mr. wing rose from the little table that had been spread in the saloon and said, “we’ll break the anchor out with the jib as soon as breck has eaten. i hate this old engine like poison, though she’s a good old girl in case of emergency. but i have made it a rule not to use her unless it is really necessary.”
“what in the world is a jib?” queried frances with a puzzled expression. “i thought it was some part of your face because my small brother used to say ‘if you don’t shut up, sis, i’ll bust you one in the jib.’”
“in this case, it is the sail that is fastened on the bowsprit. there are a lot of things to learn on a boat, but don’t give up because, before the cruise is over, you girls are going to be able to sail the ship by yourselves and we men can take it easy; isn’t that right, jack?” and mr. wing went up on deck to uncover the wheel.
mabel advised her friends to stay below until the “boojum” was well under way. there was always a great deal of excitement on deck whenever they left a harbor and it might be just as well for all concerned if they kept out of the way until they got the hang of things nautical.
ellen borrowed “the hunting of the snark” from charlie and announced that she was going to curl up on the transom in the saloon and become familiar enough with it by supper to beat the others at their own game.
“she starts, she moves, she seems to feel
the thrill of life along her keel,”
sang frances, “and i’ve just simply got to go up on deck and see what it looks like when we are going. is it all right for me to go up now, mabel?”
just then mr. wing and jack settled the question by sticking their heads down the hatch and demanding the presence of the girls on deck. charlie was at the wheel and breck was mopping up the slime that the anchor chain had made on deck.
“mabel, will you take the wheel?” asked charlie in coaxing tones. “i want to catch a smoke and it’s against the rules for the man at the wheel to smoke.”
“give that buoy a good berth, daughter,” advised her father.
mabel smiled her assent, for she knew the little harbor as well as her father, and though she had piloted the “boojum” out some dozen times she always got exactly the same warning about the bobbing red buoy.
the “boojum” slipped gracefully through the water, with all her sails pulling. smaller sail boats crossed her bow and their occupants gaily waved handkerchiefs and hands to the little group on the “boojum.”
jack’s lazy length was stretched on a striped deck mattress, while ellen, seated near him on a cushion, watched him with thoughtful and admiring eyes, for in frances’ breezy western slang, jack was “easy to look at.” charlie talked to his fiancée and mr. wing pored over a chart, mapping out a course from new london to newport. jane and frances, the two irrepressibles, unhampered by being in love, had elected to sit as far out on the bow as they could without actually straddling the bowsprit. they liked the sting of the salt spray on their faces. frances pointed to where mr. wing was reading the chart and then she and jane began in chorus:
“he had brought a large map representing the sea
without the least vestige of land;
and the crew were much pleased when they found it to be
a map they could all understand.”
mr. wing laughed and, not to be outdone, went on with the ridiculous tale:
“‘what’s the good of mercator’s north poles and equators,
tropics, zones, and meridian lines?’
so the bellman would cry: and the crew would reply:
‘they are merely conventional signs.’”
but mabel interrupted him:
“‘other maps are such shapes, with their islands and capes!
but we’ve got our brave captain to thank.’
so the crew would protest—‘that he’s bought us the best—
a perfect and absolute blank!’
“and now daddy you come on and take your wheel because here comes a tug and it has three tows. it always scares me to death to meet one of those old tugs,” mabel explained to jane and frances as she flopped down beside them. “they are absolutely unscrupulous—just like road hogs—always running into yachts on the sound. whew! it’s good to see you kids again. wouldn’t it be terrible if there would ever be a summer when some of us wouldn’t see each other?” she paused solemnly.
“you talk exactly as though you weren’t going to marry your fat charlie in november,” teased frances. “you will live in lexington near jane and that won’t be so bad, but how about me away out on the ranch? and it looks as if, in the course of time, that ellen will come and live reasonably near jane, too.”
“well, my good spinster friend, frances,” laughed jane, “i reckon that as long as we are in the same boat we will have to start a tea-room or a poultry farm or some other stupid thing that unloved old maids do. oh! the tragedy of being an old maid at twenty, and the pain made more terrible by the fact that we see the happiness of our friends so plainly.”
“and it will be ever thus, plain jane, for where could we ever find a man worthy of our splendid selves?” asked frances. “they all fall for me, of course, but i can’t give them any encouragement, knowing my own value as i do.”
“if we get to lloyd’s harbor in time for a swim to-night, i am going to duck you both,” threatened mabel, who was a veritable fish. “in the meantime, i’ll just get charlie to make a cat o’ nine tails for me. poor child, he will need the protection as much i do.”
“who needs protection?” asked charlie, who had come forward to sheet in the staysail.
“you,” frances promptly replied, getting a sharp dig from mabel’s elbow in reward for her truthfulness. “wow! mabel, i thought you were too well cushioned to hurt.”
“push their noses in, mabel,” advised charlie, “and when you have finished, bring jack and ellen down to earth and tell them to go below and put on their bathing suits. lloyd’s harbor is just around that point and we will make it in about fifteen minutes. soon as we drop anchor, we all want to go over the side. this harbor is a dandy place to swim.”
the girls dashed below, scrambled into their suits and returned to their place forward to find that the “boojum” was nosing its way into one of the loveliest little harbors on the eastern coast. one side of the mouth of the harbor was marked by a high bit of wooded land that sloped gently down to the curved sandy beach.
“the wonderful smell that is in the air,” ellen whispered to jack. “i imagine lotus flowers are like that. the land where it is always afternoon. why, i could stay here forever and ever.”
“and i would have to be with you, for lotus-eaters forget all the past and dream and dream away their lives, and i don’t want to be forgotten for one little minute.”
“i wouldn’t worry about that, jack. i couldn’t forget you for an instant, not if i ate lotus for years and years.”
“hey, you jack, stop talking sweet nothings. mr. wing has called you three times to see that the anchor is ready to heave over,” and jane gave her brother a shove in the direction of the anchor.
“for heaven’s sake, jane, i wish you would look at breck! what on earth can he be doing?” frances pointed to where breck was leaning over the hand-rail earnestly spitting, with mr. wing eagerly watching.
“mr. wing,” called jane, “is there anything i can do for breck? lemon is awfully good for seasickness, aunt min says.”
mr. wing’s fat face turned purple with the effort not to laugh and breck finally chuckled.
“ridiculous, jane,” said the “boojum’s” owner, “that is the sailor’s best method of telling whether a ship has lost her way or not. you see, you don’t want to drop anchor while the ship is still moving, and if you spit over the side you can tell easily how fast you are going.”
“well, no wonder i didn’t understand! who would?” demanded jane.
“it was a perfectly natural mistake, miss pellew,” said breck.
“jane, as a camp fire girl, you should thoroughly approve of the infinite resources of nature,” teased frances.
“i do think it is an awfully good idea, but, didn’t it look funny?” agreed jane.
“breck, you better let out a little more chain,” ordered mr. wing. “and jane, i’m going to show you and frances how to let down the dinghy from the davits, so you girls can be independent of charlie and jack. there is not much chance of getting those two to do anything for any girls except mabel and ellen and there might be a time when you would want to take the boat when breck and i were ashore.”
frances and jane lowered away at the ropes, taking care, in accordance with mr. wing’s advice, to let the stern hit the water before the bow so as not to ship any water.
“watch me, plain jane, and profit by my courage,” cried frances, grabbing a rope and sliding down it into the water.
“rather get my head in first,” said jane; and her body shot out from the hand-rail, describing an arc before she sank into the water, leaving barely a ripple.
“great stuff, you kids, but i am too fat and have to wend my middle-aged way down the sea-ladder,” and mr. wing did it.
soon all of them were in, frances, mabel and jane, romping around like young seals, mabel pursuing the other two, round and round the “boojum” in her efforts to duck the two teasers.
“it’s terrible just to be able to do this silly little side stroke,” wailed ellen to mr. wing and jack, “when all the other girls swim the trudgeon, double overarm and australian crawl just like professionals.”
“come on, jack, let’s teach her,” said the father of one of the envied ducks.
the two men started teaching ellen the difficult feat of breathing with the head on one side when the arm comes up for the stroke and exhaling with the head under water. ellen strangled and spluttered about for a while, as beginners do, time after time, reversing the order and breathing in under water and choking when she came up for the breath she was unable to take. after patience on the part of the pupil and teachers, she began making noble attempts to combine the breathing with the actual stroke.
jane and frances had clambered up over the stern of the dinghy which had been made fast at the end of the lowered boat-boom and were engaged in a spirited discussion of the value of salt water swimming and the value of fresh water swimming.
“frances, look! did you ever see such a beauty in your life?” jane gasped as she watched a tall, broad-shouldered, slender-hipped figure in a maroon swimming suit poise itself on the extreme end of the bowsprit before making the most perfect jack-knife dive either of the girls had ever seen.
“whew! the brown of his legs and shoulders against that dark red of his suit was just too beautiful to be true,” asserted frances. “and jane, do you know who it was? well, it was breck and he has no right to be so gorgeous looking.”
“he uses perfectly good english, whenever he speaks, which is seldom. what in the world do you suppose he is?” jane asked.
“i think he is awfully interesting, and i wish i knew something about him. he makes such a point of being just one of the men employed by mr. wing that i can’t help feeling that he isn’t an ordinary sailor, jane.”
“well, probably if we hadn’t seen him make that peach of a jack-knife and he hadn’t had that maroon bathing suit but some old faded grey one, we would probably never have given him a second thought, so let’s don’t anyway. come on and get dressed, i am hungry as a shark.” jane lightly dismissed the subject that interested her a great deal more than she cared to admit.
