She rigged the boys' vessels, and covered their balls, and made them beautiful flags and banners out of her pieces of coloured silk. She advised them to have a flag-staff out at the end of the mole, as they generally have on all fortifications and national works. She told them she would make them a handsome flag for the purpose.
After tea she went down with them to see the works. She seemed to like the mole very much. The whirlpool was moving very regularly, and she advised them to build the mole out pretty far.
“Yes,” said Dwight; “and we are going to have a piece across up and down the stream, at the end of it, so as to make a T of it.”
“I think you had better make a Y of it,” said Mary Anna.
“A Y!” said Dwight, “how?”
“Why instead of having the end piece go straight across the end of the mole, let the two parts of it branch out into the stream, one upwards and the other down.”
“What good will that do?” said David.
“Why, if you make it straight like a T, the current will run directly along the outer edge of it, and so your vessels will not stay there. But if you have it Y-shaped, there will be a little sort of harbour in the crotch, where your vessels can lie quietly, while the current flows along by, out beyond the forks.”
“That will be excellent,” said Dwight, clapping his hands.
“And besides,” said she, “the upper part of the Y will run out obliquely into the stream, and so turn more of the current into your eddy, and make the whirlpool larger.”