It was not long after this, that David, on looking towards the house, called out that his mother was coming. It was true. She put on her bonnet, and was coming slowly down to the brook, to see how the boys got on with their work. They were rejoiced to see her coming. They took Caleb's chair, and laid it down upon its side, and then put one of the side-pieces of the wheelbarrow upon it with the clean side up; and this made quite a comfortable seat for her, though it was a little unsteady. She sat down upon it, and made a good many enquiries about their plan and the progress of the work.
“Well, boys,” said she, “that is a capital plan, and you will have a great eddy above your mole.”
“An eddy!” said Dwight, “what is that?”
“Why, the water coming down, will strike upon the outer end of your mole, and be turned in towards the shore, and then will go round, and will come into the stream again. There, you can see it is beginning to run so already.”
So the boys looked above the mole, and they saw the little bubbles that were floating in the water, sailing round and round slowly, in a small circle, between the upper side of the mole and the shore.
“When you get it built away out,” said Madam Rachel, “there will be quite a whirlpool; you might call it the Maelstrom. There, you see, Caleb can have a little harbour up there on the shore, and one of you can go out to the end of the mole, and put a little ship into the water, and the eddy will carry it round to him. Then he can take out the cargo, and put in a new one, and then set the ship in the water, and the current will carry it back again, round on the other side of the whirlpool.”
The boys were very much delighted at this prospect, and they determined to build out the mole very far, so as to have “a great sweep,” as Dwight called it, in the eddy. Caleb went out upon the part of the mole which was finished, and put in a piece of wood, and watched it with great delight as it slowly sailed round.