The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea Part 28

Tommy tumbled into bed, muttering to herself. Harriet did not go to sleep at once. She lay for some little time thinking over the strange occurrences of the night, and wondering what it could mean. Then, her companions having gone to sleep, she too settled down for the few hours that remained before the rising horn blew.

Her first thought, upon awakening in the morning, was for the sloop.

Quickly scrambling out of bed, she stepped to the door and gazed out on the bay. The "Sister Sue" lay at her anchorage motionless, glistening in the bright rays of the morning sunlight, handsomer, Harriet thought, as she stood admiring the pretty craft, than she had appeared on the previous day.

The Camp Girls were filled with expectations of what was before them.

They were to sail shortly after ten o'clock, and for many of them it was to be the first sail they had ever enjoyed. Breakfast was eaten and the camp put in order in record time that morning. Promptly at ten o'clock Captain Billy rowed the small boat ash.o.r.e. He dragged down some trees which he cut, thus making a crude pier for the girls to walk out on, thus enabling him to leave the small boat in deeper water. However, he could take out no more than five pa.s.sengers at a time. Mrs. Livingston told him that they did not care to sail far that morning. It was her purpose to give each of the girls in the camp a sail that day. Several trips, therefore, would be necessary.

"If that's the case, we can take a bigger load on the sloop," replied the captain. "Pile 'em in."

"Will it be perfectly safe?" questioned the Chief Guardian.

"You can't sink her. The reason I didn't want a big crowd was that I thought you would be going out a long way. We're likely to meet heavy weather several miles outside. In that case a skipper wants plenty of room to move about. Sometimes quick work is necessary, and--"

"I don't suppose that being a commodore will prevent my a.s.sisting in sailing the boat, will it?" asked Harriet smilingly.

The skipper looked her over critically.

"I reckon we can make a sailor of you. Know anything about sailing?"

"No, sir."

"Yeth, she doeth," interjected Grace. "She wath the captain of the 'Red Rover' latht year."

"And sunk it," chuckled Crazy Jane.

"If you will tell me what to do, I shall be glad to start, Captain."

"All right. Get hold of that halyard and see if you can haul the sail up," he answered, grinning mischievously. Captain Billy had not the least idea that she possessed the strength to raise the sail. But Harriet surprised him. She grasped the rope, and, though so light that the weight of the sail nearly pulled her off her feet, she hauled it slowly but steadily to the peak, then, throwing all her weight into one hand and arm, made the halyard fast to a cleat on the deck.

"Is that right, sir?" she asked, her face slightly flushed from the exertion.

"Great boomers, but you have muscle in your arms!" wondered the skipper. "Now, please hold this wheel just where it is; I'll take in the anchor. The man went back home last night. Don't need him with all these strong-arm ladies on board. We'll be under way in a few minutes now. I--Look out there!"

A sudden though slight puff of wind struck the mainsail, sending the sloop ahead directly toward the sh.o.r.e. But without waiting for orders Harriet sprang to the wheel, pointing the bow of the sloop, that had heeled dangerously, right toward the wind that was blowing in from the sea.

"Fine!" shouted the captain, shipping the anchor and scrambling back to the c.o.c.kpit as the sloop settled down on an even keel again, the squall drumming on the ropes and stays. "You've sailed a boat before, young lady."

"Nothing more than a canoe and a house boat."

"You've got the instinct, just the same. I'll have you sailing this 'Sister Sue' before you're a week older, and sailing it as well as I could sail it myself. Where do you wish to go!" turning inquiringly to Mrs. Livingston.

"Up and down the coast, not far out."

The skipper tacked back and forth a couple of times to clear the bay, then laid his course diagonally away from the coast. The day was an ideal one, the sloop lay well over and steadily gained headway as she forged ahead with white water spurting away from her bows.

"Gul-lor-ious!" cried Margery.

"Love-a-ly!" mocked Crazy Jane.

Tommy eyed Buster quizzically.

"Yeth, but thith ithn't the real thea. You will be singing inthide inthtead of outthide when we get out on the real othean. It won't be the gul-lor-iouth then."

"All we need now to make us a real ship is a wireless machine," said Harriet, with apparent innocence.

The skipper shot a quick look at her from under his heavy red eyebrows, but Harriet's face was guileless.

"Would it not be possible to put a wireless outfit on a boat of this kind, Captain?"

"Yes, if you wanted to. But what good would it do you?"

"I don't know, except that we might talk with ships far out at sea--ships that we could not see at all. Why don't you put a wireless machine on your little ship? I think that would be fine," persisted the Meadow-Brook girl, with feigned enthusiasm. The skipper growled an unintelligible reply and devoted himself to sailing his boat. Then Tommy took up the subject, discussing wireless telegraphy with great confidence, but in an unscientific manner that would have brought groans of anguish from one familiar with the subject.

Harriet Burrell through all of this conversation had been watching the skipper without appearing to do so. That he was ill at ease she saw by the scowl that wrinkled his forehead, but otherwise there was no sign to indicate that their talk had disturbed him.

They sailed for two hours, then the sloop returned to the bay, where most of the girls were put ash.o.r.e and another lot taken aboard. The Meadow-Brook Girls and Mrs. Livingston remained on board. Harriet, during the time the captain was engaged in a.s.sisting his pa.s.sengers over the side, where they were rowed ash.o.r.e by Jane and Hazel, looked over the "Sister Sue" with more care than she had done before. There was nothing that she could discover that looked like a wireless apparatus. However, at the forward end of the cabin she discovered a small door let into the paneling. This door was locked. She asked the captain to what it opened.

"That's the chain locker, where we stow things," he answered gruffly.

The girl then began calculating on how much s.p.a.ce there was under the floor of the cabin. She decided that there must be at least three feet of hull under there, but the flooring was covered with carpet that extended under the lockers and seats at the side, so that she was unable to determine whether or not the floor could be readily taken up. Altogether, her discoveries did not amount to very much. She was obliged to confess as much to herself. As for Tommy, that young woman had conducted herself admirably during the sail, proving that she was discreet and fully as keen as was Harriet Burrell; and, though Tommy said very little on the subject uppermost in the minds of the two girls, the little girl was constantly on the alert.

In the joy of sailing they forgot their noon meal. Nor were they reminded of it when Captain Bill, giving Harriet the wheel, made himself a cup of black coffee over an oil stove and drank it, eating several slices of dry bread. Having finished his luncheon, he pointed to the compa.s.s, asking Harriet if she knew anything about it.

She said she did not.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Harriet Took the Wheel.]

"If you are going to be a sailor, you must learn to read the compa.s.s,"

he said. "In the first place, you must learn to 'box the compa.s.s.'

I'll show you."

"Are you looking for the boxth?" questioned Tommy, observing the skipper searching for something in a locker under the stern seat.

"Box? No," he grunted. "We don't use that kind of a box in boxing the compa.s.s. By boxing the compa.s.s we mean reading the points of it." He produced a long, stiff wire, with which he pointed to the compa.s.s card. "A mariner's compa.s.s is divided into thirty-two points," he informed Harriet. "In the first place, there are four cardinal points, North, East, South and West. As you will see, by looking at the compa.s.s card, it is divided into smaller points which are not named on the card. I'll draw you a card to-night with all the points named, then you can learn them. Until you do, you are not a sailor. For instance, to read the compa.s.s, we begin with North and go on until we have completed the circle of the card, naming each point and sub-division as we go along. Then you should learn to read it backward as well. After you have learned to do that I will show you how to lay a course by a chart."

"I don't thee anything to read," said Tommy, squinting down at the card.

"You are not taking the lesson, darlin'," Jane reminded her.

"This is the way to begin," Captain Billy told them. "First is North.

Then you say north one-quarter, one-half, three-quarters, then the next sub-division is North by East with the same fractions of degrees.

We go on as you will see by following the card, as follows, North Northeast; Northeast by North; Northeast; Northeast by East; East Northeast; East by North; East. You proceed in exactly the same manner with the other cardinal points, East, South and West, and that is what is called 'boxing the compa.s.s.' Do you think you understand, Miss Burrell?"

"I have at least a start," replied Harriet smilingly.

"I haven't," declared Tommy with emphasis. "I couldn't thpeak at all if I repeated that awful thtuff."

In the meantime Harriet was gazing steadily at the card, fixing the points in mind, really photographing the points of the compa.s.s and their sub-divisions on her memory, the skipper observing her with a dry smile. He thought he had given the young sailor a problem that would keep her busy for some days to come. What was his surprise, therefore, when just after they had come to anchor, Harriet asked him to hear her lesson. She began boxing the compa.s.s and only once did she pause until she had gone all the way around the card.

"How near right was I, Captain?" she asked.