"I think they did, Max," was her reply; "but suppose we call upon your father to tell us about it. He is doubtless better informed than I in everything relating to that branch of the service."
"Papa, will you?" asked the lad, turning toward the Captain and raising his voice a little.
"Will I do what, my son?"
"Tell us about the doings of the navy in Revolutionary times, sir," replied Max, "as Grandma Elsie has been telling of the fights on land."
"Oh, do, Papa; won't you?" pleaded Lulu, hastening to his side, the other girls and Walter following, while Max gallantly offered to move Grandma Elsie's chair nearer to his father and Violet, which she allowed him to do, thanking him with one of her rarely sweet smiles.
CHAPTER XVI.
The Captain, gently putting aside the two little ones who were hanging lovingly about him, saw every one seated comfortably, and near enough to hear all he might say, then resuming his own seat, began the account they had asked for of the early doings of the embryo navy of their common country.
"We had no navy at all when the Revolutionary War began," he said. "Rhode Island, the smallest State in the Union, was the first of the colonies to move in the matter of building and equipping a Continental fleet. On October 3, 1775, its delegates laid before Congress the instructions they had received to do what they could to have that work begun.