his moustache meditatively.

"I know!" he said. "Longfellow's poems. Mother thought a sight of
Longfellow's poems. John Alden, warn't it? and the old fellow was Miles
Standish? Yes, I rec'lect well. But you see, Mr. Cheeseman, the young
woman herself give him the tip that time. 'Why don't you speak for
yourself, John?' I rec'lect well enough. Now, Miss Hands never give me
any reason to think she'd rather have me than ary one of the boys."

"Has she given you any reason to think she wouldn't?" queried the old
man.

"Well--no! I don't know as she has."

"Well, then, where does the trouble come in? You're twice the man they
are, I take it, from all accounts. Don't know as ever I saw them, but I
knew the old woman, and used to hear of her goin's on bringing these
young uns up. I don't see as you're bound to canvass for them, no way in
the world. Rustle in and get her yourself, is what I say."

Calvin looked at him anxiously.

"You see, Mr. Cheeseman, it's this way," he said. "I think a sight of
her, don't I? I've said so, and I haven't said half. That bein' so,
nat'rally I want her to be well fixed, don't you see? The best that can
be, ain't that so? Now, either one of those two darned old huckleberries
can give her a first-rate home; as nice a place as there is in this
State, house, stock and fixin's all to match. A woman wants a home; one
of them old gooseberries said so, and it's true. Now, what have I got to
offer her? I've got a hole in the ground, and a candy route. You see how
it is, don't you, Mr. Cheeseman?"

Mr. Cheeseman reflected for a few minutes.

"Where's your savin's?" he asked abruptly. "You were master of a
coasting schooner for ten year, you say. Single man, and no bad habits,
I should judge,--you'd ought to have money in the bank, young man. What
have you done with it?"

Calvin hung his head.

"That's right!" he said. "That's so, Mr. Cheeseman. I had money in the
bank. Last year I drawed it out, like a fool; somebody'd been talkin'
investments to me, and I thought I could do better with it; and--well, I
had it on board, and there was a feller,--well, I needn't go into that.
I never thought he would have, if his mind had been quite straight. Wife
died, and he warn't the same man afterwards. You can see how 'twas! He
took it, and then got drownded with it in his pants pocket--or so it
seemed likely--so nobody got much out of that deal. I had some part of
it in another place, though, sufficient