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," said Sally, "Mara read us a story about a ship that was wrecked, and a spirit called Ariel, that sang a song about the drowned mariners." Mara gave a shy, apprehensive glance at Moses, to see if this allusion called up any painful recollections. No; instead of this, he was following the motions of his little schooner on the waters with the briskest and most unconcerned air in the world. "Why didn't you ever show me that story, Mara?" said Moses. Mara colored and hesitated; the real reason she dared not say. "Why, she read it to father and me down by the cove," said Sally, "the afternoon that you came home from the Banks; I remember how we saw you coming in; don't you, Mara?"