“This happened to my own father, but I never heard him say much about it; never could get him to talk it over to any length, best I could do.  But gran’ther, his father, told me about it nigh upon fifty times, first and last, and always the same way.  Gran’ther lived to be old, and there was ten or a dozen years after his wife died that he lived year and year about with Uncle Tobias’s folks and our folks.  Uncle Tobias lived over on the Ridge.  I got home from my first v’y’ge as mate of the Daylight just in time for his funeral.  I was disapp’inted to find the old man was gone.  I’d fetched him some first-rate tobacco, for he was a great hand to smoke, and I was calc’latin’ on his being pleased:  old folks like to be thought of, and then he set more by me than by the other boys.  I know I used to be sorry for him when I was a little fellow.  My father’s second wife she was a well-meaning woman, but an awful driver with her work, and she was always making of him feel he wasn’t no use.  I do’ know as she meant to, either.  He never said nothing, and he was always just so pleasant, and he was fond of his book, and used to set round reading, and tried to keep himself out of the way just as much as he could.  There was one winter when I was small that I had the scarlet-fever, and was very slim for a long time afterward, and I used to keep along o’ gran’ther, and he would tell me stories.  He’d been a sailor,—­it runs in our blood to foller the sea,—­and he’d been wrecked two or three times and been taken by the Algerine pirates.  You remind me to tell you some time about that; and I wonder if you ever heard about old Citizen Leigh, that used to be about here when I was a boy.  He was taken by the Algerines once, same’s gran’ther, and they was dreadful f’erce just then, and they sent him home to get the ransom money for the crew; but it was a monstrous price they asked, and the owners wouldn’t give it to him, and they s’posed likely the men was dead by that time, any way.  Old Citizen Leigh he went crazy, and used to go about the streets with a bundle of papers in his hands year in and year out.  I’ve seen him a good many times.  Gran’ther used to tell me how he escaped.  I’ll remember it for ye some day if you’ll put me in mind.

“I got to be mate when I was twenty, and I was as strong a fellow as you could scare up, and darin’!—­why, it makes my blood run cold when I think of the reckless things I used to do.  I was off at sea after I was fifteen year old, and there wasn’t anybody so glad to see me as gran’ther when I came home.  I expect he used to be lonesome after I went off, but then his mind failed him quite a while before he died.  Father was clever to him, and he’d get him anything he spoke about; but he wasn’t a man to set round and talk, and he never took notice himself when gran’ther was out of tobacco, so sometimes it would be a day or two.  I know better how he used to feel now that I’m getting to be along in years myself, and likely to be some care to the folks before long.  I never could bear to see old folks neglected; nice old men and women who have worked hard in their day and been useful and willin’.  I’ve seen ’em many a time when they couldn’t help knowing that the folks would a little rather they’d be in heaven, and a good respectable headstone put up for ’em in the burying-ground.