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about the work, and he'd try to understand--as so few of his
kind would. He understood better after he'd been some trips with me,
and I came to love him--almost. When I was away on those trips, my
wife would be at home--until the time her aunt took sick. I recollect her
speakin' of her aunt--or did I? No matter. She lived out West
somewhere, and didn't want her to marry me--or so I made out. I didn't
go too deep into it. When she hinted that she hadn't told me of her aunt
before for fear of hurtin' my feelin's, it was enough. Women feel things
more than men, and no use to rake 'em over. I knew I was a rough man,
not the kind many women folks might take to--I never quite got over
Her likin' me--nor did a whole lot of people--and 'twas natural a woman
of the kind her aunt must be, didn't like her marryin' a man like me. But
no matter; her aunt was bein' reconciled, she used to write me, and
when your wife is makin' up to her only livin' relative, and she dyin',
it's no time to be exactin'. So she stayed on in the West. I've forgotten
where--Chicago maybe?--too far, anyway, for me to go to her, because
I had to stand ready in my business to leave at a minute's notice. A gale
c'd rise in an hour, the coast be cluttered with wrecks in one day. And

there were so many big people, steamboat people and big shippin' firms,
who counted on me, would 'a' been disappointed, you see, if I wasn't on
deck when needed. It's something, after all, to be honest in your work
all your life, not leave it to careless helpers.
He lost his interest in the wreckin' after a while, and natural, too. He
hadn't to build up his family's name or provide a livin' for anybody by it.
And her aunt still lingered, she wrote. And then I wrote that I would
give up the business if she said so, and go out there. I could begin
again--there was great shippin' on the lakes--better sell out a hundred
wreckin' plants than be so much apart, for it's terrible to be comin' from
the sea and never find the woman afore ye. But she telegraphed to wait,
she would be home soon, and she wanted to see me, too, about
something partic'lar. That was the night before the Portland breeze--in
the year o' the war with Spain--yes, '98 that would be, the year the
Portland went down on Middle Bank with all on board. A foolish loss
that, and nobody ever went to jail for it; but it's mostly that way,
nobody sufferin' for it--but the families o' the lost ones--when
passenger ships go down at sea.
There was half a dozen steamboat firms telegraphin' and telephonin' the
morning after that storm, and I had to leave without waitin' till she got
home. There was a wreck off Cape Cod, and that kept me away a week,
and I was hurryin' back by way of Boston. And I saw him--me hurryin'
up Atlantic Avenue to take the train and him headed for the docks. I
hailed him. There was a rumor--'twas in the papers--that I'd gone down
with the wreck I'd been workin' on off Cape Cod--Chatham way--but of
course no one who knew me well believed it. But he must've believed it,
for--"What, you!" he says--not even puttin' in the "Captain" that he
never before forgot. I missed that little word from him--and he didn't
look at me the same--him that had always such a friendly way with me.
He seemed to be in a great hurry, and so I left him without more talk.
He did not even tell me that the Rameses was in the harbor and he
leavin' on her, but the thought of that came later.
I had to stop off at Newport, to get things started for another wreck
there, and that took me the rest of that day and the next, and then I was
all ready to take the night boat for New York, but my oldest boy came
hurryin' down the dock to me, and an old lady--no--not so old, but
lookin' old--with him. And they told me how the Rameses, that had left

Boston the morning before, 'd been wrecked off Gay Head durin' the
night and sunk; and this was his mother, and she wanted me to go to the
wreck right away and see if I could find and bring up his body.
I wanted to go home--a week of days and nights--and I was tired, too,
and not easy to tire me in those days, but I thought of him and