Captain May, who had gladly accepted the command of the Nancy Bell for this voyage, was equally busy getting her ready for sea, and superintending the stowage of her precious but awkward cargo of machinery.
In Norton, Ruth and Edna had their hands full of dressmaking, packing, and paying farewell visits, and down in Aroostook the six families of the six gentlemen who had accepted Mr.Bangs's invitation to visit Florida with him were in a whirl of excitement, for to these untravelled people the journey from Maine to Florida seemed but little less of an undertaking than a journey around the world.
At length everything was ready, and the Nancy Bell only awaited her passengers.

Captain May and Mark ran over to Norton one day to bid the friends there good-bye, and returned the next, bringing the girls with them.

Both the girls were as excited as they could be; Edna at the prospect of this the first long journey that she could remember, and Ruth at the idea of soon being at home with her own dear parents again, and with anticipating all she should have to show and tell Edna.
A letter had been sent to Wakulla, saying that Mark and Ruth would take advantage of the first opportunity that offered to go home, and that Edna May would come with them; but nothing was said of Uncle Christopher and the rest of the party, nor of the schooner and her cargo.

All this was reserved as a grand surprise.
How different were the feelings that filled the minds of Mark and Ruth now, from those with which they had sailed down the Penobscot in this same schooner Nancy Bell eleven months before.

Then they were leaving the only home they had ever known, and going in search of a new one in which their father could recover his shattered health.