I slept rather late, this morning, and came out of the house feeling very fit. Had it not been for my blistered hands nothing would have remained to show what a hard pull we had yesterday, excepting the unpleasant feeling that I made rather a donkey of myself last evening. My only excuse, and a mighty poor one, is that I was rather played out and developed a silly grouch.
I had only gone a little way when I met Mrs. Barnett. She came towards me with her hand outstretched, smiling in her usual pleasant way.
"Right again and topside up," she exclaimed, brightly. "Sammy was just telling me what a hard time you had to make the cove, yesterday. Those broad shoulders of yours give you an advantage over my husband. He would have had to go off towards North Cove. It is fine to be as strong and big as you."
"Mrs. Barnett," I said, fervently, "you are an awful humbug."
She cocked her head a little to one side, with a pretty motion she sometimes unconsciously affects.
"Out with it," she said. "Explain yourself so that I may repent and be forgiven."
"There is nothing to be forgiven you," I declared. "I would like to place you on a pedestal and direct the proper worshipping of you. None but the most superior kind of a woman can take a fool chap and turn his folly around so that he may be rather pleased with it. I expected a good wigging from you, and deserve it."
"That sort of thing is one of the most important functions and privileges of a woman," she answered. "Men need it all the time for the smoothing out of their ruffled feelings."
"The men shouldn't allow them to get ruffled," I said.
"There speaks the wise man," she laughed, "nor should the sea permit itself to get stormy. Were you not explaining to me the other day that the wind allows the climbing up of the sap in swaying trees, and that the stirring of the waters keeps them pure and fit to maintain the unending life beneath them?"