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Updated: June 12, 2025
Then the ship went on, and, as she met no inbound craft, Quinbey was forced to go with her. But she did not round Cape Horn. A strong current threw her onto the Patagonian coast near Cape Virgins in a dead calm, and a sudden gale of wind and heavy sea ground her to pieces.
And when he rummaged a bureau, and brought forth an old jeweler's catalogue, asking her to choose a watch for Sammy, she felt that it was granted; but she did not yet know Quinbey. Sammy wore the watch proudly; and for the rest of the cold weather the three sat about the base-burner, while the color came back to the little woman's face, and self-confidence to the shaken mind of Sammy.
Quinbey wrote to Andover, and in a few days received a reply, which he read to his wife. It was a true account of Sammy's mishap in Boston; and, while Quinbey grinned he could not smile the mother wept silently, but asked no forgiveness for her wayward son.
Then, with Sammy Simpson off his mind for four years at least, Quinbey returned, and married the woman he loved, feeling that he had now earned happiness and the right to remain on land and smoke. But he was not born for happiness, and did not recognize it when it came to him.
The villagers welcomed him, and the gray old pastor of the church once presided over by his father invited him to preach. He did so, delivering his one sermon; but the delivery and the sermon were not of a character that would inspire the congregation to empty the pulpit for him, so the young preacher went home to wait, as Quinbey had waited, for that pulpit to become vacant by death.
In the spring, as soon as the frost and snow were gone, Quinbey employed laborers to flatten the ground near his house to the extent of a hundred feet by ten; then, with stakes, he laid out the plan of a ship's deck.
Your work is ended. They told me at the store about your son loafing on you all these years while you took in washing. But how about the money in the bank? Couldn't you get it?" "Oh, yes, John," she answered simply. "But Sammy took it to Boston to deposit, and was robbed of it." "Um-hum-m-m," grunted Quinbey. "The savings of twenty years at sea!"
Then Sammy came home on his first vacation, and, learning of the money in the bank, used his prestige and address to such advantage that he persuaded the local authorities to declare Quinbey legally dead an easy matter on that coast of many wrecks.
It was eight years later when he returned. His adventures during those eight years can only be summarized. The fishing schooner was cut down by a big ship out of Halifax bound around the Horn; and Quinbey alone of her crew succeeded in springing to her martingale-stay as the smaller craft went under. No one else was saved, though the ship hove to and put out boats to search.
Still holding her, he lifted his foot, exerted a slight effort of strength, and pushed the tubful of suds and clothes off its base, upsetting it squarely over the head of the Reverend Samuel Simpson, who nearly choked before getting himself clear. "I've been hearing things about you down at the store," said Quinbey, "and I'll 'tend to your case directly."
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