"We want to board her anyhow," began Jim Ridgeway; but Willy Kyle interrupted him:
"Do you know what they're going to do with her when she's mended?"
"Wot'll dey do wid her? Wid dat ar ole wreck? Dat's de berry queshion yer fader said to yer uncle de Kernel yes'erday. An' de Kernel he said back to him dat she was mos' used up 'nuff to be builded over new foh to be a man-ob-wah."
"Did father say so too?"
"Wot did he say? No, sah; he tole de Kernel back not to 'buse a pore ole wreck dat away. She was good for sumfin yit. Come, chil'en, git outen de boat."
Kisedek Pound's deeply wrinkled and very black face, with its wide fringe of white whiskers, had been all one friendly grin as he came down to the water's edge. He had even grumbled to himself: "I'd take de hull lot ob 'em wid me ef dey wasn't done gone shuah to skeer de fish."
Now, however, all five of them began to beg, and they were too many for old Kisedek Pound. It was but a few minutes before he was pulling his boat, with the children in it, out toward the bar on which the Rip Van Winkle had been run ashore, nearly a year ago, with two large holes in her side, made there by the clumsy head of a raft of logs. There she had lain ever since, almost high and dry at low tides, but not one of the children had thought of boarding her until that morning.
"Put me up first," shouted Clark Ridgeway, as the boat's nose struck the wreck. "Now, Barbie, give me your hand. Boost her, Willy."
Jim Ridgeway came near getting a ducking, clambering up without any help, and little Ben Kyle, just as Kisedek Pound hoisted him within Clark Ridgeway's reach, gave a great squall.