whole sum (if you get it safe), and you're just as welcome as you can
be, and don't you make any fuss about it, for it's your own, and I can
go without spending-money if you can, and am willing to too. And it's
no great denial, either, for the pony'll come sometime, I'm quite
sure. So don't you worry any more about how the carpenter is to be
paid. Good-by, dear old fellow,

"NED THORN.

"P.S.--I was just as dismal as I could be after I got home, longing to
go back to that dreary, dismal, good-for-nothing Culm Rock. The
shells, etc., got here all right. Give my respects to Uncle Richard,
and tell him I'll come down and turn his house topsy-turvy for him
again next summer, if he wants me to. Don't you forget to send a
letter back by Ben, now."

Noll finished this characteristic letter with something very like
tears in his eyes. "The dear, generous fellow!" he thought to himself;
"how could he ever bring himself to do it? for it _is_ a denial,
because Ned is _so_ fond of a horse! And he claimed, all the time,
that he never could help at all!"

Ben came stumping along the deck with his gruff, "Well, we hev brought
yer lumber an' yer carpenter, lad,--both on 'em the best I c'u'd find.
One's 'bout stacked up on the sand, yender, and t'other'll be waitin'
fur yer orders purty soon. He's good at his trade, John Sampson
be, an' he'll do fair an' square by ye. John ben't delicate
neither, an' won't mind the livin' he'll get 'mongst these 'ere
good-fur-nothin's,--I looked out fur that, ye see."

"I thank you more than I can tell, Ben," said Noll, taking the
skipper's hand; "and have you taken your pay for the freight and all
the trouble?"

"The freight be paid fur," said Ben, "an' the trouble likewise. An' ef
ye hev anythin' more fur the 'Gull' ter do, don't ye be backward, boy,
about lettin' her know't."

The last of the lumber was now being dragged up the sand, and the
skipper hurried away, saying,--

"Luck ter ye an' yer undertakin', lad! We be in a desput hurry to get
off, fur we'd stan' a poor chance on this shore in a storm."

Noll wished the skipper a safe run to a better harbor, and went back
to the wharf, where the carpenter intercepted him. He was a rough,
blunt-spoken man, but was evidently "good at his trade," as Ben had
said, and did not despair of making the Culm huts decent and
habitable; and after a long talk with him, Noll started for home, as