the wind blowing right on
to shore?"

"I shouldn't wonder if Cap'n Kittridge should be out on the beach, too,"
said Miss Ruey; "but laws, he ain't much more than one of these 'ere old
grasshoppers you see after frost comes. Well, any way, there _ain't_
much help in man if a ship comes ashore in such a gale as this, such a
dark night too."

"It's kind o' lonesome to have poor little Mara away such a night as
this is," said Mrs. Pennel; "but who would a-thought it this afternoon,
when Aunt Roxy took her?"

"I 'member my grandmother had a silver cream-pitcher that come ashore
in a storm on Mare P'int," said Miss Ruey, as she sat trotting her
knitting-needles. "Grand'ther found it, half full of sand, under a knot
of seaweed way up on the beach. It had a coat of arms on it,--might have
belonged to some grand family, that pitcher; in the Toothacre family
yet."

"I remember when I was a girl," said Mrs. Pennel, "seeing the hull of a
ship that went on Eagle Island; it run way up in a sort of gully between
two rocks, and lay there years. They split pieces off it sometimes to
make fires, when they wanted to make a chowder down on the beach."

"My aunt, Lois Toothacre, that lives down by Middle Bay," said Miss
Ruey, "used to tell about a dreadful blow they had once in time of the
equinoctial storm; and what was remarkable, she insisted that she heard
a baby cryin' out in the storm,--she heard it just as plain as could
be."

"Laws a-mercy," said Mrs. Pennel, nervously, "it was nothing but the
wind,--it always screeches like a child crying; or maybe it was the
seals; seals will cry just like babes."

"So they told her; but no,--she insisted she knew the difference,--it
_was_ a baby. Well, what do you think, when the storm cleared off, they
found a baby's cradle washed ashore sure enough!"

"But they didn't find any baby," said Mrs. Pennel, nervously.

"No; they searched the beach far and near, and that cradle was all they
found. Aunt Lois took it in--it was a very good cradle, and she took it
to use, but every time there came up a gale, that ar cradle would rock,
rock, jist as if somebody was a-sittin' by it; and you could stand
across the room and see there wa'n't nobody there."

"You make me all of a shiver," said Mrs. Pennel.

This, of course, was just what Miss Ruey intended, and she went on:--

"Wal', you see they kind o' got used to it; they found there wa'n't no
harm come of its rockin', and so they didn't mind