WHAT HAPPENED AT QUASI
THE STORY OF A CAROLINA CRUISE
BOOKS FOR BOYS
BY
GEORGE CARY EGGLESTON
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JACK SHELBY. A Story of the Indiana Backwoods.
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the Publishers_
LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO., BOSTON
[Illustration: AS TOM TUGGED HARD AT ONE OF THE LARGER ROOTS, THE KEG
SUDDENLY FELL TO PIECES.—_Page 353._]
WHAT HAPPENED AT QUASI
THE STORY OF A CAROLINA CRUISE
BY
GEORGE CARY EGGLESTON
ILLUSTRATED BY H. C. EDWARDS
[Illustration]
BOSTON
LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO.
Published, April, 1911
Copyright, 1911
BY LOTHROP, LEE & SHEPARD CO.
_All rights reserved_
WHAT HAPPENED AT QUASI
NORWOOD PRESS
BERWICK & SMITH CO.
NORWOOD, MASS.
U. S. A.
I INSCRIBE THIS STORY WITH AFFECTION TO
[Illustration]
GEORGE DUNN EGGLESTON
MY GRANDSON, IN THE BELIEF THAT WHEN HE GROWS
OLD ENOUGH HE WILL WANT TO KNOW “WHAT HAPPENED
AT QUASI,” AND WILL READ THE BOOK BY WAY OF
FINDING OUT
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. INTERSTATE CHUMMING 3
II. THE STORY OF QUASI 15
III. A PROGRAMME SUBJECT TO CIRCUMSTANCES 25
IV. TOM FIGHTS IT OUT 30
V. A RATHER BAD NIGHT 39
VI. A LITTLE SPORT BY THE WAY 54
VII. AN ENEMY IN CAMP 67
VIII. CAL BEGINS TO DO THINGS 76
IX. A FANCY SHOT 89
X. TOM’S DISCOVERIES 97
XI. PERILOUS SPYING 108
XII. TOM’S DARING VENTURE 119
XIII. CAL’S EXPERIENCE AS THE PRODIGAL SON 135
XIV. CAL RELATES A FABLE 149
XV. CAL GATHERS THE MANNA 156
XVI. FOG-BOUND 164
XVII. THE OBLIGATION OF A GENTLEMAN 174
XVIII. FIGHT OR FAIR PLAY 182
XIX. WHY LARRY WAS READY FOR BATTLE 191
XX. ABOARD THE CUTTER 197
XXI. TOM’S SCOUTING SCHEME 204
XXII. TOM DISCOVERS THINGS 212
XXIII. TOM AND THE MAN WITH THE GAME LEG 222
XXIV. THE LAME MAN’S CONFESSION 230
XXV. A SIGNAL OF DISTRESS 238
XXVI. AN UNEXPECTED INTERRUPTION 246
XXVII. THE HERMIT OF QUASI 258
XXVIII. RUDOLF DUNBAR’S ACCOUNT OF HIMSELF 265
XXIX. TOM FINDS THINGS 271
XXX. DUNBAR TALKS AND SLEEPS 283
XXXI. DUNBAR’S STRANGE BEHAVIOR 295
XXXII. A RAINY DAY WITH DUNBAR 306
XXXIII. A GREAT CATASTROPHE 316
XXXIV. MAROONED AT QUASI 331
XXXV. AGAIN TOM FINDS SOMETHING 339
XXXVI. WHAT THE EARTH GAVE UP 350
XXXVII. TOM’S FINAL “FIND” 360
ILLUSTRATIONS
As Tom tugged hard at one of the larger
roots, the keg suddenly fell to pieces
(Page 353) _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
Dick, Cal, and Tom searched the man’s clothes 72
“In my haste I forgot to conceal my gun” 126
“Stand where you are or we’ll shoot” 182
“No, ’tain’t no use. I’ve got to take my medicine” 226
A minute more, it would have been too late 320
WHAT HAPPENED AT QUASI
THE STORY OF A CAROLINA CRUISE
WHAT HAPPENED AT QUASI
THE STORY OF A CAROLINA CRUISE
I
INTERSTATE CHUMMING
IT was hot in Charleston—intensely hot—with not a breath of air
in motion anywhere. The glossy leaves of the magnolia trees in the
grounds that surrounded the Rutledge house drooped despairingly in the
withering, scorching, blistering sunlight of a summer afternoon in the
year 1886. The cocker spaniel in the courtyard panted with tongue out,
between the dips he took at brief intervals in the water-vat provided
for his use. A glance down King Street showed no living creature, man
or beast, astir in Charleston’s busiest thoroughfare.
In the upper verandah of the Rutledge mansion, four boys, as lightly
dressed as propriety permitted, were doing their best to keep endurably
cool and three of them were succeeding. The fourth was making a
dismal failure of the attempt. He was Richard Wentworth of Boston,
and he naturally knew little of the arts by which the people of hot
climates manage to endure torrid weather with tolerable comfort and
satisfaction. He kept his blood excited by the exertion of violently
fanning himself. While the others sat perfectly still in bamboo chairs,
or lay motionless on joggling boards, Dick Wentworth was constantly
stirring about in search of a cooler place which he did not find.
Presently he went for the fourth or fifth time to the end of the porch,
where he could see a part of the street by peering through the great
green jalousies or slatted shutters that barred out the fierce sunlight.
“What do you do that for, Dick?” asked Lawrence Rutledge in a languid
tone and without lifting his head from the head-rest of the joggling
board.
“What do I do what for?” asked Dick in return.
“Why run to the end of the verandah every five minutes? What do you
do it for? Don’t you know it’s hot? Don’t you realize that violent
exertion like that is unfit for weather like this? Why, I regard
unnecessary winking as exercise altogether too strenuous at such a
time, and so I don’t open my eyes except in little slits, and I do even
that only when I must. You see, I’m doing my best to keep cool, while
you are stirring about all the time and fretting and fuming in a way
that would set a kettle boiling. Why do you do it?”
“Oh, I’m only observing, in a strange land,” answered Dick, sinking
into a wicker chair. “I’ll be quiet, now that I have found out the
facts.”
“What are they, Dick?” asked Tom Garnett, otherwise known to his
companions as “the Virginia delegation,” he being the only Virginian in
the group. “What have you found out?”
“Only that the cobblestones, with which the street out there is paved,
have been vulcanized, just as dentists treat rubber mouth plates.
Otherwise they would melt.”
“I’d laugh at that joke, Dick, if I dared risk the exertion,” drawled
Calhoun Rutledge, the fourth boy in the group, and Lawrence Rutledge’s
twin brother. “Ah, there it comes!” he exclaimed, rolling off his
joggling board and busying himself with turning the broad slats of the
jalousies so as to admit the cool sea breeze that had set in with the
turning of the tide.
Lawrence—or “Larry”—Rutledge did the same, and Tom Garnett slid out
of his bamboo chair, stretched himself and exclaimed:
“Well, that _is_ a relief!”
Dick Wentworth sat still, not realizing the sudden change until a stiff
breeze streaming in through the blinds blew straight into his face,
bearing with it a delicious odor from the cape jessamines that grew
thickly about the house. Then he rose and hurried to an open lattice,
quite as if he had expected to discover there some huge bellows or some
gigantic electric fan stirring the air into rapid motion.
“What has happened?” he asked in astonishment.
“Nothing, except that the tide has turned,” answered Larry.
“But the breeze? Where does that come from?”
“From the sea. It always comes in with the flood-tide, and we’ve been
waiting for it. Pull on your coat or stand out of the draught; the
sudden change might give you a cold.”
“Then you don’t have to melt for whole days at a time, but get a little
relief like this, now and then?”
“We don’t melt at all. We don’t suffer half as much from hot weather as
the people of northern cities do—particularly New York.”
“But why not, if you have to undergo a grilling like this every day?”
“It doesn’t happen every day, or anything like every day. It never
lasts long and we know how to endure it.”
“How? I’m anxious to learn. I may be put on the broiler again and I
want to be prepared.”
“Well, we begin by recognizing facts and meeting them sensibly. It is
always hot here in the sun, during the summer months, and so we don’t
go out into the glare during the torrid hours. From about eleven till
four o’clock nobody thinks of quitting the coolest, shadiest place he
can find, while in northern cities those are the busiest hours of the
day, even when the mercury is in the nineties. We do what we have to
do in the early forenoon and the late afternoon. During the heat and
burden of the day we keep still, avoiding exertion of every kind as we
might shun pestilence or poison. The result is that sun strokes and
heat prostrations are unknown here, while at the north during every hot
spell your newspapers print long columns of the names of persons who
have fallen victims.”
“Then again,” added Calhoun, “we build for hot weather while you build
to meet arctic blasts. We set our houses separately in large plots of
ground, while you pack yours as close together as possible. We provide
ourselves with broad verandahs and bury ourselves in shade, while you
are planning your heating apparatus and doubling up your window sashes
to keep the cold out.”
“It distresses me sorely,” broke in Larry, “to interrupt an interesting
discussion to which I have contributed all the wisdom I care to spare,
but the sun is more than half way down the western slope of the
firmament, and if we are to get the dory into the water this afternoon
it is high time for us to be wending our way through Spring Street to
the neighborhood of Gadsden’s Green—so called, I believe, because some
Gadsden of ancient times intended it to become green.”
The four boys had been classmates for several years in a noted
preparatory school in Virginia. Dick Wentworth had been sent thither
four years before for the sake of his threatened health. He had
quickly grown strong again in the kindly climate of Virginia, but in
the meanwhile he had learned to like his school and his schoolmates,
particularly the two Rutledges and the Virginia boy, Tom Garnett. He
had therefore remained at the school throughout the preparatory course.
Their school days were at an end now, all of them having passed their
college entrance examinations; but they planned to be classmates still,
all attending the same university at the North.
They were to spend the rest of the summer vacation together, with the
Charleston home of the Rutledge boys for their base of operations,
while campaigning for sport and adventure far and wide on the coast.
That accounted for the dory. No boat of that type had ever been seen on
the Carolina coast, but Larry and Cal Rutledge had learned to know its
cruising qualities while on a visit to Dick Wentworth during the summer
before, and this year their father had given them a dory, specially
built to his order at Swampscott and shipped south by a coasting
steamer.
When she arrived, she had only a priming coat of dirty-looking white
paint upon her, and the boys promptly set to work painting her in a
little boathouse of theirs on the Ashley river side of the city. The
new paint was dry now and the boat was ready to take the water.
“She’s a beauty and no mistake,” said Cal as the group studied her
lines and examined her rather elaborate lockers and other fittings.
“Yes, she’s all that,” responded his brother, “and we’ll try her paces
to-morrow morning.”
“Not if she’s like all the other dories I’ve had anything to do with,”
answered Dick. “She’s been out of water ever since she left her cradle,
and it’ll take some time for her to soak up.”
“Oh, of course she’ll leak a little, even after a night in the water,”
said Cal, with his peculiar drawl which always made whatever he said
sound about equally like a mocking joke and the profoundest philosophy.
“But who minds getting his feet wet in warm salt water?”
“Leak a little?” responded Dick; “leak a little? Why, she’ll fill
herself half full within five minutes after we shove her in, and if we
get into her to-morrow morning the other half will follow suit. It’ll
take two days at least to make her seams tight.”
“Why didn’t the caulkers put more oakum into her seams, then?” queried
Tom, whose acquaintance with boats was very scant. “I should think
they’d jam and cram every seam so full that the boat would be water
tight from the first.”
“Perhaps they would,” languidly drawled Cal, “if they knew no more
about such things than you do, Tom.”
“How much do you know, Cal?” sharply asked the other.
“Oh, not much—not half or a quarter as much as Dick does. But a part
of the little that I know is the fact that when you wet a dry, white
cedar board it swells, and the further fact that when you soak dry
oakum in water, it swells a great deal more. It is my conviction that
if a boat were caulked to water tightness while she was dry and then
put into the water, the swelling would warp and split and twist her
into a very fair imitation of a tall silk hat after a crazy mule has
danced the highland fling upon it.”
“Oh, I see, of course. But will she be really tight after she swells
up?”
“As tight as a drum. But we’ll take some oakum along, and a caulking
tool or two, and a pot of white lead, so that if she gets a jolt of any
kind and springs a leak we can haul her out and repair damages. We’ll
take a little pot of paint, too, in one of the lockers.”
“There’ll be time enough after supper,” interrupted Larry, “to discuss
everything like that, and we must be prompt at supper, too, for you
know father is to leave for the North to-night to meet mother on Cape
Cod and his ship sails at midnight. So get hold of the boat, every
fellow of you, and let’s shove her in.”
The launching was done within a minute or two, and after that the dory
rocked herself to sleep—that’s what Cal said.
“She’s certainly a beauty,” said Dick Wentworth. “And of course she’s
better finished and finer every way than any dory I ever saw. You know,
Tom, dories up north are rough fishing boats. This one is finished
like a yacht, and—”
“Oh, she’s hunky dory,” answered Tom, lapsing into slang.
“That’s what we’ll name her, then,” drawled Cal. “She’s certainly
‘hunky’ and she’s a dory, and if that doesn’t make her the _Hunkydory_,
I’d very much like to know what s-o-x spells.”
There was a little laugh all round. As the incoming water floated the
bottom boards, the name of the boat was unanimously adopted, and after
another admiring look at her, the four hurried away to supper. On the
way Dick explained to Tom that a dory is built for sailing or rowing in
rough seas, and running ashore through the surf on shelving beaches.
“That accounts for the peculiar shape of her narrow, flat bottom, her
heavy overhang at bow and stern, her widely sloping sides, and for the
still odder shape and set of her centre board and rudder. She can come
head-on to a beach, and as she glides up the sloping sand it shuts up
her centre board and lifts her rudder out of its sockets without the
least danger of injuring either. In the water a dory is as nervous as a
schoolgirl in a thunder storm. The least wind pressure on her sails or
the least shifting of her passengers or cargo, sends her heeling over
almost to her beam ends, but she is very hard to capsize, because her
gunwales are so built out that they act as bilge keels.”
“I’d understand all that a good deal better,” answered Tom, laughing,
“if I had the smallest notion what the words mean. I have a vague idea
that I know what a rudder is, but when you talk of centre boards,
overhangs, gunwales, and bilge keels, you tow me out beyond my depth.”
“Never mind,” said Cal. “Wait till we get you out on the water, you
land lubber, and then Dick can give you a rudimentary course of
instruction in nautical nomenclature. Just now there is neither time
nor occasion to think about anything but the broiled spring chickens
and plates full of rice that we’re to have for supper, with a casual
reflection upon the okra, the green peas and the sliced tomatoes that
will escort them into our presence.”
In an aside to Dick Wentworth—but spoken so that all could hear—Tom
said:
“I don’t believe Cal can help talking that way. I think if he were
drowning he’d put his cries of ‘help’ into elaborate sentences.”
“Certainly, I should do precisely that,” answered Cal. “Why not? Our
thoughts are the children of our brains, and I think enough of my
brain-children to dress them as well as I can.”
In part, Cal’s explanation was correct enough. But his habit of
elaborate speech was, in fact, also meant to be mildly humorous. This
was especially so when he deliberately overdressed his brain-children
in ponderous words and stilted phrases.
They were at the Rutledge mansion by this time, however, and further
chatter was cut off by a negro servant’s announcement that “Supper’s
ready an’ yo’ fathah’s a waitin’.”
II
THE STORY OF QUASI
MAJOR RUTLEDGE entertained the boys at supper with accounts of his own
experiences along the coast during the war, and incidentally gave them
a good deal of detailed information likely to be useful to them in
their journeyings. But he gave them no instructions and no cautions. He
firmly believed that youths of their age and intelligence ought to know
how to take care of themselves, and that if they did not it was high
time for them to learn in the school of experience. He knew these to be
courageous boys, manly, self-reliant, intelligent, and tactful. He was,
therefore, disposed to leave them to their own devices, trusting to
their wits to meet any emergencies that might arise.
One bit of assistance of great value he did give them, namely, a
complete set of coast charts, prepared by the government officials at
Washington.
“You see,” he explained to the two visitors, “this is a very low-lying
coast, interlaced by a tangled network of rivers, creeks, inlets,
bayous, and the like, so that in many places it is difficult even for
persons intimately familiar with its intricacies to find their way. My
boys know the geography of it fairly well, but you’ll find they will
have frequent need to consult the charts. I’ve had them encased in
water-tight tin receptacles.”
“May I ask a question?” interjected Tom Garnett, as he minutely scanned
one of the charts.
“Certainly, as many as you like.”
“What do those little figures mean that are dotted thickly all over the
sheets?”
“They show the depth of water at every spot, at mean high tide. You’ll
find them useful—particularly in making short cuts. You see, Tom, many
of the narrowest of our creeks are very deep, and many broad bays very
shallow in places. Besides, there are mud banks scattered all about,
some of them under water all the time, others under it only at high
tide. You boys don’t want to get stuck on them, and you won’t, if you
study the figures on your charts closely. By the way, Larry, how much
water does your boat draw?”
“Three feet, six inches, when loaded, with the centre board down—six
inches, perhaps, when light, with the board up.”
“There, Tom, you see how easily the chart soundings may save you a
lot of trouble. There may be times when you can save miles of sailing
by laying your course over sunken sandbars if sailing before the wind,
though you couldn’t pass over them at all if sailing on the wind.”
“But what difference does the way of sailing make? You see, I am very
ignorant, Major Rutledge.”
“You’ll learn fast enough, because you aren’t afraid to ask questions.
Now to answer your last one; when you sail before the wind you’ll have
no need of your centre board and can draw it up, making your draught
only six or eight inches, while on the wind you must have the centre
board down—my boys will explain that when you’re all afloat—so if
you are sailing with the wind dead astern, or nearly so, it will be
safe enough to lay a course that offers you only two or three feet
of water in its shoalest parts, while if the wind is abeam, or in a
beating direction, you must keep your centre board down and stick to
deeper channels. However, the boys will soon teach you all that on the
journey. They’re better sailors than I am.”
Then, turning to his own sons, he said:
“I have arranged with my bank to honor any checks either of you may
draw. So if you have need of more money than you take with you, you’ll
know how to get it. Any planter or merchant down the coast will cash
your checks for you. Now I must say good-bye to all of you, as I have
many things to do before leaving. I wish all of you a very jolly time.”
With that he quitted the room, but a few minutes later he opened the
door to say:
“If you get that far down the coast, boys, I wish you would take a look
over Quasi and see that there are no squatters there.”
When he had gone, Cal said:
“Wonder if father hopes to win yet in that Quasi matter, after all
these years?”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” answered Larry. “Anyhow, we’ll go that far
down, if only to gratify his wish.”
“Is Quasi a town?” asked Dick, whose curiosity was awakened by the
oddity of the name.
“No. It’s a plantation, and one with a story.”
Dick asked no more questions, but presently Cal said to his brother:
“Why don’t you go on, Larry, and tell him all about it? I have always
been taught by my pastors and masters, and most other people I have
ever known, that it is exceedingly bad manners to talk in enigmas
before guests. Besides, there’s no secret about this. Everybody in
South Carolina who ever heard the name Rutledge knows all about Quasi.
Go on and tell the fellows, lest they think our family has a skeleton
in some one or other of its closets, and is cherishing some dark,
mysterious secret.”
“Why don’t you tell it yourself, Cal? You know the story as well as I
do.”
“Because, oh my brother, it was your remark that aroused the curiosity
which it is our hospitable duty to satisfy. I do not wish to trespass
upon your privileges or take your obligations upon myself. Go on! There
is harkening all about you. You have your audience and your theme. We
hang upon your lips.”
“Oh, it isn’t much of a story, but I may as well tell it,” said Larry,
smiling at his brother’s ponderous speech.
“Quasi is a very large plantation occupying the end of a peninsula.
Except on the mainland side a dozen miles of salt water, mud banks
and marsh islands, separate it from the nearest land. On the mainland
side there is a marsh two or three miles wide and a thousand miles
deep, I think. At any rate, it is utterly impassable—a mere mass of
semi-liquid mud, though it looks solid enough with its growth of tall
salt marsh grass covering its ugliness and hiding its treachery. The
point might as well be an island, so far as possibilities of approach
to it are concerned, and in effect it is an island, or quasi an island.
I suppose some humorous old owner of it had that in mind when he named
it Quasi.
“It is sea island cotton land of the very finest and richest kind, and
when it was cultivated it was better worth working than a gold mine.
There are large tracts of original timber on it, and as it has been
abandoned and running wild for more than twenty years, even the young
tree growths are large and fine now.
“That is where the story begins. Quasi belonged to our grandfather
Rutledge. He didn’t live there, but he had the place under thorough
cultivation. When the war broke out my grandfather was one of the few
men in the South who doubted our side’s ability to win, and as no man
could foresee what financial disturbances might occur, he decided to
secure his two daughters—our father’s sisters, who were then young
girls—against all possibility of poverty, by giving Quasi to them in
their own right. ‘Then,’ he thought, ‘they will be comfortably well
off, no matter what happens.’ So he deeded Quasi to them.
“When the Federals succeeded, early in the war, in seizing upon the sea
island defences, establishing themselves at Beaufort, Hilton Head, and
other places, it was necessary for my grandfather to remove all the
negroes from Quasi, lest they be carried off by the enemy. The place
was therefore abandoned, but my grandfather said that, at any rate,
nobody could carry off the land, and that that would make my aunts
easy in their finances, whenever peace should come again. As he was a
hard-fighting officer, noted for his dare-devil recklessness of danger,
he did not think it likely that he would live to see the end. But he
believed he had made his daughters secure against poverty, and as for
my father, he thought him man enough to take care of himself.”
“The which he abundantly proved himself to be when the time came,”
interrupted Cal, with a note of pride in his tone.
“Oh, that was a matter of course,” answered Larry. “It’s a way the
Rutledges have always had. But that is no part of the story I’m
telling. During the last year of the war, when everything was going
against the South, grandfather saw clearly what the result must be,
and he understood the effect it would have upon his fortunes. He was a
well-to-do man—I may even say a wealthy one—but he foresaw that with
the negroes set free and the industries of the South paralyzed for the
time, his estate would be hopelessly insolvent. But like the brave man
that he was, he did not let these things trouble him. Believing that
his daughters were amply provided for, and that my father—who at the
age of twenty-five had fought his way from private to major—could look
out for himself, the grim old warrior went on with his soldierly work
and bothered not at all as to results.
“In the last months of the war, when the Southern armies were being
broken to pieces, the clerk’s office, in which his deeds of Quasi to my
aunts were recorded, was burned with all its contents. As evidence of
the gift to his daughters nothing remained except his original deeds,
and these might easily be destroyed in the clearly impending collapse
of everything. To put those deeds in some place of safety was now his
most earnest purpose. He took two or three days’ leave of absence,
hurried to Charleston, secured the precious papers and put them in a
place of safety—so safe a place, indeed, that to this day nobody has
ever found them. That was not his fault. For the moment he returned to
his post of command he sat down to write a letter to my aunts, telling
them what he had done and how to find the documents. He had not written
more than twenty lines when the enemy fell upon his command, and during
the fight that ensued, he was shot through the head and instantly
killed. His unfinished letter was sent to my aunts, but it threw no
light upon the hiding place he had selected.
“When the war ended, a few weeks later, the estate was insolvent, as my
grandfather had foreseen. In the eagerness to get hold of even a little
money to live upon, which was general at that time, my grandfather’s
creditors were ready to sell their claims upon the estate for any price
they could get, and two of the carrion crows called money-lenders
bought up all the outstanding obligations.
“When they brought suit for the possession of my grandfather’s
property, they included Quasi in their claim. When my father
protested that Quasi belonged to his sisters by deeds of gift
executed years before, he could offer no satisfactory proof of his
contention—nothing, indeed, except the testimony of certain persons
who could swear that the transfer had been a matter of general
understanding, often mentioned in their presence, and other evidence of
a similarly vague character.
“Of course this was not enough, but my father is a born fighter and
would not give up. He secured delay and set about searching everywhere
for the missing papers. In the meanwhile he was energetically working
to rebuild his own fortunes, and he succeeded. As soon as he had money
of his own to fight with, he employed the shrewdest and ablest lawyers
he could find to keep up the contest in behalf of his sisters. He has
kept that fight up until now, and will keep it up until he wins it or
dies. Of course he has himself amply provided for my aunts, so that it
isn’t the property but a principle he is fighting for.
“By the way, the shooting ought to be good at Quasi—the place has run
wild for so long and is so inaccessible to casual sportsmen. If the
rest of you agree, we’ll make our way down there with no long stops as
we go. Then we can take our time coming back.”
The others agreed, and after a little Dick Wentworth, who had remained
silent for a time, turned to Larry, saying:
“Why did you say it wasn’t much of a story, Larry?”
III
A PROGRAMME—SUBJECT TO CIRCUMSTANCES
THE _Hunkydory_ was an unusually large boat for a craft of that kind.
She was about twenty-five feet long, very wide amidships—as dories
always are—and capable of carrying a heavy load without much increase
in her draught of water. She was built of white cedar with a stout
oak frame, fastened with copper bolts and rivets, and fitted with
capacious, water-tight lockers at bow and stern, with narrower lockers
running along her sides at the bilge, for use in carrying tools and the
like.
She carried a broad mainsail and a large jib, and had rowlocks for four
pairs of oars. Sitting on the forward or after rowing thwart, where
she was narrow enough for sculls, one person could row her at a fair
rate of speed, so little resistance did her peculiar shape offer to the
water. With two pairs of oars, or better still, with all the rowlocks
in use, she seemed to offer no resistance at all.
It was the plan of the boys to depend upon the sails whenever there was
wind enough to make any progress at all, and ply the oars only when a
calm compelled them to do so.
“We’re in no sort of hurry,” explained Larry, “and it really makes no
difference whether we run one mile an hour or ten. There aren’t any
trains to catch down where we are going.”
“Just where are we going, Larry,” asked Dick. “We’ve never talked that
over, except in the vaguest way.”
“Show the boys, Cal,” said Larry, turning to his brother. “You’re
better at coast geography than I am.”
“Hydrography would be the more accurate word in this case,” slowly
answered Cal, “but it makes no difference.”
With that he lighted three or four more gas burners, and spread a large
map of the coast upon the table.
“Now let me invoke your earnest attention, young gentlemen,” he began.
“That’s the way the lecturers always introduce their talks, isn’t
it? You see before you a somewhat detailed map of the coast and its
waterways from Charleston, south to Brunswick, Georgia. It is grossly
inaccurate in some particulars and slightly but annoyingly so in
others! Fortunately your lecturer is possessed of a large and entirely
trustworthy fund of information, the garnerings, as it were, of
prolonged and repeated personal observation. He will be able to correct
the errors of the cartographer as he proceeds.
“We will take the Rutledge boathouse on the Ashley River near the foot
of Spring Street as our point of departure, if you please. _Enteuthen
exelauni_—pardon the lapse into Xenophontic Greek—I mean thence we
shall sail across the Ashley to the mouth of Wappoo Creek which, as you
see by the map, extends from Charleston Harbor to Stono Inlet or river,
separating James Island from the main. Thence we shall proceed up
Stono River, past John’s Island, and having thus disposed of James and
John—familiar characters in that well-remembered work of fiction, the
First Reader—we shall enter the so called North Edisto River, which
is, in fact, an inlet or estuary, and sail up until we reach the point
where the real Edisto River empties itself. Thence we shall proceed
down the inlet known as South Edisto River round Edisto Island, and,
by a little detour into the outside sea, pass into St. Helena Sound.
From that point on we shall have a tangled network of big and little
waterways to choose among, and we’ll run up and down as many of them
as tempt us with the promise of sport or adventure. We shall pass our
nights ashore, and most of our days also, for that matter. Wherever we
camp we will remain as long as we like. That is the programme. Like
the prices in a grocer’s catalogue and the schedules of a railway, it
is ‘subject to change without notice.’ That is to say, accident and
unforeseen circumstances may interfere with it at any time.”
“Yes, and we may ourselves change it,” said Larry. “Indeed, I propose
one change in it to start with.”
“What is it?” asked the others in chorus.
“Simply that we sail down the harbor first to give Dick and Tom a
glimpse of the points of interest there. We’ll load the boat first and
then, when we’ve made the circuit of the bay, we needn’t come back to
the boat house, but can go on down Wappoo cut.”
The plan commended itself and was adopted, and as soon as the
_Hunkydory’s_ seams were sufficiently soaked the boat was put in
readiness. There was not much cargo to be carried, as the boys intended
to depend mainly upon their guns and fishing tackle for food supplies.
A side of bacon, a water-tight firkin of rice, a box of salt, another
of coffee, a tin coffee-pot, and a few other cooking utensils were
about all. The tools and lanterns were snuggled into the places
prepared for them, an abundance of rope was bestowed, and the guns,
ammunition and fishing tackle completed the outfit. Each member of the
little company carried a large, well-stocked, damp-proof box of matches
in his pocket, and each had a large clasp knife. There were no forks or
plates, but the boat herself was well supplied with agate iron drinking
cups.
It was well after dark when the loading was finished and the boat in
readiness to begin her voyage. It was planned to set sail at sunrise,
and so the crew went early to the joggling boards for a night’s rest in
the breezy veranda.
“We’ll start if there’s a wind,” said Cal.
“We’ll start anyhow, wind or no wind,” answered Larry.
“Of course we will,” said Cal. “But you used the term ‘set sail.’ I
object to it as an attempt to describe or characterize the process of
making a start with the oars.”
“Be quiet, Cal, will you?” interjected Dick. “I was just falling into a
doze when you punched me in the ribs with that criticism.”
IV
TOM FIGHTS IT OUT
FORTUNATELY there was a breeze, rather light but sufficient, when the
sun rose next morning. The _Hunkydory_ was cast off and, with Cal at
the tiller, her sails filled, she heeled over and “slid on her side,”
as Tom described it, out of the Ashley River and on down the harbor
where the wind was so much fresher that all the ship’s company had to
brace themselves up against the windward gunwale, making live ballast
of themselves.
The course was a frequently changing one, because the Rutledge boys
wanted their guests to pass near all the points of interest, and also
because they wanted Dick Wentworth, who was the most expert sailor
in the company, to study the boat’s sailing peculiarities. To that
end Dick went to the helm as soon as the wind freshened, and while
following in a general way the sight-seeing course suggested by the
Rutledges, he made many brief departures from it in order to test this
or that peculiarity of the boat, for, as Larry explained to Tom,
“Every sailing craft has ways of her own, and you want to know what
they are.”
After an hour of experiment, Dick said:
“We’ll have to get some sand bags somewhere. We need more ballast,
especially around the mast. As she is, she shakes her head too much and
is inclined to slew off to leeward.”
“Let me take the tiller, then, and we’ll get what we need,” answered
Larry, going to the helm.
“Where?”
“At Fort Sumter. I know the officer in command there—in fact, he’s an
intimate friend of our family,—and he’ll provide us with what we need.
How much do you think?”
“About three hundred pounds—in fifty pound bags for distribution. Two
hundred might do, but three hundred won’t be too much, I think, and if
it is we can empty out the surplus.”
“How on earth can you tell a thing like that by mere guess work, Dick?”
queried Tom in astonishment.
“It isn’t mere guess work,” said Dick. “In fact, it isn’t guess work at
all.”
“What is it, then?”
“Experience and observation. You see, I’ve sailed many dories,
Tom, and I’ve studied the behavior of boats under mighty good sea
schoolmasters—the Gloucester fishermen—and so with a little feeling
of a boat in a wind I can judge pretty accurately what she needs in the
way of ballast, just as anybody who has sailed a boat much, can judge
how much wind to take and how much to spill.”
“I’d like to learn something about sailing if I could,” said Tom.
“You can and you shall,” broke in Cal. “Dick will teach you on this
trip, and Larry and I will act as his subordinate instructors, so that
before we get back from our wanderings you shall know how to handle a
boat as well as we do; that is to say, if you don’t manage to send us
all to Davy Jones during your apprenticeship. There’s a chance of that,
but we’ll take the risk.”
“Yes, and there’s no better time to begin than right now,” said Dick.
“That’s a ticklish landing Larry is about to make at Fort Sumter. Watch
it closely and see just how he does it. Making a landing is the most
difficult and dangerous thing one has to do in sailing.”
“Yes,” said Cal; “it’s like leaving off when you find you’re talking
too much. It’s hard to do.”
The little company tarried at the fort only long enough for the
soldiers to make and fill six canvas sand bags. When they were afloat
again and Dick had tested the bestowal of the ballast, he suggested
that Tom should take his first lesson at the tiller. Sitting close
beside him, the more expert youth directed him minutely until, after
perhaps an hour of instruction, during which Dick so chose his courses
as to give the novice both windward work and running to do, Tom could
really make a fair showing in handling the sails and the rudder. He
was still a trifle clumsy at the work and often somewhat unready and
uncertain in his movements, but Dick pronounced him an apt scholar, and
predicted his quick success in learning the art.
They were nearing the mouth of the harbor when Dick deemed it best
to suspend the lesson and handle the boat himself. The wind had
freshened still further, and a lumpy sea was coming in over the bar,
so that while there was no danger to a boat properly handled, a little
clumsiness might easily work mischief.
The boys were delighted with the behavior of the craft and were
gleefully commenting on it when Larry observed that Tom, instead of
bracing himself against the gunwale, was sitting limply on the bottom,
with a face as white as the newly made sail.
“I say, boys, Tom’s seasick,” he called out. “We’d better put about
and run in under the lee of Morris Island.”
“No, don’t,” answered Tom, feebly. “I’m not going to be a spoil-sport,
and I’ll fight this thing out. If I could only throw up my boots, I’d
be all right. I’m sure it’s my boots that sit so heavily on my stomach.”
“Good for you, Tom,” said Larry, “but we’ll run into stiller waters
anyhow. We don’t want you to suffer. If you were rid of this, I’d—”
He hesitated, and didn’t finish his sentence.
“What is it you’d do if I weren’t playing the baby this way?”
“Oh, it’s all right.”
“No, it isn’t,” protested Tom, feeling his seasickness less because of
his determination to contest the point. “What is it you’d do? You shall
do it anyhow. If you don’t, I’ll jump overboard. I tell you I’m no
spoil-sport and I’m no whining baby to be coddled either. Tell me what
you had in mind.”
“Oh, it was only a sudden thought, and probably a foolish one. I was
seized with an insane desire to give the _Hunkydory_ a fair chance to
show what stuff she’s made of by running outside down the coast to the
mouth of Stono Inlet, instead of going back and making our way through
Wappoo creek.”
“Do it! Do it!” cried Tom, dragging himself up to his former posture.
“If you don’t do it I’ll quit the expedition and go home to be put into
pinafores again.”
“You’re a brick, Tom, and you shan’t be humiliated. We’ll make the
outside trip. It won’t take very long, and maybe you’ll get over the
worst of your sickness when we get outside.”
“If I don’t I’ll just grin and bear it,” answered Tom resolutely.
As the boat cleared the harbor and headed south, the sea grew much
calmer, though the breeze continued as before. It was the choking of
the channel that had made the water so “lumpy” at the harbor’s mouth.
Tom was the first to observe the relief, and before the dory slipped
into the calm waters of Stono Inlet he had only a trifling nausea to
remind him of his suffering.
“This is the fulfillment of prophecy number one,” he said to Cal, while
they were yet outside.
“What is?”
“Why this way of getting into Stono Inlet. You said our programme was
likely to be ‘changed without notice,’ and this is the first change.
You know it’s nearly always so. People very rarely carry out their
plans exactly.”
“I suppose not,” interrupted Larry as the Stono entrance was made,
“but I’ve a plan in mind that we’ll carry out just as I’ve made it, and
that not very long hence, either.”
“What is it, Larry?”
“Why to pick out a fit place for landing, go ashore, build a fire, and
have supper. Does it occur to you that we had breakfast at daylight and
that we’ve not had a bite to eat since, though it is nearly sunset?”
As he spoke, a bend of the shore line cut off what little breeze there
was, the sail flapped and the dory moved only with the tide.
“Lower away the sail,” he called to Cal and Dick, at the same time
hauling the boom inboard. “We must use the oars in making a landing,
and I see the place. We’ll camp for the night on the bluff just ahead.”
“Bluff?” asked Tom, scanning the shore. “I don’t see any bluff.”
“Why there—straight ahead, and not five hundred yards away.”
“Do you call that a bluff? Why, it isn’t three feet higher than the
low-lying land all around it.”
“After you’ve been a month on this coast,” said Cal, pulling at an oar,
“you’ll learn that after all, terms are purely relative as expressions
of human thought. We call that a bluff because it fronts the water
and is three feet higher than the general lay of the land. There
aren’t many places down here that can boast so great a superiority to
their surroundings. An elevation of ten feet we’d call high. It is all
comparative.”
“Well, my appetite isn’t comparative, at any rate,” said Tom. “It’s
both positive and superlative.”
“The usual sequel to an attack of seasickness, and I assure you—”
Cal never finished his assurance, whatever it was, for at that moment
the boat made her landing, and Larry, who acted as commander of the
expedition, quickly had everybody at work. The boat was to be secured
so that the rise and fall of the tide would do her no harm; wood was to
be gathered, a fire built and coffee made.
“And I am going out to see if I can’t get a few squirrels for supper,
while you fellows get some oysters and catch a few crabs if you can.
Oh, no, that’s too slow work. Take the cast net, Cal, and get a gallon
or so of shrimps, in case I don’t find any squirrels.”
“I can save you some trouble and disappointment on that score,” said
Cal, “by telling you now that you’ll get no squirrels and no game of
any other kind, unless perhaps you sprain your ankle or something and
get a game leg.”
“But why not? How do you know?”
“We’re too close to Charleston. The pot-hunters haven’t left so much as
a ground squirrel in these woods. I have been all over them and so I
know. Better take the cartridges out of your gun and try for some fish.
The tide’s right and you’ve an hour to do it in.”
Larry accepted the suggestion, and rowing the dory to a promising spot,
secured a dozen whiting within half the time at disposal.
Supper was eaten with that keen enjoyment which only a camping meal
ever gives, and with a crackling fire to stir enthusiasm, the boys
sat for hours telling stories and listening to Dick’s account of his
fishing trips along the northern shores, and his one summer’s camping
in the Maine woods.
V
A RATHER BAD NIGHT
DURING the next two or three days the expedition worked its way through
the tangled maze of big and little waterways, stopping only at night,
in order that they might the sooner reach a point where game was
plentiful.
At last Cal, who knew more about the matter than any one else in the
party, pointed out a vast forest-covered region that lay ahead, with a
broad stretch of water between.
“We’ll camp there for a day or two,” he said, “and get something
besides sea food to eat. There are deer there and wild turkeys, and
game birds, while squirrels and the like literally abound. I’ve hunted
there for a week at a time. It’s only about six miles from here, and
there’s a good breeze. We can easily make the run before night.”
Tom, who had by that time learned to handle the boat fairly well for a
novice, was at the tiller, and the others, a trifle too confident of
his skill perhaps, were paying scant attention to what he was doing.
The stretch of water they had to cross was generally deep, as the chart
showed, but there were a few shoals and mud banks to be avoided. While
the boys were eagerly listening to Cal’s description of the hunting
grounds ahead, the boat was speeding rapidly, with the sail trimmed
nearly flat, when there came a sudden flaw in the wind and Tom, in his
nervous anxiety to meet the difficulty managed to put the helm the
wrong way. A second later the dory was pushing her way through mud and
submerged marsh grass. Tom’s error had driven her, head on, upon one of
the grass covered mud banks.
Dick was instantly at work. Without waiting to haul the boom inboard,
he let go the throat and peak halyards, and the sails ran down while
the outer end of the boom buried itself in the mud.
“Now haul in the boom,” he said.
“Why didn’t you wait and do that first?” asked Tom, who was half out of
his wits with chagrin over his blunder.
“Because, with the centre board up, if we’d hauled it in against the
wind the boat would have rolled over and we should all have been
floundering.”
“But the centre board was down,” answered Tom.
“Look at it,” said Cal. “Doubtless it was down when we struck, but as
we slid up into the grass it was shut up like a jackknife.”
“Stop talking,” commanded Larry, “and get to the oars. It’s now or
never. If we don’t get clear of this within five minutes we’ll have
to lie here all night. The tide is just past full flood and the depth
will grow less every minute. Now then! All together and back her out of
this!”
With all their might the four boys backed with the oars, but the boat
refused to move. Dick shifted the ballast a little and they made
another effort, with no result except that Tom, in his well-nigh insane
eagerness to repair the damage done, managed to break an oar.
“It’s no use, fellows,” said Larry. “You might as well ship your oars.
We’re stuck for all night and must make the best of the situation.”
“Can’t we get out and push her off?” asked Tom in desperation.
“No. We’ve no bottom to stand on. The mud is too soft.”
“That’s one disadvantage in a dory,” said Dick, settling himself on a
thwart. “If we had a keel under us, we could have worked her free with
the oars.”
“If, yes, and perhaps,” broke in Cal, who was disposed to be cheerfully
philosophical under all circumstances. “What’s the use in iffing,
yessing and perhapsing? We’re unfortunate in being stuck on a mud bank
for the night, but stuck we are and there’s an end of that. We can’t
make the matter better by wishing, or regretting, or bemoaning our
fate, or making ourselves miserable in any other of the many ways that
evil ingenuity has devised for the needless chastisement of the spirit.
Let us ‘look forward not back, up and not down, out and not in,’ as
Dr. Hale puts it. Instead of thinking how much happier we might be if
we were spinning along over the water, let us think how much happier
we _shall_ be when we get out of this and set sail again. By the way,
what have we on board that we can eat before the shades of night begin
falling fast?”
“Well, if you will ‘look forward,’ as you’ve advised us all to do,”
said Dick Wentworth, “by which I mean if you will explore the forward
locker, you’ll find there a ten-pound can of sea biscuit, and half a
dozen gnarled and twisted bologna sausages of the imported variety,
warranted to keep in any climate and entirely capable of putting a
strain upon the digestion of an ostrich accustomed to dine on tenpenny
nails and the fragments of broken beer bottles.”
“Where on earth did they come from?” asked Larry. “I superintended the
lading of the boat—”
“Yes, I know you did, and I watched you. I observed that you had made
no provision for shipwreck and so I surreptitiously purchased and
bestowed these provisions myself. The old tars at Gloucester deeply
impressed it upon my mind that it is never safe to venture upon salt
water without a reserve supply of imperishable provisions to fall back
upon in case of accidents like this.”
“This isn’t an accident,” said Tom, who had been silent for an unusual
time; “it isn’t an accident; it’s the result of my stupidity and
nothing else, and I can never—”
“Now stop that, Tom!” commanded Cal; “stop it quick, or you’ll meet
with the accident of being chucked overboard. This was a mishap that
might occur to anyone, and if there was any fault in the case every
one of us is as much to blame as you are. You don’t profess to be an
expert sailor, and we know it. We ought some of us to have helped you
by observing things. Now quit blaming yourself, quit worrying and get
to work chewing bologna.”