"Dearly, Dan!"
"And to be on it?"
"Dearly, Dan!"
Dan looked at Joshua sadly. There was an eager longing in Joshua's eyes, and an eager longing in the parting of his lips, as he sat with hands clasped upon his knee.
"I can see a great many things that I have never seen," said Dan; "see them with my mind, I mean. I can see gardens and fields and trees, almost as they are. I can fancy myself lying in fields with the grass waving about me. I can fancy myself in a forest with the great trees spreading out their great limbs, and I can see the branches bowing to each other as the wind sweeps by them. I can see a little stream running down a hill, and hiding itself in a valley. I can even see a river--but all rivers must be muddy, I think; not bright, like the streams. But I can't see the sea, Jo. It is too big--too wonderful!"
Rapt in the contemplation of the subject, Dan and Joshua were silent for a little while.
"Ships on the top of water-mountains," resumed Dan presently, "then down in a valley like, with curling waves above them. That is what I have read; but I can't see it. 'Robinson Crusoe' is behind you, Jo."
Joshua opened the book--it was a favorite one with the lads, as with what lads is it not?--and skimmed down the pages as he turned them over.
"'A raging wave, mountain-like, came rolling astern of us,'" he said.
"That is the shipwreck," said Dan, looking over Joshua's shoulder. "Then here, farther down: 'I saw the sea come after me as high as a great hill, and as furious as an enemy.' Think of that! Here picture."