Thus went on our wooing , till I had shot wild-fowl enough to feather our bridal bed , and the Daughter of the Sea was mine . I built a cottage for Susan and myself , and made a gateway in the form of a Gothic arch , by setting up a whale 's jaw-bones . We bought a heifer with her first calf , and had a little garden on the hillside , to supply us with potatoes and green sauce for our fish . Our parlor small and neat , was ornamented with our two profiles in one gilt frame , and with shells and pretty pebbles on the mantel-piece , selected from the sea 's treasury of such things , on Nahant Beach . On the desk , beneath the looking-glass , lay the Bible , which I had begun to read aloud at the Book of Genesis , and the singing-book that Susan used for her evening psalm . Except the almanac , we had no other literature . All that I heard of books , was when an Indian history , or tale of shipwreck , was sold by a peddler or wandering subscription-man , to some one in the village , and read through its owner 's nose to a slumberous auditory . Like my brother fishermen , I grew into the belief that all human erudition was collected in our pedagogue , whose green spectacles and solemn phiz , as he passed to his little schoolhouse , amid a waste of sand , might have gained him a diploma from any college in New England . In truth I dreaded him . When our children were old enough to claim his care , you remember , Susan , how I frowned , though you were pleased , at this learned man 's encomiums on their proficiency . I feared to trust them even with the alphabet ; it was the key to a fatal treasure . But I loved to lead them by their little hands along the beach , and point to nature in the vast and the minute , the sky , the sea , the green earth , the pebbles , and the shells . Then did I discourse of the mighty works and coextensive goodness of the Deity , with the simple wisdom of a man whose mind had profited by lonely days upon the deep , and his heart by the strong and pure affections of his evening home . Sometimes my voice lost itself in a tremulous depth ; for I felt His eye upon me as I spoke . Once , while my wife and all of us were gazing at ourselves , in the mirror left by the tide in a hollow of the sand , I pointed to the pictured heaven below , and bade her observe how religion was strewn everywhere in our path ; since even a casual pool of water recalled the idea of that home whither we were travelling , to rest forever with our children . Suddenly , your image , Susan , and all the little faces made up of yours and mine , seemed to fade away and vanish around me , leaving a pale visage like my own of former days within the frame of a large looking-glass . Strange illusion ! My life glided on , the past appearing to mingle with the present and absorb the future , till the whole lies before me at a glance . My manhood has long been waning with a stanch decay ; my earlier contemporaries , after lives of unbroken health , are all at rest , without having known the weariness of later age ; and now , with a wrinkled forehead and thin white hair as badges of my dignity , I have become the patriarch , the Uncle of the village . I love that name ; it widens the circle of my sympathies ; it joins all the youthful to my household , in the kindred of affection .
Like Uncle Parker , whose rheumatic bones were dashed against Egg Rock , full forty years ago , I am a spinner XXXXX long yarns .
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