"We did have bad weather, I cal'late, though I never got out on deck often enough the whole endurin' v'y'ge to observe the sea and sky. I was washing dishes, making up berths, cleaning pots and pans, peeling 'taters and turmits, and seeding raisins for the skipper's plum duff most o' the time.
"Seeding raisins! Oh, sugar, I got to thinkin' that if that was all going to sea meant, I might better have got a job in a scullery and kept on an even footing. And I purty nigh got my lips in such a pucker whistling while I seeded them raisins (cookie wouldn't trust me otherwise) that I never did get 'em straight since.
"Say, lemme tell you!" proceeded Tobias, his weather-stained face beaming in the glow of the great Argand light. "Cap'n Drinkwater demanded his plum duff for supper ev'ry endurin' day of the v'y'ge, no matter what the weather was. He had an old black cook, Sam Snowball, that had got so's he could make that pudding to the queen's taste.
"Lemme tell you! The skipper was that stingy that he fed the crew rusty pork and weevilly beans, and a grade of salt horse that would make a crew of Skowegians mutiny. But the Sarah Drinkwater never made long enough v'y'ges for her crew to mutiny—no, sir!
"But that plum duff—oh, sugar! Bein' the boy, I never got more'n the lickin's of the dish. If I got enough 'taters and salt horse to fill my belly so's to keep my pants up, I was lucky. The skipper and the mate divided the duff between 'em.
"Ahem!" he added critically, "you don't look as though there was any plums at all in your duff, Ralph."
"There isn't," returned the young man shortly.
"Oh, sugar!" ejaculated the lightkeeper, drawing forth a short clay pipe and a sack of cut tobacco. "I cal'late that you folks with money have more real troubles than what we poor folks do."
"Huh! Money!" scoffed Endicott.
"Yep. It's mighty poor bait for fish, I cal'late. You can't even chum with it."