“I don’t know. I guess not.”
“Yes, you will, to me.”
Charlie’s taste had become somewhat chastened since he made the Twilight and West Wind. They rejoiced in painted ports, and all varieties of stripes and colors, but this boat was quite in contrast. She was bright-green to the water-line, white above, with a narrow vermilion bead on top. Inside, she was a straw-color up to the rising, above that blue—not a lead-color, made by mixing white lead and lampblack—but blue. The spars were white, the blades of the oars green, the rest white.
“Charlie, who told you how to build this boat?”
“Nobody. After I had her almost done, Joe told me how to take spilings.”
“‘Wings of the Morning,’” said Henry, looking at the stern. “What a singular name! What made you think of that name, Charlie?”
“I’ll tell you, Henry. I had been thinking for some time what I should call her, and one morning I went out just at sunrise. I stood on the door-stone, and looked off in the bay. The water was as smooth as glass. There was an eagle sitting on the edge of his nest on the big pine. They are not shy of me at all, for I am very often up in the tree, and feed them. By and by he pitched off, and came sailing along slowly, moving his great wings, just clearing the ridge-pole of the house, and close to me. While I watched him, this came right into my head. I couldn’t get it out; so I put it on the boat.”
“Charlie, what was in that long box we brought down in the schooner?”
“Paint to paint this boat, and putty and oil.”
“I thought so. But what was the need of so long a box?”