OFF TO SEA
"What's come over the lad?" Aunt Martha exclaimed after a while. "You 're dancing around like a pea in a hot frying pan."
This surprised Dave. He was under the impression that he was exceptionally quiet.
"You 're all excited and worked up," declared Aunt Martha. "I expect you 've been to one of these ball games or watching red Indians at the movies, have n't you?"
"No," replied Dave, subsiding into a chair and making an iron resolution not to move a muscle for five minutes at least.
"Then I guess you 're feverish. Why, I never saw your cheeks so flushed."
Dave stood the ordeal well. He buried himself in a book, pretending to read, but the words danced under his eyes. He, David Hallard, was a sailor at last, or at least as good as a sailor. In seven short days school and Brooklyn would be things of the past. He would be "outward bound." The words had a fine ring to them.
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