r asked of James. "Captain Frost was laying on
his left side," said James. "Two of us took a holt of him and rolled him
over."

He had probably not the least suspicion that his language had a maritime
flavor. I asked him one night, as we coasted along toward home, "What do
seafaring men call the track of light that the moon makes on the water?
They must have some name for it" "No, no," he said, "they don't have no
name for it; they just call it 'the wake of the moon.'"

James's learning had been chiefly gained from the outside world and not
from books. I have heard him lay it down as a fact that the word "Bible"
had its etymology from the word "by-bill" (hand-bill). "It was writ,"
he said, "in small parcels, and they was passed around by them that writ
'em, like by-bills; and so when they hove it all into one, they called
it the Bible.'"

But while James had little learning himself, he appreciated it highly in
others. I had occasion to ask him once why it was that the son of one
of his neighbors, in closing up his father's estate, had not settled his
accounts regularly in the probate court. "Oh, I know how that was," he
replied; "he settled 'em the other way. You see, he went to the college
at Woonsocket, and he learned there how to settle accounts the other
way: and that's the way he settled 'em." And then he added, "When Alvin
left the college, they giv' him a book that tells how to do all kinds
of business, and what you want to do so's to make money; and Alvin has
always followed them rules. The consequence is, he's made money, and
what he 's made, he 's kep' it. I suppose he's worth not less than
sixteen hundred dollars."

Sometimes he would venture a remark of a gallant nature. "They don't
generally git the lights in the hall so as to suit me," he once said.
"I don't want it too light, because then it hurts my eyes; but I want it
light enough so as 't I can see the women!"

James was a large, strong man, but Mrs. Parsons, although she was little
and slight, and was always ailing, constantly assumed the role of her
husband's nurse and protector, not only in household matters, but in
other affairs of life. Whenever she had visitors,--and she and James
were hospitable in the extreme,--she was pretty sure to end up, sooner
or later, if James were present, with some droll criticism of him, as
much to his delight as to hers.

James sometimes liked to affect a certain harshness of demeanor; but the
disguise was a t