"
"Well, go on, Captain," said Mrs. Le Moyne gayly. "What else?
Pray what was the family occupation--'calling' I believe they say
in New England. I suppose they had some calling, as they never have
any 'gentlemen' in that country."
Pardee's face flushed hotly. He was born among the New Hampshire
hills himself. However, he answered calmly, but with a slight
emphasis,
"They were seafaring men, madam."
"Oh, my!" cried the invalid, clapping her hands. "Codfish! codfish!
I knew it, Hetty! I knew it! Why didn't you go out of the room
when I begged you to? Do you hear it, Hesden? That is where you get
your Radicalism from. My! my!" she laughed, almost hysterically,
"what a family! Codfish at one end and Radical at the other! 'And
the last state of that man was worse than the first!' What would
not the newspapers give to know that of you, Hesden?"
She laughed until the tears came, and her auditors laughed with
her. Yet, despite her mirth, it was easy to detect the evidence of
strong feeling in her manner. She carried it off bravely, however,
and said,
"But, perhaps, Captain Pardee, you can relieve us a little. Perhaps
they were not cod-fishers but mackerelers. I remember a song I
have heard my father sing, beginning,
"When Jake came home from mack'reling, He sought his Sary Ann, And
found that she, the heartless thing, Had found another man!"
"Do please say that they were mackerelers!"
"I am sorry I cannot relieve your anxiety on that point," said
Pardee, but I can assure you they were a very respectable family.
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