"Next week."

"Good!" exclaimed the youth suddenly. "I'll be ready. Oh, I always wanted to make a sea voyage, and now I have the chance. This is the best ever! Hurrah! That's the stuff! 'A life on, the ocean wave, a home on the bounding deep!' Avast and belay, my hearties! Shiver my timbers! All hands on deck to take in sail! There she blows!"

Bob had not read sea stories for nothing.

"That's the way to talk!" exclaimed the captain. "I knew he'd like the idea!"

Mr. Henderson seemed somewhat amazed. He had expected Bob to make strong objections. Instead the boy was delighted.

"I am sorry to see you leave home, Bob," said his mother, with just the hint of tears in her eyes, "but I think it will be the best thing for you."

"So do I, mom. Hurrah! This is the best ever!"

Then Bob began to dance a sailor's hornpipe.

"It seems to me," said Mr. Henderson to himself, as he started for the mill, "that Bob's punishment is more of a pleasure than anything else. Still, if it does him good, I'll not regret it."

CHAPTER VIII

GETTING READY

Captain Spark's ship, the _Eagle_, was a large craft, and in her he had made many voyages. At present the vessel was docked at a seaport town not many miles from Moreville.

The day it was announced to Bob that he was to make a sea voyage, the captain left the village to visit the _Eagle_ at the dock and see how the loading of the cargo was progressing.

"I want to sail as soon as possible," he said, "and though I left a good mate in charge, still I like to look after certain matters myself. I'll be back in a few days and let you know, Bob, the exact date for sailing. In the meanwhile you can be getting ready."

"Aye, aye, sir," answered the boy, trying, as he had read of sailors doing, to pull a lock of his reddish hair, but finding it too short.

He had decided to adopt all the sea practices he had ever read about.

"Get your bag ready," went on the captain, "have your mother put some needles and thread in, for you'll have to mend your own clothes at sea, and I'll look it over when I get back."

"Aye, aye, sir."

The captain laughed at Bob's sudden enthusiasm for the sea and ship terms, but he was not displeased.

As for Bob, he thought the time would never pa.s.s until he would find himself aboard the _Eagle_. That very day he began to sort over his clothes, trying to decide which he should take, and he had such a miscellaneous collection of garments that, when his mother saw them, she laughed.

"Bob!" she exclaimed. "It would take three trunks to hold them, and I don't believe sailors are ever allowed more than one. At least, in all the pictures I ever saw of sailors going on board a ship they only had a small box or bag on their shoulder, and, of course, that must have contained all their clothes."

"I guess you're right, mother. I'll have to sort out some of these."

"Never mind. I'll do that. But what in the world are you doing with those rubber boots?"

"I was going to take them along."

"Sailors seldom wear rubber boots. They go barefoot when it's wet on deck." For Mrs. Henderson knew something about seafaring men, from her long acquaintance with Captain Spark.

"Another mistake," admitted Bob, good-naturedly. "Guess I've got lots to learn about the ocean and ships."

"Yes indeed, Bob. And I hope you will profit by it. It is no place to play pranks, either, on board a ship."

"But I've read that when the ship crosses the equator the sailors cut up all kinds of high jinks."

"Yes, I suppose they do, but that is not very often. I have no doubt Captain Spark will permit fun on that occasion."

"If we go down around Cape Horn and up the west coast of North and South America we'll cross the equator twice," went on Bob. "We can have fun both times."

"I'm afraid you're thinking more of the fun you are going to have than the real reason for this voyage, Bob. It is a punishment for your prank on the minister."

"I know it, but, mom, I can't seem to feel that way about it."

"And I don't know as I blame you, Bob, though of course it was very wrong to put glue on the reverend gentleman's chair."

Bob felt he must tell the news of his prospective voyage to his chums. Leaving his mother to sort out his clothes, he went out in the street. It was Sat.u.r.day and there was no school. In fact, the term would close in another week, so Bob would miss little instruction by taking the cruise.

The first lad Bob met was Ted Neefus. His chum hurried up to him and Inquired:

"Did he hurt you very much?"

"Who?"

"Your father."

"My father? What do you mean?"

"Didn't he give you a good walloping for that joke?"

"No. Not a bit of it. I'm going on a sea voyage with Captain Spark."

"Honest?"

"Cross my heart," and Bob went through a rapid motion with his hands somewhere over the region of his stomach.

"Where to?"

"Around Cape Horn."

"No jokin'?"

"Of course not. But that's nothing. Captain Spark has been all over the world."

Bob spoke as though doubling the Horn was the easiest thing a mariner meets with.

"I wonder if he doesn't want another boy," mused Ted wistfully.