Deephaven by Sarah Orne Jewett — Read

Deephaven seemed more like one of the lazy little English seaside towns / than any other. It was not in the least American. There was no / excitement about anything; there were no manufactories; nobody seemed in / the least hurry. The only foreigners were a few stranded sailors. I do / not know when a house or a new building of any kind had been built; the / men were farmers, or went outward in boats, or inward in fish-wagons, or / sometimes mackerel and halibut fishing in schooners for the city / markets. Sometimes a schooner came to one of the wharves to load with / hay or firewood; but Deephaven used to be a town of note, rich and busy, / as its forsaken warehouses show.

We knew almost all the fisher-people at the shore, even old Dinnett, who / lived an apparently desolate life by himself in a hut and was reputed to / have been a bloodthirsty pirate in his youth. He was consequently feared / by all the children, and for misdemeanors in his latter days avoided / generally. Kate talked with him awhile one day on the shore, and made / him come up with her for a bandage for his hand which she saw he had / hurt badly; and the next morning he brought us a "new" lobster / apiece, -- fishermen mean that a thing is only not salted when they say it / is "fresh. " We happened to be in the hall, and received him ourselves, / and gave him a great piece of tobacco and (unintentionally) the means of / drinking our health. "Bless your pretty hearts! " said he; "may ye be / happy, and live long, and get good husbands, and if they ain't good to / you may they die from you!"