About the end of September his Uncle Christopher called Mark into his study one evening, and telling him to sit down, said, “Well, Mark, my boy, I suppose you’re beginning to think of going home again to Floridy, eh?”

“Yes, uncle; father writes that both Ruth and I ought to come home very soon now, and I, for one, am quite ready to go.”

“So you ought, so you ought.  When boys and girls can help their fathers and mothers, and be helping themselves at the same time, they ought to be doing it,” assented Uncle Christopher, cheerfully.  “Well, Mark, I’ve got a scheme, a great scheme in my head, and I want you to tell me what you think of it.  In the first place, I want you and the other directors to increase the capital stock of the Elmer Mill and Ferry Company, and let me take the extra shares.”

“Oh, Uncle Christopher!”

“Wait, my boy, I haven’t begun yet.  You see, as I’ve told you before, I’m getting old and fee—­not a word, sir!—­feeble, and my old bones begin to complain a good deal at the cold of these Maine winters.  Besides, all the folks that I think most of in this world have gone to Floridy to live, and it isn’t according to nater that a man’s body should be in one place while his heart’s in another.  Consequently it looks as if I had a special call to have a business that’ll take my body where my heart is once in a while.  Now my business is the lumber business, and always will be; and from what I know and what you tell me, it looks as if there was enough of that sort of business to be done in Floridy to amuse my declining years.”

“Yes, indeed there is, uncle.”

“Well, that p’int being settled, and you, as President of the Elmer Mills, being willing to use your influence to have me made a partner in that concern—­”

“Why, of course, uncle—­”

“No ‘of course’ about it, young man; remember there’s a Board of Directors to be consulted.  Friendship is friendship, and business is business, and sometimes when one says ‘Gee’ t’other says ‘Haw.’  Having secured the influence of the president of the company, however, I’m willing to risk the rest.  And now for my scheme.

“Supposing, for the sake of argument, that I am made one of the proprietors of the Elmer Mills.  In that case I want them to be big mills.  I’m too old a man to be fooling my limited time away on little mills; consequently, I propose to buy a first-class outfit of machinery for a big saw-mill, ship it to Wakulla, Floridy, and let it represent my shares of Elmer Mill Company stock.  Moreover, as the schooner Nancy Bell, owned by the subscriber, is just now waiting for a charter, I propose to load her with the said mill machinery, and whatever articles you may think the Wakulla colony to be most in need of, and despatch her to the St. Mark’s River, Floridy.

“Moreover, yet again, as she is now without a captain, Eli Drew having gone into deep-water navigation, I propose to offer the command of the Nancy Bell to Captain Bill May, as his ship won’t be ready for some months yet.