hout--a much
more cleanly and respectable appearance than their own. They stopped
at the door to look in and say, "La, ye be slickin' up finely, Dirk!"
or, "Ye be gittin' fine ways, lately, man. An' what be all this fur?"

"Why," Dirk would answer, "I be 'shamed of livin' like a beast, man.
An' the young master be wishin' us to hev cleaner housen an' slicker,
an' I be willin' to do't ef he wish, now! He be a good lad to mend our
housen so finely, and w'u'd ye think I ben't willin' to do his wish?"

Noll was greatly encouraged at these signs of improvement, and
mentally rejoiced, hoping to see this new ambition spread till the
whole twelve houses were reclaimed from their present filth and
wretchedness.

The carpenter's work came to an end at last,--his labor all plain and
visible to every eye in patched walls, roofs, mended doors and
windows, and the general look of repair about the whole line of what
were once but the poorest of shelters. Sampson's task had been a hard
and bothersome one,--"Couldn't ha' got another man to teched it," the
skipper said,--and Noll expected, as he walked around to Culm one
afternoon with his roll of bills to pay the carpenter, that the bill
would be a large one,--perhaps even more than Ned's generous bounty
and his own amount of spending-money, saved since the lumber was
purchased, could meet. He found Sampson packing up his tools,--he was
to leave on the "Gull" the next morning,--with the bill all ready,
added up and written out on a bit of smooth shingle. It proved to be
five dollars less than the sum which Noll held in his hand.

"I swun!" said Sampson, roughly, as he counted over the bills which
the boy placed in his hands, "I told the skipper, comin' down, that
you was a born fool to be layin' out your money in this style. Now,
I've been thinkin' on't over all the while I've been hammerin' and
sawin', and I can't make out, to save my neck, how you're goin' to get
any return from this 'ere investment. 'Tain't payin' property, I
should judge," said the carpenter, looking up and down the beach.

"Of course I don't expect to get any money back from it," said Noll,
laughing a little at the idea. "It was to help these fish-folk and to
try and make them more comfortable that I did it."

Sampson put the roll of bills away in his capacious purse, remarking,
"Well, you're a queer un. I did the job right well, though, if I do
say it, and I ha'n't charged very steep for it, neit