cheek. There was a burst
of laughter from the onlookers. Ichabod could feel himself blushing
furiously, but that blush was invisible under the deep tan. Then the
others thus saluted him, one by one--all save Sarah Porter.

She bestowed herself in the launch while the kissing was going on, and
Ichabod, regarding her furtively with anxious eyes, read in her
expression signs of strong disapproval, which disconcerted him hugely,
and robbed him in great measure of his just due of enjoyment under the
osculatory attack.

Then, it was all over! The old man stood waving his hat mechanically as
the launch glided away. Ichabod watched with unseeing eyes. He was in a
daze, thinking more in sorrow than in anger of "how fer he had let them
minxes go with him--an' Sary a-lookin' on, too!" He shook his head
despondently, as he reflected that the closing incident would have been
more agreeable if "Sary hadn't been a-lookin' on."

Once more, Ichabod Jones burned midnight oil. In the early evening he
brought his easy chair out in front, where he could see the glistening
waters and watch the moon climb high. He smoked pipeful after pipeful of
his strong tobacco. Again he made rings, and thought, and wondered. It
was after ten before he arose and went into the shack, lighted his oil
lamp, laid out his paper and pencil, and proceeded to add more to the
record that he had started. No doubt, after his long reverie in the
moonlight, he had come to the conclusion that the fact of his being
kissed by ten young women and having one more making eyes at him in one
day, the first of his reformation, was of moment enough to be recorded.

That night, as Ichabod finished his entry in the diary and leaned far
back in his chair with chest expanded, his chin with its whift of beard
thrown out at an angle of forty-five degrees, he reminded one of a
cartoon of Uncle Sam when showing a self-satisfied air. The picture he
portrayed at least conveyed the impression that he was monarch of all he
surveyed and even dared once again to place his battle flag of conquest
on the mainland of Cartaret County.

As he put away his writing materials and prepared to retire to his
lonely bunk, he again talked aloud.

"It looks to me, by cracky, as if things was a-movin' jest a leetle too
rapid fer a starter. It reminds me right smart o' a hoss race I saw at
the fish and oyster fair, at New Bern, a spell back. The animal that I
cal'lated would win, he jest started off li