ARTIE'S RAFT
Artie came reluctantly. His face was red and he looked anxious.
"What do you want?" he asked ungraciously.
"What do you suppose Mrs. Meeker will say when she finds you took half
her fence to build a raft?" Fred demanded sternly.
He pointed to a wide gap in the board fence back of the barn which
showed the source of Artie's lumber supply.
"I didn't take it," that ambitious youth protested. "It fell down,
truly it did, Fred. And I saw it and it was just the right size for a
raft. I can put it back, anyway, after I've used it a little."
"You'd better not let any one see you taking the fence," warned Fred.
"Leave it alone till after breakfast, and I'll help you carry it down
to the water. We'll get Ward to help."
Artie decided that Fred was interested in the raft--as indeed he
was--and as he knew he could not carry the heavy boards down to the
ocean without help, he readily agreed to let the rest of his carpenter
work go till after breakfast.
Fortune favored the conspirators, for as soon as breakfast was over
Mrs. Larue declared that she must get wool to finish a sweater she was
knitting and that as she had tried and could not match it in Sunrise
Beach, she meant to take the Shore Line bus and go down the coast to
Glen Haven, where there were larger shops.
"Let's all go," Mrs. Marley suggested. "I've always wanted to take a
trip on that bus--it follows the boulevard part of the way, and they
say the scenery is beautiful."
Polly and Margy and Jess were eager to go, but the boys hung back.
"It's no fun going into stores," Fred complained.
"I hate standing around for hours," almost wept Ward.
And Artie, his raft ever in mind, remarked that he didn't feel as
though he could spare the time.
"That's a speech you have borrowed from your daddy," laughed Mrs.
Marley. "But if you boys want to stay at home, I don't see any reason
why you should not. We can leave you a nice lunch on the kitchen table,
and perhaps you'll have a good time without any feminine friends to
bother you."
"If you go in bathing, promise not to go out beyond the tent piling,"
Mrs. Williamson said quickly.
This was the limit always imposed on the children when they went in
swimming without an older person at hand. The boys promised readily,
and after half an hour of bustling preparation, the three mothers and
their daughters were off.
"Now come on out and help me with the raft," coaxed Artie, as soon as
the house was quiet. "Ward will want to eat up the lunch right away, if
he stays here."
Ward was even then lifting the cloth which covered the lunch that had
been left for them, but he declared that he meant only to look and had
no intention of tasting.
"Come away from temptation," Fred insisted, dragging him across the
kitchen floor and out the door. "We have a busy day ahead of us. We
have to try this raft and get it back in place before my dad and yours
and Mr. Marley come to-night."
Ward had not known that Artie was building a raft, much less that
he had "borrowed" a section of the fence, and his questions rather
nettled the young builder, who was intent on getting his invention
down to the water-side.
"How do you know that it will float?" asked Ward, as he tugged manfully
at the end allotted to him.
"I don't!" puffed Artie. "But the only way to find out is to put it in
the water. Are you lifting, Ward, or just talking?"
Ward was purple in the face. The fence boards were heavy and the
section which had fallen was wide. Artie had been unwilling, or afraid,
to cut it, so he really had a larger raft than he would have chosen to
build.
By dint of much tugging and dragging, the boys managed to get the heavy
thing across the sand and down to the water. They were dripping with
perspiration when they finally accomplished this feat and were glad to
sit down and rest a moment before the launching.
"I'm glad there isn't any one around," confided Artie, glancing up the
deserted beach. "It may not float, and then we'd feel foolish."
"If it sinks," said Ward, staring placidly out to sea, "you won't be
able to put it back in Mrs. Meeker's fence."
Artie had not thought of this and neither had Fred. The latter now
suggested that they ought to have an anchor.
"Or I tell you what we can do," he said. "Tie it to the piling. Then if
it sinks, we can pull it in."
Artie protested that he wanted to sail the raft and Fred pointed out
that if it did not sink, they could untie the rope and sail it as far
as they liked.
"Well, all right; but where's a rope?" demanded Artie, feeling that he
had done all that could be expected of him when he supplied the raft.
Anything else, like ropes, could be furnished by those suggesting them.
"I saw one in the barn. I'll go get it," offered Ward, with unusual
alacrity.
He was gone longer than it would have taken Fred or Artie, but they
forgave him because they knew that if he hurried he was apt to lose his
breath. He brought back a coil of fairly heavy rope, and this was tied
around one end of the raft. They had to drag it almost a hundred feet
to get it near the piling, and while Fred was in the act of fastening
the other end of the rope to a brace between two of the logs, who
should hail him but Joe Anderson and Albert Holmes.
"Joe's going home to-day," Albert volunteered. "What are you doing?"
"Nothing," replied Artie, scowling, for once in his life averse to
giving information.
"Gee! it's a raft, isn't it?" said Joe. "Whose is it--yours? Have you
any poles to guide it with?"
They had forgotten poles, but Fred thought oars would do.
"I saw a couple of old ones in the barn," Ward chimed in. "I'll go and
get them."
He darted off before Fred and Artie could say yes or no, and this time
stayed longer--but he might have been hunting for the oars.
"Let me try to sail it?" said Joe, when Ward came back, trailing the
clumsy oars in the sand behind him.
"It won't carry five," Artie declared, including Albert in his
calculations.
"No, it may not carry one," said Fred. "Artie has the first chance to
be drowned, because it is his raft. We'll stand by to rescue him, and
then if he survives some more of us can ship with him."
Artie giggled and took off his shoes and stockings. As he remarked,
there was no use in spoiling them.
Fred and Ward took off their shoes and stockings, too, for they knew
they would have to help shove the raft into the water.
"Let her go!" sang out Artie, as he stepped into the water, holding up
his end of the raft.
With the best intentions in the world, Fred and Ward shoved. The raft
caught Artie under the chin and he went over backward. Of course he was
in shallow water, but it was as wet as any other kind would have been
and when he rose, sputtering and wrathful, Fred made an unfortunate
remark.
"You ought to have put on your bathing suit," said he.
"I would have, if I'd known you were going to be so dumb," Artie
returned angrily.
"Anyway, it floats," said Ward, pointing to the raft bobbing gently up
and down.
Sure enough, it did float, and all the boys were eager to climb on it.
Artie, who could certainly get no wetter than he was, scrambled on it
and it sank a few inches with his added weight, but still floated.
"Ward's too fat--let me try," urged Joe Anderson.
He waded into the water--he had taken off his shoes and stockings when
the others had--and Albert followed him. In spite of Artie's warnings,
they insisted on climbing aboard. As a result, they found themselves
sitting in water up to their waists.
"Didn't I tell you?" Fred scolded.
"Gee, these are the clothes I am supposed to wear home this
afternoon," Joe sighed crossly. "My others are packed."
"You'd better come on back to the house and get dried off," suggested
Albert, whose teeth were chattering. He seldom went bathing in the
ocean because the water was too cold for him.
Joe slid off the raft and tramped moodily ashore. He was inclined to
blame Fred and Artie for what had happened, but even Albert declared
that it was not their fault. "But it isn't much of a raft," Albert
added.
"Now let me on," urged Ward, as the two boys disappeared up the beach.
"I'm glad Joe is going home to-day--perhaps we can have a little peace."
Ward gingerly took his place on the raft, though he had to be pulled by
Artie and pushed by Fred, before he could gain a foothold, and then,
as the craft did not sink, Fred himself came aboard. The raft remained
afloat, though it could not be said to be absolutely dry.
"I'll try poling," said Fred, who had brought one of the oars with him.
He meant to pole toward the piling, but either because he was excited
or did not think, he began to propel the raft away from the anchorage,
and the first thing he knew his oar had stuck in the sand. It broke
off with a loud crack and Fred pitched into the water, head over heels.
[Illustration: IT BROKE OFF AND FRED PITCHED INTO THE WATER.
_The Riddle Club at Sunrise Beach._ _Page 141_]
"Did he land on his head?" cried Artie in alarm, running to the end of
the raft where Fred had disappeared.
As Ward was also at that end, naturally the raft tipped and both boys
went into the sea, coming up within a foot of Fred, who was shaking the
water from his eyes and staring about him with a bewildered expression.
"Hello!" Artie greeted him rather foolishly.
"Some raft!" said Fred, in disgust. "And we're the dubs not to have
worn our bathing suits. Let's go up to the house and get them on now
and hang these clothes out to dry."
This was voted a sensible plan, and the boys waded ashore. When they
reached the house and donned their bathing suits, hanging their wet
clothes on the line strung in the side yard, Ward suggested that they
might as well eat their lunch.
"Then we can stay out all the afternoon," he said.
"Don't forget we have to have that fence fixed before Dad gets here,"
Fred reminded him.
Artie reached the kitchen first and lifted the cloth which was spread
over their lunch. Alas, three empty saucers showed that some one had
been there before him.
"Ward Larue, you ate the pies!" cried Artie. "Of all the mean tricks!"
"So that's why you were so anxious to come up and get the rope and the
oars," Fred said, suddenly understanding.
"I never get enough pie," stammered Ward. "I thought you wouldn't mind.
I won't touch the sandwiches and milk--you can have 'em all."
It was impossible to be long angry with Ward and of course he had his
share of the rest of the food. Ward dearly loved to eat, and those pies
had been too much for him--at home his mother kept the cookie and cake
and pie cans securely locked, lest he be tempted too severely.
At Artie's suggestion they washed the dishes--after a fashion--and then
hurried back to the beach. It was then only eleven o'clock and the
prospect of a long afternoon was entrancing. Artie ran ahead to see if
the raft was still afloat.
"It's gone!" they heard him shout. "Boys, the raft is gone! Somebody's
stolen our raft! What do you know about that?"
"And it's Mrs. Meeker's fence, too," Ward muttered, fear-stricken.
"What shall we do?"