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I calk'late to do my duty, and do it hearty: but it is rough on a feller leavin' his folks, for good, maybe." There was a sudden huskiness in the man's voice that was not apple-skins, though he tried to make believe that it was. I knew a word about home would comfort him, so I went on with my questions. "It is very hard. Do you leave a family?" "My old mother, a sick brother, and Lucindy."
"As near as I calk'late, there wa'n't a half hour's more work to do on the old craft, and it had got to be sometime arter noon, but says the boys, 'Let's finish her off, now we've got so near through, and not have to come back ag'in. They was always a cheery set especially him when they took hold of a job, to put it through.
Bartlett is wrong in defining this word, as he is usually in his attempts to explain dialect outside of New England. It does not mean "to declare, assert, maintain," etc. It is nearly the equivalent of guess in the Northern and Middle States, and of reckon in the South. It agrees precisely with the New England calk'late. Like all the rest of these words it may have a strong sense by irony.
I calk'late there ain't many knows this shore better'n me, but I wouldn't 'a' durst skirted along the adge down thar' at sech a rate, not in the finest day blowin'. First, we thought it was somebody didn't know what they was about.
"Sartin! sartin!" said he, delighted; "we're jest like twin-brothers. But neow don't you werry one mite. She 's done a good werk an' she 's returnin' to Natur's God. I've got another one 't I'm goin' to roll deown, first hint o' spring. I don't calk'late ever to be feound, like them wise an' foolish virgins, without no log to set on."
Then they told Lunette they wanted their lobsters br'iled alive. 'Thar, says she, 'I sot my foot down. I told 'em I' wa'n't goin' to have no half-cooked lobsters hoppin' around in torments over my house. I calk'late to put my lobsters in the pot, and put the cover on and know where they be, says she."
G'long! ye old fool! Git up! ye old skate!" His unbaffled monotone grew gradually faint in the distance. "Roads be all porridge up there a piece, I reckon," chuckled Captain Pharo; "but as long as Crooked River runs, I don't calk'late to lose no bet. Poo! poo!"
Every second was like to see it keeled squar' over, or slipped and driv' in, straight on to the rocks. "We're used to other'n fa'r weather along this shore. I calk'late we ain't used to frighten at a little danger, but knowin' the sea so well, we know the helplessness a'most o' puttin' out in sech a gale as that. "I heered the sound.
As nigh as I calk'late, it's about findin' rest in Jesus, and one a askin' questions, all fa'r and squar', to know the way and whether it's a goin' to lead thar' straight or not, and the other answerin'. And he he was a tinkerin', 'way up on the foremast, George Olver and the rest on us was astern, and I'll hear to my dyin' day how his voice came a floatin' down to us thar' chantin'-like it was cl'ar and fearless and slow.
'He's grappled it! he's thar'! he's thar'! says they, and when they pulled it in, thar' was that other one belt fast, and only him. "God knows! I calk'late he made sure o' the other first, and thar' wa'n't jest the breath's time left for him, blinded so sudden maybe, and fell death faint. I've knowed it be so with the strongest; no wonder thar'; the wonder was in what he done.
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