"Your grandmother's father he was a sailmaker, you know," he continued, soberly. "He used to have a sail loft where he sat and sewed on sails. He used to pay your grandmother by the dozen for threading for him."
"I didn't know," said Elizabeth. She looked up from her knitting for an instant, and saw the strange, prickly surface of the denuded fowl. "I didn't realize that the reason they called it goose flesh when they got chilled was because your flesh looked like a goose's flesh—I mean a—a geese's," she added, hastily.
"Yes, and sometimes the reason they call a young girl a little goose is that all of a sudden she begins to act like one. Pesky things, these little pin feathers!"
"I—I can help you do that," Elizabeth said.
"Well, put that towel over your lap and don't get any blood on you. Sure it won't make you sick?"
"I'm just about sure that it will," said Elizabeth, "but—but what do I care? Did it make you sick when you first went to sea, Grandfather?"
"Sick as a dog," said her grandfather, heartily, "and the smell of that souring meal, and mouldy corn beef, and dead fish—well, I——"
"Oh, you poor, poor granddaddy," Elizabeth cried, "you poor little boy, why did they make you go?"
"That was my father's idea of bringing me up. I ain't so sure it wasn't a pretty good one."
"Did you get paid for it?"