the one."

"You forget Moses," said the Captain.

"Well, he's settin' up on his own account, I guess. They did talk o'
giving him college eddication; but he was so unstiddy, there weren't no
use in trying. A real wild ass's colt he was."

"Wal', wal', Moses was in the right on't. He took the cross-lot track
into life," said the Captain. "Colleges is well enough for your smooth,
straight-grained lumber, for gen'ral buildin'; but come to fellers
that's got knots, and streaks, and cross-grains, like Moses Pennel, and
the best way is to let 'em eddicate 'emselves, as he's a-doin'. He's cut
out for the sea, plain enough, and he'd better be up to Umbagog, cuttin'
timber for his ship, than havin' rows with tutors, and blowin' the roof
off the colleges, as one o' them 'ere kind o' fellers is apt to when he
don't have work to use up his steam. Why, mother, there's more gas got
up in them Brunswick buildin's, from young men that are spilin' for hard
work, than you could shake a stick at! But Mis' Pennel told me yesterday
she was 'spectin' Moses home to-day."

"Oho! that's at the bottom of Sally's bein' up there," said Mrs.
Kittridge.

"Mis' Kittridge," said the Captain, "I take it you ain't the woman as
would expect a daughter of your bringin' up to be a-runnin' after any
young chap, be he who he may," said the Captain.

Mrs. Kittridge for once was fairly silenced by this home-thrust;
nevertheless, she did not the less think it quite possible, from all
that she knew of Sally; for although that young lady professed great
hardness of heart and contempt for all the young male generation of her
acquaintance, yet she had evidently a turn for observing their
ways--probably purely in the way of philosophical inquiry.

CHAPTER XIX

EIGHTEEN

In fact, at this very moment our scene-shifter changes the picture. Away
rolls the image of Mrs. Kittridge's kitchen, with its sanded floor, its
scoured rows of bright pewter platters, its great, deep fireplace, with
wide stone hearth, its little looking-glass with a bit of asparagus
bush, like a green mist, over it. _Exeunt_ the image of Mrs. Kittridge,
with her hands floury from the bread she has been moulding, and the dry,
ropy, lean Captain, who has been sitting tilting back in a
splint-bottomed chair,--and the next scene comes rolling in. It is a
chamber in the house of Zephaniah Pennel, whose windows present a blue
panorama of sea and sky. Through two windows you look forth i