Under Rocking Skies

There was a twinkle in Captain March's eyes
UNDER ROCKING SKIES
L. FRANK TOOKER
AUTHOR OF THE CALL OF THE SEA, ETC.
NEW YORK THE CENTURY CO. 1905
Copyright, 1905, by The Century Co.
Published October, 1905 COLONIAL PRESS Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co. Boston, U.S.A.
UNDER ROCKING SKIES

UNDER ROCKING SKIES
For a quarter of an hour Thomas Medbury had been standing at the east window of his mother's parlor, gazing out across his neighbor's yard with an eager intentness that betrayed a surprising absorption in a landscape without striking features and wholly lacking in any human interest. The low-studded room in which he stood was closely shut and darkened, having about it the musty smell peculiar to old houses. There were sea-fans before the fireplace, flanked on each side by polished conch-shells. On the wall hung an oil-painting of the brig North Star , with all sail set, and at her foretruck a white burgee, with her name in red letters, standing straight out in half a gale of wind. Family portraits in oval gilt frames were ranged with mathematical precision along the remaining wall-spaces, and on the mantelpiece stood a curious collection of objects brought from far lands—carved ivories and strange ware from China, peculiar shells, a Japanese short sword, and a South Pacific war-club. No one would have needed to be told that it was the home of a sailor.