IV HISTORY IN WOOD 209 



Others helped themselves during the night; 

 several whom he met, he sent to do so. The 

 sport of it, for him, was over. The sea will send 

 him plenty more. What remained, two or three 

 days afterwards, he carried up to his house and 

 placed with the wood that has been there, some of 

 it, for fifty or sixty years. 



That staclc of wood, over which the cats 

 disport themselves, is the record of Benjie's life- 

 time alongshore, and also warmth laid up for his 

 old age. Each piece he burns will yield him up 

 Its history and his own. He loves It, and he 

 will not turn It out, even to make room for 

 nets. 



