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 grumble at his molasses. Next thing was, there come a schoolmaster, an’ then, ’stead o’ swimmin’, an’ fishin’, an’ gardenin’ all day long, as we’d a’ used to do, the children had to sit still an’ learn—an’ a very good thing too. I was a young woman by that time, an’ a silly I felt, I can tell you, a-settin’ there among the little ones, an’ a-learnin’, at last, how to cipher an’ write—read I always could; mother she’d took care o’ that. There was some others my own size, though, that was one comfort; an’ well I remember your grandfather (as was to be) a-settin’ beside me an’ a-helpin’ me with ‘seven times,’ which I never could remember. . . eh, them days! . ..

“Then they built a church. Before that, the parson used to come over from Port, every few months, for to marry, an’ christen, and preach us a sermon in Martin’s big barn. An’ then we started a choir—I used to like that fine! All our organ, to be sure, was for years Tim Rafferty’s fiddle, the same as was our brass band on the nights when the moon was our ’lectric light, an’ the hard sand of the beach our ball-room floor; but our singin’-hall was big enough, anyway, for it was the whole Bay, an’ our benches was the boats—we was always great hands for singin’ on the water. Water seems a natural soundin’-glass for song, like it’s a lookin’-glass for light. Sounded nice it did, an’ felt nice, too, I can tell you! An’ often as not, we’d make a picnic of it, as far as the Head rocks there; boil the billy, an’ have our tea, an’ sing ourselves home by moonlight. I used to like them trips.

“An’ then at last there came the first steamer! That made more difference to the Bay than any-