make a new start. He moved down to Denby, and while he was getting
under way, he left his family up to the old place, and at the time I
speak of, was going to move 'em down in about a fortnight.

"One morning his wife was fidgeting round, and finally she came down
stairs with her bonnet and shawl on, and said somebody must put the
horse right into the wagon and take her down to Denby. 'Why, what for,
mother?' they says. 'Don't stop to talk,' says she; 'your father is
sick, and wants me. It's been a worrying me since before day, and I
can't stand it no longer.' And the short of the story is that she kept
hurrying 'em faster and faster, and then she got hold of the reins
herself, and when they got within five miles of the place the horse fell
dead, and she was nigh about crazy, and they took another horse at a
farm-house on the road. It was the spring of the year, and the going was
dreadful, and when they got to the house John Hathorn had just died, and
he had been calling for his wife up to 'most the last breath he drew. He
had been taken sick sudden the day before, but the folks knew it was bad
travelling, and that she was a feeble woman to come near thirty miles,
and they had no idee he was so bad off. I'm telling you the living
truth," said Captain Sands, with an emphatic shake of his head. "There's
more folks than me can tell about it, and if you were goin' to keel-haul
me next minute, and hang me to the yard-arm afterward, I couldn't say it
different. I was up to Parsonsfield to the funeral; it was just after I
quit following the sea. I never saw a woman so broke down as she was.
John was a nice man; stiddy and pleasant-spoken and straightforrard and
kind to his folks. He belonged to the Odd Fellows, and they all marched
to the funeral. There was a good deal of respect shown him, I tell ye.

"There is another story I'd like to have ye hear, if it's so that you
ain't beat out hearing me talk. When I get going I slip along as easy as
a schooner wing-and-wing afore the wind.

"This happened to my own father, but I never heard him say much about
it; never could get him to talk it over to any length, best I could do.
But gran'ther, his father, told me about it nigh upon fifty times,
first and last, and always the same way. Gran'ther lived to be old, and
there was ten or a dozen years after his wife died that he lived year
and year about with Uncle Tobias's folks and our folks. Uncle Tobias
lived over on the Ridge. I got