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gipsies frum 'way back."

"Wal, I don't profess to be any elocutionist," Salters said. "I'm
comin' to the moral o' things. That's jest abaout what aour Harve
be! Ha'af on the taown, an' t'other ha'af blame fool; an' there's
some'll believe he's a rich man. Yah!"

"Did ye ever think how sweet 'twould be to sail wid a full crew o'
Salterses?" said Long Jack. "Ha'af in the furrer an' other ha'af
in the muck-heap, as Ca'houn did not say, an' makes out he's a
fisherman!"

A little laugh went round at Salters's expense.

Disko held his tongue, and wrought over the log-book that he kept
in a hatchet-faced, square hand; this was the kind of thing that
ran on, page after soiled page:

"July 17. This day thick fog and few fish. Made berth to
northward. So ends this day.

"July 18. This day comes in with thick fog. Caught a few fish.

"July 19. This day comes in with light breeze from N. E. and fine
weather. Made a berth to eastward. Caught plenty fish.

"July 20. This, the Sabbath, comes in with fog and light winds. So
ends this day. Total fish caught this week, 3,478."

They never worked on Sundays, but shaved, and washed themselves if
it were fine, and Pennsylvania sang hymns. Once or twice he
suggested that, if it was not an impertinence, he thought he could
preach a little. Uncle Salters nearly jumped down his throat at
the mere notion, reminding him that he was not a preacher and
mustn't think of such things. We'd hev him rememberin' Johnstown
next," Salters explained, "an' what would happen then?" So they
compromised on his reading aloud from a book called "Josephus." It
was an old leather-bound volume, smelling of a hundred voyages,
very solid and very like the Bible, but enlivened with accounts of
battles and sieges; and they read it nearly from cover to cover.
Otherwise Penn was a silent little body. He would not utter a word
for three days on end sometimes, though he played checkers,
listened to the songs, and laughed at the stories. When they tried
to stir him up, he would answer. "I don't wish to seem
unneighbourly, but it is because I have nothing to say. My head
feels quite empty. I've almost forgotten my name." He would turn
to Uncle Salters with an expectant smile.

"Why, Pennsylvania Pratt," Salters would shout. "You'll fergit me
next!"

"No - never," Penn would say, shutting his lips firmly.
"Pennsylvania Pratt, of course," he would repeat over and over.
Sometimes it was Uncle Salters who forgot, and told him he was
Haskins or Rich or McVitty; but Penn was equally content - till
next time.

He was always very tender with Harvey, whom he pitied both as a
lost child and as a lunatic; and when Salters saw that Penn liked
the boy, he relaxed, too. Salters was not an amiable person (he
esteemed it his business to keep the boys in order); and the first
time Harvey, in fear and trembling, on a still day, managed to
shin up to the main-truck (Dan was behind him ready to help), he

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