ON THE RIVER
Jerry got to North Bank on Saturday and by Sunday he was well back in
harness. Yet, because tidewater Maryland and mountain North Carolina
are very different, and because on Sunday there was so little to engage
his mind, he was just a bit homesick. Tom found him very quiet that
afternoon and voted him mighty poor company, and, never suspecting the
reason, went off about three with Joe Kirkham, leaving Jerry alone
in Number 7. From the window of the room Jerry could look down along
the Severn and see boats and canoes slipping about in the afternoon
sunlight. The day was very warm and only a light breeze came from
the direction of the Chesapeake, a breeze that barely fluttered the
curtains at the casement. Past the corner of the gymnasium building,
where a grove of trees made welcome shade and a number of knife-scarred
benches stood, a group of fellows were whiling away the time. One of
the boys had a banjo, and he was doing his best to render the popular
air of the moment, but with scant success. Over in the library on the
first floor of Founders’ Hall the windows were wide open and at one of
them a “hound” was poring over a sober-looking volume, taking copious
notes the while. [“Hound” was the school name for one who studied
much yet still retained normal characteristics. A “dry” was one who
carried the search for knowledge beyond the limits of reason and to the
exclusion of all other interests. Drys were found only infrequently at
North Bank.]
The sight of the studious youth reminded Jerry that it would not be
amiss to have a look at his books, and so he collected a pile of them
and took them back to the window seat. But his mind refused to interest
itself in Latin or mathematics or anything else represented by the
volumes beside him, and, in spite of his efforts, his thoughts flew
back to Huckinsburg and Pap and the little white house under the shadow
of the hogback, and he found himself getting bluer and bluer. To make
matters worse, the boy with the banjo was strumming an accompaniment
rather sketchily and another youth with a fairly good tenor voice was
singing a sad, wailing melody the words of which reached Jerry plainly:
I got a little piece o’ land,
I got a cabin on it;
My Mandy dresses stylish and
She wears a sky-blue bonnet.
Ol’ Marster’s mighty kind to me,
Ol’ Mistress she is kinder,
But I’m a-pinin’ just to be
Back home in Carolinar.
Jerry pushed the books aside, seized his old straw hat and closed the
door of Number 7 resolutely behind him. He didn’t join the group under
the trees, although he knew most of them, but followed the circling
road past Follen and Ellicot and cut across the grass toward the river
bank. Tom and Joe had gone out in Joe’s sailing canoe, and he had some
thought of finding them within hailing distance of the float. But when
he reached it the craft he sought was not in sight.
Nor was there any one within sight that he did know, and he was on the
point of retracing his steps when the open door of the boathouse met
his gaze. The twilit building, like the float outside, was deserted.
Jerry had never been in there before. On the farther side, one above
the other, were the three slender eight-oar shells, their varnished
hulls glowing softly in the half-light. Near by were several pair-oars
and tubs. But most of the racks held canoes of various colors, although
many places were vacant this afternoon. There was a number over each
space and, usually, a card giving the owner’s name. By chance the
second card that Jerry read bore the inscription “W. C. Conger,” and
Billy’s canary-yellow canoe was in place, paddles over the thwarts.
Billy had more than once in the spring offered Jerry the use of the
craft, and Jerry had never taken advantage of the offer. As a matter of
fact, Jerry knew little about canoes and only once had set foot in one.
Then Tom and Wayne Sortwell had paddled him up the river and he had sat
very still in the middle and wondered what would happen if the wobbly
thing overturned! Jerry was a poor swimmer and the canoe had been a
long way from the shore. Yesterday the idea of embarking alone in one
of the frail contraptions would have given him the creeps. To-day,
for some reason, he considered it quite seriously, finding a certain
exhilarating thrill in contemplating the attendant dangers. He even
lifted one end of the canoe tentatively, wondering whether he could get
it into the water unassisted. But I don’t think he would have gone any
farther than that if Hal Mansfield had not appeared at the very moment
he was setting the end of the canoe down again on the rack.
“Hello, Benson,” said the football captain. “Going out? Here, I’ll help
you and you can give me a hand with mine.”
“I was just pondering,” answered Jerry. “Maybe Billy Conger might want
it himself to-day. I reckon I won’t risk it.”
“Billy’s on the river already,” replied Mansfield. “He and Topham went
out half an hour ago. So you needn’t worry about his wanting it. Take
hold.”
There didn’t seem to be any excuse left, at least none that Jerry could
think of in the instant, and a moment later he was dropping his end
of the craft into the water at the end of the float. Mansfield set
the other end on the boards and then they went back and brought out a
crimson canoe with a resplendent “H. M.” in monogram on the bow. Jerry
was very solicitous about the other boy and held the crimson craft
steady until he was settled, paddle in hands. He preferred to let
Mansfield get away from the float before he tried his fortunes.
“Thanks,” said Mansfield. “Which way are you going? Want to try a
little race?”
Jerry shook his head. “No, I reckon I’ll just row around a bit. Paddle,
I mean. I――I ain’t much of a paddler.”
Hal Mansfield laughed as he dipped his blade and shot the crimson canoe
away. “That listens well, Benson, but I’ll bet you’re a shark at it.
Bye!”
Jerry waited until the other was well away, pretending to be vastly
interested in his progress, before he lifted his own craft into the
water and, mooring it with one foot, climbed gingerly into the stern
seat. The thing rocked alarmingly and Jerry had a feeling of being
dangerously high above the water. He dipped his paddle experimentally
and the canoe slipped easily forward. Certainly, he reflected, paddling
didn’t require much effort. He had merely to touch the water and the
craft fairly ran away! Unfortunately, though, it didn’t run straight.
He had meant to go upstream, and instead of that he found that he was
going down! So he lifted his paddle out and took two or three strokes
on the other side. That had the required effect, but the water ran down
the paddle and into one sleeve. He knew that it was possible to paddle
over one side and yet keep the canoe on its course, but he didn’t know
the trick of it. So, affecting a nonchalance he was far from feeling,
he began a lazy, desultory progress up the river, fancying that the
occupants of the several canoes and skiffs within sight were watching
him derisively. The bow was too far out of the water, and what breeze
there was caught it now and then and whisked it around toward the bank,
and Jerry recalled, too late, the fact that Hal Mansfield had seated
himself in the middle of his canoe instead of in the stern. However,
he wouldn’t have attempted to crawl forward in the uncertain thing
for a thousand dollars, and so he made the best of the conditions and
pretended that he wouldn’t have had them any different. One thing he
did do, though, was hug the shore. In case of shipwreck he meant to be
where he could almost if not actually walk to land!
After a few minutes he made the discovery that paddling affected the
muscles more than he had suspected, that his position was awkward and
confining and that it was a great relief to change over occasionally,
as was necessary if he was to follow the margin of the stream and not
merely describe a circle. By that time the water had penetrated as far
as his elbow, inside his shirt sleeve, and while it felt refreshingly
cool on such a warm day it also gave him a somewhat bedraggled feeling.
Remaining close to the high bank of the river shut him off considerably
from what breeze there was and it wasn’t long before he was in a fine
perspiration and had begun to wonder whether canoeing was considered an
exhilarating sport!
Nevertheless, having worked his way a good half mile above the
school and around the first turn, he felt a not unnatural pride of
accomplishment and a consequent contempt for danger. And so, having
paused for a moment to rest his back――for that suffered more than his
arms from the novel exercise――he watched the bow of the canoe drift
away from the shore while a bold resolve formed itself in his mind.
That resolve was to venture into midstream and, since the current was
setting toward the mouth of the river, float placidly back to the
school without exertion. It was quite evident to him by now that a
canoe was a reasonable contrivance; that if you didn’t move about in
it, it would behave itself and bear you around in safety. He viewed the
borrowed craft almost affectionately and even wondered how much one
like it would cost. Then, his back having stopped aching, he dipped
his paddle again and propelled the canoe straight away from shore. He
experienced a moment’s uneasiness as he watched the river bank recede,
but, the die once cast, he put fear behind him. Upstream a way a
sailing canoe was tacking toward the further shore, and he was almost
certain that it held Tom and Joe, and he hoped that they would overtake
him before he reached the school landing and see what a skilled and
intrepid mariner he was.
Near the middle of the river he straightened the canoe out and laid
the paddle across his knees. His progress was much slower than he
had expected it to be. In fact, for awhile he wasn’t certain that he
was moving at all. Presently, though, by dint of keeping his eyes
for several minutes on a tall tree across the water, he was able to
persuade himself that he was making headway. A cautious look over
his shoulder showed him the sailing canoe headed toward him from the
shadowed water of the southern shore, although still a good half mile
away. There was no other craft in sight above him, for the afternoon
was fast waning. Now and then he dipped his blade to straighten the
bow out, but otherwise he let the current do the work while he watched
the white tower of Founders’ Hall come into sight around the wooded
bank below. Several canoes and skiffs were paddling homeward toward the
float, gayly-hued dots on the gleaming river.
When five minutes had passed he turned for another look at the sailing
canoe behind him. He couldn’t see it over his left shoulder and he
turned his head the other way. He couldn’t find it then, either! He
searched the farther bank for sight of the little creamy-white sail
and searched the glinting surface of the stream beyond the bend. That
canoe had just simply vanished! Or so, at least, he thought for a long
minute. Then, in the act of withdrawing his gaze, his eyes encountered
a blur on the water no more than a quarter of a mile back. At first he
thought that the occupants of the missing craft had lowered the sail
and stepped the mast, for all he could make out was a grayish something
lying uncertainly on the gleaming surface of the water. It was a long
moment before the truth came to him and he realized that what he saw
was the bottom of the canoe and not the side, and then there was an
appreciable instant ere he acted. From the direction of the landing
no craft had headed upstream. Probably at that distance the sunlight
on wavelets and ripples so blurred the vision that none saw what had
happened. Even as he sensed this, Jerry, seizing the paddle, brought
the yellow canoe around with a few hard, quick strokes that made it
rock perilously. For once, though, he had no thought for danger.
Paddling first on one side and then on the other, he drove the canoe
forward with powerful sweeps, the high bow swinging to right and left,
the craft rolling sidewise at each propulsion in a manner that at
another time would have brought Jerry’s heart into his mouth!