“O no,” said Caleb, “you must not let him go.”
“If I buy him of you,” replied Mary Anna, “he will be mine entirely, and I must do whatever I please with him.”
“O, but I shall make you promise not to let him go,” said Caleb, “or else I shall not want to sell him to you.”
“Very well,” said Mary Anna; “though you can tell better when you see what I am going to make you.”
Mary Anna then went up to the house, and fed the squirrel, and as it began to grow dark pretty soon after that, the boys themselves soon came up. She asked David if he would make her a mast, and also a small block of wood for a step.
“A step!” said David; “a step for what?”
“A step for the mast,” said Mary Anna.
“What is a step for a mast?”
“It is a block, with a hole in it for the lower end of the mast to fit into,” said Mary Anna.
“Do they call it a step?” said David.