When he had eaten his dinner, and washed up his dishes, and
had put everything away in neat, housewifely order, Captain Eli
went to Mrs. Crumley's house, and very soon finished his business
there. Mrs. Crumley kept the only house which might be
considered a boarding-house in the village of Sponkannis; and
when she had consented to take charge of the little girl who had
been left on her hands she had hoped it would not be very long
before she would hear from some of her relatives in regard to
her maintenance. But she had heard nothing, and had now ceased
to expect to hear anything, and in consequence had frequently
remarked that she must dispose of the child some way or other,
for she couldn't afford to keep her any longer. Even an absence
of a day or two at the house of the good captain would be some
relief, and Mrs. Crumley readily consented to the Christmas
scheme. As to the little girl, she was delighted. She already
looked upon Captain Eli as her best friend in the world.

It was not so easy to go to Mrs. Trimmer's house and put the
business before her. "It ought to be plain sailin' enough,"
Captain Eli said to himself, over and over again, "but, fer all
that, it don't seem to be plain sailin'."

But he was not a man to be deterred by difficult navigation,
and he walked straight to Eliza Trimmer's house.

Mrs. Trimmer was a comely woman about thirty-five, who had
come to the village a year before, and had maintained herself, or
at least had tried to, by dressmaking and plain sewing. She had
lived at Stetford, a seaport about twenty miles away, and from
there, three years before, her husband, Captain Trimmer, had