"I will own," the latter confessed, "that at first those front windows demoralized me not a little. They had the same lure for me as they have for you. But by and by I gained the strength of mind to turn my back and let the Hudson River traffic look out for itself."

"You might try that remedy, son," suggested Steve's father.

"No, no, Tolman! Let the boy alone. If he is enjoying the ferries and steamboats so much the better."

"But there seem to be plenty of steamboats here in the room to enjoy,"

was Mr. Tolman's quick retort.

"Steamboats?" repeated Steve vaguely, turning and looking about him.

Sure enough, there were steamboats galore! Wherever he looked he saw them. Not only were the walls covered with pictures of every imaginable type of steamer, but wherever there was s.p.a.ce enough there were tiers of little ship models in gla.s.s cases. There were side-wheelers, awkwardly constructed boats with sprawling paddles, screw propellers, and twin-screw craft; ferryboats, tugs, steam yachts, and ocean liners.

Every known variety of sea-going contrivance was represented. The large room was like a museum of ships and the boy gave an involuntary exclamation of delight.

"Jove!"

It was a laconic tribute to the marvels about him but it was uttered with so much vehemence that there was no mistaking its sincerity.

Evidently, terse as it was, its ring of fervor satisfied Mr. Ackerman for he smiled to himself.

"I never saw so many boats in all my life!" burst out Steve.

"I told you I was in the steamboat business," put in Mr. Ackerman mischievously.

"I should think you were!" was the lad's comment.

"This is a wonderful collection, Ackerman," Mr. Tolman a.s.serted, as he rose and began to walk about the room. "How did you ever get it together? Many of these prints are priceless."

"Oh, I have been years doing it," Mr. Ackerman said. "It has been my hobby. I have chosen to sink my money in these toys instead of in an abandoned farm or antique furniture. It is just a matter of taste, you see."

"You must have done some scouring of the country to make your collection so complete. I don't see how you ever succeeded in finding these old pictures and models. It is a genuine history lesson."

"I do not deserve all the credit, by any means," the capitalist protested with modesty. "My grandfather, who was one of the owners of the first of the Hudson River steamers, began collecting pictures and drawings; and at his death they came to my father who added to them.

Afterward, when the collection descended to me, I tried to fill in the gaps in order to make the sequence complete. Of course in many cases I have not been able to find what I wanted, for neither prints nor models of some of the ships I desired were to be had. Either there were no copies of them in existence, or if there were no money could tempt their owners to part with them. Still I have a well enough graded lot to show the progression."

"I should think you had!" said Mr. Tolman heartily. "You have arranged them beautifully, too, from the old whalers and early American coasting ships to the clippers. Then come the first steam packets, I see, and then the development of the steamboat through its successive steps up to our present-day floating palace. It tells its own story, doesn't it?"

"In certain fashion, yes," Mr. Ackerman agreed. "But the real romance of it will never be fully told, I suppose. What an era of progress through which to have lived!"

"And shared in, as your family evidently did," interposed Mr. Tolman quickly.

His host nodded.

"Yes," he answered, "I am quite proud to think that both my father and my grandfather had their humble part in the story."

"And well you may be. They were makers of history."

Both men were silent an instant, each occupied with his own thoughts.

Mr. Tolman moved reflectively toward the mantelpiece before which Steve was standing, gazing intently at a significant quartette of tiny models under gla.s.s. First came a ship of graceful outline, having a miniature figurehead of an angel at its prow and every sail set. Beside this was an ungainly side-wheeler with scarce a line of beauty to commend it.

Next in order came an exquisite, up-to-date ocean liner; and the last in the group was a modern battleship with guns, wireless, and every detail cunningly reproduced.

Stephen stood speechless before them.

"What are you thinking of, son?" his father asked.

"Why, I--" the boy hesitated.

"Come, tell us! I'd like to know, too," echoed Mr. Ackerman.

"Why, to be honest I was wondering how you happened to pick these particular four for your mantel," replied the lad with confusion.

The steamboat man smiled kindly.

"You think there are handsomer boats in the room than these, do you?"

"Certainly there are better looking steamships than this one," Steve returned, pointing with a shrug of his shoulders at the clumsy side-wheeler.

"But that rather ugly craft is the most important one of the lot, my boy," Mr. Tolman declared.

"I suppose that is true," Mr. Ackerman agreed. "The fate of all the others hung on that ship."

"Why?" was the boy's prompt question.

"Oh, it is much too long a yarn to tell you now," laughed his host.

"Were we to begin that tale we should not get to the theater to-night, say nothing of having any dinner."

"I'd like to hear the story," persisted Stephen.

"You will be reading it from a book some day."

"I'd rather hear you tell it."

"If that isn't a spontaneous compliment, Ackerman, I don't know what is," laughed Mr. Tolman.

The steamboat man did not reply but he could not quite disguise his pleasure, although he said a bit gruffly:

"We shall have to leave the story and go to the show to-night. I've bought the tickets and there is no escape," added he humorously. "But perhaps before you leave New York there will be some other chance for me to spin my yarn for you, and put your father's railroad romances entirely in the shade."

The butler announced dinner and they pa.s.sed into the dining room.

If, however, Stephen thought that he was now to leave ships behind him he was mistaken, for the dining room proved to be quite as much of a museum as the library had been. Against the dull blue paper hung pictures of racing yachts, early American fighting ships, and nautical encounters on the high seas. The house was a veritable wonderland, and so distracted was the lad that he could scarcely eat.

"Come, come, son," objected Mr. Tolman at last, "you will not be ready in time to go to any show unless you turn your attention to your dinner."

"That's right," Mr. Ackerman said. "Fall to and eat your roast beef. We are none too early as it is."

Accordingly Stephen fixed his eyes on his plate with resolution and tried his best to think no more of his alluring surroundings. With the coming of the ice-cream he had almost forgotten there were such things as ships, and when he rose from the table he found himself quite as eager to set forth to the theater as any other healthy-minded lad of his age would have been.

The "show" Mr. Ackerman had selected had been chosen with much care and was one any boy would have delighted to see. The great stage had, for the time being, been transformed to a western prairie and across it came a group of canvas-covered wagons, or prairie schooners, such as were used in the early days by the first settlers of the West. Women and children were huddled beneath the arched canopy of coa.r.s.e cloth and inside this shelter they pa.s.sed the weary days and nights of travel.

Through sun and storm the wagons rumbled on; jogging across the rough, uncharted country and jolting over rocks, sagebrush, and sand. There were streams to ford, mountains to climb on the long trip westward, but undaunted by obstacles the heroic little band of settlers who had with such determination left kin and comfort behind them pa.s.sed on to that new land toward which their faces were set.