The sweet-tempered old woman chatted as she knitted on his
blue-wool hose, but she scarcely expected more than his occasional
grunted acknowledgment that he was listening. She always said it was
"a joy to have somebody besides the cat around to talk to." The
loneliness of shipmasters who sail the seven seas is often mentioned
in song and in story; the loneliness of their wives at home is not
usually marked.
They went to bed. Old men do not usually sleep much after second
cock-crow, and it was not far from three in the morning when Cap'n
Ira awoke. Like most mariners, he was wide awake when he opened his
eyes. He lay quietly for several moments in the broad bed he
occupied alone. The half-sobbing breathing of the old woman sounded
from her room, through the open door.
"It's got to be done," Cap'n Ira almost audibly repeated.
He got out of the bed with care. It was both a difficult and a
painful task to dress. When he had on all but his boots and hat he
tiptoed to a green sea chest in the corner, unlocked it, and from
beneath certain tarpaulins and other sea rubbish drew out something
which he examined carefully in the semidarkness of the chamber. He
finally tucked this into an inner pocket of the double-breasted
pilot coat he wore.
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