He knowed I was a expectin' to be sick, and he was drefful afraid he wouldn't get hum in time; but he did.

He jest come a sailin' into th' harbor, with every mite o' sail the old brig 'd carry, two days afore Caley was born.

An' the next mornin',--oh, dear me! it don't seem no longer ago 'n yesterday,--while he was a dressin', an' I lay lookin' at him, he tossed that little thing over to me on the bed, 'n' sez he,--" "T 'll be a boy, Mercy, I know 'twill; an' here's his bos'u'n's whistle all ready for him,' an' that night he bought that very yard o' pink rebbin, and tied it on himself, and laid it in the upper drawer into one o' the little pink socks I'd got all ready.

Oh, it don't seem any longer ago 'n yesterday! An' sure enough it was a boy; an' your father he allus used to call him 'Bos'u'n,' and he'd stick this ere whistle into his mouth an' try to make him blow it afore he was a month old.

But by the time he was nine months old he'd blow it ez loud ez I could.