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Uncle Dick Gaylord was a bluff, hearty old fellow, a sailor on the face of him; no one ever took him for anything else. Walter and Eugene thought he was nice to have in the house—he was so good-natured and obliging, and was always in such excellent spirits. And then, what a laugh he had! It was none of your tittering, affected laughs, but a jolly, heartfelt roar of merriment that fairly shook the rafters, and made everybody else laugh to hear it. He was a man a little below the medium height, with very broad shoulders and muscles like a gold-beater’s. He always wore an immense necktie and collar, and when he walked he rolled about like a skiff in a gale of wind. He applied sea phrases to everything, and had so funny a way of talking and acting that he kept the boys’ jaws and sides aching continually. One thing he did was long remembered by every one of the family.

It was midwinter when he came home from his last voyage, and had his cabin fitted up, and the first night he slept in it a furious storm arose. It was terribly cold, and old Mrs. Gaylord, Uncle Dick’s mother (with the maternal instinct still strong within her), thought of her son away up in the top of the building, and wondered if he did not need tucking up in bed. She seemed to forget that long years had passed since she had packed him away in his crib and knelt at his side while he whispered “Our Father,” and that during those years her little helpless Dick had grown into a bold, resolute man, had roamed in every climate under the sun, and faced death in a thousand terrible shapes. The mother forgot all this. To her the hearty old sea-dog was still her little Dick, and needed looking after. Heedless of the storm, she found her way to the top of the house and into the sailor’s quarters; and after putting extra clothing on the bed, she wrapped the quilts around his feet and tucked the edges into the bunk, to keep them from falling off on the floor—the weary mariner snoring terrifically during the whole proceeding. When she went out she left a lighted lamp on the table, thinking that perhaps he might want something during the night, and that he could not find it conveniently in the dark.