was not yet a quarter to five when a one-horse wagon containing
four men came slowly down the street. Dorcas first saw the
wagon, and she instantly stopped knitting.

"Mercy on me!" she exclaimed. "Whoever those people are,
they are strangers here, and they don't know where to stop, for
they first go to one side of the street and then to the other."

The widow looked around sharply. "Humph!" said she. "Those
men are sailormen. You might see that in a twinklin' of an eye.
Sailormen always drive that way, because that is the way they
sail ships. They first tack in one direction and then in
another."

"Mr. Ducket didn't like the sea?" remarked Dorcas, for about
the three hundredth time.

"No, he didn't," answered the widow, for about the two
hundred and fiftieth time, for there had been occasions when she
thought Dorcas put this question inopportunely. "He hated it,
and he was drowned in it through trustin' a sailorman, which I
never did nor shall. Do you really believe those men are comin'
here?"

"Upon my word I do!" said Dorcas, and her opinion was
correct.

The wagon drew up in front of Mrs. Ducket's little white
house, and the two women sat rigidly, their hands in their laps,
staring at the man who drove.