dead of winter, and so far from her native element, naturally struck him
at first as ridiculous. Where in Jehoshaphat was I going to sail it if I
ever got it made? He much preferred to throw snowballs at innocent wagon
drivers.

All that Tom saw, at first, was a dirty, coal-spattered shed with dim
recesses, for it was lighted on one side only, and its temperature was
somewhere below freezing. Surely he could not be blamed for a tempered
enthusiasm! But for me, all the dirt and cold and discomfort were blotted
out, and I beheld a gallant craft manned by sturdy seamen forging her way
across blue water in the South Seas. Treasure Island, alas, was as yet
unwritten; but among my father's books were two old volumes in which I
had hitherto taken no interest, with crude engravings of palms and coral
reefs, of naked savages and tropical mountains covered with jungle, the
adventures, in brief, of one Captain Cook. I also discovered a book by a
later traveller. Spurred on by a mysterious motive power, and to the
great neglect of the pons asinorum and the staple products of the
Southern States, I gathered an amazing amount of information concerning a
remote portion of the globe, of head-hunters and poisoned stakes, of
typhoons, of queer war-craft that crept up on you while you were
dismantling galleons, when desperate hand-to-hand encounters ensued.
Little by little as I wove all this into personal adventures soon to be
realized, Tom forgot the snowballs and the maddened grocery-men who
chased him around the block; while Grits would occasionally stop sawing
and cry out:--"Ah, s'y!" frequently adding that he would be G--d--d.

The cold woodshed became a chantry on the New England coast, the alley
the wintry sea soon to embrace our ship, the saw-horses--which stood
between a coal-bin on one side and unused stalls filled with rubbish and
kindling on the other--the ways; the yard behind the lattice fence became