k up my sorrer, I chucked my head aginst the knob that was
atop o' the andiron! A curus way to git relief; but my diversions, them
times, was somewhat limited.

"When my mother came down agin, there wa' n't no tears in her eyes, but
they had a kind of a fur-reachin' look, as if they was a-gazin' clear
across the salt seas; and they never lost that look arterwards. It was
wofuller than tears, that look was,--'cause it seemed as if it was arter
somethin' that wa'n't to be found on this airth.

"I hung round her, and when she did n't say nothin' I told her I was
goin' to be the best boy that ever was, and build all the fires, and
help her to keep things snug; and that I could make my old shoes last
three year, till father would come home. I was sure on 't, with one new
pair o' half-soles, and one new pair o' toe-caps, anyhow.

"Then she took me on her knee, and leaned her face agin mine, and said I
was the best child in all the world, and she hoped yet to see the time
that I'd hev as nice shoes and other things as I deserved. I slipped the
ring up and down her finger, as she held me so, a-talkin' to me, and at
last I said, 'This ring is too big, mother; what made you get such a
big one?' And then she said, 'Your father give it to me long ago, my
child, and it wa'n't none too big at fust; it's the fault of the
finger,--that is getting too thin'; and then she took the ring off,--it
was a leetle slim thing,--and put it in an old teapot that was kept on
the top shelf of the cupboard. She was afeared she'd either lose it off
her hand, she said, or break it on the washboard. She didn't say nothin'
furder, but I see she thought that the losin' on 't would be the
dreadfullest misfortin that could happen to her.

"It would take too long, and wear out your patience, I calculate, if I
was to tell you of all the troubles we hed arter the sailin' of the
Dauphin, and troubles ain't interestin' to hear on, nohow; so I'll pass
'em by, trustin' your lively imagination to picter on 'em out.

"Well, when the three year was purty near up, she used to say to me
every day, 'Where do you 'spose poor father is? And what will he think
of his little boy when he sees him?' And then she would answer her own
question, and say, 'He'll think he's a little man,--that 's what he'll
think.' And with such like talk she seemed to get a sort of comfort,
somehow. From her, more than from anything I knowed myself, I got a fine
notion o' my father; among oth