I wrote often to Uncle Jesse through the winter and sent him books and magazines . He enjoyed them but he thought -- and truly enough -- that none of them came up to his life-book for real interest . `` If my life-book could be took and writ by someone that knowed how , it would beat them holler , '' he wrote in one of his few letters to me . In the spring we returned joyfully to Golden Gate . It was as golden as ever and the harbour as blue ; the winds still rollicked as gaily and sweetly and the breakers boomed outside the bar as of yore . All was unchanged save Uncle Jesse . He had aged greatly and seemed frail and bent . After he had gone home from his first call on us , Mother cried . `` Uncle Jesse will soon be going to seek lost Margaret , '' she said . In June Robert came . I took him promptly over to see Uncle Jesse , who was very much excited when he found that Robert was a `` real writing man . '' `` Robert wants to hear some of your stories , Uncle Jesse , '' I said . `` Tell him the one about the captain who went crazy and imagined he was the Flying Dutchman . '' This was Uncle Jesse 's best story . It was a compound of humour and horror , and though I had heard it several times , I laughed as heartily and shivered as fearsomely over it as Robert did . Other tales followed ; Uncle Jesse told how his vessel had been run down by a steamer , how he had been boarded by Malay pirates , how his ship had caught fire , how he had helped a political prisoner escape from a South American republic . He never said a boastful word , but it was impossible to help seeing what a hero the man had been -- brave , true , resourceful , unselfish , skilful . He sat there in his poor little room and made those things live again for us . By a lift of the eyebrow , a twist of the lip , a gesture , a word , he painted some whole scene or character so that we saw it as it was . Finally , he lent Robert his life-book .
Robert sat up all night reading it and came XXXXX the breakfast table in great excitement .
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