seemed against his very nature; but then he would do
it--he would not disgrace himself before Mr. Sewell, and let a girl
younger than himself outdo him.

But the thing, after all, that absorbed more of Moses's thoughts than
all his lessons was the building and rigging of a small schooner, at
which he worked assiduously in all his leisure moments. He had dozens of
blocks of wood, into which he had cut anchor moulds; and the melting of
lead, the running and shaping of anchors, the whittling of masts and
spars took up many an hour. Mara entered into all those things readily,
and was too happy to make herself useful in hemming the sails.

When the schooner was finished, they built some ways down by the sea,
and invited Sally Kittridge over to see it launched.

"There!" he said, when the little thing skimmed down prosperously into
the sea and floated gayly on the waters, "when I'm a man, I'll have a
big ship; I'll build her, and launch her, and command her, all myself;
and I'll give you and Sally both a passage in it, and we'll go off to
the East Indies--we'll sail round the world!"

None of the three doubted the feasibility of this scheme; the little
vessel they had just launched seemed the visible prophecy of such a
future; and how pleasant it would be to sail off, with the world all
before them, and winds ready to blow them to any port they might wish!

The three children arranged some bread and cheese and doughnuts on a
rock on the shore, to represent the collation that was usually spread in
those parts at a ship launch, and felt quite like grown people--acting
life beforehand in that sort of shadowy pantomime which so delights
little people. Happy, happy days--when ships can be made with a
jack-knife and anchors run in pine blocks, and three children together
can launch a schooner, and the voyage of the world can all be made in
one sunny Saturday afternoon!

"Mother says you are going to college," said Sally to Moses.

"Not I, indeed," said Moses; "as soon as I get old enough, I'm going up
to Umbagog among the lumberers, and I'm going to cut real, splendid
timber for my ship, and I'm going to get it on the stocks, and have it
built to suit myself."

"What will you call her?" said Sally.

"I haven't thought of that," said Moses.

"Call her the Ariel," said Mara.

"What! after the spirit you were telling us about?" said Sally.

"Ariel is a pretty name," said Moses. "But what is that about a spirit?"

"Why,"