"Yonder's where we'll settle," Miles assured his mother.
"I see no houses," protested Dolly. "I thought there would be cottages, maybe. Must we lie in the woods, mammy?"
"Nonsense! We'll build houses," scoffed Miles; he would have blushed to own that, half unconsciously, he, too, had cherished the fancy of seeing on the New England shore straggling streets and tiny cottages, as in old Plymouth.
"You'll build houses, Miles?" teased his sister.
"Father and I and all the men," the boy bragged. "Build them of great logs. Then in the spring will come a ship with horses and cows and sheep, and we'll have farms, just as we had at home."
"With a hedge round the dooryard?" Dolly questioned.
"Yes, and meadow-land and ploughed fields. We'll have all in order when the frost leaves the ground," Miles answered confidently.
Then he looked up at his mother, and was astonished to see that for once her eyes were not on her children, but on the empty shore over opposite. Her face was wistful, and it came on Miles that perhaps she was not as interested in the farm concerns as he, who was a man, so he said quickly: "And you can have a garden here, mother, full of rosemary and daffadowndillies, just as at home. Maybe you'll not have to labor so hard here," he added more vaguely, not quite understanding her silence.
She smiled a little then. "That's a good lad, Miles," she said, putting her arm about his shoulders; then she bade him go to his mates if he would, and she led Dolly back to the cabin.
Miles stood alone, gazing at the home-shore and wondering where his father's farm would lie. Still thinking on it, he was turning toward the hatchway, when he almost ran into Goodman Rigdale. "O father," Miles broke out before he thought, "may I not go with you when we begin our farm? I'll conduct me well and be obedient."