there wasn't any other way.
And because ships had come there for a great many years and all the
sailors and all the captains and all the men who had business with the
ships had to go on that narrow road, the flagstones that made the
sidewalks were much worn. That was a great many years ago.

The river and the ocean are there yet, as they always have been and
always will be; and the city is there, but it is a different kind of a
city from what it used to be. And the wharf is slowly falling down, for
it is not used now; and the narrow road down the steep hill is all grown
up with weeds and grass.

Many times, in the long ago, the brig _Industry_ had sailed from that
wharf, on voyages to far countries, and had come back again to the
wharf, bringing spices and tea and sets of china and pretty little
tables inlaid with ivory and ebony, and camel's hair shawls, and cloth
of goat's hair, and logs of teak-wood to make things of, and many
another beautiful thing. And, when Captain Jonathan and Captain Jacob
moved their office to Boston, she had sailed from a wharf in Boston to
that far country. Captain Solomon was the captain of the _Industry_
then. And Captain Solomon married and had sons, and when those sons were
beginning to get old enough to go to sea, Captain Solomon stopped being
a captain and became a farmer. For he didn't want his sons to go to sea,
and he thought that, if he had a farm, away from the salt ocean, they
wouldn't go. So he bought the farm that it tells about in the Farm
Stories. But little Sol ran away to sea, just the same; and he got to be
the captain of the _Industry_.

And Captain Jonathan got to be an old man, and he died peacefully. And
still the brig _Industry_ sailed to that far country and sailed back
again. And the years passed, and Captain Jacob got to be a very old man,
and he died, too; and Lois was an old woman, and little Jacob, her son,
had grown to be a man, and little Lois, her daughter, had grown up and
married. And still the brig _Industry_ sailed on her voyages and came
back again, but she was getting to be old, too.

[Illustration: "MANY TIMES HAD SHE BEEN TIED UP AT THAT WHARF"]

And, at last, after more years had passed, the _Industry_ was so old
that she needed to have a lot done to her to make her safe. And her
owners decided that it wasn't worth while to rebuild an old vessel, but
they would build a new one instead; for they didn't build the kind of
ship that the _Industry_ w