"A dipper as big as a tub?" repeated Dotty, slowly.

"Yes, with the longest kind of handle."

"I couldn't lift it?"

"No, I should judge not."

"Who tied it to the north pole?"

"I don't know. Columbus, perhaps. You remember he discovered the world?"

Dotty brightened.

"O, yes, I've heard about that! Susy read it in a book."

"Well, I'll tell you how it was. There had been a world, you see; but
people had lost the run of it, and didn't know where it was, after the
flood. And then Columbus went in a ship and discovered it."

"He did?"

Dotty looked keenly at the captain's son. He was certainly in earnest;
but there was something about it she did not exactly understand.

"Why, if there wasn't any world all the time, where did _C'lumbus_ come
from?" faltered she, at last.

"It is not generally known," replied Adolphus, taking off his hat, and