“Why, the plunger in a squirt sucks it up.”
“How can it suck it up? it has not any fingers or lips to suck it or lift it; that’s only a saying; I don’t believe that.”
“Well, if you don’t believe that, how does it come up? What makes it follow the stick in the squirt?”
“That’s what I want to know; there must be some reason. Do you suppose Uncle Isaac knows? he knows most everything.”
“No; he don’t know such things; but Ben does; he can navigate a vessel, and has been to Massachusetts to school. Father asks Ben when he wants to know things of that kind.”
“I’m sure I don’t care what makes it come; I know it does come; that’s enough for me. That’s a great sail in your boat, Charlie; it’s the first time I ever heard of a birch-bark sail: what in the world made you think of making a sail of that?”
“Because I had nothing else; I made one out of basket stuff. I tell you what, these folks that live on islands have to set their wits at work; they haven’t a store to run to for everything they want.”
“I don’t think much of your contrivance to make water run out of a boat; only look at it; you and I could take two pails and bail it out in half the time it will be running out through that, and then we could go and play.”
“But we can go and play now, and let it run.”