ed a queen's gift in
kingly fashion.

He broke bread with us and from that moment we were all friends
together and forever. After we had eaten all we could, we sat at our
table for an hour and listened to Uncle Jesse telling us stories of
his life.

"If I talk too much you must jest check me," he said seriously, but
with a twinkle in his eyes. "When I do get a chance to talk to anyone
I'm apt to run on terrible."

He had been a sailor from the time he was ten years old, and some of
his adventures had such a marvellous edge that I secretly wondered if
Uncle Jesse were not drawing a rather long bow at our credulous
expense. But in this, as I found later, I did him injustice. His tales
were all literally true, and Uncle Jesse had the gift of the born
story-teller, whereby "unhappy, far-off things" can be brought vividly
before the hearer and made to live again in all their pristine
poignancy.

Mother and I laughed and shivered over Uncle Jesse's tales, and once
we found ourselves crying. Uncle Jesse surveyed our tears with
pleasure shining out through his face like an illuminating lamp.

"I like to make folks cry that way," he remarked. "It's a compliment.
But I can't do justice to the things I've seen and helped do. I've got
'em all jotted down in my life-book but I haven't got the knack of
writing them out properly. If I had, I could make a great book, if I
had the knack of hitting on just the right words and stringing
everything together proper on paper. But I can't. It's in this poor
human critter," Uncle Jesse patted his breast sorrowfully, "but he
can't get it out."

When Uncle Jesse went home that evening Mother asked him to come often
to see us.

"I wonder if you'd give that invitation if you knew how likely I'd be
to accept it," he remarked whimsically.

"Which is another way of saying you wonder if I meant it," smiled
Mother. "I do, most heartily and sincerely."

"Then I'll come. You'll likely be pestered with me at any hour. And
I'd be proud to have you drop over to visit me now and then too. I
live on that point yander. Neither me nor my house is worth coming to
see. It's only got one room and a loft and a stovepipe sticking out of
the roof for a chimney. But I've got a few little things lying around
that I picked up in the queer corners I used to be poking my nose
into. Mebbe they'd interest you."

Uncle Jesse's "few little things" turned out to be the most
interesting collection of curios I had