ss
them if all the farmers' daughters went suddenly down to the sea in
ships--but it is possible to have too much of a good thing, and such had
been my feeling for some years.

So suddenly and completely did my threadbare endurance give way that if
Frank had revoked his words the next minute, I must have gone away at
once to some crowded place and drawn a few deep breaths of excitement
before I could have joined again the broken ends of my patience.

No bride-elect poor in this world's goods ever went about the
preparations for her wedding with more delicious awe than I felt in
turning one old gown upside down, and another inside out, for seafaring
use. There was excitement enough in the departure, the inevitable
sea-changes, and finally the memory of it all, to keep my mind busy for
a few weeks, but when we settled into the grooves of a tropical voyage,
wafted along as easily by the trade winds as if some gigantic hand,
unseen and steady, had us in its grasp, my life was wholly changed, and
yet it bore an odd family resemblance to the days at the farm. It was a
pleasant dullness, because, in the nature of things, it must soon have
an end.

I went on deck to look at a passing ship about as often as I used to run
to the window at the sound of carriagewheels. One can't take a very
intimate interest in whales and the other seamonsters unless one is
scientific. Time died with me a slow but by no means a painful death. I
used to fold my hands and look at them by the hour, internally
rollicking over the idea that there was no milk to skim or dishes to
wash, or any earthly wheel in motion that required my shoulder to turn
it. I spent much time in a half-awake state in the long warm days, out
of sheer delight in wasting time after saving it all my life.

So it came about that I slept lightly o' nights. Every morning the
steward came into the cabin with the first dawn of day to scour his
floors before the captain should appear. He had a habit of talking to
himself over this early labor, and one morning, more awake than usual, I
found that he was praying. "O Lord, be good to me! I wasn't to blame. I
would have helped her if I could. O Lord, be good to me!" and other
homely entreaties were repeated again and again.

He was a meek, bowed old negro, with snowy hair, and so many wrinkles
that all expression was shrunk out of his face. He was an excellent
cook, but he waited on table with a manner so utterly despairing that
it t