r--oh, ay, zur--just leave un t' me! Ecod! zur,
I'm thinkin' he'll capsize with all hands when I tells un I'm t' have a
wheel-house on the forward deck o' that wha-a-ale!"

But the old man soon forgot all about his whales, as he had forgotten to
make out the strange way the Lord had discovered to fasten His stars to
the sky; moved by a long contemplation of my mother's frailty, he had a
nobler inspiration.

"'Tis sad, lass," he said, his face aquiver with sympathy, "t' think
that we've but one doctor t' cure the sick, an' him on the mail-boat.
'Tis _wonderful_ sad t' think o' that! 'Tis a hard case," he went on,
"but if a man only thunk hard enough he'd find a way t' mend it. Sure,
what _ought_ t' be mended _can_ be mended. 'Tis the way o' the world. If
a man only thinks hard an' thinks sensible, he'll find a way, zur, every
time. 'Tis easy t' think hard, but 'tis sometimes hard," he added, "t'
think t' the point."

We were silent while he continued lost in deep and puzzled thought.

"Ecod!" he burst out. "I got it!"

"Have you, now?" cried my father, half amused, half amazed.

"Just this minute, zur," said the skipper, in a glow of delighted
astonishment. "It come t' me all t' oncet."

"An' what is it?"

"'Tis a sort o' book, zur!"

"A book?"

"Ay, 'tis just a book. Find out all the cures in the world an' put un in
a book. Get the doctor-women's, an' the healers', an' the real doctor's,
an' put un right in a book. Has you got the dip-theria? Ask the book
what t' do. 'Dip-theria?' says the book t' you. 'Well, that's sad. Tie a
split herring round your neck.' S'pose you got the salt-water sores.
What do you do, then? Why, turn t' the book. 'Oh, 'tis nothin' t' cure
_that_,' says the book. 'Wear a brass chain on your wrist, lad, an'
you'll be troubled no more.' Take it, now, when you got blood-poison in
the hand. What is you t' do, you wants t' know? 'Blood-poison in the
hand?' says the book. 'Good gracious, that's awful! Cut off your hand.'
'Twould be a wonderful good work," the skipper concluded, "t' make a
book like that!" It appeared to me that it would.

"I wonder," the skipper went on, staring at the fire, a little smile
playing upon his face, "if _I_ couldn't do that! 'Twould surely be a
thing worth doin'. I wonder--I wonder--if I couldn't manage--somehow--t'
do it!"

We said nothing; for he was not thinking of us, any more, as we
knew--but only dreaming of the new and beneficent work which had of a