A HOME ON THE ROLLING DEEP
At ten o’clock sharp the next morning the girls saw the Captain’s dory
round the curve of the bay shore from Fair Havens, and make for the
Knob. Nancy waved her hand to them, her face shaded by a pink sunbonnet.
The girls were already in the water, paddling around in their new
swimming suits, and splashing one another. Ted, Kate, and Polly, could
just manage to keep their chins above water, and float, but the rest
kept at waist-deep limits.
“We brought along some ring buoys,” said Nancy, as she stepped out of
the dory, and helped run it up the beach. “That’s how I learned to swim.
If you just hold on to one and start out with your feet, you can learn
to use one arm at a time.”
That they were very willing and obedient pupils, even the Captain had to
admit. Nancy was the teacher, while the Captain stood by in case of
trouble, and gave orders.
“Let yourself go,” Nancy urged Sue, as the latter clung closely to her
in the deep water. “Just let yourself go, and you’ll find out you’re
floating.”
Sue obeyed, willingly enough, and the next instant a pair of stockinged
feet waved in the air above the water. As Nancy pulled her up,
spluttering, she laughed, and insisted on going ahead, and before she
realized it she was making the stroke properly and could keep herself
afloat.
Polly had caught the stroke almost at once, and was swimming around
helping Nancy. Ruth and Kate went about it practically, counting their
strokes, and trying first in water up to their armpits. But Isabel waded
in and sat down at ease in the water, just where the waves could curl up
around her comfortably. Then she proceeded to loosen her hair, and give
it a good wetting. Then back on a rock she climbed, and sat there,
letting it dry in the sun.
“Come on in,” called Polly, splashing her with water. “You mustn’t sit
up on that rock and play you’re a nixie or a mermaid while we have to
work so hard. Come on in, and swim.”
“Oh, Polly, I don’t think I want to,” said Isabel, anxiously. “I can’t
keep the water out of my eyes.”
“Fiddlesticks,” cried the Commodore; “come and splash her, girls,” and
they drove Isabel back to work like the rest.
“Now then, now then,” shouted the Captain in his rolling bass. “Keep at
it lively, keep at it lively. Tom’s coming with the boats at noon if the
wind holds fair, and you must learn how to keep your heads out of the
bay.”
So they kept at it diligently, and when it was over they went up on the
beach. While they lay around in the warn sand, the Captain took Nancy
and gave a regular life-saving drill to show them what to do in case of
danger.
“First aid to the injured class,” Polly called it, and it was a good
name.
“Don’t scream and get excited. That’s the first and last rule I want to
give you,” he told them, emphatically. “What would you think of a boat
crew of life-savers whooping at the top of their lungs when they were
going out at a call? If you do happen to fall overboard, or you see one
of the others in trouble, don’t run and call for help. Keep cool, and
get right down to business.”
“Don’t people who are in danger of drowning try to catch hold of any one
who goes to rescue them, and they both are lost?” asked Isabel,
doubtfully. “I should think it would be better to throw them a buoy or a
life preserver or something.”
“That’s something you don’t worry about,” the Captain told her,
comfortably. “I guess if people had always been thinking of that sort of
thing, there would never have been any life saving apparatus at all. I
sorter feel that we must leave a whole lot to Him who holdeth the sea in
the hollow of His hand. Now, remember what I did just now, and how I did
it. I’ll drill you on it next week. You never can tell when it will come
in handy. Don’t start giving a drowned person strong black coffee or
clam chowder the first thing to brace them up, do you mind me? ’Tain’t
done by real life savers.” The Captain’s eyes twinkled. “Just roll them
over a barrel, or your knee, and get the water out of them; then take
hold of their tongue, using a piece of clean cloth, and get somebody
else to work their arms up and down, and if there’s any beat left in
their heart it’s going to start up again. And when you do start them
going, then it’s time enough to give them coffee, or hot ginger tea, or
anything. Mother’s great on hot ginger tea, and I don’t know but what
prayer and ginger ought to be counted in with the first aid to the
injured. I use them both myself in strong doses.”
Promptly at eleven they all straggled up the beach, a happy, dripping
lot, running in to dress and get luncheon over before Tom came with the
boats.
[Illustration: A Happy, Dripping Lot]
“Do you think we’ll do, Captain?” asked Polly, when she reappeared.
“Do? Of course you’ll do. I’ll come over every morning on my way to the
Point for a week and drill you until you can swim. Now you take Nancy
and Tom out with you this afternoon. It’s calm and easy, with a light
breeze blowing off shore. Better try going out in two of the boats for a
few days with Nancy and Tom to show you how to handle them.”
Sue ran upstairs to the “lookout,” to see if their fleet was in sight.
“Sister Anne, Sister Anne, do you see anyone coming?” called Ted,
merrily.
“Here’s Tom,” Sue cried. “Oh, I wonder how soon I can make a boat act
like that.”
Tom came around the bay from Fair Havens beautifully. He was showing off
his sailor craft freely, and the fifteen-footer was as tame to his touch
as a horse to the rein. Polly watched him eagerly, as he brought it
gracefully to the landing. The name on the prow was the _Tidy Jane_.
“That’s the best sail boat in the lot,” the Captain declared, as he left
them. “Nancy named her after the first fishing boat I sailed on up to
the Banks of Newfoundland. And she’s a good one. She’s shapely as a
sloop-o’-war, and twice as slippery.”
“Then she ought to be the flag ship,” said Kate. “Why don’t you take
her, Polly?”
Polly’s face fairly glowed with pride and pleasure. Although in a way
the whole club owed its existence to her, and she was the ruling spirit,
yet she never allowed the girls to give her, as Crullers said flatly,
“the best of everything.” In a hundred ways she showed a steady, loving
generosity and unfailing thoughtfulness and courtesy to her “crew,” as
the Admiral called the rest of the club, but Polly said he was wrong.
“A crew mans one boat or vessel, but we are an independent club of yacht
racers.”
So to-day when the _Tidy Jane_ was handed over to her, she hesitated,
saying that it didn’t seem fair to the rest. But the rest insisted and
Polly consented.
“Why, I’d love her just on account of her name,” she said, as she ran
down to the landing, and stepped over into the cockpit. “You go back and
get the other boats, Tom, please. We shall want to look this one all
over till we know the name of every part of her and just what it is
for.”
“I’ll bring up a knockabout next,” said Tom.
“What’s the difference between a catboat and a knockabout?” asked Ted.
“A cat’s different from all other yachts because her mast is set right
up in the eyes of her,” explained Tom. “And she’s broader beamed, and
wider, and has only one sail.”
“She’s a beauty,” Sue exclaimed, and Polly nodded.
“I know it,” she laughed.
Tom made six more trips, and finally the last of the boats lay close to
the little landing. It was a long-remembered afternoon, as under Tom’s
guidance the girls had their first lesson in sailing them. The day was a
perfect one. A southerly breeze came up, just enough to bear them
lightly on their course over the bay. The Admiral had come down during
the afternoon and had given much valuable advice; but as Polly said
herself, as she stood on the porch at sundown, her face already tanned
and sleeves turned back to the elbows:
“All the advice in the world won’t help us to sail these boats till we
know all about them ourselves, know every bit of wood in them, and every
inch of sail, and every cleat and bolt and pin—”
“Don’t they call them pintles?” suggested Kate, but Polly never noticed
the interruption.
“And we know what they’re going to do next in all sorts of weather. But
I like it, don’t you, girls?”
“It’s glorious,” cried Ruth, enthusiastically. Her hair was hanging down
her back, while she brushed it vigorously, trying to get the salt water
harshness out of it. “I’ve named my yacht the _Iris_. It means a
rainbow.”
“Mine’s the _Patsy D._,” Sue said complacently. “I’ve always wanted a
boat named the _Patsy D._”
“_Patsy D._,” exclaimed Polly, laughing. “Why do you want to call her
that?”
“Because,” said Sue, firmly, “I want a name that will be simple and
vigorous, and easy to say, and besides the only boat I ever had a really
happy sail on was named the _Patsy D._ It’s the excursion steamer that
runs around Chesapeake Bay for Sunday-school outings, and last year she
bumped into something and spoiled the shape of her lovely nose, and now
she’s a barge down at Newport News. So I shall perpetuate her memory and
call my yacht the _Patsy D._; and you may name yours after all the
rainbows and other beauties in creation. I believe that names should be
suggestive of pleasant memories.”
“Hurrah for the _Patsy D._,” sang out Ted from the couch corner.
“I don’t care if you do make fun of it. She’s the _Patsy D._ all the
same,” said Sue, stoutly.
“How can she be the _Patsy D._?” asked Polly, teasingly.
“Well, she is,” retorted Sue. “Maybe her real name’s Patricia.”
“My boat is the _Witch Cat_ and Kate’s the _Hurricane_,” said Ted
slowly; “so we shall not have the trouble of naming ours.”
“Tom says my boat is called the _Spray_. Do you like that, Polly?”
“Yes, I do,” said Polly. “Don’t you?”
“Not very much. I thought I’d change it to the _Lurline_, or _Lorelie_.”
“I like the _Spray_ the best. The name of the yacht Dorothy and Bess
Vaughan sail is the _Nixie_. You don’t want to get too near to that.
Crullers, have you named yours? It’s the smallest one in the lot, isn’t
it?”
“Yes. Her name is the _Yum-Yum_. The sail is like a junk boat’s,”
Crullers announced, thoughtfully; “or a bat’s wing.”
“Tom says the boys fitted it out that way, just for a novelty. It’s
broad, and deep, and wide, and positively unsinkable.”
“I’ve got two life preservers, and three ring buoys in the lockers,”
Crullers said. “Tom and the Captain put them in there so I’d feel
perfectly safe and easy.”
“Safe and easy? Safe and easy?” Aunty Welcome’s voice came from the
kitchen. “Dey ain’t nuffin on earth could make me feel easy a-sailing
round on de face ob de deep like a leviathan. You couldn’t get me on dat
waste of waters in sech a li’l’ boat for all de gold in de bowels ob de
earth. No, sah.”
“Oh, but, Aunty, you’re going in swimming with us some day,” coaxed
Polly.
“Deed, I wouldn’t any more’n I’d step into an open grabe and pull de
cover in after me,” protested Welcome. “Last night I couldn’t sleep a
wink a-listening to de rolling ob de waves.”
“Girls, just look out there,” cried Kate suddenly, as she rose and
pointed over the bay towards the Point Light. It was past sunset, the
purple hour, as Polly always called it, and the whole world lay wrapped
in softest violet. From somewhere beyond the Point, a deep, long-drawn
whistle sounded, then another, then another. A faint sound of music
drifted to them on the night air, and as the steamer rounded, they
caught a glimpse of her cabin lights, a row of gleaming diamonds against
the gloom of the twilight. Then a search-light sent a quick arm of
radiance flashing over the bay, and for a second the little group on the
porch were right in its path, before it swept on.
“I didn’t know any steamers ran in here,” said Polly. “Isn’t that
splendid? Perhaps it comes often, and it’s really company just to see it
go by.”
“It must be the Portland boat,” said Kate. “There’s one that makes a
landing at Eastport, Tom said, and stops first at the hotel pier, before
it goes up through the inlet.”
“Then that must be the steamer that grandfather meant, when he said he
would go back by boat. He’ll go from Eastport to Portland, then down the
coast to Boston, and so on straight south.”
“Then we’ll be alone away off here,” said Isabel, sadly. “Doesn’t it
seem deserted? Think of it when there’s a storm.”
“And the thunders roll from pole to pole,” groaned Polly, mischievously.
“Sue, get your mandolin, quick. Let’s play something that will ‘soothe
this restless feeling and banish the thoughts of day.’”
Across the inlet made by the Knob’s projection into the bay, the sound
of music floated even to Fair Havens, and Nancy stopped her evening task
of washing the supper dishes to listen at the open door. The girls over
at the Knob were singing, with the three mandolins and guitar giving a
splendid accompaniment. Across the water the melody seemed indescribably
softened and enhanced, as the gay, girlish tones rang out:
“Oh, a life on the ocean wave,
A home on the rolling deep,
Where the scattered waters rage,
And the winds their revels keep.
And the winds (bing, bing),
And the winds (bing, bing),
And the winds their revels keep.”
“I just love that bing, bing part,” said Nancy, drawing in a deep
breath. “May I go over some evening, mother, and hear them play?”
“Indeed, you may,” Mrs. Carey replied heartily. “For they seem to be as
warm-hearted and well-mannered a lot of girls as I ever did see, and the
Captain, your father, agrees with me.”
“They’re not like those Vaughan girls from the hotel,” Tom said,
stopping his whistling long enough to join in the conversation. “They
had that knockabout of theirs out on the bay to-day, and when I sent out
a hail at them they never even waved a hand. Some folks haven’t any more
sociability than a mosquito.”
“They waved to Polly, Tom,” Nancy said; “but then I do believe the fish
would stand up on their tails and waggle their fins at her, if she sang
out to them.”
“What was it that father said about her?” asked Mrs. Carey, smiling till
her blue eyes were almost hidden in wrinkles, as she stopped her mending
a moment, and leaned back in the big, red rocker beside the south window
where the roses climbed.
“Said she carried the starriest top-lights he ever saw on a craft under
her t’gallant eyebrows.”
Mrs. Carey laughed as she turned to her sewing.
“Well, she has a pair of the brownest eyes, seems to me, I ever saw. And
she’s lively too. I’d a sight rather have those girls than a pack of
boys raising hob over there on the island all summer long. I hope
nothing will happen to any of them.” She looked out of the window
towards the Knob. Its outlines showed up darkly against the night sky,
but the music had died away and no light was to be seen. “I think I’ll
tell the girls to put a lamp in that side window every night, so I’ll
know they’re safe and comfortable.”
So after that first night, all summer long while the Polly Page Yacht
Club held forth on Lost Island, a beacon light was placed at the side
window to assure the Careys all was well.