“‘Oh!’ says he. ‘You mean about _she_. Well, it didn’t come t’ nothin’, Tumm. The women folk wasn’t able t’ find me, an’ they didn’t know which I wanted sove, the mother or the child; so, somehow or other, both went an’ died afore I got there. But that isn’t got nothin’ t’ do with _this_.’
“He was drifted a few fathoms past. Just then a big sea fell atop of un. He ducked real skilful, an’ come out of it smilin’, if sputterin’.
“‘Now, Tumm,’ says he, ‘if we was t’ the s’uth’ard, where they says ’tis warm an’ different, an’ lives isn’t lived the same, maybe you’d be on the pan o’ ice, an’ I’d be aboard the berg; maybe you’d be like t’ starve, an’ I’d get so much as forty cents a day the year round. They’s a great waste in life,’ says he; ‘I don’t know why, but there ’tis. An’ I ’low I’m gone t’ waste on this here coast. I been born out o’ place, that’s all. But they’s a place somewheres for such as me—somewheres for the likes o’ me. T’ the s’uth’ard, now, maybe, they’d _be_ a place; t’ the s’uth’ard, maybe, the folk would want t’ know about the things I thinks out—ay, maybe they’d even _pay_ for the labor I’m put to! But _here_, you lives, an’ I dies. Don’t you see, Tumm? ’Tis the law! ’Tis why a Newf’un’lander ain’t a nigger. More’n that, ’tis why a dog’s a dog on land an’ a swile in the water; ’tis why a dog haves legs an’ a swile haves flippers. Don’t you see? ’Tis the law!’
“Poor Botch shook his head. ‘They isn’t enough words in langwitch,’ says he, ‘t’ ’splain things. Men ought t’ get t’ work an’ make more.’
“Then, by Botch’s regular ill luck, under he went, an’ it took un quite a spell t’ cough his voice into workin’ order.
“‘Excuse me,’ says he. ‘I’m sorry. It come too suddent t’ be ducked.’
“‘Tumm,’ says he, ‘it all comes down t’ this: _The thing that lives is the kind o’ thing that’s best fit t’ live in the place it lives in_. That’s a law o’ life! An’ nobody but _me_, Tumm,’ says he, ‘ever knowed it afore!’
“‘Tumm,’ says he, discouraged, ‘I can’t talk t’ you no more. I’m too busy. I ’lowed when I seed you there on the berg that you’d tell somebody what I thunk out last night if you got clear o’ this mess. An’ I _wanted_ everybody t’ know. I did so _want_ un t’ know—an’t’ know that Abraham Botch o’ Jug Cove did the thinkin’ all by hisself! But you don’t seem able. An’, anyhow,’ says he, ‘I’m too busy t’ talk no more. They’s a deal more hangin’ on that law ’n I told you. The beasts o’ the field is born under it, an’ the trees o’ the forest, an’ all that lives. They’s a bigger law behind; an’ I got t’ think that out afore the sea works up. I’m sorry, Tumm; but if you don’t mind, I’ll just go on thinkin’. You _won’t_ mind, will you, Tumm? I wouldn’t like you t’ feel bad.’