"Have some beans, won't ye?" asked the skipper abruptly, as if he had been deluded by some trick into a gloomy frame of mind and was determined to shake it off then and there. "Them is the real New England beans," he continued, taking a black bean-pot with a wooden spoon from the ashes. "There's the bone and sinner of New England's sons right here. I'm master-fond of 'em; never sails withaout a pot or so. Every time I see a pot it makes me think of old Joe Muggridge, a deacon of aour taown. He beat me once years ago in 'lection for hog-reeve; but I don't bear no ill feelin'. He was deacon of the First Baptist, and captain of one of the biggest coasters in aour parts, and that fond of beans that folks believed he'd 'a' died if he couldn't have had 'em. Wall, it so happened one fall that there came on a powerful gale on the Georges, and a power of hands was lost. A good many bots got carried away from the schooners, and one dory with two men from Boothbay was picked up by one of these ocean-steamers bound in for New York, and that's the way the yarn got told. They'd been withaout food and water for three days, and were abaout givin' up; but the steamer-folks tuck 'em in and steamed for port. "The next mornin' it was blowin' fresh and lively, and the lookout sighted a schooner lyin' to a couple of miles to the lew'ard, reefed daown close, and a flag flyin', union down,--signal of distress. Thinkin' they were sinkin', the captain of the steamer put towards her, and rounded to half a mile off and called for volunteers to git aout the bot. Half a dozen brave fellers sprang to the davits, and among 'em aour Boothbay boys. They'd been in a fix, ye see, and was eager to help the rest of sufferin' humanity. She was rollin' so that it tuck 'em nigh an hour to git the bot over, and then two men fell overboard; but finally they got off toward the schooner, all hands givin' 'em three cheers. "It was a hard pull, and a nasty sea, but they kept at it, and in half an hour was within hailin'-distance. Then the third officer of the steamer stood up and sung aout, 'Schooner ahoy!' 'Ay, ay!' says a man in the schooner's fore-riggin', and the men see naow that she was ridin' like a duck and as dry as a sojer. 'Are ye in distress?' sung aout the officer. 'Yas,' came from the man in the riggin'. 'Flounderin'?' shouted the officer ag'in. 'No,' sung out old man Muggridge, for it was him: 'next thing to it. We're aout o' beans. Kin ye spare a pot?' "Wall," continued Captain Sol, reddening with the roar of laughter that accompanied the recollection, "it ain't for me, bein' a perfesser of religion, to let on what the men in the bot said, but it had a master-effect on the deacon, for afore them rescuers got back to the steamer he'd shook aout his reefs and was haulin' to the east'ard. "Wall," said the old skipper, banking the fire with a shovelful of sand, as his visitors rose to go, "to-morrow, then, at early flood, sharp."