Page:Rideout--Beached keels.djvu/268

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254
BEACHED KEELS

flection; the mate's that heavy, embarrassed gloom, half melancholy decorum and half fidgets, seen in figures who line the walls at a rustic funeral.

His master contemplated a picture that he had just unscrewed from the bulkhead,—a discolored likeness of a patient, heroic face.

"Ab'ram Lincoln," he said, laying it on the table. "Follansbee won't want him. I do."

He stooped into the warm lamplight and shadow of the lower level, rummaged in a locker, and, drawing out various treasures, heaped them on the table.

"Now this"—it was an ancient swallow-tail burgee, red and white—"I 'll ask him if I can keep this. … Spare lead-line,—well, that's part o' the fittin's; that's his." A bundle of old saffron pamphlets thumped the table, and sent up a thin cloud of dust. "Leave him those for readin',—Farmer's Almanacs: the back of 'em has rafts o' good riddles and ketches." Then followed a small graven image in black tamarind wood, handfuls of cowrie shells, a shark-tooth necklace, a