"Anything'll do for me," said Ned. "I'm a sailor. Do you know, the other day, I went to see the Kentucky, the new line-o'-battle-ship. She's a giant."
"Oh, dear!" laughed the old lady. "If your grandfather could buy her at auction, he'd stow her away in this closet, for one of his specimens."
"I can see all I want," replied Ned. "I'll come and pick it out by and by. May I go to the barns now?"
"Go right along," she said. "Hadn't you better take a ride to Green Lake? It's only a mile or so, and horseback exercise'll do you good."
She kept him a few minutes, however, to explain the nature of some of the more remarkable antiquities in the closet. Then he was down-stairs again, but he was not a free boy yet, for his grandfather caught him and led him into the library again.
"Edward," he said, solemnly, as they passed the doorway, "if there is anything I disapprove of, more than another, it is what they are printing nowadays to occupy the empty minds of the young,—the things which they advertise as popular books for boys, for instance. I find that even where they are more or less historical in character, they are also perniciously imaginative, often presenting utter improbabilities as history. I will show you something, now, that will be worth your while. I suppose that you do not know anything of consequence concerning your Scandinavian forefathers."
"Yes, I do," said Ned. "Our old Erica's a Norway girl. I can talk with her in Norwegian."
"What!" exclaimed his grandfather. "Have you actually acquired the difficult tongue of the Vikings and Berserkers? That is wonderful! Then you will be doubly interested in the work you are about to peruse."
"I guess I can swallow it," said Ned. "Are you going to give me a look at it?"