"Yes. In a boat. Rowing. The Old Sailor says I am getting along famously."
"I should like to see the Old Sailor."
"I wish you could; but he is such a strange old fellow! He doesn't care for the land. When I tell mother what I am making up my mind to be--what I shall have made up mind then to be--I will coax him to come to our house. I want him to talk to mother about the sea, for she is sure to cry and fret, and although the Old Sailor doesn't think that women are as good as men, he thinks mothers are better."
Dan laughed a pleasant little laugh.
"That is queer," he said.
"He knows all about you, and he asks me every day, 'How is Dan?'"
"I am glad of that--very glad."
"So am I. I have told him all about the birds, and how, they love you. You would never guess what he said to-day about you."
"Something very bad, I dare say," said Dan, knowing very well, all the time, that it was something good, or Joshua would not tell him.
"Something very bad. He said, 'He must be a fine little chap'--meaning you, Dan--'or the birds wouldn't love him.'"