Matt moved forward into the passage, wondering. Ole Hey solemnly held up the wedge of black-jack he had cut, and when Matt’s eye was well fixed on it he dislodged the old “chaw” from his cheek with contortions of the mouth, and blew it out with portentous gravity. Lastly, he replaced it by the wedge of “black-jack,” mouthed and moulded the new quid conscientiously between tongue and teeth, and passed the ball into his right cheek.
“Thet’s the way to succeed in life, sonny. Never throw away dirty afore you got clean, hey?”
Poor Matt, unconscious of the lesson, waited inquiringly and deferentially, but the deacon was finished, and turned again to his mother.
“I ’spect it ’ll be from some of the folks to home, mebbe.”
“Mebbe,” replied Mrs. Strang, longing for solitude and spectacles.
“When did you last hear from the boss?”
“He was in the South Seas, the capt’n, sellin’ beads to the savages. He’d a done better to preach ’em the Word, I do allow.”
“Ah, you kin’t expect godliness from sailors,” said the deacon. “It’s in the sea es the devil spreads his nets, thet’s a fact.”
“The Apostles were fishermen,” Mrs. Strang reminded him.
“Yes; but fishers ain’t sailors, Mrs. Strang. It’s in furrin parts that the devil lurks, and the further a man goes from his family the nearer he goes to the devil, hey?”