And sez he, a-lookin’ down onto it—“In the name of the gracious Peter! what is this?”
He thought in a minute of rope ladders and troubadors—he acted jealous.
Sez I, “It is some handkerchiefs that I am a-washin’ in the Atlantic Ocean, Josiah.”
He didn’t know I wuz awake, and it startled him. And sez he—
“How did you ever come to think on’t?”
“I d’no,” sez I; “but I thought it would be sunthin’ to think on, to say I had used the Atlantic for a washtub.”
Sez he—“Wash one of mine, Samantha. I’d love to tell Deacon Garvin on’t.”
Sez I—“Your second best bandanna is on the line.”
He looked down onto the heavin’ billows with content, and sez he—“I’m as hungry as a bear.”
That mornin’ the sea lay calm and beautiful. The sun riz up on it and flooded it with delicious waves of color; the east wuz a flame of color, and the crest of the heavin’ billows wuz aflame with gold and crimson and amethyst, and fur off some tall icebergs loomed up like cold, pale ghosts, a-hantin’ us with a vague sense of danger, like the undertone of sadness that underlays all things the most beautiful and grand.