“‘Barzilla,’ he says, ‘I ain’t sayin’ but what I’d like to go to the wharves with you, first rate.  And we will go, too.  But afore we do anything else I’ve got an errand that must be attended to.  ’Twas give to me by a dyin’ man,’ he says, ’and I promised him I’d do it.  So that comes first of all.’

“He got his wallet out of his inside vest pocket, where it had been pinned in tight to keep it safe from robbers, unwound a foot or so of leather strap, and dug up a yeller piece of paper that looked old enough to be Methusalem’s will, pretty nigh.

“‘Do you remember Patrick Kelly in Orham?’ he asks.

“‘Who?’ says I.  ’Pat Kelly, the Irishman, that lived in the little old shack back of your barn?  Course I do.  But he’s been dead for I don’t know how long.’

“‘I know he has.  Do you remember his boy Jim that run away from home?’

“‘Let’s see,’ I says.  ’Seems to me I do.  Freckled, red-headed rooster, wa’n’t he?  And of all the imps of darkness that ever—­’

“‘S-sh-sh!’ he interrupted solemn.  ’Don’t say that now, Barzilla.  Sounds kind of irreverent.  Well, me and old Pat was pretty friendly, in a way, though he did owe me rent.  When he was sick with the pleurisy he sends for me and he says, “Cap’n ’Wixon,” says he, “you’re pretty close with the money,” he says—­he was kind of out of his head at the time and liable to say foolish things—­“you’re pretty close,” he says, “but you’re a man of your word.  My boy Jimmie, that run away, was the apple of my eye."’

“’That’s what he said about his girl Maggie that was took up for stealin’ Mrs. Elkanah Higgins’s spoons,’ I says.  ’He had a healthy crop of apples in his orchard.’

“’S-sh-h!  Don’t talk so!  I feel as if the old man’s spirit was with us this minute.  “He’s the apple of my eye,” he says, “and he run away, after me latherin’ the life out of him with a wagon spoke.  ’Twas all for his good, but he didn’t understand, bein’ but a child.  And now I’ve heard,” he says, “that he’s workin’ at 116 East Blank Street in the city of New York.  Cap’n Wixon, you’re a man of money and a travelin’ man,” he says (I was fishin’ in them days).  “When you go to New York,” he says, “I want you to promise me to go to the address on this paper and hunt up Jimmie.  Tell him I forgive him for lickin’ him,” he says, “and die happy.  Will you promise me that, Cap’n, on your word as a gentleman?” And I promised him.  And he died in less than ten months afterwards, poor thing.’

“‘But that was sixteen—­eighteen—­nineteen years ago,’ says I.  ’And the boy run away three years afore that.  You’ve been to New York in the past nineteen years, once anyhow.’

“’I know it.  But I forgot.  I’m ashamed of it, but I forgot.  And when I was goin’ through the things up attic at my daughter’s last Friday, seein’ what I could find for the rummage sale at the church, I come across my old writin’ desk, and in it was this very piece of paper with the address on it just as I wrote it down.  And me startin’ for New York in three days!  Barzilla, I swan to man, I believe something sent me to that attic.’