Poor Daniel squirmed on his stool and thought if he must be an example every moment of his stay he would almost choose being swallowed up by a tidal wave at sea after all.  The matter had been settled, however, and that very afternoon the Goodman set off on a hired horse, with his musket across his saddle-bow, and a head full of instructions from the Governor about the dangers of the road, and houses where he might spend the nights.

There was a queer lump in Daniel’s throat as he caught the last glimpse of his father’s sturdy back as it disappeared down the forest trail, and that night, when he went to bed with William in the loft of the Governor’s log house, he thought long and tenderly of his mother and Nancy.  If he had only had a magic mirror such as Beauty had in the palace of the Beast, he might have looked into it and seen them going patiently about their daily tasks with nothing to break the monotonous routine of work except a visit from Gran’ther Wattles, who came to see if Nancy knew her catechism.  The earthquake had been felt there so very slightly that they did not even know there had been one, until the Captain stopped on his return voyage the next week to bring them word of the safe journey to Plymouth.

IV

A FOREST TRAIL

To Daniel the days of his stay in Plymouth passed quickly.  He hoed corn with his cousin William and pulled weeds in the garden with Joseph and Mercy, and in the short hours allowed them for play there was always the sea.  They ran races on the sand when the tide was out and were never tired of searching for the curious things washed ashore by the waves.  One day they gathered driftwood and made a fire on the shore, hung a kettle over it and cooked their own dinner of lobsters fresh from the water.  Another day William and Daniel went together in a rowboat nearly to Duxbury, and caught a splendid codfish that weighed ten pounds.  On another wonderful day John Howland took the two boys hunting with him.  It was the first time Daniel had ever been allowed to carry a gun quite like a man, and he was the proudest lad in all Plymouth that night when the three hunters returned bringing with them two fine wild turkeys, and a hare which Daniel had shot.  He loved the grave, wise, kindly Governor and his brave wife, and grew to know, by sight at least, most of the other people of the town.

More than ten days passed in this way, and they were beginning to wonder why the Goodman did not return.  The Captain had come back from Provincetown and had been obliged to go on to Boston without waiting for him, and there was no knowing when the Lucy Ann would appear again in Plymouth Harbor.  Then one day, as Dan and William were working in the corn-field, they saw a tired horse with two people on his back come out of the woods.  Daniel took a long look at the riders, then, throwing down his hoe and shouting, “It ’s Father!” tore off at top