"In 'bout two weeks they made what Silas thought was Fayal. Silas sailed into harbor as proud as Nebberkernezzar, when one of the men come up an' says, says he, 'That ain't Fayal, Cap'n,' but Silas told him to shut his mouth, he guessed he knew where he was without no Joppa clam-digger tellin' him his business. Yer see Silas he was born over to Ipswich, an' terrible proud of it,--I dunno why. But after he'd come to anchor, an' he'd got on his shore clothes, he got into the boat an' went ashore. It didn't take him long to find out that the feller was right; it wa'n't Fayal, it wa'n't even one of the Azores, he hadn't made no east'ard at all,--hee, hee, hee! Hee, hee, hee! It was--hee, hee, hee!" The captain's laughing was so prolonged this time, he was so doubled up with excruciating merriment as to cause us some anxiety. He coughed and strangled, and his usually red face became deep purple. Finally he managed to control himself enough to gasp faintly:-- "It was one of the _West Injies_! Yessir, Silas had sailed pretty nigh due south after the gale was over, an' here he was on one of the West Injy Islands. I dunno what one: my father said Silas wouldn't never tell 'em, though _he_ reckoned it might 'a' been Cubia. Joe Noyes was in the crew, an' he said it was further to the east'ard than Cubia, but it was one of the West Injies all right. The story got out, of course, when the _Nanny_ got back here, an,' when Silas come down to live on this lane with his mother's folks,--for Melvin Bailey didn't ask him to command no more ships,--why then they began to call this West Injy Lane. That wa'n't its name,--'twas Plummer's Lane, but folks has called it West Injy Lane ever since,--'cept these cotty-dummers that want it called Washington Avenue. Yessir, that's the way it happened." And then the captain added, somewhat irrelevantly:-- "So yer see I know all 'bout that tree, an' yer don't want to believe any of them poets!" CHAPTER XVII THEIR UNACCOUNTABLE BEHAVIOR My orders were explicit. I was to take a note up to the Bigelow's house on Elm Street, and I was to give the note to Miss Carew. There was no answer. After delivering the note I might do as I pleased, but I must not be late for dinner. The member of my family who issued these directions was one with whom it paid to keep on good terms. I might have felt grieved about this errand on such a morning, but I had already found that Jimmy Toppan and Ed Mason had departed from their homes on some private mission which did not seem to include me. Bereft of playmates I had spent a lonely half-hour in the side yard, blowing on blades of grass, and raising fiendish shrieks therewith. So my employment on business which would send me far from home was mutually agreeable. I had only one request to make. "Can I go on my velocipede?" "Yes; but don't go too fast and get overheated, and don't lose the note."