able sort of person. Captain Eri did the honors and
everyone shook hands. Then they went into the living room of the
station.

What particularly struck Mrs. Snow was the neatness of everything. The
brass on the pump in the sink shone like fire as the sunlight from the
window struck it. The floor was white from scouring. There were shelves
on the walls and on these, arranged in orderly piles, were canned goods
of all descriptions. The table was covered with a figured oilcloth.

Two or three men, members of the crew, were seated in the wooden chairs
along the wall, but rose as the party came in. Captain Davis introduced
them, one after the other. Perhaps the most striking characteristic of
these men was the quiet, almost bashful, way in which they spoke; they
seemed like big boys, as much as anything, and yet the oldest was nearly
fifty.

"Ever been in a life-saving station afore?" asked Captain Eri.

Elsie had not. Ralph had and so had Mrs. Snow, but not for years.

"This is where we keep the boat and the rest of the gear," said Captain
Davis, opening a door and leading the way into a large, low-studded
room. "Them's the spare oars on the wall. The reg'lar ones are in the
boat."

The boat itself was on its carriage in the middle of the room. Along the
walls on hooks hung the men's suits of oilskins and their sou'westers.
The Captain pointed out one thing after another, the cork jackets and
life-preservers, the gun for shooting the life line across a stranded
vessel, the life car hanging from the roof, and the "breeches buoy."

"I don't b'lieve you'd ever git me into that thing," said the Nantucket
lady decidedly, referring to the buoy. "I don't know but I'd 'bout as
liefs be drownded as make sech a show of myself."

"Took off a bigger woman than you one time," said Captain Davis. "Wife
of a Portland skipper, she was, and he was on his fust v'yage in a
brand-new schooner jest off the stocks. Struck on the Hog's Back off
here and then drifted close in and struck again. We got 'em all, the
woman fust. That was the only time we've used the buoy sence I've been
at the station. Most of the wrecks are too fur off shore and we have to
git out the boat."

He took them upstairs to the men's sleeping rooms and then up to the
little cupola on the roof.

"Why do you have ground-glass windows on this side of the house?" asked
Elsie, as they passed the window on the landing.

Captain Davis laughed.

"Well, it is pretty n