on ship's biscuit and salt horse, my girl.""Where have you been this voyage, Uncle?" asked Mary.
"Peru and Monte Video, and other outlandish parts, my dear. I was held up in the Doldrums, and water was running plaguy short;
'water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink,' as that poetry fellow says. One more voyage, my girls, and then I drop anchor for good."
"We hoped you would stay with us," said Elizabeth.
"Couldn't do it, Bess," he replied. "I can hold a straight course, but I couldn't run a straight furrow for the life of me. No; one more
voyage, to the South Pacific Islands this time, and then I'll take a snug little cottage somewhere by the sea, and spend my days white-
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washing it, and getting worse-tempered every day, and you shall keep house for me, and smooth me down." And then Tommy put the usual question--it always came from Tommy.
"What adventures did you have this time, Uncle?"
Uncle Ben rubbed his chin, and assumed an air of deep reflection.
"Adventures! Well, the only one worth speaking about," he said slowly, "was when we were becalmed in latitude 35deg South, longitude
152deg East, I think it was. By the chart we should have been about a hundred and fifty miles from the nearest land, but one morning
Long Jimmy--the tall fellow with one eye, you remember----?"
"Yes," said Tommy; "he helped me down the side last time I saw you off."
"Well, he was look-out at the time, and he sings out, 'Land-ho!' I was on deck in a twinkling, I can tell you; and there, a couple of points on the starboard quarter, was a smallish kind of island, and stretching away behind it a lot of little islands pretty near as far as you could see. The biggest was as large as Mount St. Michael, maybe, and all of a white shiny rock. I made a few remarks about the chart-makers, and was thinking of putting out a boat to examine it, when, bless your eyes! that island began to move, and all the little
'uns after it."
Here he drank half a cup of tea, and the girls waited breathlessly for him to continue.
"Some one set up a cry of sea-serpent," he went on gravely, "and Sunny Pat--the little Irishman, you remember---?" "Yes, such a funny little man. Go on, Uncle," said Tommy.
"Well, Sunny Pat calls out, 'Begorra, shure 'tis the way of openin' it is!' and sure enough that big island showed a gash right across the middle, that grew wider and wider, and each side of it there was a row of teeth about as long as a church steeple. Jupiter, 'twas a fearsome sight. But Sandy Sam--you remember him, the big red-headed fellow--he's got more presence of mind than any able seaman I ever met. He outs with a big gooseberry--we'd taken a few bushels on board at Greenland--and flings it straight at the monster, knowing that sea-serpents can't abide big gooseberries, being in the same line of business, as you may say. Well----"
Here the story was interrupted, for the girls made a simultaneous rush on the old man. Tommy pummelled him. Mary put her hand over his mouth, and Elizabeth took his half-eaten cake, and declared that he should have no more until he confessed that he had been fibbing.
"You naughty wicked old man," cried Tommy, as he shook with laughter. "Now you shan't have another cup of tea until you've turned out your pockets."
"I give in," said the Captain. "Three to one isn't fair play. I've had enough tea, only let me get my pipe alight and then we'll see."
As long as the girls could remember, their uncle, on his arrival, when his first pipe was lit, had turned out his capacious pockets, in which there was always a present of some kind for every one, besides oddments unaddressed which his nieces appropriated at their fancy. Settled in the arm-chair, with a big calabash pipe in his mouth, he plunged his hand into a pocket, and brought out the red bandana handkerchief.
"That's your flag," cried Tommy. "Be quick!"
"Patience," he replied, producing a tin of tobacco and a knife. "We'll let you keep them," said Mary. "What next, Uncle?"
"Well, here's a small parcel with somebody's name on it, and it looks uncommon like Mary."
Mary seized the parcel, opened it, and uttered a cry of delight as she unfolded a pretty Indian scarf. "Oh, you dear!" she cried, giving him a kiss.
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He plunged his hand again into his pocket and drew out slowly and with a solemn air that made the girls agog with expectation--a short cutty pipe, at which they cried "Shame!" Then came another small parcel, marked with Elizabeth's name, which proved to contain a tortoiseshell comb with silver mountings. Another dip brought forth a bright round silver case with a long cord hanging from a hole in the side. Tommy pounced on this.
"What is it, Uncle?" she asked.
"It's a contraption for getting a light in a wind, given me by an old friend in Valparaiso," replied the Captain. "'Twas kindly meant,
to be sure, but I've never used it, for I've never had any difficulty in lighting my pipe in any wind that ever blew short of a typhoon, and then a man has other things to think about. I'll show you how it's done, and you can keep it against the time when you're an old woman and go round selling things from a caravan: old women of that sort always smoke."
"The idea!" exclaimed Tommy, but when her uncle had shown her how to obtain a spark by turning a little handle sharply, and how the spark ignited the cord, she took the thing and slipped it into her pocket.
Then at last came the parcel for which Tommy had been eagerly waiting, and she gave a long sigh of pleasure as she drew through
her fingers a scarf of exquisite fineness like Mary's.
"You're a darling!" she cried, giving her uncle a tight hug, and at the same time knocking his pipe from his mouth. "Oh, I'm so
sorry," she said contritely. "Never mind, I'll fill it again for you."
Captain Barton took from his pockets sundry other articles which he divided among the girls, as well as a queer assortment of his personal belongings. When all his pockets were empty, Tommy said--
"Now you can put all that rubbish back; see what a litter it makes!"
"For what you don't want, I return humble and hearty thanks," said the Captain, using a form of words which they had heard from his lips ever since they were babies. "And now if you can think of anything but fal-lals, we'll settle down and have a cosy talk about things. Draw your chairs up to the fire, girls."
CHAPTER III LEAVING HOME
Uncle Ben listened attentively as Elizabeth gave an account of affairs at the farm. He did not interrupt her, but now and then muttered an ejaculation through a cloud of smoke. Elizabeth was clear-headed, and did not take long to explain the position to her uncle. It was impossible to keep on the farm without capital, and the Captain, though he had a good sum laid by, was not the man to risk
his money in a business of which he knew nothing. So the farm must be sold, and it was clear that when everything was settled up, there would be little or nothing left for the girls to live on. They mentioned the ideas they had had of earning their living, and the obstacles in the way; and Captain Barton puffed at his pipe, and pulled his beard, and
