"Sakes alive! why didn't you send for me, Niece Ellen? why didn't
you tell me all this long ago, eh? I've got a place down in
Florida, that I bought as a speculation just after the war. I
hain't never seen it, and might have forgot it long ago but for
the tax bills coming in reg'lar every year. It's down on the St.
Mark's River, pretty nigh the Gulf coast, and ef you want to go
there and farm it, I'll give you a ten years' lease for the taxes,
with a chance to buy at your own rigger when the ten years is up."

"But won't it cost a great deal to get there, uncle?" asked Mrs.
Elmer, whose face had lighted up as this new hope entered her
heart.

"Sakes alive! no; cost nothin'! Why, it's actually what you might
call providential the way things turns out. You can go down, slick
as a log through a chute, in the Nancy Bell, of Bangor, which is
fitting out in that port this blessed minit. She's bound to
Pensacola in ballast, or with just a few notions of hardware sent
out as a venture, for a load of pine lumber to fill out a contract
I've taken in New York. She can run into the St. Mark's and drop
you jest as well as not. But you'll have to pick up and raft your
fixin's down to Bangor in a terrible hurry, for she's going to
sail next week, Wednesday, and it's Tuesday now."

So it was settled that they should go, and the following week was
one of tremendous excitement to the children, who had never been
from home in their lives, and were now to become such famous
travellers.