She ain't as big as some, but I'd like nothin' better than to fill her full of suthin' for the west coast of Africy, same as the Horace M.Bickford that cleared t'other day, stocked for SIXTY THOUSAND DOLLARS." "Huh, you'd get lost out o' sight of land, John," is the cruel retort, "and that old shoe-box of yours 'ud be scared to death without a harbor to run into every time the sun clouded over.

Expect to navigate to Africy with an alarm-clock and a soundin'-lead, I presume." "Mebbe I'd better let well enough alone," replies the old man.

"Africy don't seem as neighborly as Phippsburg and Machiasport.

I'll chance it as far as Philadelphy next voyage and I guess the old woman can buy a new dress." The activity and the reawakening of the old shipyards, their slips all filled with the frames of wooden vessels for the foreign trade, is like a revival of the old merchant marine, a reincarnation of ghostly memories.

In mellowed dignity the square white houses beneath the New England elms recall to mind the mariners who dwelt therein.