“Why, of course he did, my dear, since that’s it,” replied the hostess compassionately; and then, with the inborn courtesy peculiar to Nantucket folk, turned aside the laugh that followed by hastily displaying some new marvel. The room was crowded with marine curiosities, many of them brought home by the deceased captain, many of them presented to his relict by his comrades or by her own friends; they were mostly such as we have seen many times in many places, but some few were _sui generis_, such as a marriage contract between a Quaker bachelor and maid in the early days of the island, with the signatures of half the settlers appended as witnesses, mutual consent before others being the only ceremony required by the canon of these Non-sacramentarians. Then there was Phœbe Ann’s comb, a wonderful work of art in tortoise shell, anent which the possessor, Phœbe Ann’s sister, delivered a short original poem, setting forth how ardently Phœbe Ann had desired one of these immense combs, their price being eight dollars each; and how, having engaged it, she set to work to earn it by picking berries for sale; but before the pence had grown to the pounds the big comb was out of fashion, and poor Phœbe Ann’s hair, which had been wonderfully luxuriant, fell off through illness, and what remained was cut short. Nantucket probity would not, however, be off its bargain for such cause as this; and Phœbe Ann paid her money and took her ornamental comb,――more useful in its present connection, perhaps, than it could have been in any other. The crown and glory of Mrs. McCleve’s museum, however, is a carved wooden vase, twelve or fourteen inches in height, made from the top of one of the red-cedar posts planted a century or two since by this lady’s ancestor, to inclose a certain parcel of land belonging to him. Twenty or thirty years ago the fence was to be renewed, and one of her cousins proposed to her to drive out to the place and secure a relic of the original island cedar now extinct. She accepted; and the section of the post, sawed off with great exertion by the cousin, was turned and carved into its present shape in “Cousin Reuben Macy’s shop on Orange Street.” But all this set forth in an original poem delivered with much unction by its author, who decisively refuses a copy to any and everybody, and is even chary of letting any one listen to it more than once. It is original――in fact, one may say, intensely original――and quite as well worth listening to as the saga of a royal skald. It begins after this fashion: “This vase, of which we have in contemplation, Merits, my friends, your careful observation. * * * * * Saturday, the busiest day of all, From Cousin Thomas I received a call.” Some lost couplets record the invitation to drive, and the demur on account of pies then baking in the oven; but this being overruled by masculine persuasiveness――