of his deep-set eyes, and then he turned them around
the light-room, where he'd been so long.

"No," said he, wagging his head. "It ain't for such as me."

I never saw so humble a man.

"But look here," he went on, more cheerful. "As I was telling her just
now, a month from yesterday's our fourth anniversary, and I'm going to
take her ashore for the day and give her a holiday--new hat and
everything. A girl wants a mite of excitement now and then, Ray."

There it was again, that "girl." It gave me the fidgets, sir. I had to
do something about it. It's close quarters for last names in a light,
and I'd taken to calling him Uncle Matt soon after I came. Now, when I
was at table that noon I spoke over to where she was standing by the
stove, getting him another help of chowder.

"I guess I'll have some, too, _Aunt_ Anna," said I, matter of fact.

She never said a word nor gave a sign--just stood there kind of
round-shouldered, dipping the chowder. And that night at prayers I
hitched my chair around the table, with its back the other way.

You get awful lazy in a lighthouse, some ways. No matter how much
tinkering you've got, there's still a lot of time and there's such
a thing as too much reading. The changes in weather get monotonous,
too, by and by; the light burns the same on a thick night as it
does on a fair one. Of course there's the ships, north-bound,
south-bound--wind-jammers, freighters, passenger-boats full of
people. In the watches at night you can see their lights go by, and
wonder what they are, how they're laden, where they'll fetch up,
and all. I used to do that almost every evening when it was my first
watch, sitting out on the walk-around up there with my legs hanging
over the edge and my chin propped on the railing--lazy. The Boston
boat was the prettiest to see, with her three tiers of port-holes
lit, like a string of pearls wrapped round and round a woman's
neck--well away, too, for the ledge must have made a couple of
hundred fathoms off the Light, like a white dog-tooth of a breaker,
even on the darkest night.

Well, I was lolling there one night, as I say, watching the Boston boat
go by, not thinking of anything special, when I heard the door on the
other side of the tower open and footsteps coming around to me.

By and by I nodded toward the boat and passed the remark that she was
fetching in uncommon close to-night. No answer. I made nothing of that,
for oftentimes Fedderson wouldn't answe