"I make you a
lot of extry work, Prue. Sometimes I feel, fixed as I be in health,
I oughter be in the Sailors' Snug Harbor over to Paulmouth. I do,
for a fact."
"And what would become of me?" cried the old woman, appalled.
"Well," returned Cap'n Ira, "you couldn't be no worse off than you
be. We'd miss each other a heap, I know."
"Ira!" cried his wife. "Ira, I'd just _die_ without you now that
I've got you to myself at last. Those long years you were away so
much, and us not being blessed with children--"
Ira Ball made a sudden clucking sound with his tongue. That was a
sore topic of conversation, and he always tried to dodge it.
"It did seem sometimes," pursued Prudence, wiping her eyes with a
bit of a handkerchief that she took from her bosom, "as though I
wasn't an honestly married woman. I know that sounds awful"--and she
shook her head--"but it was so, you only getting home as you did
between voyages. But I was always looking forward to the time when
you would be home for good."
"Don't you s'pose I looked forward to casting anchor?" he demanded
warmly. "Seemed like the time never would come. I was always trying
to speculate a little so as to make something besides my skipper's
pay and share.
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