e door and hung his damp coat and cap over a suit of old
oilskins. He came to the fire, taking off his mittens and blowing on his
fingers, the suspicious and condemnatory tail of his eye on Abraham.

"Haow'd yew git here?" he burst forth. "What yew bin an' done with my
wife, an' my horse, an' my man, an' my kerridge? Haow'd yew git here?
What'd yew come fer? When'd yew git here?"

"What'd yew come fer?" retorted Abe with some spirit. "Haow'd yew git
here?"

"None o' yer durn' business."

A glimmer of the old twinkle came back into Abe's eye, and he began to
chuckle.

"I guess we might as waal tell the truth, Sam'l. We both tried to be so
all-fired young yesterday that we got played out, an' concluded
unanermous that the best place fer a A No. 1 spree was ter hum."

Samuel gave a weak smile, and drawing up a stool took the cat upon his
knee.

"Yes," he confessed grudgingly, "I found out fer one that I hain't no
spring lamb."

"Ner me, nuther," Abe's old lips trembled. "I had eyester-stew an' drunk
coffee in the middle o' the night; then the four-o'clock patrol wakes me
up ag'in. 'Here, be a sport,' they says, an' sticks a piece o' hot
mince-pie under my nose. Then I was so oneasy I couldn't sleep. Daybreak
I got up, an' went fer a walk ter limber up my belt, an' I sorter
wandered over ter the bay side, an' not a mile out I see tew men with
one o' them big fishin'-scooters a-haulin' in their net. An' I walked a
ways out on the ice, a-signalin' with my bandana han'kercher; an' arter
a time they seen me. 'T was Cap'n Ely from Injun Head an' his boy. Haow
them young 'uns dew grow! Las' time I see that kid, he wa' n't knee-high
tew a grasshopper.

"Waal, I says tew 'em, I says: 'Want ter drop a passenger at Twin
Coves?' 'Yes, yes,' they says. 'Jump in.' An' so, Sam'I, I gradooated
from yer school o' hardenin' on top a ton o' squirmin' fish, more er
less. I thought I'd come an' git Angy," he ended with a sigh, "an' yer
hired man 'd drive us back ter Shoreville; but thar wa' n't nobody hum
but a mewin' cat, an' the only place I could git inter was this here
shop. Wonder whar the gals has gone?"

No mention of the alarm that he must by this time have caused at the
Station. No consciousness of having committed any breach against the
laws of hospitality. But there was that in the old man's face, in his
worn and wistful look, which curbed Samuel's tongue and made him
understand that as a little child misses his mother