errand made them move as lords. By what childlike sophistry it had come to pass none could tell, but Joe
Dickson, poor ex-captain of a sailing-vessel, and his wife Martha were, in their own conviction, on their way
to re-establishment in the best mansion on that coast, inhabited by the wealthy of the country.
When they reached the Willard house Joe and Martha ducked under the iron chain across the carriage-drive,
and proceeded along the glittering smoothness bordered by brilliant flowers, having no realization of the true
state of affairs.
"I declare, it does seem good to get back," said Joe.
"It certainly does," said Martha, "and so much earlier than we'd looked forward to."
"I calculated they might stay till late in October, the way they did last year," said Joe, joyously. "Just see that
red-geranium bed, Marthy."
"Them ain't geraniums; them is begonias," said Martha, haughtily.
"It always seems to me as if all the flowers was geraniums," said Joe. He laughed.
Martha did not smile. "They ain't," said she.
They passed around to the back of the grand house. The wide veranda was cleared except for two
weather-beaten old chairs. The windows, except one on the second floor, were boarded over. The house
looked as if asleep, with closed eyes, before that magnificent ocean, a vast brilliance as of gemlike facets
reflecting all the glory of the whole earth and the heavens above the earth. The tide was coming in. Now and
then a wave broke with a rainbow toss, quite over the sea wall of the beach. The coast in places -- and this was
one of them -- was treacherous.
Captain Joe and his Martha sat down in the rude chairs. Martha sighed a sigh of utter rapture.
"Land! it is certainly nice to be here again," said she.
Joe, however, scowled at the sea wall. "They had ought to have seen to that wall afore they went off," he said.
"Land! It's safe, ain't it?"
"I dunno'. Nobody never knows nothin' when the sea's consarned. Ef they had asked me I'd said: 'Hev a lot of
men on the job, and make sure there ain't no shaky places in that 'ere wall; and whilst you're about it, build it
up about six foot higher. It wouldn't cut off your view none.' The hull of it is, the sea never quits the job.
Everything on earth quits the job, one way or t'other, but that sea is right on, and she's goin' to be right on it;
and bein' right on the job, and never quittin', means somethin' doin' and somethin' bein' done, and nobody
knows just what."
"I guess it's all right," said Martha. "It ain't likely that They would have gone off and left this house unless it
was; and money ain't no object."
"Sometimes folks with money gits the wrong end of the bargain," said Joe. "Money don't mean nothin' to the
sea. It's swallowed more'n the hull earth holds, and it's ready to swallow till the day of jedgment. That wall
had ought to be looked arter."
There was a sound of the one unboarded window being opened, and it immediately framed an aged colored
face, with a fringe of gray beard like wool. The owner of the face could not be seen, and, because of the