A jackknife in his expert hand was a whole chest of tools.

He could whittle out anything from a wooden chain to a Chinese pagoda, or a full-rigged seventy-four a foot long.

To own a ship of Sailor Ben's building was to be exalted above your fellow-creatures.

He didn't carve many, and those he refused to sell, choosing to present them to his young friends, of whom Tom Bailey, you may be sure, was one.
How delightful it was of winter nights to sit in his cosey cabin, close to the ship's stove (he wouldn't hear of having a fireplace), and listen to Sailor Ben's yarns! In the early summer twilights, when he sat on the door-step splicing a rope or mending a net, he always had a bevy of blooming young faces alongside.
The dear old fellow! How tenderly the years touched him after this--all the more tenderly, it seemed, for having roughed him so cruelly in other days!.