child into this business, you must let it hang up its stockin'
before it goes to bed, and find it full in the mornin', and then
tell it an all-fired lie about Santa Claus if it asks any
questions. Most children think more of stockin's than they do of
trees--so I've heard, at least."

"I've got no objections to stockin's," said Captain Eli. "If
it wanted to hang one up, it could hang one up either here or in
my house, wherever we kept Christmas."

"You couldn't keep a child all night," sardonically remarked
Captain Cephas, "and no more could I. Fer if it was to get up a
croup in the night, it would be as if we was on a lee shore with
anchors draggin' and a gale a-blowin'."

"That's so," said Captain Eli. "You've put it fair. I
suppose if we did keep a child all night, we'd have to have some
sort of a woman within hail in case of a sudden blow."

Captain Cephas sniffed. "What's the good of talkin'?" said
he. "There ain't no child, and there ain't no woman that you
could hire to sit all night on my front step or on your front
step, a-waitin' to be piped on deck in case of croup."

"No," said Captain Eli. "I don't suppose there's any child
in this village that ain't goin' to be provided with a Christmas
tree or a Christmas stockin', or perhaps both--except, now I come
to think of it, that little gal that was brought down here with
her mother last summer, and has been kept by Mrs. Crumley sence
her mother died."