Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 11, 2025
For Barnacles was a horse, a white horse of unguessed breed and uncertain age. Most likely it was not, but it may have been, Barnacles's first intimate connection with an affair of the heart. Said affair was between Captain Bastabol Bean, owner and occupant of Sculpin Point, and Mrs. Stashia Buckett, the unlamenting relict of the late Hosea Buckett. Mrs.
But the lines held up his head and kept his nose pointing straight for the little beach on Sculpin Point, perhaps a quarter of a mile distant. Somewhat heavy weather the deep-laden dory made of it, and in spite of Lank's vigorous bailing the water sloshed around Mrs. Bean's boot-tops, yet in time the sail and Barnacles brought them safely home.
As finishing touches they painted the upper strakes of the dory white, giving to the lower part and to the running-gear of the cart a coat of sea-green. Barnacles was experienced, but a vehicle such as this amphibious product of Sculpin Point he had never before seen. With ears pointed and nostrils palpitating from curiosity, he was led up to the boat-bodied wagon.
We looked down the hatchway into the hold, and could see the flounders and sculpin swimming about lazily, and once in a while a little pollock scooted down among them impertinently and then disappeared. "There is that same big flounder that we saw day before yesterday," said I. "I know him because one of his fins is half gone.
He was confidential friend, advising philosopher, and mate of Sculpin Point. Yet from Lank had the Captain carefully concealed all knowledge of his affair with the Widow Buckett. The time of confession was at hand.
Sculpin, "the diet suggested by that quack, Porpoise, passed out of the books years ago. Give the child toast on sea-foam, if you wish to build up her debilitated forces." Now, the sick little oyster did not object to this treatment; on the contrary, she liked it. But it did her no good.
On this road you may sometimes meet a little English bishop from the Provinces, in his apron and knee-breeches; and there is a certain bridge over a narrow estuary, where in the shallow land-locked pools of the deeply ebbing tide you may throw stones at sculpin, and witness the admirable indifference of those fish to human cruelty and folly.
At this point, one of a row of small boys on the back seat, no more capable of appreciating this critical period of the Sunday-school than the broad-faced sculpin fish which he resembled, took an alder-leaf from his pocket and, lifting it to his mouth, popped it, with an explosion so successful and loud that it startled even himself.
How Captain Bean and his mate steered the equipage from Sculpin Point to the village, how they were cheered and hooted along the route, how they ran into the yard of the Metropolitan Livery Stable as a port of refuge, how the Captain escaped to the home of Widow Buckett, how the "splicin'" was accomplished these are details which must be slighted. The climax came when the newly made Mrs.
Prue once remonstrated with a lady about the marriage of a lovely young girl with a cousin of Minim's; but the only answer she received was, "Well, he may not be a perfect man, but then he is a Sculpin," which consideration apparently gave great comfort to the lady's mind. But even Prue grants that Minim has some reason for his pride.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking