--"dat, sar, will keep yer terbacker
gwine all day."

"Thank you, marm Juno! We shall try and bring you home some fish for
dinner. A ninety-pound halibut, eh?"

The Captain having performed that operation so very necessary to his
comfort, we all sallied forth for the long-anticipated sail.

The cape was about three-quarters of a mile wide where our house stood--
it being on high ground, about halfway between the ocean and bay-side.
The ground fell gradually in wavelike hillocks in both directions, and
its chief growth was a short fine grass on which the sheep throve well.
Here and there we saw them in little companies of eight or ten, but
before we could get within fifty yards they scampered off in a fright,
so unaccustomed were they to strangers.

Soon we descried a boat with pennant flying at moorings just off the bay
shore before us. That, the Captain told us, was our "school-ship."

"And now come, boys," said he, "let us see which one of you will be the
best hand on watch when we sail a frigate together--let us see which one
can first read the boat's name; it is on the pennant."

At that distance we were all baffled.

"Well, try ten yards nearer; there, halt. Now try."

We all strained our eyes. I thought it read, _Wave_.

"No, Robert, it is not _Wave_.--Come, boys, sharpen your eyes on the
sides of your noses, and try again."

"I can read it," shouted Harry Higginson, throwing up his hat.
"_Youth_! _Youth_!--that's it."

"Yes, that's it. Hurrah for you, Master Harry! I promote you on the
spot captain of the maintop."

We hurried down to a white sand-beach on which lay a punt. In that the
Captain pulled us, three at a time, out to the _Youth_. When well under
sail and standing out for more open water, our good skipper at the
tiller, having filled his pipe, rolled up his sleeves, and tautened the
sheet a bit, said--

"Boys, this craft is yours, but I am Commodore until each and all of you
have learned to sail her as well as I can. May you prove quick to
learn, and I quick to teach. But as I'm an old seadog, my pipe is out
already. Give us a light, shipmate?"--I was trying with flint and steel
to strike a few sparks into our old tinder-box--"there!--puff--puff--
puff--that will do. I must talk less and smoke more."

As the jolly Captain got up a storm of smoke, slapped me a stinger on
the knee, and winked at the pennant, Mr Clare jumped up, and swinging
his hat, cried--

"Boys, let's g