for themselves everywhere, and not a thought or a worry." As for him, he would stay ashore at home after this, for good, and not care if he never saw a thing in all his days. And he would find something, make something, to work at for his living. He was eager to get home and begin. The situation there was bleak and desperate enough, to be sure; but as he thought it over and over, there seemed to be a chance of some kind, surely. The stars grew more friendly while he looked at them, pondering; the half-tipsy songs and shuffling became the music of the homeward bound; and when he turned in that night he lay in his bunk cheerfully figuring out his wages over and over.
It was late in July before the Merry Andrew lay off his native town, and sent him ashore in a boat,—to the wharf in the village, for there was not time to land him upon his own beach. The unpainted houses along the straggling main street seemed flat and small and widely spaced, the church steeple lower, after the cities he had seen. As they rowed in on the young flood, the distances
