a sailboat, which was owned by a friend of mine--or perhaps I should say
he was a friend of mine until this matter came up. From the clubhouse
porch I had often admired his boat skimming gracefully over the bay,
with its sail making a white gore against the blue background; and one
day he invited me to go out with him for a sail. Before I had time
for that second thought which is so desirable under such circumstances,
I found myself committed to the venture.
Right here, though, I wish to state that if anybody ever gets me out in
a small sailboat again it will be over my dead body.
[Illustration: "SHE WAS NOT MUCH LARGER THAN A SOAPDISH"]
Well, anyway, we cast off, as he called it. I did not like that
phrase--cast off--it sounded too much as though one were bidding
farewell to all earthly ties--and almost immediately I was struck by
other disconcerting facts. The first one was that his boat, which had
looked roomy and commodious when viewed from shore, appeared to shrink
up so when you were aboard her. Really, she was not much larger than a
soapdish and not nearly so reliable. And another thing I noticed was a
lot of the angriest-looking clouds that anybody ever saw, piling up on
the horizon. And the waves were slopping up and down, and giving to the
water that dark, forbidding appearance that is so inspiring in a marine
painting, but so depressing when you are thrown into personal contact
with it.
I made a suggestion. As I recall now, I said something about waiting
until the typhoon was over; but my friend grinned in an annoying,
superior kind of way and said he doubted whether the wind would blow
more than half a gale. He was right there--but it was the last half.
Anyhow he swung her round and she heeled away over in an alarming
fashion, and we headed right into the center of the vortex. He gave me
the end of a rope to hold and told me to swing on to it, which I was
very glad to do, because there are times and places when it gives you a
slight sense of comfort to have anything at all to hold to, even if it
is only a rope. On and on we careened madly. I was so occupied with
harkening to the howl of the mad winds in the rigging and watching the
mad waves that, when he suddenly called out something which sounded like
Hard Ah Lee, I paid no attention. If his fancy led him in a moment of
dire peril like this to be yelling for somebody with a name like a
Chinese laundryman, it was no concern of mine.
Then he bellowed: "Leggo that sheet!"
Now I knew there was something about a sailboat called a sheet, but I
naturally assumed it was the sail. I leave it to any disinterested
person if a sail, being white and more or less square in shape, doesn't
look more like a sheet than a mere rope does. So, as I wasn't near the
sail, but was merely holding on to my rope, I started to tell him I
wasn't touching his blamed old sheet. But the words were never spoken.
The boat tried to shy out from under me and came very nearly succeeding.
At the same time, she buckjumped and stood right up on one edge, like a
demented gravy dish. At the same moment, also, a considerable portion of
the Atlantic Ocean came aboard and lit in my lap, and something struck
me alongside the head with frightful force; and something else scraped
me off the place where I was sitting and hurled me headlong.
When I came to, the man who owned the boat was scrambling round,
stepping on me and my clothes, and grabbing at loose ends, and swearing;
but as soon as he had a moment to spare from these other duties he
called me a derned idiot! I was his guest, mind you, and he used that
language toward me.
"You derned idiot!" he said. "Didn't you see she was about to jibe?"
I told him in a dignified manner that I certainly did not; that had I
known she was about to jibe I would most certainly have jobe with her;
that personally I preferred any amount of jibbing, however painful, to
being drowned first and then beaten to death. I demanded to know why he
had assaulted me upon the head and what he did it with.
It developed, though, that he had not struck me at all. The boom swung
round and hit me. This is a heavy section of lumber, and I think it is
called a boom from the hollow, ringing sound it makes when dashing out
the brains of amateur sailors. In my judgment these booms are dangerous
and their presence should not be permitted aboard a sailing craft--or,
at least, they should be towed a safe distance aft.
But I digress. Referring to the devastating and angry elements that
encompassed us, the owner of the boat said there was now a nice,
fresh breeze blowing, and that he hated to miss the fun; but if I
preferred to he would run back in and hug the shore. Hug it! I was ready
to kiss it! What I wanted to do was to take that dear shore in both arms
and press my throbbing cheeks against her mossy breast, and swear that
nothing should ever again come between me and the solid part of the
continent of North America.
So, by a sheer miracle escaping death on the way, we returned, and I
betook myself off of that craft and headed straight for the clubhouse. I
wish to take advantage of this opportunity, however, to deny the report
subsequently circulated by certain malicious persons to the effect that
I was scared. Any passing agitation I may have betrayed was due to my
relief at finding that the cyclone, despite its fury, had not swept the
North Atlantic Coast bare. I also wish to deny the story that I was
pale. I have one of those complexions that come and go. Anybody who
knows me will tell you that.
However, I have decided to give up sailboating; and, to a person of my
shape and conservative tendencies, this leaves the field of outdoor
sport considerably circumscribed. I am too peaceful for baseball and not
warlike enough for football. I had thought some of taking up tennis, but
have been deterred by the fact that so many young women excel at tennis.
I could stand being licked by another man, but the idea of facing one of
those sinewy young-lady champions whose stalwart face looks out at you
from the sporting page is repellent to me.
I can understand why so very few of these ultra-athletic college girls
marry off early. A man instinctively is drawn to the clinging-vine type
of female. If there is any sturdy oak round the place he wants to be it.
But what I cannot understand is how these brawny young persons can be
the granddaughters and the great granddaughters of those fragile
creatures, with wasp waists and tiny feet, who lived back in the Early
Victorian period and suffered from megrims and vapors. I'll venture that
none of this generation ever had a vapor in her life; and as for
megrims, she wouldn't know one if she met it in the big road. She may be
muscle-bound and throw a splint sometimes, or get the Charley horse; but
megrims are not for her--believe me!
Oh, I've seen them often--the adorable yet brawny creatures, leaping six
feet into the air and smacking a defenseless tennis ball with such vigor
that it started right off in the general direction of Sioux Falls at the
rate of upwards of ninety miles an hour, and coming down flat-footed
without having jostled so much as a hairpin out of place. You may
worship them, all right enough, but it is safer to do so at long
distance.
[Illustration: "THINK OF BEING LAID FACE DOWNWARD FIRMLY ACROSS A SINEWY
KNEE AND BEATEN FORTY-LOVE WITH ONE OF THOSE HARD CATGUT RACKETS!"]
Suppose you were hooked up for life to a lady champion and you happened
to displease her? She'd spank you! Think of being laid face downward
firmly across a sinewy knee and beaten forty-love with one of those hard
catgut rackets! The very suggestion is intolerable to a believer in the
supremacy of the formerly sterner sex.
So I have decided not to take up tennis; but the doctor says I need
exercise, and I think I will go in for golf, which is a young man's
vice and an old man's penance. I have already taken the preliminary
steps. I have joined a country club; I have also chosen my caddie. He is
a deaf-and-dumb caddie, who has never been known to laugh at anything.
That is why I chose him.
End of Project Gutenberg's Cobb's Bill-of-Fare, by Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb