haped room, built to utilize a scant, triangular space
between two big warehouses, only a few feet wide at the front and no
width at all at the rear. Its ceiling was also its roof and from it
dangled whatever could be hung thus, while the remaining bits of
furniture swung from hooks in the walls. Whenever out of use, even the
little gas-stove was set upon a shelf in the inner angle, thereby giving
floor space sufficient for two camp-stools and a three-cornered scrap of
a table at which they ate and worked, with Bo'sn curled beneath.

This mite of a house stood at the crook of Elbow Lane, down by the
approaches to the big bridge over East River, in a street so narrow that
the sun never could shine into it; yet held so strong an odor of salt
water and a near-by fish-market, that the old sailor half fancied
himself still afloat. He couldn't see the dirt and rubbish of the Lane,
nor the pinched faces of the other dwellers in it, for a few tenements
were still left standing among the crowding warehouses, and these were
filled with people. Glory, who acted as eyes for the old man, never told
him of unpleasant things, and, indeed, scarcely saw them herself. To
her, everything was beautiful and everybody kind, and in their own tiny
home, at least, everything was scrupulously clean and shipshape.

When they had hung their hammocks back upon the wall, for such were the
only beds they had room for, and had had their breakfast of porridge,
the captain would ask: "Decks scrubbed well, mate?"

"Aye, aye, sir!" came the cheery answer, and Glory's hands, fresh from
the suds, would touch the questioner's cheek.

"Brasses polished, hawsers coiled, rations dealt?"

"Aye, aye, cap'n!" again called the child.

"Eight bells! Every man to his post!" ordered the master, and from the
ceiling a bell struck out the half-hours in the only way the sailor
would permit time to be told aboard his "ship." Then Glory whisked out
her needle and thread, found grandpa his knife and bit of wood, and the
pair fell to their tasks. His was the carving of picture frames, so
delicately and deftly that one could hardly believe him sightless; hers
the mending of old garments for her neighbors, and her labor was almost
as capable as his. It had earned for her the nickname of
"Take-a-Stitch," for, in the Lane, people were better known by their
employments than their surnames. Grandpa was "Cap'n Carver" when at his
morning work, but after midday, "Captain Singer