"The _Bravo_ was makin' reg'lar trips from Newport to Bangor, Maine.
Short-coastin' v'y'ges paid well in them days. There come a big storm
in the spring--onexpected. Mother'd got a letter from Cap'n
Josh--father he'd put out o' Newport with a sartain tide. He warn't
jest a fair-weather skipper. Cap'n Am'zon gits his pluck an' darin'
from Cap'n Josh.

"Well, mother knowed he must be out o' sight of Fort Adams and the
Dumplin's when the storm burst, and that he'd take the inside passage,
the wind bein' what it was. She watched from Rocky Head and she seen
what she knowed to be the _Bravo_ heave in sight.

"There warn't no foolin' her," pursued Cap'n Abe, whose pipe had gone
out but whose knitting needles twinkled the faster. "No. She knowed
the schooner far's she could glim her. She watched the Bravo caught in
the cross-current when the gale dropped sudden, and tryin' to claw off
shore.

"But no use! She was doomed! There warn't no help for the schooner.
She went right on to Toll o' Death Reef and busted up in an hour. Not
a body ever was beached, for the current, tide, _an_' gale was all off
shore. And it happened in plain sight of our windows.

"Two months later," Cap'n Abe said reflectively, "I come into the
world. Objectin', of course, like all babies. Funny thing that. We
all come into it makin' all kinds of a hullabaloo against anchorin'
here; and we most of us kick just as hard against slippin' our moorin's
to get out of it.

"Land sakes!" he exclaimed in conclusion. "There ye be. I guess my