nd fro as if they liked it; for the leaves were beating time, and
were singing joyously, and appeared to be saying all the while how glad
they would be to keep beating time and singing on forever, if the wind
would only please to be so good as to help them on in the joyous
business; and the tall grass and grain were shining in the sun, and
rolling round in a very reckless manner, as if they meant to show off
their great billows of green and gold, and make the staid and sober
little waves that were ruffling up the surface of the bright blue waters
of the bay quite ashamed.

"Ha, ha!" laughed our ancient friend, the Captain, when he saw what a
day it was. "Ha, ha! what a day indeed!" and right away he began to call
loudly for his boy, Main Brace,--

"Main Brace, Main Brace, come here! Come, bear a hand, and be lively
there, you plum-duff, chuckle-headed young landlubber, and waddle along
aft here on your sausage legs."

A feeble voice is heard to answer from the galley,--"Ay, ay, sir;
comin', sir, comin'"; and the plum-duff head and the sausage legs follow
feebly in after the voice, looking surprised.

"Main Brace,"--begins the Captain.

"Ay, ay, sir," responds Main Brace; and the plum-duff head lets fall its
lower jaw, and looks amazed, the Captain is so much in earnest.

"Some bait, Main Brace! Do you hear, my lad? Be lively, boy, and get
some bait; and then overhaul the _Alice_, and stand by to be ready when
I come down. We'll go a-fishing to-day,--do you hear, my boy? And we'll
have a jolly time,--do you hear that? So be lively now, and be off with
your plum-duff head and your sausage legs. I tell you, away, away! for
we'll go a-sailin'. Away, away! for we'll go a-sailin', a-sailin',
a-sailin'. Away, away! for we'll go a-sailin',--a-sailin' on the sea."

Without another word the sausage legs made off with the plum-duff head,
which had no sooner got outside the door than it began to let out in
dislocated fragments, from a mouth that gradually expanded until it
reached from ear to ear, "Away, away! we'll go a-fishin', a-fishin',
a-fishin'; away, away! we'll go a-sailin', a-sailin', a-sailin'; away,
away! we'll all be jolly, jolly, jolly,--we'll all be jolly"; and so on
until the sausage legs had carried the plum-duff head and the refrain
together so far down among the trees, towards the water, that all the
other "jollys" and the sailin's and the "fishin's," and the rest of it,
were blown clean away by the wind.