"She'll take it out o' yer wages; she 's dreadful close," chuckled Captain Pharo, as we tucked the bag of meal away on the carriage floor. "See when ye'll scoff in my sails, and block up the ship's channel ag'in! Now then; touch and go is a good pilot," and we struck off on a divergent road at a rattling pace. But these adventures had exhausted so much time, when we arrived at Crooked River it was high tide, and the bridge was already elevated for the passage of a schooner approaching in the distance. "See, now, what ye done, don't ye?" said Captain Pharo--I must say it--with mean reproach, to his wife; "we've got to wait here an hour an' a half." "Wal, thar, Cap'n Pharo Kobbe, seems to me I wouldn't say nothin' 'g'inst Providence nor nobody else, for once, ef I'd jest got two dollars' worth o' meal, jest for pickin' it up off'n the road." Touched by this view of the case, the captain sang with great cheerfulness that his days were as the grass or as the morning flower--when an inspiration struck him. "I don' know," said he, "why we hadn't just as well turn here and go up Artichoke road, and git baited at Coffin's, 'stid er stoppin' to see 'em on the way home. I'm feelin' sharp as a meat-axe ag'in." "I don' know whether the rest of ye are hungry or not," said plump little Mrs. Kobbe; "but I'm gittin as long-waisted as a knittin'-needle." The language of vivid hyperbole being exhausted, Mrs. Lester and I expressed ourselves simply to the same effect. We turned, heedful no longer of the tides, and travelled delightfully along the Artichoke road until we reached a brown dwelling that I knew could be none other than theirs--Uncle Coffin's and Aunt Salomy's; they were in their sunny yard, and before I knew them, I loved them. "Dodrabbit ye!" cried Uncle Coffin Demmin, springing out at us in hospitable ecstasy, Salomy beside him; "git out! git out quick! The sight on ye makes me sick, in there. Git out, I say!" he roared. "No-o; guess not, Coffin," said Captain Pharo, with gloomy observance of formalities; "guess I ca-arnt; goin' up to the Point to git a nail put in my hoss's shu-u." But Uncle Coffin was already leading the horse and carriage on to the barn floor. "Dodrabbit ye!" he exclaimed, "git out, or I'll _shute_ ye out." At this invitation we began to descend with cheerful alacrity. As the horse walked into an evidently familiar stall, Uncle Coffin seized Captain Pharo and whirled him about with admiring affection. "Dodrabbit ye, Pharo!" he cried, struck with the new jacket; "ye've been to Boston!" "I hain't; hain't been nigh her for forty year," said Captain Pharo, but he was unconscionably pleased. "Dodrabbit ye, Pharo! ye've been a-junketin' around to Bar Harbor; that 's whar' ye been." "I hain't, Coffin; honest I hain't been nigh her," chuckled Captain Pharo. "Dodrabbit ye, Pharo!" said Uncle Coffin, seizing the hat from his head and regarding its bespattered surface with delight; "ye've been a-whitewashin'!"