Four Afloat Part 1

Four Afloat.

by Ralph Henry Barbour.

CHAPTER I-INTRODUCES A GASOLINE LAUNCH, FOUR BOYS, AND A DOG

"She's a pu-pu-pu-pu--!"

"Quite so, Tommy," said Dan soothingly, "but don't excite yourself."

"--pu-pu-peach!"

"Oh, all right!" laughed Nelson. "I thought you were trying to call her a puppy. What do you think of her, Bob?"

"Best ever," answered Bob promptly and quietly.

They were standing, the four of them-"to say nothing of the dog," which in this case was a wide-awake wire-haired terrier-on the edge of a wharf overlooking a small slip in which, in spite of the fact that it was the last week in June and many of the winter tenants had been hauled out and placed in commission, a dozen or more boats lay huddled. There were many kinds of pleasure craft there, from an eighty-foot yawl, still housed over, to a tiny sixteen-foot launch which rejoiced in the somewhat inappropriate name of _Formidable_. Beyond the slip was another wharf, a marine railway, masts and spars, and, finally, the distant rise of Beacon Hill, crowned with the glittering, golden dome of the State House. To their right, beyond the end of the jutting wharf, Boston Harbor lay blue and inviting in the morning sunlight. From the boat yard came the sound of mallet and caulking iron, and the steady _puff-puff_, _puff-puff_ of the machine-shop exhaust. Nearer at hand a graceful sloop was being hurriedly overhauled, and the _slap-slap_ of the paint brush and the rasp of the sc.r.a.per were mingled. The air was pleasantly redolent of fresh paint and new wood-oak and cedar and pine-and the salty breath of the ocean. And to the four boys all these things appealed strongly, since they were on the verge of a summer cruise and were beginning to feel quite nautical.

The object of their enthusiasm lay below them at the edge of the wharf-a handsome gasoline cruising launch, bright with freshly polished bra.s.s work, gleaming with new varnish, and immaculate in scarcely dry paint.

She was thirty-six feet long over all, nine feet in extreme breadth, and had a draught of three feet. A hunting cabin began five feet from the bow, and extended eighteen feet to the beginning of the c.o.c.kpit. The sides of the cabin were mahogany and the roof was covered with canvas. A s.h.i.+ning bra.s.s hand rail ran around the edge of the roof, a bra.s.s steering wheel protruded through it at the sternmost end, and toward the bow a search light stood like a gleaming sentinel above a small whistle.

Between wheel and search light rested, inverted and securely lashed to the roof, a ten-foot cedar tender. The c.o.c.kpit was nine feet long, and, like the deck fore and aft, was floored with narrow strips of white pine which, since the sc.r.a.pers had just left it, looked, under its new coat of varnish, as white and clean as a kitchen table. There were iron stanchions to support an awning which, when in place, extended from well forward of the steering wheel to the stern of the c.o.c.kpit, where a curved seat, with a locker beneath it, ran across the end. ("There are some wicker chairs that go in the c.o.c.kpit," Nelson was explaining, "but we won't need more than a couple of them.") Below the water-line the boat was painted green. Above that the hull was aglisten with white to the upper strake save where a slender gold line started at the bow and terminated at the graceful canoe stern just short of the gold letters which spelled the boat's name.

"_Vagabond_," said Dan. "That's a dandy name."

"Mighty appropriate for a boat that you're in," added Bob unkindly.

"Come on, Nel; I'm dying to see inside of her."

"All right. Here's the ladder over here."

"What's the matter with jumping?" asked Tom.

"Remember your weight, Tommy," counseled Dan.

They followed Nelson to the ladder, Dan bearing the terrier, whose name was Barry, and scrambled into the c.o.c.kpit.

"I don't see that we need any chairs," said Dan. "This seat here will hold three of us easily."

"Oh, we've got to have some place for Tommy to take his naps," answered Nelson as he produced a key, unlocked a padlock, and pushed back a hatch.

"Hope you choke!" muttered Tom good-naturedly.

Nelson opened the folding doors and led the way down three steps into the engine room. This compartment, like that beyond, was well lighted by oval port lights above the level of the deck. On the left, a narrow seat ran along the side. Here were the tool box and the batteries, and a frame of piping was made to pull out and form a berth when required. In the center was the engine-a three-cylinder fifteen horse-power New Century, looking to the uninitiated eyes of Dan and Bob and Tom very complicated. On the starboard side was, first of all, a cupboard well filled with dishes and cooking utensils; next, an ice box; then a very capable-looking stove and sink, and, against the forward part.i.tion, a well-fitted lavatory. The floor was covered with linoleum of black and white squares, and the woodwork was of mahogany and white pine. A bra.s.s s.h.i.+p's clock pointed to twelve minutes after nine, and two bra.s.s lamps promised to afford plenty of light.

A swinging door admitted to the forward cabin, or, as Nelson called it, the stateroom. Here there were four berths, which in the daytime occupied but little room, but at night could be pulled out to make comfortable if not overwide couches. Dan observed Nelson's demonstration of the extension feature with an anxious face.

"That's all very well," he said, "for you and Bob and me, maybe, but you don't suppose for a minute, do you, that Tommy could get into one of those?"

And Tom, who, after all and in spite of his friends' frequent jokes, was not enormously large, promptly charged Dan and bore him backward on to the berth which Nelson had drawn out. As thirty inches afforded insufficient s.p.a.ce whereon to pummel each other, they promptly rolled off to the nice crimson carpet, and had to be parted by the others, much to the regret of Barry, who was enjoying the fracas hugely and taking a hand whenever opportunity offered. The disturbance over, the four sat themselves down and looked admiringly about them. There was a locker under each berth, numerous ingenious little shelves above, and several clothes hooks against the part.i.tion. At the extreme forward end of the stateroom there was a handsome mahogany chiffonier built in between the two forward berths.

"Well, I call this pretty swell!" said Dan.

"You bet!" said Tom. "I had no idea it was like this. I thought maybe we slept in hammocks. Say, Nel, your father is a trump to let us have her."

"That's so," Bob a.s.sented. "But, seems to me, he's taking big risks.

Supposing something happened to her?"

"Well, don't you talk that way at the house," laughed Nelson. "I had trouble enough to get dad to consent. I had to tell him that you were a regular old salt."

"You shouldn't lie to your father," said Dan severely.

"I didn't. Bob has sailed a lot-haven't you, Bob?"

"I can sail a boat all right," answered Bob, "but I don't know one end of an engine from the other."

"You won't have to," Nelson a.s.sured him. "I'll look after that and you can be navigating officer."

"Whatever that is," murmured Dan parenthetically.

"Who's going to cook?" asked Tom.

"You are," said Bob.

"Heaven help us all!" cried Dan.

"Huh! I'll bet I can cook better than you can," Tom replied indignantly.

"Get out! I'll bet you can't tell why is a fried egg!"

"Oh, you dry up! What's he going to do, fellows?"

"Me?" said Dan. "I'm going to be lookout, and sit on the bow and yell 'Sail ho!' and 'There she blows!'"

"Let's have an election," suggested Bob. "I nominate Nel for Captain."

"Make it Admiral," amended Dan.

"All in favor of Nel for Captain will say--"

"Aye!" cried Dan and Tom.

"You're elected, Nel."

Nelson bowed impressively, hand on heart, and Barry barked loudly.

"Then Bob's first mate," said Nelson, "and you can be second, Dan. Tom's going to be cook and purser."

"How about Barry?" asked Bob.