-the greatness of my body and the soaring
courage of my soul. This in the innocent way of a lad; and by grace of
your recollection I shall not be blamed for it. Fourteen and something
more? 'Twas a mighty age! What did it lack, thinks I, of power and
wisdom? To be sure I strutted the present most haughtily and eyed the
future with as saucy a flash as lads may give. The thing delighted my
uncle; he would chuckle and clap me on the back and cry, "That's very
good!" until I was wrought into a mood of defiance quite ridiculous.
But still 'tis rather grateful to recall: for what's a lad's boasting
but the honest courage of a man? I would serve my uncle; but 'twas not
all: I would serve Judith. She was now come into our care: I would
serve her.

"They won't nothin' hurt _she_!" thinks I.

I am glad to recall that this boyish love took a turn so chivalrous....

* * * * *

When 'twas noised abroad that my uncle was to refit the _Shining
Light_, Twist Tickle grew hilarious. "Laugh an you will, lads," says
my uncle, then about the business of distributing genial invitations
to the hauling-down. "'Tis a gift o' the good Lord t' be able t' do
it. The ol' girl out there haven't a wonderful lot to admire, an'
she's nowhere near t' windward o' forty; but I'll show ye, afore I'm
through, that she'll stand by in a dirty blow, an I jus' asks she t'
try. Ye'll find, lads," says he, "when ye're so old as me, an' sailed
t' foreign parts, that they's more to a old maid or a water-side widow
than t' many a lass o' eighteen. The ol' girl out there haves a mean
allowance o' beauty, but she've a character that isn't talked about
after dark; an' when I buys her a pair o' shoes an' a new gown, why,
ecod! lads, ye'll think she's a lady. 'Tis one way," says he, "that
ladies is _made_."

This occurred at Eli Flack's stage of an evening when a mean, small
catch was split and the men-folk were gathered for gossip. 'Twas after
sunset, with fog drifting in on a lazy wind: a glow of red in the
west. Our folk were waiting for the bait-skiff, which had long been
gone for caplin, skippered, this time, by the fool of Twist Tickle.

"Whatever," says my uncle, "they'll be a darn o' rum for ye, saved and
unsaved, when she've been hauled down an' scraped. An' will ye come t'
the haulin'-down?"

That they would!

"I knowed ye would," says my uncle, as he stumped away, "saved an'
unsaved."

The bait-skiff conch-