“It would be hard guessing; you have so many projects in your head.”
“I want two things, and then I shall be satisfied.”
“Then you are more easily satisfied than most folks.”
“I want to build a vessel. Think I ever can?”
“Yes; you can learn to build a vessel as well as a boat; it’s pretty much the same thing on a larger scale. But what is the other thing?”
“I want to own a piece of land: it’s what none of my folks ever did, to own a piece of land; a man must be rich to own a piece of land in England.”
“Well, you can certainly do that, for you have got money of your own, and can buy wild land for ten or fifteen cents an acre, and clear it yourself.”
“That’s what I mean to do, when I get my money back from Fred, and find some place that just fills my eye, right by the water. I wouldn’t take the gift of a piece of land that the salt water didn’t wash. Then I must have a brook; I couldn’t live without a brook.”
“Nor I either: by the way, we are going to run to the westward and fish off the cape; I think very likely I shall run into Portland, and see John.”
“Then I’ll write him a letter; he don’t know anything about this boat, for I hadn’t thought much about building her when I saw him last.”