he was called a stiddy boy.
He married a daughter of Ichabod Pinkham's over to Oak Plains, and I saw
a son of his when I was taking care of Miss West last spring through
that lung fever--looked like his father. I wish I'd thought to tell him
about that Sunday. I heard he was waiting on that pretty Becket girl,
the orphan one that lives with Nathan Becket. Her father and mother was
both lost at sea, but she's got property."

"What did they say in church when the captain came in, Aunt Polly?" said
I.

"Well, a good many of them laughed--they couldn't help it, to save them;
but the cap'n he was some hard o' hearin', so he never noticed it, and
he set there in the corner and fanned him, as pleased and satisfied as
could be. The singers they had the worst time, but they had just come to
the end of a verse, and they played on the instruments a good while in
between, but I could see 'em shake, and I s'pose the tune did stray a
little, though they went through it well. And after the first fun of it
was over, most of the folks felt bad. You see, the cap'n had been very
much looked up to, and it was his misfortune, and he set there quiet,
listening to the preaching. I see some tears in some o' the old folks'
eyes: they hated to see him so broke in his mind, you know. There was
more than usual of 'em out that day; they knew how bad he'd feel if he
realized it. A good Christian man he was, and dreadful precise, I've
heard 'em say."

"Did he ever go again?" said I.

"I seem to forget," said Aunt Polly. "I dare say. I wasn't there but
from the last of June into November, and when I went over again it
wasn't for three years, and the cap'n had been dead some time. His mind
failed him more and more along at the last. But I'll tell you what he
did do, and it was the week after that very Sunday, too. He heard it
given out from the pulpit that the Female Missionary Society would meet
with Mis' William Sands the Thursday night o' that week--the sewing
society, you know; and he looked round to us real knowing; and Cousin
Statiry, says she to me, under her bonnet, 'You don't s'pose he'll want
to go?' and I like to have laughed right out. But sure enough he did,
and what do you suppose but he made us fix over a handsome black watered
silk for him to wear, that had been his sister's best dress. He said
he'd outgrown it dreadful quick. Cousin Statiry she wished to heaven
she'd thought to put it away, for Jacob had given it to her, and she w