alf split open, an' I could see the tin cans shinin' through the
crack. I give one jump at it, an' wrenched the side off. On the top
of the first can I seed was a picture of a big white peach with green
leaves. That box had been blowed up so high that if it had come down
anywhere 'cept among them splinters it would 'a' smashed itself to
flinders, or killed somebody. So fur as I know, it was the only thing
that fell nigh us, an' by George, sir, I got it! When I had finished a
can of 'em I hunted up Andy, an' then we went aft an' eat some more.
`Well,' says Andy, as we was a-eatin', `how d'ye feel now about blowin'
up your wife, an' your house, an' that little schooner you was goin' to
own?'

"`Andy,' says I, `this is the joyfulest Christmas I've had yit, an' if
I was to live till twenty hundred I don't b'lieve I'd have no joyfuler,
with things comin' in so pat; so don't you throw no shadders.'

"`Shadders!' says Andy. `That ain't me. I leave that sort of thing
fur Tom Simmons.'

"`Shadders is cool,' says I, `an' I kin go to sleep under all he
throws.'

"Well, sir," continued old Silas, putting his hand on the tiller and
turning his face seaward, "if Tom Simmons had kept command of that
wreck, we all would 'a' laid there an' waited an' waited till some of
us was starved, an' the others got nothin' fur it, fur the cap'n never
mended his engine, an' it wasn't more'n a week afore we was took off,
an' then it was by a sailin' vessel, which left the hull of the Water
Crescent behind her, just as she would 'a' had to leave the Mary
Auguster if that jolly old Christmas wreck had been there.

"An' now, sir," said Silas, "d'ye see that stretch o' little ripples
over yander, lookin' as if it was a lot o' herrin' turnin' over to dry
their sides? Do you know what that is? That's the supper wind. That
means coffee, an' hot cakes, an' a bit of br'iled fish, an' pertaters,
an' p'r'aps, if the old woman feels in a partiklar good humor, some
canned peaches--big white uns, cut in half, with a holler place in the
middle filled with cool, sweet juice."

MY WELL AND WHAT CAME OUT OF IT

Early in my married life I bought a small country estate which my wife
and I looked upon as a paradise. After enjoying its delight for a
little more than a year our souls were saddened by the discovery that
our Eden contained a serpent. This was an insufficient water-supply.

It had been a rainy season when we first went there, and f