Ned, the son of Webb: What he did.

He pulled it out, and lugged it to the table, with a strong impression upon his mind that it was a book to be carried around in January rather than in June.

"It never will be a popular book for boys," he remarked of it. "Not for small boys."

Open it came, and he began with a study of the abundant illustrations. They were fine, and they stirred him up, by degrees, until he began to feel a growing interest in the reading matter scattered along among them. It was all in large type, so that the pages might be conquered easily, one after another. Before long he found himself entirely absorbed in the narrative of the old Norse times.

"Curious lot of men they were," he remarked, "those Vikings. How they did seem to enjoy killing their enemies and cutting each other's heads off! They'd steal anything, too. Tell you what, though, if I'd been wearing one o' their coats of mail when Nanny pitched me into the lake, I'd ha' gone to the bottom like a stone. I wonder if any of 'em could swim in their armour? I don't believe they could. Most likely they took it off if they were going to be wrecked anywhere. A fellow in a steel shirt ought to have some life-preservers handy."

More and more intense became his interest as he went on, and at about tea-time his grandfather came in.

"What, Ned?" asked the old gentleman. "Are you at it yet? That's all right, but I can't let you do too much of it. You must spend all the time you can in the open air. You may read this evening, but to-morrow morning you must go fishing. You may take a book with you."

"I'll take along this one, then," said Ned. "I can read between bites."

"That's what I do sometimes," said his grandfather. "I think it averages about two books to each fish, but a pike pulled a dictionary overboard for me, once."

"What did he want of a dictionary?" asked Ned. "Did you hook him?"

"Yes, I pulled him in," said the old gentleman, "but the book went out of sight. It's going to be too warm for trolling for pike."

"I guess so," said Ned. "I'm going to find some grasshoppers."

"They're the right bait," said Grandfather Webb. "Better than worms. The lake is full of bullheads. So is the wide, wide world. I've been out there, just now, talking to one of 'em. He's an Englishman. He's been beating me out of ten dollars, and he won't understand my explanation of it. He insists on keeping the ten."

"That's like 'em," said Ned. "I'd like to conquer England. Uncle Jack says that if I did they'd lock me up in the station-house."

"That's what they'd do," said his grandfather. "Anybody that invaded England would be arrested at once. They'd convict him, too, and make him buy something of 'em."

"I don't care," said Ned, "I'm going there, some day. It's about the greatest country in the world. I'm going to see London, and the forts, and the ships. The English soldiers and sailors can fight like anything. They can whip anybody but Americans."

"Come to supper!" commanded his grandfather; "then you may go on with your book. I'm afraid, though, that if you were in command of the Kentucky you'd try to steam her all over England, across lots, without minding the fences."

At the supper-table Ned was compelled to hear quite a number of remarks about swimming in Green Lake.

"He'd better try that colt in a buggy, next time," said Mrs. Emmons. "She's skittish."

"She likes a buggy," remarked Uncle Jack. "Pat lent her to one of his best friends, last week, to drive her a mile or so for exercise. She didn't stop short of Centreville Four Corners. The buggy's there, now, in the wagon-shop getting mended, and Nanny came home alone, quiet as a lamb."

"I guess Edward may drive one of the other horses," said his grandmother. "Pat'll pick out a quiet one."

"I'd want a buggy, or something," said Ned, "if I was to take that big book of grandfather's with me. I never saw such pictures, though. Loads of 'em."

"Read it! Read it!" said his grandfather. "When you get through with it, you'll know more'n you do now."

They let him alone after that, and talked of other affairs. He was quite willing to keep still, and he got away from the table before anybody else. There was a growing fever upon him to dive into that folio and to find out how the story fitted the pictures. No one happened to go into the library until about eleven o'clock, and he was there alone. Then old Mrs. Emmons herself was hunting everywhere for a ball of yarn she had lost, and she tried the library. Ned was not reading when she came in. He was lying stretched half-way across the table, sound asleep, with his head on the open book, and the cat curled up beside it.

"I had to shake him awake," she reported afterward, "and the cat followed him when he went up-stairs to his room."

Nevertheless, he was awake again not long after sunrise, next morning, and hurried out on a bait hunt. Before breakfast he had done well as to angleworms, but not so well as to grasshoppers. Of these he had captured only six, shutting them up in a little tin match-box.

"Now, then," said his grandfather, when they came out of the house together, after breakfast, "here's your rod. Three good lines. Plenty of hooks and sinkers. The boat's down there at the landing."

"I saw it when I swam ashore," said Ned. "It's a scow-punt and it isn't much bigger'n a wash-tub."

"It's better than it looks," replied the old gentleman. "I saw four men in it once, and they went half-way across the lake before it upset with them."

"Did any of 'em get drowned?" asked Ned.

"No," said Mr. Webb, "not more'n half drowned. I was out in another boat with Pat McCarty, trolling, and we fished in all four of 'em. You needn't get upset unless you try to carry Nanny or some of the boys. I'd rather you'd not have any company. Safer!"

"I don't want any of 'em along," said Ned. "I'd rather be alone. Then I can read while I'm waiting for fish. You said I could take that big book."

"All right, you may," said his grandfather. "Put it into your bait-box. Be sure you bring it home with you."

Away went Ned, and his grandfather turned back into the house, laughing.

"He'll think twice," he said, "before he lugs that folio to Green Lake, this hot day. He won't take it."

He was only half right, for Ned had already thought twice, at least, and had decided what to do.

He had found a small, lightly made garden hand-cart, two-wheeled, and when he set out for Green Lake all his baggage was in the cart, including the book, the angleworms, and the grasshoppers. He succeeded in getting away quietly, too, without giving Pat or anybody else a chance to ask him if he expected to need a wagon to bring home his fish.

It was getting very warm before he was half a mile from the house, for June days always grow warmer, rapidly, if you are shoving a hand-cart.

"It was a good lift to get the book in," thought Ned. "I wish I'd greased the wheels."

The boat lay idly at the shore when he reached the landing-place. A pair of oars lay in it, but he saw also something which pleased him much more.

"Mast and sail!" he shouted. "Who'd ha' thought of that! Hurrah!"

There they lay, a short mast, truly, and a mere rag of sail, with a boom and sprit all ready for use.

"I know how," thought Ned. "I can step the mast and hoist the sail, myself. Then I can tack all over the lake, without any hard work a-rowing."

His first undertaking, however, was to get his huge folio volume into the boat and not into the water. He succeeded perfectly, with some effort. Then he stepped his bit of a mainmast, as he called it, through the hole bored for it in the forward seat of the punt. It was plain that he knew something about naval affairs, for he spoke of his snub-nosed cruiser as a "catboat," and regretted that she had no "tiller."

"She hasn't any anchor, either," he said, "except a rope and a crooked stone. She has a keel, though, and there are thole-pins in her bulwarks, starboard and port. She's higher at the stern than she is at the prow, and I'm afraid she'd be a little cranky in a ten-knot breeze. She isn't ballasted to speak of, and I'd better keep her well before the wind. That's a little nor'west by north, just now."

However that might be, he pushed his gallant bark out from the shore, sitting in the stern, and shoving the land away with the rudder, – that is to say, with one of the oars.

The sail was already up, but it was a question to be answered how he could have told the direction from which the wind was coming or where it was going. To any ordinary observer, not an old salt nor the commander of a line-of-battle ironclad, it looked as if the wind had not yet reached Green Lake. It had very likely paused somewhere, in the village or over among the woods.

"I'll have to row at first," he remarked. "I think I can see a ripple out yonder. Where there's a ripple, there's wind, or it may have been made by that pickerel when he jumped out after something. If he'll bite, I'll pull him in."

Rowing is, after all, easy enough work when there is no hurry and the boat is nearly empty. Ned pulled gently on his oars, and the boom and sail swung to and fro as she slipped along. Pretty soon she reached and went through the ripple made by the pickerel, leaving behind her others that were larger, but which did not indicate wind.

"I'd give something for a catspaw," he said, remembering another nautical term. "I needn't furl the mainsail. She can drift to looard, if she wants to, while I try for some fish. If it's true that this lake hasn't any bottom, it won't pay to cast anchor. There isn't cable enough in that coil to do any good."

He ceased rowing. He put his joint rod together, and fitted on his reel, ready for sport. The bait question was decided against worms and in favour of grasshoppers, with regret that he had so few.