DYER'S HOLLOW. 75 



houses standing along the valley road were 

 occupied by Western Islanders. I was 

 crossing a field belonging to one of them 

 when the owner greeted me; a milkman, 

 as it turned out, proud of his cows and of 

 his boy, his only child. " How old do you 

 think he is?" he asked, pointing to the 

 young fellow. It would have been inexcus- 

 able to disappoint his fatherly expectations, 

 and I guessed accordingly: "Seventeen or 

 eighteen." "Sixteen," he rejoined, "six- 

 teen ! " and his face shone till I wished I had 

 set the figure a little higher. The additional 

 years would have cost me nothing, and there 

 is no telling how much happiness they might 

 have conferred. "Who lives there? " I in- 

 quired, turning to a large and well - kept 

 house in the direction of the bay. "My 

 nephew." "Did he come over when you 

 did ? " " No, I sent for him. " He himself 

 left the Azores as a cabin boy, landed here 

 on Cape Cod, and settled down. Since 

 then he had been to California, where he 

 worked in the mines. "Ah! that was where 

 you got rich, was it ? " said I. " Kich ! " 

 this in a tone of sarcasm. But he added, 

 "Well, I made something." His praise of 



