“Excuse me, Atkins.  I mind my own business, you know.  I ask no questions, and you are under no obligation to tell me anything.”

“I know, I know.”  The lightkeeper nodded solemnly.  He clasped his knee with his hands and rocked back and forth in his chair.  “I know,” he went on, an absent, wistful look in his eye; “but you must have wondered, just the same.  I bought that craft because—­well, because she reminded me of old times, I cal’late.  I used to command a schooner like her once; bigger and lots more able, of course, but a fishin’ schooner, same as she used to be.  And I was a good skipper, if I do say it.  My crews jumped when I said the word, now I tell you.  That’s where I belong—­on the deck of a vessel.  I’m a man there—­a man.”

He paused.  Brown made no comment.  Seth continued to rock and to talk; he seemed to be thinking aloud.

“Yes, sir,” he declared, with a sigh; “when I was afloat I was a man, and folks respected me.  I just do love salt water and sailin’ craft.  That’s why I bought the Daisy M. I’ve been riggin’ her and caulkin’ her just for the fun of doin’ it.  She’ll never float again.  It would take a tide like a flood to get her off them flats.  But when I’m aboard or putterin’ around her, I’m happy—­happier, I mean.  It makes me forget I’m a good-for-nothin’ derelict, stranded in an old woman’s job of lightkeepin’.  Ah, hum-a-day, young feller, you don’t know what it is to have been somebody, and then, because you was a fool and did a fool thing, to be nothin’—­nothin’!  You don’t know what that is.”

John Brown caught his breath.  His fist descended upon the window ledge beside him.

“Don’t I!” he groaned.  “By George, don’t I!  Do you suppose—­”

He stopped short.  Atkins started and came out of his dream.

“Why—­why, yes,” he said, hastily; “I s’pose likely you do. . . .  Well, good night.  I’ve got to go on watch.  See you in the mornin’.”

CHAPTER VI

THE PICNIC

Seth was true to his promise concerning Job.  The next afternoon that remarkable canine was decoyed, by the usual bone, into the box in which he had arrived.  Being in, the cover was securely renailed above him.  Brown and the light-keeper lifted the box into the back part of the “open wagon,” and Atkins drove triumphantly away, the pup’s agonized protests against the journey serving as spurs to urge Joshua faster along the road to the village.  When, about six o’clock, Seth reentered the yard, he was grinning broadly.

“Well,” inquired Brown, “did he take him back willingly?”

“Who?  Henry G.?  I don’t know about the willin’ part, but he’ll take him back.  I attended to that.”

“What did he say?  Did he think you ungrateful for refusing to accept his present?”