easy five or six
knots contented her; for the whole ocean was her hunting ground, and
though there were certain more favored areas, you might meet whales
anywhere. Give her time, and she would poke that blunt nose of hers right
'round the world, and come back with a net profit anywhere up to a
hundred and fifty thousand dollars in her sweating casks.

Priscilla Holt knew all these things, and she respected the _Nathan Ross_
on their account. But during the first weeks of the cruise, she was too
much interested in the work on the cabin to consider other matters. Old
Aaron Burnham, the carpenter, did the work. He was a wiry little man,
gray and grizzled; and he loved the tools of his craft with a jealous
love that forbade the laying on of impious hands. Through the long, calm
days, when the ship snored like a sleep-walker through the empty seas,
Priscilla would sit on box or bench or floor, and watch Aaron at his
task, and ask him questions, and listen to the old man's long stories of
things that had come and gone.

Sometimes she tried to help him; but he would not let her handle an edged
tool. "Ye'll no have the eye for it," he would say. "Leave it be." Now
and then he let her try to drive a nail; but as often as not she missed
the nail head and marred the soft wood, until Aaron lost patience with
her. "Mark you," he cried, "men will see the scar there, and they'll be
thinking I did this task with my foot, Ma'am."

And Priscilla would laugh at him, and curl up with her feet tucked under
her skirts and her chin in her hands, and watch him by the long hour on
hour.

The task dragged on; it seemed to her endless. For Aaron had other work
that must be done, and he could give only his spare time to this. Also,
he was a slow worker, accustomed to take his own time; and when Priscilla
grew impatient and scolded him, the old man merely sat back on his knees,
and scratched his head, and tapped thoughtfully with his hammer on the
floor beside him.

"We-ell, Ma'am," he said, "I do things so, and I do things so; and it
takes time, that does, Ma'am."

Now and then, through those days, Priscilla's enthusiasm would send her
skittering up the companion to fetch Joel to see some new wonder--a
window set in the stern, or a bench completed, or a door hung. And Joel,
looking far oftener at Priscilla than at the object she wished him to
consider, would chuckle, and touch her shoulder affectionately, and go
back to his post.

In the