She fell asleep doing this, and her mother picked her up and put her into bed. Prince was all right in the morning; but he was wary thereafter of anything floating in the surf. One morning Carolyn rode over to the West Side with Captain Littlefield, who went to make arrangements for the boarding of the pale lady and her baby when they should arrive. Captain Littlefield drove Worry alone on this journey, attached to a single-seated buckboard. Carolyn sat beside the wooden-legged man on the seat and Prince crouched between them, clinging on "with teeth and toenails," as the captain said, when the buckboard bumped more than usual over the rough road. During the journey across the hilly island Carolyn and Captain Littlefield became good friends. And yet, the important query that fretted the little girl's mind was hard to come at. It seemed so very illbred, as she had been taught, to remark upon the personal peculiarities of "grown-ups." Finally the subject was fairly jolted to the surface. As the buckboard went over a particularly rugged "thank-you-ma'am" in the road, the wooden-legged man was all but thrown off the seat and his artificial limb waved wildly before he got his balance again. "Oh!" cried Carolyn. "Purt' near went overboard that time, didn't I?" he chuckled. "Tell the truth, a feller with a wooden laig ought to be lashed with a lubber line in a rough sea like this." "Oh, Mr. Cap'n Littlefield!" burst forth the little girl, unable to hold in the question any longer, "how do people get wooden legs?" "How do they get 'em? Why, they buy 'em," said he, his eyes suddenly twinkling. "Oh! But I mean, why do they have to wear them?" "To keep 'em from listin' to stab'board or port, as the case may be--whichever side they need the timber-toe on." "Yes. I know. But I mean," Carolyn desperately tried to explain, "how do they come to lose their real legs so's to have to buy wooden ones?" "Oh! Ah! I see," Captain Littlefield said with much gravity. "There's sev'ral ways a feller might lose a laig. Why, I did see a man once't--he was in a show at New York--that was born without laigs. They forgot, an' just attached his ankles to his waist, as ye might say. But he was what they call a freak." "Yes, sir," said Carolyn, breathlessly. "But you an' Mr. Oliver Littlefield didn't get born that way, did you?" "Me an' Oly? I sh'd say not! Why, Oly, when he was a kid no older than you, was the fastest runner of his age on the island. Yes-sir-ree-sir! He didn't sport no timber-toe then. An' _me_--Why! when I was apprenticed in the Navy I could go up the shrouds quicker'n a cat. I was always first top-man on a sailing craft. Yes, indeedy! I was some spry, leetle gal." "Git up, Worry!" He seemed to consider the subject closed. But Carolyn's appetite for information was only whetted. "Oh! But how _do_ they lose legs, Mr. Cap'n Littlefield?" she begged.