“Dannie!”
Across the street he leaped, three strides from curb to curb and two more to the top step. “Katie— Katie—and this cold morning!”
“I couldn’t let you go by without saying good luck again, Dannie.”
“Oh, the girl!” He patted her head and drew her to him till he felt her lips making warm little circles against his neck.
“Dannie?”
“Yes, dear.”
“I wish you’d stay at home this trip. The Pantheon is old.”
“Old? So she is. Not the vessel the Katie’ll be—not by a dozen ratings. But Lord, Katie, I’ve been through too many blows in her for you to be worrying now, dear.”
“I know it, Dannie, and yet I wish you weren’t going this trip.”
“Well, I wish I warn’t myself. I’d like nothing better than to be staying this month home and watching the new one building—to overhaul every plank and bolt and thread of oakum that’s put in her. All day long watch her building, and every night come and tell you how she is getting on, the pair of us side by side before the fire. That’d beat winter fishing on Georges—fighting your way out of the shoal water when it comes a no’the-easter, and chopping ice off her to keep her afloat when it comes a no’wester. Yes, dear, it cert’nly would be a comfort—home here with you and watching the Katie building. But we can’t both have comfort, dear. You to home and me to sea we’ll have to be for many years yet, dear. I’ll go out this trip as I went out a hundred of others before. When I’m back—why, ’twill be worth the trip, dear, that coming back to you.”