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Updated: May 12, 2025
Hannah peered forth from the blackness of the back seat. "Now, let me think," she said. "Last time I went to Bayport by this road was four year ago come next February. Sarah Snow's daughter Becky was married to a feller named Higgins Solon Higgins' son 'twas. No, 'twa'n't his son, because " "Aw, crimus! Who cares if 'twas his aunt's gran'mother? What I want to know is which road to take."
'Twa'n't savin' life neither; 'twas jest a matter of bus'ness. "It happened up off the coast of Maine 'long in the seventies. I was actin' as sort of second mate on a lumber schooner. 'Twas a pitch-black night, or mornin' rather, 'bout six o'clock, blowin' like all possessed and colder 'n Greenland.
By and by a brawny hand touched his shoulder, and a gruff voice said, "Lookee here, lad!" Noll turned about and saw the skipper. "'Twa'n't manners in me to laugh at ye, I 'low," said he, good-humoredly; "but 'twas droll, ennyhow. Hain't ye never been to Culm afore?" "Never," said Noll. "An' ye don't know nuthin' what it's like?"
The parson stopped an instant as they were turning and looked back up the street. "W'at you lookin'?" asked his companion. "I thought I saw Colossus," answered the parson, with an anxious face; "I reckon 'twa'n't him, though." And they went on. The street they now entered was a very quiet one.
"Why, I've had things happen to me shipwreck, you know winds a-blowin' and sousin' the deck and a-gettin' out the boats and yellin' and shoutin' Seems 's if it ought to 'a' been excitin'. But Lord! 'twa'n't nuthin' to what I've felt other times times when it was all still-like on the island here and big so's 't you kind o' hear suthin' comin' to ye over the water.
"Allie played his cards well; he'd set into a good many similar games afore, I judge. He begun by doing little favors for Phoebe Ann she was the deef aunt I mentioned and 'twa'n't long afore he was as solid with the old lady as a kedge-anchor.
And the meanest part of it was that he always called 'em the names that they used to call him aboard ship. Sometimes he invented new ones, but not often, because 'twa'n't necessary. "For a good six months this went on just the same length of time that Rosy was aboard the Emily.
"I said I didn't know what he'd bought it for, if 'twa'n't for that," she amended. "Don't you build on anything I said. Don't you do it, Hermie." Her son stood there frowning in perplexity, his hands deep in his pockets, and his feet apart. "But you said so yourself, mother," he persisted.
'Twa'n't much to be said, but I've allers noticed afloat that real dangersome squalls comes on still; there's a dumb kind of a time in the air, the storm seems to be waitin' and holdin' its breath, and then a little low whisper of wind, a cat's paw we call't, and then you get it real 'arnest. I'd rather she'd have taken on, and cried, and scolded, than have said so still, 'I can't, Eben.
John C. swept on in the strain of her hopeful heralding. "So, soon as Sam told that 'twa'n't more 'n half an hour ago I says to him, 'You go an' stir up some o' the boys, an' 'long towards ten o'clock you jest surround the old Pelton house an' git him, tea-set an' all. Stan's to reason, says I, 'it's an old deserted house, an' he's goin' to git part of a night's rest there.
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