“For the people won’t be disappointed as long as they don’t know you’ve willed them the things,” said Maggie, meditatively. “Anyhow, I s’pose my people would be more disappointed to have me die, than not to have my things.”
“They would indeed, little daughter,” said her father, drawing her tenderly to him: “to lose our Maggie would be to take a great deal of sunshine out of the lives of ‘your people.’”
“And I know Bessie don’t care for my dollies so long as we can play with them together: do you, Bessie?”
“Oh, no! Maggie; and if I hadn’t you, I should never play again, but be sorrowful all my life;” and Bessie put on an air of extreme melancholy at the bare idea of such a possibility.
So this matter being settled to the satisfaction of all, and Maggie feeling like her own self once more, she and Bessie were free to enjoy all the new pleasures about them.
They were a merry, happy party, those four little girls, Maggie, Bessie, Belle, and Lily; always pleasant and good-natured with one another; never fretting or quarrelling in their play. As for Maggie, her new friend the captain used to call her “Little Make-the-best-of-it;” for her sunny temper found so much good in all things, and so many reasons why all that was, was best.
He escorted the young quartette all over the steamer, taking them down into the machine rooms, where they saw the great furnaces glowing with hot coals, and tended by strong men in scarlet shirts, with their sleeves rolled up to the shoulders; where the iron beam and pistons went up and down, up and down, without a moment’s pause or irregularity; where each little wheel and joint went steadily on doing its appointed work, without which the huge machinery must have stood motionless and useless.
The sympathies of the children, especially those of Maggie, were greatly excited in behalf of a man whom they saw watching the steam dial plates at the upper end of the engine room. There were three of these plates, the centre one very large, the other two smaller; and the man paced up and down the narrow platform in front, almost without a moment’s pause, turning his eyes every now and then to the dials.
“What funny clocks,” said Bessie, “and how that man watches them! Why is he so anxious about the time?”
“Only one of them is a clock,” said the captain; “the others are to show how much steam we have on, and how it is working, and if all is right.”