But I don't see her putting in
another long stretch. . . .

"She has taken her position as cook's mate seriously, and shares
the galley with the cook, a sorrow-stricken little Portugee whose
wife ran away with another man during the last trip. He pours out
his woes to her while she wipes away the tears from the lobscouse.
I don't know how she stands it, for even I, who've got a pretty
strong stomach, draw the line at the galley. But she loves it. Now
and again, when it's my watch--I'm on the starboard watch, you
know--I see her turn out in the morning at two bells. She stands
for a few moments right aft of her cabin-door, and fills her lungs.
And the wind tugs at her hair beneath her cap, and at her skirts,
and the spindrift from the pale grey sea of dawn stings at her
face; and then she lurches like a sailor down the wet, slanting
deck--and I can tell you, she looks a devilish fine figure of a
woman. And soon afterwards there comes from the galley the smell of
bacon and eggs--my son, if you don't know the conglomerate smell of
fried bacon and eggs, bilge water, and the salt of the pure early
morning ocean, your ideas of perfume are rudimentary. She and the
Portugee between them, he contributing the science and she the
good-will, give us excellent grub; of course you would turn your
nose up at it--but you've never been hungry in your life! and there
hasn't been a grumble in the cabin. Maturin has offered her the
permanent job. Certainly she looks after us and attends to our
comforts in a way sailor men on tramps aren't accustomed to. She's
a great pal of the second mate's and at night they play
spoiled-five at a corner of the table, with the greasiest pack of
cards you ever saw, and she's perfectly happy.

"Now and again we discuss the future, without arriving at any
result. A day or two ago I chaffed her about marriage. She
considered the matter gravely.

"'I guess I'll have to. I'm twenty-four. But I haven't had much
luck so far, have I?'

"I replied: 'You won't always strike wrong 'uns.'

"'I don't know what kind of a man I'm going to strike,' she said.
'Not any of those little billy-goats in dinner jackets I used to
meet at Mrs. Jardine's. No, sirree. And no more Ras Fendihooks!'

"She rose--we had been sitting on the cabin sky