The boys, on the subsequent Sunday, told Miss Barry that there had been a quarrel, but, added Sid, “It is all fixed now.”

“I am very glad there has been a reconciliation,” replied Miss Barry.  “If there had been none, I should have felt that you were going down and not up the ladder.  In our play we can be moving up, and reconciliation is a round in the ladder.”

CHAPTER XIII.

A KNIGHT GOES TO SEA.

“And do you want to come to my launching?”

“You going to be launched?” asked Charlie.

“Not exactly,” said Skipper Wentworth, Wort’s father, “but my schooner is, and if you come to Raynes’s ship-yard next Saturday, you will see her.  You can tell any of the other boys to come if they like.  Wort will be there.”

Charlie went down to the yard the day before the launching.  The schooner seemed to be an ant-heap where all the ants were stirring, and all were on the outside, so many men were at work.  The club boys were quite numerously represented through their friends.  Sid’s father was flourishing a paint-brush high up on a staging.  Pip’s father and also Juggie’s cousin were swinging their hammers about the cook’s quarters Pip’s grandfather, a blacksmith, was inspecting some of the iron-work of the vessel.  A tall cousin of the governor was driving oxen.  The clanking chains of the oxen hauling timber for the building of another vessel, the pounding of hammers, the shouts of the bosses ordering the workmen, made a lively compound of sound.  The next Saturday, every thing was ready for the launching.

With eager eyes Charlie noticed all the movements of the workmen.  He saw them drive the wedges under the schooner, and heard blow on blow as the wedges went in farther and farther.  He saw them knock away the props holding the schooner in place, and along the ways, or planed timbers, well greased for the schooner’s ride, he watched the vessel slowly then swiftly moving.  Down, down she went, lower and lower, so deep into the waiting arms of the blue river, that the waters threatened to go over her, and then up she came gracefully, bringing a bridal-veil of snowy foam with her, and exciting the admiration of all the spectators, who vented their feelings in an uproarious “Hurrah!” One of the fortunate party that had permission to be in the vessel at its launching was Wort Wentworth, the skipper’s boy.

“I must see every thing that there is,” thought the inquisitive boy, and he turned, finally, into the state-room which the skipper himself expected to occupy as his quarters in the cabin.  “Nice place,” he said, climbing into his father’s berth, and there curling up into one corner.

The day had been an exciting one, and yet tiresome, and Wort’s next movement was to gape.