ets; for Hetty's spinning-wheel must go, in order to earn bread for
Dandelion, whose mouth was always ready for food, like a hungry bird's.
Busily hummed the wheel: and, as it flew, it seemed to catch an echo of
the baby's cheerful song, saying, over and over, 'Daddy tummin' soon,'
till Hetty stopped crying as she worked, and listened to the cheerful
whirr. 'Yes, I shall see my good Ben again, if I wait patiently. Baby
takes comfort in saying that, and I will, too; though the poor dear will
get tired of it soon,' she said.

But Dandelion didn't get tired. He firmly believed what he said, and
nothing could change his mind. He had been much troubled at seeing the
boat laid up on the beach all broken and dismantled, but his little
mind couldn't take in the idea of shipwreck and death; so, after
thinking it over, he decided that Daddy was waiting somewhere for a new
boat to be sent to bring him home. This idea was so strong that the
child gathered together his store of toy-boats,--for he had many, as
they were his favourite plaything,--and launched them, one after
another, telling them to find his father, and bring him home.

As Dandelion was not allowed to play on the beach, except at low tide,
the little boats sailed safely away on the receding waves, and the child
was sure that some of them would get safely into the distant port where
Daddy was waiting. All the boats were launched at last, all sailed
bravely away; but none came back, and little Dandy was much
disappointed. He babbled about it to himself; told the peeps and the
horse-shoes, the snails and the lobsters, of his trouble; begged the
gulls to fly away and find Daddy; and every windy night when the sea
dashed on the shore and the shutters rattled, he would want the lamp put
in the window, as it used to be when they expected Ben, and tried to
make home look cheerful, even before he got there.

Hetty used to humour the child, though it made her heart ache to know
that the light shone in vain. At such times Dandy would prance about the
room in his little shirt, and talk about Daddy as happily as if long
months had not passed without bringing him back. When fairly in his big,
old-fashioned cradle, the boy would lie, looking more like a dandelion
than ever, in his yellow flannel night-gown, playing with his toes, or
rocking himself to and fro, calling the cradle his boat, and blithely
telling his mother that he was sailing 'far way to find Daddy.' When
tired of pl