ive cheers, three rousing cheers, for our brave boat, the
_Youth_, and her good master, Captain Mugford!"

And didn't we give them!!!

CHAPTER FIVE.

BATH BAY LESSON--THE MIDNIGHT COUNCIL.

June came before we had made acquaintance with all the corners of our
little new world. Every day it grew in interest to us, and, with the
increasing fine weather, was the most beautiful spot on earth in our
eyes. Once a week one of us was allowed to go over to the town with
Clump, in his rowboat, and get letters from the post-office. That
opportunity was always improved to purchase stores of groceries and
other requisites. Each one's turn to be commissary only came once in
five weeks.

Clump enjoyed those trips as much as we did. He would have meat or
other things to get for the table, but would always reach the boat first
in returning, and when he saw his "young master?"--as he called each of
us boys--coming down the wharf loaded with a week's supply of various
things, the old darky would commence to grin and slap his sharp knees,
the slaps growing quicker and the grin breaking into "yha! yha! yhi!" as
we drew near enough to show him our different purchases.

There was always a new pipe or a paper of tobacco for Clump, which he
would lay on the seat beside him, and then put out the oars and pull
with long, slow sweeps for our neck, each swing accompanied by a grunt,
which, however, did not break the conversation he carried on, chiefly
telling us stories of my father when he came as a boy, which often
lasted till we reached our destination. Many a frolic and adventure
would he thus relate with great gusto, and he had generally, too, some
remembrance of my grandfather to repeat.

About the twentieth of June, the water was warm enough to allow us to
bathe, and then began that exercise, the most useful and most wholesome,
and perhaps among the most manly that a boy can practise.

Walter and both the Higginsons could swim. Drake and I were beginners.
Captain Mugford was our teacher. He chose a little bay within, as it
were, the large bay on the neck end of our cape. Bath Bay, as we named
it, was about two hundred and fifty yards long, and sixty to seventy
yards wide. Its shores were rocks, except at its bow end, where a soft
beach sloped gradually for forty feet from the shore. About fifteen
feet beyond our depth the Captain had anchored a stationary staging,
which was merely an old flatboat caulked and floored o