But at this point Peggotty—I mean my own Peggotty—made such impressive motions to me not to ask any more questions, that I could only sit and look at all the company, until it was time to go to bed.
Mrs. Gummidge lived with them too, and did the cooking and cleaning, for she was a poor widow and had no home of her own. I thought Mr. Peggotty was very good to take all these people to live with him, and I was quite right, for Mr. Peggotty was only a poor man himself and had to work hard to get a living.
Almost as soon as morning shone upon the oyster-shell frame of my mirror I was out of bed, and out with tittle Em'ly, picking up stones upon the beach.
"You're quite a sailor I suppose?" I said to Em'ly. I don't know that I supposed anything of the kind, but I felt it proper to say something; and a shining sail close to us made such a pretty little image of itself, at the moment, in her bright eye, that it came into my head to say this.
"No," replied Em'ly, shaking her head, "I'm afraid of the sea."
"Afraid!" I said, with a becoming air of boldness, and looking very big at the mighty ocean. "I ain't."
"Ah! but it's cruel," said Em'ly. "I have seen it very cruel to some of our men. I have seen it tear a boat as big as our house all to pieces."
"I hope it wasn't the boat that—"
"That father was drowned in?" said Em'ly. "No. Not that one, I never see that boat."
"Nor him?" I asked her.