Noll wished the skipper a safe run to a better harbor, and went back to the wharf, where the carpenter intercepted him. He was a rough, blunt-spoken man, but was evidently "good at his trade," as Ben had said, and did not despair of making the Culm huts decent and habitable; and after a long talk with him, Noll started for home, as the afternoon was fast giving way to a gray and lowery night. His heart was full of gratitude and love to Ned, and he stopped more than once on his homeward walk to read the letter over by the gray glimmer of twilight. At first he was more than half resolved to return the money, and bid his friend to buy the pony,—it seemed such a great denial for horse-loving, mirthful Ned to make,—but as he read the letter again and again, and pondered over its contents, he began to think that his friend had more earnestness and love for kind-doing than he had ever suspected.
"I wronged the poor fellow," he thought to himself, "because he was so merry and careless all the time. And now he's sent me this great roll of bills to help those people whom he pretended to hate! Oh, I wonder if it is best to keep them?"
This question was not decided then. It took more than one day's thought about the matter before he at last concluded to accept Ned's bounty, and perhaps he would not have decided thus at all if he had been quite sure that his friend would not be greatly grieved and offended at having the money returned.
Meanwhile, the carpenter commenced operations. Dirk's house was the first to undergo repairs, and Noll took every opportunity to go over to Culm to see how matters were progressing. It was a great delight to him to watch John Sampson at his labor, and note how saw and hammer and plane, guided by his strong and skilful hand, repaired the rents, brought the shackling doors and windows to comfortable tightness, made the crooked and twisted roofs to assume something like straight and even proportions, and righted matters generally. When Dirk's habitation was thoroughly repaired, it was the wonder and admiration of all the Culm people.
"It be like what it was when I was a gal, an' all the housen was new," said one old fish-wife, who had tottered in with the others.
"Ay, mother," said Dirk, "an' it be time we had new habits to go with the new housen, eh?"
Noll had not allowed any good opportunities, wherein he might hint to Dirk that cleanliness and industry should reign in the snug new quarters, to pass without improving them. Dirk, out of regard and gratitude to "the young master," as he called him, was willing to make the attempt, and strove, in his bungling way, to impress his neighbors with the fact that they were expected to reform their way of living. But it was up-hill work for people who had lived all their life in filth and wretchedness, and progressed but slowly. Many were the hours, after the recitations were over, that Noll spent over at the little village those warm days, planning with John Sampson about broken doors and shattered beams, which were to be made strong and serviceable, or, sitting on a pile of lumber, watching the carpenter as he put in execution the plans which they had made. The children of the village were generally playing near by, in the sand, with blocks and chips,—growing up as unlettered and ignorant as their parents. Some of them were great boys and girls,—almost as tall as Noll himself,—and had never yet seen the inside of a book.
"If Uncle Richard would only hire a teacher," thought Noll, "and have them grow up with some knowledge in their heads, they'd never get so low and wretched as their parents. But that never'll be, I'm afraid. Oh! if I were only rich, how quick I'd change it all!"
But there was no prospect of any such fortune befalling him, and he usually turned away from the cluster of dirty, unkempt children with a hopeless sigh. He said, one day, while sitting on a great heap of shingles beside the carpenter,—
"What's to become of all these children, Mr. Sampson? Will they be left to grow up like their fathers and mothers?"