THE SEARCH FOR A HOUSEBOAT
"Eleanor Butler, do hurry!" urged Madge two days later. "If we miss
the train, I feel I shall never forgive you." The two girls were
preparing for their trip to Baltimore.
"Let me alone, Madge," Eleanor returned. "If you will stay out of the
room for ten minutes, I promise to be ready. You've talked so much in
the last half hour that I haven't known what I was doing and I don't
know now. You had better make another call upon Miss Jones. She is
even more enthusiastic about your old houseboat scheme than you are."
Eleanor laughed as Madge disappeared in the direction of Miss Jones's
room.
"You must wish with all your heart that we shall find the houseboat
to-day, Miss Jones," declared Madge in her impulsive fashion. "You
see, everything depends on our not having to waste any time. The
sooner we find our boat, the sooner we can begin our delightful
vacation."
Miss Jones smiled. She was beginning to understand the impetuous Madge
better than she had ever dreamed of knowing her, and she was very
grateful for her invitation. Miss Jones was fairly well aware of how
much it had cost her pupil to ask her. "Yes, I shall be thinking of
you girls every minute," she declared. "Let me see. This is the
twenty-fifth of May. School will close in another week. You girls
wish to spend a week at home with your parents and relatives; but just
as early in June as possible we are to go aboard our houseboat. That
is our plan, isn't it, Madge?"
Madge nodded. Then, as she heard Phil and Lillian calling her, she
waved a hasty farewell and darted from the room.
Madge had received a letter from the boy cousin who was at school in
Baltimore. He had given her several addresses in Baltimore where there
was just a bare chance that she might find a ready-to-use houseboat.
He assured her, however, that houseboats were usually made to order,
and that she might find some difficulty in securing what she wished,
and must, therefore, not become easily discouraged.
Just before noon the four young women arrived in Baltimore on their
quest for a house-boat. Lillian and Eleanor demanded their luncheon at
once, but Phil and Madge protested against eating luncheon so early.
"You can't be hungry already," argued Madge. "As for me, I shall never
be able to eat until we find our boat."
For two hours the girls tramped about the boat yards in search of their
treasure. They saw canoes and motor boats of every size and kind, and
models of private yachts, but not a trace of a houseboat could they
find. The representatives of the various boat companies whom they
interviewed suggested the building of a houseboat at a cost of anywhere
from six hundred to a thousand dollars.
Lillian and Eleanor were the first to complain of being tired. Then
Phil, who was usually the sweetest-tempered of the four girls, began to
show signs of irritability. Madge, however, undaunted and determined,
would not think of giving up the search.
"Just one more place, girls," she begged; "then we can rest and have
our luncheon somewhere. This is a very large ship-building yard we are
going to. I am sure we can find our boat there."
Half an hour later the four chums turned wearily away from another
fruitless quest. They were now in a part of Baltimore which none of
them had ever seen before. A few blocks farther down the street they
could see the line of the water and the masts of several sailing
vessels that were lying near the shore.
"I tell you, Madge Morton," declared Phyllis Alden firmly, "whether or
not we ever find a houseboat, there is one thing certain: I positively
must have something to eat. I am half starved. What good would
finding the boat do me if I were to die of hunger before I have even
seen it?"
"Please don't be cross, Phil," soothed Madge. "I am sure we are all as
hungry as you are. I am awfully sorry. We ought to have eaten
luncheon before we came here. There isn't a restaurant in sight."
"I am sure I saw the sign of a funny little restaurant as we came by
the corner," broke in Lillian. "It did look queer, but I suppose it
would not be any harm for us to go in there."
"We don't care if it does look queer," declared Phyllis stoutly.
Turning, the girls retraced their steps to the corner.
Outside the swinging door of the small restaurant they hesitated. "I
don't think we ought to go in there," argued Eleanor, "it is such a
dreadfully rough-looking place."
It was indeed a very common eating house, where the men who worked on
the wharves, the fishermen and sailors, were in the habit of getting
their meals. The one dirty window showed half a dozen live crabs
crawling about inside among the pieces of sea-weed. A row of old pies
formed the background.
A moment later they had marched bravely up to the door. Dainty Eleanor
shuddered as they crossed the threshold, and even Phil and Madge
hesitated as a man's coarse laugh greeted them once they were fairly
inside the restaurant room.
"Come on, children," said Madge, with a pretence of bravery she was far
from feeling. "We are going into this restaurant to get something to
eat. Don't look as if you thought you were going to be eaten. It is
rather horrid, but perhaps they will let us have some bread and milk."
The quartette seated themselves at the first table they saw vacant.
Just across from it were a number of men with rough, hard faces. They
were evidently sailors from the nearby boats. The girls kept their
eyes on the table, and Madge gave their order for tea and sandwiches in
a low tone to the German boy who came forward to wait on them.
When the boy had departed with their order a silence settled upon the
little group of girls. In each girl's mind was the thought that it had
been unwise to enter the restaurant. By this time they had come to a
realization of the fact that they were the only women in the room.
"We ought never to have come here," whispered Lillian, clutching
Madge's arm.
"Nonsense," returned Madge bravely, "we have as much right here as any
of these men."
"But I'd rather not stay," persisted Lillian.
"Didn't you say you were hungry?" asked Madge pointedly.
"Ye-es," hesitated Lillian, "but I just can't stay here."
"Nor I," chimed in Eleanor.
Madge looked appealingly at Phyllis, who shook her brown head
deprecatingly. "I don't believe we ought to stay here, Madge."
"You, too, Phil!" exclaimed Madge impatiently. "All right, Misses
'Fraid Cats,' we'll go. Here comes our luncheon, too."
The girls glanced quickly at the rosy-faced lad who came up at that
moment with their order on a tray.
"I'm so hungry," sighed Phil. "Perhaps we'd better----"
"So glad you've changed your mind," commented Madge rather satirically.
"But what about you, Lillian and Eleanor?"
"Let's stay this once, but next time we'll be more careful where we
lunch," smiled Eleanor.
"I take back all I said about 'Fraid Cats,'" laughed Madge. "We'll
hurry through our luncheon and leave here the moment we finish. After
all, as long as we are to become seasoned mariners we shall have to
learn to accustom ourselves to the vicissitudes of a sailor's life."
"But we can't be 'seasoned mariners' until we find our houseboat,"
reminded Lillian. "It doesn't look as though we'd find it to-day,
either."
"We must," was Madge's emphatic response. "Here we have been worrying
like mad about this restaurant not being a proper place in which to eat
our luncheon, while the really important question of where we are to
find our boat hasn't troubled us. We must go out of here saying, 'We
shall find it, we shall find it,' and then I believe we can't help but
run across it." Madge's blue eyes were alight with purpose and
enthusiasm.
"Good for you, Madge," laughed Phil. "Come on, girls. Let us finish
our tea and renew our search."
It was half-past three in the afternoon when they left the little
restaurant. The four girls were to spend the night in Baltimore with a
friend of Miss Tolliver's, who kept a boarding-place. As they were in
the habit of staying with Miss Rice when they came into Baltimore to do
their shopping, Miss Tolliver had, for once, after many instructions,
permitted the girls to go into town without a chaperon.
"Miss Rice said we did not have to be at her house until half-past five
o'clock," Phil volunteered, "so what shall we do?"
"There is a little park down there near the water," Lillian pointed
ahead. "Suppose we sit down there for a few minutes until we decide
where to go next?"
It was a balmy, sunshiny May day. While the girls rested on the park
benches they could see, far off, a line of ships sailing up the bay and
also the larger freight steamers. They were near one of the quiet
canals that formed an inlet from the great Chesapeake Bay. Lining the
banks of the canal were numbers of coal barges and canal boats.
On the deck of a canal boat a girl came out with a bundle of clothes in
her arms. She was singing in a high, sweet voice as she hung them on a
line strung across the deck of the boat.
The girls watched her silently as she flitted back and forth, and she
sang on, unconscious of her audience. She was singing a boat song
which the men chant as they row home at the close of day. The pathos
in the woman's voice was so exquisite, its notes so true, that Madge's
blue eyes filled with tears. None of the four friends stirred until
the song was over, and the girl in her faded calico dress and bare feet
had disappeared into the cabin of the boat.
"We call those boats shanty boats down in Virginia," Eleanor said; "I
suppose because the little cabin on the deck of the canal boat looks so
like a shanty."
"People live on those shanty boats," announced Madge.
"Yes, we have noticed it, my dear girl," Phil responded dryly. But
there was a question in her eyes as she looked at Madge.
"Shanty boats do not look exactly like house-boats," went on Madge
speculatively.
"I should say not," returned Phil. "There is considerable difference."
"But they might be made to look more like them. Don't you believe so?"
Phil nodded.
"They are awfully dirty," was dainty Lillian's sole comment.
"Soap and water, child, is a sure cure for dirt," replied Madge, still
in a brown study. Then she sprang to tier feet and almost ran out of
the little park, nearly to the edge of the canal. Her friends followed
her. There was no doubt that Madge had an idea.
"Girls!" exclaimed Madge fervently, pointing toward one of the shanty
boats, "first look there; then shut your eyes. With your eyes open you
see only an ugly canal boat; with them closed, can't you see our
houseboat?"
"Not very well," replied Lillian without enthusiasm.
"Well, I can," asserted Madge with emphasis.
Then her quick eyes wandered toward a man who was coming slowly up the
path along the canal.
"Please," she asked breathlessly, stepping directly in front of him,
"do you know whether any of the people along here would be willing to
rent me a canal boat?"
The man stared in amazement at this strange request. "Can't say as I
knows of any one," he answered, "but I kin find out fer ye. It may be
some of the water folks goes inland for the summer. If they does,
they'd like as not rent you their boat."
"Then I will come down here to-morrow at nine o'clock to find out,"
arranged Madge. "Please be sure to be here."
"What did I tell you!" exulted Madge as they left the little park a few
minutes later and made their way to the street car. "I am going to
draw a plan to-night to show how easy it will be to turn one of these
old canal boats into our beautiful 'Ship of Dreams.' By this time next
week we'll know something about the 'vicissitudes' of a sailor's life
or my name is not Madge Morton."