“An’ I’m tired, too, dear,” said Aunt Tibbie, softly. “Leave us all go t’ bed.” They were soon sound asleep.... * * * * * Parson All turned out to be a mild little old man with spectacles. His eyes were blue—faded, watery, shy: wherein were many flashes of humor and kindness. His face was smooth and colorless—almost as white as his hair, which was also long and thin and straight. When Jonathan came in from the sea after dark—from the night and wet and vast confusion of that place—Parson All was placidly rocking by the kitchen fire, his hands neatly folded, his trousers drawn up, so that his ankles and calves might warm; and the kitchen was in a joyous tumult, with which the little old man from Satan’s Trap was in benevolent sympathy. Jonathan had thought to find the house solemn, the wife in a fluster, the twins painfully washed and brushed, the able seamen of the little crew glued to their stools; but no! the baby was crowing in the cradle, the twins tousled and grinning, the wife beaming, the little crew rolling on the floor—the whole kitchen, indeed, in a gratefully familiar condition of chaos and glee. At once they sat down to supper. “I’m glad t’ have you, parson,” said Jonathan, his broad, hairy face shining with soap and delight. “That I is. I’m _glad_ t’ have you.” The parson’s smile was winning. “Jonathan haves a wonderful taste for company,” Aunt Tibbie explained. The man defended himself. “I isn’t able t’ help it,” said he. “I loves t’ feed folk. An’ I isn’t able, an’ I never was able, an’ I never will be able t’ help it. Here’s your brewis, sir. Eat hearty of it. Don’t spare it.” “They’s more in the pot,” Aunt Tibbie put in. The parson’s gentle eye searched the table—as our eyes have often done. A bit of hopeful curiosity—nothing more: a thing common to us all, saints and sinners alike. We have all been hungry and we have all hoped; but few of us, I fancy, being faint of hunger—and dyspeptic—have sat down to a bowl of brewis. ’Tis no sin, in parson or layman, to wish for more; for the Lord endowed them both with hunger, and cursed many, indiscriminately, with indigestion. Small blame, then, to the parson, who was desperately hungry; small blame to Jonathan, who had no more to give. There is no fault anywhere to be descried. Ah, well! the parson’s roving eye was disappointed, but twinkled just the same; it did not darken—nor show ill-humor. There was a great bowl of brewis—a mountain of it. ’Twas eyed by the twins with delight. But there was nothing more. The parson’s eye—the shy, blue, twinkling eye—slyly sought the stove; but the stove was bare. And still the mild eyes continued full of benevolence and satisfaction. He was a _man_—that parson! “Windy weather,” said he, with an engaging smile. “Never seed nothin’ _like_ it!” Jonathan declared.