“Yes; got everything hangin’ there on a chair ’fore the kitchen fire,” and she closed the door upon him and Sanford. “Beats all, Mr. Sanford, don’t it?” the captain continued in short sentences, broken by breathless pauses, as he stripped off his wet clothes before the blazing fire, one jerk for the suspenders, another for the trousers, Sanford, jubilant over the captain’s safety and eager to do him any service, handing him the dry garments one after another. “Beats all, I say; don’t it, now? There’s that Cap’n Potts: been a seaman, man an’ boy, all his life,”—here the grizzled wet head was hidden for a moment as a clean flannel shirt was drawn over it,—“yet he ain’t got sense ’nough to keep a boom from rottin’ ’board a cat-boat,”—the head was up now, and Sanford, fumbling under the chin whisker, was helping the captain with the top button,—“an’ snappin’ square off in a little gale o’ wind like that. There, thank ye, guess that’ll do.” When he had seated himself in his chair, his sturdy legs—stout and tough as two dock-logs—stretched out before the fire, his rough hands spread to the blaze, warming the big, strong body that had been soaking wet for ten consecutive hours, Sanford took a seat beside him, and, laying his hand on his knee, said in a gentle voice, “Why did you risk your life for that pump, Captain Joe?” “’Cause she acted so durned ornery,” he blurted out in an angry tone. “Jes’ see what she did: gin out night ’fore last jes’ ’s we was gittin’ ready to h’ist that big stretcher; kep’ me an’ Caleb up two nights a-castin’ an’ borin’ on ’er out; then all of a sudden she thought she’d upset an’ fool us. I tell ye, ye’ve got to take hold of a thing like that good an’ early, or it’ll git away with ye.” One hand was swung high over his head as if it had been a sledge-hammer. “Now she’ll stay put till I git through with her. I ain’t a-goin’ to let no damned pump beat me!” CHAPTER XX AT THE PINES The Indian summer days had come,—soft, dreamy days of red and gold, with veils of silver mist at sunrise, and skeins of purple clouds at twilight. The air was hazy with the smoke of dull fires smouldering on the hillside. The stems of the bare birches shone white; wreaths of scarlet crowned the low stone walls; dead leaves strewed the lawns, and tall chrysanthemums flamed in the garden-beds. Here and there a belated summer rose, braving the cold, shivered with close-folded lips, or hung head down, pierced by the night-frost.