She had a habitation somewhere in the
darkness, but nobody knew where--it might be right in their midst.
There are a great many inconveniences about a dark country.
[Illustration: POKONOKET IN STORMY WEATHER.]
"Well, Toby who kept the loon, lived in a little hut on one of
the principal streets. He was a widower, and lived with his six
grandchildren who were all quite small and went to school. They were
his daughter's children. She had died a few years before of a disease
quite common in Pokonoket, and almost always fatal. It had a long name
which the doctors had given it, which really meant, 'wanting light.'
"Toby was rather feeble and rheumatic, and it was about all he could
do to knit stockings for his grandchildren, and make soup for their
dinner. Almost all day, except when he was stirring the soup, which
he made in a great kettle set into a brick oven, he was sitting on a
little stool in his doorway, knitting, and the loon sat on a perch at
his right hand. The loon who was a very large bird, was crazy, and
thought he was a bobolink. _Link, link, bobolink!_' he sang all day
long, instead of crying in the way a loon usually does. His voice was
not anywhere near the right pitch for a bobolink's song, but that made
no difference. _Link, link, bobolink!_ he kept on singing from morning
till night.
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