wers--I had quite a pretty flower
garden--for the last time, and then come in and set down in the rocker
to wait for the wagon that was goin' to move me. I got to thinkin' how
proud Jubal and me was when we bought that house and how we planned
about fixin' it up, and how our baby that died was born in it, and
how Jubal himself had died there, and told me that he was glad he was
leavin' me a home, at any rate; and I got so lonesome and discouraged
that I jest cried, I couldn't help it. But I've never found that cryin'
did much good, so I wiped my eyes and looked for somethin' to read to
take up my mind. And that Chime paper was what I took up.

"You see, there'd been a big excursion from Boston down the day before,
and some of the folks come down my way to have a sort of picnic. Two
of 'em, factory girls from Brockton, they was, come to the house for a
drink of water. They were gigglin', foolish enough critters, but I asked
'em in, and they eat their lunches on my table. They left two or three
story papers and that Chime thing when they went away.

"Well, I looked it over, and almost the first thing I saw was that
advertisement signed 'Skipper.' It didn't read like the other trashy
things in there, and it sounded honest. And all of a sudden it come over
me that I'd answer it. I was lonesome and tired and sort of didn't care,
and I answered it right off without waitin' another minute. That's all
there is to tell. When I come here to be housekeeper I wrote the folks
that's takin' care of my furniture--they're reel kind people; I was
goin' to board there if I had stayed in Nantucket--to keep it till I
come back. There! I meant to tell you this long ago, and I don't know
why I haven't."

The Captain knew why she hadn't. It was easy to read between the lines
the tale of the years of disappointment and anxiety. Such stories are
not easy to tell, and he respected the widow more than ever for the
simple way in which she had told hers.

"That Land Company bus'ness," he said, "carried off a good lot of Cape
Cod money. I never saw but one man that I thought was glad it busted,
and that was old Caleb Weeks, over to Harniss. The old man was rich,
but closer 'n the bark of a tree--he'd skin a flea for the hide and
taller--and used to be a hard case into the bargain. One time they had
a big revival over there and he got religion. The boys used to say what
caught Caleb was the minister's sayin' salvation was free. Well, anyhow,
he g