"How big were these boats?"
"They carried from ten to twenty-five men. Grandfather he built a sailing vessel down here at the mouth of Herring River that went all around the world nearabout. 'Twas his boast that he built it from timber cut on his own land. I was on board of her just off New Bedford when the steamer Morning Star struck her amidships. She sunk in less'n fifteen minutes."
"But you—were saved?"
"I woke up when she struck, and I come up from below just as I was, in my underclothes. I saw a dark shape coming alongside, and that was all I knew. I jumped for her. They said I was the first one over the side. 'Twas the old coastwise steamer that saved us, nosing along in the dark. She was good enough for me to land on."
"All these things don't seem possible, Grandfather. I can't believe them. You must have been a brave little boy."
"I don't know. I don't think boys is born brave, but they get the fear o' God put into them one way or another, the same as little girls."
"But all these things are like—story books."
"Like enough. Story books is imitated from real life, as near as I can make out."
"I didn't think any things like these could happen to anybody I knew. I mean, things so exciting."
"You never thought to sink so low as to be picking pin feathers out of the same fowl with a feller that had been cook on a fishing schooner."