and they earnestly joined in a prayer
of thankfulness and humility. William went out to prepare the
breakfast, and Ready procured the coil of copper wire from those stores
which were stowed under the bed-places. This he unrolled, and stretched
it out straight, and then went for the ladder, which was at the outhouse
they had commenced building. As soon as breakfast was over, Ready and
Mr Seagrave went out again to fix up the lightning-conductor, leaving
William to do the work of Juno, who still remained fast asleep in her
bed.

"I think," said Ready, "that one of those two trees which are close
together will suit the best; they are not too near the house, and yet
quite near enough for the wire to attract the lightning."

"I agree with you, Ready; but we must not leave both standing."

"No, sir, but we shall require them both to get up and fix the wire;
after that we will cut down the other."

Ready put his ladder against one of the trees, and, taking with him the
hammer and a bag of large spike-nails, drove one of the nails into the
trunk of the tree till it was deep enough in to bear his weight; he then
drove in another above it, and so he continued to do, standing upon one
of them while he drove in another above, till he had reached the top of
the tree, close to the boughs; he then descended, and, leaving the
hammer behind him, took up a saw and small axe, and in about ten minutes
he had cut off the head of the cocoa-nut tree, which remained a tall,
bare pole.

"Take care, Ready, how you come down," said Mr Seagrave anxiously.

"Never fear, sir," replied Ready; "I'm not so young as I was, but I have
been too often at the mast-head, much higher than this."

Ready came down again, and then cut down a small pole, to fix with a
thick piece of pointed wire at the top of it, on the head of the
cocoa-nut tree. He then went up, lashed the small pole to the head of
the tree, made the end of the copper wire fast to the pointed wire, and
then he descended. The other tree near to it was then cut down, and the
lower end of the wire buried in the ground at the bottom of the tree on
which the lightning-conductor had been fixed.

"That's a good job done, sir," said Ready, wiping his face, for he was
warm with the work.

"Yes," replied Mr Seagrave; "and we must put up another near the
outhouse, or we may lose our stores."

"Very true, sir."

"You understand this, William, don't you?" said his father.

"O yes, papa;