"
"But was n't he always glum?" I asked. "People said he never talked at
all."
"Sure he talked, in Norwegian. He'd been a sailor on an English boat and
had seen lots of queer places. He had wonderful tattoos. We used to sit
and look at them for hours; there was n't much to look at out there. He
was like a picture book. He had a ship and a strawberry girl on one arm,
and on the other a girl standing before a little house, with a fence and
gate and all, waiting for her sweetheart. Farther up his arm, her sailor
had come back and was kissing her. 'The Sailor's Return,' he called it."
I admitted it was no wonder Ole liked to look at a pretty girl once in a
while, with such a fright at home.
"You know," Lena said confidentially, "he married Mary because he thought
she was strong-minded and would keep him straight. He never could keep
straight on shore. The last time he landed in Liverpool he'd been out on a
two years' voyage. He was paid off one morning, and by the next he had n't
a cent left, and his watch and compass were gone. He'd got with some
women, and they'd taken everything. He worked his way to this country on a
little passenger boat. Mary was a stewardess, and she tried to convert him
on the way over. He thought she was just the one to keep him steady. Poor
Ole! He used to bring me candy from town, hidden in his feed-bag. He could
n't refuse anything to a girl.
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