I agreed to the proposed disposition of our boat, and asked Captain Jabe if I could not hire him to take us direct to Brimley. "No, sir!" he answered. "I never pass by my customers, especially Widder Kinley, for she is the farthest off of any of them." "And she must be lookin' out sharp for us, too," said Abner, "for she bakes Thursdays, and she ought to sot her bread last night." "And I am a great deal afeard," continued Captain Jabe, "that her yeast cakes won't be any too fresh when she gits 'em; and the quicker that boat's down to the bottom and our anchor up off the bottom, the better it will be for the Widder Kinley's batch of bread." In the course of half an hour an empty oil-keg was moored over the spot where our boat lay upon the sandy bar, and we were sailing as fast as such an unwieldy vessel, with her mainsail permanently reefed above the roof of her grocery store, could be expected to sail. Our tacks were long and numerous, and although Walkirk and I lent a hand whenever there was occasion for it, and although there was a fair wind, the distant point rose but slowly upon our horizon. "I hope," I remarked to Captain Jabe, "that the Widow Kinley will buy a good bill of you, after you have taken all this trouble to get to her." "Dunno," said he; "she don't generally take more than she has ordered the week before, and all she has ordered this time is two yeast cakes." "Do you mean," exclaimed Walkirk, "that you are taking all this time and trouble to deliver two yeast cakes, worth, I suppose, four cents?" "That's the price on 'em," said the captain; "but if the Widder Kinley didn't git 'em she wouldn't do no bakin' this week, and that would upset her housekeepin' keel up." Late in the afternoon we delivered the yeast cakes to the Widow Kinley, whom we found in a state of nervous agitation, having begun to fear that another night would pass without her bread being "sot." Then we coasted along the shore, tying up at various little piers, where the small farmers' and fishermen's families came on board to make purchases. Now Abner was in his glory. Wearing a long apron made of blue-and-white bed-ticking, he stood behind the counter in the little house on deck, and appeared to be much more at ease weighing sugar, coffee, and flour than in assisting to weigh anchor. I seated myself in the corner of this floating grocery, crowded, shelves, floor, and counter, with such goods as might be expected to be found at an ordinary country store. It seemed to me that nearly every one who lived near the points at which we touched came on board the floating grocery, but most of them came to talk, and not to buy. Many of those who did make purchases brought farm produce or fish, with which to "trade." It was an interesting spectacle, and amused me. During our slow progress from one place to another, Captain Jabe told me of an old woman who once offered him an egg which she wished to take out in groceries, half in tea and half in snuff.