. I
want those who need looking after, and I think the Goldwings fill the
bill. I shall take only half a dozen to begin with. I want them all to
come to Beech Hill, and live here. I won't take them on any other terms.
I shall look out for their book-learning; but, at the same time, the
boys must become carpenters and machinists. They must work at these
trades, and others as the plan is enlarged. I shall keep them busy all
day long, from one end of the year to the other. We shall build houses,
boats, bridges, wharves, and eventually steam-engines, and various kinds
of machinery. I expect to see the time, though it may not be for ten
years, when we can build a steamer like the Sylph, including her engine,
and about every thing on board of her."

"It seems to me you are laying out a great undertaking, Royal," said
Mrs. Dornwood.

"If I can make honest and useful men out of even half a dozen boys like
the members of the Goldwing Club, who are in danger of going to ruin,
my money will be well spent. A kind Providence permitted me to make a
fortune before I was forty-five, though I had to work hard for it. I
have no wife, no children. I think I can realize more enjoyment from a
portion of my money in this way than I can in any other. It is wholly to
my taste and fancy, this scheme of mine; and it holds out to me a
thousand times as much pleasure as any business enterprise I can think
of. That's the whole of it, Patty."

"It is a good deal better to use your fortune in that way than to risk
it in speculating in stocks, as a great many rich men do," added Mrs.
Dornwood sagely. "But it seems to me that you mean to work the boys very
hard,--from morning till night from one year's end to the other."

"But I mean that they shall have abundance of recreation. They will be
the crew of the Sylph; they shall have hours for their games; they shall
have plenty of reading, both for recreation and for study: and if they
don't enjoy themselves from morning till night, and from one end of the
year to the other, it will be my fault as well as their own."

"When will this thing begin?" asked Dory.

"I intend to make a beginning by the first of September next. Patty, you
must move up to Beech Hill at once, now that Theodore has given up the
boating-business. You may tell the other members of the Goldwing Club
all about my plan, my boy. I have seen the parents of some of them. They
can see their friends as often as they please, and spend S