Back went Ned Franks to his work; nor did he stop till he had wrought a wondrous change in the appearance of his dull little loft, by the help of a pail of whitewash which he had procured from the village.
"It's beginning to look all taut and trim," said the light-hearted tar, stepping back with the big whitened brush in his hand, to survey and admire his work. "When I've earned a little more ready rhino, I'll have a bit of bunting of the Union-Jack pattern over my bed, and stick a few pictures round the wall, to make the cabin quite smart. And I'll have my books up there aloft."
In default of a shelf, Ned had carefully ranged along the floor what he deemed his best earthly treasures, his Bible, and such works as the "Pilgrim's Progress" and "Saint's Rest," with a few other little books of a useful kind, from which the sailor had gleaned more knowledge than is usually possessed by one in his station of life.
Ned had made such good use of his time, that before dinner he had an hour to spare for the garden.
Bessy Peele, as she ironed out her linens, could hear Ned's manly voice behind the cottage singing blithely as a bird such sea-songs as "Poor Jack" and "The Arethusa." Ned Franks felt perfectly happy at his work; its very nature cheered him, for every weed that he pulled up, seemed to his mind like an emblem of some evil habit rooted out.
"God is ready to give us His sunshine and his dew," thought the sailor, "but He will have us to labour all the while; and though ours be but one-handed work as it were, He'll never refuse his blessing if He knows that we're doing our best. I did ill yesterday to be so angry with Bessy and her boy, because of their sly sneaking ways, just as I looked with scorn on the dirty loft and the weedy garden. 'One fault-mender is worth fifty fault-finders;' says the proverb. Maybe the great Pilot has guided me hither that I may take Dan Peele in tow, and get him out of the shoals of deceit, and show him that it's better to sail with the wind of truth right in our canvass, than to lose way by tacking about, and split on the rocks at last."
Dan, on coming home to the cottage for dinner, found the sailor sitting by the table, with the crippled squirrel on his knee.
"Ah! I say, where did you get that?" asked the boy.
"In the woods, yester evening," answered Ned.
"In the woods—what woods?" inquired Bessy, turning round from the fire-place, where she was stirring something in the saucepan.