'
"Then he sings out, like his mind was all made up, 'And if he undertook
it, would he likely be turned away?'
"'And it's likelier,' George Olver answers him; 'that heaven and earth
shall pass.'
"So I'll hear it to my dyin' day--his voice a floatin' down to me from up
above thar', somewhar', askin' them questions that nobody could ever
answer like, so soon, he answered 'em for himself--and when I looked up,
thar' was Harvey, with his hammer dropped, and his mouth wide open, a
starin' up thar', and the tears rollin' down his cheeks like he was a
baby.
"They didn't sing no more, after that. They was still for about five
minutes, I calk'late. Harvey, he was still, too; but pretty soon, he
wakes up and says, 'Gad, boys! Did ye ever see sech a queer look in the
sky? I believe thar's a September gale brewin'."
"'It's a little wind storm, I reckon,' says Bachelder. Bachelder was
settin', with his legs curled up under him, mendin' sail, and he begun to
spin one o' them yarns o' hisn, with his voice pitched up middlin' high,
and the boys, they begun to laugh and cheer.
"Then Harvey says; 'I'll run up to headquarters, and find out about the
weather;' and clim' up the main-mast as limber as a squirrel, and when he
came back, thar' was Tommy's hat stickin' way up top o' the mast; so
Tommy, he promised to pay him--them two was always foolin' together, but
good-natered enough.
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