"The cap'n went out afterwards, an' towed in a couple of bar'ls of flour that was only part soaked through, an' he got some other plain prog that would do fur future use. But none of us give our minds to stuff like this arter the glorious Christmas dinner that we'd quarried out of the Mary Auguster. Every man that wasn't on duty went below and turned in fur a snooze—all 'cept me, an' I didn't feel just altogether satisfied. To be sure, I'd had an A1 dinner, an', though a little mixed, I'd never eat a jollier one on any Christmas that I kin look back at. But, fur all that, there was a hanker inside o' me. I hadn't got all I'd laid out to git when we teched off the Mary Auguster. The day was blazin' hot, an' a lot of the things I'd eat was pretty peppery. `Now,' thinks I, `if there had been just one can o' peaches sech as I seen shinin' in the stars last night!' An' just then, as I was walkin' aft, all by myself, I seed lodged on the stump of the mizzenmast a box with one corner druv down among the splinters. It was half split open, an' I could see the tin cans shinin' through the crack. I give one jump at it, an' wrenched the side off. On the top of the first can I seed was a picture of a big white peach with green leaves. That box had been blowed up so high that if it had come down anywhere 'cept among them splinters it would 'a' smashed itself to flinders, or killed somebody. So fur as I know, it was the only thing that fell nigh us, an' by George, sir, I got it! When I had finished a can of 'em I hunted up Andy, an' then we went aft an' eat some more. `Well,' says Andy, as we was a-eatin', `how d'ye feel now about blowin' up your wife, an' your house, an' that little schooner you was goin' to own?'
"`Andy,' says I, `this is the joyfulest Christmas I've had yit, an' if I was to live till twenty hundred I don't b'lieve I'd have no joyfuler, with things comin' in so pat; so don't you throw no shadders.'
"`Shadders!' says Andy. `That ain't me. I leave that sort of thing fur Tom Simmons.'
"`Shadders is cool,' says I, `an' I kin go to sleep under all he throws.'
"Well, sir," continued old Silas, putting his hand on the tiller and turning his face seaward, "if Tom Simmons had kept command of that wreck, we all would 'a' laid there an' waited an' waited till some of us was starved, an' the others got nothin' fur it, fur the cap'n never mended his engine, an' it wasn't more'n a week afore we was took off, an' then it was by a sailin' vessel, which left the hull of the Water Crescent behind her, just as she would 'a' had to leave the Mary Auguster if that jolly old Christmas wreck had been there.
"An' now, sir," said Silas, "d'ye see that stretch o' little ripples over yander, lookin' as if it was a lot o' herrin' turnin' over to dry their sides? Do you know what that is? That's the supper wind. That means coffee, an' hot cakes, an' a bit of br'iled fish, an' pertaters, an' p'r'aps, if the old woman feels in a partiklar good humor, some canned peaches—big white uns, cut in half, with a holler place in the middle filled with cool, sweet juice."
MY WELL AND WHAT CAME OUT OF IT
Early in my married life I bought a small country estate which my wife and I looked upon as a paradise. After enjoying its delight for a little more than a year our souls were saddened by the discovery that our Eden contained a serpent. This was an insufficient water-supply.
It had been a rainy season when we first went there, and for a long time our cisterns gave us full aqueous satisfaction, but early this year a drought had set in, and we were obliged to be exceedingly careful of our water.