been told was not new to him. At times
Chris was allowed to run about the large vegetable garden and climb
the orchard trees, but he was told that the moment had not yet come
when he could wander at will in early Georgetown.

Chris had tried it once, rebellious and bored at the now familiar
ground, but it was as if an invisible wall kept him in the confines of
Mr. Wicker's land, a slippery glass wall he could feel but not see,
and in which he could discover no chink in which to put his toe to
find the height of it. So there was nothing left to do but to work as
fast and as well as he could. "There are rumors," Mr. Wicker had told
him quietly, too quietly, "that Claggett Chew is preparing his ship,
the _Venture_, for a voyage East. There is much activity about his
ship, and he is laying in stores, so I am informed. We must get
forward with all haste, for his ship is a fast one--faster than the
_Mirabelle_."

Chris therefore threw himself into all the preliminaries of his task.
His head swam when he laid it on his pillow at night, and Becky Boozer
would stand with her hands on her barrel-sized hips, shaking her hat
until its plumes and roses waved madly, over "her boy's" shadowed eyes
and weary air.

For Chris was now as accepted a member of the household as Mr. Wicker
himself, and had it not been for the robust guffaws of Ned Cilley, and
the ministrations of the now devoted Becky, Chris's days would have
been tedious indeed.

One afternoon when he returned, after a rest, to Mr. Wicker's study,
he saw that there was something new in the room. A bowl with a
goldfish in it stood on the table, but Mr. Wicker was not to be seen.
Now, however, Chris was not the boy he had been a few weeks before. He
went straight to the bowl and addressed the fish.

"Sir," he said to the goldfish, "I am here. What shall I do first?"

The goldfish might almost have been said to have changed its
expression and smiled, before, brushing a drop of water from his
sleeve, Mr. Wicker stood beside the table smiling.

"How you have improved, my boy!" he exclaimed. "It is now time for you
to try, and this is as good a change as any."

All at once, at the imminent prospect of really changing himself into
some other form, Chris became frightened and his hands grew cold.

"Oh, sir! Do you really think I know how?" he cried, gazing up into
the face of his master. "Suppose I change and can't change back?"

Mr. Wicker shook his head with a smile.