"I guess I don't," said Ned, rolling over, and putting his arm round Walter. "I think having friends to love who love you, and to do what is right, is to be put ever so much before that."
"Is there nothing else?"
"You mean," said Ned, in a subdued tone, "being what my mother calls pious."
"No. I never talk of that; I know nothing about it; wish I did."
"What do you mean, then?"
"I'll tell you. I don't suppose it is boasting to say that we have been smart, trusty, and filled the places we were put in, perhaps, as well, in our way, as they in theirs; but they have done other things that we have not."
"What are they?"
"They have done good. Isaac Murch persuaded Peterson to leave liquor alone, and taught him to read. How Charlie, John, and Fred helped old Mrs. Yelf after her husband died! and she, with her old fingers, wove the royal of the Hard-scrabble, and luck has followed that vessel from the day she was launched. Isaac Murch said he left his luck behind him when he left the Hard-scrabble; for Seth Warren has made double, in proportion to the cost of the two vessels, in her to what he has in the great ship. She has never lost a spar or a man; and it's my belief she never will be cast away, but die a natural death in the head of Captain Rhines's Cove, where the squirrels will make nests in her cabin, and hoard their acorns, the robins will build on her spars, the little children have her for a play-house, and the big boys to dive from. Uncle Isaac said he knew just as well before she sailed that she would be lucky as he did afterwards."
"Why?"
"Because a robin built her nest on the gammon-knee, under the bowsprit; and Captain Rhines put off rigging her a week, that the nest might not be disturbed."