Short Stories of Various Types Part 14

"You wait an' see me tack."

"All right. Tack or nail, only let's see you get back where we started from." Lincoln was skeptical of sailboats. He had heard about sailing "just where you wanted to go," but he had his doubts about it.

The boat obeyed the rudder nicely, came around slowly, and started in on a new tack smoothly and steadily. After this successful trip, the boys did little else but sail.

"I'm going up to town with it after dinner," Rance announced. But when they came out after dinner, they found the sky overcast and a strong breeze blowing from the southwest.

Milton refused to experiment. "I'd sooner walk than ride in your boat,"

he explained.

"All right; you pays your money--you takes your choice," replied Rance.

The boat drove out into the lake steadily and swiftly, making the water ripple at the stern delightfully; but when they got past a low-lying island where the waves ran free, the s.h.i.+p began to heave and slide wildly, and Lincoln grew a little pale and set in the face, which made Rance smile.

"This is something like it. I'm going to go out about half a mile, then strike straight for the town."

It was not long before he found the boat quite unmanageable. The long oar crowded him nearly off the seat, as he tried to hold her straight out into mid-water. She was flat-bottomed, and as she got into the region of whitecaps, she began to be blown bodily with the wind.

Lincoln was excited, but not scared; he realized now that they were in great danger. Rance continued to smile, but it was evident that he too was thinking new thoughts. He held the sail with his right hand, easing it off and holding it tight by looping the rope on a peg set in the gunwhale. But it was impossible for Lincoln to help him. All depended on him alone.

"Turn!--turn it!" shouted Lincoln. "Don't you see we can't get back?"

"I'm afraid of breakin' my rudder."

There lay the danger. The oar was merely lashed into a notch in the stern, with wire. The leverage was very great, but Rance brought the boat about and headed her for the town nearly three miles away.

They both thrilled with a sort of pleasure to feel the boat leap under them as she caught the full force of the wind in her sail. If they could hold her in that line, they were all right. She careened once till she dipped water.

"Get on the edge!" commanded Rance, easing the sail off. Lincoln climbed upon the edge of the little pine sh.e.l.l, scarcely eighteen inches high, and the boat steadied. Both looked relieved.

The water was getting a lead color, streaked with foam, and the hissing of the whitecaps had a curiously snaky sound, as they spit water into the boat. The rocking had opened a seam in the bottom, and Lincoln was forced to bail furiously.

Rance, though a boy of unusual strength, clear-headed and resolute in time of danger, began to feel that he was master only for a time.

"I don't suppose this is much of a blow," he grunted, "but I don't see any of the other boats out."

Lincoln glanced around him; all the boats, even the two-masters, were in or putting in. Lightning began to run down the clouds in the west in zigzag streams. The boat, from time to time, was swept sidewise out of its course, but Rance dared not ease the sail for fear he could not steer her, and besides he was afraid of the rapidly approaching squall.

If she turned sideways toward the wind, she would instantly fill.

He sat there, with the handle of the oar at his right hip, the rope in his hand with one loop round the peg, and every time the gust struck the sail he was lifted from his seat by the crowding of the oar and the haul of the rope. His muscles swelled tense and rigid--the sweat poured from his face; but he laughed when Lincoln, with reckless drollery, began to shout a few nautical words.

"Luff,[111-1] you lubber--why don't you luff? Hard-a-port, there, you'll have us playin' on the sand yet. That's right. All we got to do is to hard-a-port when the wind blows."

The farther they went, the higher the waves rolled, till the boat creaked and gaped under its strain, and the water began to come in fast.

"Bail 'er out!" shouted the pilot. The thunder broke over their heads, and far away to the left they could see rain and the water white with foam, but they were nearing the beach at the foot of the street. A crowd was watching them with motionless intensity.

They were now in the midst of a fleet of anch.o.r.ed boats. The blast struck the sail, tearing it loose and filling the boat with water, but Rance held to his rudder, and threading her way among the boats, the little craft ran half her length upon the sand.

As Rance leaped ash.o.r.e, he staggered with weakness. Both took shelter in a near-by boathouse. The boat-keeper jeered at them: "Don't you know any more'n to go out in such a _tub_ as that on a day like this? I expected every minute to see you go over."

"We didn't," said Rance. "I guess we made pretty good time."

"Time! you'd better say time! If you'd been five minutes later, you'd had _time_ enough."

It was a foolhardy thing--Rance could see it now as he looked out on the mad water, and at the little flat, awkward boat on the sand.

An hour later, as they walked up the wood, they met the other boys half-way on the road, badly scared.

"By golly! We thought you were goners," said Milton. "Why, we couldn't see the boat after you got out a little ways. Looked like you were both sittin' in the water."

They found the camp badly demoralized. Their blankets were wet and the tent blown out of plumb, but they set to work clearing things up. The rain pa.s.sed and the sun came out again, and when they sat down to their supper, the storm was far away.

It was glorious business to these prairie boys. Released from work in the hot cornfields, in camp on a lovely lake, with nothing to do but swim or doze when they pleased, they had the delicious feeling of being travelers in a strange country--explorers of desert wilds, hunters and fishers in the wildernesses of the mysterious West.

To Lincoln it was all so beautiful that it almost made him sad. When he should have enjoyed every moment, he was saying to himself, "Day after to-morrow we must start for home"--the happy days pa.s.sed all too swiftly.

Occasionally Milton said: "I wish I had one o' Mother's biscuits this morning," or some such remark, but some one usually s.h.i.+ed a potato at him. Such remarks were heretical.

They explored the woods to the south, a wild jungle, which it was easy to imagine quite unexplored. Some years before a gang of horse thieves had lived there, and their gra.s.s-grown paths were of thrilling interest, although the boys never quite cared to follow them to the house where the shooting of the leader had taken place.

Altogether it was a wonderful week, and when they loaded up their boat and piled their plunder in behind, it was with sad hearts. It was late Sat.u.r.day night when they drew up in Mr. Jennings's yard, but to show that they were thoroughly hardened campers, they slept in the wagon another night--at least three of them did. Milton shamelessly sneaked away to his bed, and they did not miss him until morning.

Mrs. Jennings invited them all to breakfast and n.o.body refused. "Land o' Goshen," said she, "you eat as if you were starved."

"We are," replied Bert.

"Oh, but it was fun, wasn't it, boys?" cried Lincoln.

"You bet it was. Let's go again next year."

"All right," said Milton; "raise your weapons and swear."

They all lifted their knives in solemn covenant to go again the following year. But they never did. Of such changeful stuff are the plans of youth!

DOROTHY CANFIELD FISHER

A Thread without a Knot

I

When the a.s.sistant in the history department announced to Professor Endicott his intention of spending several months in Paris to complete the research work necessary to his doctor's dissertation,[114-1] the head of the department looked at him with an astonishment so unflattering in its significance that the younger man laughed aloud.

"You didn't think I had it in me to take it so seriously, did you, Prof?" he said, with his usual undisturbed and amused perception of the other's estimate of him. "And you're dead right, too! I'm doing it because I've got to, that's all. It's borne in on me that you can't climb up very fast in modern American universities unless you've got a doctor's degree, and you can't be a Ph.D. without having dug around some in a European library. I've picked out a subject that needs just as little of that as any--you know as well as I do that right here in Illinois I can find out everything that's worth knowing about the early French explorers of the Mississippi--but three months in the Archives[114-2] in Paris ought to put a polish on my dissertation that will make even Columbia and Harvard sit up and blink. Am I right in my calculations?"