"
The speaker was a grizzled man, middle-aged, and rather too plump for a
sailor. He had a genial, good-natured countenance, and so far as I could
see was the only occupant of the vessel.
His craft was truly a peculiar one. It was sloop-rigged, and on the
after part of the deck, occupying about one third of the length of the
vessel, was a structure resembling a small one-storied house, which rose
high above the rest of the deck, like the poop of an old-fashioned
man-of-war. In the gable end of this house, which faced upon the deck,
there was a window and a door. The boom of the mast was rigged high
enough to allow it to sweep over the roof.
"I reckon you gents think this is a queer kind of a craft," said the
man, with a grin of pleasure at our evident curiosity; "and if ye think
that, ye are about right, for there isn't jist such another one as far
as I know. This is a floating grocery, and I am captain of the sloop or
keeper of the store, jist as it happens. In that house there is a good
stock of flour, sugar, feed, trimmings, notions, and small dry goods,
with some tinware and pottery, and a lot of other things which you
commonly find in a country grocery store. I have got the trade of about
half the families in this bay; all of them on the islands, and a good
many of them on the mainland, especially sech as has piers of their own.
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