Wanting the Moon
sailing off, back to Nova Scotia, with her. The days were drawing on. She would be going in about two weeks. I should see her no more. Perhaps I should never see her again, for Captain Avery has no regular schedule, and he goes into New Haven very rarely. Yes, perhaps I should never see her again. And there would end my brilliantly begun sailor career. Again I should have to resort to the stenching fishing schooners around Boston. The best I could possibly hope for, thought I, would be to go out on the tug which would tow her out of the harbor. Then I could at least see her hoist her sails and sail and roll away. How lonely I should be! I was afraid of the thought. In my imagination I could see her casting her towrope, her sails filling with a fresh breeze, already her cutwater making wings of foam reach out along her sides. I should see her dwindle to a snow-sailed fairy ship in the distance; then she would be a microscopic speck on the horizon. Oh, but that was to die by inches, thought I. I think I could never have borne it.
"Oh! don't you wish we could go with her when she sails?" said I to Daddy, who was fascinated by her, as I was.
"Why yes, of course I do," said he. "But we can't—so there's no use in talking about it."
No, there was certainly no use in talking about it. The impossible cannot be accomplished. But the schooner continued to haunt me.
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