Copyright 1902 by Sophie Swett
The Young Shipbuilder

CONTENTS

CHAP.PAGE
I WE AND THE “ALIENS”[ 5]
II CYRUS SACRIFICES HIMSELF FOR THE SAKE OF THE “ALIENS”[ 24]
III A LITTLE ALIEN’S WOES[ 50]
IV THE FAMILY DISGRACED[ 72]
V A LADY-LIKE RECREATION[ 98]
VI LOVEDAY GROWS MYSTERIOUS[ 123]
VII A LITTLE JOURNEY INTO THE WORLD[ 149]
VIII A CHANCE MEETING[ 174]
IX A STUDIO TEA[ 201]
X BUSINESS EFFORTS AND A DISCOVERY[ 224]
XI A DIPLOMATIC EFFORT[ 249]
XII A LUNCHEON WITH UNBIDDEN GUESTS[ 278]
XIII LOVEDAY MAKES A SURPRISING ANNOUNCEMENT[ 303]
XIV WE FIND OURSELVES OWN FOLKS AT LAST[ 326]

The Young Shipbuilder

CHAPTER I
WE AND THE “ALIENS”

It might be thought that people who lived on Groundnut Hill, in Palmyra, would have no more story to tell than the needy knife-grinder, but as Hiram Nute, the essence-peddler, says, “Wherever there’s human nater and the Lord’s providence, there’s apt to be consid’able goin’ on.”

Perhaps there was more “goin’ on” in our family from the fact that the human nature is somewhat mixed. There is sure to be an astonishing variety in any large family, I have observed, even when there are not, as in ours, two sets of children. But the queer differences with us are all set down to the fact of mother’s second marriage. She was Deacon Partridge’s daughter, and she married the Rev. Cyrus Dill, who was the “stated supply” at Palmyra, the summer that she was nineteen. He received a call to a small church in a large city, and three children were born there, Cyrus, Octavia and I. I am Bathsheba. They named me after my Grandmother Dill, because she was a woman who feared the Lord. It was my father’s behest, and was so set down in his will—he died just after I was born. The will was pasted into the family Bible. Every one said it was a beautiful will, because, while he had scarcely any material possessions, he yet bequeathed so much.

Grandma Partridge and my mother always cried over it on rainy Sundays, and to my infant mind it was a scarcely less sacred thing than the scriptures themselves.

When I was sixteen, I was so light-minded as to wish that Grandma Dill could have been a woman who feared the Lord and had a pretty name, too.