As the summer was drawing to a close, the evenings grew longer, and these conversations were renewed from time to time, as the boys were excited by hearing of some great slap made by an enterprising captain, or some smuggler making a fortune in one or two trips to Havana. Captain Starrett, the brother of John’s master, was an inveterate smuggler. The house was resorted to by seafaring men, masters and mates, and the boys had abundant opportunities to gain information in respect to voyages and profits.

Both Mr. Foss and Mr. Starrett owned a small part of several vessels, which afforded the boys an excellent opportunity to obtain accurate and reliable information, of which they did not hesitate to avail themselves.

As there were no mails east of Portland, the only way in which the boys obtained letters from home was by some coasting vessel. When they did get one, it was correspondingly valued, read and re-read, commented upon, and formed the subject of conversation for a month. John received a letter one afternoon, and on opening it, found enclosed one from Ben to Charlie.

The moment he was done work at night, he went to Stroudwater to see Charlie, spend the night with him, and walk in before work-hours in the morning. To the no small delight of the boys, they were informed that it was nearly two years since they had been at home, with the exception of the time when Ben was sick; that neither Captain Rhines’s family nor Ben and Sally could stand it any longer, and they must come home, and make a good visit.

“Ain’t I glad!” cried John.

“Ain’t I!” replied Charlie. “I wanted to go bad enough, but I didn’t like to lose my time, and was afraid Mr. Foss would think I was a baby.”

“That was just the way with me.”

Mr. Foss had a vessel that would be ready to launch in a fortnight, and wanted Charlie to stay till after launching. They wrote home by a coaster, that was to sail the next day, that they would start in a fortnight in the boat.

Meanwhile the Perseverance, Jr., was hauled up, repaired, re-painted, and put in first-rate order for the cruise. During that fortnight there was but one subject of conversation, and that never grew stale—home, and what they should do when they got there.

“There’ll be partridges and coons, lots of ’em, to shoot on Elm Island, Charlie.”

“There’ll be bears on my land, John.”

“Won’t Tige wag his tail off?”

“Won’t Bennie and the baby have a time?”

“What will Fred say?”

“We shall see Uncle Isaac!”

“Yes, and Joe Griffin and Henry.”

“Yes.”

“I wonder if they’ve got any boat there that’ll outsail the Wings of the Morning?”

“Do you calculate to come back here, Charlie?”

“Do you?”

“I don’t know; Mr. Starrett wants me to. I shall come if you do.”

“Mr. Foss wants me, too; but I can do better building boats at home than I can working in the ship-yard. I’ve learned about all I can here.”

“I could get just as good wages at Wiscasset as I can here, and go home every few weeks.”

“Ain’t we going home in a glorious time of year? The sea-fowl will be coming along.”

“There will be berries.”

“Pickerel in my pond.”

“O, Charlie, I’ll tell you what we’ll do—you, and I, and Fred.”

“What?”

“We’ll borrow Uncle Isaac’s birch, and go up the brook to the falls, then take her on our shoulders, and carry her round the falls, then follow all the crooks of the brook till we come to the pond. It is real crooked; I dare say ’twould be three or four miles.”

“That would be something we never did; and the water in the pond will be so warm to go in swimming!”

“Yes; I never thought of that.”

“O, John, I tell you, we’ll go on to Indian Island, and make a birch of our own—a smasher. I know I can make one.”

“And we’ll get Uncle Isaac to work the ends with porcupine quills.”

“Then we shall have the Perseverance, Jr., to go outside in and fish, and take the girls to sail. We’ve got a boat now—no old dugout—and we’ll go exploring just where we like—way down the coast.”

As is often the case with boys, they planned employments and enjoyments enough to occupy a whole summer, while they intended to allow themselves not more than three weeks of vacation at the outside.

“I felt real bad, John, when father wrote that the partridges had gone; but come to think, I’m glad of it, ’cause they’ll breed in the woods, and if I want to try to tame some more, I can find the eggs.”

“I should be; because when it blows, and you can’t get off the island, or any time after supper, you can take the gun, and find them in the yellow birches.”

While the boys are revelling amid these anticipated pleasures, let us note what effect the announcement of their coming produced at home.