a master cargo for her size, more than some ships that ranked two
hundred and fifty ton, and she was put down for two hundred. She used to
make good voyages, the Hannah did, and then there was the Pactolus; she
was just about such another,--you would have laughed to see her. She
sailed out of this port for a good many years. Cap'n Wall he told me
that if he had her before the wind with a cargo of cotton, she would
make a middling good run, but load her deep with salt, and you might as
well try to sail a stick of oak timber with a handkerchief. She was a
stout-built ship: I shouldn't wonder if her timbers were afloat
somewhere yet; she was sold to some parties out in San Francisco. There!
everything's changed from what it was when I used to follow the sea. I
wonder sometimes if the sailors have as queer works aboard ship as they
used. Bless ye! Deephaven used to be a different place to what it is
now; there was hardly a day in the year that you didn't hear the
shipwrights' hammers, and there was always something going on at the
wharves. You would see the folks from up country comin' in with their
loads of oak knees and plank, and logs o' rock-maple for keels when
there was snow on the ground in winter-time, and the big sticks of
timber-pine for masts would come crawling along the road with their
three and four yoke of oxen all frosted up, the sleds creaking and the
snow growling and the men flapping their arms to keep warm, and
hallooing as if there wan't nothin' else goin' on in the world except to
get them masts to the ship-yard. Bless ye! two o' them teams together
would stretch from here 'most up to the Widow Jim's place,--no such
timber-pines nowadays."

"I suppose the sailors are very jolly together sometimes," said Kate,
meditatively, with the least flicker of a smile at me. The captain did
not answer for a minute, as he was battling with an obstinate snarl in
his line; but when he had found the right loop he said, "I've had the