"Never did see such a young 'un for cheerin' a body up," declared Aunt Ardelia Dodge. "Smith an' me will miss her like she was a grandchild. And she's a sight better than any of Smith's grandchildren ever dared to be. You'm right. His branch of the Dodges ain't none too smart." The wooden-legged Littlefields had gone back to their little cottage near the Old Harbour; but Carolyn May spent an afternoon with them before her departure for New York. She felt that she had a duty to perform, and that she could ignore it no longer. Edna would expect her to bring the information she craved and, polite or not, the little girl felt that she just had to ask again about those wooden legs. "How did Oly come to have his'n?" Captain Ozias repeated. "Wal, I'll tell ye, if ye promise not to say a word to him about it. For it does make him mad. 'Twarn't no accident at all--like I told you once. _Any_body could have told Oly he was fixin' for broken bones--only they'd 've said 'twas his neck he'd break, 'stead of his laig. "Ye see that high, rocky head up yonder?" pointing to the rise of the bluff almost behind the little cottage. "Wal, Oly would come down that hill 'stead o' goin' 'round by the path proper, when he'd been to the store. 'Twas a short cut. An' he took it on a winter's evening, when 'twas mistin' an' freezin'; an' he slipped." "Oh!" cried Carolyn. "And did he fall right down here?" "That's what he done. And he laid out 'most all night, unconscious. Then he woke up and blatted and one of the surfmen from Station One heard him and gathered him in. But that, and the delay in gettin' a surgeon from the Main, and all, made it necessary fin'ly to ampertate. So since then Oly's hopped around on a wooden stump. "And me? Why, I don't talk none about it, leetle gal. 'Tain't nothin' to crow over, as ye might say. I went through the Battle of Manila 'thout gittin' hurt; I was aboard the old _Olympia_ when she made her dash from ocean to ocean so's to git into the fightin' around Cuby. I was at the Battle of Santiago. All them, an' never got a scratch! "But after I was mustered out o' the Navy and went into merchant service and commanded my own three-stick windjammer, I was ashore at Punta Arenas one trip and went to a feller's shop to sharpen some knives, and what happens but a grin'stone fell on that laig and busted it all to flinders!" "Oh, Mr. Cap'n Littlefield!" "Yep. That's the rights of it. I don't talk none about it--no more than Oly talks about his laig. Ye see, an' ol' feller longshore with a wooden laig is expected to be a hero. But there ain't nothin' a mite heroic 'bout neither me nor Oly Littlefield. We was just plumb unlucky--that's all!" * * * * *