JOE BRAZYBONE was walking slowly up the village street, on his way home. He seemed deep in thought, and his round shoulders were bowed forward, as if beneath a heavy weight. The few boys who were hanging about called after him, but he paid no attention to them. Usually, they were able to rouse him to frenzy by the song that one of their number had composed, and it was their delight to see him turn and chase them, with uncouth gestures of malediction. “Sculpin Brazybone, Hit him on his crazy-bone; Knocked out his wits, and Scared him into fits, and Warn’t nothin’ left of him Only jest a lazybone!” But to-day the insulting chant fell on unheeding ears, which was disappointing. Joe shambled along till he reached the low, brown cottage, where he and his sister-in-law wrangled their lives along. He looked up and around before entering the house, scanning sea and sky with sharp, weather-wise eyes. “It’s getting time for her!” he muttered to himself. “Soft sky, and everythin’ turnin’ green along by; time she was back here, to see things growin’. She never could stand it there in summer, not Isly couldn’t.” Reaching the poor little room which was his castle and his defence against all storms, Joe sat for a time in meditation; then he rose, and, after carefully reconnoitring the premises, and deciding that Ma’am Brazybone was nowhere about, he went on tiptoe to a cupboard in the wall, and examined its contents. One by one he drew out several objects, and, after looking them over with anxious scrutiny, proceeded to arrange them in orderly lines on his bed, which served for table, also. A look of honest pride spread over his homely face, as he gazed at these objects; he took from a drawer an old rag of red handkerchief, and slowly and methodically wiped off every one, spying for a particle of dust. It was a motley array. A pair of silver-bowed spectacles; a bracelet of carnelian beads; a brass thimble and a horn snuff-box; a brooch of the mineral called goldstone, set in tarnished, coppery gold; a piece of red coral, smoothed and polished; an ancient parasol, of faded green silk; these were the contents of Joe’s treasury. He gloated over them, lifting first one and then another; he murmured praise of them to the four walls that were his only hearers.