54 Watching the Brant Grow Big. 



to stop and merge his color into that of a 

 stranded ice floe in the distance. The 

 leaden heaven moves slowly over us, un- 

 broken save for the slanting missiles of 

 sleet that peck against the cabin window 

 and then bound full tilt to their grand- 

 mother the good old South Bay. Captain 

 Jack, finishing his early cup of hot coffee 

 down below, comes up out of the compan- 

 ion-way on deck in his woollen shirt, 

 hitches up one suspender, runs his hands 

 through his grizzly unwilling hair, hawks 

 and expectorates over the rail. " Golly ! 

 Tide runs like a hoss, don't it?" says 

 he, as a tangle of submerged eel-grass 

 scratches alongside in the swift ebb, and 

 the bowsprit of the sloop sidling in the 

 inlet current, bunts a periwinkle shell out 

 of the hard marsh bank that protected us 

 at anchor during the night. Captain Jack 

 does not produce much effect in the land- 

 scape about the marshes, because he looks 

 so much like any natural object except- 

 ing: when he comes to town. He has 



o 



stout muscles and a good heart. 'T is 

 only his head that fails when he comes in 

 contact with civilization. 



