Page:Pratt portraits - sketched in a New England suburb (IA prattportraitssk00full).pdf/319

 them published. But when his cousin Arabella Spencer sang the song to him in her well-meaning but inadequate treble, he had experienced a sudden horror of what he had done, of the harsh treatment his modest little song would have to bear, and he had withdrawn the edition, and that was the end of his musical career. Only ten copies had been sold, and he hoped they might soon be lost.

The music sometimes haunted him, but to-day it was far from his thoughts. His mood was purely contemplative. Not a single long-drawn breath of the brimming creek escaped him, not a motion of the tall marsh grass, standing shoulder high in the pulsating tide. He watched, with quiet amusement, the elaborate twistings and windings of an eel among the sea-weed, the business-like preoccupation of a wicked old crab in the muddy ooze below, and when a soft-breasted sea-swallow alighted on the stern of the boat, an indescribable look of tenderness came into Uncle Bobby's blue eyes, and he sat motionless until the light-winged visitant had departed. The "yacht" had turned with the tide, and was drifting homeward, guided only by an occasional dip of the right oar or the left.

As she touched the beach Uncle Bobby planted his big waders in the water, and went splashing up the incline, hauling the boat up beyond highwater mark, where he dropped a miniature anchor in the sand. Then he made everything ship