of our present difficulties--a way of getting money enough to
keep us all in comfort at the farmhouse until William's eyes are
well again.

The new project which is to relieve us from all uncertainties for
the next six months actually originated with _me!_ It has raised
me many inches higher in my own estimation already. If the doctor
only agrees with my view of the case when he comes to-morrow,
William will allow himself to be persuaded, I know; and then let
them say what they please, I will answer for the rest.

This is how the new idea first found its way into my head:

We had just done tea. William, in much better spirits than usual,
was talking with the young sailor, who is jocosely called here by
the very ugly name of "Foul-weather Dick." The farmer and his two
eldest sons were composing themselves on the oaken settles for
their usual nap. The dame was knitting, the two girls were
beginning to clear the tea-table, and I was darning the
children's socks. To all appearance, this was not a very
propitious state of things for the creation of new ideas, and yet
my idea grew out of it, for all that. Talking with my husband on
various subjects connected with life in ships, the young sailor
began giving us a description of his hammock; telling us how it
was slung; how it was impossible to get into it any other way
than "stern foremost" (whatever that may mean); how the rolling
of the ship made it rock like a cradle; and how, on rough nights,
it sometimes swayed to and fro at such a rate as to bump bodily
against the ship's side and wake him up with the sensation of
having just received a punch on the head from a remarkably hard