great paper bag of camphor-balls and a
great roll of tarred paper, who announced this truth.

Rain was falling in torrents. Even the Poor Boy did not feel like going
out. He looked with a certain longing at the bag of camphor balls.

"Going to put the furs away?"

Martha said that she was.

Time was hanging heavily that morning. There was neither music in the
Poor Boy nor desire to read.

"I think--" he began, and was ashamed.

"You think?"

"Nothing."

"Out with it."

"Just that--well, you see, I've never done it--always had you. But I'm
thinking it must be rather fun to fold things carefully, and put them in
cedar chests, and sprinkle moth-balls over them, and tuck them in with
tar-paper."

"And you think wrong," said Martha. "It is no fun at all."

"Oh!" said the Poor Boy. "You're used to it. You've always done it. But
I haven't."

"No more," said Martha, "have you ever knit a comforter."

"I think that would be fun too," twinkled the Poor Boy; "a very little
comforter. I should use very thick worsted and make very big, loopy,
spready stitches. I think, if you don't mind, I'll put my own things
away for the summer."

Martha clutched the bag and the roll of paper tighter. Her jaws set.

"Don't be selfish, Martha."

Her jaws relaxed.

"What do I do first, Martha?"

"First you get all your things in one place. Then you brush them and
fold them. Then you lay them away in the chests."

The Poor Boy, in shirt-sleeves, was soon busily employed, making in the
centre of the living-room an enormous pile of winter furs and
woolens--coonskin coats, Shetland socks, stockings, oily Norfolk coats
and mackintoshes, sweaters, mittens, fur gloves, fur robes, steamer
rugs, toques, and mackinaws.

The great pile finished, he sorted his things into smaller piles: a pile
to be thrown away, a pile to be given away, a pile to be kept.

A doubtful garment was a mackinaw of dark gray splashed with blood-color
and black. It had seen better days, on the one hand; on the other, it
was sound, and he had always liked the coloring. He carried it to the
light and looked it over carefully.

What was there about an old lumberman's coat to bring a look of
bewildered wonder into the Poor Boy's eyes? And what particular memories
did he associate with the last time of wearing it?

He closed his eyes, frowned, thought, remembered.

"I wore this," he said to himself, "the time I went down to the sea, and
nearly died getting