the same in external
appearance, those who occupy them at the present day are vastly
different from those who owned and lived in them then. Here is the
greatest change which time has brought to old Bayport. Now those
houses--the majority of them--are open only in summer; then they were
open all the year. They who come to them now regard them as playthings,
good-time centers for twelve or fourteen weeks. Then they were the homes
of men and women who were proud of them, loved them, meant to live in
them--while on land--as long as life was theirs; to die in them if
fortunate enough to be found by death while ashore; and at last to be
buried near them, under the pines of the Bayport cemetery. Now these
homes are used by business men or lawyers or doctors, whose real homes
are in Boston, New York, Chicago, or other cities. Then practically
every house was owned or occupied either by a sea captain, active or
retired, or by a captain's widow or near relative.

For example, as Captain Kendrick sat in his brother-in-law's yard on
that June morning of that year in the early '70's, within his sight,
that is within the half mile from curve to curve of the lower road, were
no less than nine houses in which dwelt--or had dwelt--men who gained a
living upon a vessel's quarter deck. Directly across the road was the
large, cupola-crowned house of Captain Solomon Snow. Captain Sol was at
present somewhere between Surinam and New York, bound home. His wife was
with him, so was his youngest child. The older children were at home, in
the big house; their aunt, Captain Sol's sister, herself a captain's
widow, was with them.

Next to Captain Solomon's was the Crowell place. Captain Bethuel Crowell
was in Hong Kong, but, so his wife reported at sewing circle, had
expected to sail from there "any day about now" bound for Melbourne.
Next to Captain Bethuel lived Mrs. Patience Foster, called "Mary Pashy"
by the townspeople to distinguish her from another Mary Foster in East
Bayport. Her husband had been drowned at sea, or at least so it was
supposed. His ship left Philadelphia eight years before and had never
been spoken or heard from since that time. Next to Mary-Pashy's was the
imposing, if ugly, residence of Captain Elkanah Wingate. Captain Elkanah
was retired, wealthy, a member of the school-committee, a selectman, an
aristocrat and an autocrat. And beyond Captain Elkanah lived Captain
Godfrey Peasley--who was not quite of the aristocracy a