“Yes,” said Mary Anna; “I read about it in a book where I learned about rigging. Any little block will do.”
David's curiosity was very much excited, and he begged Mary Anna to tell him what she was going to make.
“Well,” said Mary Anna, “if you will keep the secret.”
“Yes,” said David, “I will.”
“A Chinese junk!” said Mary Anna.
“A Chinese junk!” said David, with surprise and delight.
“Yes, now run along to mother.”
So David went, and Mary Anna began to think of her work. She happened to have recollected that there was in the garret an old bread-tray, of japanned ware, which had been worn out and thrown aside, and was now good for nothing; and yet it was whole, and Mary Anna thought it would make a good boat. As, however, it was not shaped like a boat, she thought she would call it a Chinese junk, which is a clumsy kind of vessel, built by the Chinese. Accordingly after the boys had gone to bed, she got all her materials together; the old bread-tray for the hull of the junk, some fine twine for the rigging, David's mast and step, and a piece of birch bark, which she thought would represent very well the mats of which the Chinese make their sails. She carried all those things to her room, so as to have them all ready for her to go to work upon the vessel very early the next morning.
And early the next morning she did get to work. On the whole, the craft, when finished, if it was not built exactly after the model of a real Chinese junk, would sail about as well, and was as gay. She got it all done before breakfast, and carried it down, and hid it under some bushes near the mole.
Then, after breakfast, she took the boys all down, and told Caleb that she was ready to make him an offer for his squirrel. She then went to the bushes, and taking out the junk, she went to the mole, and carrying it out to the end, she gently set it down into the water. The boys looked on in great delight, as the junk wheeled slowly around in the great circles of the whirlpool.