ot one of us who dwelt on the neck of
land by the Lost Soul would have feared to adventure anywhere aboard.

The fool of Twist Tickle pulled a long face.

"Hut, Moses!" I maintained; "she'll do very well. Jus' look at her!"

"Mother always 'lowed," says he, "that a craft was like a woman. An'
since mother died, I've come t' learn for myself, Dannie," he drawled,
"that the more a woman haves in the way o' looks the less weather
she'll stand. I've jus' come, now," says he, "from overhaulin' a
likely maid at Chain Tickle."

I looked up with interest.

"Jinny Lawless," says he. "Ol' Skipper Garge's youngest by the
third."

My glance was still inquiring.

"Ay, Dannie," he sighed; "she've declined."

"You've took a look," I inquired, "at the maids o' Long Bill Hodge o'
Sampson's Island?"

He nodded.

"An' they've--"

"_All_ declined," says he.

"Never you care, Moses," said I. "Looks or no looks, you'll find the
_Shining Light_ stand by when _she_ puts to sea."

"I'll not be aboard," says he.

"You're not so sure about that!" quoth I.

"I wouldn't ship," he drawled. "I'd never put t' sea on she: for
mother," he added, "wouldn't like t' run the risk."

"You dwell too much upon your mother," said I.

"She's all I got in the way o' women," he answered. "All I got,
Dannie--yet."

"But when you gets a wife--"

"Oh," he interrupted, "Mrs. Moses Shoos won't mind _mother_!"

"Still an' all," I gravely warned him, "'tis a foolish thing t' do."

"Well, Dannie," he drawled, in a way so plaintive that I found no
answer to his argument, "I _is_ a fool. I'm told so every day, by men
an' maids, wherever I goes; an' I jus' can't help _bein'_ foolish."

"God made you," said I.

"An' mother always 'lowed," said Moses, "that He knowed what He was up
to. An', Dannie," says he, "she always 'lowed, anyhow, that _she_ was
satisfied."

'Twas of a Sunday evening--upon the verge of twilight: with the light
of day still abroad, leaving the hills of Twin Islands clear-cut
against the blue sky, but falling aslant, casting long shadows. Came,
then, straggling from the graveyard in the valley by Thunder Head, the
folk of our harbor. 'Twas all over, it seemed; they had buried old Tom
Hossie. Moses and I sat together on the hill by Old Wives' Cove, in
the calm of the day and weather: there was no wind stirring--no drip
of oar to be heard, no noise of hammer, no laughter of children, no
cry or call of labor. They had buried ol