papers. The rags and papers were spread around her on the floor. She had
leaned her head on the barrel, and was crying bitterly.

"Mother! mother! what is the matter?" exclaimed Mercy, really alarmed; for
she had very few times in her life seen her mother cry. Without speaking,
Mrs. Carr held up a little piece of carved ivory. It was of a creamy
yellow, and shone like satin: a long shred of frayed pink ribbon hung from
it. As she held it up to Mercy, a sunbeam flashed in at the garret window,
and fell across it, sending long glints of light to right and left.

"What a lovely bit of carving! What is it, mother? Why does it make you
cry?" asked Mercy, stretching out her hand to take the ivory.

"It's Caley's whistle," sobbed Mrs. Carr. "We allus thought Patience
Swift must ha' took it. She nussed me a spell when he was a little feller,
an' jest arter she went away we missed the whistle. Your father he brought
that hum the same v'yage I told ye he brought the blue crape. He knowed I
was a expectin' to be sick, and he was drefful afraid he wouldn't get hum
in time; but he did. He jest come a sailin' into th' harbor, with every
mite o' sail the old brig 'd carry, two days afore Caley was born. An' the
next mornin',--oh, dear me! it don't seem no longer ago 'n
yesterday,--while he was a dressin', an' I lay lookin' at him, he tossed
that little thing over to me on the bed, 'n' sez he,--"

"T 'll be a boy, Mercy, I know 'twill; an' here's his bos'u'n's whistle
all ready for him,' an' that night he bought that very yard o' pink
rebbin, and tied it on himself, and laid it in the upper drawer into one
o' the little pink socks I'd got all ready. Oh, it don't seem any longer
ago 'n yesterday! An' sure enough it was a boy; an' your father he allus
used to call him 'Bos'u'n,' and he'd stick this ere whistle into his mouth