my dogs had brought up
for the night. But the generously served supper, with the tin of milk
and the pot of berry jam, kept in case some one might come along, and
the genial features of my hospitable host, slowly puffing at his pipe
on the other side of the fireplace, made me boldly insistent.

"Oh, not anything special, Uncle Eph, just some yarn of an adventure
with your dogs in the old days."

Uncle Eph ruminated for quite a while, but I saw by the solid puffs he
was taking at his pipe that his mind was working. Then a big smile,
broader than ever, lit up his face, and he said slowly:

"Well, if you're so minded, I'll tell you a yarn about a fellow
called 'Sally' who lived down our way in my early days."

At this I just settled down comfortably to listen.

Of course Sally was only a nickname, but on our coast nicknames last a
man all his life. Thus my last patient, a woman of forty-odd years,
trying to-day to identify herself, explained, "Why, you must know my
father, Doctor. He be called 'Powder'--'Mr. Powder,' because of his
red hair and whiskers."

Sally's proper nickname was apparently "Chief," which the boys had
given him because he had been a regular "Huck Finn" among the others.
But in young manhood--some said it was because "Marjorie Sweetapple
went and took Johnnie Barton instead o' he"--somehow or other "Chief"
took a sudden "turn." This expression on our coast usually means a
religious "turn," or a turn such as people take when "they sees
something and be going to die"; it may be a ghost or sign. But this
turn was neither. It was just a plain common "turn."

It had manifested itself in "Chief" by his no longer going about with
the other boys, by his habits becoming solitary, and by his neglecting
his personal appearance, especially in letting his very abundant hair
grow longer than fashion dictates for the young manhood of the coast.
That was the reason some wag one day dubbed him "Absalom," which the
rest caught up and soon shortened to "Sally." In the proper order of
things it should have been "Abe." Wasn't Absalom Sims always called
"Abe"? There was obviously an intentional tinge of satire in this
unusual abbreviation.

Whether it was due to the "turn" or not, the fact remained that at the
advanced age of four and twenty Sally was still unmarried. He lived
and fished and hunted mostly alone. No one, therefore, had much to say
of him, good or bad. In its kindly way the coast just left him alone,