew stuck their jackknives into the mainmast, and whistled all they
knew for a wind; and I set there and watched the sails playin' Isick
and Josh, Isick and Josh, till, honest, I could feel the soul creakin'
inside me with tiredness. I expect the sun kind o' scrambled my brains,
same as a dish of eggs; for bumbye a tug come along, goin' to the city,
and I wasted good money by gettin' a tow and pullin' into port two days
ahead of schedule time. Now see what I got for it! I went to the office,
and there was a letter from a lawyer sayin' my owner was dead and had
left the schooner to his niece. I didn't read no further, and to this
day I don't know what the woman's name is. I set down and took up the
paper; at first I was too mad to read. I don't know just what I was mad
at, neither, but so it was. Pretty soon my eye fell on a notice of a
candy route for sale, hoss and waggin', good-will and fixtures, the
whole concern. 'That's me!' I says. 'No woman in mine!'

"I'm showing you what an incapable pumpkin-head I was, Miss Hands, so
you can see I ain't keepin' nothin' back. All about it, I sent my papers
to the lawyer that night,