"Charley is it you was talking about?" she asked. "Did you hear him coughin' last night? I did, and I couldn't sleep a wink for worrying about it. A real deep cough it was. Do you suppose it the lungs, and what's good for him to take?" "He's well enough except for mischief," put in Aunt Prue through the buttery door. "Prue never thinks anything ails anybody," said Mrs. Brush, sinking her voice to a whisper. "I'm really consarned about Charley. He don't eat hardly anything at dinner. That aint a bit natural for a growin' boy. And he says he lies awake a great deal of nights. He thinks it's the air about here makes him feel bad, but I don't know if he's right about it. I wish we'd a doctor here to say if going off to sea--or somewhere--would be the best thing for him. I'm clean confused as to what we'd best do about it, but I'm real uneasy in my mind." Charley, coming in just then, chuckled to himself as he heard her. So things went on, and by October Charley had his wish. It was settled that he should go to sea. Aunt Greg drove over to Wachuset Center and consulted with old Mr. Greg, her father-in-law, who was the wise man of the neighborhood. "Let him go--let him go," was Mr. Greg's advice. "When a chap like that gets the bit between his teeth, it's no use to keep yanking at the reins. Let him go for one long cruise, and see how he likes it. Ten to one he'll come back then and be glad to settle down. He aint the kind of boy to make a sailor of, I judge. There's Ben Bradley,--my first wife's cousin,--captain of one of them China traders; ship Charley with him. I'll write a line, and I guess Ben'll kind of keep an eye on him for the sake of the connection." So, late in the fall, Charley went to sea. Grandmother and the aunts felt dreadfully sad when it came to the parting; but he was full of satisfaction and triumph, and never shed a tear. The "Helen Weeks," as Captain Bradley's ship was named, sailed from Boston on the second of November, and for fifteen months nobody at home heard a word of Charley. Those were sad days at the old Brush Farm. Grandmother fell ill from anxiety, and even Aunt Prue looked white and miserable. Aunt Greg and Aunt Hitty spent their time crying in corners, and "Why did we let him go?" was the language of all their hearts. But in February, when everything was at its coldest and iciest, Charley came back,--Charley or his ghost, for the tall, thin, starved-looking ragged boy set down at the gate was very unlike the stout, rosy lad of the year before. He was so weak and forlorn that it was several days before he recovered enough to explain what had happened to him, and then it was little by little, and not as I give it, in one connected story.