“Get out! Cut me another slice of bread, like a good fellow. I asked him where the steamboat wharf was. And what do you think he did? Pointed over his shoulder, mind you, and said it was two miles! Then, thinks I, I’ve rowed around the point and this is Cottage City where the cottages are. ‘What place is this?’ I asked him. ‘Vineyard Haven,’ says he. Well, I didn’t know any more then, so I told him where I wanted to go and all about it. He was a nice chap, if his face was all over coal dust, and he told me that I was near a place called West Chop and that what I wanted was Eastville and that it was up the harbor and across. So I asked him then if there was a grocery store around there, and he said there was one about a quarter of a mile up the harbor. So I thanked him and started off again, keeping right up snug to the shore. And after I’d gone about a quarter of a mile, as I reckoned it, I made a landing at an old wharf and set out to find the grocery. “It was like walking in the dark, because I couldn’t see more than a dozen feet ahead of me. Once I came pretty near going through a hole in the pier. But pretty soon I found a building of some sort and walked around it and found a road. But there wasn’t a soul to be seen. So I kept on going for quite a ways, and then I remembered that if I didn’t look out I’d never find the tender again. So I turned around and started back. And pretty soon I saw that I’d lost my way. But I found the grocery. There were two or three stores there and some houses. I went in and bought a pound of butter. I’d have got more but I didn’t know how good it would be. I suppose it’s pretty poor, isn’t it?” “No,” answered Dan promptly, “it’s great; nice and salty.” “Then I asked the old idiot in the store if he knew of a broken-down wharf around there; said I’d left my boat at it and couldn’t find it. He looked at me as though he thought I was crazy and said most of the wharves around there were broken down, but maybe the one I meant was the second one to the north. So I tried again and found it right away. I didn’t know what time it was, because I didn’t have my watch and I’d forgotten to ask. I tried to remember the direction the fellow on the coal barge had pointed, but I guess I got it wrong, for after I’d rowed a long time without finding anything except a log of wood I wasn’t near any land at all, as far as I could make out. I couldn’t see anything and I couldn’t hear anything except little sounds way off. I took a rest then, for I was dead tired and beastly hungry. I guess the tender floated out with the tide, for the first thing I knew I was looking up at three fellows leaning over the bow of a big sailing vessel.