Page:While Caroline Was Growing.djvu/352

 hands to stay in one place. And the way they come back to die! I'm half Winterpine myself—he and I were second cousins—and I well remember Uncle Milton Winterpine coming home from Java to die in his bed. He was a sailor, and how I used to hang around and coax him to tell me what he'd seen! I remember how he staggered into the house—Mother Winterpine was living then.

"'Here, Esther, here's a fifty-pound sack of Old Gov'ment Javvy for ye, green, and fit for the president's table as soon's it gits ripe,' he says, 'and you won't have to nurse me long;' and we got his boots off and helped him to bed. He never left it. He brought me a parrot, that trip, sort of indigo color and pink. It used to set me thinking of the hot countries and pineapples and natives, and those tall trees with all the leaves on top—palms, I guess I mean. It seems the stars are lower, there, and look bigger; did you ever see the Southern Cross?"

"Oh, yes. It's like any other stars. The first officer on the P & O line always asks me to come and see it. Then he proposes. J. G. plays poker