The Boat Club Part 32

"Do you think so, Uncle Ben?"

"Very careless; in the navy they would have put you in irons for it.

There arn't no need of risking the lives of your crew in that way. If it had been to save the life of a feller-creter, or anything of that sort, there would have been some sense in it."

"I didn't think there was any danger," returned Frank, not a little troubled by the veteran's censure.

"I'm sailin' right afore the wind, you see, and the boat swings fore and aft, like a French dancing-master. If she had a swayed only a leetle grain, we might all have gone to the bottom."

"I never will be so careless again."

"You were all-fired careless, Frank," said Charles Hardy.

Fred Harper could not help turning round and looking the speaker full in the face to reprove him for his interference.

Frank felt the rebuke of his friend, and was not a little hurt by the reproach, coming as it did from one whom he had used with so much lenity--for whom he had so strenuously interceded with his father.

"Hush up! Charley," said Fred in a low tone. "Don't you know any better than that?"

The band now struck up "Old Folks at Home."

"Let us sing," said Frank.

"So I say," replied Tony.

"Wait till they come to the chorus," added Fred.

At the right moment the boys commenced the chorus, and the effect was very pleasing. Mrs. Sedley and Mary's voices were heard with the others, and all were delighted.

"Here's the cove," said Frank, when the band ceased playing. "We were going on a voyage of discovery this afternoon, to name the bays and points of land. What shall we call this cove?"

"Weston Bay," suggested Fred.

"Agreed!" answered a dozen members.

"And that mud-bank over there, where we got aground this morning, we will call Bunker's Shoal," continued Fred.

"I think not," said Mrs. Sedley. "That would be casting a reflection upon those boys."

"What shall we call it?"

"Black Shoal," replied Tony. "The mud on it, I know from personal experience, is very black."

"Black Shoal it is," replied Frank, directing the boat into the little bay.

The invitation of Mrs. Sedley was quite sufficient to induce Mrs.

Weston to join the "exploring expedition;" and the committee that had been deputed to wait upon her soon returned, escorting her to the boat.

"Dear me! won't it tip over?" exclaimed the poor woman, when she had placed one foot in the boat.

"She is perfectly safe," replied Frank, a.s.sisting her to a seat.

The boat pushed off again, and joined the Sylph. The band commenced playing a popular march; and all the party, with the exception of Mrs.

Weston, who had her suspicions as to the stability of the beautiful Zephyr, were in the highest state of enjoyment.

Farther up the lake there was a projecting headland, at the end of which, separated from the sh.o.r.e by a narrow pa.s.sage of water, not more than ten feet in width, was a small, rocky island. This island and its vicinity were the next points of interest deserving the attention of the voyagers, and thither Frank steered the boat.

"Boys, you all study geography, do you not?" asked Mrs. Sedley.

"All of us, mother," replied Frank.

"Did it ever occur to you that all the natural divisions of water, on a small scale, could be seen in Wood Lake?"

"Can they?" asked Charles. "I would not have believed it."

"I never thought of it before," added Frank.

"Years ago, before I was married, I used to teach school," continued Mrs. Sedley; "and my scholars always found it difficult to remember the definitions of the natural divisions of the earth. What do you think the reason was?"

"I suppose they did not half learn them," replied Fred.

"They did not understand them. When we spoke of a gulf, for example, they thought of something a great way off--as far as the Gulf of Mexico or the Gulf of St. Lawrence."

"I am sure I never thought of them as anything that I had ever seen, or was ever likely to see," added Charles, who always had something to say, and who tried to get the good will of others by appearing to be humble and teachable.

The other boys were equally tractable, but from another motive. Mrs.

Sedley's geography lesson was full of interest to them; and as they pulled slowly, they gave all their attention to what she said.

"I took them out one day to a pond near the school-house, where I pointed out almost all the divisions of water, and then on a hill, to show them the divisions of land."

"But you could not find them all."

"All but one or two; there was no volcano."

"Was there a desert?"

"A small one."

"Hurrah! we can find them all," cried Charles. "I missed just such a question last week in school."

"I made a volcano on the Fourth of July," said Fred Harper.

"Indeed! how?"

"I took a handful of powder, wet it, and then placed it on a board.

Then I covered it over with a coat of wet clay, leaving a little hole at the top, with some dry powder on it."

"That was the crater," added Charles.

"Yes; and then I touched it off. It was in the evening, and it looked just like Mount Vesuvius in the panorama."