sailed away in a good-sized schooner, and had never returned.
She had come to Sponkannis because she thought that there she
could live cheaper and get more work than in her former home.
She had found the first quite possible, but her success in regard
to the work had not been very great.

When Captain Eli entered Mrs. Trimmer's little room, he found
her busy mending a sail. Here fortune favored him. "You
turn your hand to 'most anything, Mrs. Trimmer," said he, after
he had greeted her.

"Oh, yes," she answered, with a smile, "I am obliged to do
that. Mending sails is pretty heavy work, but it's better than
nothing."

"I had a notion," said he, "that you was ready to turn your
hand to any good kind of business, so I thought I would step in
and ask you if you'd turn your hand to a little bit of business
I've got on the stocks."

She stopped sewing on the sail, and listened while Captain
Eli laid his plan before her. "It's very kind in you and Captain
Cephas to think of all that," said she. "I have often noticed
that poor little girl, and pitied her. Certainly I'll come, and
you needn't say anything about paying me for it. I wouldn't
think of asking to be paid for doing a thing like that. And
besides,"--she smiled again as she spoke,--"if you are going to
give me a Christmas dinner, as you say, that will make things
more than square."