ould unhitch her, and started to do so,
notwithstanding my protests and explanations. At his approach she rose
on her hind-legs, and when he grasped her bridle she lifted him off his
feet. His expression as he hung in mid-air was an extraordinary mixture
of surprise and regret. The moment I touched her, however, she quieted
down, and when I got into the buggy and gathered up the reins she
walked off like a lamb, leaving the man staring after her with his eyes
starting from his head.

The previous owner had called the horse Daisy, and we never changed the
name, though it always seemed sadly inappropriate. Time proved, however,
that there were advantages in the ownership of Daisy. No man would allow
his wife or daughter to drive behind her, and no one wanted to borrow
her. If she had been a different kind of animal she would have been
used by the whole community, We kept Daisy for seven years, and our
acquaintance ripened into a pleasant friendship.

Another Cape Cod resident to whose memory I must offer tribute in
these pages was Polly Ann Sears--one of the dearest and best of my
parishioners. She had six sons, and when five had gone to sea she
insisted that the sixth must remain at home. In vain the boy begged
her to let him follow his brothers. She stood firm. The sea, she said,
should not swallow all her boys; she had given it five--she must keep
one.

As it happened, the son she kept at home was the only one who was
drowned. He was caught in a fish-net and dragged under the waters of
the bay near his home; and when I went to see his mother to offer such
comfort as I could, she showed that she had learned the big lesson of
the experience.

"I tried to be a special Providence," she moaned, "and the one boy I
kept home was the only boy I lost. I ain't a-goin' to be a Providence no
more."

The number of funerals on Cape Cod was tragically large. I was in
great demand on these occasions, and went all over the Cape, conducting
funeral services--which seemed to be the one thing people thought I
could do--and preaching funeral sermons. Besides the victims of the sea,
many of the residents who had drifted away were brought back to
sleep their last sleep within sound of the waves. Once I asked an old
sea-captain why so many Cape Cod men and women who had been gone for
years asked to be buried near their old homes, and his reply still
lingers in my memory. He poked his toe in the sand for a moment and then
said, slowly: