ON BOARD THE “HIPPOCAMPUS”
The morning of the sailing came quickly, it seemed to the little band of
voyagers. Polly was up, and fully dressed by five, making her final
arrangements, and the Admiral was “on lookout,” as he said, with Aunty
Welcome’s nephew, Stoney, carrying the luggage down from the house to
the boat-landing.
When the girls began to arrive, Polly was busy pinning and hooking Aunty
Welcome’s collar and belt at the last minute, and it was a labor of
love.
“Don’t squoze me, honey, don’t squoze me a particle,” cautioned Aunty,
puffing over the unusual exertion. “’Deed, I feel as if I had de equator
twined around me now. Whar’s dat big palm leaf fan? Stonewall! You,
Stonewall Jackson U. S. Grant Brown, you bring me dat fan instanter,
sah, hyar me?”
Stoney grinned, and slipped off the Admiral’s steamer trunk with the
fan. Stoney was proud of his name. Aunty had been strictly neutral
during the war, and when Stoney had been born, she had been his sponsor,
and had perpetuated her neutrality in his name, with a slight leaning
towards the South.
“You had better go ahead with the trunk now, Stoney,” Polly told him.
“Here come the girls. You go too, Aunty, and that will give you a chance
to rest in the launch a minute.”
“Ain’t you most ready, you’ own self, chile?”
“All ready,” laughed Polly, as she took her long gray cloak over her
arm, and her mandolin case. “I want to say good-by to Mandy and the
rest.”
So while Stoney and the others trudged ahead down the path that led to
the little landing by the riverside, Polly ran to the kitchen, and
kissed the black, shiny cheek of old Aunt Mandy, the housekeeper, and
shook Uncle Peter’s hand.
“Keep out of deep water, honey lam’ chile,” cautioned Mandy, the tears
running down her cheeks fast. “And may de good Lord hol’ you in de
holler of his hand safe from de fury of tempest, and leviathan, and—and
cramps when you’s in swimmin’.”
“Amen, praise de Lord, oh, mah soul,” added Uncle Peter, fervently, and
Polly went out into the garden, with her own lashes wet with tears, for
they had been kind to her ever since she could remember toddling to
Mandy after raisins and sticks of cinnamon.
As Polly left the kitchen, she saw the other girls coming up the broad
walk from the gates, with suitcases, wraps and parasols, for the morning
was a still, close one, and the latent heat of the day seemed to lie
about the horizon in a golden haze.
The motor launch was waiting for them when they reached the landing. A
sailor in white duck, with the name _Hippocampus_ in gold letters on his
cap, stood on the little dock, and the Admiral assisted them on board.
“’Deed, Marse Bob,” Aunty Welcome protested, as she hesitated to take
the step into the launch. “’Deed, I know I’ll swamp you, I know it. I
don’t trust dat lil toy boat no more’n I would a tea tray. Nevah see
sech a shiny lil baby boat in mah life. Well, for mercy sakes, if I
ain’t in it all safe.”
And she laughed till Polly warned her she would surely burst the
equator, as she settled down in the stern of the little launch, and they
left the landing for the open river.
The girls said very little. With flushed cheeks, and eager, sparkling
eyes they were too much engaged in watching all the new sights that
unfolded as the launch sped along. On one side were the hills of
Virginia, gray green in the morning light like grass with the dew on it.
Dense patches of wild rice glimmered through the morning haze to the
left. About a mile down the river lay the _Hippocampus_, spotless and
silent, like a water lily on the river’s surface. None of the girls had
ever been on a steam yacht before. They watched this one with eager
interest as they drew nearer and nearer to it. Everything on board was
quiet. A gaily striped awning was spread up forward. The pennon of the
Chesapeake Yacht Club, of which the Senator was a member, fluttered
lightly from the mast head, in the gentle breeze. As the launch came
alongside, the Senator himself, in white flannels, appeared on deck, and
greeted them warmly.
“I thought you always had to climb a ladder of rope, when you went over
a ship’s side,” whispered Sue to Polly, as she saw the neat gangway of
steps that led easily from the launch to the deck of the yacht. “This is
much better, isn’t it?”
“Indeed it is,” smiled back Polly, holding to her cap, as the wind blew
freshly up the river from the bay. “Did you notice the figure-head?”
It was turned fairly to them, so they had a good view of the prow with
its figure-head, a great golden sea-horse, curving proudly up from the
waves.
“But its head looks like a dragon’s instead of a horse’s. I wonder how
they travel through the water?” asked Ted.
“Just as easily as a jelly fish,” laughed Polly. “They don’t seem to
help themselves at all, just go along with their heads held up high, as
if they thought they owned the whole ocean. And they are such tiny
things, that it seems comical. Think if a sea horse and a sea cow were
to get into a quarrel. A sea cow could eat a peck of sea horses at one
gulp, and then ask for some dessert.” And Polly added on the spur of the
moment:
“Whenever you see
A Manitee,
A Hippocampus said to me.
Be sure and treat,
Her awful sweet,
Or she’ll gobble you up, from head to feet.”
Polly repeated the lines sedately, but her eyes were brimful of fun, as
she stepped from the launch, and followed Ruth up the brass railed
gangway. The latter had rubber-padded steps to prevent feet slipping.
It took the united efforts of the Admiral and two sailors to get Aunty
Welcome up that narrow flight, but they succeeded. Mrs. Yates was
awaiting their coming, forward beneath the awning.
“I am so very, very glad to have you with us,” she said cordially, as
she clasped each girl’s hand in hers, and smiled at their happy faces.
“Both the Senator and myself feel indebted to you all for consenting to
be our guests as far as Maine. This is Aunty Welcome, isn’t it?” She
turned to a broad-shouldered lad beside her. “Marbury, won’t you take
Aunty into the cabin and introduce her to Dido, so that she will feel at
home?”
Marbury obeyed, willingly, for under the united fire of seven pairs of
eyes, he began to feel somewhat uneasy. In the door of the forward cabin
stood the stewardess, Dido, bowing and smiling broadly, in her snowy
dress of white linen, with a white cap on her head, and Aunty Welcome
was glad enough to find a kindred spirit.
A cabin boy carried the suitcases and various wraps away and the girls
seated themselves in the cosy wicker-chairs under the wide awning, and
tried to think it was not all a dream.
All about them lay the beautiful river, broadening out as it approached
Chesapeake Bay. To the east the water glittered like quicksilver under
the sun’s rays, and gulls darted back and forth with graceful, wide
spread wings. Sometimes they rested on the water and rocked lazily to
and fro like wild ducks. Standing on one leg on a stretch of marshy
land, where the wild rice grew thickly, a sleepy crane watched them
weigh anchor. The yacht hardly made any more effort about it than the
little motor launch had, and before the girls realized they had started,
they heard the signal bells and felt the gentle vibration of the
engines.
Ruth touched Polly’s hand lightly with her own, as it lay on the arm of
her chair. Her face was turned seaward, and her chin was uplifted, as if
she were drinking in the delicious air. There was a faint glow in her
cheeks, and a smile on her lips.
Tony, the cabin boy, came back, and deftly spread a square of snowy
linen on the green wicker table, then returned, bearing a huge tray
laden with iced chocolate, strawberries served on crisp lettuce-leaves
like eggs in a nest, buttered waffles, broiled fresh mackerel under a
silver cover, and lyonnaise potatoes.
“The Senator and Admiral will take their breakfast below together,” Mrs.
Yates said. “I thought perhaps you girls would enjoy it better on deck,
as the view down the river is beautiful at this hour of the morning.
Polly, you may serve in the Senator’s place, while I pour the
chocolate.”
That was a memorable morning for the girls. Polly said in her impulsive
way:
“Here we had expected to ‘rough it,’ as the boys say, camp out, and
learn how to sail boats, and do our own cooking on a deserted island,
and just look at this. I declare it’s enough to spoil us for the island
camp. Who would want to bother over sails and rudders, and jibs and
booms, and things, when you can manage the whole ship this way, just by
touching an electric button.”
“Where’s the button, Polly?” asked Crullers, dreamily. “I didn’t see any
button.”
“There are a whole row of them up in the pilot house,” Polly returned.
“I saw them as we came past. But still,” with a wave of loyalty towards
the unknown island and its yacht club, “I think I would rather have to
fight my way against the waves. It must be glorious to feel like that
gull over there, as if you had wide spread wings and were flying low
before a gale.”
“Just wait till Polly tries it,” laughed Mrs. Yates. “It sounds so much
easier than it really is. I remember my first yachting experience when I
was your age, Polly. My father bought a winter bungalow on the Carolina
coast, not far from Charleston, and it was my first winter in a warm
climate. I had three big brothers, and the dearest possession they owned
in common was a sailboat that they built themselves. I think they used
to call it a knockabout, and the name of it was the _Say When_.”
“Isn’t that a dear name for a boat?” cried Polly.
“We went out one day in it, and were running along with a beam wind on a
smooth sea, when all at once a puff of wind hit us, and before the boys
could start the sail, to jam her down, she was over on one side, and we
all scrambled up on the planking, to windward, and hung on until the
squall was over, when she righted herself, but we bailed out over thirty
buckets of salt water.”
“I hope we shan’t have any such accident at Lost Island,” said Polly.
“Won’t a yacht sink, Mrs. Yates?”
“I cannot answer that positively, but I hardly think one will. Its
canvas and the shape of the hull too, I believe, usually buoy it up;
while a heavy boat that carries machinery will sink quickly. By the way,
have you thought to bring any buoys or life preservers?”
“We have some water wings and life preservers that Mrs. Lee gave us, so
we shan’t sink when we’re learning to swim,” said Sue hopefully.
“And Aunt Milly says there is a life-saving station only a mile and a
half up the beach, and they have a coast-guard service that passes
within hail of us through the night. I think we’ll be safe.”
Mrs. Yates smiled at Polly’s assured tone.
“I should feel pretty confident myself with such protection close by,”
she said. “Still it is just as well for you to take precautions
yourself, in case of sudden danger. Go down to the station as soon as
you conveniently can, after you are settled, and watch them at their
drill.”
“You mean in giving first aid to the injured?” Ruth asked.
“Yes, and in learning how to behave in case of a boat’s capsizing, or if
one of you should fall overboard. You want to know how to act to help
yourselves. How many in the club can swim?”
Polly glanced around and took stock of her crew.
“Ted and Kate and myself.”
“I’ve only tried swimming in fresh water,” said Ted.
“You will find salt water easier. It is buoyant, and invigorating. But
don’t be venturesome or foolhardy in strange waters. Have you any idea
of taking up a course of summer study?”
“Oh, yes,” cried Ruth. “Every morning we shall have regular class work,
and I am teacher. I brought several books with me, Mrs. Yates, but do
you know, they all seem so far advanced for beginners. I mean, they take
it for granted that the reader knows all about shell life, and sea
flora, and they talk about it all so scientifically, arranging them in
groups, and using the Latin names. I wish I could find a book telling
the intimate family side of beach life. I’d like to be on real friendly
terms with every starfish and crab I meet, not just have a bowing
acquaintance, and say, ‘Ah, good morning, Monsieur Crustacean, are you a
king crab, or a hermit?’”
Everyone laughed, even Marbury, who had come on deck after breakfasting
below with his father and the Admiral. The girls had finished also, and
Mrs. Yates suggested that Marbury show them over the yacht.
“Come back to me when you have seen everything you care to,” she told
them before they left her, “and I will show you my sea-going library and
my collection of ocean treasures. I started them both years ago, when
Marbury was a baby, and we took our first ocean voyage. It may help you
in forming collections of your own, and in trying to classify them.”
Marbury and Polly led the way over the yacht. It was as large as the
revenue cutter they met coming up the bay, and quite as smart in its
white and gold hull, and clean-cut smoke-stack and rigging, outlined
against the cloudless sky. The forward cabin was the Senator’s special
domain. Walls, lockers, and chairs all were covered with buff leather,
and it was fitted with a broad center table, and desk, with wall
brackets supporting cabinets containing all manner of ocean curios. The
dining-room was next to it, although there was a smaller one below used
for breakfast by the Senator. The main cabin was a delight to the girls.
Ten staterooms opened off it, and they were not like the little, narrow
“cubby-holes” generally found on steamers. Daintily furnished little
rooms, with lounging chairs and couches of willow, covered with apple
green chintz sprayed with pink blossoms. Curtains of the same were
looped back from the white berths. Four of these rooms were given up to
the girls, and they “paired off” accordingly. Polly and Crullers took
one, Sue and Ted another, Isabel and Ruth a third, and Kate was all
alone in the fourth, as befitted the chaperon of the party.
“Polly,” asked Mrs. Yates, after dinner that evening, “didn’t I notice a
mandolin with your luggage?”
“Yes’m,” answered Polly, who in spite of her “nearly fifteen” years,
still clung to the old-fashioned mode of speaking to a person older than
herself. “We girls have a glee club of our own. Sue, and Ted, and Ruth,
and myself. Ruth plays the guitar, and the rest of us mandolins. I
thought it would be fun to take them along and play nights when we felt
lonely.”
“I hope you will feel lonely to-morrow night then,” Mrs. Yates replied,
smiling. “I won’t ask you to play to-night, for you must be tired, but
to-morrow evening we will have a concert. I dearly love the sound of
music on the water, and so does the Senator. We have a piano on board,
you know, and Marbury has his banjo, although I tell him it always makes
me think of the old riddle ‘what makes more noise than a pig going under
a gate?’ You know the answer.”
The girls laughed, all except Crullers, who puzzled and pondered over
the riddle all the rest of the evening. Crullers always pondered over
anything she could not see through. That night, when they had retired to
their berths, and only the light from the cabin shone in the stateroom
over the doorway, Polly heard a sleepy voice across the room say,
“Polly, I know. Two pigs!”
Polly sat upright in bed, and threw a pillow with telling force at the
figure in the other berth, but there was only a stifled giggle in
answer, and she cuddled down under the blanket, and fell asleep.