Is he not the father of the slender-faced,
strapping-bodied Miss West?
"Thank goodness that's settled," was Miss West's exclamation this
morning, when we met on the poop and after I had told her how
gloriously I had slept.
And then, that nightmare episode dismissed because, forsooth, for all
practical purposes--it was settled, she next said:
"Come on and see the chickens."
And I accompanied her along the spidery bridge to the top of the
'midship-house, to look at the one rooster and the four dozen fat
hens in the ship's chicken-coop.
As I accompanied her, my eyes dwelling pleasurably on that vital gait
of hers as she preceded me, I could not help reflecting that, coming
down on the tug from Baltimore, she had promised not to bother me nor
require to be entertained.
COME AND SEE THE CHICKENS!--Oh, the sheer female possessiveness of
that simple invitation! For effrontery of possessiveness is there
anything that can exceed the nest-making, planet-populating, female,
human woman?--COME AND SEE THE CHICKENS! Oh, well, the sailors
for'ard may be hard-bitten, but I can promise Miss West that here,
aft, is one male passenger, unmarried and never married, who is an
equally hard-bitten adventurer on the sea of matrimony.
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