Don't you see it's most square? In
fact, we didn't mean to get it quite so wide; but, after all, it is
better than those canoe-like things, which are always rocking from one
side to the other."

"What are you going to name it?" asked Jim.

Jack looked nonplussed. This necessity had not occurred to him before.
He appealed to Rob.

"Suppose," replied the latter, after mature deliberation,--"suppose we
call it the Sylph? There's a, story in the _Boys' Own_ about a
beautiful boat called the Sylph."

"Cricky! it looks about as much like a sylph as--well, as Mary Ann
does!" said Jim. Since the stout, good-natured cook was heavy, and
nearly square in figure, the comparison was amusingly apt.

"Do you remember the tents at Coney Island in summer, where a regular
wooden circus procession goes round in a ring, keeping time to the
music?" asked Leo.

"Yes, and by paying five cents you can take your choice, and ride on a
zebra or a lion or a big gold ostrich, or anything that's there. And
once we chose a _scrumptious_ boat, all blue and silver, and drawn by
two swans," responded Jim.

"Well, what was the name of that?" said Leo.

"I think the man told us she was known as the _Fairy_," answered Jim.

Again they looked at the boat and shook their heads. It would not do.

"I did not mean the name of the blue and silver barge, but of the whole
thing--the ring and all?" added Leo.

"Oh, the _Merry-go-Round_," said Jack.

"Why would not that be a good name?" argued Rob, pleased with the
sound, and, like many a person whose fancy is caught by the jingle of a
word, paying little attention to its sense.

"That is what I thought," began Leo, delighted to find his motion
seconded, as he would have explained in the language of the juvenile
debating society, which met periodically in that very barn.

"Why! do you expect this boat to keep going round and round when we get
it out into the middle of the creek?" said practical Jack, pretending
to be highly indignant at the imputation.

"No indeed," disclaimed Rob. "Only that she would go around
everywhere--up and down the stream, you know; and on an exploring
expedition, as we proposed."

"That is not so bad," Jack admitted. "Still, I think we could get a
better name. Let us see! The Merry Sailor,--how's that?"

"N--no--hardly," murmured Bob.

"The Jolly Sail--I have it: the Jolly Pioneer!"

"Hurrah!" cried Jim. "The very thing!"

"Yes, I guess that fits prett