Two, three, five, seven years later, I visited the little family in Philadelphia.  The wife was with her mother and father in a simple little home street in a factory district, secretary and stenographer to an architect.  She was little changed—­a little stouter, not so carefree, industrious, patient.  His boy, the petted F——­, could not even recall his father, the girl not at all of course.  And in the place were a few of his prints, two or three Chinese dishes, pottered by himself, his loom with the unfinished rug.  I remained for dinner and dreamed old dreams, but I was uncomfortable and left early.  And Mrs. Peter, accompanying me to the steps, looked after me as though I, alone, was all that was left of the old life.

A Doer of the Word

Noank is a little played-out fishing town on the southeastern coast of Connecticut, lying half-way between New London and Stonington.  Once it was a profitable port for mackerel and cod fishing.  Today its wharves are deserted of all save a few lobster smacks.  There is a shipyard, employing three hundred and fifty men, a yacht-building establishment, with two or three hired hands; a sail-loft, and some dozen or so shops or sheds, where the odds and ends of fishing life are made and sold.  Everything is peaceful.  The sound of the shipyard axes and hammers can be heard for miles over the quiet waters of the bay.  In the sunny lane which follows the line of the shore, and along which a few shops struggle in happy-go-lucky disorder, may be heard the voices and noises of the workers at their work.  Water gurgling about the stanchions of the docks, the whistle of some fisherman as he dawdles over his nets, or puts his fish ashore, the whirr of the single high-power sewing machine in the sail-loft, often mingle in a pleasant harmony, and invite the mind to repose and speculation.

I was in a most examining and critical mood that summer, looking into the nature and significance of many things, and was sitting one day in the shed of the maker of sailboats, where a half-dozen characters of the village were gathered, when some turn in the conversation brought up the nature of man.  He is queer, he is restless; life is not so very much when you come to look upon many phases of it.

“Did any of you ever know a contented man?” I inquired idly, merely for the sake of something to say.

There was silence for a moment, and one after another met my roving glance with a thoughtful, self-involved and retrospective eye.

Old Mr. Main was the first to answer.

“Yes, I did.  One.”

“So did I,” put in the sailboat maker, as he stopped in his work to think about it.

“Yes, and I did,” said a dark, squat, sunny, little old fisherman, who sold cunners for bait in a little hut next door.

“Maybe you and me are thinking of the same one, Jacob,” said old Mr. Main, looking inquisitively at the boat-builder.

“I think we’ve all got the same man in mind, likely,” returned the builder.