"Yes, I've fixed everything as nearly as it be done," he said in reply to the eager questions when he was come within hailing distance. "William Mansfield will 'tend to the business, an' he advises me to pay even six hundred dollars, if we can't get the 'Sally' for less; says he'll be glad to give us credit for what we may need in the way of supplies. I ain't willin' to run up store bills, though I've given him his own head in the matter of a price. An' now don't say another word 'bout ownin' the schooner, else we're likely to neglect everythin'."
Because of this last remark neither Mr. Rowe nor the boys again spoke of that which lay so near their hearts, until the night before the day on which the auction was to be held in 'Squire Hubbard's office in Southport, and then it was Reuben who said with ill-assumed carelessness:
"I'm allowin' you'll want to be off bright an' early in the mornin', Uncle Ben?"
"Ay, that I shall, an' if the days have been goin' by as slow to you as to me, this has been a miserable long week for all hands. I allow it's wrong to set one's heart on a thing so strong as mine's set on ownin' the 'Sally D.,' but I couldn't put it outer my mind for a single minute, an' if we begin to talk 'bout it now, I shan't get a wink of sleep."
Sam and Tom could have told him that they had literally counted the hours since it was known that the schooner was to be sold at auction, until it had come to be a firm belief with them that the "family" could not prosper on the lines laid down by Uncle Ben, unless they succeeded in buying the vessel.
However, great as was their impatience for the result of the sale to be known, and eager though they were to hear that Uncle Ben had become a shipowner, neither gave words to that which was in his mind until the moment when the old lobster catcher sat in the dory, a full half hour before daylight, ready to begin his journey. Then Sam said in a tremulous voice:
"I hope you will get her, Uncle Ben!"
"So do I, from the bottom of my heart, lad! It's much the same as wicked for us to get so bound up in any one thing, an' yet, no matter how well we was gettin' on before she was offered for sale, it really seems as if my plan of havin' a family would come to naught without her."
"Better not hang 'round here talkin'," Mr. Rowe said impatiently. "There's no tellin' when this wind may flatten completely out, an' it won't do for you to have a long pull while the weather promises to be so hot."
Then, without waiting for the word, Reuben pushed the dory's bow off, and it seemed to the boys as if the first real step toward the purchase of the "Sally" had been taken.