“Both was big accidents—­thet’s why, Harve.  Well, that one single night Penn and his folks was to the hotel Johnstown was wiped out.  ‘Dam bust an’ flooded her, an’ the houses struck adrift an’ bumped into each other an’ sunk.  I’ve seen the pictures, an’ they’re dretful.  Penn he saw his folk drowned all’n a heap ’fore he rightly knew what was comin’.  His mind give out from that on.  He mistrusted somethin’ hed happened up to Johnstown, but for the poor life of him he couldn’t remember what, an’ he jest drifted araound smilin’ an’ wonderin’.  He didn’t know what he was, nor yit what he hed bin, an’ thet way he run agin Uncle Salters, who was visitin’ ’n Allegheny City.  Ha’af my mother’s folks they live scattered inside o’ Pennsylvania, an’ Uncle Salters he visits araound winters.  Uncle Salters he kinder adopted Penn, well knowin’ what his trouble wuz; an’ he brought him East, an’ he give him work on his farm.’, “Why, I heard him calling Penn a farmer last night when the boats bumped.  Is your Uncle Salters a farmer?”

“Farmer!” shouted Dan.  “There ain’t water enough ‘tween here an’ Hatt’rus to wash the furrer-mold off’n his boots.  He’s jest everlastin’ farmer.  Why, Harve, I’ve seen thet man hitch up a bucket, long towards sundown, an’ set twiddlin’ the spigot to the scuttle-butt same’s ef ‘twas a cow’s bag.  He’s thet much farmer.  Well, Penn an’ he they ran the farm—­up Exeter way ’twur.  Uncle Salters he sold it this spring to a jay from Boston as wanted to build a summer-haouse, an’ he got a heap for it.  Well, them two loonies scratched along till, one day, Penn’s church—­he’d belonged to the Moravians—­found out where he wuz drifted an’ layin’, an’ wrote to Uncle Salters.  ’Never heerd what they said exactly; but Uncle Salters was mad.  He’s a ’piscopolian mostly—­but he jest let ’em hev it both sides o’ the bow, ‘s if he was a Baptist; an’ sez he warn’t goin’ to give up Penn to any blame Moravian connection in Pennsylvania or anywheres else.  Then he come to Dad, towin’ Penn,—­thet was two trips back,—­an’ sez he an’ Penn must fish a trip fer their health.  ’Guess he thought the Moravians wouldn’t hunt the Banks fer Jacob Boiler.  Dad was agreeable, fer Uncle Salters he’d been fishin’ off an’ on fer thirty years, when he warn’t inventin’ patent manures, an’ he took quarter-share in the ‘We’re Here’; an’ the trip done Penn so much good, Dad made a habit o’ takin’ him.  Some day, Dad sez, he’ll remember his wife an’ kids an’ Johnstown, an’ then, like as not, he’ll die, Dad sez.  Don’t ye talk abaout Johnstown ner such things to Penn, ’r Uncle Salters he’ll heave ye overboard.”

“Poor Penn!” murmured Harvey.  “I shouldn’t ever have thought Uncle Salters cared for him by the look of ’em together.”

“I like Penn, though; we all do,” said Dan.  “We ought to ha’ give him a tow, but I wanted to tell ye first.”

They were close to the schooner now, the other boats a little behind them.