“And a pretty creature she is,” said Job, suspending his paint-brush full of the yellow-brown pigment with which he was tinging the rippled hair of the wooden lady, which was crowned with a garland of flowers carved with no mean skill. “And the flowers! Don’t you think they are an improvement? What did Captain Peabody say to them?” “He didn’t jest like them at first,” replied Job, continuing his work. “I didn’t myself, to begin with, for you know the ship is called after his wife, and nobody ever see old Mis’ Peabody going round with flowers in her hair; but the captain, sez he, ‘Job, I want to have you make it somethin’ like what Mis’ Peabody was when she was a young woman, ef you kin,’ sez he. ‘She was a most uncommon pretty girl when I went a-courting in Salsbury.’ Well, I was kind of struck with the idee, and the next day I went to meeting, and I sot and sot, and kind of studied the old lady’s face all through meetin’-time; and when they stood up to sing, the choir sang ‘Amsterdam.’ You know it’s a kind of livening sort of hymn. The old lady, she kind of brightened up, and it seemed as if I could see the young face sort of coming out behind the old one. Thinks I, ‘Job Chippit, you’ve got it,’ and when I come home, though it was the Sabbath day, I couldn’t hardly keep my hands off the tools, and the minute the sun was down I went at it. Then when you come in the next day and told me about the Flora them old folks used to think took care of the flowers and the spring, it seemed to suit so well with my notion of the old lady when she was young I couldn’t help stickin’ the flowers onto her head, like a fool as I was, for they wa’n’t in the bargain, and I sha’n’t get no extry pay for ’em.” “And what did Captain Peabody say?” asked Master Torrey, whose own nature found sympathy in that of the artist. “Oh, he was as tickled as could be when I’d persuaded him about the flowers. Lucy Peabody, she’s been to see it. She says she expects that’s the way her mother’ll look when she gets to heaven, and the flowers was like the crowns we read about in the Revelations. She’s an awful nice girl, Lucy Peabody. Anna Jane Shuttleworth was with her.” “And what did _she_ say?” asked Master Torrey, eagerly. “Oh, nothing. Anna Jane don’t never have much to say for herself. I told her the wreath was your notion, and she kind of smiled, but she hadn’t a word to say. But look here, Master Torrey, am I to have the making of the figure-head for your new ship, and what is it to be?” “That’s just what I have come to see you about, Job,” said Master Torrey. “I am going to call her the Sea-nymph, and I want you to make the most beautiful full-length figure of a sea-nymph to stand on her bow and look across the water when the brig goes sailing away into the South Seas.” “A _sea-nimp_!” said Job; “and what sort of a critter may that be?” “Did you never hear of them?”