“No, I won’t; whoa!” shouted Brydell in reply. The oxen made a sudden turn that really did threaten to foul the gatepost.
“Keep your luff,” called out the admiral, waving his stick excitedly, “and keep your head to the wind.”
“Can’t,” replied Brydell, who was not an expert ox-driver by any means; “you see she yaws about so there’s no keeping her head to the wind.”
At last, after the expenditure of much lung power, both by Brydell and the admiral, the wagon got through, and Brydell, jumping down, shook hands heartily with his old friends.
“Bless my soul!” cried the admiral, “I never saw a fellow grow like you. Why, you are about a foot taller and two feet broader than you were last year—eh, Bowline?”
“He do grow amazin’ fast,” said Billy solemnly, “and I reckon as how he’ll be the finest-lookin’ feller in the sarvice when he gits there. But, Mr. Brydell, beg your parding, sir, you ought not to risk your life, sir, in no sich a craft as that. Horses is bad enough, but oxen is the most dangersome thing alive. Like as not they run away with you or kick your head off, sir. Now, sir, aboard ship you ain’t never in no danger. That’s the beauty of the sarvice, sir, ain’t no horses for to kick you, nor no oxen for to run away with you; jist nothin’ to hurt you; and when the wind blows, all you’ve got to do, sir, is to make everything snug and git to sea, and there you is, sir, safe and sound.”
“The old dunderhead is right,” chuckled the admiral highly pleased, while Brydell in his heart really thought a ship was the safest thing under heaven, particularly a United States ship.
Brydell took his two old friends up to the house, where Mrs. Laurison received them, as she did everybody, kindly and graciously. The admiral, struck by her gentle and refined manner, bowed over the hand of the farmer’s wife as if she were the greatest lady in the land, while Billy Bowline stood just outside the door, twiddling his cap, and could not be induced to sit down even in the hall.
“For ’tain’t for the likes o’ me to be sittin’ down afore ladies,” said Billy. “But I’d like mightily to have a word with that little ’un as looks like a angel.”
Minna, after having made friends with the admiral, was quite willing to make friends with the old sailor. Presently they saw her put her chubby hand in his and lead him out under a tree, where they both sat down on the grass, and through the window floated in scraps of a thrilling narrative that Billy was telling her: “The prin-cess, she then give orders, ‘Bring up my palankeen,’ and she climbed over the side and then she trimmed the palankeen, and it’s a mighty onhandy thing to trim, my dear”—