“I let un fall back on the pillow.
“‘I’m through, Tumm,’ says he, ‘an’ I ’low I’ll quit.’
“Straightway he quit....”
Wind astern, moonlight and mist upon the sea, a serene and tender sky, with a multitude of stars benignantly peeping from its mystery: and the Good Samaritan dawdled on, wing and wing to the breeze, bound across from Sinners’ Tickle to Afterward Bight, there to deal for the first of the catch. Tumm looked up to the sky. He was smiling in a gentle, wistful way. A little psa’m from his Bible? Again I wondered concerning the lesson. “Wink away,” said he, “you little beggars! Wink away—wink away! You been lookin’ at this damned thing so long that no wonder you winks. Wink away! I’m glad you’ve the heart t’ do it. I’m not troubled by fears when you winks down, you’re so wonderful wiser’n we. Wink on, you knowin’ little beggars!”
This, then, it seemed, was the lesson.
THE END