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diff --git a/42548-0.txt b/42548-0.txt index a6e086e..5a31c94 100644 --- a/42548-0.txt +++ b/42548-0.txt @@ -1,37 +1,4 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Camp Fire Girls on a Yacht, by -Margaret Love Sanderson - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: The Camp Fire Girls on a Yacht - -Author: Margaret Love Sanderson - -Illustrator: Maude Martin Evers - -Release Date: April 15, 2013 [EBook #42548] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS ON A YACHT *** - - - - -Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Matthew Wheaton and the -Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42548 *** [Illustration: Frances and Jane use their Camp Fire Girl training.] @@ -4794,359 +4761,4 @@ a happy assent. 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You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: The Camp Fire Girls on a Yacht - -Author: Margaret Love Sanderson - -Illustrator: Maude Martin Evers - -Release Date: April 15, 2013 [EBook #42548] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS ON A YACHT *** - - - - -Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Matthew Wheaton and the -Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - - - [Illustration: Frances and Jane use their Camp Fire Girl training.] - - - - - The Camp Fire Girls On A Yacht - - BY - MARGARET LOVE SANDERSON - - Frontispiece by - MAUDE MARTIN EVERS - - The Reilly & Lee Co. - Chicago - - - Copyright, 1920 - by - The Reilly & Lee Co. - - - Made in U. S. A. - - - _The Camp Fire Girls on a Yacht_ - - - - - CONTENTS - - - CHAPTER PAGE - I AN INVITATION FOR A CRUISE 7 - II SERGEANT MURPHY ASSISTS 14 - III THE BOOJUM 27 - IV ANCHOR WEIGHED 40 - V AT THE LANDING OF THE PILGRIMS 51 - VI BETTY WYNDHAM, ACTRESS 63 - VII EXPLORING GLOUCESTER 73 - VIII WHAT FRANCES FOUND 84 - IX THE AFFAIRS OF BRECK 97 - X HURRICANE ISLAND 110 - XI DEBATE AND JUST TALK 122 - XII BROTHER AND SISTER 132 - XIII JACK'S AFTER-SUPPER SPEECH 141 - XIV TIM'S FATHER 152 - XV TIM'S MOTHER AND DETAILS 163 - XVI A MOUTH FOR PIE 174 - XVII "BOILED" AT 'SCONSET 181 - XVIII THE BEGINNING OF TRAGEDY 188 - XIX THE GOOD OF THE ILL-WIND 198 - - - - -The Camp Fire Girls On a Yacht - - - - -CHAPTER I - -AN INVITATION FOR A CRUISE - - -"Oh! Jack, Ellen, come here this instant!" cried Jane Pellew in so -excited a manner that the mail rider almost fell out of his jumper in -his effort to see what it was that made Miss Jane "take on so." She -was dancing around the broad old veranda waving one of the letters he -had just handed her. - -"Too hot, Sis, and we are too comfortable," came Jack's lazy voice -from under the big ash tree that shaded one side of the porch. - -"You have enough energy for all of us, so s'pose you come to us," -Ellen called. - -"You won't be hot for long, but you are going to be very uncomfortable -in a minute." With the warning, Jane jumped off the porch and landed -in Ellen's lap, then pulled herself up quickly by means of one hand -entwined in Jack's thick chestnut hair. - -"Shut up and listen!" commanded Jane. - -"Nobody has a chance to do anything else with you around," Jack -reminded his sister. - -"Who could do anything else but listen after having a hundred and -thirty pounds of buoyant young Kentucky girl hurled on top of you from -a distance of some ten feet? I don't believe I shall ever get my -breath again," groaned Ellen. - -"I'll say you manage pretty well without it," Jane laughed. "But, as I -was saying, listen and you will hear the most wonderful piece of news -that has happened in the history of mankind," and she started reading -from the letter she had still managed to keep in her hand: - -"Dearest Jane:" - -"Bet it is from one of the Camp Fire Girls," interrupted her brother. - -"Keep quiet, I have a good mind not to tell you after all. But I am -such a nice girl I suppose I'll have to. It's from Mabel Wing. Now, -let me finish," pleaded Jane. - - "Dearest Jane: - - "As long as Ellen Birch is staying with you, read this to her, - as I am so busy I'll never have time to write two letters - saying exactly the same thing. I am sending one to Ruth Garnier - with the request that she read hers to Frances Bliss, who is - staying at her home. - - "And telegraph me whether you will or won't, but please do. I - always do things backwards even in letters. What I mean is - Daddy is going to give me a cruise on his yacht and I want you - and Ellen and Jack to come. We will leave City Island, N. Y., - July the first, and go till we get bored, up to the Maine coast - and poke around all those little islands that Daddy says grow - in the New England waters. - - "Don't bring any clothes, as there never is any place to stow - more than the bare essentials. And make Jack bring his banjo - and, of course, your bathing suits and Camp Fire clothes. - - "I'll be so disappointed I'll die if you don't. - - Hastily, - - "Mabel." - -"As if you couldn't tell it was 'hastily, Mabel,'" Jack laughed. "But -I have no idea of bringing your bathing suits and Camp Fire regalia." - -"Goose! That is just the Mabel of it. She writes just as she talks," -explained his sister. - -"What fun for all of us! But we must telegraph right away," said the -practical Ellen. - -"Here comes Father now," and Jane pointed to a red-wheeled buggy and a -briskly trotting bay horse driven up the shady approach to the -Pellews' home by the master of the house. - -The three of them ran across to meet Mr. Pellew, a man beloved by his -children's friends as much as he was respected and loved by his own. - -"Daddy dear, Mabel wants--" began Jane. - -"It will be wonderful!" put in Ellen. - -"Is it all right with you if I go too, Dad?" Jack interrupted both -girls. - -Mr. Pellew put his hands up to his ears and screamed above the hubbub: -"How can I tell whether it will be wonderful for Ellen and all right -for you or even what Mabel wants if the bunch of you try to rival the -builders of the tower of Babel?" - -"Ellen," suggested Jack, "you tell him; Jane gets too excited." - -Ellen put one hand over Jane's mouth and told Mr. Pellew of the -interesting trip Mabel and her father had planned for them. - -Squirming away from Ellen, Jane flung her arms around her father's -neck and said, "But we don't like leaving you when we have been home -from school for only such a short while." - -"It never seems to enter your scatter-brained heads that I might -oppose you in anything," Mr. Pellew smiled at his daughter. - -"You always are keen for us to have a good time," Jack explained. - -"And you went and had such clever good children that they know just -exactly what to do and what is good for them and what is bad for -them," added Jane. - -"Of course you can go and I'll be mighty glad for my children to have -such a wonderful summer. When do you expect to leave and from what -point?" inquired Mr. Pellew. - -"First of July, City Island!" came in chorus from the three. - -"Henceforth all my conversation will be nautical. Yo-ho-ho and a -bottle of two per cent substitute. Jack, do you have to have a horn or -a pipe for stage property when you want to execute a briny jig?" and -Jane began to cavort around in what she considered a truly seafaring -manner. - -"'Shiver my timbers!' and 'Scuttle her amidships!' is my contribution -to this, but I am the only person to be allowed to use these choice -phrases until some one can think up better ones. Then, of course, I'll -be glad to cash in my old ones for the new ones," was Ellen's generous -offer. - -"Son, you had better order some horses saddled directly after dinner -so you kids can ride over and send the necessary telegrams," said Mr. -Pellew to Jack. - -With an "Aye, aye, sir," Jack raced toward the stable. - -"Home is so beautiful in the summer that I can hardly bear to leave -it," sighed Jane. - -She and her father and Ellen were walking over the close-cut grass and -she cast a rather wistful eye around the lovely lawn that stretched -before the Pellew house. There were great trees whose spreading -branches had shaded her grandparents, her own father and the mother -she couldn't remember, but loved because of the sweet pictures her -father had of her. Where the lawn stopped the rolling fields of blue -grass began and Jane could see the old mare, on which she and Jack had -learned to ride, grazing contentedly. It was a hobby of her father's -never to sell the old horses on the place but to treat them as worthy -old pensioners and turn them out on the rich bluegrass pasture lands -that bordered his place. Mr. Pellew had a string of race horses famous -throughout Kentucky, and as Jane put it, she and Jack had "fallen from -the cradle into a saddle." Their father kept a model stable and Aunt -Min, who took charge of the Pellew home, often complained that the -expense of upkeep for the stable was far greater than that of their -exceedingly well run home. - -"Well, of course, I won't force you to go," teased her father. - -"Why, Jane, I thought you were perfectly wild to go," Ellen said. - -"Oh, that is the way I always behave about leaving home. I am terribly -sentimental over it and always indulge in dramatics when I go away. -You see, I am bats about all the horses and dogs on the place and I -can't help thinking about Atta Boy, the Denmark colt Dad was letting -me break for my own," Jane explained. "All the work I have put in on -him will come to nothing if he isn't ridden regularly this summer, and -Daddy doesn't have time to do it for me and I wouldn't trust anybody -else with such a peach of a colt." - -"You honor me, daughter." Mr. Pellew made a low mocking bow. "To show -my deep appreciation of the fact that you put my horsemanship on the -level with your own, I suppose I will have to promise to ride Atta Boy -every other day for you." - -"I love Kentucky too, Jane, and you can't know how much it has meant -to me to stay with you. Last summer it was too wonderful with the -other girls here but this summer it has been just splendid with you -and Jack." Ellen blushed after mentioning Jack, because he had just -been telling her what a wonderful summer it was for him with her -visiting Jane. - -"Ellen, did you ever hear this little tribute to our state?" Mr. -Pellew asked and began: - - "Ever see Kentucky grass - Or hear about its blueness? - Looks as if the whole derned earth - Was bursting out in newness. - - Skies and folks alike all smiles. - Gracious! you are lucky - If you spend a day in June - Down in old Kentucky." - -"And the more days you spend in Kentucky the luckier you are," stated -Jane. "But goodness, I sound like that girl from Virginia who was at -Hillside last year." - -Aunt Min came out on the porch and interrupted the eulogy on the -charms of Kentucky by telling them that dinner was ready. But anyone -seeing the great platter of fried chicken on the table before Aunt Min -would have said that the eulogy might well have been continued in the -spacious old dining room. - - - - -CHAPTER II - -SERGEANT MURPHY ASSISTS - - -"Jack! have you your banjo? And Ellen, have you the box of candy Daddy -gave us?" Jane called over her shoulder to the two who were sitting in -the tonneau as they were driving over to the station to catch the -train that was to take them to New York. - -"You better keep your eyes on the road if you are to keep us in the -road," gently reproved Mr. Pellew from his seat beside his daughter. - -"We've got everything we ought to have, but what have you remembered? -Nothing for a change?" teased Jack, for Jane was an almost proverbial -forgetter. - -"Anything important that you have forgotten I can parcel post to you -after I come back from New York," said Aunt Min, who was to go along -to chaperon them at the hotel in New York. The girls had some shopping -to do and were going up a few days prior to their final departure to -accomplish it. - -"Aunt Min, you are a perfect peach, and I am so glad you finally -joined the Camp Fire Girls." Ellen reached over and patted -affectionately the hand of the woman once disliked by the entire band -of Jane's friends and now the pet of all of them. - -As the car, piloted by Jane, whirled up to the station, a rather fat -young man was seen dashing frantically around, talking first to the -station agent and then to the baggage man, all the time violently -mopping his face with a huge white handkerchief. - -"There's Charlie Preston in a stew as usual," giggled Jane, pointing -to the distraught young man, who was Mabel's fiancé. - -Suddenly Charlie stopped his gyrations and his face broke into a -really charming smile. - -"I was trying to find out from some of these misguided officials if -you all had made arrangements to go on this train, for if you weren't, -I wasn't either, but not one word could I get out of them but a polite -'Speak to you after the train leaves,' and, saving your presence, Miss -Min, how the deuce would that help me?" Charlie exploded to his -friends. He was a strange mixture of calmness in times of stress and -great irritability and excitability in times of petty trials. - -"All aboa'd!" cried the white-jacketed and very black porter. - -"Oh! Daddy, good-bye, good-bye, I am going to miss you all the time, -no matter how much fun I am having," and Jane ruffled Mr. Pellew's -collar in the last of a series of bear hugs that had begun the night -before. - -"Don't make such rash promises but write me occasionally, and Jack, -you telegraph me as soon as you get to New York. I hope the rooms I -wired for will be all right. And now I am going because I won't feel -so alone if I leave before the train pulls out," he said and drove off -with a great show of bravery. - -At last they were settled comfortably for the long trip to New York, -Aunt Min with a magazine and the young people planning good times for -the few days they were to be in the city before going aboard the -yacht. - -"We can go to see Emmeline Cerrito. Jack, you know she is our -beautiful French friend who is studying for grand opera. She hopes to -make her appearance this fall. Maybe she will sing for us. I don't -think I've ever heard a lovelier voice; have you, Jane?" Ellen loved -music. - -"And Sarah Manning is in training at the Presbyterian Hospital; we -will certainly look her up and get her to come to dinner if she can -get any time off," suggested Jane. - -"I want to get something for the ship's library," said Charlie, "and I -think Carroll's 'Hunting of the Snark' would be in order. It will help -to comfort me during the first three or four days out. You know I'm -nobody's able seaman. My last year at college a bunch of us raced a -yacht down to Bermuda and I want to say that, for three days, I wasn't -anything but in the way." And poor Charlie winced at the unhappy -memory. - -"But that was one of those narrow little racing types," soothed Ellen, -"and Mabel says her father's is a regular cruising boat and awfully -comfortable." - -"Anyway, my beamish boy, I'll stick by you and play 'Heave-ho, my -hearties' on the trusty banjo while you lean o'er the rail," Jack -grinned. - -"You boys are rather horrid," said Aunt Min from behind her magazine. -"And, by the way, I expect to be taken to the theatre every night, so -don't make too many plans." - -"Tickled to death to take you to any musical comedy you pick and to -any roof garden afterwards," said Jack. "You know, nothing really -good runs in New York in the summer months." - -"And I suspect that you are not at all sorry," teased Aunt Min. - -"Speaking of plays, that reminds me that Betty Wyndham is at -Provincetown with the Provincetown Players for the summer getting -ready for next winter. She got them to take her on this spring. I know -we will go to Plymouth and if we are that near we just can't help -going to see Betty," said Ellen, planning happily. - -"So we will really see all of our friends by hook or crook during the -summer." Then Jane yawned and announced that she was going to crawl -into her berth and go to sleep. - -When New York was finally reached, it took two taxis to deposit the -travelers at their hotel. There the little party separated, Aunt Min -going to her room to rest, the boys going out to "see the town," and -Ellen and Jane going to do their shopping. - -"I love the way the New Yorkers hurry along all so intent on where -they are going and so certain they are going to get there in the end," -said Ellen. "Neither one of us has a really working knowledge of the -city so, no doubt, we will be lost one million times on the way to -Abercrombie & Fitch's." - -"Then we will just ask some genial Irish cop," said Jane lightly. "I -have never paid any attention to the ridiculous warnings of people who -say, 'Never talk to somebody you aren't certain of.' I flatter myself -that I can tell at a glance whether a person is the kind of person to -talk to or not." - -Deep in an argument in which Ellen favored getting gray flannel sport -shirts and Jane khaki ones, the two girls got on the subway. - -"We have been on here ten minutes, surely we will be there soon," said -Ellen glancing at her watch. - -"So we would," giggled the irrepressible Jane, "if we were going the -right way. I noticed just now that we were on a car marked Bronx when -we ought to be on a downtown express. I was going to give you to the -next stop to notice it; after that of course I would have told you." - -"Next time we better not talk so much," observed Ellen wisely as the -girls rose to leave the car. - -"Whew! I would like to come up for air. It's so stuffy down here I -can't think which way we ought to go. If we just had some working -hypothesis of where we are, then we might dope out some route to -take," lamented Jane. - -Both girls looked round them with rather amused expressions. Finally, -Ellen squealed and punched Jane. "There's your genial Irish cop; go -over and ask him how we must get to Abercrombie & Fitch's." - -Jane marched over to the big fat policeman, plainly from Erin. He -grinned invitingly at the world in general and, as she stopped in -front of him, at her in particular. - -"Yes, Mum," he said. - -"We took that horrid old Bronx subway and we didn't mean to," began -Jane by way of lucid explanation. - -"And not the first are ye, young lady, to do the same. Indade, it -looks to me like folks only get to the Bronx by tryin' to go some -other place," the big man announced. - -Then Jane told him where they did want to go. - -"I'm off duty now and it's goin' that way I am myself, so if it -pleases ye I'll just take ye," said Sergeant Murphy. - -Ellen had come up to them and was very profuse in her thanks, but the -Sergeant brushed them aside with a hearty "'Tis nothin'." - -The two girls seated on either side of the big Irishman kept him -grinning with their amusing chatter about nothing. The three of them -were entirely oblivious of the utter unconventionality of the -situation and would have been much surprised if they had heard the old -women across the aisle whispering to one another. - -It is certain that Ellen would have been very indignant if she had -known that the young Russian on her left had kept his hand in his -pocket all the way, so firm was the belief in his mind that she was a -pickpocket. - -Surprise showed through even the suave manner of the young salesman at -Abercrombie & Fitch's, but Ellen thought that it was brought forth by -the fact that two girls wanted such a surprising number of men's -shirts. - -As twilight came and with it no Ellen and Jane, Aunt Min began to get -worried and called the boys in consultation. They decided to wait -until time to go down for dinner and, if the girls hadn't come in -then, to notify the authorities so they might organize a search for -them. - -Aunt Min stood wringing her hands and moaning: "Such terrible things -could happen to them. Charlie, don't you remember that awful Chinaman -that killed a girl in New York and put her in a trunk where they -didn't find her for ages and ages afterwards?" - -"Ellen is so little. Oh! why didn't I go with them?" and Jack cursed -himself roundly for not taking care of the girl with whom he was in -love. - -Charlie was seated in a lounging chair taking the whole affair quite -calmly. "Jack, please behave as though you had some sense. Those girls -are about twenty years old, both of them with the average amount of -intelligence, plenty of money in their pockets, and both on the -outside of a good lunch. So they won't starve to death and, if they -are lost, they can grab a taxi and come to the hotel. I'm willing to -bet on Plain Jane's ingenuity to get 'em home even if they are both -dead and in some Chinaman's laundry bag. Probably what really happened -is that they met someone they know and went some place for tea," and -Charlie went on peacefully eating chocolate creams. - -"Oh! it is all very well for you to talk, but just suppose it was -Mabel Wing who was lost and not Ellen. How about it then?" Jack asked. - -"Mabel is too big to lose, so that is one thing I don't have to worry -about," answered Charlie. - -"Anyway, let's go down in the lobby and wait," said Aunt Min and led -the way. - -Once there they took seats facing the entrance and glued their eyes to -the door. Consequently, when the girls came in flanking a big -policeman, Aunt Min, Jack, and Charlie rose simultaneously and -advanced upon them. - -Aunt Min cried: "Thank heavens, Charlie Preston knows law! Jane -Pellew, what have you done now?" - -Jack beside himself was squeezing Ellen's hand and saying: "Ellen, I -am so glad they didn't take you to jail first. I just know Charlie and -I can fix it up with the cop." - -Charlie looked at them in a ruminating manner and murmured: "Too -happy-looking for anything to be really the matter. Wish they'd come -on and go in to dinner." - -"You are perfectly ridiculous, all of you. Aren't they, Sergeant -Murphy?" and Jane received an understanding wink from that son of the -Emerald Isle. - -"It was this way," began Ellen and told of how the big policeman had -taken them from shop to shop, and piloted them around all afternoon. - -"So when we finished shopping," broke in Jane, "I suggested that all -of us go to a movie." - -"And a fine picture it was, Mum," said Sergeant Murphy to Aunt Min, -"with that Fairbanks lad abusting things wide open with every foot of -reel." - -Jane turned to Sergeant Murphy and shaking his hand said: "Ellen and I -want to thank you for your kindness and also for giving us such a -lovely afternoon." - -"'Tis nothin'," said Sergeant Murphy. "'Twas myself that had all the -fun." - - - - -CHAPTER III - -THE BOOJUM - - -The first of July was a day so perfect that it might well have been -made to order. The brilliant blue sky held little wisps of clouds that -were scattered by a steady, gentle wind. - -"That taxi will never come and I just can't wait another instant. It -should have been here long ago. I just know we'll be late," and Jane -bobbed up from her chair and rushed to the window at the sound of -every car that passed. - -Mr. Wing had called them up the night before and asked them all to be -out at City Island by ten o'clock. He planned to have lunch and be on -the way by one. - -"Patience, my dear sister, is like--well, something or other--I can't -remember just what, but it is a good old saying," Jack flung over his -shoulder as he went to answer the knock of the boy who had come to -tell them that their taxi was waiting. - -Mabel and Mr. Wing met them and took them down to the foot of one of -the many little wharves that jutted out in the harbor. - -"Frances is already on board. There wasn't room in the tender for all -of us," Mabel explained. "Oh! I am so happy I can hardly stand it. It -almost killed me when Ruth couldn't come. You know she is taking some -sort of social service course this summer and didn't feel that she -ought to stop right in the middle of it." - -"Yes, it must have been a disappointment," agreed Ellen. "But maybe -this will cheer you up some. I had a telegram from Anne Follet this -morning saying that she and Ruth would try to be in New York for a few -days when we get back." - -"Splendid, marvelous!" bubbled Mabel, who was hard to depress for -long. - -"Miss Pellew," suggested Mr. Wing, "you come out and have lunch with -us and I'll have one of the men set you ashore directly after. I'd -like to have you see the boat." - -"You are very kind, indeed," said Aunt Min, rather hurriedly. "But -couldn't you point out your boat to me from here?" - -"What, you aren't afraid, are you?" Mr. Wing laughed that delightful -laugh that so often accompanies fatness. - -"Yes, I am," admitted Aunt Min. "But don't tell the girls or I'll -never hear the end of it." - -Mr. Wing pointed to a two-master, with a black hull. "She is the -schooner type and was built by a shipbuilder at Gloucester, so she is -as sturdy as a Gloucester fisherman, but her yachty lines give her -more speed. She's got a big Lathrop engine in her that can kick her -along at ten knots when our wind goes dead on her. She has been almost -everywhere and is perfectly able to go anywhere she hasn't been." - -It was perfectly plain to Aunt Min that boats and water were Mr. -Wing's hobby even though she hadn't understood half of what he had -said, particularly about kicking her along. What was the object in -kicking her along if there was an engine? - -"None of this fancy yachting for me," went on the black yacht's owner. -"I'm my own sailing-master because half the fun of yachting to me is -the work it entails. Why, I love the feel of the old 'Boojum' as she -answers to wheel! And let me tell you she handles quick. She is alive, -every inch of her." - -"Well, I hope there are plenty of life preservers in convenient -places. Thank heavens, all the girls can swim well!" Aunt Min looked -rather dubiously at the "Boojum" and at its owner. - -Somehow the black hull upset her. It smacked of the piratical and she -had visions of drawn cutlasses and bearded men with their heads -wrapped up in red rags. It would have been better, she thought, if the -boat had been white, as she imagined all yachts were. - -"My dear Miss Pellew, it is safe as safe can be and dry as a bone. It -takes days to get a drop in her bilges," Mr. Wing hastened to assure -her. - -"What in the world could be the advantage of it taking days to get a -drop in the bilges, and what did bilges have to do with life -preservers, and what were bilges anyway?" thought Aunt Min. But she -only said, "Well, that is very nice, I am sure." - -Mabel had been explaining to her young guests that Mr. Wing was taking -the boat out a little short-handed because he wanted all of them to -learn something about sailing. "Daddy says it is exactly twice as much -fun if every man on board has some little work to do. I adore steering -by a point of land, but I just can't bear to do it by the compass." - -"Much as I hate to tell Aunt Min good-bye, I wish we would shove off. -I am wild to see it on the inside." Jane's black eyes snapped at the -prospect. - -Soon the young people were seated in the dancing tender and, with many -good-byes to Aunt Min, they scooted through the sparkling stretch of -water that lay between them and the "Boojum." - -"Mabel, how in the world do you ever get over the side and up on -deck?" asked Ellen uneasily. - -"She is falling off a lot, I think," defended Charlie. - -"Goose, I didn't mean that. I mean, how does anybody do it?" - -"You see there is a little ladder that they hook on the side whenever -people want to get off or on and when it isn't being used, it is kept -on deck," Mabel explained. - -Two men in spotless blue denim work suits appeared on the deck as -Mabel finished speaking and lowered the sea ladder over the side of -the "Boojum." - -"Jane, you go first," whispered Ellen. - -"The water is perfectly flat today, but there will be days when it -won't be, so you might just as well begin by being careful," explained -Mr. Wing. "Step in the middle of the boat, grab hold of the sides of -the ladder and step up as lightly as you can because, if you give much -of a spring from the tender, it is liable to push us away from the -'Boojum'." - -"It is nice to know that I have you in my power," Jane laughed. - -However, Jane did not take advantage of her new found power but made -an impressive embarkation on the "Boojum." Her sureness and quickness -won a gleam of approbation from the keen gray eyes of the bronzed -young sailor, who had offered her a hand, which she smilingly refused. - -"Pretty good for a land-lubber, Jane," applauded Mr. Wing. "Now, -Ellen, see if you can do as well." - -"Ellen, you are so light, you couldn't push us away to save your -soul," said Jack rather proudly. - -"And I just bounce up from long practice," giggled Mabel. - -With all of them safe on deck, Mr. Wing gave a few orders to the two -men, telling the short Dutchman to serve lunch as soon as it was ready -and the young sailor to haul the tender up in the davits. "And Jack, -you better help Breck. Sorry to put you to work so soon." - -Mr. Wing led the way down the companion into the saloon. "I hope Mabel -can make you fairly comfortable, girls. You will feel a bit cramped at -first, but most people soon accustom themselves to it. She is very -compact and it really is just a matter of adjusting yourself to a -smaller scale. Now I must go above and see that we get under way. -Charlie, Mabel tells me you have been cruising before and I'm going to -depend a lot on you. As soon as you stow your duds, come up and help -Breck and me with the sails." - -"I'm a peach of a crew, I'll admit," and Charlie chanted: - - "The crew was complete; it included a Boots-- - A maker of Bonnets and Hoods-- - A Barrister, brought to arrange their disputes-- - And a Broker, to value their goods. - - A Billiard-marker whose skill was immense, - Might perhaps have won more than his share-- - But a Banker, engaged at enormous expense, - Had the whole of their cash in his care. - - There was also a Beaver, that paced on the deck, - Or would sit making lace in the bow: - And had often--the Bellman said--saved them from wreck, - Though none of the sailors knew how." - -"What delicious nonsense! What is it?" queried Ellen. - -"Mabel, you explain, I've got to go, for the 'Boojum's' piped all -hands on deck," and Charlie scrambled up the companion. - -"Your education has been neglected if you don't know Lewis Carroll's -'Hunting of the Snark.' Why, you do, don't you, Plain Jane?" demanded -Mabel. - -"Brought up on it," answered Jane. "Must I prove it?" - - "I engage with the Snark every night after dark-- - In a dreamy delirious fight: - I serve it with greens in those shadowy scenes, - And I use it for striking a light." - -Suddenly the brown curtains before one of the bunks that were on each -side of the saloon were flung aside, and Frances Bliss poked out a -tousled head and started, - - "But it knows any friend it has met once before; - It never will look at a bribe; - And in charity meetings it stands at the door - And collects--though it does not subscribe." - -"Plain Jane and Ellen, I am just as glad to see you as though you -hadn't waked me up. Come, salute me." - -Both girls made a dash for their disheveled friend. - -"Well, get out of Daddy's bunk and tell Ellen the tragedy of the Snark -while I take Jane into your little stateroom and show her where she -can scrouge in her clothes," commanded Mabel. - -Frances crawled out of the bunk and began, "Well, my poor little -ignorant friend, it is this way: The Snark was a fabulous creature of -great value, so great in fact that a band of worthy gentlemen set out -to catch it. This band was headed by the noble Bellman who was much -respected by the others. One of these gentlemen was a Baker and was -unfortunate enough to vanish in thin air after the Snark was caught, -because it proved to be a Boojum. Now it is all nice and clear, isn't -it, my priceless child?" - -"About as clear as mud," laughed Ellen. "I'll get a copy and read it -so I'll know what you lunatics are talking about. Anyway, I'm glad I -know where Mr. Wing got that ridiculous name for this lovely boat." - -Mabel had taken Jane into a tiny stateroom with two narrow little -bunks, one over the other. - -"The lockers are under the lower bunk and you can put your rough -clothes in there. Bring your suit and hat into my cabin and I will put -them in my closet. Ellen and I are in the 'Skipper's cabin.' It has a -double bunk that folds up against the side of the cabin and has the -only full length closet in the 'Boojum.' Consequently, the whole bunch -will have to keep their good clothes in it," said Mabel. "And now, if -you and Ellen are ready, let's go up on deck and maybe we can pick up -some dope on how to put up the sails." - -The four girls ran up the companion, the two newcomers giving their -heads a terrific bump on the main boom. - -"Mabel, you horrible creature, why didn't you tell us to duck?" wailed -Jane, holding her throbbing head. - -"No use," answered Mabel in cruel tones. "Daddy says that everybody -has to butt their heads a certain number of times on the main boom of -a yacht and the sooner they begin, the sooner it is over." Then -relenting a bit, she added, "I'll warn you to this extent; whenever we -are at anchor and whenever the sails are down, that is just where the -boom is going to be." - -The girls were standing in the cockpit, looking with admiration at the -immaculate deck gleaming in the July sun, and the shining brass work. -"Oh! just imagine keeping a house as clean as this. It would keep you -working every minute," said Ellen. - -Mr. Wing let go the rope he was coiling and turned a beaming -countenance on the girls. "I've got a splendid idea," he said. "You -girls can take entire charge of the metal work on the good ship -'Boojum' and, if I see a single dull place on it, I'll put half of you -in irons and the rest of you on hard tack and water." - -"There are no irons on board but flat irons, girls," Mabel wriggled an -unbelievable length of pink tongue at her father, "so don't let him -scare you." - -"Well, anyway I can see by your feet that you are very wise children," -said Mr. Wing as he went forward to see what Jack had done with the -rope he had been left to coil. - -"What in the world does he mean, Mabel?" giggled Frances. "Your father -is the funniest man!" - -"He means that we have all got on tennis shoes and that endears you to -the heart of any yachtsman, for it is so easy on the decks. Some yacht -owners keep an extra supply of them on hand so that anybody without -them can be supplied," explained Mabel. - -The good-looking young sailor whom Mr. Wing had called Breck came aft -to the girls and, touching the white cap that covered a very small -part of his crisp black hair, said to Mabel, "Miss Wing, the steward -says that lunch is ready in the saloon." - -"Ah, the low pleasures of the table!" said Mabel with a great show of -licking her chops, then called to the men working up forward, "Hey, -you kids, we are going to lunch and it will be all gone in about two -seconds because the lady crew is hungry as sharks and is not going to -wait for you." - -"You don't have to," and, with surprising lightness, fat Charlie -Preston jumped down the galley hatch, ignoring the ladder and had his -feet under the table before the others had time to shut the mouths -that had opened in surprise as he disappeared below. - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -ANCHOR WEIGHED - - -Mr. Wing rose from the little table that had been spread in the saloon -and said, "We'll break the anchor out with the jib as soon as Breck -has eaten. I hate this old engine like poison, though she's a good old -girl in case of emergency. But I have made it a rule not to use her -unless it is really necessary." - -"What in the world is a jib?" queried Frances with a puzzled -expression. "I thought it was some part of your face because my small -brother used to say 'If you don't shut up, Sis, I'll bust you one in -the jib.'" - -"In this case, it is the sail that is fastened on the bowsprit. There -are a lot of things to learn on a boat, but don't give up because, -before the cruise is over, you girls are going to be able to sail the -ship by yourselves and we men can take it easy; isn't that right, -Jack?" and Mr. Wing went up on deck to uncover the wheel. - -Mabel advised her friends to stay below until the "Boojum" was well -under way. There was always a great deal of excitement on deck -whenever they left a harbor and it might be just as well for all -concerned if they kept out of the way until they got the hang of -things nautical. - -Ellen borrowed "The Hunting of the Snark" from Charlie and announced -that she was going to curl up on the transom in the saloon and become -familiar enough with it by supper to beat the others at their own -game. - - "She starts, she moves, she seems to feel - The thrill of life along her keel," - -sang Frances, "and I've just simply got to go up on deck and see what -it looks like when we are going. Is it all right for me to go up now, -Mabel?" - -Just then Mr. Wing and Jack settled the question by sticking their -heads down the hatch and demanding the presence of the girls on deck. -Charlie was at the wheel and Breck was mopping up the slime that the -anchor chain had made on deck. - -"Mabel, will you take the wheel?" asked Charlie in coaxing tones. "I -want to catch a smoke and it's against the rules for the man at the -wheel to smoke." - -"Give that buoy a good berth, daughter," advised her father. - -Mabel smiled her assent, for she knew the little harbor as well as her -father, and though she had piloted the "Boojum" out some dozen times -she always got exactly the same warning about the bobbing red buoy. - -The "Boojum" slipped gracefully through the water, with all her sails -pulling. Smaller sail boats crossed her bow and their occupants gaily -waved handkerchiefs and hands to the little group on the "Boojum." - -Jack's lazy length was stretched on a striped deck mattress, while -Ellen, seated near him on a cushion, watched him with thoughtful and -admiring eyes, for in Frances' breezy western slang, Jack was "easy to -look at." Charlie talked to his fiancée and Mr. Wing pored over a -chart, mapping out a course from New London to Newport. Jane and -Frances, the two irrepressibles, unhampered by being in love, had -elected to sit as far out on the bow as they could without actually -straddling the bowsprit. They liked the sting of the salt spray on -their faces. Frances pointed to where Mr. Wing was reading the chart -and then she and Jane began in chorus: - - "He had brought a large map representing the sea - Without the least vestige of land; - And the crew were much pleased when they found it to be - A map they could all understand." - -Mr. Wing laughed and, not to be outdone, went on with the ridiculous -tale: - - "'What's the good of Mercator's North Poles and Equators, - Tropics, Zones, and Meridian Lines?' - So the Bellman would cry: and the crew would reply: - 'They are merely conventional signs.'" - -But Mabel interrupted him: - - "'Other maps are such shapes, with their islands and capes! - But we've got our brave Captain to thank.' - So the crew would protest--'that he's bought us the best-- - A perfect and absolute blank!' - -"And now Daddy you come on and take your wheel because here comes a -tug and it has three tows. It always scares me to death to meet one -of those old tugs," Mabel explained to Jane and Frances as she flopped -down beside them. "They are absolutely unscrupulous--just like road -hogs--always running into yachts on the sound. Whew! it's good to see -you kids again. Wouldn't it be terrible if there would ever be a -summer when some of us wouldn't see each other?" she paused solemnly. - -"You talk exactly as though you weren't going to marry your fat -Charlie in November," teased Frances. "You will live in Lexington near -Jane and that won't be so bad, but how about me away out on the ranch? -And it looks as if, in the course of time, that Ellen will come and -live reasonably near Jane, too." - -"Well, my good spinster friend, Frances," laughed Jane, "I reckon that -as long as we are in the same boat we will have to start a tea-room or -a poultry farm or some other stupid thing that unloved old maids do. -Oh! the tragedy of being an old maid at twenty, and the pain made more -terrible by the fact that we see the happiness of our friends so -plainly." - -"And it will be ever thus, Plain Jane, for where could we ever find a -man worthy of our splendid selves?" asked Frances. "They all fall for -me, of course, but I can't give them any encouragement, knowing my -own value as I do." - -"If we get to Lloyd's Harbor in time for a swim to-night, I am going -to duck you both," threatened Mabel, who was a veritable fish. "In the -meantime, I'll just get Charlie to make a cat o' nine tails for me. -Poor child, he will need the protection as much I do." - -"Who needs protection?" asked Charlie, who had come forward to sheet -in the staysail. - -"You," Frances promptly replied, getting a sharp dig from Mabel's -elbow in reward for her truthfulness. "Wow! Mabel, I thought you were -too well cushioned to hurt." - -"Push their noses in, Mabel," advised Charlie, "and when you have -finished, bring Jack and Ellen down to earth and tell them to go below -and put on their bathing suits. Lloyd's Harbor is just around that -point and we will make it in about fifteen minutes. Soon as we drop -anchor, we all want to go over the side. This harbor is a dandy place -to swim." - -The girls dashed below, scrambled into their suits and returned to -their place forward to find that the "Boojum" was nosing its way into -one of the loveliest little harbors on the eastern coast. One side of -the mouth of the harbor was marked by a high bit of wooded land that -sloped gently down to the curved sandy beach. - -"The wonderful smell that is in the air," Ellen whispered to Jack. "I -imagine lotus flowers are like that. The land where it is always -afternoon. Why, I could stay here forever and ever." - -"And I would have to be with you, for lotus-eaters forget all the past -and dream and dream away their lives, and I don't want to be forgotten -for one little minute." - -"I wouldn't worry about that, Jack. I couldn't forget you for an -instant, not if I ate lotus for years and years." - -"Hey, you Jack, stop talking sweet nothings. Mr. Wing has called you -three times to see that the anchor is ready to heave over," and Jane -gave her brother a shove in the direction of the anchor. - -"For heaven's sake, Jane, I wish you would look at Breck! What on -earth can he be doing?" Frances pointed to where Breck was leaning -over the hand-rail earnestly spitting, with Mr. Wing eagerly watching. - -"Mr. Wing," called Jane, "is there anything I can do for Breck? Lemon -is awfully good for seasickness, Aunt Min says." - -Mr. Wing's fat face turned purple with the effort not to laugh and -Breck finally chuckled. - -"Ridiculous, Jane," said the "Boojum's" owner, "that is the sailor's -best method of telling whether a ship has lost her way or not. You -see, you don't want to drop anchor while the ship is still moving, and -if you spit over the side you can tell easily how fast you are going." - -"Well, no wonder I didn't understand! Who would?" demanded Jane. - -"It was a perfectly natural mistake, Miss Pellew," said Breck. - -"Jane, as a Camp Fire Girl, you should thoroughly approve of the -infinite resources of nature," teased Frances. - -"I do think it is an awfully good idea, but, didn't it look funny?" -agreed Jane. - -"Breck, you better let out a little more chain," ordered Mr. Wing. -"And Jane, I'm going to show you and Frances how to let down the -dinghy from the davits, so you girls can be independent of Charlie and -Jack. There is not much chance of getting those two to do anything for -any girls except Mabel and Ellen and there might be a time when you -would want to take the boat when Breck and I were ashore." - -Frances and Jane lowered away at the ropes, taking care, in accordance -with Mr. Wing's advice, to let the stern hit the water before the bow -so as not to ship any water. - -"Watch me, Plain Jane, and profit by my courage," cried Frances, -grabbing a rope and sliding down it into the water. - -"Rather get my head in first," said Jane; and her body shot out from -the hand-rail, describing an arc before she sank into the water, -leaving barely a ripple. - -"Great stuff, you kids, but I am too fat and have to wend my -middle-aged way down the sea-ladder," and Mr. Wing did it. - -Soon all of them were in, Frances, Mabel and Jane, romping around like -young seals, Mabel pursuing the other two, round and round the -"Boojum" in her efforts to duck the two teasers. - -"It's terrible just to be able to do this silly little side stroke," -wailed Ellen to Mr. Wing and Jack, "when all the other girls swim the -trudgeon, double overarm and Australian crawl just like -professionals." - -"Come on, Jack, let's teach her," said the father of one of the envied -ducks. - -The two men started teaching Ellen the difficult feat of breathing -with the head on one side when the arm comes up for the stroke and -exhaling with the head under water. Ellen strangled and spluttered -about for a while, as beginners do, time after time, reversing the -order and breathing in under water and choking when she came up for -the breath she was unable to take. After patience on the part of the -pupil and teachers, she began making noble attempts to combine the -breathing with the actual stroke. - -Jane and Frances had clambered up over the stern of the dinghy which -had been made fast at the end of the lowered boat-boom and were -engaged in a spirited discussion of the value of salt water swimming -and the value of fresh water swimming. - -"Frances, look! Did you ever see such a beauty in your life?" Jane -gasped as she watched a tall, broad-shouldered, slender-hipped figure -in a maroon swimming suit poise itself on the extreme end of the -bowsprit before making the most perfect jack-knife dive either of the -girls had ever seen. - -"Whew! the brown of his legs and shoulders against that dark red of -his suit was just too beautiful to be true," asserted Frances. "And -Jane, do you know who it was? Well, it was Breck and he has no right -to be so gorgeous looking." - -"He uses perfectly good English, whenever he speaks, which is seldom. -What in the world do you suppose he is?" Jane asked. - -"I think he is awfully interesting, and I wish I knew something about -him. He makes such a point of being just one of the men employed by -Mr. Wing that I can't help feeling that he isn't an ordinary sailor, -Jane." - -"Well, probably if we hadn't seen him make that peach of a jack-knife -and he hadn't had that maroon bathing suit but some old faded grey -one, we would probably never have given him a second thought, so let's -don't anyway. Come on and get dressed, I am hungry as a shark." Jane -lightly dismissed the subject that interested her a great deal more -than she cared to admit. - - - - -CHAPTER V - -AT THE LANDING OF THE PILGRIMS - - -"I feel just exactly like the Pilgrim Fathers, don't you, Mr. Wing?" -Jane said as she and Frances climbed up the wharf ladder from the -dinghy. - -These two girls and Mr. Wing had grown to be the closest of friends -and it had become a habit for them to take the little dinghy when the -party went ashore, leaving the tender for the others. Mr. Wing had -proved himself a delightful companion. In fact, as Frances said: "He -is every bit as crazy as we are." - -"You will love Plymouth, and then I want to sail you over to -Provincetown, too. It is not nearly so charming as Plymouth, but it is -interesting at that. Primarily, it is a fishing village but a lot of -artists summer there and, sometimes, they have rather good -exhibitions." - -Twilight had just settled over the little town as the three started up -the hill from the water front. There was a great peace about the -streets and a gentle quietness over all the houses. The pilgrims -walked along without speaking, taking in the simple beauty of the -white houses, guarded by tremendous elms. - -"And we have the nerve to talk about the Southern homes as if they -were the only homes worth mentioning," said Jane suddenly. "Of course -these are very different but I like them." - -Mr. Wing smiled. "You know," he said, "that these houses are to me -very much like the New England people, strong, simple and dignified -and infinitely beautiful." - -"It would be a wonderful place to come and grow very old in and a -wonderful place to have had as your childhood home, but somehow I -can't imagine it for schoolboys and girls, can you?" mused Frances. - -"Well, Jane," said Mr. Wing, as they neared the center of town, -"Frances and I have a bunch of telegrams and letters to send and, if -you don't want to bore yourself by waiting around for us, why don't -you go up to the top of that hill where the graveyard is and look -around--it is very lovely--and then meet us and our daughters and -brothers and friends at the Samoset House in an hour. I thought it -would be kind of fun to have dinner there to-night. It is famous for -its food." - -"That will be dandy, if Frances will promise to send Daddy a telegram -for me saying that Jack and I are still alive and kicking. I have been -having too wonderful a time to write as much as I should and I know he -will want to know what has become of me," and Jane started up the hill -to the cemetery. - -Looking around, she was rather pleased to find that she was the only -person in sight. She went over to a great tree and sank down into the -deep soft grass, leaning her head back against the tremendous trunk. -Jane thought it was a great pity that most people had such a morbid -distaste for the resting place of the dead. She had never seen -anything more beautiful than this high hill covered with old -tombstones and trees whose spreading branches arched above her. A -faint wind rustled among the many leaves and the warm air was filled -with a delicate fragrance. - -Suddenly the base of the hill shone with misty lights and an -involuntary exclamation of wonder fell from her lips as she gazed at -the beauty of the scene that stretched before her. Even the -realization that the sudden change had come with the turning on of -the town's electric street lights failed to mar the enchantment she -felt. - -"It would make a perfect illustration for Dunsany's tale 'The Edge of -the World,'" announced a man's voice close beside her. - -Jane turned her head with a peculiar feeling that nothing was unusual -with this strange setting. It was Breck. - -"Yes, and I would like to see a real artist do a huge canvas of it, -wouldn't you?" she said. - -"If he could get that unreal light that just burst forth," Breck said. - -There was the clang-clang of a passing trolley car and the spell was -broken. Jane's thoughts came crashing back to reality. What in the -world did Breck know about Dunsany and art? And if he did know about -them, as it was evident that he did, what could be his object in being -a paid sailor on a rich man's yacht? - -However, it was Breck's business and, if he did not wish to throw any -light on the subject, she would not pry into his affairs but she felt -that he was conscious of the slip he made. Breck's confusion was -evident, so the girl casually asked what time it was and told him that -she had to meet her friends for dinner and so was going. She smiled -good-bye and walked off down the hill. - -Jane left Breck rapt in admiration for a girl who was alive and -interested in everything and thoroughly feminine, but had tact enough -to keep from trying to divine some one else's secret. - -He thought that he couldn't imagine his sister or any of her friends -refraining in so quietly sympathetic a manner from rushing in where -angels feared to tread. All of these girls had a breezy out-doorsy way -with them that he liked and he wished that that same sister of his -might have joined a Camp Fire organization before she made her very -successful debut. All of which thoughts were strange thoughts for an -ordinary deck-hand to be entertaining in a mystic cemetery when he -ought--if he was to stay in character--to be guzzling a plate of beans -at a "Quick and Dirty." - -The others were waiting for Jane at the Samoset when she got there, -rather out of breath from her fast walk. - -"Jane looks so mysterious, I am sure she must have had a million -adventures," teased Frances. - -"You might tell us about them if you did," Ellen said. "We made a very -ordinary trip from the boat to shore, landing as usual." - -"Well, you know I went to the cemetery and it is almost traditional -that strange things happen in graveyards," was all that could be -forced from Jane. - -"If she won't divulge the horrid secret, let's feed. My appetite is -straining on the leash," suggested Charlie. - -Mabel giggled. "Charlie, I didn't even know you had a leash for it." - -The little party entered the beautifully simple dining room that was -typical of the Samoset and began one of the most delicious dinners in -the history of the cruise. - -On the way back to the "Boojum," Jack said to Ellen, "In all my life I -never tasted anything as good as that duckling." - -And much to his delight she answered, "Yes it was good and it is -cooked by just the recipe my grandmother taught me. I believe you will -like my duckling just as much as you liked the Samoset's." - -"I'll adore yours, Ellen." - -Again on deck, Mr. Wing looked at the sky with the searching glance of -a seaman. "We just did make it in time. In about five minutes we are -going to have an awful big rain. Looks like she was coming up to -blow, too. Hope we won't drag. This is a poor harbor." - -Before the girls had got into their bunks, the rain Mr. Wing had -foreseen was beating in through the open portholes and down the hatch. - -Jack and Charlie went rushing about closing portholes and shutting the -hatch. "It is going to be one stuffy night; I never can sleep without -plenty of air," observed Charlie. - -"Stop putting on airs, Charlie; you could sleep if there wasn't any -air in the whole universe, and you know it," Jack corrected him. - -Jane and Frances, overcome by giggles as usual, were trying to twist -the ventilators in their room so the rain didn't trickle in on them. - -Mabel opened her stateroom door and peered through the crack. -"Children and Daddy, I hate to be horrid, but you have simply got to -stop smoking and go to bed and, if you go to sleep right away, you -won't miss not smoking. You see, without any air in the place, the -smoke can't get out and it all seems to come through my door some way. -Anyhow, Ellen and I are simply gasping for breath." - -Moved by the pitiful picture of Ellen and Mabel clutching their soft -throats and writhing on the floor in the agonies of suffocation, -Charlie and Jack immediately put out their cigarettes. - -"Greater love than this has no man, that he put out his cigarette to -please a girl," paraphrased Mr. Wing. "I am going up on deck to see if -they are holding all right. I hear Breck up there and I can finish my -cigar in all the wind and rain. Do you hear that, Mabel? We are going -to have a lively night." - -Frances was almost asleep when Jane asked her, "Do you know whether -Breck has a slicker or not? It must be horrid on deck in all this -wet." - -"Why Jane, how funny! How should I know about what clothes Breck has? -This is the first bad weather we have had." - -In the other cabin Ellen was saying to Mabel, "Ugh! listen to the -wind, and the groaning of the rigging, and the plash, plash of the -water slopping against the poor old 'Boojum's' sides." - -Soon they were all asleep, the wind and rain unheeded. The steward -snored with a series of really interesting variations, with such -carrying powers that it was fortunate that all the seafarers were good -sleepers. The waves had become choppy and hit the "Boojum's" sides -with angry little smacks. In spite of the lashings on the pilot -wheel, the rudder thudded to and fro. - -Suddenly Mabel waked to find herself gouging into the bunk with her -fingernails in much the attitude of some one climbing a steep clay -bank, and her legs entirely out of the bunk. Ellen had slipped down on -top of her and would surely have been on the floor had not Mabel's -bulk stopped her. - -"Daddy," Mabel called in the purely conversational tone in which one -might say, "Will you have cream or lemon?" "Is this boat right?" - -"Why, of course it is. It is the rightest little boat in the Eastern -Yacht Club." Even when half asleep Mr. Wing was the proud possessor of -"the best little schooner that ever set sail." - -"Wake up quick and see!" commanded Mabel. "Something is the matter -with the boat or my bed is broken and you have to do something in -either case." - -By this time, everybody aft was more or less awake. - -"Did you ever hear such fascinating sounds as the steward is making? I -would adore to arrange the orchestration for them and call it -'Nocturnal Arabesques' or something," Jane said to Frances. "But -isn't it funny, I am sleeping on the side of the ship instead of in my -bunk and the rail around my little bunk is like a ceiling over my head -and my bunk is like a wall! What do you suppose is the matter?" - -"I'm just the same way," giggled Frances. "And I know we ought to feel -excited and be running around with streaming fists and clenched hair -and we just lie here upside down and giggle and talk nonsense. We have -probably hit a rock or something and we will all be drowned like -rats." - -Mr. Wing crawled in their cabin with much the same method a fly walks -along the ceiling. He came in just in time to hear the end of Frances' -speech. "You don't seem to be making much effort to save yourself," he -laughed. "But I'll save you the anxiety you don't seem to feel and -tell you that nothing serious is the matter. We just anchored in too -shallow water. While the tide was in, it was all right, but the tide -is out now and we are turning turtle and are lying in the mud on our -beam ends. There is no danger; it just means that we will be a bit -upset till the tide comes in. Then we will beat it over to -Provincetown." - -"You girls put on kimonos and come into the saloon. I stuck my head -down the galley hatch and found Breck prying the steward out from -behind the stove where he slipped when we did our flip. I told him to -make some coffee and it will be here in a minute," Jack announced -thrusting a wet and tousled head into the cabin. - -"When I was a kid, I used to wonder how the heathen Chinee could walk -upside down on the other side of the world, but I see now that it was -quite simple compared to this," Charlie said as he landed the girls on -the least perilous of the transoms. - -"You certainly bruised us enough doing it. The last time Mabel -slipped, you steadied yourself by grabbing my left ear," said Frances -ruefully. - -"And my poor head," laughed Ellen. "Charlie reminded me of the -Bellman, don't you remember?-- - - "'Just the place for a Snark!' the Bellman cried, - As he landed his crew with care; - Supporting each man on the top of the tide - By a finger entwined in his hair." - -"You kids are certainly peaches," and Mr. Wing literally beamed. "Here -you are quoting 'The Hunting of the Snark' and laughing and chatting -just as if you weren't cold and upside down and everything." - -Just then Breck came in with a steaming coffee pot, in some mysterious -way maintaining his equilibrium. - -"Fortunately the steward didn't hear your remark about the -orchestration of his snores, or I don't believe you would have got -your coffee so soon," Breck said in an undertone to Jane as he handed -her her cup. - -Jane thought, as she sipped her coffee, that perhaps gray eyes were -better suited for twinkling than any other eyes. - - - - -CHAPTER VI - -BETTY WYNDHAM, ACTRESS - - -With the incoming tide, the "Boojum" had righted herself and was soon -under way. The tremendous rain had ceased as abruptly as it had begun -and the sun shone valiantly as if to make up to the little party for -the trick the tide, vassal of the moon, had played on them the past -night. The winds had churned the water into choppy little waves that -foamed against the "Boojum's" eager bow. - -"I just adore this jerky motion," Jane confided to Frances. "But I -wonder how long I'll adore it. It reminds me of the time I went on a -hunt on a Standard-bred trotter. I got there in time to see the dogs -nab the poor fox, but I'm here to say I took an oath that that was the -last time I would ride anything but a saddle horse." - -"I like this too," agreed Frances. "It's the most exciting sail we -have had yet. We are certainly scooting along. Whee! look at the spray -come flying up over the bowsprit. Let's go and get on the grating. I -don't believe either one of us is going to be sick, 'specially if we -stay up on deck." - -These two were nearly always to be found lying flat on the grating in -the bow when they were sailing. As a concession to Mr. Wing, they had -agreed to hold on to each other with one hand and on to the grating -with the other. - -"Are you two young tars feeling fit still!" Mr. Wing asked them. -"Ellen and Jack are below looking pretty miserable and, of course, no -power on earth will drag them up in the air. Ellen said that, if she -saw the waves, she knew it would be all over with her." - -"Yes, we saw them, when we went below to get extra sweaters. I believe -Jack would like to come up, but he doesn't want to leave Ellen. Ellen -would be much better off by herself, but she doesn't like to hurt -Jack's feelings. There is nothing to do with people like that so we -might as well forget them. It won't be so long before we fetch -Provincetown and then they will be all right." And Jane dismissed the -tragedy of the seasick lovers with a grin. - -Mr. Wing had been watching a fast little schooner ahead of them. "Hey -you, Charlie!" he called to the man at the wheel. "You stop talking -to Mabel, and watch what you are about. We are pointing lots higher -than that white schooner. Mabel, you come up here and play with these -kids and Charlie and I will see if we can't overhaul that boat on our -next tack." - -Obediently Mabel slid and skidded along the slippery, slanting deck, -and sat down with one arm around the mast. - -"Daddy is so funny," she said. "We would have got there just as -quickly if we had gone on as we were. We are a little off our course -now, but Daddy likes to use every puff of wind." - -"And I am going to as long as I sail a yacht. If I ever get to running -a steamboat or a ferry to Jersey, I might change, but as long as I run -the 'Boojum' she sails." - -"Well hush your fuss and run along now. You can sail backward if you -want to," giggled Mabel, who always had the attitude that her father -was her kid brother. - -"Honestly, Mabel, this is the most wonderful day of all, but then it -seems that every day is better than the last," said Jane. - -"And won't it be fun to see old Betty Wyndham? We ought to have some -kind of Camp Fire party. The only thing that I have against the -'Boojum' is that we can't have a camp fire on her." - -"But s'pose Betty has got too grown-up to like that sort of thing," -ventured Frances. - -Jane shook her head at this. "I had a letter from her just before we -left and she told me that she had just been to a clambake with some of -the players, and, if she likes that, I know she will like to have a -regular old-timer with us." - -"She will be surprised to see us. Can't you just see her eyes widening -behind those big bone glasses?" Mabel stretched her own eyes wide. -"And look, I can just see the monument to the Pilgrim Fathers now. We -will be there soon." - -"Oh!" Frances sighed. "Much as I want to see Betty I wish this sail -would never end. I get so excited I can hardly stand it and, when the -spray lands on me, I want to shout." - -"You are just a modern pagan," said Mabel looking at Frances' vivid -color and sparkling eyes, "and a mighty pretty one too." - -"Away, thou perfidious flatterer. And me freckled as a guinea egg! -Jane, pinch her for me." - -"You young'uns get the anchor free. We are going to drop it soon as -we lose our way," called Mr. Wing. - -Jane jumped up from her place and took off the ropes that held the -anchor, and, balancing it with one hand in a thoroughly professional -manner, began spitting over the side in the way she had found so -ridiculous in Breck and Mr. Wing a few days since. - -"All the way is lost now," Jane cried in semi-nautical tones that made -Breck smile as he pushed the anchor over the side. - -Little fishing boats were moored and anchored all around the "Boojum" -and soon men had come up on all the decks after the fashion of sailors -to see what the latest ship looked like. - -Jane and Frances were at the davits, letting down the dinghy as Jack -and Ellen came up from below, looking as Frances said rather "pale and -pellucid." - -"Now, gents," began Mabel bouncing up to the little group at the -davits, "we girls are going ashore and see Betty and we are going to -have a regular reunion of the Camp Fire Girls and we don't want any of -you, much as we love you separately and collectively, to bother us. -We'll take the dinghy and spend the night with Betty if there is room -and if there isn't we'll take her to a hotel for, goodness knows, -there isn't room on board for another thing." - -"And Jane and I are the ablest little seawomen in the bunch so we are -going to row you and Ellen, Mabel," and Frances steadied the dinghy -with a far-reaching foot and leg, while Jane dropped over the side and -put in the rowlocks. These two had long since waived the formality of -the sea-ladder. - -"Breck!" called Jane to the sailor, "you put over the sea ladder and -we'll row around to starboard and take on our middle-aged passengers." - -"Middle-aged passengers nothing," shrieked Mabel. "You just hold the -dinghy steady and we'll get over here. As if I wasn't doing this long -before you were born!" - -"Well, doesn't that prove your middle age?" teased Frances. - -"I'd drop this little grip on your head, Captain Kidd, if I wasn't -afraid I'd upset my fellow sufferer, Mabel," announced Ellen, as she -handed the little grip that held their nighties down to Frances. "I am -so thoughtful, none of you remembered that you ought to have -toothbrushes and combs if we are going to stay on shore tonight. How -would you get on in this world without useful me to think about -everything for you?" - -"Be sure to allow enough rope for the drop in the tide," Jane -cautioned Frances as she made the painter fast to a big iron ring sunk -in the dock. - -"Plain Jane, now you just hush up. I'd like to know who it was that -tied the dinghy at Newport the time we came back from the movies and -found the poor thing standing on its stern with its nose up in the -air?" - -"Let's go to the post office first, and see if there is any mail for -us at general delivery," suggested Ellen. "Then we can set about the -search for our little pal Betty." - -Just as the girls were going into the post office, a hurrying girl ran -into them. "Pardon--well of all things!" she cried. - -"Why, Betty, what luck. Why didn't you knock us down?" - -"What fun to see you again," they all said at once and drew amused -smiles from the group in the post office. - -"Come on to my room. I'm staying with the dearest little old lady in -the world. Several of the other players have rooms with her too and -we tear off a lot of fun when we aren't working," Betty told them as -they went along the street. - -"What ducky little houses these are," Jane said to Frances. "But not -as charming as Plymouth do you think, Betty?" - -"I think that the Greenwich Villagers, who come here for the summer, -leave their mark just as they do everywhere. It is really more -attractive in the winter when just the natives themselves are here," -explained Betty. - -Soon they were all in Betty's neat room, lolling about on the bed, -eating chocolates, and examining Betty's new snapshots and possessions -and exchanging adventures. After Betty had been duly told of the upset -at Plymouth, they all began to plan how they were to hold their -reunion. At last, they decided on a clambake as the best. - -The little old lady who owned the house agreed to let them have a room -with a double bed in it and by doubling up in one room and tripling up -in the other they thought they could pass the night ashore. - -As soon as the sun set, the five friends trooped down to the beach -and, gathering driftwood enough to bake all the clams in the world, -started a huge campfire. - -"Um, I think baked clams are the most delicious things in the world," -said Jane as she ate her last one. - -"Honestly, children, I am just too glad that you came by to see me. I -was wondering how I was going to get through the summer without seeing -at least some of the Camp Fire Girls," Betty smiled at the girls. - -"I wish you had time to go for a few days' sail with us. Don't you -suppose you could?" Mabel begged. - -"It is dear of you to ask me and you know there is nothing in the -world I would like better, but I really am too busy. You know I am -working particularly hard so I can get to New York to hear Emmeline -sing." - -"We will see you then at any rate, 'cause we are going to be back in -time for that too," and Mabel gave Betty a clammy hug. - -"Doesn't that driftwood make the most gorgeously colored flame?" Ellen -asked dreamily. "I always wonder about driftwood, what it was before -it was cast up on the beach." - -"It is rather terrible to think how much of it was once ships, and by -the way, would you mind if I said you a piece I ran across the other -day? It isn't exactly cheerful but I like it," and Betty began a -weird minor wail in her rich deep voice-- - -"Whew! what a blood curdler!" interrupted Jane. "Stop it! stop it! It -gives me the creeps." - -"Let's save it until a sunny day and have something soothing to go to -bed on," suggested Ellen, shivering. "Why don't we end this reunion by -singing some of our own Camp Fire songs?" - -The five Camp Fire Girls began their favorite Good Night song: - - "Now our Camp Fire fadeth, - Now the flame burns low, - Now all Camp Fire Maidens - To Slumberland must go. - May the peace of the lapping water - The peace of the still starlight, - The peace of the firelit forest - Be with us through the night. - The peace of our firelit faces - Be with us through the night." - - - - -CHAPTER VII - -EXPLORING GLOUCESTER - - -"Gloucester! Oh, Jane, isn't it great?" Frances said to Jane as they -stood on either side of the mast while the "Boojum" was picking her -way into the harbor. - -Both sides of the harbor were lined with schooners. The sky was barely -perceptible through the rigging of the ships, so tightly were they -wedged in around the docks. At Provincetown the cruisers had learned -of the fishermen's strike but they had not realized that it meant that -the entire fishing fleet of Gloucester would be riding at anchor in -the harbor. - -"Gloucester's sky line isn't anything but masts, is it?" - -"No, but look Jane! They just let the sails go any way and they are -all spilling in the water and look at all those Irishman's pennants," -and Frances pointed out innumerable ropes let to drag in the water. - -"The crews must have dropped anchor and dashed ashore without doing a -single thing towards snugging ship. I suppose there is lots to be said -for the fishermen, but I don't see how they could bear to leave those -dandy schooners all messy like that. And whew! smell the fishy smell." - -Jane and Frances had learned really to love the sea and to have deep -feeling for the ships. It actually hurt them to see these sturdy -fishing boats so deserted. - -"Why, do you know, Frances, it seems just as cruel to me as if I had -given Atta Boy a hard run and turned him into his stall and left his -saddle and bridle on and rushed off without rubbing him down and -forgotten to feed him and everything. It doesn't seem human," Jane -grew quite indignant. - -"Did you notice that long black schooner, the 'Josephine R,' how she -was pulling on her anchor chain, looked as if she wasn't going to -stick around much longer and stand for this careless treatment? I'll -bet she is an imperious lady." - -There was no sign of life on any of the many boats riding at anchor. -The sun had set and each one should have shown a riding light, but -none did, nor did it seem likely that they would. Yet it seemed that -each boat was in itself alive and indignantly complaining to its -neighbor of the careless treatment it had received at the hands of the -crew. As Frances said, the "Josephine R" looked as though she had no -intention of putting up with such inconsideration. - -Jane had been at the wheel all afternoon with Breck near enough and -ready to help her if she got off her course or if she wanted any of -the sails hauled in. Mr. Wing had said that Jane was farther advanced -in her nautical education than any of the other girls because she had -come to the stage where she not only knew when something was wrong -about the sails but she knew just what to do to make it right and -could get almost as much out of the "Boojum" as its owner could. - -The silent Breck had become quite talkative, responding to Jane's -naturalness as everyone else always did. He had told her about -Gloucester and some of the amusing tales about the sportiness of the -Gloucester fishermen even while they were hard at work off the Grand -Banks. They had both read Kipling's "Captains Courageous" and Jane was -eager to know more of the delightful little town, and the sturdy -independent people who lived in it. - -"They know the sailing game better than anybody else in the world and -you can tell a Gloucester crew and ship a long ways off just by the -way she sails. And the risks they take! When most captains give order -to put in a reef or two these Gloucester chaps just crack on more -canvas and walk away. And they know all these waters like you would -know your own top drawer," he had told her. - -And she had laughed at this last and answered that that showed how -little he knew about her, because neither she nor anyone, not even a -Gloucester fisherman, could sail through the conglomerate mess in her -uncharted top drawer. - -Then she had asked how he happened to know so much about Gloucester -and had bitten her lip the minute she had said it, for that was the -one thing she had meant not to do, question him about himself. - -But Breck had answered her with a smile and a vague "Oh, I stayed here -once." - -As she stood beside Frances, she mentally ran over the little talks -she had had with Breck and realized more acutely how clever he was, -how quick his perception, and keen his observation of people were. How -she would have loved to have him take her through Gloucester and show -her all the narrow little streets that ran back from the water, and -which he had pictured so vividly to her. "Why are things as they are?" -she asked herself. "I know Breck would like to ask me to go ashore -with him tonight because he almost said so and yet he won't because he -is in Mr. Wing's employ as a deck hand. As if that would make any -difference, and anyway, I know he isn't just an ordinary deck hand! He -is twice as nice as anybody I have ever known and if he doesn't ask -me, I've a good mind to ask him to take me myself." - -"Jane! Jane! do stop dreaming, and let's go below and get supper. -That's the second time Mabel has called us," said Frances, giving her -a little shake. "If I didn't know you weren't I would certainly say -you were in love. Anyway you have all the symptoms." - -During supper, Jane determined that she would not let ridiculous -little conventionalities prevent the promoting of her new found -friendship with Breck. Clandestine meetings and common intrigue were -entirely foreign to her straightforward self and so she decided that -she would just tell the others that she was going to ask Breck to set -her ashore and go with her to telegraph Aunt Min her next post office -address. - -"And Breck has been to Gloucester before and, while we are ashore, I -am going to come right out and ask him if he won't take me through -some of those little narrow streets on the water front," she confided -to Mr. Wing up on deck directly after supper. - -"Yes, I would if I were you," Mr. Wing advised her. "I think Breck is -thoroughly interesting, and to be bromidic, he is one of 'nature's -gentlemen' if not one of society's. Besides, from little things he let -drop one night when we were on the same watch, I believe he took this -job for some definite reason other than for self-support. Often I have -wished he would mix a bit more with us. You are the only one of the -girls he even notices. Sometimes I think he isn't awfully -happy--anything you can do with him or for him, Plain Jane, will be -heartily approved by the skipper, I can assure you." - -Their conversation was stopped by the appearance of Breck through the -galley hatch. "If you are ready, Miss Pellew, I will be very glad to -take you to the Western Union," he said very formally. - -"Heavens!" thought Jane, "he is all stiff again. How can I unbend him -so he will be limber as he was this afternoon. I will begin with some -clever, original remark about the weather." - -But Breck anticipated her by saying politely, "When we get up as far -north as Portland, I expect we will see some northern lights." Then -warming to his subject he continued, "I believe you said you had never -been north before. I do hope we have a chance to see the lights then, -because I know you would love them." - -"Unswallowing his poker already," mentally commented Jane. "This trip -will no doubt turn out all right." Aloud she said frankly, "Breck, I -love to talk to you. You always sound as if you had knocked about such -a lot--just what I always wanted to do and would have done, no doubt, -if I hadn't been born Jane instead of John." - -Breck smiled at this open compliment and again compared her with his -blasé sister and her group of friends suffering from a heavy boredom. -"A bit too much, according to some people's way of thinking," he -answered rather grimly. - -"Well, of course, half of the world doesn't approve of what the other -half does and disapproval makes an almost impassable barrier against -understanding, but let's hurry to the telegraph office and then you -will poke around this funny little place with me, won't you?" Jane -demanded as they clambered up the wharf ladder. - -"I am hoping for several replies to messages I sent at the last port," -Breck told her as they walked along the narrow sidewalk that went past -old and battered warehouses and sail lofts. - -"Everything even on land at Gloucester has got to do with sea, ships -or sailors in some way," Jane said as she observed the different signs -in the shop windows, advertising sailors' outfits, slickers, rubber -boots reaching to the hip and sou'westers. - -At the Western Union office, Jane sat down to write her message to -Aunt Min and Breck went to the desk. Jane heard him ask if any -telegrams for Allen Breckenridge had been received. The clerk gave him -two after the usual frantic search through the files. Over the first -one he read Jane saw him knot his brows into a frown and she was much -relieved when the frown changed into a broad grin at the perusal of -the second message. - -"Allen Breckenridge," Jane thought, "what a peach of a name. I always -thought Breck was a mighty little name for such a big man. I wish to -goodness he would tell me why he is doing what he is. And I wish I -wasn't so awfully much interested in him." - -"Are you finished now?" he smiled down at her, "because if you are, -let's get out on the street. All the men off the boats are wandering -around, looking at the barometers in the different shop windows, just -as if they were interested in the weather now as when on board their -schooners. Poor chaps, I reckon they are at a loss for something to -do. These New Englanders don't know the gentle art of loafing like the -Southerners do." - -"Why Breck," laughed Jane. "How can you, when you know I am from old -Kentuck'? Aren't you ashamed?" - -"But you are different, you know, certainly different from my notion -of the southern girl. I had always thought of them as lying around in -hammocks and eating chocolates during the day and refusing heartbroken -young men's proposals most of the night." - -"But they don't refuse all the young men apparently because I had to -give exactly nine wedding presents this spring. And, besides, I eat an -awful lot of candy," Jane objected. - -"Anyway, I'll say it again. You are different. Do you mind if I -compliment you in rather a horsy way? You handle yourself better than -any girl I ever saw. I would give a lot to see you on a horse too, by -the way." - -"Thanks, Breck! That is one of the nicest things I ever had said to me -and, of course, I don't mind, why should I?" - -"Oh, just the difference in our positions," Breck answered, looking at -her very keenly with his clear gray eyes. - -"That is the first thing I have heard you say that I didn't like. -'Position' is a ridiculous word and one I don't choose to recognize. -And, in the second place, you know perfectly well that I was obliged -to hear you ask for messages for Allen Breckenridge, so you evidently -aren't exactly what you seem, not that it is anything either for or -against you." - -"Forgive me, I knew you would feel like that, but I just wanted to be -sure. Allen Breckenridge is my name, but it seems an awful lot of name -to sail under so I just chopped it off to suit me. Wonder what the -family would say to the mutilation of the name." Breck chuckled at the -thought. - -"If they are at all like the Kentucky Breckenridges, I can tell you. -They would dilate their nostrils and pinch in their lips and say, -'Really, it doesn't seem possible that anyone could do such a -ridiculous thing!'" Jane imitated the family hauteur. - -"I can see that you know them all right," Breck said. "They are a -funny bunch, aren't they?" His face took on the grave look that it so -often wore and that had caused Mr. Wing to confide in Jane that he did -not believe Breck was very happy. - -It was a look that Jane hated to see there because she was so -powerless to help him. She could not comfort him in ignorance of his -trouble and her dread of intruding in his private affairs kept her -from trying to discover it. Jane put her arm through his and said, -"It's getting late, Breck, we had better go back." - -Not until they were again on board the "Boojum" did either of them -realize that, after all, they had seen very little of Gloucester. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - -WHAT FRANCES FOUND - - -"Portland harbor is so beautiful that I hate to leave it," Ellen said -to the other girls as they were getting under way. - -"So do I," agreed Mabel. "There never was anything so lovely as that -harbor with the lighted bridge running across it." - -"And it just seemed too wonderful to be true for those northern lights -to appear on top of everything else. I would have given anything if -the rest of you had been up on deck to see them too. I didn't know -what had happened till Breck stuck his head up through the galley -hatch and told me," Jane said. - -"Speaking of Breck," Frances put in, "have you ever seen anything like -the change in that gentleman? When we first came on board, he was -silent as the grave and solemn as any owl, and now he works around on -deck, whistling and he talks a lot more. And," she added, "he knows -how to talk remarkably well too." - -"But have you noticed to whom he talks?" inquired Mabel with a teasing -glance at Jane. - -"Why no, come to think of it, I hadn't noticed particularly." - -"As if you would notice anything, Ellen, with Jack anywhere near you. -If I ever get so wrapped up in my fat Charlie, will you all promise to -drown me?" begged Mabel. - -"You are both of you unbearable. But promise to drown you? No, it -would hasten your death too much," and Frances laughed at Mabel's -pleading face. "The disease is just as bad in you as in Ellen. The -only difference is in the way it affects you. It makes Ellen a little -quieter than usual and you a little noisier." - -The "Boojum" had gathered speed and was roaring along with the spray -coming over the bow and drenching the girls to such an extent that -they were forced to go and sit tamely in the cockpit, a thing that was -distasteful to them all, but particularly to Frances and Jane. - -"If our wind and luck hold, we can easily make Vinal Haven tonight," -said Charlie, looking up from the chart he and Jack had been reading. - -"For my part," announced Frances, "I hope it doesn't. We have been too -lucky, always doing just what we set out to do. With the exception of -turning over at Plymouth, everything has happened according to Hoyle." - -"Well, we will see if we can't arrange a little shipwreck for the -bloodthirsty lady from the wild and woolly west," laughed Jack. - -At sunset the "Boojum" was nosing her way through a little group of -islands, lying purple on the dark water. To port lay the largest, its -rocky cliffs taking on weird lights from the sinking sun. - -Jane caught her breath in a little gasp of admiration. Reaching for -the chart, she quickly found their whereabouts. "Mr. Wing," she called -excitedly, "this is just too lovely a spot to pass. The chart says -it's Hurricane Island and dead ahead is Old Harbor. Can't we stop here -tonight instead of going on to Vinal Haven. Old Harbor ought to be a -good anchorage. It is protected on three sides by these islands." - -"Why Plain Jane, as far as I am concerned, we can. The others are an -easy-going bunch and generally want to do whatever anybody suggests. -Let me see the chart." - -Jane hung over him until he nodded his head in approval of the -harbor's description on the chart and then dashed forward to free the -anchor. - -"Oh! Breck, did you ever in your life see anything quite as beautiful -as that big island with the sun slipping down back of it?" she asked -him as he leaned against the foremast, looking out for buoys. - -"I am mighty glad you asked Mr. Wing to anchor here tonight. I was -just thinking that was just what I would do if I were on my own boat." - -"Can you tell whether those purplish humps on the island are houses or -just huge boulders? It seems a funny place for a settlement and, -besides, there isn't a single light in any of the windows if they are -houses and not rocks," asked Jane, peering into the fast-gathering -darkness. - -"Tomorrow, if you say so and there is time, I'll row you over and we -can find out. I don't believe I ever heard of Hurricane Island before. -It's a nice adventurous kind of name though." - -Mabel came bouncing along the deck in the way peculiar to her and -broke in with, "Everybody is raving about the beauty of this place -and, of course, I know it is really lovely but nobody will listen to -me and my material thoughts. I have seen one million lobster pots, I -know and, Breck, please try and see tomorrow if you can't get some for -us. Where there are so many lobster pots, there must be some people -to take the lobsters out." - -The next morning directly after breakfast Jane and Frances took the -dinghy and rowed over to explore a small island running up into a high -peak. Mr. Wing had promised to let the little party stay at this -interesting spot for as long as they liked. The original plan had been -to cruise on to Bar Harbor and then come leisurely back to New York. -With one accord, it had been decided that it would be more fun to stop -at Old Harbor for a few days than to go on to Bar Harbor for, as Mabel -said, "there is nothing at Bar Harbor but clothes and silly little -men," and Charlie had said, "What about the fluffy little girls?" - -Jack and Ellen and Mabel and Charlie had gone out in the tender to -follow some fishermen and make arrangements for getting Mabel the -coveted lobsters. Mr. Wing, the steward, and Breck had stayed aboard -the "Boojum" to keep ship, which meant for Mr. Wing, lying on the deck -mattress and dozing in the sun; for the steward, a general galley -cleaning, and for Breck the filling of many sheets of white paper with -his surprisingly small writing. - -"Now that we are here," Frances said to Jane as she jumped out on the -rocky beach of the island, "I don't see what in the world we are going -to tie the dinghy to." - -"Why not lug one of these rocks down and set it on the rope? That -ought to hold it," suggested Jane. - -Assuring themselves that the dinghy was made fast, the two friends set -out to see the island. It was literally covered with blueberries, as -they had so often found to be the case in the other little islands -they had seen during the trip. - -After eating her fill, Jane announced that she was going to lie down -and go to sleep in the sun. - -"Lazy Jane, no sleep for me. I am going to climb to the very top of -the hill and to the very top of the huge rock on top of the hill. -Excelsior! It will be a gorgeous view up there. You ought to come." -Frances started out with many flourishes of a long stick she had -found. - -The warmth of the sun and the sound of the water beating against the -rocks that bordered the island soon sent Jane into a delicious sleep. - -Frances clambered up the hill, stopping now and again to look out over -the water, the panorama becoming more beautiful as she climbed higher. -It was difficult climbing too, for there were many loose rocks and -she started several miniature land slides. - -On the extreme top of the hill was a rocky plateau, in the center of -which lay a shallow pool of stagnant water. As she drew near, two huge -black crows cawed and flew from its edge. - -"Ugh!" she said. "How very gruesome, and how silly for me to be -talking out loud." Then she heard a little sound as of a sharp, -intaken breath, coming from behind a big, flat rock to the left of -where she stood. She went quickly and leaned over the rock. At the -sight of a man's prostrate figure she involuntarily drew back. - -"Dern the luck," said the figure in a rather weak voice. - -"If you would ask me I would say 'bless the luck'," contradicted -Frances, coming forward to see what was the trouble. - -At the sound of her voice, the man tried to raise himself on an elbow -but, making a wry face, he gave it up. - -"I am in luck now somebody has come, but I have been here since -yesterday afternoon," he said. - -"What in the world happened to you?" - -"Slipped on a rock. Think I must have broken my thigh bone; anyway I -can't move my left leg." - -"It would hurt terribly to move you without a stretcher, wouldn't it?" - -"One thing certain, it couldn't hurt me any more than just staying -here." - -"Well, then I will go down and get Jane," announced Frances. - -"What good will a Jane do? I don't want to be rude, but this thing -hurts like the devil." - -"Say whatever you want to; you might be allowed that. I'll be back in -a jiffy." Frances shot down the hill with lightning speed. She pounced -on Jane and woke her with a little shake. - -Jane rubbed sleepy eyes and raised a critical eyebrow. - -"Broken-legged man--up on top--by himself--how in the world can we get -him down?" panted Frances. - -"Have to improvise a stretcher," said Jane, wide awake at once. "Thank -heavens for the blessed old Camp Fire organization. We can take the -oars and slip our skirts on them and that will make a dandy -stretcher." - -"Jane, you are a perfect peach! I never would have thought of that," -Frances told her friend as they ran down to where they had left the -dinghy. - -To their dismay they found that the tide had gone out and the constant -tugging had slipped the rope out from under the rock and the dinghy -was slipping along on the tide about a hundred yards from shore. -Quickly the girls got out of their skirts and, in their jersey silk -bloomers and flannel blouses, waded out into the water toward the -rapidly receding boat. - -Giggling a little with excitement, Frances said, "Goodness, but I am -glad we left our shoes on. These rocks would have simply killed our -feet." - -Soon they were in deep water and they struck out with the strong -double over arm that had been the envy of Ellen. In no time, they had -wriggled over the side of the dinghy and were pulling for the island. -This time the two girls dragged the dinghy clear of the receding tide -to be sure that they would have no further misadventures. - -Each one taking an oar and a skirt, they started the uphill climb. - -"Suppose you hadn't found him, Frances. Wouldn't it have been awful?" -and Jane shuddered a little at the thought. "What does he look like?" - -"I didn't have time to notice much but that he had on a heavy gray -sweater and fearfully dirty white duck trousers. I don't even know -whether he is big or little." - -On reaching the rocky plateau, Jane exclaimed, "Frances, this is the -most moving-picturey place to discover an injured gent I ever saw!" - -Frances led her around the big rock and she looked down at the man. -"How much do you weigh?" Jane asked by way of greeting. - -The man smiled a little at this and answered, "One hundred and eighty, -but, after no dinner or breakfast, I suppose I have wasted away to a -mere nothing." - -"Well, Frances, that means each of us carries ninety pounds down the -hill. But we can do it as long as we don't have to do it every day." - -"Of course, I couldn't think of letting you do such a thing," objected -the man. - -"I would like to know how you are going to help it. To be sure, we -could go back to the boat and get one of the boys, but that would just -delay the game and I know you ought to get that leg set as soon as -possible. Besides, I don't believe men are any better in an emergency -than girls, 'specially Camp Fire Girls; do you, Jane?" - -The girls slipped the skirts on the oars and laid the improvised -stretcher close beside the man. He was able to help them a little -and, without causing him too much pain, they at last had him on the -stretcher. - -"I am awfully sorry for you; it will be hard on you going down this -hill, but we will try not to bump you," Jane promised him. - -The man on the stretcher had not lost a bit of his hundred and eighty -pounds, the girls decided as they lifted their load. Both of them were -thankful for their hard muscles and good wind. After what seemed ages, -they reached the beach and set the stretcher in the dinghy. Then both -of them threw themselves flat on the seaweed that the tide had left -and rested and caught their wind. The man had lost consciousness from -the painful journey down and from lack of food. - -"No use bringing him to till we get on the boat. It will hurt him -horribly getting him over the side. Another thing, Jane, there won't -be room enough for both you and me in the dinghy now. You pull a -better oar than I do, so you get in and row the man out and I'll swim -along out in a minute. I'll get there soon after you do." - -"But I could come back for you," objected Jane. "You must be dead -tired." - -"Of course I don't feel 'fresh as a daisy,' but it is no harder for -me to swim out to the boat than it is to row out." - -There was no one on deck of the "Boojum" as Jane brought the dinghy -carefully alongside. She called to Breck and he came up from the -galley. - -At his surprised look she said, "Frances found this broken-legged man -up on the top of the hill on that island and we brought him down. He -has fainted or something and I don't see how we can get him over the -side of the 'Boojum'." - -"How in the world you two kids did it is beyond me, but I will ask -questions later. Mr. Wing and I can rig up a bosun's chair and get him -on board all right." - -Breck waked Mr. Wing and they set to work to rig the bosun's chair and -soon had the man lying on one of the transoms in the saloon. - -"Now," said Mr. Wing, "it yet remains for us to get a doctor to him." - -"Mr. Wing," said Breck in an embarrassed way, "it wouldn't do for me -not to tell you this. I have had three years of medicine at Harvard -and was with an ambulance corps in France during the first two years -of the war. What I mean is that I can set the leg and I think I had -better do it before it swells any more. Jane, you get some waste from -the locker to the right of the engine and pack some long planks for -the splints. If it is necessary, we can get him into a cast at -Portland." - -With deft hands Breck got off the man's shoe and cut away the duck -trousers. Jane, with her head in a whirl, found two suitable boards in -the galley, evidently parts of a box in which provisions had come, and -she mechanically began to pad them with waste. "That makes him about -thirty," she thought, "because it has been two years since the war. I -hope he doesn't think of me as a perfect kid. I will be twenty-one in -a month, anyway." - -A wet and bedraggled Frances clambered over the side and appeared in -the saloon just in time to get a weary, grateful smile from the man as -he came to. - - - - -CHAPTER IX - -THE AFFAIRS OF BRECK - - -The day after Frances' adventure on the hilltop found both Jane and -Frances stiff in their shoulder muscles. Aside from that, there were -no ill effects from their long and heavy lift. The man they had -rescued was more than hospitably received by Mr. Wing and had been -urged to make the boat his home until he was able to go down the sea -ladder unassisted. Breck had set his leg with sure skill and the -patient had eaten a hearty breakfast and declared that he was in no -pain at all. - -After breakfast, the little party had gathered around him to hear his -story. Out of consideration of his weariness the night before, they -had unanimously refrained from questioning him. However, Frances had -kept Jane awake well into the night with surmises of her find's looks -and personality. - -"What do you suppose he would look like, Jane, with a clean face and a -shave and his hair combed and decent clothes?" she had asked. "He has -such a lot of red hair that I bet he is cross as the dickens." - -"Child," said Jane with the superior wisdom of one who has lived for -twenty-one years with a wifeless father and a motherless brother, "all -men are cross when they are sick. He is probably quite nice." - -Consequently the strange man's discoverer was delightfully surprised -when she came down from on deck to hear his story and found him nicely -shaven, with his red hair, which she immediately decided was auburn, -brushed till it shone and his dirty white ducks replaced by a gay -bathrobe of Jack's. - -"I would like to make it awfully interesting," he began with a grin, -"I feel that the two girls who carried my hundred and eighty pounds -down that hill should have the reward of having saved a movie hero or -the lost heir--anyone, in fact, except just plain Tim Reynolds, who is -doing nothing more romantic than spending the summer with his family -at Nantucket Island. That is I am supposed to be--the fact is I am -proud possessor of a thirty-foot sailboat and, as the result of that, -I had the misfortune, or the fortune rather," this with a friendly -little nod at Frances, "to sail into Old Harbor and climb up that hill -and break my leg." - -"We are glad you did," announced Mabel genially and then as everybody -laughed at her she added, "Of course, I don't mean I am glad he broke -his leg, you all are so silly. Mr. Reynolds, you know I meant that we -are glad you are on board the 'Boojum,' don't you?" - -Tim Reynolds nodded reassuringly and begged them not to call him -"Mister." - -"You must let us take you to Nantucket, Tim," said Mr. Wing. - -"I couldn't think of it, sir, you have been far too good already." - -"But we are going to Nantucket anyway. All of us want to see -'Sconset," put in Frances. - -"There is nothing I would like better, if you are really going there -and I won't be too much of a care. And, now that I have accepted, -don't you suppose it would be a good idea to get a message to my fond -parents to the effect that their son is still inhaling and exhaling at -regular intervals?" - -Ellen said in her quiet way, "I have just been looking at the chart -and Vinal Haven is only a short distance from here. Why can't Mabel -and Charlie and Jack and I take the tender and go to Vinal Haven and -send a telegram to the fond parents? I know that they have laid a -cable to Nantucket from Martha's Vineyard. We could be back in time -for lunch." - -"Isn't that a good idea?" asked Jack proudly. - -"It is if you four can remember what you are going for," teased his -sister. "Mr. Wing, will it leave you too stranded if I get Breck to -row me over to Hurricane Island in the dinghy? I am wild to know why -there are so many deserted houses there. So far, I haven't seen a sign -of life." - -"Would you mind very much rowing round the island I stumbled over and -see if my boat is still there? I put over the two anchors; she ought -to hold," Tim said to Breck. - -"And what are you going to do about getting her home?" Frances asked -Tim, coming over to sit on the companion steps as the others went -above. - -"We've decided enough for one day. Let's worry about that tomorrow. -Why don't you tell me how you and Jane happen to be such quick -thinkers and how you happened to have enough grit to get me down that -long hill?" - -There was a great noise and bustle on deck, as was always the case -when Mabel was about to do anything. Soon the sound of the tender's -motor was heard and its wash licked against the "Boojum's" sleek black -sides. Jane peered down the hatch with intent to ask Frances to come -along with Breck and herself, but on seeing the pleasant conversation -that was beginning, she decided not to interrupt it. - -"Let's go over to Hurricane Island first and come back by the island -of adventure to see if Tim Reynolds' boat is there," suggested Breck, -as he pulled the dinghy along with sure strokes. - -Watching him, Jane thought how very well he did whatever he set his -hand to do. This was their first moment alone since the startling -disclosure Breck had made about himself the day before. Not that it -had come as a very great surprise to Jane, because she had always felt -that he was some one other than a deck hand and she might have known -that he would have been among the first to offer himself to serve -humanity. - -As he rowed, he watched her and, seeing her thoughtful expression, -suddenly asked her, "Jane, what are you wondering about?" - -"About Breck," she said frankly. - -"What do you want to know about him?" he asked, smiling at her utter -frankness. - -"Whatever he wants to tell me." - -"That is a large order, because do you know, Jane, I want to tell you -everything good or bad that has ever happened to me. I've wanted to -tell you several things for some time, but I felt that I had no right -to burden you with my affairs." - -"Breck, you know I've wanted to know about you but felt that I had no -right to pry into those same affairs. Do you remember that night at -Gloucester, when you got those two telegrams? I saw you frown at one -and grin at the other. It was all I could do to keep from asking what -had happened, 'specially about the one you didn't seem to like," she -confessed. - -"The one I liked was from a friend of mine in New York. I left a lot -of stories with him and asked him to get the stuff decently copied and -send some of them around to different magazines for me. The telegram -told me that the Saturday Evening Post had accepted a story and wanted -to see more. That tickled me mightily, because it is the first luck I -have had with a big magazine. The other was from my sister, assuring -me that my father was as mad at me as ever." - -"I wondered why you didn't write, Breck, you are always so keenly -interested in people's actions and reactions. I am awfully glad the -Post took the story. Will you tell me why your father is mad at you, -too?" - -"To begin with, we have always disagreed from the time he sent me to a -norfolk-jacket-and-buster-brown-collar-country-school-for-rich-little-boys -and I wanted to wear a jersey and go to a public school in town. Not -that I didn't love the country, because the part of my life I remember -with most pleasure is the summers I spent on my uncle's ranch in the -west." Breck's sunburned face took on the sad look that was so -distressing to Jane. He continued, "A surprising thing happened. Both -of us agreed on my going to Harvard and finally on my going into -medicine. Everything was all right for two years and a half, when, at -Christmas vacation, I decided to spend my holidays with some friends -in New York instead of taking the trip across the continent to spend -the time with my family in California." - -"But surely, just the failure to be with him at Christmas was not -enough to cause a real breach," Jane broke in. - -"No, but what happened next was," Breck went on. "My two friends and -I had ridiculously large allowances. One night, we thought it would be -fun to go slumming and see how the other half lived. For their sakes, -I hope they have forgotten. For my part, I don't believe I ever shall. -The wretchedness, the sick misery of those people! At any rate, after -my trip, I became fired with a great desire to do something for those -people and wrote home to Father that I intended to hang out my shingle -in the east side and, of course, practice for nothing. It never -entered my head that Father wouldn't abet me in such a work. He is -very, very rich indeed and I thought that he would not only continue -my allowance but probably give me large donations from time to time so -that I might be able even to have an infirmary in connection with my -office. My dream was short lived. When I got back to college, I found -a curt note saying that my plan was ridiculous and that my allowance -would be stopped immediately and that he would decline to foot the -bill for my tuition with any such career in view. I wrote him in reply -that I intended to do as I had written him before. He made good his -threat and I stayed on at college for a few months, doing that -supposedly romantic thing, 'working my way through' mostly by selling -short things to small magazines. It is something that no one should be -allowed to do too, let me tell you. Why there aren't more cases of -brain fag among the students that attempt it, I don't see. Then things -got so rotten on the other side that I couldn't stand not being in it. -So at last I got over with a bunch of my older friends with a French -ambulance unit." - -Dismissing the part he played in the war as rapidly as possible, he -hurried on to tell of what took place at his return. - -"When you came back from overseas, didn't his attitude change toward -you a bit?" Jane asked anxiously. - -"Oh, of course, I suppose he was proud of me in a way. They gave a -huge ball and my sister made me meet all her blasé friends. After -being so close to the realities, all their little affectations and -vanities grated on me terribly. At any rate, after a very melodramatic -scene in which my father offered to forget my silliness at Harvard and -take me in as a junior partner in his tremendous exporting business, I -saw that it wasn't any use arguing, so I just told them good-bye and -came to New York and got a job as reporter for one of the papers. -Don't let me bore you to death, will you, Jane? Everybody likes to -talk about himself, I suppose, and it means an awful lot to me to be -able to talk to somebody. I am not whining around for sympathy, you -know that, don't you?" he said quickly. "And I don't mean to run down -my family, they are all right in their way. We just don't hit it off." - -"I know," Jane said, "some people seem to get born in the wrong -families and some families just seem to have the wrong children. But -how did you happen to come on the 'Boojum'?" - -"I thought that, if I got outdoors, I would be able to write better -stuff. You see, after I had been writing regular newspaper things all -day, I needed to get out and do something else at night besides -sitting in my room and writing at stories. Out on the coast at home, I -had always had a boat of some sort or other and I was crazy about the -water. So I thought that I could make enough money to see me through -the summer, get a chance to do some writing and put in an enjoyable -healthy summer if I signed on as deck hand on some yacht. 'Boojum' -happened to be the one. So far, it is the best thing that has happened -to me." - -"Wasn't it awful hard pretending that you were just a plain deck -hand? When we talked about things you knew about, didn't you want to -butt in?" - -"It was harder than I dreamed it would be. I thought that you girls -would be like my sister's friends and, knowing how rich Mr. Wing was, -I thought that he would run his yacht just as most of the sound -yachtsmen do, as though it was some fragile little boat that couldn't -stand an all day sail, or rather that he couldn't. When I found out -what a peach of a bunch you all were and I realized what my position -was, I admit I used to get pretty gloomy." - -"What a shame, Breck, when all of us wanted to be nice to you, but -were afraid to be because we couldn't bear to have you think we were -the patronizing sort." - -"It wasn't really bad," Breck hastened to assure seeing the distressed -look she gave him. "You see, when you girls began to get so keen about -sailing the ship, it left me very little work to do on deck, so I had -lots of time to put in on my writing." - -"Is it hard living in such close quarters in the galley with that -funny little Dutch steward?" - -"It is rather interesting. He has been everywhere and has splendid -tales to tell. Do you remember at Plymouth when you said that you -would like to arrange the orchestration of his snores? That is the -only real objection I have to him. He is the best-hearted little -fellow in the world, so I suppose we ought to be ready to forgive him -his only vice." - -"He is a marvelous cook, don't you think? But look here, Breck, you -are just rowing anywhere, we'll never get to the island unless we stop -talking," said Jane coming to the realization that for about half an -hour they had been aimlessly drifting along, Breck occasionally -dipping the copper tipped oars in the water from habit. - -As they drew nearer the island they saw that a huge crane hung out -over the water and that there was the remains of quite a large dock. -Several dories and a small catboat were moored in the little harbor. A -great many lobster pots were slung up on the rocks that shelved above -the beach. - -"It can't be entirely deserted or I don't suppose they would have left -these perfectly good boats. And where there are lobsters there must be -some lobsterers," said Jane, a little disappointed that it wasn't -really a deserted island. - -"Let's carry it a little farther and hope that if the presence of the -lobster pots can prove that there are lobsterers, then the presence of -the lobsterers might prove some lobsters," said Breck, remembering -that Mabel had asked him to try and see if he couldn't find some for -her. - -The water near shore was so clear that they could see the pebbles -gleaming at least ten feet below the surface. - -"I wish we had one of those glass bottom boats that the natives row -the tourists around in at some of the South Sea Islands," Breck said. - -"There still doesn't seem to be any sign of natives on this island to -row us around in even an oak bottomed boat. Shall we just snoop about -and hunt for some one or shall we stand here and yell till some one -materializes?" Jane asked as she stepped out on the beach. - -At the sound of her voice, there was a slight movement on one of the -big slabs of granite and a boy of about sixteen, dressed in a gray -flannel shirt and faded dungarees, stood up. - - - - -CHAPTER X - -HURRICANE ISLAND - - -Jane went over to him, smiling in her friendly way. The boy slipped -down from his rock with the grace of a wild animal. Jane thought that -she had never seen a more beautiful and charming looking boy. Very -tall and with a small well-set head, he had the unmistakable look of -race. - -"I am Jane Pellew and this is Allen Breckenbridge," said Jane with a -strange little thrill as she realized that she had used Breck's full -name in the introduction. - -She stretched out her hand and it was taken with the greatest poise -and courteousness. "I am Frederick Gray," he said, dropping her hand -and giving Breck a cordial little nod. - -His voice had the peculiar quality of keeping the same tone, never -rising or falling at the end of a sentence, and there seemed to be a -definite spacing between each word. It did not, however, produce the -monotonous, sing-song effect that Jane had so often noticed in the New -Englanders' voices. The boy's voice was full and rich and soothing. - -"I didn't see you until you stood up," Jane told him. - -"No wonder, my clothes are just the color of the rocks. I sometimes -feel that I am really part of this island, do you know," Frederick -Gray said with a trace of wistfulness. "We watched your yacht come in -the other night. I was afraid you would go away without my seeing any -of you." - -Jane wondered who "we" were. She had an odd feeling that the boy was -the only person who stayed on the island, for as he had said, he did -seem such a part of it. - -Her wonder was short lived, for as she and Breck and the boy went up a -narrow rocky path, approaching the first of the group of houses, two -tow-headed little boys emerged from the bushes and ran scuttling into -the open door of the house. - -Breck called after them reassuringly, "Hey, Buddies! Come back, we -won't hurt you!" - -Frederick Gray smiled and told them that they were his youngest -brothers and that they were afraid because they weren't used to seeing -anybody but his mother and father and his oldest sister. - -"She is away at school now, so they will probably be afraid of her -when she comes back." - -"What in the world is she doing away at school this time of the year?" -said Jane, in surprise. - -"I meant college; she is at Columbia in the summer school," the boy -explained, adding rather proudly, "I am going to New York and live -with her this winter, because Daddy wants me to go to Horace Mann -before I go to Yale." - -"You are sure you have got time to show your island and sure you don't -mind it," Breck asked, feeling that if he were the owner of such a -near future he would no doubt be very busy. - -"You don't know how glad I am to see people. I'm always so glad when -people come on the island. It is really a pleasure to show them -around. You know, of course, that this was once a quarry, and at one -time several hundred workmen lived here." - -"We didn't know it, but we certainly should have if we had given any -notice to that huge crane and all those slabs of granite heaped up on -the beach. The workmen, of course, lived in those cottages?" asked -Breck interestedly. - -"I wish Daddy would come out and tell you about it, because he knows -so much more about it than I do, though I was a little boy when we -first came here. There is an awful lot of machinery connected with the -quarry; I never have been interested in it, and so don't know very -much about it. Daddy knows all about every kind of machine. But I -can't disturb him now because he is working on his plans for some sort -of submarine detector," the boy told them as he led them past his -vine-covered home towards a frame building about a hundred and fifty -feet long and fifty feet wide. - -"How did you happen to come here to live? You don't mind me calling -you Fred, do you?" Jane asked as they entered the strangely shaped -building. - -"My uncle had the contract to build a sea wall and he knew that -granite was on this island. He found that it would be cheaper to start -a quarry here and carry it over to where they were building the sea -wall than it would be to have to transport it from some other point -much farther away. After the sea wall was finished and there wasn't -any more use for operating the quarry, my uncle took his workmen and -they went back to their regular working place. Then, you see, my -uncle didn't like to leave all these houses and machinery without -some one as a sort of overseer, and as Daddy likes to be quiet so he -can work on his inventions, they got together and made arrangements -for us to come out here." - -"Don't you ever get bored or lonesome," Breck asked the boy. - -"It was more fun before my sister went away, of course, but there -really is plenty to do. I made enough money off lobsters last year to -buy that boat you passed on the way in and then, of course, there are -an awful lot of books Daddy brought with us." - -"Breck," said Jane, wrinkling her forehead, "why couldn't Fred sail -Tim Reynolds' boat back to Nantucket?" - -Breck looked at the boy and shook his head. "Too much for him to -handle by himself." - -But the boy's face lit up at Jane's words. "What size is she?" - -"Thirty feet, Tim said, didn't he, Jane?" - -"I could trim the jib aft and handle her all right," the boy said with -such confidence that Breck would have believed him if he had said he -intended to give Thomas Lipton and his "Shamrock IV" time and come in -ahead of him. - -"Don't you suppose you could get some other boy to go along with you, -so it wouldn't work you so hard?" Jane said, rather amused by Breck's -rapid change of expression. - -"Virg Bradford over on the mainland might go. I'll row over and see -and let you know tonight." The boy was delighted at the prospect of a -real sail. - -"Then suppose you just come in time for supper and we can talk it over -with Mr. Wing and Tim and see what they say," said Breck, not -considering it worth while to mention consulting Fred's father, as it -was evident from the boy's account of the inventor and from his own -quick way of deciding things, that he was the man of the family. - -Fred walked them the length of the building, telling them that it was -the polishing room. - -"You look mighty thinky," Breck said to Jane, noticing that she had -wrinkled up her forehead again. - -"I believe it is a real thought, too, this time. I was just thinking -that this long building might have been some ancient dining hall. You -know the kind where 'the eagles scream in the roof trees.' With all -these cottages and this for a sort of mess room, I don't see why some -one couldn't make a lot of money running this place as a sort of -summer colony. It has a marvelous outlook, wonderful boating, and the -swimming would be all right I suppose if you could ever get used to -such freezing water. How about it, Fred?" she asked, turning to the -boy. - -"I go in every day and so do Mother and the kids. Dad too, if he -thinks about it," Fred answered. "I used to think that it was an awful -pity for those houses to be empty in the summer and sometimes I tried -to get Dad to talk about it, but he always said that it wasn't any -use, because we had enough money and he couldn't be quiet if there -were a lot of summer people always about." - -"Do you suppose there would be any trouble about renting the island -from your uncle?" Breck asked the boy. He had been looking around at -the attractive cottages with growing interest and a decidedly -ruminating eye, since Jane had suggested the possibility of a -flourishing summer colony. Gradually the thought was taking place in -his mind that it would be an unusual and remunerative way of spending -the following spring and summer. The thought of himself as a rising -young business man was amusing to him as he remembered his position -as a deck hand on Mr. Wing's yacht. Then he came to the realisation -that such a project would take some capital and he said a smothered -"Damn!" - -But Jane heard it. "What? Breck, things in general or some person or -thing in particular?" - -"Me first and next my luck, then things." Then he told her what he had -been thinking, adding that it would give him endless opportunity for -copy and also unlimited time to write but, of course, it was a foolish -impossibility. - -"Breck, you are terribly ignorant about business and I don't suppose I -am much better, but I seem to know that there are such things as -companies and, as long as I thought of it, I think I at least ought to -have a chance to buy some stock. Besides let's tell Mr. Wing about it, -and when I get home I will talk it over with Daddy. It would be an -awful lot of fun even if we didn't make much off of it the first year. -I know lots of people at home that are always trying to find some new -place to spend the summer. Dad and I were wondering what I was going -to do with myself just before I left this summer. I don't appear to -have been born with any special talents and I couldn't bear the idea -of making my debut. Of course, I couldn't take the housekeeping over -from Aunt Min, because that's all she has in her life." - -"Weren't born with any special talent! Why, Jane, you were born with -the greatest talent in the world, that of making everybody with whom -you come in contact love you. And you just wait till I can offer you a -house to keep," Breck said, entirely forgetting Fred. - -"Wouldn't these houses be enough to start on?" asked Jane. "I'm young -yet and not much of a housekeeper." Jane was blushing and her eyes had -a very happy light in them. - -"Oh, Jane! What do you mean?" cried Breck, catching the girl's hands -and drawing her towards him. - -"I simply mean that you needn't wait until you can get any more houses -before--before--you--before--" - -"Before what?" - -"Before you ask me to keep one for you. Now aren't we modern, though? -I reckon I've done the proposing, but I'm not the least embarrassed -over it. Of course, if you had refused me, I might have felt a bit -shy." - -Jane's voice was muffled by reason of the fact that Breck was allowing -very little room for speech and her sentences had more punctuations -than a mere writer can put in print. - -"Refuse you! Oh, Jane, what a darling you are! I can't believe this -thing has really happened to me, when I think how miserable I have -been during the last months." - -"Well if you doubt it you can question the witnesses," laughed Jane. - -"Oh, that boy Fred!" exclaimed Breck. "I forgot him." - -But Frederick Gray had beaten a hasty retreat when he saw how matters -were going between his new-found friends and had disappeared around a -boulder, but his little tow-headed brothers were not so nice in their -behavior. Silently they had entered on the love scene and had stood -hand in hand viewing with wonder and astonishment the surprising -carryings on of the Hurricane Island interlopers. - -"Ith that girl your thweetheart?" lisped the younger one. - -"Yeth, and the thweeteth thweetheart ever," declared Breck. "Come -back!" he called to Frederick, whose figure he could see in the -distance. "The worst is over, old man. That is, over until next time. -You are going to be a member of this firm, Fred, so you must come and -let us talk it over with you." - -"All right, sir," said Fred, whose ears were crimson from -embarrassment. He looked at Breck with even more admiration than -before. Any man who could win such a girl as Miss Jane Pellew was -surely a hero in the eyes of the island boy. Fred was almost sorry he -could not help being such a gentleman. When he saw how the wind lay, -he felt it incumbent upon him to turn his back and walk off but he had -a pardonable curiosity about how a man went to work to make love to a -girl like Jane. - -Hand in hand, Jane and Breck made their way to the beach. It seemed to -the pair of lovers that the already perfect day was even more perfect -than it had been before. The sky was bluer, the sea more sparkling. -The "Boojum," riding at anchor in the bay, looked like a fairy ship, -while the gulls that circled around her seemed whiter and more -graceful than ever gulls had been before. - -"Oh, Breck, isn't life beautiful?" said Jane, but in the corner of her -eye was a tiny unshed tear. "It is so beautiful I wish everybody knew -how beautiful it is, all the poor little sick children and tired -mothers." - -"Why, honey, I was just thinking the same thing. I don't know why -being happier than I've ever been in my life should make me think of -the suffering children on the East Side, but it has somehow. Those -gulls shouldn't make me think of little half-starved children over on -Avenue A. Heaven knows there is nothing white about them, except their -little pinched faces, but they do all the same." - -"I know why you are thinking of them!" exclaimed Jane. "It is because -this place would be such a corking one to bring the kids to. Let's -have our scheme be not just a money making one but one to help -somebody besides ourselves. Oh Breck, let's try to have some of those -little creatures here with us every summer." - -"Jane, Jane, what a girl you are!" and Breck wished there weren't so -many little tow-headed boys on the island, for he felt he'd like to -try to make Jane understand a little better how much he adored her but -the little Grays were trotting along by their side totally unconscious -of how out of place they were. - - - - -CHAPTER XI - -DEBATE AND JUST TALK - - -Frances, led on by Tim's interested questions, had been giving that -wounded young man a glowing account of the Camp Fire movement in -general and of their own group in particular. She had told him of the -splendid effect it had on the spirit of the girls at Hillside, of the -wonders it had worked on the characters of Blanche Shirley and -Emmeline Cerrito. - -"And you have no idea how much fun we have had together. Even work is -fun when we all work together. Last year, we were all down on Jane's -big farm in Kentucky when the harvest had just begun. It happened that -there was an excursion for the negroes scheduled for the same day and -all the hands, house servants, yard boys, stable boys, even down to -the smallest pickaninnies on the place, just took temporary French -leave. Mr. Pellew was terribly upset. You see, he had engaged the -machines and everything. Anyway, Ellen and Mabel got busy in the -kitchen and cooked for simply rafts of people, the rest of us went -out in the fields with Jack and Mr. Pellew and he said that we worked -just as well as the men and that we were lots more conscientious." -Frances said this with a rather defiant air, because she had often -found that the young men of her acquaintance were inclined to doubt -female prowess in any line other than fancy sewing. - -"You sound like a dandy bunch of girls. No one could realize that fact -more keenly than I. But don't you think it is rather unusual for girls -to be as capable as that? And don't you suppose the novelty of the -affair had a great deal to do with the girl's conscientiousness?" -Seeing Frances' indignant expression, Tim hastened to add, "I am not -stating this as facts. Like Will Irwin's Japanese school boy, 'I ask -to know'." - -"All right, then," said Frances, relenting at his meek tones, "if you -come to the discussion with an humble open mind, I'll continue to be -pro, and after I have finished I'll listen to your con." - -"Like a lamb to the slaughter," announced Tim, folding his brown arms -over his chest. "I'm ready. The battle may begin." - -"Heavens! you have me all confused now. How am I to know whether you -are going to listen like a meek lamb or whether you have entered the -ranks, arrayed in glittering armor, ready to fight to the death. Don't -be so contradictory in your statements." - -"I crave your indulgence for my mixed metaphors. In the crude parlance -of these modern times, 'shoot'," said Tim. - -"Resolved: that the female of the species can do as much work as the -male and do it in almost as many branches as the aforesaid male. Two -cousins of mine were with the Vassar College farm unit for twelve -weeks, summer before last, and at the end of the twelve weeks, the -head of the farmerettes mailed out questionnaires to the different men -who had employed the girls as farm hands during the summer. These -questionnaires asked the farmers if the girls were equal to the men as -to strength, interest, conscientiousness and so on. All of the farmers -answered that they were perfectly able to do all the work that had -been set them to do, and that they had been given the work of the men -that were overseas, and that they had accomplished it well; and, -further, that they showed a quickness in learning that the men did -not, and that they were more interested in their work, and far more -conscientious than the men they had formerly employed. When asked if -they would consider employing the Vassar girls at another time, all -the men who had employed the girls said that most assuredly they -would," and Frances stopped rather out of breath but smiling -triumphantly at her adversary. "We will now hear the other side." - -"Madame, I have the honor to announce that your worthy opponent is -absolutely convinced and begs your forgiveness for his former -unbelief. There will be no rebuttal, ladies and gentlemen," said Tim -with a grin at a make-believe audience. - -He looked at Frances in open admiration, for the vivid pink that the -excitement of a chance argument always brought had flushed her cheeks -and her gray eyes sparkled with amusement at his defeat. - -Just then there was a thud on deck and Mabel's cheery voice called to -find out how the patient was getting along. After making the tender -fast to the boat boom, Jack and Ellen and Mabel and Charlie, followed -by Mr. Wing, came down into the little saloon to tell Tim that the -telegram assuring his family of his safety had been duly sent. - -"The girls insisted on our bringing you candy and magazines, but I -have a hunch that it wasn't you alone they had in view," said Jack, -unloading himself of many bundles. - -"But I knew you would want something to smoke, so I brought along a -couple of cartons of Piedmonts. I hope that it is what you use," said -Charlie with the complacency of one who has done well. - -"Speaking of unselfish devotion," Ellen spoke up in defense of herself -and Mabel, "who likes Piedmonts more than our own dear Charlie?" - -Frances jumped up, grabbed Ellen's arm and lifted it high over her -head and in her best referee manner began, "One, two, three, four, -five--" - -Tim raised a protesting hand, "I'll report the match to the -authorities, as not one word was said about the 'gentlemen being -members of this club.'" - -"What in the world is society coming to, when its younger members of -both sexes are so familiar with the expressions of the boxing ring?" -Mr. Wing asked. - -"Oh, Daddy, Daddy! As if you don't go to every fight that comes off, -not to speak of the wrestling matches! Who was it I heard saying to -Breck not long ago that he would 'lay five to one' on Dempsey in the -Willard-Dempsey fight?" and, withering before Mabel's onslaught, Mr. -Wing retreated up the companion. - -"Listen to this," said Jack, who had been running through the -magazines while the bout was going on, "It's called 'Sails': - - "If he had seen - A barkentine - Beating off a blowy head, - Or, all a-sheen, - A brigantine - Running free by trade-wind sped, - How could Fulton have dared to dream - Of steam?" - -"That's rather nice," Tim said as Jack finished the little verse, "and -it's just the way I feel. Wouldn't it have been fine if there wasn't -any machinery and we could all have gone on living in the woods, in -leopard skins--I rather fancy myself in a leopard skin--" - -"You are just the person to make the most fuss if your train happens -to be the least bit late," Frances broke in on him. - -"And sail around all summer in a fast little yacht," Tim went on, with -a grin at Frances. - -"Then about the first of October eat enough to last you until spring -and crawl into your little cave and sleep till warm weather." - -"What a pretty picture," laughed Mabel. "Glimpse Tim, draped in -leopard's skin, nimbly going up the shrouds, with a telescope, -development of the modern time, to sit in the crosstree and watch the -races in the sound." - -"People always imagine that whatever time they live in is the very -worst time, and, as for clothes, what could be more uncomfortable than -a leopard's skin. It would always be getting in the soup or -something," objected Jack. - -"You would hardly have to worry about soup in connection with a -leopard's skin. What you would probably do would be skip along the -shore and hunt for mussels or hide behind the bushes and jump out on a -frightened little pig and sit down on your haunches and devour him -raw," decided Frances. - -"Consider the bristles," shuddered Ellen. - -"Dinghy abaft our stern, sirs," announced Mr. Wing to the little group -in the saloon. - -The dinghy slipped up to the "Boojum" and Jane went down to join her -friends in the saloon. Breck, after making fast the dinghy, went -forward to the galley. It had been decided between them that it would -be better not to say anything about their plans until after Frederick -Gray made his appearance and the subject of Tim's boat had been -settled, then Jane had planned to talk to Mr. Wing about the -feasibility of turning Hurricane Island into a summer resort. As to -their proposed partnership, that could wait. In the meantime it was -nobody's business but theirs. - -"How 'bout my little boat?" Tim demanded with such a motherly -expression that they all laughed. - -"Right as rain," Jane assured him. "And, Oh! Tim, she is a darling, -isn't she? Breck and I snugged ship for you and we have got a boy -coming over tonight to see you about taking her back to Nantucket for -you. 'Sabrina' is a lovely name for her too." - -"What sort of boy, Plain Jane?" inquired Mr. Wing. - -"A perfect peach of a boy. Breck and I went bats about him. In the -first place, he is a dream to look at--" - -"Something more substantial than a dream is going to take my 'Sabrina' -home," said Tim. - -"Beautiful people have sense sometimes, Tim. Anyhow, he is coming over -tonight and you can see for yourself. He is plenty big and strong -enough to handle her if he is able to get a friend of his to go along -with him. He is awfully interesting and well read and made me feel -awfully ashamed because he didn't use one drop of slang the entire -time we talked to him, and it must have been at least three hours. His -father is an inventor. His name is Frederick Gray and I asked him to -come to supper. You don't mind, do you, Skipper?" Jane appealed to Mr. -Wing. - -"What about the island--you haven't said a word about it?" asked Jack. - -"Heavens, don't get me started on the island. I don't ever want to -stop talking about it. We, I mean I've got the most wonderful plan, -but I am not going to talk about it till Fred comes over tonight," -Jane put them off. - -"What about my lobsters?" demanded Mabel. - -"We brought you back a whole dinghy full of them. The steward is -getting them out now. Fred gave them to us." - -"I have changed my mind about Fred, then," said Tim. "I am that fond -of lobsters." - -"Anybody in his right mind would have to like Fred. But wait till you -see him. In the meantime, how long before lunch? I am simply starved!" -and Jane pounced on the candy. - - - - -CHAPTER XII - -BROTHER AND SISTER - - -After lunch, Jane, pleading sleepiness, crawled into the port bunk in -the saloon and drew the tan curtains. People are apt to respect a -feigned desire for sleep far more than a genuine desire for thoughtful -solitude and she wanted to think over the events of the morning. - -She believed that she owed it to Jack to tell him of her engagement to -Breck and yet she felt a strange hesitancy, for as much as she adored -her brother, she knew that he would neither understand nor approve of -her marrying the quixotic deck hand. The fact that he was a -Breckenridge would not alter the case in the least for her brother. -Jack was one of those steady, easy-going young men with a kind but -peculiarly unsocial outlook. Jane knew that he would have a slight -feeling of contempt for a man who had offered himself in marriage to a -girl whom he could neither support in the fabled "manner she was -accustomed to" nor yet offer a stable income to her. - -He would look on the Hurricane Island project as the wildest of wild -ideas. The nomadic life she would probably share with Breck would have -no appeal to the ease-loving young Kentuckian. His dream of perfect -happiness was their lovely old home with Ellen as its mistress and -long evenings spent together by the open fire. Jane realized that her -brother was a typical "country gentleman" of the last century with a -few modern touches in the way of slang. Nor did the differences in -their character make her devotion to him any less, but it did make her -rather dread the interview she had planned to have with him just -before it was time for Frederick Gray to make his appearance. Of her -father's attitude in the matter, she had no fear. He was of the -opinion that whatever his children did was right. Aunt Min was -radically opposed to any new idea, but when the novelty of a situation -had worn off she softened. - -"It may be up-hill work but Breck and I are strong enough to see it -through," Jane decided. "The worst part will be talking to Jack. I -will never convince him of the fact that I had even more to do with it -than Breck did." - -"Jane has been asleep long enough. I'm going down and make her go -swimming in this icy water with me." - -Frances left the others on deck and went down into the saloon. She -jerked back the curtains to find Jane with her knees drawn up under -her chin, her hands clasped around her ankles. - -"What a graceful position to sleep in, Jane. I do hope you had a good -nap." - -"As long as I am caught, I will admit that I withdrew into this shell -to solve the problems of the universe, which being successfully -solved, I want very much to go swimming," Jane said, undoubling and -emerging from her retreat. - -Frances looked at her friend rather quizzically. "But it's so unlike -our Plain Jane to have problems. Is there anything that I can do? I -mean in the way of solving? I'm rather eager to try that new position -in thinking." - -"It was a very trying experience for me--that thinking--but, having -come to the world-shaking conclusion that the only thing to do in a -case like this is to do what you think is right, especially when what -you think is right is what you want to do, I am not going to worry any -more," said Jane, catching the bathing suit Frances flung at her. - -"What a wise but completely unintelligible Jane it is! But I suppose -I must just abide my time and, finally, the secret will be revealed to -your humble and admiring slave. Ah, well, I can wait if I have to. But -let me say that I have suspected it ever since the night you asked me -if I knew whether Breck had his slicker on or not," said Frances -solemnly. - -"What in the world are you talking about?" - -"Don't you remember that night at Plymouth, when you went up in the -graveyard by yourself, and when you came back I said you looked like -you had had one million adventures? Well, when we returned to the boat -it started raining, don't you remember? And Mr. Wing and Breck went up -on deck to see something about that interminable old anchor. I was -just about asleep and you woke me up asking me if I knew whether Breck -had a raincoat or not. 'There is something strange about this,' sez I -to meself, sez I, and I have been a quiet but interested observer ever -since." - -"You are a darling, Frances, and the world lost a great detective when -we Camp Fire Girls made such a good friend," and Jane gave her hand an -affectionate little pat. - -"Tell me all about it when you feel like it," and, with Jane's -promise to do so soon, they went up on deck. - -"You lazy ones put on your bathing suits and let's take the tender and -go over and see Tim's boat. We can swim from the beach. I feel like -the water won't be so cold where it's shallower," Frances suggested. - -The others, having heard Jane's glowing account of the "Sabrina," -readily agreed. Soon they were off, leaving Breck, Mr. Wing and Tim to -make Frederick Gray feel at home if he should come before the others -got back, though, as Jane said, Fred had enough poise to carry off -almost any situation. - -There was a stretch of sandy beach, flanked by gray boulders, near the -"Sabrina's" anchorage, and after inspecting Tim's beautiful little -boat they all went ashore. - -Jane whispered to Jack that she wanted to talk to him for a few -minutes and they went over to one of the sunbaked rocks, while the -rest of the crowd stood ankle deep in the cold water, trying to force -themselves into it. - -"I'll never get into it by degrees," Frances shivered, as she took -three or four tentative steps. "Come on, Mabel, I believe the water -around that farthest rock will be deep enough to make a shallow -drive." - -Jack looked at Jane with surprise. "What is it?" he asked. - -"What do you think of Breck?" - -"All this mystery to know what I think of Breck?" Jack was amused. -"Why, I suppose he is all right. Never paid much attention to him. -Seems a bit sullen to me. I don't reckon I've said two words to him -since I have been on board." Jack's eyes followed Ellen's little -figure as it ran bravely out into the chilly water, hesitated a -second, made a rather poor surface dive and began swimming shoreward -with very irregular and splashy strokes. - -"It is funny Ellen can't learn to swim," Jane said as she, too, -watched her friend's efforts. - -"I think she does remarkably well," Jack said quickly. "But what made -you ask me what I thought of Breck?" - -"I simply wanted to know your opinion of your prospective -brother-in-law." - -For a minute Jack looked at her blankly, then laughed as if what his -sister said was a huge joke. - -"I am serious, Jack dear, I intend to marry Breck when we get back to -New York and will write Daddy to that effect tonight," Jane spoke -calmly but with convincing assurance. - -"It is preposterous," Jack said hotly. "It is ridiculous to discuss -it. Of course, Daddy will forbid it. If you insist, he won't give you -any money and, of course, you could hardly live on a deck hand's -salary. Besides, what would a deck hand do for a living in the -winter?" - -Jane smiled a little at Jack's ideas about money. "Daddy won't say a -word in the first place, and you seem to have forgotten that the money -mother left me would allow me to live very comfortably in the second -place, and Breck isn't a deck hand in the third place. Didn't you hear -what he said when he set Tim's leg?" - -"No, I was out in the tender, but anybody that has knocked around can -set a leg." - -"What are your objections to him besides his lack of money?" Jane said -a little contemptuously. - -"A Pellew would hardly marry--" - -"Oh, Jack dear, don't say it, please," Jane interrupted him, "it would -sound so stupid and snobbish. It is only fair to tell you that his -full name is Allen Breckenridge, you know the ones that live in -California, and he went to Harvard and studied medicine. Then he had -a fuss with his father and broke with him. He went with a French -ambulance unit in the war. When he came back, he went on a newspaper -and, this summer, he signed up with Mr. Wing because he wanted time to -write and yet he needed money to live on while doing so. The 'Boojum' -solved the problem. Jack, don't you see what a peach he is?" - -Jack admitted that Breck's being a Breckenridge altered things -somewhat. But he remained firm in his belief that the affair was an -impossible one. - -"But, Jack dear, you mustn't change your opinion of him just because -he is from one of those terrible things known as a 'good family'--as -far as that goes, I think it is a terrible family and they have -behaved abominably to him. I want you to like him because he is a -fine, interesting man," Jane pleaded. She was constantly given -opportunities to regret that her brother was not as open-minded as she -was. - -"Jane, please believe that your happiness is my chief concern. What -you have told me of him seems to me condemning. I see him as an -impulsive, unstable person, inclined to drifting." - -"I know that you think I am an incurable romantic and that I see him -in a sort of glamour. I don't. I have been with him a lot and we have -had long talks. I love him terribly, but I realize he has the usual -quota of faults. What he needs is a steady hand on the reins and, -Jack, you know my hand is fairly reliable. You respect my judgment of -horses, why won't you respect my judgment of husbands? Of course, what -you have said, what you will say, can't affect me in the least, but I -do wish you would wish me happiness and say that you will try to like -Breck," finished Jane. - -Jack sat silent for a while, his head in his cupped hands, finally he -said, "Forgive me. I was a rotter to say what I did about Breck's -being a deck hand. I will like him and try to make him like me. You -are a great little sister and Breck is a mighty lucky man." - -A victory so far, thought Jane, and decided to spare Jack the -Hurricane Island project till Fred came. "You are rather a darling, -Jack," she said, "and I think Ellen will be a splendid swimmer soon. -Run along down to her now and help her with that scissors kick." - - - - -CHAPTER XIII - -JACK'S AFTER-SUPPER SPEECH - - -After the swim, Jane had had a long conversation with Mr. Wing, with -the result that a place was set for Breck at the table in the saloon. -Purple wildflowers, picked on the island and thrust into a low bowl, -stood in the center of the table and gave a gala air to the saloon. -Ellen had arranged them and said to Mabel that she had not realized -how much she missed flowers till she saw these. - -Jane and Breck watched for Frederick Gray on deck, both of them -feeling shy and self-conscious. Finally, his dory slid up alongside -the "Boojum" and the boy, in immaculate white ducks, was soon standing -beside his new friends. - -"Everybody is down in the saloon. Let's go down and get the -introductions over," Jane said, leading the way. - -Frederick Gray had been looking forward all day to the little supper -party. Breck and Jane had delighted him with their warm friendliness -in the morning and he was anxious to see if their friends were as -charming as they were. It was a rare treat to the boy to mix with his -own kind. His father could find little time to spare to his son, so -engrossed was he in his inventions, and the younger children, of -course, kept his mother very busy. She did all the work, as the -isolation of Hurricane Island made the servant question impossible. -Since his sister's departure for Columbia, he had been far lonelier -than he cared to admit. In fact, he had not realized how alone he was -till he saw this group of natural, kindly people. - -"Reading from the left to the right, first row standing are my -brother, Jack Pellew, Ellen Birch, and Mr. Wing. Seated, are Frances -Bliss, Charlie Preston and Mabel Wing. The gentleman lying down is Tim -Reynolds and it is his boat that we want you to take back to -Nantucket," Jane said in oratorical tones, "and all you -aforementioned, this is my friend Frederick Gray." - -"Mr. Wing," Fred said, going forward to shake hands with him, "it is -very kind indeed of you to let me be with you tonight. I haven't seen -so many new people at one time for years." - -"It is great for us to have you with us," Mr. Wing said. "We were -beginning to need a little new blood, and your coming and Tim's coming -just started things nicely rolling again." - -Fred could not but feel at home at once with the cordial welcome he -had received and he soon found himself seated by Tim talking of the -trip he was to make with the "Sabrina." He told Tim that Virg Bradford -had consented to go with him and then he was so eloquent in his praise -of the little "Sabrina" that Tim immediately decided his pet would be -perfectly safe in such appreciative hands. So the few minutes before -supper passed very quickly for Fred and Tim. But they rather dragged -for Jane and Breck, for they felt, as Jane put it, "on pins and -needles," till they knew how everybody would take it. - -The little Dutch steward came in with delicious pea puree and the -little party fell to with a right good will. The lobsters that Breck -and Jane brought back from Hurricane Island formed the special dish of -the meal and were prepared with an interesting sauce of vinegar and -butter that the steward claimed as his own receipt. With the coffee, -Jack rose and announced that he had something to say. - -"But we don't want any after-dinner speeches," objected Mabel, -"besides this is a supper and who ever heard of after-supper speeches? -Fred is the guest of honor, and he ought to be the one to speak if -anybody has to." - -"You have but to hear me and I know you will think I was justified in -speaking. I'll make it short and snappy," Jack promised Mabel, "for I -know you want to talk yourself." - -"Jack, you're horrid. Shut up and begin," Mabel commanded. - -"Don't give such confusing orders, daughter," Mr. Wing said. "Go on, -Jack, I am awfully interested and will keep my daughter quiet if I -have to gag her." - -"Well, it's this," Jack began. "In the first place, I haven't the -faintest idea how a thing like this ought to be done--" - -"And we know, of course, that you didn't expect to be called on at -this meeting," Charlie interrupted him. - -"But the fact is," Jack ignored him, "that I want to announce the -engagement of my sister, Jane Pellew, to Allen Breckenridge," and, -quite overcome, Jack sat down. - -Everybody was perfectly silent until Frances threw herself into the -breach and saved the situation by saying, "Sloan's liniment--'Don't -rub, let it penetrate'--Jack, you did it so suddenly you simply took -our breaths away. I bid to be first to congratulate both the -contracting parties," and she jumped up and ran around to Jane and -hugged her and gave Breck's hand a cordial squeeze. - -Frances' quickness galvanized the little party into life and all the -girls kissed Jane repeatedly and the men wrung Breck's hand again and -again. Then the questions began, "When did it happen?" "Isn't it -awfully sudden?" "Wasn't Jack funny?" "You didn't know he was going to -do it, did you, Jane dear?" - -And Jane was infinitely grateful to Jack for the part he played -because he couldn't have acknowledged Breck in a more sincere and -gracious manner. - -"Why, Breck," teased Mr. Wing, "I believe you are quite used to having -announcements of this kind made about you. You are behaving like a -professional fiancé." - -"I am scared to death, really," Breck admitted with a grin, "but I -have been under fire enough to have learned not to let my knees shake -visibly." - -"And I want to tell you right now, that I think that plan of yours and -Jane's to run Hurricane Island as a summer colony is good and I hope -and believe that you will make a good thing of it. You can count on me -to talk it up because I want my stock in the company to bring in big -returns," Mr. Wing said, shaking Breck's hand once more. - -Afterwards, Breck told Jane that he felt like the President of the -United States at his inauguration, his hand had been pumped up and -down so much. Jane had laughed and said that she herself felt like -Joffre must have after nearly all the school children in the country -had proudly kissed him. - -"Why not have some of these husky males carry Tim up on deck?" -suggested Frances, "I don't believe it will be too cold. Anyway, there -is a wonderful moon and Jack can take his banjo up and sing to us." - -Her plan was approved and Tim was carefully carried up and deposited -on the deck mattress, while the rest sat around on pillows. Jack came -up with his banjo and started thrumming. - -"What shall it be?" he asked. "It is no use you saying, though, -because I don't know anything but the darky songs I have picked up at -home." - -"As if they weren't the most tuneful songs in the world!" Ellen added. - -"Why not sing that Revival Hymn, Jack dear?" asked Jane. - -And Jack began: - - "Oh, whar shill we go w'en de great day comes, - Wid de blowin' or de trumpets en de bangin' er de drums? - How many po' sinners'll be kotched out late - En fine no latch ter de golden gate? - - No use fer ter wait twel termorrer! - De sun mus'n't set on yo' sorrer, - Sin's es sharp ez a bamboo-brier-- - Oh, Lord! fetch the mo'ners up higher! - - W'en de nashuns er de earf is a-stan'in' all aroun', - Who's a gwine ter be choosen fer ter w'ar de glory-crown? - Who's gwine fer ter stan' stiff-kneed en bol', - En answer to der name at de callin' er de roll? - - You better come now ef you comin'-- - Ole Satun is loose en a bummin'-- - De wheels er distruckshun is a hummin'-- - Oh, come 'long, sinner, ef yon comin'! - - De song er salvashun is a mighty sweet song, - En de Pairidise win' blow fur en blow strong, - En Aberham's bosom, hit's saft en hit's wide, - En right dar's de place whar de sinners oughter hide! - - Oh, you nee'nter be a stoppin' en a lookin'; - Ef you fool wid ole Satun you'll get took in, - You'll hang on de aidge en get shook in, - Ef you keep on a stoppin' en a lookin'. - - De time is right now, en dish yer's de place-- - Let de sun er salvashun shine squar' in yo' face; - Fight de battles er de Lord, fight soon en fight late, - En you'll allers fine a latch ter de golden gate. - - No use fer ter wait twel ter-morrer, - De sun mustn't set on yo' sorrer-- - Sin's es sharp ez a bamboo-brier-- - Ax de Lord fer ter fetch you up higher!" - -Jack had sung the old song delightfully, with the colorful wails of -the darky and deserved the thanks and applause he got for singing it. -He refused to sing any more, saying he wanted to smoke. - -"I'll sing you one," volunteered Charlie immodestly. - -"Oh, Charlie, haven't you any shame?" giggled Mabel. "I never in all -my life heard of any one suggesting singing or playing himself. It -just isn't the thing. You are supposed to blush furiously and shake -your head the first time you are asked. Of course, you are asked -again, then you say that you haven't got your music or you aren't in -voice or your hands are chapped. On the third request, you allow -yourself to be dragged unwillingly to the piano or the center of the -room, according to your talent. And here you blatantly nominate -yourself. I blush for you, I blush for you." - -"Don't pay any attention to her, Charlie," urged Frances. "I didn't -know singing was among your accomplishments. While I tremble at the -result, we are all brave souls and most humbly I beseech you sing." - -"I may not be a Caruso or a Martinelli, but I do know some plantation -songs, just as everybody below the Mason-Dixon line does, and coupled -with the three cords I know on the banjo I can give a very creditable -performance. Am I among friends?" - -With a flourish of the banjo and a reckless expenditure of his three -cords, Charlie began in an effectively low voice: - - "De gray owl sing fum de chimbly top: - 'Who-who-is-you-oo?' - En I say: 'Good Lawd, hit's des po' me, - En I ain't quite ready fer de Jasper Sea; - I'm po' en sinful, en you 'lowed I'd be; - Oh, wait, good Lawd, 'twell termorrer!' - - De gray owl sing fum de cypress tree: - 'Who-who-is-you-oo?' - En I say: 'Good Lawd, ef you look you'll see - Hit ain't nobody but des po' me, - En I like ter stay 'twell my time is free; - Oh, wait, good Lawd, 'twell termorrer!'" - -"I take it all back, Charlie," offered Mabel, "I liked that a lot." - -Fred said a regretful good-bye and, with a promise that he and Virg -would weigh the anchor of the "Sabrina" the minute the "Boojum" -signaled, he dropped over the side into his dory and rowed slowly over -the moon-lit water to the silent Hurricane Island. - - - - -CHAPTER XIV - -TIM'S FATHER - - -The "Boojum" and the little "Sabrina" dropped anchor in the harbor at -Nantucket Island almost at the same time. They found themselves in the -midst of a fleet of trig catboats, yawls and splendid motor yachts. -Every male in the island is said to have some sort of boat, and the -catboat seemed to be the choice of the majority. There is a stretch of -land-locked water reaching along one side of the island, and here, -every day, are to be seen races between the many catboats. - -Boat after boat slid in, found its mooring, and emptied itself of its -gay-sweatered, picnicking crowd. The boats were so packed and wedged -in that the "Boojum's" people began to wonder how they could pick -their way into shore with the tender. - -Suddenly a speed boat shot out from the landing in front of the club -house and with marvelous skill threaded its way among the moored -boats. As it approached the "Boojum," a tall gray-haired man, who was -standing at the wheel, raised one hand and waved it at the group on -the "Boojum's" deck. - -"Why, he seems to be coming up alongside," Mr. Wing said in surprise. - -"Ahoy on board the 'Boojum!'" boomed the man's deep voice. - -"Come aboard," invited Mr. Wing with a cordial smile and a bewildered -voice. - -"It's Tim's father, of course," said Frances, springing forward to -greet him. "They look exactly alike. Jane, run down into the saloon -and tell Tim his daddy is here." - -But Mr. Reynolds, with a Tim-like grin that included them all in its -heartiness, said: - -"Please, young lady, let me go see my boy. I'll be up in a second and -thank all of you for your kindness." - -He had disappeared down the companionway before Frances got her -breath, Mr. Wing following and the rest of the crew close on the heels -of their captain. - -Some persons think it is an amusing thing to see two men kiss, but no -one would have been amused to see the gray-haired Mr. Reynolds take -his red-haired son in his arms and kiss him first on one cheek, then -on the other. Tim seemed to like it and not to be a bit abashed. - -"How's mother?" he asked as soon as he emerged from the bear's hug his -father was giving him. - -"In an awful stew about you! When you didn't come home that night, she -threw a few fits and then, when there was no word from you, she threw -a few more. The telegram that finally arrived only assured her you -were as well as might be expected with a broken leg. Now she is having -an awful time because the telegram didn't say which leg." - -"Poor little Mumsy! It's the left one, but since I don't write or -shave with my toes it doesn't really make much difference." - -Then Tim introduced his father to the captain and the crew and the -elder Reynolds by his heartiness and honest gratitude soon began to -run his son a close race in their admiration and affection. It doesn't -take many hours on ship board for people to become very well -acquainted and, already, the inmates of the "Boojum" had begun to feel -that Tim Reynolds was a life-long friend. - -"And these two slips of girls carried you down that rocky hill all by -themselves? I don't believe it! Let me feel your muscle!" said Mr. -Reynolds, putting his hand around Frances' biceps. - -"Jimminy crickets! As hard as steel! Now where did you get your -stretcher? Tell me all about it, every detail. My wife is sure to want -to know everything that can be told. You say Tim was unconscious most -of the time?" - -"Yes, sir," answered Frances, who, having been the one to find Tim, -was tacitly understood to be the one to answer for him. "Either -unconscious or light-headed, but his head was the only thing that was -light, I can assure you. He said he hadn't eaten anything for a day -and a night, but he must have been breathing heavily all the time -because he certainly hadn't lost any weight." - -Then she had to tell him how she and Jane made a stretcher with their -skirts and the oars. Here he interrupted: - -"What kind of skirts? Tell me what kind and what color. The boy's -mother will worry my soul out of me if I don't find out what kind and -what color." - -"Just plain khaki, Camp Fire Girls' skirts!" laughed Frances. "The -kind we are wearing now, but we must change them soon, as we always -dress up a bit when we go ashore." - -"But, my dear young lady, please don't! I beg of you don't change your -skirts." - -Mr. Reynolds' request was such a strange one the girls could not help -laughing. His manner was earnest, but in his eyes there was a regular -Tim twinkle. - -"But why not?" insisted Frances. - -"It is this way: you see, of course, when you go ashore it must be to -our home, and I can tell you if you don't wear those skirts out of -which the stretcher was made that carried our Tim, his mother will -never cease bewailing, to say nothing of Cousin Esther. Of course, you -can tie them up in a bundle and let me carry them ashore, but ashore -they must go. Am I not right, Tim?" - -"Well, Mother is right fond of detail and as for Cousin Esther--" -confessed Tim. "If you girls don't mind--" - -"Mind! Of course we don't mind," put in Jane. "The only thing Frances -and I don't like about going ashore is having to doll up. We'll even -carry Tim ashore as we carried him down the hill if that would help -any." - -"Not me!" cried Tim. "I'll never cease to be grateful to you for -carrying me as you did, but, remember, I am not unconscious now and -my leg has been set. I'm afraid you'll jiggle it out of place. I bid -for Breck and Jack to do the carrying this time." - -"We certainly will," said Breck heartily, while Jack gave Tim a -reassuring pat on his shoulder. "I think, Mr. Reynolds," continued -Breck, "you had better send for a surgeon as soon as you get your son -home. I am little more than an amateur and think an expert should pass -on my manner of setting bones." - -"Certainly, young man, although I am sure you made a good job of it. -What my boy would have done without your skill I tremble to -contemplate. Tell me--I think Mr. Wing said your name was Allen -Breckenridge--are you related to Preston Breckenridge of California?" - -"My father, sir!" and Breck's face flushed. - -"Well now, isn't that too bad? Not that you are related to Preston -Breckenridge, but that you have come into port just too late to see -your father. His yacht has been anchored here for several days, but -they set sail only this morning. I've no idea where they were going. -Didn't know they were going at all. Meant to see them again. Quite a -party. You perhaps know where they are going?" - -"No, sir, I do not know," answered Breck, the flush deepening on his -countenance. "I thought they were still on the Pacific coast." - -"Well, well! California people don't think a thing of stepping across -the continent," declared Mr. Reynolds, suddenly realizing that he had -rather put his foot in it and the good looking young man who had been -so nice about setting his son's leg was evidently not on very good -terms with his family. - -While the general bustle was in process incident to going ashore and -getting the broken-boned Tim ready to be carried off, Breck had time -to whisper to Jane: - -"You heard what Mr. Reynolds said about my father's being in these -waters?" - -"Yes, I heard. Aren't you going to try to find out where he is? Do you -think the rest of your family is along? He said a large party." - -"There is no telling. Gee, I'm glad I wasn't one of them! I'd rather -swab the 'Boojum's' decks, even do galley work with greasy pots and -pans to be scoured, than have to wait on the fool girls my sister, -Lorna, gathers around her." - -"Lorna! What a pretty name! You never told me her name was Lorna. You -always just said 'my sister.' I've meant to ask you what her name was -time and again, but when we are together there always seems to be so -many things to talk about I can't get to it." - -"Yes, honey, and there always will be. That's what is so nice about -you: we never seem to talk out," and Breck slid his hand along the -rail and covered Jane's hand. "We don't get much time alone, though, -do we? I love the old 'Boojum,' love her like a sister or a nice -comfortable maiden aunt, but I can't say she offers a fellow many -chances to tell a girl how much he thinks of her. Ummhum! Just think -of Hurricane Island! I tell you that's a great place for love making." - -"How about the little tow-headed Grays? It seems to me on one occasion -they were pretty numerous," laughed Jane. - -"Break away! Break away!" called Charlie, as he emerged from below. - -"What did I tell you?" grumbled Breck. - -"But you never did tell me if you are going to hunt up your family," -insisted Jane. "Do you intend to do it?" - -"Not on your life! In the first place, they have gone. Mr. Reynolds -said they had sailed this morning. I am too happy to row and if the -Governor and I get together we'll lock horns, as sure as shooting." - -"Yes--but--" - -"But what?" - -"I can't fancy being in the same--same--Gulf Stream with my father and -not trying to see him, even if it meant having a small set-to with him -when I did see him. No doubt he and I are to have some argument at our -next meeting, but I am nearly dead to see him all the same," and -Jane's black eyes softened to velvet. - -"But perhaps your father is different," said Breck sadly. - -"Different in some ways, but all fathers are more or less alike. I -reckon your father loves you just as much as mine does me. He just -doesn't know you are grown-up, and you see my father had to let me -grow up because my mother died when I was so young. He thinks I've got -lots more judgment than Jack just because he can't get in his head -Jack is a man. If Jack had been a girl, he'd have realized long ago he -was no longer a child. I'm hoping you are going to be friends with -your father, Breck. It is a terrible thing to carry a grouch around, -especially one against some of your own blood." - -"I know it, honey, but you don't know what a ragging I got the last -time I saw the Governor. Some day, maybe, it will come right and heal -up, but the place is still pretty sore." - -"But how about Lorna?" - -"Oh she is such a--such a--well, I think I won't say anything about -Lorna. I fancy she is what her environment has made her. She hasn't -had half a chance with everything on God's green earth hers for the -asking. Everybody spoils her and she has such a bunch of silly friends -around her flattering her to death that it is hard for the true Lorna -to come out. She was a cute kid years ago and I used to be mighty fond -of her--she was of me too--but now--but never mind. She has -changed--changed a lot." - -"Maybe you changed too," insisted Jane. - -"But she seemed to have so little sympathy for my plans and ideals." - -"Did you have any for hers?" - -"But hers were so silly and vapid." - -"Perhaps she thought yours were silly, too." - -"Well, we won't row about it, honey. I guess I was rather superior and -big brotherish when last Lorna and I met," said Breck somewhat -ruefully. - -"Next time, behave better," admonished Jane. - -"All right, but I can't see a possibility of any next time for years -to come. When you are given to understand by your father that your -room is more desirable than your company, you are not likely to do -much hanging around after that," and the young man flushed. - -"Poor old Breck! You mustn't think I'm blaming you. I am sure it isn't -your fault, but I just have such a strong family feeling myself that I -can't understand when it is lacking. I know you have it too, and so -has your father--and no doubt poor little Lorna has it. You just can't -get together on it." - -And Jane began to turn over in her mind how she might help her fiancé -to make friends with his family. - - - - -CHAPTER XV - -TIM'S MOTHER AND DETAILS - - -Mrs. Reynolds always insisted that she belonged on Nantucket Island, -although she had been born and reared on the mainland. - -"It would take centuries of exile to get a Coffin to acknowledge any -other spot as home," she would say. - -She had inherited a beautiful old house on the main street of -Nantucket Town and it had been almost a religion with her to keep that -house as her grandmothers for generations had kept it. Not a modern -touch was allowed to profane the lovely simplicity of that island -home. Her regret was that only the summers could be spent there. She -would have enjoyed it the whole year round and she resented Mr. -Reynolds' large law practice that compelled his presence in Boston. - -In Boston, Mrs. Reynolds was a fashionable, handsomely dressed woman, -but the moment she entered her ancestral halls she changed her costly -attire for a gown of severe simplicity more in keeping with the -painted floors, rag rugs and cane-bottomed chairs found therein. She -might have been her own great-grandmother in her sprigged muslin dress -with a hemstitched kerchief crossed over her loyal Coffin bosom. The -retinue of servants the Reynolds family found necessary in Boston to -administer to their wants were left on the mainland. Ruling in their -stead was one severe-looking person who claimed distant relationship -with Mrs. Reynolds since they boasted the same great-great-grandmother -Cousin Esther Sylvester was her name. She was the maid of all work, -accomplishing with the utmost ease and precision the labor of cook, -laundress, and housemaid, and at the same time never forgetting that -she was of the same blood as the mistress. The fact that her cousin's -grandfather had left the island and gone over on the mainland, -amassing a fortune, made not a whit of difference to the independent -Esther, whose grandfather had stayed where he was and, at least, kept -what he had, which was a fourth share in a very likely whaling vessel -and an extremely picturesque fisherman's cottage at Siasconset. Esther -had inherited this property and, like her grandfather, she had held on -to it. She still owned a fourth share in the whaling vessel and the -picturesque cottage at 'Sconset. To be sure, the whaling vessel was -rotting at the Nantucket wharf, a mute reminder that the wheels of the -world no longer had to be greased with sperm oil. The cottage had -proved a much more valuable asset, as she rented it every summer for -large sums to a great actress who delighted in its simplicity and the -view one could get from its crooked little windows of the quaint old -village streets. - -Mrs. Reynolds and Cousin Esther had not only the same -great-grandmothers but also the same insatiable curiosity about the -small and seemingly unimportant details of everyday life. Perhaps it -was something that had been bred in the bones of the original -Nantucket Islanders when, in old days, they had been cut off from the -world for months at a time and their own affairs and the affairs of -their neighbors were of all importance because of the fact that the -affairs of the nation were stale long before they were brought to -their ears. The fact that Amanda Bartlett had broken her best Canton -china teapot was a current event while the news that the men of Boston -had thrown the tea into the bay at the famous Boston Tea Party was -days old before they heard of it. - -The telegram telling of Tim's accident had thrown Mrs. Reynolds and -Cousin Esther Sylvester into a great state of excitement. Not only -were they very uneasy about their darling boy but they did so want to -know how and when and where the accident had occurred. Who had rescued -him? Which leg was broken, etc., etc., etc. Who were the mysterious -persons who had sent the lengthy telegram, evidently not at all -counting the cost? How did they happen to be at Hurricane Island? Were -they white people? If so, why did they say their yacht was named such -a strange outlandish name, "Boojum!" Surely the telegraph operator -must have got it wrong. Perhaps they were Fiji Islanders and not white -persons after all. At any rate, they had rescued the beloved Tim and -were bearing him home in the yacht with the exotic name and the ladies -were determined to be as nice to them as could be. - -"Cousin Esther, you had better make extra preparations and be ready -for guests," suggested Mrs. Reynolds. "You know how Mr. Reynolds loses -his head when he begins to invite." - -"Certainly, Cousin Lucia. I have baked three kinds of pies and have a -cold joint in the larder. I calculate there will be food enough for -all the Boojummers likely to land," said Miss Sylvester with some -stiffness of manner. She did not at all like suggestions from her -cousin-mistress. - -Up the quiet, shady street of Nantucket Town came the Boojummers. Mr. -Reynolds led the way with Mr. Wing. Then came the stretcher bearers, -Breck and Jack, the grinning Tim borne lightly between them. The -others flocked around the point of interest not certain they should -not have stayed away and let Tim have his home-coming without such a -crowd, but when this had been suggested, Mr. Reynolds made so many -protestations there was nothing to do but tag along. - -"Well, when you come right down to it," said Mabel, "I guess there -isn't anybody to leave out. Father must go to receive thanks for being -near by with the 'Boojum.' Of course, Jack and Breck must go to carry -Tim; Frances must go because she found him, and Jane must go because -she helped carry him; Ellen must go to look after Jack, and--" - -"And you and Charlie must go along to do the head work," teased Jane. - -"Exactly! Charlie must look after the legal aspect of the case and I -must look after Charlie." - -"Here they come! Here they come!" cried Mrs. Reynolds, peeping through -the living-room window. - -"Yes, and it's a good thing I baked three kinds of pies," asserted -Cousin Esther, grimly. "I'll be bound Mr. Reynolds has invited them to -dinner." - -"How pale my Tim looks! I'm afraid I'm going to cry, Cousin Esther, -although I know how he hates for me to." - -"Don't do it, Cousin Lucia, don't do it! Remember Great-great-Aunt -Patience who never shed a tear even when they brought home her three -boys all drowned off Sankity. Here's the smelling-salts. Now bear up!" - -Tim was pale in spite of a summer's tan. The stretcher bearers were as -careful as possible, but every little jolt was painful to the -fractured hip. - -"It hurts I know," whispered Frances. - -"Not much, but thank you for thinking about it, all the same." Tim had -been wondering if any of them realized how much it did hurt. - -"Just think how Jane and I bumped you and be thankful our skirts are -where they are instead of stretched on oars and you swung in the -middle." - -"I wonder if Mother is going to weep over me. Poor Mother! It does her -good to cry, but Cousin Esther is so stern with her when she gives -way. Of course I'm not crazy about being cried over, but I can stand -it for the good of the cause. I can stand anything better than -Mother's suppressed expression. There she is! Yes, she has her -suppressed expression!" - -Mrs. Reynolds came slowly from the door. Her instinct was to fly to -her son and throw herself on him, take his red head in her arms and -weep, but, remembering Great-great-Aunt Patience, she held on to -herself, knowing full well the stern Cousin Esther was looking at her -from the small-paned window. - -The mother bent over her boy, giving him a restrained peck. But he put -his arms around her and drew her close. - -"Come on, old lady, and don't be so Coffinish. Give us what our -Southern friends call a 'sho nuf' kiss." - -That was too much for poor Mrs. Reynolds. Not only did she give Tim a -"sho nuf" kiss but added to it a genuine hug, while the tears fell -fast. What did she care after all for old Great-great-Aunt Patience -and her strength of character that kept her from shedding tears even -if her three sons were drowned off Sankity? - -"That's something like!" declared Tim. "Now you won't have to get a -headache from restrained emotion. Never mind Cousin Esther. She will -forget it by the time she makes enough pies for all of us." - -Tim then proceeded, with the help of his father, to introduce all the -Boojummers to his mother. After the formal introduction, he began with -the utmost patience to give a detailed account of the accident to the -eager ladies, Cousin Esther having joined them in the living room -where the stretcher bearers had deposited their burden on a long, low -couch. - -"And this is the one who found me," indicating Frances. - -"Do tell!" from Miss Esther. - -"Now tell me how you found him," from Mrs. Reynolds. "How you found -him and what you were doing there and how you happened to look behind -the rock--everything! everything! Don't leave out a thing." - -Frances proceeded with the narrative. When she got to the place where -she went after Jane, her insatiate hostess exclaimed: - -"And you tell me what you were doing and what you thought and what you -said; please, Jane!" - -With a twinkle in her eye, Jane took up the tale which seemed like a -game of consequences. The improvised stretcher made its appearance in -the story and the distracted mother looked eagerly about as though -expecting the stretcher to tell all it knew. - -"Now this is where the petticoats come in!" exclaimed Mr. Reynolds. -"What did I tell you?" - -"You made a stretcher out of the oars and your skirts? Remarkable! -Wonderful! What kind of skirts?" - -"These we are wearing!" Frances and Jane sounded like a Greek chorus. - -"Those identical ones?" - -"The same!" - -Cousin Esther, who was standing next to Frances, picked up a piece of -her skirt between thumb and forefinger and examined it critically. - -"What they call khaki nowadays," she said sententiously. "It is really -a kind of lightweight sail cloth." - -"And the oars! What kind of oars? I do wish I might have seen the -oars." - -"Here's one of them," grinned Tim. "I've been lying on it all the way -here and mighty uncomfortable it was, but I felt I must produce it." -He proceeded to roll over a bit and pull gingerly at a little red oar -that had been concealed up to that moment. "Here it is. Exhibit B! Now -proceed!" - -"No wonder you were making faces as we came long," scolded Frances. -"Why didn't you let me carry the oar? It wasn't very good for a broken -hip." - -"Excuse me, please," put in Breck. "But none of this is very good for -a broken hip. I'm not much of a doctor, but I'm the only one you have -had as yet and I really must insist, Mrs. Reynolds, upon my patient's -being put to bed and a real surgeon being called in to pass on my -work." - -"Oh, thunder, Breck! Not before grub!" grumbled Tim. - -All of them laughed at this and Mrs. Reynolds cried a little more. - -"Now you are my own boy again," she laughed through her tears. - -"You remind me, Mother, of Tennyson's lines," quoted Mr. Reynolds: - - "Home they brought her warrior dead; - She nor swooned, nor uttered cry. - All her maidens, watching, said, - 'She must weep or she will die.'" - -"It seems to more like Sawyer's parody on Tennyson," suggested -Frances: - - "Home they brought her sailor son, - Grown a man across the sea, - Tall and broad and black of beard, - And hoarse of voice as man may be. - - Hand to shake and mouth to kiss, - Both he offered e're he spoke; - But she said, 'What man is this - Comes to play a sorry joke?' - - Then they praised him, called him 'smart.' - 'Tightest lad that ever stept.' - But her son she did not know, - And she neither smiled nor wept. - - Rose a nurse of ninety years, - Set a pigeon-pie in sight; - She saw him eat--''Tis he! 'Tis he!' - She knew him by his appetite!" - - - - -CHAPTER XVI - -A MOUTH FOR PIE - - -A surgeon was called in and passed favorably on Breck's handiwork. -Tim's fracture was doing as well as could be expected, but he was to -be put to bed for three weeks or more and then, of course, must walk -on crutches for many days to come. - -"Isn't that the limit?" grumbled Tim. "And the 'Boojum' will be -sailing away before I know it and I'll be left here with nothing to -do." - -"You can be knitting," suggested Frances, "at least your bones can -be." - -"That's right! Laugh--you don't care if my hip is broken." Tim was -cross and miserable and didn't care who knew it. It was hard right in -the middle of his well-earned summer vacation to be laid up in bed -just when he had made the acquaintance of such a jolly crowd too. He -did not confess to himself that it was Frances and not the whole crowd -that he was going to miss. - -Mrs. Reynolds had given her boy the room opening into the living room -for his sick chamber. It had been a sewing room through all the -generations and it was something of a wrench for her to change it, but -a live son weighed more in the balance than all the dead traditions, -even though they were Coffin traditions, and it was nice to have Tim -downstairs where his friends could see him and where, when he once got -up and around on his crutches, he would not have to contend with -stairs. Cousin Esther grumbled, but Cousin Esther was opposed to -change of any sort. - -"It is out of reason to take a sewing room for a bed room," she -objected. "I'd as soon think of making a pumpkin pie with a top crust -or a mince pie without one. A sewing room is meant for a sewing room -and a bedroom for a bedroom. I like things left as our Maker intended -them to be." - -With which bit of theology she let the matter drop, but Tim always -felt out of place in the sewing room. When Frances made the above -suggestion about his bones knitting, he felt a grim satisfaction that -the process was to go on in the sewing room. - -"You don't care a bit," he repeated, keeping Frances' hand in his a -moment after the rest of the Boojummers had left his room, having bid -him good-bye before going on a jaunt to 'Sconset. - -"Nonsense! I do care! As for you, you are most uncomplimentary," -declared Frances. "You should be eternally grateful to your -much-abused hip for getting itself broken. How otherwise would you -ever have known the inmates of the 'Boojum'?" - -"Oh, I'd have found you somehow. What is to be is to be." - -"What has been was, you mean." - -"Well then, I'm going to grin and bear it as best I might. But please -come see me when you get back from 'Sconset. Gee I'd like to go over -there with you. It's a peach of a place. It's not quite so formal as -Nantucket Town, more rough and ready. When all the summer folk go, I -run over there and visit Cousin Esther sometimes. She loves to have -me, although she is cleaning house most of the time getting rid of the -leavings of the actress who rents her place for the summer. I am sure -it is clean as clean, but she is never content until she has scrubbed -every board three times at least. I'll get Cousin Esther to ask you to -come too. Will you?" - -"But I'll be gone--out West--home--somewhere by that time." Frances -tried to draw her hand away but Tim held on to it. - -"But sometime would you go if Cousin Esther asked you?" - -"Would she make three kinds of pies?" - -"Sure! Ten kinds!" - -"All right then!" Frances was laughing and blushing but she gave Tim's -hand a little answering pressure and left the boy happy and not so -indignant with the fractured hip as that member no doubt deserved. -After all, he reflected, there is generally a reason for everything. - -"Cousin Esther!" he called after the Boojummers were out of the house, -"please come here a minute." - -"Well, what is it?" and Esther came and stood by his bed, looking down -on the red-haired man that seemed to her still the little boy who had -been the plague and joy of her summers since he was able to crawl. She -tried to look stern, but her eyes were soft in spite of her. - -"What do you think of the one called Frances?" - -"The one who found you lying up behind the boulder?" - -"That's the one." - -"Well, she ate a piece of every kind of pie. That's doing pretty well -for a girl born out of New England. She looks as though she came of -good stock not to be seafaring." - -"Her ancestors went West in a prairie schooner and I fancy they had as -much to contend with and more than ours did on the bounding billows," -laughed Tim. "Will you ask her to come visit you over at 'Sconset?" - -"Are you serious, boy?" - -"As serious as I ever was in my life. Her last name is Bliss and if -she will have me that will be my middle name for the rest of my life. -Don't tell Mother. I want to wait and see if she will have me. I don't -see how she can." - -"I don't see how she can help it if she has any sense," declared -Esther with some indignation. "Not have you indeed!" - -"Well, if she does, will you teach her how to make pies?" teased Tim. - -"Of course, if her mother has neglected to do so." - -"All right Cousin Esther. I'm glad you like her. Please hand me that -scrap book over on the table before you go. It is the deuce and all to -be laid up and not able to wait on myself." - -After Esther went out Tim lay idly fingering the scrap book. He -chuckled to himself as he thought of the way his cousin had praised -the girl he hoped to persuade to love him at some future date. - -"A mouth for pie! That's the way she lauded her," he laughed. "Nothing -but a mouth for pie! Well a slice from three kinds was going some. I -fancy they must be almost at 'Sconset now. I do wish I could have been -the first one to show her 'Sconset," he mused. "Where is that little -poem I want?" and he rapidly turned the leaves of the scrap book. - -"Here it is! I am going to read it to her some day. It fills the bill -exactly I think." - - 'SCONSET BY-THE-SEA - - By JEAN WRIGHT - - A queer old fisher village by the sea, - With long low-lying sand, where great waves boom - And break the whole year through. Wide moors - Rich with gold gorse and purple heather bloom. - - The grass-grown, straggling streets run in and out - Past houses weather stained and strange to see; - Built in the fashion of a sailor's heart - Like to a ship as what's on land can be. - - And all in front, each housewife's care and pride, - A tiny garden. Rows of poppies red, - Gay flaming hollyhocks and mignonette, - And good old-fashioned "jump-ups" rear their head. - - Quaint folk, with many a tale of bygone days, - When men sailed off and sometimes came no more; - When women stayed at home to work and wait, - And wear their hearts out on that smiling shore. - - The romance of those other braver days - Hangs like a halo 'round the queer old town; - Shouts in the wind that comes across the sea; - Sighs in the wind that comes across the down. - - Look out across the tumbling surf toward Spain - On some clear, lazy, golden, summer day, - A vague mirage of towers and battlements-- - It is the place to dream one's life away. - - - - -CHAPTER XVII - -"BOILED" AT 'SCONSET - - -The poem Tim read from his scrap-book is an excellent description of -'Sconset. It is a place in which to dream one's life away in spite of -the fact that it is a very popular summer resort and filled to -overflowing with pleasure and rest seekers. There is many a nook and -cranny behind the ever changing sand dunes where one can get away from -the "madding crowd." Behind one of those dunes Breck and Jane found a -snug harbor after having taken a dip in the surf. - -"Did you ever feel such water?" cried Jane, burrowing down in the -yielding sand. "It isn't as cold as Hurricane Island, but it has a -stinging, spanking way with it as though it meant to conquer you." - -"Yes, I feel as though parental authority had got after me with the -wrong side of the hair brush," laughed Breck. "It is a treacherous bit -of beach down at this end and none but good swimmers should venture -here." - -The bathing beach proper was several hundred yards from where Breck -and June had taken their swim. There the island made a sharp curve and -the undertow suddenly was increased as though the old ocean resented -the change of tactics in the land. It was a sparkling, brilliant day, -but the water gave evidence of there having been a storm at sea. Far -out near the horizon were occasional white-caps and as the waves came -closer to the shore they increased in size and fury, each one -seemingly trying to jump on the back of the one in front, foaming and -raging, thundering and booming, breaking on the sand with a final roar -and then endeavoring to drag the whole of Nantucket Island down into -the deep. The sand was coarse and loose and it took a firm, -quick-footed person to get out of the surf safely without being -"boiled." Boiling is a terrible experience and one often had by the -unwary who does not know the habits of the surf on a shelving beach -with loose and shifting sand. The worst feature about being "boiled" -is the jeering crowd that sits on the beach and screams with laughter -as the poor victim is turned over and over and played with by the -relentless waves like some gigantic cat worrying a poor little mouse. -There is nothing amusing in it but the crowd always finds it so and, -when the poor mouse is cast up on the sands with a final admonishing -spank from the last playful breaker, the ordinary crowd of holiday -makers shows less heart than an ancient audience in a Roman arena. The -victim, if it is a woman, is pretty apt to have lost her stockings in -the struggle, her bathing cap, hair pins, anything in the way of -apparel that is not securely fastened on. No matter what the sex, it -is hard to come out from a real good "boiling" with much religion -left. Ears leveled over with sand, shins, knees and elbows scraped -sore from being dragged back and forth, besides the hurt feelings from -being laughed at, is enough to make one doubt that "whatever is, is -right." - -To the more secluded spot, sought by Jane and Breck, came Mabel and -Charlie. They, too, found it difficult at times to pursue their -love-making on the deck of the "Boojum" where, as Charlie put it, -"somebody was always butting in." - -"Gee! Ain't this nice? Not a soul around! Come on, Mabel honey, let's -take a dive and then get on the safe side of one of those friendly -dunes." - -Now Charlie Preston was a fresh-water fish and, while he was a -powerful swimmer, he knew little of the dangers of surf bathing. -While on the "Boojum," as a rule, the bathing had been done by diving -from the yacht's deck into the deep sea. Mabel was as at home in the -surf as a seal and could dive under a breaker and come up on the other -side with amazing poise. She never even thought to warn Charlie of the -treachery of the beach but dived in and while her fiancé stood to -watch her prowess and admire her skill a wave took him off his feet -and then began the process of "boiling" described above. - -Over and over poor Charlie rolled, struggling and spluttering, -gurgling and choking. He would clutch with desperate hands at the -loose sand and then a relentless wave would dash over him and drag him -back while a playful brother wave would knock him with a resounding -smack up on the beach only to let him be dragged back and rolled over -by yet another one before he could get a footing. - -Hearing a great splashing and screaming, Breck and Jane emerged from -behind their friendly dune just in time to see Charlie being boiled to -a king's taste and Mabel, who ordinarily would have been much amused -at the discomfiture of an unwary bather, was screaming shrilly and -trying to get in to come to the rescue of her beloved Charlie. But -one must bide his time in trying to ride waves. Time and tide waits -for no man, nor does it hurry, and getting back to shore was not as -quick as Mabel would have liked. She made a desperate lunge and, for -the first time in the annals of the Wings, one of that name was caught -in the surf and "boiled." - -Over and over went Mabel and over and over went Charlie again, but in -the confusion they managed to clasp hands and just as Breck, trying to -conceal a grin, came to their assistance they managed to crawl up out -of reach of the spanking waves. - -A rueful couple they were, sitting on the beach blinking ludicrously -at each other. - -"Well, you needn't laugh!" spluttered Charlie. - -"I'm not laughing! I'm trying to cry, but my eyes are dammed up with -sand," sobbed Mabel. - -"Well, you needn't laugh, Breck, you and Jane." - -"We are not laughing, old fellow. I would have come sooner if I had -known what was going on," said Breck. "'Boiling' is no joke to my mind -but a serious calamity." - -Breck spoke soberly but he was glad Mabel and Charlie had so much -sand in their eyes they could not see his face. Nobody could help -smiling at their misery. - -Jane came to the assistance of her friend with a small pail some child -had left half buried in the sand. This she filled with sea water by -carefully timing an incoming breaker. She had no desire to be caught -as Mabel and Charlie had been. - -"Here, honey, wash out your poor eyes." - -"They are getting washed fro-om with-h-in-hin-out-hout-ward," sobbed -Mabel. "I ne-hever expec-hected to get boi-hoiled." - -"Don't you mind, darling," comforted Charlie, who was still panting -but was happy to be alive after such an experience. "Here's a -moonstone I found buried in my ear. A beauty too! I'm going to have it -set in a ring for you. I've heard there were lovely moonstones on this -beach, but I never expected to pick up one by ear." - -"I'm hun-un-gry," said Mabel, her sobs letting up somewhat. "When I -get scared, I always get hungry. Maybe it is the 'boiling' that made -me think about food." - -"Of course," said Charlie, indulgently. "I'm kind of hungry too. I -tell you what you do: you and Jane wait here and Breck and I'll go -forage and bring us back a light lunch. We'll pick up the rest of the -crowd on the way." - -"Not too light," admonished Mabel. - -Breck looked sadly at Jane. There seemed to be no place where he could -go and have a quiet little love-making with his sweetheart. Why should -Charlie and Mabel come and be 'boiled' near their dune of refuge? And -why should he have to go hunt food for Mabel? But Jane gave him a -bright little nod of admonition and there was nothing for him to do -but comply. He leant over and whispered to her: - -"Don't go in the water while I am away. Please promise me!" - -And she laughingly promised. - - - - -CHAPTER XVIII - -THE BEGINNING OF TRAGEDY - - -While Jane and Mabel sat in the sun leaning comfortably against the -friendly dune, a group of people came towards their retreat from the -crowded bathing beach. - -"Goodness, I wish they would stay away from here," grumbled Mabel. -"I'm still panting for breath and I certainly don't want to move." - -"I reckon they won't bother us if we don't bother them," suggested -Jane. "It looks like a swell bunch." - -"That's what I've got against them. How can a body eat before such -elegance and Charlie and Breck will be back soon with food, I am -thinking. That's a pretty girl in the Vanity Fair bathing suit and -scarlet cap--and look at the old gent in yachting togs! He must be -postmaster general of all the railroads or something grand. He looks -as though he owned the island and was thinking about annexing the -ocean." - -"He doesn't seem to take much pleasure in his possessions," laughed -Jane. "He looks sad to me." - -The gentleman in question was a powerfully built man of about sixty, -with iron gray hair, piercing blue eyes, a high Roman nose that seemed -to flaunt its aristocratic lines and a mouth and jaw of such force and -determination that Jane wondered at the impertinence of a wave that, -having leaped on the back of one of its brothers, came tumbling in all -out of order, wetting the immaculate white shoes of the nabob. He -looked indignant but evidently felt it to be beneath his notice. - -Behind him trooped a crowd of young people, five girls and two young -men. The old gentleman was the only one not in bathing costume. - -"This is a good place to go in, Father," said the pretty girl in the -Vanity Fair suit. "I simply could not have gone in with that common -crowd up there." - -"Humph!" whispered Mabel, "that must be the princess." - -"Of course not! Such persons!" spoke up one of the other girls. - -"No one knows them," from another. - -"Well, hardly!" drawled one of the young men who seemed to be dancing -attendance on the pretty girl Mabel had designated as "the princess." - -"I hope they can swim and know something about undertow and getting -'boiled'," murmured Jane. - -"The snobs! It might do them good to get a good drubbing on their -stuck-up persons," answered Mabel, looking at the interlopers with -round wondering eyes. - -The interlopers in turn paid not the least attention to either Jane or -Mabel. If they had been sand fleas or skates' eggs, their presence -could not have been more completely ignored. - -"Sorry you won't go in, sir," said one of the young men to the older -man. - -"I never learned to swim," he answered with a certain haughty -indifference of tone which put the polite young man along with the -impertinent wave, the sand fleas, the skates' eggs, Jane and Mabel, -among the things to be ignored. - -"Strange! Your daughter is a beautiful swimmer--" - -"Yes, beautiful!" chorused the girls who seemed to be bent on -flattering the pretty daughter. - -"She does everything well," said one of them. - -"And your son is--" but what his son was Jane and Mabel could not -hear, as the gentleman turned on his heel and walked off up the beach -puffing vigorously at a long black cigar that Mabel insisted smelt as -though it might have cost a dollar. - -"Lorna, darling, I hate for you to get your pretty bathing suit wet," -said one of the girls, whose manner was even more fawning than the -rest. - -"Oh, Lord!" groaned Mabel. "Just listen!" - -"Lorna! Lorna!" Jane said to herself. "Could these be Breck's people?" -Looking after the retreating figure of the impatient old gentleman, -she saw unmistakable lines of resemblance. He could be none other than -the father of the man she had promised to marry. - -"Poor Breck! They are certainly difficult," she said to herself. "But -the father looks sad. I believe he has been suffering, and the girl is -sweet looking and mighty pretty. It is just this lot of flatterers and -sillies that are ruining her. Look at the men! They haven't a chin -between them and the girls ought to have a good strenuous course in -Camp Fire training to knock the foolishness out of them." - -She said nothing to Mabel about the possibility of their being the -Breckenridges. Mabel was not a marvel of tact and Jane felt that here -was a situation that must be handled delicately. She hoped something -would detain Breck and she could warn him that his father and sister -were on the beach. It might be hard on him to come upon them unawares. -She felt assured, however, that her Breck was equal to any emergency. - -"I wish I could get my wind back," said Mabel. "That 'boiling' has -done me up for the day. I wanted to go in the water again but I fancy -I'd better not." - -"You are panting, you poor dear," said Jane sympathetically. - -"I was scared about Charlie. I believe that did me up more than all of -the fancy somersaults I turned." - -"Why don't you cuddle down and take a nap?" suggested Jane. - -"I believe I will," Mabel curled herself up in the sand and in a -moment was fast asleep. - -Jane, glad to have quiet for her thoughts, directed her attention to -the bathers. The pretty Lorna had dived through the breakers and was -riding the waves like a veritable mermaid. She was a good swimmer and -seemed perfectly at home in the surf. - -"Isn't she wonderful?" - -"Did you ever see anyone so beautiful?" - -The flatterers were forced to shout their compliments in loud tones so -that the pretty Lorna could hear them above the noise of the breakers. - -"Come in!" she commanded. The young men looked rather ruefully at the -curling waves and the girls took tentative steps in the direction of -their princess. But tentative steps are fatal on a beach like that -with a heavy uncertain sea. The "boiling" that Mabel and Charlie had -just undergone was nothing to the one that the timid young men and -maidens now were subjected to. It was the fault of one young man who -hesitated and was lost. Over he went and clutching wildly grasped the -arm of one of the girls, who in turn pulled down another and then the -merry war went on. - -"Help! Help!" they shrieked. - -"I reckon they can help one another," said Jane grimly. - -Just as one victim would stagger to his feet, another would clutch -wildly at his legs and over he would go. In the midst of this -confusion another cry rang out shrill and sharp above the rush of the -waters and the squeals of those being "boiled." - -"Help! Oh, help! I'm giving out!" - -Jane sprang to her feet. In her amusement over the laughable -predicament of the unwary she had forgotten all about Lorna. Now she -could plainly see that the girl was in distress. Evidently she had -tried to come in to shore and was being carried out by the undertow. -She had lost her head and was struggling wildly. For a moment her head -with the gay cap and handkerchief went under, a huge wave breaking -over her. - -Jane dived through the breakers. She was conscious of the fact that -the father was near her. He had turned and walked back towards the -beach, arriving near the friendly dune just as his daughter's cry for -help rang out. - -"My God! It's Lorna!" he gasped. "Here!" he cried, grabbing one of the -struggling young men out of the breakers just as he was being thrown -up on the sands by a playful wave. "Here, you! My daughter is -drowning!" - -"So am I!" gasped the chinless youth. - -"You can swim--go get her! Get her man! I can't swim a stroke." - -The frantic father was rushing up and down like a raging lion. By that -time, all of the party had come out of the boiling with no bones -broken but with rueful countenances. - -"A nawsty beach!" announced the other young man. - -"But my Lorna! She is drowning!" bellowed the father. - -"Lorna! Lorna!" wailed the girls and the youths shivered and tried to -make up their minds to go in after her but the waves seemed to have -redoubled in force and fury. They rose up like walls and broke on the -shore as though determined to smash anything that dared approach them. - -"A rope! A rope! Get a rope!" commanded Mr. Breckenridge. But nobody -seemed to know where to get a rope, so nobody got one. "Will none of -you go in and get my girl? Cowards!" - -He beat the trembling young men on their cringing backs and tried to -shove them into the water. - -"My God! My God! Why did I never learn to swim?" - -The shrieks of the distracted friends of Lorna had at last attracted -some of the people from the regular bathing beach and the crowd began -to surge towards the scene of the disaster. - -In the meantime Jane with sure eye and steady stroke had cut under the -combing breakers and reached the spot where last she had seen the -drowning girl. She trod water for a moment and peered through the -clear green waves. Ah, there was a flash of the pretty crimson cap and -handkerchief! Without a moment's hesitation, Jane dived and came up -bearing a limp trophy. - -"I reckon it's a good thing she's lost consciousness," thought Jane. -"She can't struggle and I have some chance of getting in with her." - -She looked back on the beach as a huge wave raised her aloft with her -burden, and wondered if she could make it. It seemed a great way off. - -"Of course you can, Jane Pellew! Keep your mouth shut and breathe -through your nose; don't fight the waves but let them take you in. -Think of the skates' eggs that are thrown up on the sands, how fragile -they are and still safe. Think of Breck! Think of Father and Jack and -poor Aunt Min! Think of Lorna and what it will mean to Breck's father -to have his child safe. Poor man!" - -Holding Lorna's head above water as much as possible, she began her -perilous trip ashore. She must time each wave and endeavor to ride it -instead of being overcome by it. Many times she and Frances had -played the game of saving each other and she was thankful for the -skill she had acquired. But she found it quite a different thing -saving Frances who inadvertently helped herself somewhat and saving -this poor limp girl who flopped so piteously and whose head was so -hard to keep above water. - -"If Breck would only come!" her heart cried out. - -Among the crowd that gathered on the beach there were many good -swimmers but, as sometimes happens in a crowd, a strange panic had -seized them. The run in the loose sand from the bathing beach proper -had winded most of them too and men and women stood shuddering and -watched the black-eyed girl make her fight. - -"She will win! She will win!" they comforted themselves by saying. - -"Lord! what pluck!" - -"Who is it--the drowned girl?" - -"Preston Breckenridge's daughter. He's the multimillionaire from -California." - -"Money won't help him much now." - - - - -CHAPTER XIX - -THE GOOD OF THE ILL WIND - - -Mabel waked up just as Jane triumphantly rode her last wave and was -cast up on the sand still holding on to her unconscious burden. - -Lorna's friends, shrieking and crying, threw themselves on her wailing -and moaning: - -"She is dead! She is dead!" - -"Give her to me!" sternly demanded her stricken father. - -Jane was completely exhausted and lay for a moment with her eyes -closed while the crowd of holiday makers closed in around her, -praising her and lauding her to the skies. But Jane's work was not -over. As soon as she could pull herself together she was on her feet -and, pushing her way unceremoniously through the crowd, she caught Mr. -Breckenridge by the arm where he stood clasping his Lorna to his -broken heart. - -"Don't listen to them! She is not dead! Give her to me. Give her here, -I say! Mabel!" she called, "come and help me." - -Mabel was there in a moment. - -"Push the crowd back and come give first aid to the drowning. You know -how." Jane spoke authoritatively and Mabel took matters into her own -hands. Lorna's friends were the hardest to manage as they insisted -upon hanging over her and covering her with kisses. - -"You are killing her!" Jane spoke sternly. "Mr. Breckenridge, if you -can't make these people stop, I'll not answer for your daughter's -life." - -And now Mr. Breckenridge took matters into his own hands and pushed -away the curious ones who would crowd in and with no gentle hand -pulled the well-meaning if ill-advised friends away from his daughter. - -Then Mabel began the process of bringing to life the seemingly dead. -Many times had she practiced this stunt in classes until she knew how -to do it better than any one of the group of Camp Fire Girls. - -"That fat girl will mash her," wailed one of the friends. - -"I may be fat but I'm no fool," retorted Mabel, who had placed Lorna -on her face with arms above her head and face turned to one side. Then -she had seated herself astride the prostrate body and with clever and -strong hands manipulated her lungs. At first it seemed hopeless. The -friends still wailed and it took all of Jane's strength, and stubborn -determination, combined with Mr. Breckenridge's, to hold them back -from what they thought was their dead darling. - -"She has just swallowed a lot of water," Jane comforted the stricken -father. "She wasn't under water long enough to be drowned. Her heart -is all right, isn't it?" - -"As right as a trivet, my dear." - -His "my dear" gave Jane a little thrill. - -"She needs all the air she can get and the more people crowd around -her the harder it will be for her," she said to the father, and to -herself she wailed: "Where, where is Breck?" and she prayed: "Oh, God, -send Breck." - -And Breck came at that moment. Laden with food and with the rest of -the Boojummers Charlie and Breck had started back to the spot where -they had left the girls. From afar off they saw the crowd and began to -run. Suppose something had happened to Jane or Mabel. Breck remembered -with thanksgiving that Jane had promised not to go in the water again -until he got back. - -"Good old Jane wouldn't break her word for a million," he said to -himself as he raced to see what was the matter anyhow. - -Towering above the crowd he saw the head of his own father and -something in his face told him there was tragedy in the air. - -Breaking through the crowd to the space kept open by the exertions of -Jane and Mr. Breckenridge, the son caught his father by the hand. - -"Father!" he cried. - -"Allen! My son! Look, your sister! She is drowned." - -"No, she is not," put in Jane reassuringly. "See, her breath is coming -back!" and sure enough as Mabel pressed upon the lungs and then -removed the pressure a sign of animation could be discerned in the -prostrate body. The shoulders heaved slightly and there was a -quivering of the long lashes that rested on the marble cheek. - -Mabel began to sob. - -"Let me take your place, Mabel, please," suggested Jane. - -"Never!" cried Mabel. "I'm just sobbing because I'm so happy. She's -trying to breathe." - -"She's going to live," Jane whispered to Breck. - -"I've always wanted to bring somebody back ever since the time it was -Miss Min's riding skirt and not Miss Min that got drowned," continued -Mabel, still pressing gently but firmly on Lorna's lungs and then -releasing the pressure. - -"I believe, little sister, you tried to take in the whole ocean," said -Breck, kneeling by Lorna's side and taking her hand in his after it -was all over and she had come back to consciousness. - -"Oh, Allen! And we have found you at last. We have been searching up -and down the coast for days and days," she whispered faintly. "Father -didn't know I understood what he was doing, but he couldn't fool me. -He has been as restless as a caged lion. He was sure he would find you -at Nantucket Town and when you weren't there he sailed away, but only -went around the island and put in again this morning." - -This was in such a low tone that nobody except Breck heard it, but -Jane noticed that there were tears in his eyes when he got to his feet -and again grasped the hand of his father. - -"Father, I want you to know my friends. This is Mr. Wing. I shipped as -common seaman on his yacht, the 'Boojum,' but, by a stroke of good -fortune, I am now--er--eating at the captain's table." - -Breck went down the line introducing his friends, but with an unwonted -shyness saved Jane until the last. Jane stood by looking on and -blushing in spite of herself. Her bathing cap that the waves had -spared had been lost in the scuffle with the crowd and the importunate -friends and her wealth of blue-black hair had fallen about her -shoulders, making her look very handsome. Mr. Breckenridge looked at -the girl keenly as his son at last turned to her. He took her brown -hand in both of his and said: - -"Somehow I don't need to be introduced to this young lady. I know her -already, all but her name. I know she risked her life for a perfect -stranger and I know she has more grit than any man on the beach, as -much grit as any man I have ever known." - -He leant over and kissed her hand. "I can never repay you, my dear, -whatever your name is. There is no way to repay you." - -"Yes there is, sir," said Jane blushing furiously but smiling bravely. -"You can give your son and me your blessing, because we are thinking -about getting married." - -It was a good thing the crowd had dispersed and gone back to the safer -beach, because crowd or no crowd Breck put his arm around his dear -Jane and kissed her again and again. - -Then Charlie felt he should kiss Mabel because she had done such good -work in resuscitating the drowned. And Mr. Breckenridge thanked her -all over again for her wonderful skill. - -"Where did you learn how to do it?" he asked. - -"Part of being a Camp Fire Girl," declared Mabel. "Camp Fire Girls are -just hanging around longing for emergencies to occur so they can get -more beads. You needn't be grateful to me for resuscitating your -daughter. I have been praying for such a chance for ever so long." - -Everybody laughed at Mabel, who usually put her foot in it and never -could get out a long word without mixing it up. - -"And you are a Camp Fire Girl too?" Mr. Breckenridge asked Jane. - -"Oh yes, and it was being one that made me able to save Lorna. You see -we practice saving people. Mabel doesn't mean we want things to happen -but that we want to be near by and able to help if things do happen." - -"I see," he smiled. - -"Well, I'm mighty hungry," put in the irrepressible Mabel. - -"Here are the eats," whispered Charlie. "Hot-dog sandwiches and long -green pickles and ginger ale, but you have to drink out of the -bottles." - -Jane and Mabel could not help being amused to see the elegant persons -who had been so superior not half an hour before and too refined even -to bathe in the ocean with the common herd actually sitting down on -the beach with them, whom they had so ignored, and sharing the crude -luncheon with ill-concealed gusto. - -"Excitement always makes me hungry," sighed Mabel to one of the -chinless youths who was daintily munching a long dill pickle. - -As for Lorna's flattering friends, they watched to see what she would -do and then did likewise even to the extent of a vulgar hot-dog -sandwich. - -"I don't know whether it is good for anyone who has been so near -drowning to eat such food, but I guess you can try it, little Sister," -laughed Breck. - -The warm sun quickly dried the wet suits. Color came back into the wan -faces and laughter was on the lips that had so recently uttered only -moans. It was a merry party. No one could be stiff and elegant very -long with the Boojummers headed by the amusing and altogether natural -Mabel. - -Breck watched with pleasure his sister's interest in Jane. His -father's eyes were never off his son's fiancée and in them it was -plain to read supreme satisfaction and approval. - -And is this not a very good place to leave our Camp Fire Girls? They -have had a wonderful summer trying to live up to the principles taught -by their organization. Some of the beads they have won will not show -on their strings but will be what Mabel called "character beads." - -Mr. Breckenridge saw to it that the two young women who saved his -daughter's life should have something more tangible than just -"character beads." When they got back to New York, they had hardly -reached their hotel, when each received a package by special -messenger. Each box contained a priceless string of pearls, with Mr. -Breckenridge's card, on which was written. - - Some Camp Fire Beads - For - A Brave Girl - -"Have you told your father about Hurricane Island yet?" Jane asked -Breck. - -"Yes, and he merely wanted to know if you approved and was mighty -disappointed to hear most of the stock was bid for already. I guess -we'll have to let the Governor in on it for a little." And Jane smiled -a happy assent. - - THE END - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Camp Fire Girls on a Yacht, by -Margaret Love Sanderson - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS ON A YACHT *** - -***** This file should be named 42548-8.txt or 42548-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/2/5/4/42548/ - -Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Matthew Wheaton and the -Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: The Camp Fire Girls on a Yacht - -Author: Margaret Love Sanderson - -Illustrator: Maude Martin Evers - -Release Date: April 15, 2013 [EBook #42548] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS ON A YACHT *** - - - - -Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Matthew Wheaton and the -Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - -</pre> - +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42548 ***</div> <div class="figcenter"> <img src="images/cover.jpg" width="400" height="608" alt="" /> @@ -5284,381 +5245,6 @@ a happy assent.</p> <p class="book-end">THE END</p> - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Camp Fire Girls on a Yacht, by -Margaret Love Sanderson - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS ON A YACHT *** - -***** This file should be named 42548-h.htm or 42548-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/2/5/4/42548/ - -Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Matthew Wheaton and the -Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: The Camp Fire Girls on a Yacht - -Author: Margaret Love Sanderson - -Illustrator: Maude Martin Evers - -Release Date: April 15, 2013 [EBook #42548] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS ON A YACHT *** - - - - -Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Matthew Wheaton and the -Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - - - [Illustration: Frances and Jane use their Camp Fire Girl training.] - - - - - The Camp Fire Girls On A Yacht - - BY - MARGARET LOVE SANDERSON - - Frontispiece by - MAUDE MARTIN EVERS - - The Reilly & Lee Co. - Chicago - - - Copyright, 1920 - by - The Reilly & Lee Co. - - - Made in U. S. A. - - - _The Camp Fire Girls on a Yacht_ - - - - - CONTENTS - - - CHAPTER PAGE - I AN INVITATION FOR A CRUISE 7 - II SERGEANT MURPHY ASSISTS 14 - III THE BOOJUM 27 - IV ANCHOR WEIGHED 40 - V AT THE LANDING OF THE PILGRIMS 51 - VI BETTY WYNDHAM, ACTRESS 63 - VII EXPLORING GLOUCESTER 73 - VIII WHAT FRANCES FOUND 84 - IX THE AFFAIRS OF BRECK 97 - X HURRICANE ISLAND 110 - XI DEBATE AND JUST TALK 122 - XII BROTHER AND SISTER 132 - XIII JACK'S AFTER-SUPPER SPEECH 141 - XIV TIM'S FATHER 152 - XV TIM'S MOTHER AND DETAILS 163 - XVI A MOUTH FOR PIE 174 - XVII "BOILED" AT 'SCONSET 181 - XVIII THE BEGINNING OF TRAGEDY 188 - XIX THE GOOD OF THE ILL-WIND 198 - - - - -The Camp Fire Girls On a Yacht - - - - -CHAPTER I - -AN INVITATION FOR A CRUISE - - -"Oh! Jack, Ellen, come here this instant!" cried Jane Pellew in so -excited a manner that the mail rider almost fell out of his jumper in -his effort to see what it was that made Miss Jane "take on so." She -was dancing around the broad old veranda waving one of the letters he -had just handed her. - -"Too hot, Sis, and we are too comfortable," came Jack's lazy voice -from under the big ash tree that shaded one side of the porch. - -"You have enough energy for all of us, so s'pose you come to us," -Ellen called. - -"You won't be hot for long, but you are going to be very uncomfortable -in a minute." With the warning, Jane jumped off the porch and landed -in Ellen's lap, then pulled herself up quickly by means of one hand -entwined in Jack's thick chestnut hair. - -"Shut up and listen!" commanded Jane. - -"Nobody has a chance to do anything else with you around," Jack -reminded his sister. - -"Who could do anything else but listen after having a hundred and -thirty pounds of buoyant young Kentucky girl hurled on top of you from -a distance of some ten feet? I don't believe I shall ever get my -breath again," groaned Ellen. - -"I'll say you manage pretty well without it," Jane laughed. "But, as I -was saying, listen and you will hear the most wonderful piece of news -that has happened in the history of mankind," and she started reading -from the letter she had still managed to keep in her hand: - -"Dearest Jane:" - -"Bet it is from one of the Camp Fire Girls," interrupted her brother. - -"Keep quiet, I have a good mind not to tell you after all. But I am -such a nice girl I suppose I'll have to. It's from Mabel Wing. Now, -let me finish," pleaded Jane. - - "Dearest Jane: - - "As long as Ellen Birch is staying with you, read this to her, - as I am so busy I'll never have time to write two letters - saying exactly the same thing. I am sending one to Ruth Garnier - with the request that she read hers to Frances Bliss, who is - staying at her home. - - "And telegraph me whether you will or won't, but please do. I - always do things backwards even in letters. What I mean is - Daddy is going to give me a cruise on his yacht and I want you - and Ellen and Jack to come. We will leave City Island, N. Y., - July the first, and go till we get bored, up to the Maine coast - and poke around all those little islands that Daddy says grow - in the New England waters. - - "Don't bring any clothes, as there never is any place to stow - more than the bare essentials. And make Jack bring his banjo - and, of course, your bathing suits and Camp Fire clothes. - - "I'll be so disappointed I'll die if you don't. - - Hastily, - - "Mabel." - -"As if you couldn't tell it was 'hastily, Mabel,'" Jack laughed. "But -I have no idea of bringing your bathing suits and Camp Fire regalia." - -"Goose! That is just the Mabel of it. She writes just as she talks," -explained his sister. - -"What fun for all of us! But we must telegraph right away," said the -practical Ellen. - -"Here comes Father now," and Jane pointed to a red-wheeled buggy and a -briskly trotting bay horse driven up the shady approach to the -Pellews' home by the master of the house. - -The three of them ran across to meet Mr. Pellew, a man beloved by his -children's friends as much as he was respected and loved by his own. - -"Daddy dear, Mabel wants--" began Jane. - -"It will be wonderful!" put in Ellen. - -"Is it all right with you if I go too, Dad?" Jack interrupted both -girls. - -Mr. Pellew put his hands up to his ears and screamed above the hubbub: -"How can I tell whether it will be wonderful for Ellen and all right -for you or even what Mabel wants if the bunch of you try to rival the -builders of the tower of Babel?" - -"Ellen," suggested Jack, "you tell him; Jane gets too excited." - -Ellen put one hand over Jane's mouth and told Mr. Pellew of the -interesting trip Mabel and her father had planned for them. - -Squirming away from Ellen, Jane flung her arms around her father's -neck and said, "But we don't like leaving you when we have been home -from school for only such a short while." - -"It never seems to enter your scatter-brained heads that I might -oppose you in anything," Mr. Pellew smiled at his daughter. - -"You always are keen for us to have a good time," Jack explained. - -"And you went and had such clever good children that they know just -exactly what to do and what is good for them and what is bad for -them," added Jane. - -"Of course you can go and I'll be mighty glad for my children to have -such a wonderful summer. When do you expect to leave and from what -point?" inquired Mr. Pellew. - -"First of July, City Island!" came in chorus from the three. - -"Henceforth all my conversation will be nautical. Yo-ho-ho and a -bottle of two per cent substitute. Jack, do you have to have a horn or -a pipe for stage property when you want to execute a briny jig?" and -Jane began to cavort around in what she considered a truly seafaring -manner. - -"'Shiver my timbers!' and 'Scuttle her amidships!' is my contribution -to this, but I am the only person to be allowed to use these choice -phrases until some one can think up better ones. Then, of course, I'll -be glad to cash in my old ones for the new ones," was Ellen's generous -offer. - -"Son, you had better order some horses saddled directly after dinner -so you kids can ride over and send the necessary telegrams," said Mr. -Pellew to Jack. - -With an "Aye, aye, sir," Jack raced toward the stable. - -"Home is so beautiful in the summer that I can hardly bear to leave -it," sighed Jane. - -She and her father and Ellen were walking over the close-cut grass and -she cast a rather wistful eye around the lovely lawn that stretched -before the Pellew house. There were great trees whose spreading -branches had shaded her grandparents, her own father and the mother -she couldn't remember, but loved because of the sweet pictures her -father had of her. Where the lawn stopped the rolling fields of blue -grass began and Jane could see the old mare, on which she and Jack had -learned to ride, grazing contentedly. It was a hobby of her father's -never to sell the old horses on the place but to treat them as worthy -old pensioners and turn them out on the rich bluegrass pasture lands -that bordered his place. Mr. Pellew had a string of race horses famous -throughout Kentucky, and as Jane put it, she and Jack had "fallen from -the cradle into a saddle." Their father kept a model stable and Aunt -Min, who took charge of the Pellew home, often complained that the -expense of upkeep for the stable was far greater than that of their -exceedingly well run home. - -"Well, of course, I won't force you to go," teased her father. - -"Why, Jane, I thought you were perfectly wild to go," Ellen said. - -"Oh, that is the way I always behave about leaving home. I am terribly -sentimental over it and always indulge in dramatics when I go away. -You see, I am bats about all the horses and dogs on the place and I -can't help thinking about Atta Boy, the Denmark colt Dad was letting -me break for my own," Jane explained. "All the work I have put in on -him will come to nothing if he isn't ridden regularly this summer, and -Daddy doesn't have time to do it for me and I wouldn't trust anybody -else with such a peach of a colt." - -"You honor me, daughter." Mr. Pellew made a low mocking bow. "To show -my deep appreciation of the fact that you put my horsemanship on the -level with your own, I suppose I will have to promise to ride Atta Boy -every other day for you." - -"I love Kentucky too, Jane, and you can't know how much it has meant -to me to stay with you. Last summer it was too wonderful with the -other girls here but this summer it has been just splendid with you -and Jack." Ellen blushed after mentioning Jack, because he had just -been telling her what a wonderful summer it was for him with her -visiting Jane. - -"Ellen, did you ever hear this little tribute to our state?" Mr. -Pellew asked and began: - - "Ever see Kentucky grass - Or hear about its blueness? - Looks as if the whole derned earth - Was bursting out in newness. - - Skies and folks alike all smiles. - Gracious! you are lucky - If you spend a day in June - Down in old Kentucky." - -"And the more days you spend in Kentucky the luckier you are," stated -Jane. "But goodness, I sound like that girl from Virginia who was at -Hillside last year." - -Aunt Min came out on the porch and interrupted the eulogy on the -charms of Kentucky by telling them that dinner was ready. But anyone -seeing the great platter of fried chicken on the table before Aunt Min -would have said that the eulogy might well have been continued in the -spacious old dining room. - - - - -CHAPTER II - -SERGEANT MURPHY ASSISTS - - -"Jack! have you your banjo? And Ellen, have you the box of candy Daddy -gave us?" Jane called over her shoulder to the two who were sitting in -the tonneau as they were driving over to the station to catch the -train that was to take them to New York. - -"You better keep your eyes on the road if you are to keep us in the -road," gently reproved Mr. Pellew from his seat beside his daughter. - -"We've got everything we ought to have, but what have you remembered? -Nothing for a change?" teased Jack, for Jane was an almost proverbial -forgetter. - -"Anything important that you have forgotten I can parcel post to you -after I come back from New York," said Aunt Min, who was to go along -to chaperon them at the hotel in New York. The girls had some shopping -to do and were going up a few days prior to their final departure to -accomplish it. - -"Aunt Min, you are a perfect peach, and I am so glad you finally -joined the Camp Fire Girls." Ellen reached over and patted -affectionately the hand of the woman once disliked by the entire band -of Jane's friends and now the pet of all of them. - -As the car, piloted by Jane, whirled up to the station, a rather fat -young man was seen dashing frantically around, talking first to the -station agent and then to the baggage man, all the time violently -mopping his face with a huge white handkerchief. - -"There's Charlie Preston in a stew as usual," giggled Jane, pointing -to the distraught young man, who was Mabel's fiance. - -Suddenly Charlie stopped his gyrations and his face broke into a -really charming smile. - -"I was trying to find out from some of these misguided officials if -you all had made arrangements to go on this train, for if you weren't, -I wasn't either, but not one word could I get out of them but a polite -'Speak to you after the train leaves,' and, saving your presence, Miss -Min, how the deuce would that help me?" Charlie exploded to his -friends. He was a strange mixture of calmness in times of stress and -great irritability and excitability in times of petty trials. - -"All aboa'd!" cried the white-jacketed and very black porter. - -"Oh! Daddy, good-bye, good-bye, I am going to miss you all the time, -no matter how much fun I am having," and Jane ruffled Mr. Pellew's -collar in the last of a series of bear hugs that had begun the night -before. - -"Don't make such rash promises but write me occasionally, and Jack, -you telegraph me as soon as you get to New York. I hope the rooms I -wired for will be all right. And now I am going because I won't feel -so alone if I leave before the train pulls out," he said and drove off -with a great show of bravery. - -At last they were settled comfortably for the long trip to New York, -Aunt Min with a magazine and the young people planning good times for -the few days they were to be in the city before going aboard the -yacht. - -"We can go to see Emmeline Cerrito. Jack, you know she is our -beautiful French friend who is studying for grand opera. She hopes to -make her appearance this fall. Maybe she will sing for us. I don't -think I've ever heard a lovelier voice; have you, Jane?" Ellen loved -music. - -"And Sarah Manning is in training at the Presbyterian Hospital; we -will certainly look her up and get her to come to dinner if she can -get any time off," suggested Jane. - -"I want to get something for the ship's library," said Charlie, "and I -think Carroll's 'Hunting of the Snark' would be in order. It will help -to comfort me during the first three or four days out. You know I'm -nobody's able seaman. My last year at college a bunch of us raced a -yacht down to Bermuda and I want to say that, for three days, I wasn't -anything but in the way." And poor Charlie winced at the unhappy -memory. - -"But that was one of those narrow little racing types," soothed Ellen, -"and Mabel says her father's is a regular cruising boat and awfully -comfortable." - -"Anyway, my beamish boy, I'll stick by you and play 'Heave-ho, my -hearties' on the trusty banjo while you lean o'er the rail," Jack -grinned. - -"You boys are rather horrid," said Aunt Min from behind her magazine. -"And, by the way, I expect to be taken to the theatre every night, so -don't make too many plans." - -"Tickled to death to take you to any musical comedy you pick and to -any roof garden afterwards," said Jack. "You know, nothing really -good runs in New York in the summer months." - -"And I suspect that you are not at all sorry," teased Aunt Min. - -"Speaking of plays, that reminds me that Betty Wyndham is at -Provincetown with the Provincetown Players for the summer getting -ready for next winter. She got them to take her on this spring. I know -we will go to Plymouth and if we are that near we just can't help -going to see Betty," said Ellen, planning happily. - -"So we will really see all of our friends by hook or crook during the -summer." Then Jane yawned and announced that she was going to crawl -into her berth and go to sleep. - -When New York was finally reached, it took two taxis to deposit the -travelers at their hotel. There the little party separated, Aunt Min -going to her room to rest, the boys going out to "see the town," and -Ellen and Jane going to do their shopping. - -"I love the way the New Yorkers hurry along all so intent on where -they are going and so certain they are going to get there in the end," -said Ellen. "Neither one of us has a really working knowledge of the -city so, no doubt, we will be lost one million times on the way to -Abercrombie & Fitch's." - -"Then we will just ask some genial Irish cop," said Jane lightly. "I -have never paid any attention to the ridiculous warnings of people who -say, 'Never talk to somebody you aren't certain of.' I flatter myself -that I can tell at a glance whether a person is the kind of person to -talk to or not." - -Deep in an argument in which Ellen favored getting gray flannel sport -shirts and Jane khaki ones, the two girls got on the subway. - -"We have been on here ten minutes, surely we will be there soon," said -Ellen glancing at her watch. - -"So we would," giggled the irrepressible Jane, "if we were going the -right way. I noticed just now that we were on a car marked Bronx when -we ought to be on a downtown express. I was going to give you to the -next stop to notice it; after that of course I would have told you." - -"Next time we better not talk so much," observed Ellen wisely as the -girls rose to leave the car. - -"Whew! I would like to come up for air. It's so stuffy down here I -can't think which way we ought to go. If we just had some working -hypothesis of where we are, then we might dope out some route to -take," lamented Jane. - -Both girls looked round them with rather amused expressions. Finally, -Ellen squealed and punched Jane. "There's your genial Irish cop; go -over and ask him how we must get to Abercrombie & Fitch's." - -Jane marched over to the big fat policeman, plainly from Erin. He -grinned invitingly at the world in general and, as she stopped in -front of him, at her in particular. - -"Yes, Mum," he said. - -"We took that horrid old Bronx subway and we didn't mean to," began -Jane by way of lucid explanation. - -"And not the first are ye, young lady, to do the same. Indade, it -looks to me like folks only get to the Bronx by tryin' to go some -other place," the big man announced. - -Then Jane told him where they did want to go. - -"I'm off duty now and it's goin' that way I am myself, so if it -pleases ye I'll just take ye," said Sergeant Murphy. - -Ellen had come up to them and was very profuse in her thanks, but the -Sergeant brushed them aside with a hearty "'Tis nothin'." - -The two girls seated on either side of the big Irishman kept him -grinning with their amusing chatter about nothing. The three of them -were entirely oblivious of the utter unconventionality of the -situation and would have been much surprised if they had heard the old -women across the aisle whispering to one another. - -It is certain that Ellen would have been very indignant if she had -known that the young Russian on her left had kept his hand in his -pocket all the way, so firm was the belief in his mind that she was a -pickpocket. - -Surprise showed through even the suave manner of the young salesman at -Abercrombie & Fitch's, but Ellen thought that it was brought forth by -the fact that two girls wanted such a surprising number of men's -shirts. - -As twilight came and with it no Ellen and Jane, Aunt Min began to get -worried and called the boys in consultation. They decided to wait -until time to go down for dinner and, if the girls hadn't come in -then, to notify the authorities so they might organize a search for -them. - -Aunt Min stood wringing her hands and moaning: "Such terrible things -could happen to them. Charlie, don't you remember that awful Chinaman -that killed a girl in New York and put her in a trunk where they -didn't find her for ages and ages afterwards?" - -"Ellen is so little. Oh! why didn't I go with them?" and Jack cursed -himself roundly for not taking care of the girl with whom he was in -love. - -Charlie was seated in a lounging chair taking the whole affair quite -calmly. "Jack, please behave as though you had some sense. Those girls -are about twenty years old, both of them with the average amount of -intelligence, plenty of money in their pockets, and both on the -outside of a good lunch. So they won't starve to death and, if they -are lost, they can grab a taxi and come to the hotel. I'm willing to -bet on Plain Jane's ingenuity to get 'em home even if they are both -dead and in some Chinaman's laundry bag. Probably what really happened -is that they met someone they know and went some place for tea," and -Charlie went on peacefully eating chocolate creams. - -"Oh! it is all very well for you to talk, but just suppose it was -Mabel Wing who was lost and not Ellen. How about it then?" Jack asked. - -"Mabel is too big to lose, so that is one thing I don't have to worry -about," answered Charlie. - -"Anyway, let's go down in the lobby and wait," said Aunt Min and led -the way. - -Once there they took seats facing the entrance and glued their eyes to -the door. Consequently, when the girls came in flanking a big -policeman, Aunt Min, Jack, and Charlie rose simultaneously and -advanced upon them. - -Aunt Min cried: "Thank heavens, Charlie Preston knows law! Jane -Pellew, what have you done now?" - -Jack beside himself was squeezing Ellen's hand and saying: "Ellen, I -am so glad they didn't take you to jail first. I just know Charlie and -I can fix it up with the cop." - -Charlie looked at them in a ruminating manner and murmured: "Too -happy-looking for anything to be really the matter. Wish they'd come -on and go in to dinner." - -"You are perfectly ridiculous, all of you. Aren't they, Sergeant -Murphy?" and Jane received an understanding wink from that son of the -Emerald Isle. - -"It was this way," began Ellen and told of how the big policeman had -taken them from shop to shop, and piloted them around all afternoon. - -"So when we finished shopping," broke in Jane, "I suggested that all -of us go to a movie." - -"And a fine picture it was, Mum," said Sergeant Murphy to Aunt Min, -"with that Fairbanks lad abusting things wide open with every foot of -reel." - -Jane turned to Sergeant Murphy and shaking his hand said: "Ellen and I -want to thank you for your kindness and also for giving us such a -lovely afternoon." - -"'Tis nothin'," said Sergeant Murphy. "'Twas myself that had all the -fun." - - - - -CHAPTER III - -THE BOOJUM - - -The first of July was a day so perfect that it might well have been -made to order. The brilliant blue sky held little wisps of clouds that -were scattered by a steady, gentle wind. - -"That taxi will never come and I just can't wait another instant. It -should have been here long ago. I just know we'll be late," and Jane -bobbed up from her chair and rushed to the window at the sound of -every car that passed. - -Mr. Wing had called them up the night before and asked them all to be -out at City Island by ten o'clock. He planned to have lunch and be on -the way by one. - -"Patience, my dear sister, is like--well, something or other--I can't -remember just what, but it is a good old saying," Jack flung over his -shoulder as he went to answer the knock of the boy who had come to -tell them that their taxi was waiting. - -Mabel and Mr. Wing met them and took them down to the foot of one of -the many little wharves that jutted out in the harbor. - -"Frances is already on board. There wasn't room in the tender for all -of us," Mabel explained. "Oh! I am so happy I can hardly stand it. It -almost killed me when Ruth couldn't come. You know she is taking some -sort of social service course this summer and didn't feel that she -ought to stop right in the middle of it." - -"Yes, it must have been a disappointment," agreed Ellen. "But maybe -this will cheer you up some. I had a telegram from Anne Follet this -morning saying that she and Ruth would try to be in New York for a few -days when we get back." - -"Splendid, marvelous!" bubbled Mabel, who was hard to depress for -long. - -"Miss Pellew," suggested Mr. Wing, "you come out and have lunch with -us and I'll have one of the men set you ashore directly after. I'd -like to have you see the boat." - -"You are very kind, indeed," said Aunt Min, rather hurriedly. "But -couldn't you point out your boat to me from here?" - -"What, you aren't afraid, are you?" Mr. Wing laughed that delightful -laugh that so often accompanies fatness. - -"Yes, I am," admitted Aunt Min. "But don't tell the girls or I'll -never hear the end of it." - -Mr. Wing pointed to a two-master, with a black hull. "She is the -schooner type and was built by a shipbuilder at Gloucester, so she is -as sturdy as a Gloucester fisherman, but her yachty lines give her -more speed. She's got a big Lathrop engine in her that can kick her -along at ten knots when our wind goes dead on her. She has been almost -everywhere and is perfectly able to go anywhere she hasn't been." - -It was perfectly plain to Aunt Min that boats and water were Mr. -Wing's hobby even though she hadn't understood half of what he had -said, particularly about kicking her along. What was the object in -kicking her along if there was an engine? - -"None of this fancy yachting for me," went on the black yacht's owner. -"I'm my own sailing-master because half the fun of yachting to me is -the work it entails. Why, I love the feel of the old 'Boojum' as she -answers to wheel! And let me tell you she handles quick. She is alive, -every inch of her." - -"Well, I hope there are plenty of life preservers in convenient -places. Thank heavens, all the girls can swim well!" Aunt Min looked -rather dubiously at the "Boojum" and at its owner. - -Somehow the black hull upset her. It smacked of the piratical and she -had visions of drawn cutlasses and bearded men with their heads -wrapped up in red rags. It would have been better, she thought, if the -boat had been white, as she imagined all yachts were. - -"My dear Miss Pellew, it is safe as safe can be and dry as a bone. It -takes days to get a drop in her bilges," Mr. Wing hastened to assure -her. - -"What in the world could be the advantage of it taking days to get a -drop in the bilges, and what did bilges have to do with life -preservers, and what were bilges anyway?" thought Aunt Min. But she -only said, "Well, that is very nice, I am sure." - -Mabel had been explaining to her young guests that Mr. Wing was taking -the boat out a little short-handed because he wanted all of them to -learn something about sailing. "Daddy says it is exactly twice as much -fun if every man on board has some little work to do. I adore steering -by a point of land, but I just can't bear to do it by the compass." - -"Much as I hate to tell Aunt Min good-bye, I wish we would shove off. -I am wild to see it on the inside." Jane's black eyes snapped at the -prospect. - -Soon the young people were seated in the dancing tender and, with many -good-byes to Aunt Min, they scooted through the sparkling stretch of -water that lay between them and the "Boojum." - -"Mabel, how in the world do you ever get over the side and up on -deck?" asked Ellen uneasily. - -"She is falling off a lot, I think," defended Charlie. - -"Goose, I didn't mean that. I mean, how does anybody do it?" - -"You see there is a little ladder that they hook on the side whenever -people want to get off or on and when it isn't being used, it is kept -on deck," Mabel explained. - -Two men in spotless blue denim work suits appeared on the deck as -Mabel finished speaking and lowered the sea ladder over the side of -the "Boojum." - -"Jane, you go first," whispered Ellen. - -"The water is perfectly flat today, but there will be days when it -won't be, so you might just as well begin by being careful," explained -Mr. Wing. "Step in the middle of the boat, grab hold of the sides of -the ladder and step up as lightly as you can because, if you give much -of a spring from the tender, it is liable to push us away from the -'Boojum'." - -"It is nice to know that I have you in my power," Jane laughed. - -However, Jane did not take advantage of her new found power but made -an impressive embarkation on the "Boojum." Her sureness and quickness -won a gleam of approbation from the keen gray eyes of the bronzed -young sailor, who had offered her a hand, which she smilingly refused. - -"Pretty good for a land-lubber, Jane," applauded Mr. Wing. "Now, -Ellen, see if you can do as well." - -"Ellen, you are so light, you couldn't push us away to save your -soul," said Jack rather proudly. - -"And I just bounce up from long practice," giggled Mabel. - -With all of them safe on deck, Mr. Wing gave a few orders to the two -men, telling the short Dutchman to serve lunch as soon as it was ready -and the young sailor to haul the tender up in the davits. "And Jack, -you better help Breck. Sorry to put you to work so soon." - -Mr. Wing led the way down the companion into the saloon. "I hope Mabel -can make you fairly comfortable, girls. You will feel a bit cramped at -first, but most people soon accustom themselves to it. She is very -compact and it really is just a matter of adjusting yourself to a -smaller scale. Now I must go above and see that we get under way. -Charlie, Mabel tells me you have been cruising before and I'm going to -depend a lot on you. As soon as you stow your duds, come up and help -Breck and me with the sails." - -"I'm a peach of a crew, I'll admit," and Charlie chanted: - - "The crew was complete; it included a Boots-- - A maker of Bonnets and Hoods-- - A Barrister, brought to arrange their disputes-- - And a Broker, to value their goods. - - A Billiard-marker whose skill was immense, - Might perhaps have won more than his share-- - But a Banker, engaged at enormous expense, - Had the whole of their cash in his care. - - There was also a Beaver, that paced on the deck, - Or would sit making lace in the bow: - And had often--the Bellman said--saved them from wreck, - Though none of the sailors knew how." - -"What delicious nonsense! What is it?" queried Ellen. - -"Mabel, you explain, I've got to go, for the 'Boojum's' piped all -hands on deck," and Charlie scrambled up the companion. - -"Your education has been neglected if you don't know Lewis Carroll's -'Hunting of the Snark.' Why, you do, don't you, Plain Jane?" demanded -Mabel. - -"Brought up on it," answered Jane. "Must I prove it?" - - "I engage with the Snark every night after dark-- - In a dreamy delirious fight: - I serve it with greens in those shadowy scenes, - And I use it for striking a light." - -Suddenly the brown curtains before one of the bunks that were on each -side of the saloon were flung aside, and Frances Bliss poked out a -tousled head and started, - - "But it knows any friend it has met once before; - It never will look at a bribe; - And in charity meetings it stands at the door - And collects--though it does not subscribe." - -"Plain Jane and Ellen, I am just as glad to see you as though you -hadn't waked me up. Come, salute me." - -Both girls made a dash for their disheveled friend. - -"Well, get out of Daddy's bunk and tell Ellen the tragedy of the Snark -while I take Jane into your little stateroom and show her where she -can scrouge in her clothes," commanded Mabel. - -Frances crawled out of the bunk and began, "Well, my poor little -ignorant friend, it is this way: The Snark was a fabulous creature of -great value, so great in fact that a band of worthy gentlemen set out -to catch it. This band was headed by the noble Bellman who was much -respected by the others. One of these gentlemen was a Baker and was -unfortunate enough to vanish in thin air after the Snark was caught, -because it proved to be a Boojum. Now it is all nice and clear, isn't -it, my priceless child?" - -"About as clear as mud," laughed Ellen. "I'll get a copy and read it -so I'll know what you lunatics are talking about. Anyway, I'm glad I -know where Mr. Wing got that ridiculous name for this lovely boat." - -Mabel had taken Jane into a tiny stateroom with two narrow little -bunks, one over the other. - -"The lockers are under the lower bunk and you can put your rough -clothes in there. Bring your suit and hat into my cabin and I will put -them in my closet. Ellen and I are in the 'Skipper's cabin.' It has a -double bunk that folds up against the side of the cabin and has the -only full length closet in the 'Boojum.' Consequently, the whole bunch -will have to keep their good clothes in it," said Mabel. "And now, if -you and Ellen are ready, let's go up on deck and maybe we can pick up -some dope on how to put up the sails." - -The four girls ran up the companion, the two newcomers giving their -heads a terrific bump on the main boom. - -"Mabel, you horrible creature, why didn't you tell us to duck?" wailed -Jane, holding her throbbing head. - -"No use," answered Mabel in cruel tones. "Daddy says that everybody -has to butt their heads a certain number of times on the main boom of -a yacht and the sooner they begin, the sooner it is over." Then -relenting a bit, she added, "I'll warn you to this extent; whenever we -are at anchor and whenever the sails are down, that is just where the -boom is going to be." - -The girls were standing in the cockpit, looking with admiration at the -immaculate deck gleaming in the July sun, and the shining brass work. -"Oh! just imagine keeping a house as clean as this. It would keep you -working every minute," said Ellen. - -Mr. Wing let go the rope he was coiling and turned a beaming -countenance on the girls. "I've got a splendid idea," he said. "You -girls can take entire charge of the metal work on the good ship -'Boojum' and, if I see a single dull place on it, I'll put half of you -in irons and the rest of you on hard tack and water." - -"There are no irons on board but flat irons, girls," Mabel wriggled an -unbelievable length of pink tongue at her father, "so don't let him -scare you." - -"Well, anyway I can see by your feet that you are very wise children," -said Mr. Wing as he went forward to see what Jack had done with the -rope he had been left to coil. - -"What in the world does he mean, Mabel?" giggled Frances. "Your father -is the funniest man!" - -"He means that we have all got on tennis shoes and that endears you to -the heart of any yachtsman, for it is so easy on the decks. Some yacht -owners keep an extra supply of them on hand so that anybody without -them can be supplied," explained Mabel. - -The good-looking young sailor whom Mr. Wing had called Breck came aft -to the girls and, touching the white cap that covered a very small -part of his crisp black hair, said to Mabel, "Miss Wing, the steward -says that lunch is ready in the saloon." - -"Ah, the low pleasures of the table!" said Mabel with a great show of -licking her chops, then called to the men working up forward, "Hey, -you kids, we are going to lunch and it will be all gone in about two -seconds because the lady crew is hungry as sharks and is not going to -wait for you." - -"You don't have to," and, with surprising lightness, fat Charlie -Preston jumped down the galley hatch, ignoring the ladder and had his -feet under the table before the others had time to shut the mouths -that had opened in surprise as he disappeared below. - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -ANCHOR WEIGHED - - -Mr. Wing rose from the little table that had been spread in the saloon -and said, "We'll break the anchor out with the jib as soon as Breck -has eaten. I hate this old engine like poison, though she's a good old -girl in case of emergency. But I have made it a rule not to use her -unless it is really necessary." - -"What in the world is a jib?" queried Frances with a puzzled -expression. "I thought it was some part of your face because my small -brother used to say 'If you don't shut up, Sis, I'll bust you one in -the jib.'" - -"In this case, it is the sail that is fastened on the bowsprit. There -are a lot of things to learn on a boat, but don't give up because, -before the cruise is over, you girls are going to be able to sail the -ship by yourselves and we men can take it easy; isn't that right, -Jack?" and Mr. Wing went up on deck to uncover the wheel. - -Mabel advised her friends to stay below until the "Boojum" was well -under way. There was always a great deal of excitement on deck -whenever they left a harbor and it might be just as well for all -concerned if they kept out of the way until they got the hang of -things nautical. - -Ellen borrowed "The Hunting of the Snark" from Charlie and announced -that she was going to curl up on the transom in the saloon and become -familiar enough with it by supper to beat the others at their own -game. - - "She starts, she moves, she seems to feel - The thrill of life along her keel," - -sang Frances, "and I've just simply got to go up on deck and see what -it looks like when we are going. Is it all right for me to go up now, -Mabel?" - -Just then Mr. Wing and Jack settled the question by sticking their -heads down the hatch and demanding the presence of the girls on deck. -Charlie was at the wheel and Breck was mopping up the slime that the -anchor chain had made on deck. - -"Mabel, will you take the wheel?" asked Charlie in coaxing tones. "I -want to catch a smoke and it's against the rules for the man at the -wheel to smoke." - -"Give that buoy a good berth, daughter," advised her father. - -Mabel smiled her assent, for she knew the little harbor as well as her -father, and though she had piloted the "Boojum" out some dozen times -she always got exactly the same warning about the bobbing red buoy. - -The "Boojum" slipped gracefully through the water, with all her sails -pulling. Smaller sail boats crossed her bow and their occupants gaily -waved handkerchiefs and hands to the little group on the "Boojum." - -Jack's lazy length was stretched on a striped deck mattress, while -Ellen, seated near him on a cushion, watched him with thoughtful and -admiring eyes, for in Frances' breezy western slang, Jack was "easy to -look at." Charlie talked to his fiancee and Mr. Wing pored over a -chart, mapping out a course from New London to Newport. Jane and -Frances, the two irrepressibles, unhampered by being in love, had -elected to sit as far out on the bow as they could without actually -straddling the bowsprit. They liked the sting of the salt spray on -their faces. Frances pointed to where Mr. Wing was reading the chart -and then she and Jane began in chorus: - - "He had brought a large map representing the sea - Without the least vestige of land; - And the crew were much pleased when they found it to be - A map they could all understand." - -Mr. Wing laughed and, not to be outdone, went on with the ridiculous -tale: - - "'What's the good of Mercator's North Poles and Equators, - Tropics, Zones, and Meridian Lines?' - So the Bellman would cry: and the crew would reply: - 'They are merely conventional signs.'" - -But Mabel interrupted him: - - "'Other maps are such shapes, with their islands and capes! - But we've got our brave Captain to thank.' - So the crew would protest--'that he's bought us the best-- - A perfect and absolute blank!' - -"And now Daddy you come on and take your wheel because here comes a -tug and it has three tows. It always scares me to death to meet one -of those old tugs," Mabel explained to Jane and Frances as she flopped -down beside them. "They are absolutely unscrupulous--just like road -hogs--always running into yachts on the sound. Whew! it's good to see -you kids again. Wouldn't it be terrible if there would ever be a -summer when some of us wouldn't see each other?" she paused solemnly. - -"You talk exactly as though you weren't going to marry your fat -Charlie in November," teased Frances. "You will live in Lexington near -Jane and that won't be so bad, but how about me away out on the ranch? -And it looks as if, in the course of time, that Ellen will come and -live reasonably near Jane, too." - -"Well, my good spinster friend, Frances," laughed Jane, "I reckon that -as long as we are in the same boat we will have to start a tea-room or -a poultry farm or some other stupid thing that unloved old maids do. -Oh! the tragedy of being an old maid at twenty, and the pain made more -terrible by the fact that we see the happiness of our friends so -plainly." - -"And it will be ever thus, Plain Jane, for where could we ever find a -man worthy of our splendid selves?" asked Frances. "They all fall for -me, of course, but I can't give them any encouragement, knowing my -own value as I do." - -"If we get to Lloyd's Harbor in time for a swim to-night, I am going -to duck you both," threatened Mabel, who was a veritable fish. "In the -meantime, I'll just get Charlie to make a cat o' nine tails for me. -Poor child, he will need the protection as much I do." - -"Who needs protection?" asked Charlie, who had come forward to sheet -in the staysail. - -"You," Frances promptly replied, getting a sharp dig from Mabel's -elbow in reward for her truthfulness. "Wow! Mabel, I thought you were -too well cushioned to hurt." - -"Push their noses in, Mabel," advised Charlie, "and when you have -finished, bring Jack and Ellen down to earth and tell them to go below -and put on their bathing suits. Lloyd's Harbor is just around that -point and we will make it in about fifteen minutes. Soon as we drop -anchor, we all want to go over the side. This harbor is a dandy place -to swim." - -The girls dashed below, scrambled into their suits and returned to -their place forward to find that the "Boojum" was nosing its way into -one of the loveliest little harbors on the eastern coast. One side of -the mouth of the harbor was marked by a high bit of wooded land that -sloped gently down to the curved sandy beach. - -"The wonderful smell that is in the air," Ellen whispered to Jack. "I -imagine lotus flowers are like that. The land where it is always -afternoon. Why, I could stay here forever and ever." - -"And I would have to be with you, for lotus-eaters forget all the past -and dream and dream away their lives, and I don't want to be forgotten -for one little minute." - -"I wouldn't worry about that, Jack. I couldn't forget you for an -instant, not if I ate lotus for years and years." - -"Hey, you Jack, stop talking sweet nothings. Mr. Wing has called you -three times to see that the anchor is ready to heave over," and Jane -gave her brother a shove in the direction of the anchor. - -"For heaven's sake, Jane, I wish you would look at Breck! What on -earth can he be doing?" Frances pointed to where Breck was leaning -over the hand-rail earnestly spitting, with Mr. Wing eagerly watching. - -"Mr. Wing," called Jane, "is there anything I can do for Breck? Lemon -is awfully good for seasickness, Aunt Min says." - -Mr. Wing's fat face turned purple with the effort not to laugh and -Breck finally chuckled. - -"Ridiculous, Jane," said the "Boojum's" owner, "that is the sailor's -best method of telling whether a ship has lost her way or not. You -see, you don't want to drop anchor while the ship is still moving, and -if you spit over the side you can tell easily how fast you are going." - -"Well, no wonder I didn't understand! Who would?" demanded Jane. - -"It was a perfectly natural mistake, Miss Pellew," said Breck. - -"Jane, as a Camp Fire Girl, you should thoroughly approve of the -infinite resources of nature," teased Frances. - -"I do think it is an awfully good idea, but, didn't it look funny?" -agreed Jane. - -"Breck, you better let out a little more chain," ordered Mr. Wing. -"And Jane, I'm going to show you and Frances how to let down the -dinghy from the davits, so you girls can be independent of Charlie and -Jack. There is not much chance of getting those two to do anything for -any girls except Mabel and Ellen and there might be a time when you -would want to take the boat when Breck and I were ashore." - -Frances and Jane lowered away at the ropes, taking care, in accordance -with Mr. Wing's advice, to let the stern hit the water before the bow -so as not to ship any water. - -"Watch me, Plain Jane, and profit by my courage," cried Frances, -grabbing a rope and sliding down it into the water. - -"Rather get my head in first," said Jane; and her body shot out from -the hand-rail, describing an arc before she sank into the water, -leaving barely a ripple. - -"Great stuff, you kids, but I am too fat and have to wend my -middle-aged way down the sea-ladder," and Mr. Wing did it. - -Soon all of them were in, Frances, Mabel and Jane, romping around like -young seals, Mabel pursuing the other two, round and round the -"Boojum" in her efforts to duck the two teasers. - -"It's terrible just to be able to do this silly little side stroke," -wailed Ellen to Mr. Wing and Jack, "when all the other girls swim the -trudgeon, double overarm and Australian crawl just like -professionals." - -"Come on, Jack, let's teach her," said the father of one of the envied -ducks. - -The two men started teaching Ellen the difficult feat of breathing -with the head on one side when the arm comes up for the stroke and -exhaling with the head under water. Ellen strangled and spluttered -about for a while, as beginners do, time after time, reversing the -order and breathing in under water and choking when she came up for -the breath she was unable to take. After patience on the part of the -pupil and teachers, she began making noble attempts to combine the -breathing with the actual stroke. - -Jane and Frances had clambered up over the stern of the dinghy which -had been made fast at the end of the lowered boat-boom and were -engaged in a spirited discussion of the value of salt water swimming -and the value of fresh water swimming. - -"Frances, look! Did you ever see such a beauty in your life?" Jane -gasped as she watched a tall, broad-shouldered, slender-hipped figure -in a maroon swimming suit poise itself on the extreme end of the -bowsprit before making the most perfect jack-knife dive either of the -girls had ever seen. - -"Whew! the brown of his legs and shoulders against that dark red of -his suit was just too beautiful to be true," asserted Frances. "And -Jane, do you know who it was? Well, it was Breck and he has no right -to be so gorgeous looking." - -"He uses perfectly good English, whenever he speaks, which is seldom. -What in the world do you suppose he is?" Jane asked. - -"I think he is awfully interesting, and I wish I knew something about -him. He makes such a point of being just one of the men employed by -Mr. Wing that I can't help feeling that he isn't an ordinary sailor, -Jane." - -"Well, probably if we hadn't seen him make that peach of a jack-knife -and he hadn't had that maroon bathing suit but some old faded grey -one, we would probably never have given him a second thought, so let's -don't anyway. Come on and get dressed, I am hungry as a shark." Jane -lightly dismissed the subject that interested her a great deal more -than she cared to admit. - - - - -CHAPTER V - -AT THE LANDING OF THE PILGRIMS - - -"I feel just exactly like the Pilgrim Fathers, don't you, Mr. Wing?" -Jane said as she and Frances climbed up the wharf ladder from the -dinghy. - -These two girls and Mr. Wing had grown to be the closest of friends -and it had become a habit for them to take the little dinghy when the -party went ashore, leaving the tender for the others. Mr. Wing had -proved himself a delightful companion. In fact, as Frances said: "He -is every bit as crazy as we are." - -"You will love Plymouth, and then I want to sail you over to -Provincetown, too. It is not nearly so charming as Plymouth, but it is -interesting at that. Primarily, it is a fishing village but a lot of -artists summer there and, sometimes, they have rather good -exhibitions." - -Twilight had just settled over the little town as the three started up -the hill from the water front. There was a great peace about the -streets and a gentle quietness over all the houses. The pilgrims -walked along without speaking, taking in the simple beauty of the -white houses, guarded by tremendous elms. - -"And we have the nerve to talk about the Southern homes as if they -were the only homes worth mentioning," said Jane suddenly. "Of course -these are very different but I like them." - -Mr. Wing smiled. "You know," he said, "that these houses are to me -very much like the New England people, strong, simple and dignified -and infinitely beautiful." - -"It would be a wonderful place to come and grow very old in and a -wonderful place to have had as your childhood home, but somehow I -can't imagine it for schoolboys and girls, can you?" mused Frances. - -"Well, Jane," said Mr. Wing, as they neared the center of town, -"Frances and I have a bunch of telegrams and letters to send and, if -you don't want to bore yourself by waiting around for us, why don't -you go up to the top of that hill where the graveyard is and look -around--it is very lovely--and then meet us and our daughters and -brothers and friends at the Samoset House in an hour. I thought it -would be kind of fun to have dinner there to-night. It is famous for -its food." - -"That will be dandy, if Frances will promise to send Daddy a telegram -for me saying that Jack and I are still alive and kicking. I have been -having too wonderful a time to write as much as I should and I know he -will want to know what has become of me," and Jane started up the hill -to the cemetery. - -Looking around, she was rather pleased to find that she was the only -person in sight. She went over to a great tree and sank down into the -deep soft grass, leaning her head back against the tremendous trunk. -Jane thought it was a great pity that most people had such a morbid -distaste for the resting place of the dead. She had never seen -anything more beautiful than this high hill covered with old -tombstones and trees whose spreading branches arched above her. A -faint wind rustled among the many leaves and the warm air was filled -with a delicate fragrance. - -Suddenly the base of the hill shone with misty lights and an -involuntary exclamation of wonder fell from her lips as she gazed at -the beauty of the scene that stretched before her. Even the -realization that the sudden change had come with the turning on of -the town's electric street lights failed to mar the enchantment she -felt. - -"It would make a perfect illustration for Dunsany's tale 'The Edge of -the World,'" announced a man's voice close beside her. - -Jane turned her head with a peculiar feeling that nothing was unusual -with this strange setting. It was Breck. - -"Yes, and I would like to see a real artist do a huge canvas of it, -wouldn't you?" she said. - -"If he could get that unreal light that just burst forth," Breck said. - -There was the clang-clang of a passing trolley car and the spell was -broken. Jane's thoughts came crashing back to reality. What in the -world did Breck know about Dunsany and art? And if he did know about -them, as it was evident that he did, what could be his object in being -a paid sailor on a rich man's yacht? - -However, it was Breck's business and, if he did not wish to throw any -light on the subject, she would not pry into his affairs but she felt -that he was conscious of the slip he made. Breck's confusion was -evident, so the girl casually asked what time it was and told him that -she had to meet her friends for dinner and so was going. She smiled -good-bye and walked off down the hill. - -Jane left Breck rapt in admiration for a girl who was alive and -interested in everything and thoroughly feminine, but had tact enough -to keep from trying to divine some one else's secret. - -He thought that he couldn't imagine his sister or any of her friends -refraining in so quietly sympathetic a manner from rushing in where -angels feared to tread. All of these girls had a breezy out-doorsy way -with them that he liked and he wished that that same sister of his -might have joined a Camp Fire organization before she made her very -successful debut. All of which thoughts were strange thoughts for an -ordinary deck-hand to be entertaining in a mystic cemetery when he -ought--if he was to stay in character--to be guzzling a plate of beans -at a "Quick and Dirty." - -The others were waiting for Jane at the Samoset when she got there, -rather out of breath from her fast walk. - -"Jane looks so mysterious, I am sure she must have had a million -adventures," teased Frances. - -"You might tell us about them if you did," Ellen said. "We made a very -ordinary trip from the boat to shore, landing as usual." - -"Well, you know I went to the cemetery and it is almost traditional -that strange things happen in graveyards," was all that could be -forced from Jane. - -"If she won't divulge the horrid secret, let's feed. My appetite is -straining on the leash," suggested Charlie. - -Mabel giggled. "Charlie, I didn't even know you had a leash for it." - -The little party entered the beautifully simple dining room that was -typical of the Samoset and began one of the most delicious dinners in -the history of the cruise. - -On the way back to the "Boojum," Jack said to Ellen, "In all my life I -never tasted anything as good as that duckling." - -And much to his delight she answered, "Yes it was good and it is -cooked by just the recipe my grandmother taught me. I believe you will -like my duckling just as much as you liked the Samoset's." - -"I'll adore yours, Ellen." - -Again on deck, Mr. Wing looked at the sky with the searching glance of -a seaman. "We just did make it in time. In about five minutes we are -going to have an awful big rain. Looks like she was coming up to -blow, too. Hope we won't drag. This is a poor harbor." - -Before the girls had got into their bunks, the rain Mr. Wing had -foreseen was beating in through the open portholes and down the hatch. - -Jack and Charlie went rushing about closing portholes and shutting the -hatch. "It is going to be one stuffy night; I never can sleep without -plenty of air," observed Charlie. - -"Stop putting on airs, Charlie; you could sleep if there wasn't any -air in the whole universe, and you know it," Jack corrected him. - -Jane and Frances, overcome by giggles as usual, were trying to twist -the ventilators in their room so the rain didn't trickle in on them. - -Mabel opened her stateroom door and peered through the crack. -"Children and Daddy, I hate to be horrid, but you have simply got to -stop smoking and go to bed and, if you go to sleep right away, you -won't miss not smoking. You see, without any air in the place, the -smoke can't get out and it all seems to come through my door some way. -Anyhow, Ellen and I are simply gasping for breath." - -Moved by the pitiful picture of Ellen and Mabel clutching their soft -throats and writhing on the floor in the agonies of suffocation, -Charlie and Jack immediately put out their cigarettes. - -"Greater love than this has no man, that he put out his cigarette to -please a girl," paraphrased Mr. Wing. "I am going up on deck to see if -they are holding all right. I hear Breck up there and I can finish my -cigar in all the wind and rain. Do you hear that, Mabel? We are going -to have a lively night." - -Frances was almost asleep when Jane asked her, "Do you know whether -Breck has a slicker or not? It must be horrid on deck in all this -wet." - -"Why Jane, how funny! How should I know about what clothes Breck has? -This is the first bad weather we have had." - -In the other cabin Ellen was saying to Mabel, "Ugh! listen to the -wind, and the groaning of the rigging, and the plash, plash of the -water slopping against the poor old 'Boojum's' sides." - -Soon they were all asleep, the wind and rain unheeded. The steward -snored with a series of really interesting variations, with such -carrying powers that it was fortunate that all the seafarers were good -sleepers. The waves had become choppy and hit the "Boojum's" sides -with angry little smacks. In spite of the lashings on the pilot -wheel, the rudder thudded to and fro. - -Suddenly Mabel waked to find herself gouging into the bunk with her -fingernails in much the attitude of some one climbing a steep clay -bank, and her legs entirely out of the bunk. Ellen had slipped down on -top of her and would surely have been on the floor had not Mabel's -bulk stopped her. - -"Daddy," Mabel called in the purely conversational tone in which one -might say, "Will you have cream or lemon?" "Is this boat right?" - -"Why, of course it is. It is the rightest little boat in the Eastern -Yacht Club." Even when half asleep Mr. Wing was the proud possessor of -"the best little schooner that ever set sail." - -"Wake up quick and see!" commanded Mabel. "Something is the matter -with the boat or my bed is broken and you have to do something in -either case." - -By this time, everybody aft was more or less awake. - -"Did you ever hear such fascinating sounds as the steward is making? I -would adore to arrange the orchestration for them and call it -'Nocturnal Arabesques' or something," Jane said to Frances. "But -isn't it funny, I am sleeping on the side of the ship instead of in my -bunk and the rail around my little bunk is like a ceiling over my head -and my bunk is like a wall! What do you suppose is the matter?" - -"I'm just the same way," giggled Frances. "And I know we ought to feel -excited and be running around with streaming fists and clenched hair -and we just lie here upside down and giggle and talk nonsense. We have -probably hit a rock or something and we will all be drowned like -rats." - -Mr. Wing crawled in their cabin with much the same method a fly walks -along the ceiling. He came in just in time to hear the end of Frances' -speech. "You don't seem to be making much effort to save yourself," he -laughed. "But I'll save you the anxiety you don't seem to feel and -tell you that nothing serious is the matter. We just anchored in too -shallow water. While the tide was in, it was all right, but the tide -is out now and we are turning turtle and are lying in the mud on our -beam ends. There is no danger; it just means that we will be a bit -upset till the tide comes in. Then we will beat it over to -Provincetown." - -"You girls put on kimonos and come into the saloon. I stuck my head -down the galley hatch and found Breck prying the steward out from -behind the stove where he slipped when we did our flip. I told him to -make some coffee and it will be here in a minute," Jack announced -thrusting a wet and tousled head into the cabin. - -"When I was a kid, I used to wonder how the heathen Chinee could walk -upside down on the other side of the world, but I see now that it was -quite simple compared to this," Charlie said as he landed the girls on -the least perilous of the transoms. - -"You certainly bruised us enough doing it. The last time Mabel -slipped, you steadied yourself by grabbing my left ear," said Frances -ruefully. - -"And my poor head," laughed Ellen. "Charlie reminded me of the -Bellman, don't you remember?-- - - "'Just the place for a Snark!' the Bellman cried, - As he landed his crew with care; - Supporting each man on the top of the tide - By a finger entwined in his hair." - -"You kids are certainly peaches," and Mr. Wing literally beamed. "Here -you are quoting 'The Hunting of the Snark' and laughing and chatting -just as if you weren't cold and upside down and everything." - -Just then Breck came in with a steaming coffee pot, in some mysterious -way maintaining his equilibrium. - -"Fortunately the steward didn't hear your remark about the -orchestration of his snores, or I don't believe you would have got -your coffee so soon," Breck said in an undertone to Jane as he handed -her her cup. - -Jane thought, as she sipped her coffee, that perhaps gray eyes were -better suited for twinkling than any other eyes. - - - - -CHAPTER VI - -BETTY WYNDHAM, ACTRESS - - -With the incoming tide, the "Boojum" had righted herself and was soon -under way. The tremendous rain had ceased as abruptly as it had begun -and the sun shone valiantly as if to make up to the little party for -the trick the tide, vassal of the moon, had played on them the past -night. The winds had churned the water into choppy little waves that -foamed against the "Boojum's" eager bow. - -"I just adore this jerky motion," Jane confided to Frances. "But I -wonder how long I'll adore it. It reminds me of the time I went on a -hunt on a Standard-bred trotter. I got there in time to see the dogs -nab the poor fox, but I'm here to say I took an oath that that was the -last time I would ride anything but a saddle horse." - -"I like this too," agreed Frances. "It's the most exciting sail we -have had yet. We are certainly scooting along. Whee! look at the spray -come flying up over the bowsprit. Let's go and get on the grating. I -don't believe either one of us is going to be sick, 'specially if we -stay up on deck." - -These two were nearly always to be found lying flat on the grating in -the bow when they were sailing. As a concession to Mr. Wing, they had -agreed to hold on to each other with one hand and on to the grating -with the other. - -"Are you two young tars feeling fit still!" Mr. Wing asked them. -"Ellen and Jack are below looking pretty miserable and, of course, no -power on earth will drag them up in the air. Ellen said that, if she -saw the waves, she knew it would be all over with her." - -"Yes, we saw them, when we went below to get extra sweaters. I believe -Jack would like to come up, but he doesn't want to leave Ellen. Ellen -would be much better off by herself, but she doesn't like to hurt -Jack's feelings. There is nothing to do with people like that so we -might as well forget them. It won't be so long before we fetch -Provincetown and then they will be all right." And Jane dismissed the -tragedy of the seasick lovers with a grin. - -Mr. Wing had been watching a fast little schooner ahead of them. "Hey -you, Charlie!" he called to the man at the wheel. "You stop talking -to Mabel, and watch what you are about. We are pointing lots higher -than that white schooner. Mabel, you come up here and play with these -kids and Charlie and I will see if we can't overhaul that boat on our -next tack." - -Obediently Mabel slid and skidded along the slippery, slanting deck, -and sat down with one arm around the mast. - -"Daddy is so funny," she said. "We would have got there just as -quickly if we had gone on as we were. We are a little off our course -now, but Daddy likes to use every puff of wind." - -"And I am going to as long as I sail a yacht. If I ever get to running -a steamboat or a ferry to Jersey, I might change, but as long as I run -the 'Boojum' she sails." - -"Well hush your fuss and run along now. You can sail backward if you -want to," giggled Mabel, who always had the attitude that her father -was her kid brother. - -"Honestly, Mabel, this is the most wonderful day of all, but then it -seems that every day is better than the last," said Jane. - -"And won't it be fun to see old Betty Wyndham? We ought to have some -kind of Camp Fire party. The only thing that I have against the -'Boojum' is that we can't have a camp fire on her." - -"But s'pose Betty has got too grown-up to like that sort of thing," -ventured Frances. - -Jane shook her head at this. "I had a letter from her just before we -left and she told me that she had just been to a clambake with some of -the players, and, if she likes that, I know she will like to have a -regular old-timer with us." - -"She will be surprised to see us. Can't you just see her eyes widening -behind those big bone glasses?" Mabel stretched her own eyes wide. -"And look, I can just see the monument to the Pilgrim Fathers now. We -will be there soon." - -"Oh!" Frances sighed. "Much as I want to see Betty I wish this sail -would never end. I get so excited I can hardly stand it and, when the -spray lands on me, I want to shout." - -"You are just a modern pagan," said Mabel looking at Frances' vivid -color and sparkling eyes, "and a mighty pretty one too." - -"Away, thou perfidious flatterer. And me freckled as a guinea egg! -Jane, pinch her for me." - -"You young'uns get the anchor free. We are going to drop it soon as -we lose our way," called Mr. Wing. - -Jane jumped up from her place and took off the ropes that held the -anchor, and, balancing it with one hand in a thoroughly professional -manner, began spitting over the side in the way she had found so -ridiculous in Breck and Mr. Wing a few days since. - -"All the way is lost now," Jane cried in semi-nautical tones that made -Breck smile as he pushed the anchor over the side. - -Little fishing boats were moored and anchored all around the "Boojum" -and soon men had come up on all the decks after the fashion of sailors -to see what the latest ship looked like. - -Jane and Frances were at the davits, letting down the dinghy as Jack -and Ellen came up from below, looking as Frances said rather "pale and -pellucid." - -"Now, gents," began Mabel bouncing up to the little group at the -davits, "we girls are going ashore and see Betty and we are going to -have a regular reunion of the Camp Fire Girls and we don't want any of -you, much as we love you separately and collectively, to bother us. -We'll take the dinghy and spend the night with Betty if there is room -and if there isn't we'll take her to a hotel for, goodness knows, -there isn't room on board for another thing." - -"And Jane and I are the ablest little seawomen in the bunch so we are -going to row you and Ellen, Mabel," and Frances steadied the dinghy -with a far-reaching foot and leg, while Jane dropped over the side and -put in the rowlocks. These two had long since waived the formality of -the sea-ladder. - -"Breck!" called Jane to the sailor, "you put over the sea ladder and -we'll row around to starboard and take on our middle-aged passengers." - -"Middle-aged passengers nothing," shrieked Mabel. "You just hold the -dinghy steady and we'll get over here. As if I wasn't doing this long -before you were born!" - -"Well, doesn't that prove your middle age?" teased Frances. - -"I'd drop this little grip on your head, Captain Kidd, if I wasn't -afraid I'd upset my fellow sufferer, Mabel," announced Ellen, as she -handed the little grip that held their nighties down to Frances. "I am -so thoughtful, none of you remembered that you ought to have -toothbrushes and combs if we are going to stay on shore tonight. How -would you get on in this world without useful me to think about -everything for you?" - -"Be sure to allow enough rope for the drop in the tide," Jane -cautioned Frances as she made the painter fast to a big iron ring sunk -in the dock. - -"Plain Jane, now you just hush up. I'd like to know who it was that -tied the dinghy at Newport the time we came back from the movies and -found the poor thing standing on its stern with its nose up in the -air?" - -"Let's go to the post office first, and see if there is any mail for -us at general delivery," suggested Ellen. "Then we can set about the -search for our little pal Betty." - -Just as the girls were going into the post office, a hurrying girl ran -into them. "Pardon--well of all things!" she cried. - -"Why, Betty, what luck. Why didn't you knock us down?" - -"What fun to see you again," they all said at once and drew amused -smiles from the group in the post office. - -"Come on to my room. I'm staying with the dearest little old lady in -the world. Several of the other players have rooms with her too and -we tear off a lot of fun when we aren't working," Betty told them as -they went along the street. - -"What ducky little houses these are," Jane said to Frances. "But not -as charming as Plymouth do you think, Betty?" - -"I think that the Greenwich Villagers, who come here for the summer, -leave their mark just as they do everywhere. It is really more -attractive in the winter when just the natives themselves are here," -explained Betty. - -Soon they were all in Betty's neat room, lolling about on the bed, -eating chocolates, and examining Betty's new snapshots and possessions -and exchanging adventures. After Betty had been duly told of the upset -at Plymouth, they all began to plan how they were to hold their -reunion. At last, they decided on a clambake as the best. - -The little old lady who owned the house agreed to let them have a room -with a double bed in it and by doubling up in one room and tripling up -in the other they thought they could pass the night ashore. - -As soon as the sun set, the five friends trooped down to the beach -and, gathering driftwood enough to bake all the clams in the world, -started a huge campfire. - -"Um, I think baked clams are the most delicious things in the world," -said Jane as she ate her last one. - -"Honestly, children, I am just too glad that you came by to see me. I -was wondering how I was going to get through the summer without seeing -at least some of the Camp Fire Girls," Betty smiled at the girls. - -"I wish you had time to go for a few days' sail with us. Don't you -suppose you could?" Mabel begged. - -"It is dear of you to ask me and you know there is nothing in the -world I would like better, but I really am too busy. You know I am -working particularly hard so I can get to New York to hear Emmeline -sing." - -"We will see you then at any rate, 'cause we are going to be back in -time for that too," and Mabel gave Betty a clammy hug. - -"Doesn't that driftwood make the most gorgeously colored flame?" Ellen -asked dreamily. "I always wonder about driftwood, what it was before -it was cast up on the beach." - -"It is rather terrible to think how much of it was once ships, and by -the way, would you mind if I said you a piece I ran across the other -day? It isn't exactly cheerful but I like it," and Betty began a -weird minor wail in her rich deep voice-- - -"Whew! what a blood curdler!" interrupted Jane. "Stop it! stop it! It -gives me the creeps." - -"Let's save it until a sunny day and have something soothing to go to -bed on," suggested Ellen, shivering. "Why don't we end this reunion by -singing some of our own Camp Fire songs?" - -The five Camp Fire Girls began their favorite Good Night song: - - "Now our Camp Fire fadeth, - Now the flame burns low, - Now all Camp Fire Maidens - To Slumberland must go. - May the peace of the lapping water - The peace of the still starlight, - The peace of the firelit forest - Be with us through the night. - The peace of our firelit faces - Be with us through the night." - - - - -CHAPTER VII - -EXPLORING GLOUCESTER - - -"Gloucester! Oh, Jane, isn't it great?" Frances said to Jane as they -stood on either side of the mast while the "Boojum" was picking her -way into the harbor. - -Both sides of the harbor were lined with schooners. The sky was barely -perceptible through the rigging of the ships, so tightly were they -wedged in around the docks. At Provincetown the cruisers had learned -of the fishermen's strike but they had not realized that it meant that -the entire fishing fleet of Gloucester would be riding at anchor in -the harbor. - -"Gloucester's sky line isn't anything but masts, is it?" - -"No, but look Jane! They just let the sails go any way and they are -all spilling in the water and look at all those Irishman's pennants," -and Frances pointed out innumerable ropes let to drag in the water. - -"The crews must have dropped anchor and dashed ashore without doing a -single thing towards snugging ship. I suppose there is lots to be said -for the fishermen, but I don't see how they could bear to leave those -dandy schooners all messy like that. And whew! smell the fishy smell." - -Jane and Frances had learned really to love the sea and to have deep -feeling for the ships. It actually hurt them to see these sturdy -fishing boats so deserted. - -"Why, do you know, Frances, it seems just as cruel to me as if I had -given Atta Boy a hard run and turned him into his stall and left his -saddle and bridle on and rushed off without rubbing him down and -forgotten to feed him and everything. It doesn't seem human," Jane -grew quite indignant. - -"Did you notice that long black schooner, the 'Josephine R,' how she -was pulling on her anchor chain, looked as if she wasn't going to -stick around much longer and stand for this careless treatment? I'll -bet she is an imperious lady." - -There was no sign of life on any of the many boats riding at anchor. -The sun had set and each one should have shown a riding light, but -none did, nor did it seem likely that they would. Yet it seemed that -each boat was in itself alive and indignantly complaining to its -neighbor of the careless treatment it had received at the hands of the -crew. As Frances said, the "Josephine R" looked as though she had no -intention of putting up with such inconsideration. - -Jane had been at the wheel all afternoon with Breck near enough and -ready to help her if she got off her course or if she wanted any of -the sails hauled in. Mr. Wing had said that Jane was farther advanced -in her nautical education than any of the other girls because she had -come to the stage where she not only knew when something was wrong -about the sails but she knew just what to do to make it right and -could get almost as much out of the "Boojum" as its owner could. - -The silent Breck had become quite talkative, responding to Jane's -naturalness as everyone else always did. He had told her about -Gloucester and some of the amusing tales about the sportiness of the -Gloucester fishermen even while they were hard at work off the Grand -Banks. They had both read Kipling's "Captains Courageous" and Jane was -eager to know more of the delightful little town, and the sturdy -independent people who lived in it. - -"They know the sailing game better than anybody else in the world and -you can tell a Gloucester crew and ship a long ways off just by the -way she sails. And the risks they take! When most captains give order -to put in a reef or two these Gloucester chaps just crack on more -canvas and walk away. And they know all these waters like you would -know your own top drawer," he had told her. - -And she had laughed at this last and answered that that showed how -little he knew about her, because neither she nor anyone, not even a -Gloucester fisherman, could sail through the conglomerate mess in her -uncharted top drawer. - -Then she had asked how he happened to know so much about Gloucester -and had bitten her lip the minute she had said it, for that was the -one thing she had meant not to do, question him about himself. - -But Breck had answered her with a smile and a vague "Oh, I stayed here -once." - -As she stood beside Frances, she mentally ran over the little talks -she had had with Breck and realized more acutely how clever he was, -how quick his perception, and keen his observation of people were. How -she would have loved to have him take her through Gloucester and show -her all the narrow little streets that ran back from the water, and -which he had pictured so vividly to her. "Why are things as they are?" -she asked herself. "I know Breck would like to ask me to go ashore -with him tonight because he almost said so and yet he won't because he -is in Mr. Wing's employ as a deck hand. As if that would make any -difference, and anyway, I know he isn't just an ordinary deck hand! He -is twice as nice as anybody I have ever known and if he doesn't ask -me, I've a good mind to ask him to take me myself." - -"Jane! Jane! do stop dreaming, and let's go below and get supper. -That's the second time Mabel has called us," said Frances, giving her -a little shake. "If I didn't know you weren't I would certainly say -you were in love. Anyway you have all the symptoms." - -During supper, Jane determined that she would not let ridiculous -little conventionalities prevent the promoting of her new found -friendship with Breck. Clandestine meetings and common intrigue were -entirely foreign to her straightforward self and so she decided that -she would just tell the others that she was going to ask Breck to set -her ashore and go with her to telegraph Aunt Min her next post office -address. - -"And Breck has been to Gloucester before and, while we are ashore, I -am going to come right out and ask him if he won't take me through -some of those little narrow streets on the water front," she confided -to Mr. Wing up on deck directly after supper. - -"Yes, I would if I were you," Mr. Wing advised her. "I think Breck is -thoroughly interesting, and to be bromidic, he is one of 'nature's -gentlemen' if not one of society's. Besides, from little things he let -drop one night when we were on the same watch, I believe he took this -job for some definite reason other than for self-support. Often I have -wished he would mix a bit more with us. You are the only one of the -girls he even notices. Sometimes I think he isn't awfully -happy--anything you can do with him or for him, Plain Jane, will be -heartily approved by the skipper, I can assure you." - -Their conversation was stopped by the appearance of Breck through the -galley hatch. "If you are ready, Miss Pellew, I will be very glad to -take you to the Western Union," he said very formally. - -"Heavens!" thought Jane, "he is all stiff again. How can I unbend him -so he will be limber as he was this afternoon. I will begin with some -clever, original remark about the weather." - -But Breck anticipated her by saying politely, "When we get up as far -north as Portland, I expect we will see some northern lights." Then -warming to his subject he continued, "I believe you said you had never -been north before. I do hope we have a chance to see the lights then, -because I know you would love them." - -"Unswallowing his poker already," mentally commented Jane. "This trip -will no doubt turn out all right." Aloud she said frankly, "Breck, I -love to talk to you. You always sound as if you had knocked about such -a lot--just what I always wanted to do and would have done, no doubt, -if I hadn't been born Jane instead of John." - -Breck smiled at this open compliment and again compared her with his -blase sister and her group of friends suffering from a heavy boredom. -"A bit too much, according to some people's way of thinking," he -answered rather grimly. - -"Well, of course, half of the world doesn't approve of what the other -half does and disapproval makes an almost impassable barrier against -understanding, but let's hurry to the telegraph office and then you -will poke around this funny little place with me, won't you?" Jane -demanded as they clambered up the wharf ladder. - -"I am hoping for several replies to messages I sent at the last port," -Breck told her as they walked along the narrow sidewalk that went past -old and battered warehouses and sail lofts. - -"Everything even on land at Gloucester has got to do with sea, ships -or sailors in some way," Jane said as she observed the different signs -in the shop windows, advertising sailors' outfits, slickers, rubber -boots reaching to the hip and sou'westers. - -At the Western Union office, Jane sat down to write her message to -Aunt Min and Breck went to the desk. Jane heard him ask if any -telegrams for Allen Breckenridge had been received. The clerk gave him -two after the usual frantic search through the files. Over the first -one he read Jane saw him knot his brows into a frown and she was much -relieved when the frown changed into a broad grin at the perusal of -the second message. - -"Allen Breckenridge," Jane thought, "what a peach of a name. I always -thought Breck was a mighty little name for such a big man. I wish to -goodness he would tell me why he is doing what he is. And I wish I -wasn't so awfully much interested in him." - -"Are you finished now?" he smiled down at her, "because if you are, -let's get out on the street. All the men off the boats are wandering -around, looking at the barometers in the different shop windows, just -as if they were interested in the weather now as when on board their -schooners. Poor chaps, I reckon they are at a loss for something to -do. These New Englanders don't know the gentle art of loafing like the -Southerners do." - -"Why Breck," laughed Jane. "How can you, when you know I am from old -Kentuck'? Aren't you ashamed?" - -"But you are different, you know, certainly different from my notion -of the southern girl. I had always thought of them as lying around in -hammocks and eating chocolates during the day and refusing heartbroken -young men's proposals most of the night." - -"But they don't refuse all the young men apparently because I had to -give exactly nine wedding presents this spring. And, besides, I eat an -awful lot of candy," Jane objected. - -"Anyway, I'll say it again. You are different. Do you mind if I -compliment you in rather a horsy way? You handle yourself better than -any girl I ever saw. I would give a lot to see you on a horse too, by -the way." - -"Thanks, Breck! That is one of the nicest things I ever had said to me -and, of course, I don't mind, why should I?" - -"Oh, just the difference in our positions," Breck answered, looking at -her very keenly with his clear gray eyes. - -"That is the first thing I have heard you say that I didn't like. -'Position' is a ridiculous word and one I don't choose to recognize. -And, in the second place, you know perfectly well that I was obliged -to hear you ask for messages for Allen Breckenridge, so you evidently -aren't exactly what you seem, not that it is anything either for or -against you." - -"Forgive me, I knew you would feel like that, but I just wanted to be -sure. Allen Breckenridge is my name, but it seems an awful lot of name -to sail under so I just chopped it off to suit me. Wonder what the -family would say to the mutilation of the name." Breck chuckled at the -thought. - -"If they are at all like the Kentucky Breckenridges, I can tell you. -They would dilate their nostrils and pinch in their lips and say, -'Really, it doesn't seem possible that anyone could do such a -ridiculous thing!'" Jane imitated the family hauteur. - -"I can see that you know them all right," Breck said. "They are a -funny bunch, aren't they?" His face took on the grave look that it so -often wore and that had caused Mr. Wing to confide in Jane that he did -not believe Breck was very happy. - -It was a look that Jane hated to see there because she was so -powerless to help him. She could not comfort him in ignorance of his -trouble and her dread of intruding in his private affairs kept her -from trying to discover it. Jane put her arm through his and said, -"It's getting late, Breck, we had better go back." - -Not until they were again on board the "Boojum" did either of them -realize that, after all, they had seen very little of Gloucester. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - -WHAT FRANCES FOUND - - -"Portland harbor is so beautiful that I hate to leave it," Ellen said -to the other girls as they were getting under way. - -"So do I," agreed Mabel. "There never was anything so lovely as that -harbor with the lighted bridge running across it." - -"And it just seemed too wonderful to be true for those northern lights -to appear on top of everything else. I would have given anything if -the rest of you had been up on deck to see them too. I didn't know -what had happened till Breck stuck his head up through the galley -hatch and told me," Jane said. - -"Speaking of Breck," Frances put in, "have you ever seen anything like -the change in that gentleman? When we first came on board, he was -silent as the grave and solemn as any owl, and now he works around on -deck, whistling and he talks a lot more. And," she added, "he knows -how to talk remarkably well too." - -"But have you noticed to whom he talks?" inquired Mabel with a teasing -glance at Jane. - -"Why no, come to think of it, I hadn't noticed particularly." - -"As if you would notice anything, Ellen, with Jack anywhere near you. -If I ever get so wrapped up in my fat Charlie, will you all promise to -drown me?" begged Mabel. - -"You are both of you unbearable. But promise to drown you? No, it -would hasten your death too much," and Frances laughed at Mabel's -pleading face. "The disease is just as bad in you as in Ellen. The -only difference is in the way it affects you. It makes Ellen a little -quieter than usual and you a little noisier." - -The "Boojum" had gathered speed and was roaring along with the spray -coming over the bow and drenching the girls to such an extent that -they were forced to go and sit tamely in the cockpit, a thing that was -distasteful to them all, but particularly to Frances and Jane. - -"If our wind and luck hold, we can easily make Vinal Haven tonight," -said Charlie, looking up from the chart he and Jack had been reading. - -"For my part," announced Frances, "I hope it doesn't. We have been too -lucky, always doing just what we set out to do. With the exception of -turning over at Plymouth, everything has happened according to Hoyle." - -"Well, we will see if we can't arrange a little shipwreck for the -bloodthirsty lady from the wild and woolly west," laughed Jack. - -At sunset the "Boojum" was nosing her way through a little group of -islands, lying purple on the dark water. To port lay the largest, its -rocky cliffs taking on weird lights from the sinking sun. - -Jane caught her breath in a little gasp of admiration. Reaching for -the chart, she quickly found their whereabouts. "Mr. Wing," she called -excitedly, "this is just too lovely a spot to pass. The chart says -it's Hurricane Island and dead ahead is Old Harbor. Can't we stop here -tonight instead of going on to Vinal Haven. Old Harbor ought to be a -good anchorage. It is protected on three sides by these islands." - -"Why Plain Jane, as far as I am concerned, we can. The others are an -easy-going bunch and generally want to do whatever anybody suggests. -Let me see the chart." - -Jane hung over him until he nodded his head in approval of the -harbor's description on the chart and then dashed forward to free the -anchor. - -"Oh! Breck, did you ever in your life see anything quite as beautiful -as that big island with the sun slipping down back of it?" she asked -him as he leaned against the foremast, looking out for buoys. - -"I am mighty glad you asked Mr. Wing to anchor here tonight. I was -just thinking that was just what I would do if I were on my own boat." - -"Can you tell whether those purplish humps on the island are houses or -just huge boulders? It seems a funny place for a settlement and, -besides, there isn't a single light in any of the windows if they are -houses and not rocks," asked Jane, peering into the fast-gathering -darkness. - -"Tomorrow, if you say so and there is time, I'll row you over and we -can find out. I don't believe I ever heard of Hurricane Island before. -It's a nice adventurous kind of name though." - -Mabel came bouncing along the deck in the way peculiar to her and -broke in with, "Everybody is raving about the beauty of this place -and, of course, I know it is really lovely but nobody will listen to -me and my material thoughts. I have seen one million lobster pots, I -know and, Breck, please try and see tomorrow if you can't get some for -us. Where there are so many lobster pots, there must be some people -to take the lobsters out." - -The next morning directly after breakfast Jane and Frances took the -dinghy and rowed over to explore a small island running up into a high -peak. Mr. Wing had promised to let the little party stay at this -interesting spot for as long as they liked. The original plan had been -to cruise on to Bar Harbor and then come leisurely back to New York. -With one accord, it had been decided that it would be more fun to stop -at Old Harbor for a few days than to go on to Bar Harbor for, as Mabel -said, "there is nothing at Bar Harbor but clothes and silly little -men," and Charlie had said, "What about the fluffy little girls?" - -Jack and Ellen and Mabel and Charlie had gone out in the tender to -follow some fishermen and make arrangements for getting Mabel the -coveted lobsters. Mr. Wing, the steward, and Breck had stayed aboard -the "Boojum" to keep ship, which meant for Mr. Wing, lying on the deck -mattress and dozing in the sun; for the steward, a general galley -cleaning, and for Breck the filling of many sheets of white paper with -his surprisingly small writing. - -"Now that we are here," Frances said to Jane as she jumped out on the -rocky beach of the island, "I don't see what in the world we are going -to tie the dinghy to." - -"Why not lug one of these rocks down and set it on the rope? That -ought to hold it," suggested Jane. - -Assuring themselves that the dinghy was made fast, the two friends set -out to see the island. It was literally covered with blueberries, as -they had so often found to be the case in the other little islands -they had seen during the trip. - -After eating her fill, Jane announced that she was going to lie down -and go to sleep in the sun. - -"Lazy Jane, no sleep for me. I am going to climb to the very top of -the hill and to the very top of the huge rock on top of the hill. -Excelsior! It will be a gorgeous view up there. You ought to come." -Frances started out with many flourishes of a long stick she had -found. - -The warmth of the sun and the sound of the water beating against the -rocks that bordered the island soon sent Jane into a delicious sleep. - -Frances clambered up the hill, stopping now and again to look out over -the water, the panorama becoming more beautiful as she climbed higher. -It was difficult climbing too, for there were many loose rocks and -she started several miniature land slides. - -On the extreme top of the hill was a rocky plateau, in the center of -which lay a shallow pool of stagnant water. As she drew near, two huge -black crows cawed and flew from its edge. - -"Ugh!" she said. "How very gruesome, and how silly for me to be -talking out loud." Then she heard a little sound as of a sharp, -intaken breath, coming from behind a big, flat rock to the left of -where she stood. She went quickly and leaned over the rock. At the -sight of a man's prostrate figure she involuntarily drew back. - -"Dern the luck," said the figure in a rather weak voice. - -"If you would ask me I would say 'bless the luck'," contradicted -Frances, coming forward to see what was the trouble. - -At the sound of her voice, the man tried to raise himself on an elbow -but, making a wry face, he gave it up. - -"I am in luck now somebody has come, but I have been here since -yesterday afternoon," he said. - -"What in the world happened to you?" - -"Slipped on a rock. Think I must have broken my thigh bone; anyway I -can't move my left leg." - -"It would hurt terribly to move you without a stretcher, wouldn't it?" - -"One thing certain, it couldn't hurt me any more than just staying -here." - -"Well, then I will go down and get Jane," announced Frances. - -"What good will a Jane do? I don't want to be rude, but this thing -hurts like the devil." - -"Say whatever you want to; you might be allowed that. I'll be back in -a jiffy." Frances shot down the hill with lightning speed. She pounced -on Jane and woke her with a little shake. - -Jane rubbed sleepy eyes and raised a critical eyebrow. - -"Broken-legged man--up on top--by himself--how in the world can we get -him down?" panted Frances. - -"Have to improvise a stretcher," said Jane, wide awake at once. "Thank -heavens for the blessed old Camp Fire organization. We can take the -oars and slip our skirts on them and that will make a dandy -stretcher." - -"Jane, you are a perfect peach! I never would have thought of that," -Frances told her friend as they ran down to where they had left the -dinghy. - -To their dismay they found that the tide had gone out and the constant -tugging had slipped the rope out from under the rock and the dinghy -was slipping along on the tide about a hundred yards from shore. -Quickly the girls got out of their skirts and, in their jersey silk -bloomers and flannel blouses, waded out into the water toward the -rapidly receding boat. - -Giggling a little with excitement, Frances said, "Goodness, but I am -glad we left our shoes on. These rocks would have simply killed our -feet." - -Soon they were in deep water and they struck out with the strong -double over arm that had been the envy of Ellen. In no time, they had -wriggled over the side of the dinghy and were pulling for the island. -This time the two girls dragged the dinghy clear of the receding tide -to be sure that they would have no further misadventures. - -Each one taking an oar and a skirt, they started the uphill climb. - -"Suppose you hadn't found him, Frances. Wouldn't it have been awful?" -and Jane shuddered a little at the thought. "What does he look like?" - -"I didn't have time to notice much but that he had on a heavy gray -sweater and fearfully dirty white duck trousers. I don't even know -whether he is big or little." - -On reaching the rocky plateau, Jane exclaimed, "Frances, this is the -most moving-picturey place to discover an injured gent I ever saw!" - -Frances led her around the big rock and she looked down at the man. -"How much do you weigh?" Jane asked by way of greeting. - -The man smiled a little at this and answered, "One hundred and eighty, -but, after no dinner or breakfast, I suppose I have wasted away to a -mere nothing." - -"Well, Frances, that means each of us carries ninety pounds down the -hill. But we can do it as long as we don't have to do it every day." - -"Of course, I couldn't think of letting you do such a thing," objected -the man. - -"I would like to know how you are going to help it. To be sure, we -could go back to the boat and get one of the boys, but that would just -delay the game and I know you ought to get that leg set as soon as -possible. Besides, I don't believe men are any better in an emergency -than girls, 'specially Camp Fire Girls; do you, Jane?" - -The girls slipped the skirts on the oars and laid the improvised -stretcher close beside the man. He was able to help them a little -and, without causing him too much pain, they at last had him on the -stretcher. - -"I am awfully sorry for you; it will be hard on you going down this -hill, but we will try not to bump you," Jane promised him. - -The man on the stretcher had not lost a bit of his hundred and eighty -pounds, the girls decided as they lifted their load. Both of them were -thankful for their hard muscles and good wind. After what seemed ages, -they reached the beach and set the stretcher in the dinghy. Then both -of them threw themselves flat on the seaweed that the tide had left -and rested and caught their wind. The man had lost consciousness from -the painful journey down and from lack of food. - -"No use bringing him to till we get on the boat. It will hurt him -horribly getting him over the side. Another thing, Jane, there won't -be room enough for both you and me in the dinghy now. You pull a -better oar than I do, so you get in and row the man out and I'll swim -along out in a minute. I'll get there soon after you do." - -"But I could come back for you," objected Jane. "You must be dead -tired." - -"Of course I don't feel 'fresh as a daisy,' but it is no harder for -me to swim out to the boat than it is to row out." - -There was no one on deck of the "Boojum" as Jane brought the dinghy -carefully alongside. She called to Breck and he came up from the -galley. - -At his surprised look she said, "Frances found this broken-legged man -up on the top of the hill on that island and we brought him down. He -has fainted or something and I don't see how we can get him over the -side of the 'Boojum'." - -"How in the world you two kids did it is beyond me, but I will ask -questions later. Mr. Wing and I can rig up a bosun's chair and get him -on board all right." - -Breck waked Mr. Wing and they set to work to rig the bosun's chair and -soon had the man lying on one of the transoms in the saloon. - -"Now," said Mr. Wing, "it yet remains for us to get a doctor to him." - -"Mr. Wing," said Breck in an embarrassed way, "it wouldn't do for me -not to tell you this. I have had three years of medicine at Harvard -and was with an ambulance corps in France during the first two years -of the war. What I mean is that I can set the leg and I think I had -better do it before it swells any more. Jane, you get some waste from -the locker to the right of the engine and pack some long planks for -the splints. If it is necessary, we can get him into a cast at -Portland." - -With deft hands Breck got off the man's shoe and cut away the duck -trousers. Jane, with her head in a whirl, found two suitable boards in -the galley, evidently parts of a box in which provisions had come, and -she mechanically began to pad them with waste. "That makes him about -thirty," she thought, "because it has been two years since the war. I -hope he doesn't think of me as a perfect kid. I will be twenty-one in -a month, anyway." - -A wet and bedraggled Frances clambered over the side and appeared in -the saloon just in time to get a weary, grateful smile from the man as -he came to. - - - - -CHAPTER IX - -THE AFFAIRS OF BRECK - - -The day after Frances' adventure on the hilltop found both Jane and -Frances stiff in their shoulder muscles. Aside from that, there were -no ill effects from their long and heavy lift. The man they had -rescued was more than hospitably received by Mr. Wing and had been -urged to make the boat his home until he was able to go down the sea -ladder unassisted. Breck had set his leg with sure skill and the -patient had eaten a hearty breakfast and declared that he was in no -pain at all. - -After breakfast, the little party had gathered around him to hear his -story. Out of consideration of his weariness the night before, they -had unanimously refrained from questioning him. However, Frances had -kept Jane awake well into the night with surmises of her find's looks -and personality. - -"What do you suppose he would look like, Jane, with a clean face and a -shave and his hair combed and decent clothes?" she had asked. "He has -such a lot of red hair that I bet he is cross as the dickens." - -"Child," said Jane with the superior wisdom of one who has lived for -twenty-one years with a wifeless father and a motherless brother, "all -men are cross when they are sick. He is probably quite nice." - -Consequently the strange man's discoverer was delightfully surprised -when she came down from on deck to hear his story and found him nicely -shaven, with his red hair, which she immediately decided was auburn, -brushed till it shone and his dirty white ducks replaced by a gay -bathrobe of Jack's. - -"I would like to make it awfully interesting," he began with a grin, -"I feel that the two girls who carried my hundred and eighty pounds -down that hill should have the reward of having saved a movie hero or -the lost heir--anyone, in fact, except just plain Tim Reynolds, who is -doing nothing more romantic than spending the summer with his family -at Nantucket Island. That is I am supposed to be--the fact is I am -proud possessor of a thirty-foot sailboat and, as the result of that, -I had the misfortune, or the fortune rather," this with a friendly -little nod at Frances, "to sail into Old Harbor and climb up that hill -and break my leg." - -"We are glad you did," announced Mabel genially and then as everybody -laughed at her she added, "Of course, I don't mean I am glad he broke -his leg, you all are so silly. Mr. Reynolds, you know I meant that we -are glad you are on board the 'Boojum,' don't you?" - -Tim Reynolds nodded reassuringly and begged them not to call him -"Mister." - -"You must let us take you to Nantucket, Tim," said Mr. Wing. - -"I couldn't think of it, sir, you have been far too good already." - -"But we are going to Nantucket anyway. All of us want to see -'Sconset," put in Frances. - -"There is nothing I would like better, if you are really going there -and I won't be too much of a care. And, now that I have accepted, -don't you suppose it would be a good idea to get a message to my fond -parents to the effect that their son is still inhaling and exhaling at -regular intervals?" - -Ellen said in her quiet way, "I have just been looking at the chart -and Vinal Haven is only a short distance from here. Why can't Mabel -and Charlie and Jack and I take the tender and go to Vinal Haven and -send a telegram to the fond parents? I know that they have laid a -cable to Nantucket from Martha's Vineyard. We could be back in time -for lunch." - -"Isn't that a good idea?" asked Jack proudly. - -"It is if you four can remember what you are going for," teased his -sister. "Mr. Wing, will it leave you too stranded if I get Breck to -row me over to Hurricane Island in the dinghy? I am wild to know why -there are so many deserted houses there. So far, I haven't seen a sign -of life." - -"Would you mind very much rowing round the island I stumbled over and -see if my boat is still there? I put over the two anchors; she ought -to hold," Tim said to Breck. - -"And what are you going to do about getting her home?" Frances asked -Tim, coming over to sit on the companion steps as the others went -above. - -"We've decided enough for one day. Let's worry about that tomorrow. -Why don't you tell me how you and Jane happen to be such quick -thinkers and how you happened to have enough grit to get me down that -long hill?" - -There was a great noise and bustle on deck, as was always the case -when Mabel was about to do anything. Soon the sound of the tender's -motor was heard and its wash licked against the "Boojum's" sleek black -sides. Jane peered down the hatch with intent to ask Frances to come -along with Breck and herself, but on seeing the pleasant conversation -that was beginning, she decided not to interrupt it. - -"Let's go over to Hurricane Island first and come back by the island -of adventure to see if Tim Reynolds' boat is there," suggested Breck, -as he pulled the dinghy along with sure strokes. - -Watching him, Jane thought how very well he did whatever he set his -hand to do. This was their first moment alone since the startling -disclosure Breck had made about himself the day before. Not that it -had come as a very great surprise to Jane, because she had always felt -that he was some one other than a deck hand and she might have known -that he would have been among the first to offer himself to serve -humanity. - -As he rowed, he watched her and, seeing her thoughtful expression, -suddenly asked her, "Jane, what are you wondering about?" - -"About Breck," she said frankly. - -"What do you want to know about him?" he asked, smiling at her utter -frankness. - -"Whatever he wants to tell me." - -"That is a large order, because do you know, Jane, I want to tell you -everything good or bad that has ever happened to me. I've wanted to -tell you several things for some time, but I felt that I had no right -to burden you with my affairs." - -"Breck, you know I've wanted to know about you but felt that I had no -right to pry into those same affairs. Do you remember that night at -Gloucester, when you got those two telegrams? I saw you frown at one -and grin at the other. It was all I could do to keep from asking what -had happened, 'specially about the one you didn't seem to like," she -confessed. - -"The one I liked was from a friend of mine in New York. I left a lot -of stories with him and asked him to get the stuff decently copied and -send some of them around to different magazines for me. The telegram -told me that the Saturday Evening Post had accepted a story and wanted -to see more. That tickled me mightily, because it is the first luck I -have had with a big magazine. The other was from my sister, assuring -me that my father was as mad at me as ever." - -"I wondered why you didn't write, Breck, you are always so keenly -interested in people's actions and reactions. I am awfully glad the -Post took the story. Will you tell me why your father is mad at you, -too?" - -"To begin with, we have always disagreed from the time he sent me to a -norfolk-jacket-and-buster-brown-collar-country-school-for-rich-little-boys -and I wanted to wear a jersey and go to a public school in town. Not -that I didn't love the country, because the part of my life I remember -with most pleasure is the summers I spent on my uncle's ranch in the -west." Breck's sunburned face took on the sad look that was so -distressing to Jane. He continued, "A surprising thing happened. Both -of us agreed on my going to Harvard and finally on my going into -medicine. Everything was all right for two years and a half, when, at -Christmas vacation, I decided to spend my holidays with some friends -in New York instead of taking the trip across the continent to spend -the time with my family in California." - -"But surely, just the failure to be with him at Christmas was not -enough to cause a real breach," Jane broke in. - -"No, but what happened next was," Breck went on. "My two friends and -I had ridiculously large allowances. One night, we thought it would be -fun to go slumming and see how the other half lived. For their sakes, -I hope they have forgotten. For my part, I don't believe I ever shall. -The wretchedness, the sick misery of those people! At any rate, after -my trip, I became fired with a great desire to do something for those -people and wrote home to Father that I intended to hang out my shingle -in the east side and, of course, practice for nothing. It never -entered my head that Father wouldn't abet me in such a work. He is -very, very rich indeed and I thought that he would not only continue -my allowance but probably give me large donations from time to time so -that I might be able even to have an infirmary in connection with my -office. My dream was short lived. When I got back to college, I found -a curt note saying that my plan was ridiculous and that my allowance -would be stopped immediately and that he would decline to foot the -bill for my tuition with any such career in view. I wrote him in reply -that I intended to do as I had written him before. He made good his -threat and I stayed on at college for a few months, doing that -supposedly romantic thing, 'working my way through' mostly by selling -short things to small magazines. It is something that no one should be -allowed to do too, let me tell you. Why there aren't more cases of -brain fag among the students that attempt it, I don't see. Then things -got so rotten on the other side that I couldn't stand not being in it. -So at last I got over with a bunch of my older friends with a French -ambulance unit." - -Dismissing the part he played in the war as rapidly as possible, he -hurried on to tell of what took place at his return. - -"When you came back from overseas, didn't his attitude change toward -you a bit?" Jane asked anxiously. - -"Oh, of course, I suppose he was proud of me in a way. They gave a -huge ball and my sister made me meet all her blase friends. After -being so close to the realities, all their little affectations and -vanities grated on me terribly. At any rate, after a very melodramatic -scene in which my father offered to forget my silliness at Harvard and -take me in as a junior partner in his tremendous exporting business, I -saw that it wasn't any use arguing, so I just told them good-bye and -came to New York and got a job as reporter for one of the papers. -Don't let me bore you to death, will you, Jane? Everybody likes to -talk about himself, I suppose, and it means an awful lot to me to be -able to talk to somebody. I am not whining around for sympathy, you -know that, don't you?" he said quickly. "And I don't mean to run down -my family, they are all right in their way. We just don't hit it off." - -"I know," Jane said, "some people seem to get born in the wrong -families and some families just seem to have the wrong children. But -how did you happen to come on the 'Boojum'?" - -"I thought that, if I got outdoors, I would be able to write better -stuff. You see, after I had been writing regular newspaper things all -day, I needed to get out and do something else at night besides -sitting in my room and writing at stories. Out on the coast at home, I -had always had a boat of some sort or other and I was crazy about the -water. So I thought that I could make enough money to see me through -the summer, get a chance to do some writing and put in an enjoyable -healthy summer if I signed on as deck hand on some yacht. 'Boojum' -happened to be the one. So far, it is the best thing that has happened -to me." - -"Wasn't it awful hard pretending that you were just a plain deck -hand? When we talked about things you knew about, didn't you want to -butt in?" - -"It was harder than I dreamed it would be. I thought that you girls -would be like my sister's friends and, knowing how rich Mr. Wing was, -I thought that he would run his yacht just as most of the sound -yachtsmen do, as though it was some fragile little boat that couldn't -stand an all day sail, or rather that he couldn't. When I found out -what a peach of a bunch you all were and I realized what my position -was, I admit I used to get pretty gloomy." - -"What a shame, Breck, when all of us wanted to be nice to you, but -were afraid to be because we couldn't bear to have you think we were -the patronizing sort." - -"It wasn't really bad," Breck hastened to assure seeing the distressed -look she gave him. "You see, when you girls began to get so keen about -sailing the ship, it left me very little work to do on deck, so I had -lots of time to put in on my writing." - -"Is it hard living in such close quarters in the galley with that -funny little Dutch steward?" - -"It is rather interesting. He has been everywhere and has splendid -tales to tell. Do you remember at Plymouth when you said that you -would like to arrange the orchestration of his snores? That is the -only real objection I have to him. He is the best-hearted little -fellow in the world, so I suppose we ought to be ready to forgive him -his only vice." - -"He is a marvelous cook, don't you think? But look here, Breck, you -are just rowing anywhere, we'll never get to the island unless we stop -talking," said Jane coming to the realization that for about half an -hour they had been aimlessly drifting along, Breck occasionally -dipping the copper tipped oars in the water from habit. - -As they drew nearer the island they saw that a huge crane hung out -over the water and that there was the remains of quite a large dock. -Several dories and a small catboat were moored in the little harbor. A -great many lobster pots were slung up on the rocks that shelved above -the beach. - -"It can't be entirely deserted or I don't suppose they would have left -these perfectly good boats. And where there are lobsters there must be -some lobsterers," said Jane, a little disappointed that it wasn't -really a deserted island. - -"Let's carry it a little farther and hope that if the presence of the -lobster pots can prove that there are lobsterers, then the presence of -the lobsterers might prove some lobsters," said Breck, remembering -that Mabel had asked him to try and see if he couldn't find some for -her. - -The water near shore was so clear that they could see the pebbles -gleaming at least ten feet below the surface. - -"I wish we had one of those glass bottom boats that the natives row -the tourists around in at some of the South Sea Islands," Breck said. - -"There still doesn't seem to be any sign of natives on this island to -row us around in even an oak bottomed boat. Shall we just snoop about -and hunt for some one or shall we stand here and yell till some one -materializes?" Jane asked as she stepped out on the beach. - -At the sound of her voice, there was a slight movement on one of the -big slabs of granite and a boy of about sixteen, dressed in a gray -flannel shirt and faded dungarees, stood up. - - - - -CHAPTER X - -HURRICANE ISLAND - - -Jane went over to him, smiling in her friendly way. The boy slipped -down from his rock with the grace of a wild animal. Jane thought that -she had never seen a more beautiful and charming looking boy. Very -tall and with a small well-set head, he had the unmistakable look of -race. - -"I am Jane Pellew and this is Allen Breckenbridge," said Jane with a -strange little thrill as she realized that she had used Breck's full -name in the introduction. - -She stretched out her hand and it was taken with the greatest poise -and courteousness. "I am Frederick Gray," he said, dropping her hand -and giving Breck a cordial little nod. - -His voice had the peculiar quality of keeping the same tone, never -rising or falling at the end of a sentence, and there seemed to be a -definite spacing between each word. It did not, however, produce the -monotonous, sing-song effect that Jane had so often noticed in the New -Englanders' voices. The boy's voice was full and rich and soothing. - -"I didn't see you until you stood up," Jane told him. - -"No wonder, my clothes are just the color of the rocks. I sometimes -feel that I am really part of this island, do you know," Frederick -Gray said with a trace of wistfulness. "We watched your yacht come in -the other night. I was afraid you would go away without my seeing any -of you." - -Jane wondered who "we" were. She had an odd feeling that the boy was -the only person who stayed on the island, for as he had said, he did -seem such a part of it. - -Her wonder was short lived, for as she and Breck and the boy went up a -narrow rocky path, approaching the first of the group of houses, two -tow-headed little boys emerged from the bushes and ran scuttling into -the open door of the house. - -Breck called after them reassuringly, "Hey, Buddies! Come back, we -won't hurt you!" - -Frederick Gray smiled and told them that they were his youngest -brothers and that they were afraid because they weren't used to seeing -anybody but his mother and father and his oldest sister. - -"She is away at school now, so they will probably be afraid of her -when she comes back." - -"What in the world is she doing away at school this time of the year?" -said Jane, in surprise. - -"I meant college; she is at Columbia in the summer school," the boy -explained, adding rather proudly, "I am going to New York and live -with her this winter, because Daddy wants me to go to Horace Mann -before I go to Yale." - -"You are sure you have got time to show your island and sure you don't -mind it," Breck asked, feeling that if he were the owner of such a -near future he would no doubt be very busy. - -"You don't know how glad I am to see people. I'm always so glad when -people come on the island. It is really a pleasure to show them -around. You know, of course, that this was once a quarry, and at one -time several hundred workmen lived here." - -"We didn't know it, but we certainly should have if we had given any -notice to that huge crane and all those slabs of granite heaped up on -the beach. The workmen, of course, lived in those cottages?" asked -Breck interestedly. - -"I wish Daddy would come out and tell you about it, because he knows -so much more about it than I do, though I was a little boy when we -first came here. There is an awful lot of machinery connected with the -quarry; I never have been interested in it, and so don't know very -much about it. Daddy knows all about every kind of machine. But I -can't disturb him now because he is working on his plans for some sort -of submarine detector," the boy told them as he led them past his -vine-covered home towards a frame building about a hundred and fifty -feet long and fifty feet wide. - -"How did you happen to come here to live? You don't mind me calling -you Fred, do you?" Jane asked as they entered the strangely shaped -building. - -"My uncle had the contract to build a sea wall and he knew that -granite was on this island. He found that it would be cheaper to start -a quarry here and carry it over to where they were building the sea -wall than it would be to have to transport it from some other point -much farther away. After the sea wall was finished and there wasn't -any more use for operating the quarry, my uncle took his workmen and -they went back to their regular working place. Then, you see, my -uncle didn't like to leave all these houses and machinery without -some one as a sort of overseer, and as Daddy likes to be quiet so he -can work on his inventions, they got together and made arrangements -for us to come out here." - -"Don't you ever get bored or lonesome," Breck asked the boy. - -"It was more fun before my sister went away, of course, but there -really is plenty to do. I made enough money off lobsters last year to -buy that boat you passed on the way in and then, of course, there are -an awful lot of books Daddy brought with us." - -"Breck," said Jane, wrinkling her forehead, "why couldn't Fred sail -Tim Reynolds' boat back to Nantucket?" - -Breck looked at the boy and shook his head. "Too much for him to -handle by himself." - -But the boy's face lit up at Jane's words. "What size is she?" - -"Thirty feet, Tim said, didn't he, Jane?" - -"I could trim the jib aft and handle her all right," the boy said with -such confidence that Breck would have believed him if he had said he -intended to give Thomas Lipton and his "Shamrock IV" time and come in -ahead of him. - -"Don't you suppose you could get some other boy to go along with you, -so it wouldn't work you so hard?" Jane said, rather amused by Breck's -rapid change of expression. - -"Virg Bradford over on the mainland might go. I'll row over and see -and let you know tonight." The boy was delighted at the prospect of a -real sail. - -"Then suppose you just come in time for supper and we can talk it over -with Mr. Wing and Tim and see what they say," said Breck, not -considering it worth while to mention consulting Fred's father, as it -was evident from the boy's account of the inventor and from his own -quick way of deciding things, that he was the man of the family. - -Fred walked them the length of the building, telling them that it was -the polishing room. - -"You look mighty thinky," Breck said to Jane, noticing that she had -wrinkled up her forehead again. - -"I believe it is a real thought, too, this time. I was just thinking -that this long building might have been some ancient dining hall. You -know the kind where 'the eagles scream in the roof trees.' With all -these cottages and this for a sort of mess room, I don't see why some -one couldn't make a lot of money running this place as a sort of -summer colony. It has a marvelous outlook, wonderful boating, and the -swimming would be all right I suppose if you could ever get used to -such freezing water. How about it, Fred?" she asked, turning to the -boy. - -"I go in every day and so do Mother and the kids. Dad too, if he -thinks about it," Fred answered. "I used to think that it was an awful -pity for those houses to be empty in the summer and sometimes I tried -to get Dad to talk about it, but he always said that it wasn't any -use, because we had enough money and he couldn't be quiet if there -were a lot of summer people always about." - -"Do you suppose there would be any trouble about renting the island -from your uncle?" Breck asked the boy. He had been looking around at -the attractive cottages with growing interest and a decidedly -ruminating eye, since Jane had suggested the possibility of a -flourishing summer colony. Gradually the thought was taking place in -his mind that it would be an unusual and remunerative way of spending -the following spring and summer. The thought of himself as a rising -young business man was amusing to him as he remembered his position -as a deck hand on Mr. Wing's yacht. Then he came to the realisation -that such a project would take some capital and he said a smothered -"Damn!" - -But Jane heard it. "What? Breck, things in general or some person or -thing in particular?" - -"Me first and next my luck, then things." Then he told her what he had -been thinking, adding that it would give him endless opportunity for -copy and also unlimited time to write but, of course, it was a foolish -impossibility. - -"Breck, you are terribly ignorant about business and I don't suppose I -am much better, but I seem to know that there are such things as -companies and, as long as I thought of it, I think I at least ought to -have a chance to buy some stock. Besides let's tell Mr. Wing about it, -and when I get home I will talk it over with Daddy. It would be an -awful lot of fun even if we didn't make much off of it the first year. -I know lots of people at home that are always trying to find some new -place to spend the summer. Dad and I were wondering what I was going -to do with myself just before I left this summer. I don't appear to -have been born with any special talents and I couldn't bear the idea -of making my debut. Of course, I couldn't take the housekeeping over -from Aunt Min, because that's all she has in her life." - -"Weren't born with any special talent! Why, Jane, you were born with -the greatest talent in the world, that of making everybody with whom -you come in contact love you. And you just wait till I can offer you a -house to keep," Breck said, entirely forgetting Fred. - -"Wouldn't these houses be enough to start on?" asked Jane. "I'm young -yet and not much of a housekeeper." Jane was blushing and her eyes had -a very happy light in them. - -"Oh, Jane! What do you mean?" cried Breck, catching the girl's hands -and drawing her towards him. - -"I simply mean that you needn't wait until you can get any more houses -before--before--you--before--" - -"Before what?" - -"Before you ask me to keep one for you. Now aren't we modern, though? -I reckon I've done the proposing, but I'm not the least embarrassed -over it. Of course, if you had refused me, I might have felt a bit -shy." - -Jane's voice was muffled by reason of the fact that Breck was allowing -very little room for speech and her sentences had more punctuations -than a mere writer can put in print. - -"Refuse you! Oh, Jane, what a darling you are! I can't believe this -thing has really happened to me, when I think how miserable I have -been during the last months." - -"Well if you doubt it you can question the witnesses," laughed Jane. - -"Oh, that boy Fred!" exclaimed Breck. "I forgot him." - -But Frederick Gray had beaten a hasty retreat when he saw how matters -were going between his new-found friends and had disappeared around a -boulder, but his little tow-headed brothers were not so nice in their -behavior. Silently they had entered on the love scene and had stood -hand in hand viewing with wonder and astonishment the surprising -carryings on of the Hurricane Island interlopers. - -"Ith that girl your thweetheart?" lisped the younger one. - -"Yeth, and the thweeteth thweetheart ever," declared Breck. "Come -back!" he called to Frederick, whose figure he could see in the -distance. "The worst is over, old man. That is, over until next time. -You are going to be a member of this firm, Fred, so you must come and -let us talk it over with you." - -"All right, sir," said Fred, whose ears were crimson from -embarrassment. He looked at Breck with even more admiration than -before. Any man who could win such a girl as Miss Jane Pellew was -surely a hero in the eyes of the island boy. Fred was almost sorry he -could not help being such a gentleman. When he saw how the wind lay, -he felt it incumbent upon him to turn his back and walk off but he had -a pardonable curiosity about how a man went to work to make love to a -girl like Jane. - -Hand in hand, Jane and Breck made their way to the beach. It seemed to -the pair of lovers that the already perfect day was even more perfect -than it had been before. The sky was bluer, the sea more sparkling. -The "Boojum," riding at anchor in the bay, looked like a fairy ship, -while the gulls that circled around her seemed whiter and more -graceful than ever gulls had been before. - -"Oh, Breck, isn't life beautiful?" said Jane, but in the corner of her -eye was a tiny unshed tear. "It is so beautiful I wish everybody knew -how beautiful it is, all the poor little sick children and tired -mothers." - -"Why, honey, I was just thinking the same thing. I don't know why -being happier than I've ever been in my life should make me think of -the suffering children on the East Side, but it has somehow. Those -gulls shouldn't make me think of little half-starved children over on -Avenue A. Heaven knows there is nothing white about them, except their -little pinched faces, but they do all the same." - -"I know why you are thinking of them!" exclaimed Jane. "It is because -this place would be such a corking one to bring the kids to. Let's -have our scheme be not just a money making one but one to help -somebody besides ourselves. Oh Breck, let's try to have some of those -little creatures here with us every summer." - -"Jane, Jane, what a girl you are!" and Breck wished there weren't so -many little tow-headed boys on the island, for he felt he'd like to -try to make Jane understand a little better how much he adored her but -the little Grays were trotting along by their side totally unconscious -of how out of place they were. - - - - -CHAPTER XI - -DEBATE AND JUST TALK - - -Frances, led on by Tim's interested questions, had been giving that -wounded young man a glowing account of the Camp Fire movement in -general and of their own group in particular. She had told him of the -splendid effect it had on the spirit of the girls at Hillside, of the -wonders it had worked on the characters of Blanche Shirley and -Emmeline Cerrito. - -"And you have no idea how much fun we have had together. Even work is -fun when we all work together. Last year, we were all down on Jane's -big farm in Kentucky when the harvest had just begun. It happened that -there was an excursion for the negroes scheduled for the same day and -all the hands, house servants, yard boys, stable boys, even down to -the smallest pickaninnies on the place, just took temporary French -leave. Mr. Pellew was terribly upset. You see, he had engaged the -machines and everything. Anyway, Ellen and Mabel got busy in the -kitchen and cooked for simply rafts of people, the rest of us went -out in the fields with Jack and Mr. Pellew and he said that we worked -just as well as the men and that we were lots more conscientious." -Frances said this with a rather defiant air, because she had often -found that the young men of her acquaintance were inclined to doubt -female prowess in any line other than fancy sewing. - -"You sound like a dandy bunch of girls. No one could realize that fact -more keenly than I. But don't you think it is rather unusual for girls -to be as capable as that? And don't you suppose the novelty of the -affair had a great deal to do with the girl's conscientiousness?" -Seeing Frances' indignant expression, Tim hastened to add, "I am not -stating this as facts. Like Will Irwin's Japanese school boy, 'I ask -to know'." - -"All right, then," said Frances, relenting at his meek tones, "if you -come to the discussion with an humble open mind, I'll continue to be -pro, and after I have finished I'll listen to your con." - -"Like a lamb to the slaughter," announced Tim, folding his brown arms -over his chest. "I'm ready. The battle may begin." - -"Heavens! you have me all confused now. How am I to know whether you -are going to listen like a meek lamb or whether you have entered the -ranks, arrayed in glittering armor, ready to fight to the death. Don't -be so contradictory in your statements." - -"I crave your indulgence for my mixed metaphors. In the crude parlance -of these modern times, 'shoot'," said Tim. - -"Resolved: that the female of the species can do as much work as the -male and do it in almost as many branches as the aforesaid male. Two -cousins of mine were with the Vassar College farm unit for twelve -weeks, summer before last, and at the end of the twelve weeks, the -head of the farmerettes mailed out questionnaires to the different men -who had employed the girls as farm hands during the summer. These -questionnaires asked the farmers if the girls were equal to the men as -to strength, interest, conscientiousness and so on. All of the farmers -answered that they were perfectly able to do all the work that had -been set them to do, and that they had been given the work of the men -that were overseas, and that they had accomplished it well; and, -further, that they showed a quickness in learning that the men did -not, and that they were more interested in their work, and far more -conscientious than the men they had formerly employed. When asked if -they would consider employing the Vassar girls at another time, all -the men who had employed the girls said that most assuredly they -would," and Frances stopped rather out of breath but smiling -triumphantly at her adversary. "We will now hear the other side." - -"Madame, I have the honor to announce that your worthy opponent is -absolutely convinced and begs your forgiveness for his former -unbelief. There will be no rebuttal, ladies and gentlemen," said Tim -with a grin at a make-believe audience. - -He looked at Frances in open admiration, for the vivid pink that the -excitement of a chance argument always brought had flushed her cheeks -and her gray eyes sparkled with amusement at his defeat. - -Just then there was a thud on deck and Mabel's cheery voice called to -find out how the patient was getting along. After making the tender -fast to the boat boom, Jack and Ellen and Mabel and Charlie, followed -by Mr. Wing, came down into the little saloon to tell Tim that the -telegram assuring his family of his safety had been duly sent. - -"The girls insisted on our bringing you candy and magazines, but I -have a hunch that it wasn't you alone they had in view," said Jack, -unloading himself of many bundles. - -"But I knew you would want something to smoke, so I brought along a -couple of cartons of Piedmonts. I hope that it is what you use," said -Charlie with the complacency of one who has done well. - -"Speaking of unselfish devotion," Ellen spoke up in defense of herself -and Mabel, "who likes Piedmonts more than our own dear Charlie?" - -Frances jumped up, grabbed Ellen's arm and lifted it high over her -head and in her best referee manner began, "One, two, three, four, -five--" - -Tim raised a protesting hand, "I'll report the match to the -authorities, as not one word was said about the 'gentlemen being -members of this club.'" - -"What in the world is society coming to, when its younger members of -both sexes are so familiar with the expressions of the boxing ring?" -Mr. Wing asked. - -"Oh, Daddy, Daddy! As if you don't go to every fight that comes off, -not to speak of the wrestling matches! Who was it I heard saying to -Breck not long ago that he would 'lay five to one' on Dempsey in the -Willard-Dempsey fight?" and, withering before Mabel's onslaught, Mr. -Wing retreated up the companion. - -"Listen to this," said Jack, who had been running through the -magazines while the bout was going on, "It's called 'Sails': - - "If he had seen - A barkentine - Beating off a blowy head, - Or, all a-sheen, - A brigantine - Running free by trade-wind sped, - How could Fulton have dared to dream - Of steam?" - -"That's rather nice," Tim said as Jack finished the little verse, "and -it's just the way I feel. Wouldn't it have been fine if there wasn't -any machinery and we could all have gone on living in the woods, in -leopard skins--I rather fancy myself in a leopard skin--" - -"You are just the person to make the most fuss if your train happens -to be the least bit late," Frances broke in on him. - -"And sail around all summer in a fast little yacht," Tim went on, with -a grin at Frances. - -"Then about the first of October eat enough to last you until spring -and crawl into your little cave and sleep till warm weather." - -"What a pretty picture," laughed Mabel. "Glimpse Tim, draped in -leopard's skin, nimbly going up the shrouds, with a telescope, -development of the modern time, to sit in the crosstree and watch the -races in the sound." - -"People always imagine that whatever time they live in is the very -worst time, and, as for clothes, what could be more uncomfortable than -a leopard's skin. It would always be getting in the soup or -something," objected Jack. - -"You would hardly have to worry about soup in connection with a -leopard's skin. What you would probably do would be skip along the -shore and hunt for mussels or hide behind the bushes and jump out on a -frightened little pig and sit down on your haunches and devour him -raw," decided Frances. - -"Consider the bristles," shuddered Ellen. - -"Dinghy abaft our stern, sirs," announced Mr. Wing to the little group -in the saloon. - -The dinghy slipped up to the "Boojum" and Jane went down to join her -friends in the saloon. Breck, after making fast the dinghy, went -forward to the galley. It had been decided between them that it would -be better not to say anything about their plans until after Frederick -Gray made his appearance and the subject of Tim's boat had been -settled, then Jane had planned to talk to Mr. Wing about the -feasibility of turning Hurricane Island into a summer resort. As to -their proposed partnership, that could wait. In the meantime it was -nobody's business but theirs. - -"How 'bout my little boat?" Tim demanded with such a motherly -expression that they all laughed. - -"Right as rain," Jane assured him. "And, Oh! Tim, she is a darling, -isn't she? Breck and I snugged ship for you and we have got a boy -coming over tonight to see you about taking her back to Nantucket for -you. 'Sabrina' is a lovely name for her too." - -"What sort of boy, Plain Jane?" inquired Mr. Wing. - -"A perfect peach of a boy. Breck and I went bats about him. In the -first place, he is a dream to look at--" - -"Something more substantial than a dream is going to take my 'Sabrina' -home," said Tim. - -"Beautiful people have sense sometimes, Tim. Anyhow, he is coming over -tonight and you can see for yourself. He is plenty big and strong -enough to handle her if he is able to get a friend of his to go along -with him. He is awfully interesting and well read and made me feel -awfully ashamed because he didn't use one drop of slang the entire -time we talked to him, and it must have been at least three hours. His -father is an inventor. His name is Frederick Gray and I asked him to -come to supper. You don't mind, do you, Skipper?" Jane appealed to Mr. -Wing. - -"What about the island--you haven't said a word about it?" asked Jack. - -"Heavens, don't get me started on the island. I don't ever want to -stop talking about it. We, I mean I've got the most wonderful plan, -but I am not going to talk about it till Fred comes over tonight," -Jane put them off. - -"What about my lobsters?" demanded Mabel. - -"We brought you back a whole dinghy full of them. The steward is -getting them out now. Fred gave them to us." - -"I have changed my mind about Fred, then," said Tim. "I am that fond -of lobsters." - -"Anybody in his right mind would have to like Fred. But wait till you -see him. In the meantime, how long before lunch? I am simply starved!" -and Jane pounced on the candy. - - - - -CHAPTER XII - -BROTHER AND SISTER - - -After lunch, Jane, pleading sleepiness, crawled into the port bunk in -the saloon and drew the tan curtains. People are apt to respect a -feigned desire for sleep far more than a genuine desire for thoughtful -solitude and she wanted to think over the events of the morning. - -She believed that she owed it to Jack to tell him of her engagement to -Breck and yet she felt a strange hesitancy, for as much as she adored -her brother, she knew that he would neither understand nor approve of -her marrying the quixotic deck hand. The fact that he was a -Breckenridge would not alter the case in the least for her brother. -Jack was one of those steady, easy-going young men with a kind but -peculiarly unsocial outlook. Jane knew that he would have a slight -feeling of contempt for a man who had offered himself in marriage to a -girl whom he could neither support in the fabled "manner she was -accustomed to" nor yet offer a stable income to her. - -He would look on the Hurricane Island project as the wildest of wild -ideas. The nomadic life she would probably share with Breck would have -no appeal to the ease-loving young Kentuckian. His dream of perfect -happiness was their lovely old home with Ellen as its mistress and -long evenings spent together by the open fire. Jane realized that her -brother was a typical "country gentleman" of the last century with a -few modern touches in the way of slang. Nor did the differences in -their character make her devotion to him any less, but it did make her -rather dread the interview she had planned to have with him just -before it was time for Frederick Gray to make his appearance. Of her -father's attitude in the matter, she had no fear. He was of the -opinion that whatever his children did was right. Aunt Min was -radically opposed to any new idea, but when the novelty of a situation -had worn off she softened. - -"It may be up-hill work but Breck and I are strong enough to see it -through," Jane decided. "The worst part will be talking to Jack. I -will never convince him of the fact that I had even more to do with it -than Breck did." - -"Jane has been asleep long enough. I'm going down and make her go -swimming in this icy water with me." - -Frances left the others on deck and went down into the saloon. She -jerked back the curtains to find Jane with her knees drawn up under -her chin, her hands clasped around her ankles. - -"What a graceful position to sleep in, Jane. I do hope you had a good -nap." - -"As long as I am caught, I will admit that I withdrew into this shell -to solve the problems of the universe, which being successfully -solved, I want very much to go swimming," Jane said, undoubling and -emerging from her retreat. - -Frances looked at her friend rather quizzically. "But it's so unlike -our Plain Jane to have problems. Is there anything that I can do? I -mean in the way of solving? I'm rather eager to try that new position -in thinking." - -"It was a very trying experience for me--that thinking--but, having -come to the world-shaking conclusion that the only thing to do in a -case like this is to do what you think is right, especially when what -you think is right is what you want to do, I am not going to worry any -more," said Jane, catching the bathing suit Frances flung at her. - -"What a wise but completely unintelligible Jane it is! But I suppose -I must just abide my time and, finally, the secret will be revealed to -your humble and admiring slave. Ah, well, I can wait if I have to. But -let me say that I have suspected it ever since the night you asked me -if I knew whether Breck had his slicker on or not," said Frances -solemnly. - -"What in the world are you talking about?" - -"Don't you remember that night at Plymouth, when you went up in the -graveyard by yourself, and when you came back I said you looked like -you had had one million adventures? Well, when we returned to the boat -it started raining, don't you remember? And Mr. Wing and Breck went up -on deck to see something about that interminable old anchor. I was -just about asleep and you woke me up asking me if I knew whether Breck -had a raincoat or not. 'There is something strange about this,' sez I -to meself, sez I, and I have been a quiet but interested observer ever -since." - -"You are a darling, Frances, and the world lost a great detective when -we Camp Fire Girls made such a good friend," and Jane gave her hand an -affectionate little pat. - -"Tell me all about it when you feel like it," and, with Jane's -promise to do so soon, they went up on deck. - -"You lazy ones put on your bathing suits and let's take the tender and -go over and see Tim's boat. We can swim from the beach. I feel like -the water won't be so cold where it's shallower," Frances suggested. - -The others, having heard Jane's glowing account of the "Sabrina," -readily agreed. Soon they were off, leaving Breck, Mr. Wing and Tim to -make Frederick Gray feel at home if he should come before the others -got back, though, as Jane said, Fred had enough poise to carry off -almost any situation. - -There was a stretch of sandy beach, flanked by gray boulders, near the -"Sabrina's" anchorage, and after inspecting Tim's beautiful little -boat they all went ashore. - -Jane whispered to Jack that she wanted to talk to him for a few -minutes and they went over to one of the sunbaked rocks, while the -rest of the crowd stood ankle deep in the cold water, trying to force -themselves into it. - -"I'll never get into it by degrees," Frances shivered, as she took -three or four tentative steps. "Come on, Mabel, I believe the water -around that farthest rock will be deep enough to make a shallow -drive." - -Jack looked at Jane with surprise. "What is it?" he asked. - -"What do you think of Breck?" - -"All this mystery to know what I think of Breck?" Jack was amused. -"Why, I suppose he is all right. Never paid much attention to him. -Seems a bit sullen to me. I don't reckon I've said two words to him -since I have been on board." Jack's eyes followed Ellen's little -figure as it ran bravely out into the chilly water, hesitated a -second, made a rather poor surface dive and began swimming shoreward -with very irregular and splashy strokes. - -"It is funny Ellen can't learn to swim," Jane said as she, too, -watched her friend's efforts. - -"I think she does remarkably well," Jack said quickly. "But what made -you ask me what I thought of Breck?" - -"I simply wanted to know your opinion of your prospective -brother-in-law." - -For a minute Jack looked at her blankly, then laughed as if what his -sister said was a huge joke. - -"I am serious, Jack dear, I intend to marry Breck when we get back to -New York and will write Daddy to that effect tonight," Jane spoke -calmly but with convincing assurance. - -"It is preposterous," Jack said hotly. "It is ridiculous to discuss -it. Of course, Daddy will forbid it. If you insist, he won't give you -any money and, of course, you could hardly live on a deck hand's -salary. Besides, what would a deck hand do for a living in the -winter?" - -Jane smiled a little at Jack's ideas about money. "Daddy won't say a -word in the first place, and you seem to have forgotten that the money -mother left me would allow me to live very comfortably in the second -place, and Breck isn't a deck hand in the third place. Didn't you hear -what he said when he set Tim's leg?" - -"No, I was out in the tender, but anybody that has knocked around can -set a leg." - -"What are your objections to him besides his lack of money?" Jane said -a little contemptuously. - -"A Pellew would hardly marry--" - -"Oh, Jack dear, don't say it, please," Jane interrupted him, "it would -sound so stupid and snobbish. It is only fair to tell you that his -full name is Allen Breckenridge, you know the ones that live in -California, and he went to Harvard and studied medicine. Then he had -a fuss with his father and broke with him. He went with a French -ambulance unit in the war. When he came back, he went on a newspaper -and, this summer, he signed up with Mr. Wing because he wanted time to -write and yet he needed money to live on while doing so. The 'Boojum' -solved the problem. Jack, don't you see what a peach he is?" - -Jack admitted that Breck's being a Breckenridge altered things -somewhat. But he remained firm in his belief that the affair was an -impossible one. - -"But, Jack dear, you mustn't change your opinion of him just because -he is from one of those terrible things known as a 'good family'--as -far as that goes, I think it is a terrible family and they have -behaved abominably to him. I want you to like him because he is a -fine, interesting man," Jane pleaded. She was constantly given -opportunities to regret that her brother was not as open-minded as she -was. - -"Jane, please believe that your happiness is my chief concern. What -you have told me of him seems to me condemning. I see him as an -impulsive, unstable person, inclined to drifting." - -"I know that you think I am an incurable romantic and that I see him -in a sort of glamour. I don't. I have been with him a lot and we have -had long talks. I love him terribly, but I realize he has the usual -quota of faults. What he needs is a steady hand on the reins and, -Jack, you know my hand is fairly reliable. You respect my judgment of -horses, why won't you respect my judgment of husbands? Of course, what -you have said, what you will say, can't affect me in the least, but I -do wish you would wish me happiness and say that you will try to like -Breck," finished Jane. - -Jack sat silent for a while, his head in his cupped hands, finally he -said, "Forgive me. I was a rotter to say what I did about Breck's -being a deck hand. I will like him and try to make him like me. You -are a great little sister and Breck is a mighty lucky man." - -A victory so far, thought Jane, and decided to spare Jack the -Hurricane Island project till Fred came. "You are rather a darling, -Jack," she said, "and I think Ellen will be a splendid swimmer soon. -Run along down to her now and help her with that scissors kick." - - - - -CHAPTER XIII - -JACK'S AFTER-SUPPER SPEECH - - -After the swim, Jane had had a long conversation with Mr. Wing, with -the result that a place was set for Breck at the table in the saloon. -Purple wildflowers, picked on the island and thrust into a low bowl, -stood in the center of the table and gave a gala air to the saloon. -Ellen had arranged them and said to Mabel that she had not realized -how much she missed flowers till she saw these. - -Jane and Breck watched for Frederick Gray on deck, both of them -feeling shy and self-conscious. Finally, his dory slid up alongside -the "Boojum" and the boy, in immaculate white ducks, was soon standing -beside his new friends. - -"Everybody is down in the saloon. Let's go down and get the -introductions over," Jane said, leading the way. - -Frederick Gray had been looking forward all day to the little supper -party. Breck and Jane had delighted him with their warm friendliness -in the morning and he was anxious to see if their friends were as -charming as they were. It was a rare treat to the boy to mix with his -own kind. His father could find little time to spare to his son, so -engrossed was he in his inventions, and the younger children, of -course, kept his mother very busy. She did all the work, as the -isolation of Hurricane Island made the servant question impossible. -Since his sister's departure for Columbia, he had been far lonelier -than he cared to admit. In fact, he had not realized how alone he was -till he saw this group of natural, kindly people. - -"Reading from the left to the right, first row standing are my -brother, Jack Pellew, Ellen Birch, and Mr. Wing. Seated, are Frances -Bliss, Charlie Preston and Mabel Wing. The gentleman lying down is Tim -Reynolds and it is his boat that we want you to take back to -Nantucket," Jane said in oratorical tones, "and all you -aforementioned, this is my friend Frederick Gray." - -"Mr. Wing," Fred said, going forward to shake hands with him, "it is -very kind indeed of you to let me be with you tonight. I haven't seen -so many new people at one time for years." - -"It is great for us to have you with us," Mr. Wing said. "We were -beginning to need a little new blood, and your coming and Tim's coming -just started things nicely rolling again." - -Fred could not but feel at home at once with the cordial welcome he -had received and he soon found himself seated by Tim talking of the -trip he was to make with the "Sabrina." He told Tim that Virg Bradford -had consented to go with him and then he was so eloquent in his praise -of the little "Sabrina" that Tim immediately decided his pet would be -perfectly safe in such appreciative hands. So the few minutes before -supper passed very quickly for Fred and Tim. But they rather dragged -for Jane and Breck, for they felt, as Jane put it, "on pins and -needles," till they knew how everybody would take it. - -The little Dutch steward came in with delicious pea puree and the -little party fell to with a right good will. The lobsters that Breck -and Jane brought back from Hurricane Island formed the special dish of -the meal and were prepared with an interesting sauce of vinegar and -butter that the steward claimed as his own receipt. With the coffee, -Jack rose and announced that he had something to say. - -"But we don't want any after-dinner speeches," objected Mabel, -"besides this is a supper and who ever heard of after-supper speeches? -Fred is the guest of honor, and he ought to be the one to speak if -anybody has to." - -"You have but to hear me and I know you will think I was justified in -speaking. I'll make it short and snappy," Jack promised Mabel, "for I -know you want to talk yourself." - -"Jack, you're horrid. Shut up and begin," Mabel commanded. - -"Don't give such confusing orders, daughter," Mr. Wing said. "Go on, -Jack, I am awfully interested and will keep my daughter quiet if I -have to gag her." - -"Well, it's this," Jack began. "In the first place, I haven't the -faintest idea how a thing like this ought to be done--" - -"And we know, of course, that you didn't expect to be called on at -this meeting," Charlie interrupted him. - -"But the fact is," Jack ignored him, "that I want to announce the -engagement of my sister, Jane Pellew, to Allen Breckenridge," and, -quite overcome, Jack sat down. - -Everybody was perfectly silent until Frances threw herself into the -breach and saved the situation by saying, "Sloan's liniment--'Don't -rub, let it penetrate'--Jack, you did it so suddenly you simply took -our breaths away. I bid to be first to congratulate both the -contracting parties," and she jumped up and ran around to Jane and -hugged her and gave Breck's hand a cordial squeeze. - -Frances' quickness galvanized the little party into life and all the -girls kissed Jane repeatedly and the men wrung Breck's hand again and -again. Then the questions began, "When did it happen?" "Isn't it -awfully sudden?" "Wasn't Jack funny?" "You didn't know he was going to -do it, did you, Jane dear?" - -And Jane was infinitely grateful to Jack for the part he played -because he couldn't have acknowledged Breck in a more sincere and -gracious manner. - -"Why, Breck," teased Mr. Wing, "I believe you are quite used to having -announcements of this kind made about you. You are behaving like a -professional fiance." - -"I am scared to death, really," Breck admitted with a grin, "but I -have been under fire enough to have learned not to let my knees shake -visibly." - -"And I want to tell you right now, that I think that plan of yours and -Jane's to run Hurricane Island as a summer colony is good and I hope -and believe that you will make a good thing of it. You can count on me -to talk it up because I want my stock in the company to bring in big -returns," Mr. Wing said, shaking Breck's hand once more. - -Afterwards, Breck told Jane that he felt like the President of the -United States at his inauguration, his hand had been pumped up and -down so much. Jane had laughed and said that she herself felt like -Joffre must have after nearly all the school children in the country -had proudly kissed him. - -"Why not have some of these husky males carry Tim up on deck?" -suggested Frances, "I don't believe it will be too cold. Anyway, there -is a wonderful moon and Jack can take his banjo up and sing to us." - -Her plan was approved and Tim was carefully carried up and deposited -on the deck mattress, while the rest sat around on pillows. Jack came -up with his banjo and started thrumming. - -"What shall it be?" he asked. "It is no use you saying, though, -because I don't know anything but the darky songs I have picked up at -home." - -"As if they weren't the most tuneful songs in the world!" Ellen added. - -"Why not sing that Revival Hymn, Jack dear?" asked Jane. - -And Jack began: - - "Oh, whar shill we go w'en de great day comes, - Wid de blowin' or de trumpets en de bangin' er de drums? - How many po' sinners'll be kotched out late - En fine no latch ter de golden gate? - - No use fer ter wait twel termorrer! - De sun mus'n't set on yo' sorrer, - Sin's es sharp ez a bamboo-brier-- - Oh, Lord! fetch the mo'ners up higher! - - W'en de nashuns er de earf is a-stan'in' all aroun', - Who's a gwine ter be choosen fer ter w'ar de glory-crown? - Who's gwine fer ter stan' stiff-kneed en bol', - En answer to der name at de callin' er de roll? - - You better come now ef you comin'-- - Ole Satun is loose en a bummin'-- - De wheels er distruckshun is a hummin'-- - Oh, come 'long, sinner, ef yon comin'! - - De song er salvashun is a mighty sweet song, - En de Pairidise win' blow fur en blow strong, - En Aberham's bosom, hit's saft en hit's wide, - En right dar's de place whar de sinners oughter hide! - - Oh, you nee'nter be a stoppin' en a lookin'; - Ef you fool wid ole Satun you'll get took in, - You'll hang on de aidge en get shook in, - Ef you keep on a stoppin' en a lookin'. - - De time is right now, en dish yer's de place-- - Let de sun er salvashun shine squar' in yo' face; - Fight de battles er de Lord, fight soon en fight late, - En you'll allers fine a latch ter de golden gate. - - No use fer ter wait twel ter-morrer, - De sun mustn't set on yo' sorrer-- - Sin's es sharp ez a bamboo-brier-- - Ax de Lord fer ter fetch you up higher!" - -Jack had sung the old song delightfully, with the colorful wails of -the darky and deserved the thanks and applause he got for singing it. -He refused to sing any more, saying he wanted to smoke. - -"I'll sing you one," volunteered Charlie immodestly. - -"Oh, Charlie, haven't you any shame?" giggled Mabel. "I never in all -my life heard of any one suggesting singing or playing himself. It -just isn't the thing. You are supposed to blush furiously and shake -your head the first time you are asked. Of course, you are asked -again, then you say that you haven't got your music or you aren't in -voice or your hands are chapped. On the third request, you allow -yourself to be dragged unwillingly to the piano or the center of the -room, according to your talent. And here you blatantly nominate -yourself. I blush for you, I blush for you." - -"Don't pay any attention to her, Charlie," urged Frances. "I didn't -know singing was among your accomplishments. While I tremble at the -result, we are all brave souls and most humbly I beseech you sing." - -"I may not be a Caruso or a Martinelli, but I do know some plantation -songs, just as everybody below the Mason-Dixon line does, and coupled -with the three cords I know on the banjo I can give a very creditable -performance. Am I among friends?" - -With a flourish of the banjo and a reckless expenditure of his three -cords, Charlie began in an effectively low voice: - - "De gray owl sing fum de chimbly top: - 'Who-who-is-you-oo?' - En I say: 'Good Lawd, hit's des po' me, - En I ain't quite ready fer de Jasper Sea; - I'm po' en sinful, en you 'lowed I'd be; - Oh, wait, good Lawd, 'twell termorrer!' - - De gray owl sing fum de cypress tree: - 'Who-who-is-you-oo?' - En I say: 'Good Lawd, ef you look you'll see - Hit ain't nobody but des po' me, - En I like ter stay 'twell my time is free; - Oh, wait, good Lawd, 'twell termorrer!'" - -"I take it all back, Charlie," offered Mabel, "I liked that a lot." - -Fred said a regretful good-bye and, with a promise that he and Virg -would weigh the anchor of the "Sabrina" the minute the "Boojum" -signaled, he dropped over the side into his dory and rowed slowly over -the moon-lit water to the silent Hurricane Island. - - - - -CHAPTER XIV - -TIM'S FATHER - - -The "Boojum" and the little "Sabrina" dropped anchor in the harbor at -Nantucket Island almost at the same time. They found themselves in the -midst of a fleet of trig catboats, yawls and splendid motor yachts. -Every male in the island is said to have some sort of boat, and the -catboat seemed to be the choice of the majority. There is a stretch of -land-locked water reaching along one side of the island, and here, -every day, are to be seen races between the many catboats. - -Boat after boat slid in, found its mooring, and emptied itself of its -gay-sweatered, picnicking crowd. The boats were so packed and wedged -in that the "Boojum's" people began to wonder how they could pick -their way into shore with the tender. - -Suddenly a speed boat shot out from the landing in front of the club -house and with marvelous skill threaded its way among the moored -boats. As it approached the "Boojum," a tall gray-haired man, who was -standing at the wheel, raised one hand and waved it at the group on -the "Boojum's" deck. - -"Why, he seems to be coming up alongside," Mr. Wing said in surprise. - -"Ahoy on board the 'Boojum!'" boomed the man's deep voice. - -"Come aboard," invited Mr. Wing with a cordial smile and a bewildered -voice. - -"It's Tim's father, of course," said Frances, springing forward to -greet him. "They look exactly alike. Jane, run down into the saloon -and tell Tim his daddy is here." - -But Mr. Reynolds, with a Tim-like grin that included them all in its -heartiness, said: - -"Please, young lady, let me go see my boy. I'll be up in a second and -thank all of you for your kindness." - -He had disappeared down the companionway before Frances got her -breath, Mr. Wing following and the rest of the crew close on the heels -of their captain. - -Some persons think it is an amusing thing to see two men kiss, but no -one would have been amused to see the gray-haired Mr. Reynolds take -his red-haired son in his arms and kiss him first on one cheek, then -on the other. Tim seemed to like it and not to be a bit abashed. - -"How's mother?" he asked as soon as he emerged from the bear's hug his -father was giving him. - -"In an awful stew about you! When you didn't come home that night, she -threw a few fits and then, when there was no word from you, she threw -a few more. The telegram that finally arrived only assured her you -were as well as might be expected with a broken leg. Now she is having -an awful time because the telegram didn't say which leg." - -"Poor little Mumsy! It's the left one, but since I don't write or -shave with my toes it doesn't really make much difference." - -Then Tim introduced his father to the captain and the crew and the -elder Reynolds by his heartiness and honest gratitude soon began to -run his son a close race in their admiration and affection. It doesn't -take many hours on ship board for people to become very well -acquainted and, already, the inmates of the "Boojum" had begun to feel -that Tim Reynolds was a life-long friend. - -"And these two slips of girls carried you down that rocky hill all by -themselves? I don't believe it! Let me feel your muscle!" said Mr. -Reynolds, putting his hand around Frances' biceps. - -"Jimminy crickets! As hard as steel! Now where did you get your -stretcher? Tell me all about it, every detail. My wife is sure to want -to know everything that can be told. You say Tim was unconscious most -of the time?" - -"Yes, sir," answered Frances, who, having been the one to find Tim, -was tacitly understood to be the one to answer for him. "Either -unconscious or light-headed, but his head was the only thing that was -light, I can assure you. He said he hadn't eaten anything for a day -and a night, but he must have been breathing heavily all the time -because he certainly hadn't lost any weight." - -Then she had to tell him how she and Jane made a stretcher with their -skirts and the oars. Here he interrupted: - -"What kind of skirts? Tell me what kind and what color. The boy's -mother will worry my soul out of me if I don't find out what kind and -what color." - -"Just plain khaki, Camp Fire Girls' skirts!" laughed Frances. "The -kind we are wearing now, but we must change them soon, as we always -dress up a bit when we go ashore." - -"But, my dear young lady, please don't! I beg of you don't change your -skirts." - -Mr. Reynolds' request was such a strange one the girls could not help -laughing. His manner was earnest, but in his eyes there was a regular -Tim twinkle. - -"But why not?" insisted Frances. - -"It is this way: you see, of course, when you go ashore it must be to -our home, and I can tell you if you don't wear those skirts out of -which the stretcher was made that carried our Tim, his mother will -never cease bewailing, to say nothing of Cousin Esther. Of course, you -can tie them up in a bundle and let me carry them ashore, but ashore -they must go. Am I not right, Tim?" - -"Well, Mother is right fond of detail and as for Cousin Esther--" -confessed Tim. "If you girls don't mind--" - -"Mind! Of course we don't mind," put in Jane. "The only thing Frances -and I don't like about going ashore is having to doll up. We'll even -carry Tim ashore as we carried him down the hill if that would help -any." - -"Not me!" cried Tim. "I'll never cease to be grateful to you for -carrying me as you did, but, remember, I am not unconscious now and -my leg has been set. I'm afraid you'll jiggle it out of place. I bid -for Breck and Jack to do the carrying this time." - -"We certainly will," said Breck heartily, while Jack gave Tim a -reassuring pat on his shoulder. "I think, Mr. Reynolds," continued -Breck, "you had better send for a surgeon as soon as you get your son -home. I am little more than an amateur and think an expert should pass -on my manner of setting bones." - -"Certainly, young man, although I am sure you made a good job of it. -What my boy would have done without your skill I tremble to -contemplate. Tell me--I think Mr. Wing said your name was Allen -Breckenridge--are you related to Preston Breckenridge of California?" - -"My father, sir!" and Breck's face flushed. - -"Well now, isn't that too bad? Not that you are related to Preston -Breckenridge, but that you have come into port just too late to see -your father. His yacht has been anchored here for several days, but -they set sail only this morning. I've no idea where they were going. -Didn't know they were going at all. Meant to see them again. Quite a -party. You perhaps know where they are going?" - -"No, sir, I do not know," answered Breck, the flush deepening on his -countenance. "I thought they were still on the Pacific coast." - -"Well, well! California people don't think a thing of stepping across -the continent," declared Mr. Reynolds, suddenly realizing that he had -rather put his foot in it and the good looking young man who had been -so nice about setting his son's leg was evidently not on very good -terms with his family. - -While the general bustle was in process incident to going ashore and -getting the broken-boned Tim ready to be carried off, Breck had time -to whisper to Jane: - -"You heard what Mr. Reynolds said about my father's being in these -waters?" - -"Yes, I heard. Aren't you going to try to find out where he is? Do you -think the rest of your family is along? He said a large party." - -"There is no telling. Gee, I'm glad I wasn't one of them! I'd rather -swab the 'Boojum's' decks, even do galley work with greasy pots and -pans to be scoured, than have to wait on the fool girls my sister, -Lorna, gathers around her." - -"Lorna! What a pretty name! You never told me her name was Lorna. You -always just said 'my sister.' I've meant to ask you what her name was -time and again, but when we are together there always seems to be so -many things to talk about I can't get to it." - -"Yes, honey, and there always will be. That's what is so nice about -you: we never seem to talk out," and Breck slid his hand along the -rail and covered Jane's hand. "We don't get much time alone, though, -do we? I love the old 'Boojum,' love her like a sister or a nice -comfortable maiden aunt, but I can't say she offers a fellow many -chances to tell a girl how much he thinks of her. Ummhum! Just think -of Hurricane Island! I tell you that's a great place for love making." - -"How about the little tow-headed Grays? It seems to me on one occasion -they were pretty numerous," laughed Jane. - -"Break away! Break away!" called Charlie, as he emerged from below. - -"What did I tell you?" grumbled Breck. - -"But you never did tell me if you are going to hunt up your family," -insisted Jane. "Do you intend to do it?" - -"Not on your life! In the first place, they have gone. Mr. Reynolds -said they had sailed this morning. I am too happy to row and if the -Governor and I get together we'll lock horns, as sure as shooting." - -"Yes--but--" - -"But what?" - -"I can't fancy being in the same--same--Gulf Stream with my father and -not trying to see him, even if it meant having a small set-to with him -when I did see him. No doubt he and I are to have some argument at our -next meeting, but I am nearly dead to see him all the same," and -Jane's black eyes softened to velvet. - -"But perhaps your father is different," said Breck sadly. - -"Different in some ways, but all fathers are more or less alike. I -reckon your father loves you just as much as mine does me. He just -doesn't know you are grown-up, and you see my father had to let me -grow up because my mother died when I was so young. He thinks I've got -lots more judgment than Jack just because he can't get in his head -Jack is a man. If Jack had been a girl, he'd have realized long ago he -was no longer a child. I'm hoping you are going to be friends with -your father, Breck. It is a terrible thing to carry a grouch around, -especially one against some of your own blood." - -"I know it, honey, but you don't know what a ragging I got the last -time I saw the Governor. Some day, maybe, it will come right and heal -up, but the place is still pretty sore." - -"But how about Lorna?" - -"Oh she is such a--such a--well, I think I won't say anything about -Lorna. I fancy she is what her environment has made her. She hasn't -had half a chance with everything on God's green earth hers for the -asking. Everybody spoils her and she has such a bunch of silly friends -around her flattering her to death that it is hard for the true Lorna -to come out. She was a cute kid years ago and I used to be mighty fond -of her--she was of me too--but now--but never mind. She has -changed--changed a lot." - -"Maybe you changed too," insisted Jane. - -"But she seemed to have so little sympathy for my plans and ideals." - -"Did you have any for hers?" - -"But hers were so silly and vapid." - -"Perhaps she thought yours were silly, too." - -"Well, we won't row about it, honey. I guess I was rather superior and -big brotherish when last Lorna and I met," said Breck somewhat -ruefully. - -"Next time, behave better," admonished Jane. - -"All right, but I can't see a possibility of any next time for years -to come. When you are given to understand by your father that your -room is more desirable than your company, you are not likely to do -much hanging around after that," and the young man flushed. - -"Poor old Breck! You mustn't think I'm blaming you. I am sure it isn't -your fault, but I just have such a strong family feeling myself that I -can't understand when it is lacking. I know you have it too, and so -has your father--and no doubt poor little Lorna has it. You just can't -get together on it." - -And Jane began to turn over in her mind how she might help her fiance -to make friends with his family. - - - - -CHAPTER XV - -TIM'S MOTHER AND DETAILS - - -Mrs. Reynolds always insisted that she belonged on Nantucket Island, -although she had been born and reared on the mainland. - -"It would take centuries of exile to get a Coffin to acknowledge any -other spot as home," she would say. - -She had inherited a beautiful old house on the main street of -Nantucket Town and it had been almost a religion with her to keep that -house as her grandmothers for generations had kept it. Not a modern -touch was allowed to profane the lovely simplicity of that island -home. Her regret was that only the summers could be spent there. She -would have enjoyed it the whole year round and she resented Mr. -Reynolds' large law practice that compelled his presence in Boston. - -In Boston, Mrs. Reynolds was a fashionable, handsomely dressed woman, -but the moment she entered her ancestral halls she changed her costly -attire for a gown of severe simplicity more in keeping with the -painted floors, rag rugs and cane-bottomed chairs found therein. She -might have been her own great-grandmother in her sprigged muslin dress -with a hemstitched kerchief crossed over her loyal Coffin bosom. The -retinue of servants the Reynolds family found necessary in Boston to -administer to their wants were left on the mainland. Ruling in their -stead was one severe-looking person who claimed distant relationship -with Mrs. Reynolds since they boasted the same great-great-grandmother -Cousin Esther Sylvester was her name. She was the maid of all work, -accomplishing with the utmost ease and precision the labor of cook, -laundress, and housemaid, and at the same time never forgetting that -she was of the same blood as the mistress. The fact that her cousin's -grandfather had left the island and gone over on the mainland, -amassing a fortune, made not a whit of difference to the independent -Esther, whose grandfather had stayed where he was and, at least, kept -what he had, which was a fourth share in a very likely whaling vessel -and an extremely picturesque fisherman's cottage at Siasconset. Esther -had inherited this property and, like her grandfather, she had held on -to it. She still owned a fourth share in the whaling vessel and the -picturesque cottage at 'Sconset. To be sure, the whaling vessel was -rotting at the Nantucket wharf, a mute reminder that the wheels of the -world no longer had to be greased with sperm oil. The cottage had -proved a much more valuable asset, as she rented it every summer for -large sums to a great actress who delighted in its simplicity and the -view one could get from its crooked little windows of the quaint old -village streets. - -Mrs. Reynolds and Cousin Esther had not only the same -great-grandmothers but also the same insatiable curiosity about the -small and seemingly unimportant details of everyday life. Perhaps it -was something that had been bred in the bones of the original -Nantucket Islanders when, in old days, they had been cut off from the -world for months at a time and their own affairs and the affairs of -their neighbors were of all importance because of the fact that the -affairs of the nation were stale long before they were brought to -their ears. The fact that Amanda Bartlett had broken her best Canton -china teapot was a current event while the news that the men of Boston -had thrown the tea into the bay at the famous Boston Tea Party was -days old before they heard of it. - -The telegram telling of Tim's accident had thrown Mrs. Reynolds and -Cousin Esther Sylvester into a great state of excitement. Not only -were they very uneasy about their darling boy but they did so want to -know how and when and where the accident had occurred. Who had rescued -him? Which leg was broken, etc., etc., etc. Who were the mysterious -persons who had sent the lengthy telegram, evidently not at all -counting the cost? How did they happen to be at Hurricane Island? Were -they white people? If so, why did they say their yacht was named such -a strange outlandish name, "Boojum!" Surely the telegraph operator -must have got it wrong. Perhaps they were Fiji Islanders and not white -persons after all. At any rate, they had rescued the beloved Tim and -were bearing him home in the yacht with the exotic name and the ladies -were determined to be as nice to them as could be. - -"Cousin Esther, you had better make extra preparations and be ready -for guests," suggested Mrs. Reynolds. "You know how Mr. Reynolds loses -his head when he begins to invite." - -"Certainly, Cousin Lucia. I have baked three kinds of pies and have a -cold joint in the larder. I calculate there will be food enough for -all the Boojummers likely to land," said Miss Sylvester with some -stiffness of manner. She did not at all like suggestions from her -cousin-mistress. - -Up the quiet, shady street of Nantucket Town came the Boojummers. Mr. -Reynolds led the way with Mr. Wing. Then came the stretcher bearers, -Breck and Jack, the grinning Tim borne lightly between them. The -others flocked around the point of interest not certain they should -not have stayed away and let Tim have his home-coming without such a -crowd, but when this had been suggested, Mr. Reynolds made so many -protestations there was nothing to do but tag along. - -"Well, when you come right down to it," said Mabel, "I guess there -isn't anybody to leave out. Father must go to receive thanks for being -near by with the 'Boojum.' Of course, Jack and Breck must go to carry -Tim; Frances must go because she found him, and Jane must go because -she helped carry him; Ellen must go to look after Jack, and--" - -"And you and Charlie must go along to do the head work," teased Jane. - -"Exactly! Charlie must look after the legal aspect of the case and I -must look after Charlie." - -"Here they come! Here they come!" cried Mrs. Reynolds, peeping through -the living-room window. - -"Yes, and it's a good thing I baked three kinds of pies," asserted -Cousin Esther, grimly. "I'll be bound Mr. Reynolds has invited them to -dinner." - -"How pale my Tim looks! I'm afraid I'm going to cry, Cousin Esther, -although I know how he hates for me to." - -"Don't do it, Cousin Lucia, don't do it! Remember Great-great-Aunt -Patience who never shed a tear even when they brought home her three -boys all drowned off Sankity. Here's the smelling-salts. Now bear up!" - -Tim was pale in spite of a summer's tan. The stretcher bearers were as -careful as possible, but every little jolt was painful to the -fractured hip. - -"It hurts I know," whispered Frances. - -"Not much, but thank you for thinking about it, all the same." Tim had -been wondering if any of them realized how much it did hurt. - -"Just think how Jane and I bumped you and be thankful our skirts are -where they are instead of stretched on oars and you swung in the -middle." - -"I wonder if Mother is going to weep over me. Poor Mother! It does her -good to cry, but Cousin Esther is so stern with her when she gives -way. Of course I'm not crazy about being cried over, but I can stand -it for the good of the cause. I can stand anything better than -Mother's suppressed expression. There she is! Yes, she has her -suppressed expression!" - -Mrs. Reynolds came slowly from the door. Her instinct was to fly to -her son and throw herself on him, take his red head in her arms and -weep, but, remembering Great-great-Aunt Patience, she held on to -herself, knowing full well the stern Cousin Esther was looking at her -from the small-paned window. - -The mother bent over her boy, giving him a restrained peck. But he put -his arms around her and drew her close. - -"Come on, old lady, and don't be so Coffinish. Give us what our -Southern friends call a 'sho nuf' kiss." - -That was too much for poor Mrs. Reynolds. Not only did she give Tim a -"sho nuf" kiss but added to it a genuine hug, while the tears fell -fast. What did she care after all for old Great-great-Aunt Patience -and her strength of character that kept her from shedding tears even -if her three sons were drowned off Sankity? - -"That's something like!" declared Tim. "Now you won't have to get a -headache from restrained emotion. Never mind Cousin Esther. She will -forget it by the time she makes enough pies for all of us." - -Tim then proceeded, with the help of his father, to introduce all the -Boojummers to his mother. After the formal introduction, he began with -the utmost patience to give a detailed account of the accident to the -eager ladies, Cousin Esther having joined them in the living room -where the stretcher bearers had deposited their burden on a long, low -couch. - -"And this is the one who found me," indicating Frances. - -"Do tell!" from Miss Esther. - -"Now tell me how you found him," from Mrs. Reynolds. "How you found -him and what you were doing there and how you happened to look behind -the rock--everything! everything! Don't leave out a thing." - -Frances proceeded with the narrative. When she got to the place where -she went after Jane, her insatiate hostess exclaimed: - -"And you tell me what you were doing and what you thought and what you -said; please, Jane!" - -With a twinkle in her eye, Jane took up the tale which seemed like a -game of consequences. The improvised stretcher made its appearance in -the story and the distracted mother looked eagerly about as though -expecting the stretcher to tell all it knew. - -"Now this is where the petticoats come in!" exclaimed Mr. Reynolds. -"What did I tell you?" - -"You made a stretcher out of the oars and your skirts? Remarkable! -Wonderful! What kind of skirts?" - -"These we are wearing!" Frances and Jane sounded like a Greek chorus. - -"Those identical ones?" - -"The same!" - -Cousin Esther, who was standing next to Frances, picked up a piece of -her skirt between thumb and forefinger and examined it critically. - -"What they call khaki nowadays," she said sententiously. "It is really -a kind of lightweight sail cloth." - -"And the oars! What kind of oars? I do wish I might have seen the -oars." - -"Here's one of them," grinned Tim. "I've been lying on it all the way -here and mighty uncomfortable it was, but I felt I must produce it." -He proceeded to roll over a bit and pull gingerly at a little red oar -that had been concealed up to that moment. "Here it is. Exhibit B! Now -proceed!" - -"No wonder you were making faces as we came long," scolded Frances. -"Why didn't you let me carry the oar? It wasn't very good for a broken -hip." - -"Excuse me, please," put in Breck. "But none of this is very good for -a broken hip. I'm not much of a doctor, but I'm the only one you have -had as yet and I really must insist, Mrs. Reynolds, upon my patient's -being put to bed and a real surgeon being called in to pass on my -work." - -"Oh, thunder, Breck! Not before grub!" grumbled Tim. - -All of them laughed at this and Mrs. Reynolds cried a little more. - -"Now you are my own boy again," she laughed through her tears. - -"You remind me, Mother, of Tennyson's lines," quoted Mr. Reynolds: - - "Home they brought her warrior dead; - She nor swooned, nor uttered cry. - All her maidens, watching, said, - 'She must weep or she will die.'" - -"It seems to more like Sawyer's parody on Tennyson," suggested -Frances: - - "Home they brought her sailor son, - Grown a man across the sea, - Tall and broad and black of beard, - And hoarse of voice as man may be. - - Hand to shake and mouth to kiss, - Both he offered e're he spoke; - But she said, 'What man is this - Comes to play a sorry joke?' - - Then they praised him, called him 'smart.' - 'Tightest lad that ever stept.' - But her son she did not know, - And she neither smiled nor wept. - - Rose a nurse of ninety years, - Set a pigeon-pie in sight; - She saw him eat--''Tis he! 'Tis he!' - She knew him by his appetite!" - - - - -CHAPTER XVI - -A MOUTH FOR PIE - - -A surgeon was called in and passed favorably on Breck's handiwork. -Tim's fracture was doing as well as could be expected, but he was to -be put to bed for three weeks or more and then, of course, must walk -on crutches for many days to come. - -"Isn't that the limit?" grumbled Tim. "And the 'Boojum' will be -sailing away before I know it and I'll be left here with nothing to -do." - -"You can be knitting," suggested Frances, "at least your bones can -be." - -"That's right! Laugh--you don't care if my hip is broken." Tim was -cross and miserable and didn't care who knew it. It was hard right in -the middle of his well-earned summer vacation to be laid up in bed -just when he had made the acquaintance of such a jolly crowd too. He -did not confess to himself that it was Frances and not the whole crowd -that he was going to miss. - -Mrs. Reynolds had given her boy the room opening into the living room -for his sick chamber. It had been a sewing room through all the -generations and it was something of a wrench for her to change it, but -a live son weighed more in the balance than all the dead traditions, -even though they were Coffin traditions, and it was nice to have Tim -downstairs where his friends could see him and where, when he once got -up and around on his crutches, he would not have to contend with -stairs. Cousin Esther grumbled, but Cousin Esther was opposed to -change of any sort. - -"It is out of reason to take a sewing room for a bed room," she -objected. "I'd as soon think of making a pumpkin pie with a top crust -or a mince pie without one. A sewing room is meant for a sewing room -and a bedroom for a bedroom. I like things left as our Maker intended -them to be." - -With which bit of theology she let the matter drop, but Tim always -felt out of place in the sewing room. When Frances made the above -suggestion about his bones knitting, he felt a grim satisfaction that -the process was to go on in the sewing room. - -"You don't care a bit," he repeated, keeping Frances' hand in his a -moment after the rest of the Boojummers had left his room, having bid -him good-bye before going on a jaunt to 'Sconset. - -"Nonsense! I do care! As for you, you are most uncomplimentary," -declared Frances. "You should be eternally grateful to your -much-abused hip for getting itself broken. How otherwise would you -ever have known the inmates of the 'Boojum'?" - -"Oh, I'd have found you somehow. What is to be is to be." - -"What has been was, you mean." - -"Well then, I'm going to grin and bear it as best I might. But please -come see me when you get back from 'Sconset. Gee I'd like to go over -there with you. It's a peach of a place. It's not quite so formal as -Nantucket Town, more rough and ready. When all the summer folk go, I -run over there and visit Cousin Esther sometimes. She loves to have -me, although she is cleaning house most of the time getting rid of the -leavings of the actress who rents her place for the summer. I am sure -it is clean as clean, but she is never content until she has scrubbed -every board three times at least. I'll get Cousin Esther to ask you to -come too. Will you?" - -"But I'll be gone--out West--home--somewhere by that time." Frances -tried to draw her hand away but Tim held on to it. - -"But sometime would you go if Cousin Esther asked you?" - -"Would she make three kinds of pies?" - -"Sure! Ten kinds!" - -"All right then!" Frances was laughing and blushing but she gave Tim's -hand a little answering pressure and left the boy happy and not so -indignant with the fractured hip as that member no doubt deserved. -After all, he reflected, there is generally a reason for everything. - -"Cousin Esther!" he called after the Boojummers were out of the house, -"please come here a minute." - -"Well, what is it?" and Esther came and stood by his bed, looking down -on the red-haired man that seemed to her still the little boy who had -been the plague and joy of her summers since he was able to crawl. She -tried to look stern, but her eyes were soft in spite of her. - -"What do you think of the one called Frances?" - -"The one who found you lying up behind the boulder?" - -"That's the one." - -"Well, she ate a piece of every kind of pie. That's doing pretty well -for a girl born out of New England. She looks as though she came of -good stock not to be seafaring." - -"Her ancestors went West in a prairie schooner and I fancy they had as -much to contend with and more than ours did on the bounding billows," -laughed Tim. "Will you ask her to come visit you over at 'Sconset?" - -"Are you serious, boy?" - -"As serious as I ever was in my life. Her last name is Bliss and if -she will have me that will be my middle name for the rest of my life. -Don't tell Mother. I want to wait and see if she will have me. I don't -see how she can." - -"I don't see how she can help it if she has any sense," declared -Esther with some indignation. "Not have you indeed!" - -"Well, if she does, will you teach her how to make pies?" teased Tim. - -"Of course, if her mother has neglected to do so." - -"All right Cousin Esther. I'm glad you like her. Please hand me that -scrap book over on the table before you go. It is the deuce and all to -be laid up and not able to wait on myself." - -After Esther went out Tim lay idly fingering the scrap book. He -chuckled to himself as he thought of the way his cousin had praised -the girl he hoped to persuade to love him at some future date. - -"A mouth for pie! That's the way she lauded her," he laughed. "Nothing -but a mouth for pie! Well a slice from three kinds was going some. I -fancy they must be almost at 'Sconset now. I do wish I could have been -the first one to show her 'Sconset," he mused. "Where is that little -poem I want?" and he rapidly turned the leaves of the scrap book. - -"Here it is! I am going to read it to her some day. It fills the bill -exactly I think." - - 'SCONSET BY-THE-SEA - - By JEAN WRIGHT - - A queer old fisher village by the sea, - With long low-lying sand, where great waves boom - And break the whole year through. Wide moors - Rich with gold gorse and purple heather bloom. - - The grass-grown, straggling streets run in and out - Past houses weather stained and strange to see; - Built in the fashion of a sailor's heart - Like to a ship as what's on land can be. - - And all in front, each housewife's care and pride, - A tiny garden. Rows of poppies red, - Gay flaming hollyhocks and mignonette, - And good old-fashioned "jump-ups" rear their head. - - Quaint folk, with many a tale of bygone days, - When men sailed off and sometimes came no more; - When women stayed at home to work and wait, - And wear their hearts out on that smiling shore. - - The romance of those other braver days - Hangs like a halo 'round the queer old town; - Shouts in the wind that comes across the sea; - Sighs in the wind that comes across the down. - - Look out across the tumbling surf toward Spain - On some clear, lazy, golden, summer day, - A vague mirage of towers and battlements-- - It is the place to dream one's life away. - - - - -CHAPTER XVII - -"BOILED" AT 'SCONSET - - -The poem Tim read from his scrap-book is an excellent description of -'Sconset. It is a place in which to dream one's life away in spite of -the fact that it is a very popular summer resort and filled to -overflowing with pleasure and rest seekers. There is many a nook and -cranny behind the ever changing sand dunes where one can get away from -the "madding crowd." Behind one of those dunes Breck and Jane found a -snug harbor after having taken a dip in the surf. - -"Did you ever feel such water?" cried Jane, burrowing down in the -yielding sand. "It isn't as cold as Hurricane Island, but it has a -stinging, spanking way with it as though it meant to conquer you." - -"Yes, I feel as though parental authority had got after me with the -wrong side of the hair brush," laughed Breck. "It is a treacherous bit -of beach down at this end and none but good swimmers should venture -here." - -The bathing beach proper was several hundred yards from where Breck -and June had taken their swim. There the island made a sharp curve and -the undertow suddenly was increased as though the old ocean resented -the change of tactics in the land. It was a sparkling, brilliant day, -but the water gave evidence of there having been a storm at sea. Far -out near the horizon were occasional white-caps and as the waves came -closer to the shore they increased in size and fury, each one -seemingly trying to jump on the back of the one in front, foaming and -raging, thundering and booming, breaking on the sand with a final roar -and then endeavoring to drag the whole of Nantucket Island down into -the deep. The sand was coarse and loose and it took a firm, -quick-footed person to get out of the surf safely without being -"boiled." Boiling is a terrible experience and one often had by the -unwary who does not know the habits of the surf on a shelving beach -with loose and shifting sand. The worst feature about being "boiled" -is the jeering crowd that sits on the beach and screams with laughter -as the poor victim is turned over and over and played with by the -relentless waves like some gigantic cat worrying a poor little mouse. -There is nothing amusing in it but the crowd always finds it so and, -when the poor mouse is cast up on the sands with a final admonishing -spank from the last playful breaker, the ordinary crowd of holiday -makers shows less heart than an ancient audience in a Roman arena. The -victim, if it is a woman, is pretty apt to have lost her stockings in -the struggle, her bathing cap, hair pins, anything in the way of -apparel that is not securely fastened on. No matter what the sex, it -is hard to come out from a real good "boiling" with much religion -left. Ears leveled over with sand, shins, knees and elbows scraped -sore from being dragged back and forth, besides the hurt feelings from -being laughed at, is enough to make one doubt that "whatever is, is -right." - -To the more secluded spot, sought by Jane and Breck, came Mabel and -Charlie. They, too, found it difficult at times to pursue their -love-making on the deck of the "Boojum" where, as Charlie put it, -"somebody was always butting in." - -"Gee! Ain't this nice? Not a soul around! Come on, Mabel honey, let's -take a dive and then get on the safe side of one of those friendly -dunes." - -Now Charlie Preston was a fresh-water fish and, while he was a -powerful swimmer, he knew little of the dangers of surf bathing. -While on the "Boojum," as a rule, the bathing had been done by diving -from the yacht's deck into the deep sea. Mabel was as at home in the -surf as a seal and could dive under a breaker and come up on the other -side with amazing poise. She never even thought to warn Charlie of the -treachery of the beach but dived in and while her fiance stood to -watch her prowess and admire her skill a wave took him off his feet -and then began the process of "boiling" described above. - -Over and over poor Charlie rolled, struggling and spluttering, -gurgling and choking. He would clutch with desperate hands at the -loose sand and then a relentless wave would dash over him and drag him -back while a playful brother wave would knock him with a resounding -smack up on the beach only to let him be dragged back and rolled over -by yet another one before he could get a footing. - -Hearing a great splashing and screaming, Breck and Jane emerged from -behind their friendly dune just in time to see Charlie being boiled to -a king's taste and Mabel, who ordinarily would have been much amused -at the discomfiture of an unwary bather, was screaming shrilly and -trying to get in to come to the rescue of her beloved Charlie. But -one must bide his time in trying to ride waves. Time and tide waits -for no man, nor does it hurry, and getting back to shore was not as -quick as Mabel would have liked. She made a desperate lunge and, for -the first time in the annals of the Wings, one of that name was caught -in the surf and "boiled." - -Over and over went Mabel and over and over went Charlie again, but in -the confusion they managed to clasp hands and just as Breck, trying to -conceal a grin, came to their assistance they managed to crawl up out -of reach of the spanking waves. - -A rueful couple they were, sitting on the beach blinking ludicrously -at each other. - -"Well, you needn't laugh!" spluttered Charlie. - -"I'm not laughing! I'm trying to cry, but my eyes are dammed up with -sand," sobbed Mabel. - -"Well, you needn't laugh, Breck, you and Jane." - -"We are not laughing, old fellow. I would have come sooner if I had -known what was going on," said Breck. "'Boiling' is no joke to my mind -but a serious calamity." - -Breck spoke soberly but he was glad Mabel and Charlie had so much -sand in their eyes they could not see his face. Nobody could help -smiling at their misery. - -Jane came to the assistance of her friend with a small pail some child -had left half buried in the sand. This she filled with sea water by -carefully timing an incoming breaker. She had no desire to be caught -as Mabel and Charlie had been. - -"Here, honey, wash out your poor eyes." - -"They are getting washed fro-om with-h-in-hin-out-hout-ward," sobbed -Mabel. "I ne-hever expec-hected to get boi-hoiled." - -"Don't you mind, darling," comforted Charlie, who was still panting -but was happy to be alive after such an experience. "Here's a -moonstone I found buried in my ear. A beauty too! I'm going to have it -set in a ring for you. I've heard there were lovely moonstones on this -beach, but I never expected to pick up one by ear." - -"I'm hun-un-gry," said Mabel, her sobs letting up somewhat. "When I -get scared, I always get hungry. Maybe it is the 'boiling' that made -me think about food." - -"Of course," said Charlie, indulgently. "I'm kind of hungry too. I -tell you what you do: you and Jane wait here and Breck and I'll go -forage and bring us back a light lunch. We'll pick up the rest of the -crowd on the way." - -"Not too light," admonished Mabel. - -Breck looked sadly at Jane. There seemed to be no place where he could -go and have a quiet little love-making with his sweetheart. Why should -Charlie and Mabel come and be 'boiled' near their dune of refuge? And -why should he have to go hunt food for Mabel? But Jane gave him a -bright little nod of admonition and there was nothing for him to do -but comply. He leant over and whispered to her: - -"Don't go in the water while I am away. Please promise me!" - -And she laughingly promised. - - - - -CHAPTER XVIII - -THE BEGINNING OF TRAGEDY - - -While Jane and Mabel sat in the sun leaning comfortably against the -friendly dune, a group of people came towards their retreat from the -crowded bathing beach. - -"Goodness, I wish they would stay away from here," grumbled Mabel. -"I'm still panting for breath and I certainly don't want to move." - -"I reckon they won't bother us if we don't bother them," suggested -Jane. "It looks like a swell bunch." - -"That's what I've got against them. How can a body eat before such -elegance and Charlie and Breck will be back soon with food, I am -thinking. That's a pretty girl in the Vanity Fair bathing suit and -scarlet cap--and look at the old gent in yachting togs! He must be -postmaster general of all the railroads or something grand. He looks -as though he owned the island and was thinking about annexing the -ocean." - -"He doesn't seem to take much pleasure in his possessions," laughed -Jane. "He looks sad to me." - -The gentleman in question was a powerfully built man of about sixty, -with iron gray hair, piercing blue eyes, a high Roman nose that seemed -to flaunt its aristocratic lines and a mouth and jaw of such force and -determination that Jane wondered at the impertinence of a wave that, -having leaped on the back of one of its brothers, came tumbling in all -out of order, wetting the immaculate white shoes of the nabob. He -looked indignant but evidently felt it to be beneath his notice. - -Behind him trooped a crowd of young people, five girls and two young -men. The old gentleman was the only one not in bathing costume. - -"This is a good place to go in, Father," said the pretty girl in the -Vanity Fair suit. "I simply could not have gone in with that common -crowd up there." - -"Humph!" whispered Mabel, "that must be the princess." - -"Of course not! Such persons!" spoke up one of the other girls. - -"No one knows them," from another. - -"Well, hardly!" drawled one of the young men who seemed to be dancing -attendance on the pretty girl Mabel had designated as "the princess." - -"I hope they can swim and know something about undertow and getting -'boiled'," murmured Jane. - -"The snobs! It might do them good to get a good drubbing on their -stuck-up persons," answered Mabel, looking at the interlopers with -round wondering eyes. - -The interlopers in turn paid not the least attention to either Jane or -Mabel. If they had been sand fleas or skates' eggs, their presence -could not have been more completely ignored. - -"Sorry you won't go in, sir," said one of the young men to the older -man. - -"I never learned to swim," he answered with a certain haughty -indifference of tone which put the polite young man along with the -impertinent wave, the sand fleas, the skates' eggs, Jane and Mabel, -among the things to be ignored. - -"Strange! Your daughter is a beautiful swimmer--" - -"Yes, beautiful!" chorused the girls who seemed to be bent on -flattering the pretty daughter. - -"She does everything well," said one of them. - -"And your son is--" but what his son was Jane and Mabel could not -hear, as the gentleman turned on his heel and walked off up the beach -puffing vigorously at a long black cigar that Mabel insisted smelt as -though it might have cost a dollar. - -"Lorna, darling, I hate for you to get your pretty bathing suit wet," -said one of the girls, whose manner was even more fawning than the -rest. - -"Oh, Lord!" groaned Mabel. "Just listen!" - -"Lorna! Lorna!" Jane said to herself. "Could these be Breck's people?" -Looking after the retreating figure of the impatient old gentleman, -she saw unmistakable lines of resemblance. He could be none other than -the father of the man she had promised to marry. - -"Poor Breck! They are certainly difficult," she said to herself. "But -the father looks sad. I believe he has been suffering, and the girl is -sweet looking and mighty pretty. It is just this lot of flatterers and -sillies that are ruining her. Look at the men! They haven't a chin -between them and the girls ought to have a good strenuous course in -Camp Fire training to knock the foolishness out of them." - -She said nothing to Mabel about the possibility of their being the -Breckenridges. Mabel was not a marvel of tact and Jane felt that here -was a situation that must be handled delicately. She hoped something -would detain Breck and she could warn him that his father and sister -were on the beach. It might be hard on him to come upon them unawares. -She felt assured, however, that her Breck was equal to any emergency. - -"I wish I could get my wind back," said Mabel. "That 'boiling' has -done me up for the day. I wanted to go in the water again but I fancy -I'd better not." - -"You are panting, you poor dear," said Jane sympathetically. - -"I was scared about Charlie. I believe that did me up more than all of -the fancy somersaults I turned." - -"Why don't you cuddle down and take a nap?" suggested Jane. - -"I believe I will," Mabel curled herself up in the sand and in a -moment was fast asleep. - -Jane, glad to have quiet for her thoughts, directed her attention to -the bathers. The pretty Lorna had dived through the breakers and was -riding the waves like a veritable mermaid. She was a good swimmer and -seemed perfectly at home in the surf. - -"Isn't she wonderful?" - -"Did you ever see anyone so beautiful?" - -The flatterers were forced to shout their compliments in loud tones so -that the pretty Lorna could hear them above the noise of the breakers. - -"Come in!" she commanded. The young men looked rather ruefully at the -curling waves and the girls took tentative steps in the direction of -their princess. But tentative steps are fatal on a beach like that -with a heavy uncertain sea. The "boiling" that Mabel and Charlie had -just undergone was nothing to the one that the timid young men and -maidens now were subjected to. It was the fault of one young man who -hesitated and was lost. Over he went and clutching wildly grasped the -arm of one of the girls, who in turn pulled down another and then the -merry war went on. - -"Help! Help!" they shrieked. - -"I reckon they can help one another," said Jane grimly. - -Just as one victim would stagger to his feet, another would clutch -wildly at his legs and over he would go. In the midst of this -confusion another cry rang out shrill and sharp above the rush of the -waters and the squeals of those being "boiled." - -"Help! Oh, help! I'm giving out!" - -Jane sprang to her feet. In her amusement over the laughable -predicament of the unwary she had forgotten all about Lorna. Now she -could plainly see that the girl was in distress. Evidently she had -tried to come in to shore and was being carried out by the undertow. -She had lost her head and was struggling wildly. For a moment her head -with the gay cap and handkerchief went under, a huge wave breaking -over her. - -Jane dived through the breakers. She was conscious of the fact that -the father was near her. He had turned and walked back towards the -beach, arriving near the friendly dune just as his daughter's cry for -help rang out. - -"My God! It's Lorna!" he gasped. "Here!" he cried, grabbing one of the -struggling young men out of the breakers just as he was being thrown -up on the sands by a playful wave. "Here, you! My daughter is -drowning!" - -"So am I!" gasped the chinless youth. - -"You can swim--go get her! Get her man! I can't swim a stroke." - -The frantic father was rushing up and down like a raging lion. By that -time, all of the party had come out of the boiling with no bones -broken but with rueful countenances. - -"A nawsty beach!" announced the other young man. - -"But my Lorna! She is drowning!" bellowed the father. - -"Lorna! Lorna!" wailed the girls and the youths shivered and tried to -make up their minds to go in after her but the waves seemed to have -redoubled in force and fury. They rose up like walls and broke on the -shore as though determined to smash anything that dared approach them. - -"A rope! A rope! Get a rope!" commanded Mr. Breckenridge. But nobody -seemed to know where to get a rope, so nobody got one. "Will none of -you go in and get my girl? Cowards!" - -He beat the trembling young men on their cringing backs and tried to -shove them into the water. - -"My God! My God! Why did I never learn to swim?" - -The shrieks of the distracted friends of Lorna had at last attracted -some of the people from the regular bathing beach and the crowd began -to surge towards the scene of the disaster. - -In the meantime Jane with sure eye and steady stroke had cut under the -combing breakers and reached the spot where last she had seen the -drowning girl. She trod water for a moment and peered through the -clear green waves. Ah, there was a flash of the pretty crimson cap and -handkerchief! Without a moment's hesitation, Jane dived and came up -bearing a limp trophy. - -"I reckon it's a good thing she's lost consciousness," thought Jane. -"She can't struggle and I have some chance of getting in with her." - -She looked back on the beach as a huge wave raised her aloft with her -burden, and wondered if she could make it. It seemed a great way off. - -"Of course you can, Jane Pellew! Keep your mouth shut and breathe -through your nose; don't fight the waves but let them take you in. -Think of the skates' eggs that are thrown up on the sands, how fragile -they are and still safe. Think of Breck! Think of Father and Jack and -poor Aunt Min! Think of Lorna and what it will mean to Breck's father -to have his child safe. Poor man!" - -Holding Lorna's head above water as much as possible, she began her -perilous trip ashore. She must time each wave and endeavor to ride it -instead of being overcome by it. Many times she and Frances had -played the game of saving each other and she was thankful for the -skill she had acquired. But she found it quite a different thing -saving Frances who inadvertently helped herself somewhat and saving -this poor limp girl who flopped so piteously and whose head was so -hard to keep above water. - -"If Breck would only come!" her heart cried out. - -Among the crowd that gathered on the beach there were many good -swimmers but, as sometimes happens in a crowd, a strange panic had -seized them. The run in the loose sand from the bathing beach proper -had winded most of them too and men and women stood shuddering and -watched the black-eyed girl make her fight. - -"She will win! She will win!" they comforted themselves by saying. - -"Lord! what pluck!" - -"Who is it--the drowned girl?" - -"Preston Breckenridge's daughter. He's the multimillionaire from -California." - -"Money won't help him much now." - - - - -CHAPTER XIX - -THE GOOD OF THE ILL WIND - - -Mabel waked up just as Jane triumphantly rode her last wave and was -cast up on the sand still holding on to her unconscious burden. - -Lorna's friends, shrieking and crying, threw themselves on her wailing -and moaning: - -"She is dead! She is dead!" - -"Give her to me!" sternly demanded her stricken father. - -Jane was completely exhausted and lay for a moment with her eyes -closed while the crowd of holiday makers closed in around her, -praising her and lauding her to the skies. But Jane's work was not -over. As soon as she could pull herself together she was on her feet -and, pushing her way unceremoniously through the crowd, she caught Mr. -Breckenridge by the arm where he stood clasping his Lorna to his -broken heart. - -"Don't listen to them! She is not dead! Give her to me. Give her here, -I say! Mabel!" she called, "come and help me." - -Mabel was there in a moment. - -"Push the crowd back and come give first aid to the drowning. You know -how." Jane spoke authoritatively and Mabel took matters into her own -hands. Lorna's friends were the hardest to manage as they insisted -upon hanging over her and covering her with kisses. - -"You are killing her!" Jane spoke sternly. "Mr. Breckenridge, if you -can't make these people stop, I'll not answer for your daughter's -life." - -And now Mr. Breckenridge took matters into his own hands and pushed -away the curious ones who would crowd in and with no gentle hand -pulled the well-meaning if ill-advised friends away from his daughter. - -Then Mabel began the process of bringing to life the seemingly dead. -Many times had she practiced this stunt in classes until she knew how -to do it better than any one of the group of Camp Fire Girls. - -"That fat girl will mash her," wailed one of the friends. - -"I may be fat but I'm no fool," retorted Mabel, who had placed Lorna -on her face with arms above her head and face turned to one side. Then -she had seated herself astride the prostrate body and with clever and -strong hands manipulated her lungs. At first it seemed hopeless. The -friends still wailed and it took all of Jane's strength, and stubborn -determination, combined with Mr. Breckenridge's, to hold them back -from what they thought was their dead darling. - -"She has just swallowed a lot of water," Jane comforted the stricken -father. "She wasn't under water long enough to be drowned. Her heart -is all right, isn't it?" - -"As right as a trivet, my dear." - -His "my dear" gave Jane a little thrill. - -"She needs all the air she can get and the more people crowd around -her the harder it will be for her," she said to the father, and to -herself she wailed: "Where, where is Breck?" and she prayed: "Oh, God, -send Breck." - -And Breck came at that moment. Laden with food and with the rest of -the Boojummers Charlie and Breck had started back to the spot where -they had left the girls. From afar off they saw the crowd and began to -run. Suppose something had happened to Jane or Mabel. Breck remembered -with thanksgiving that Jane had promised not to go in the water again -until he got back. - -"Good old Jane wouldn't break her word for a million," he said to -himself as he raced to see what was the matter anyhow. - -Towering above the crowd he saw the head of his own father and -something in his face told him there was tragedy in the air. - -Breaking through the crowd to the space kept open by the exertions of -Jane and Mr. Breckenridge, the son caught his father by the hand. - -"Father!" he cried. - -"Allen! My son! Look, your sister! She is drowned." - -"No, she is not," put in Jane reassuringly. "See, her breath is coming -back!" and sure enough as Mabel pressed upon the lungs and then -removed the pressure a sign of animation could be discerned in the -prostrate body. The shoulders heaved slightly and there was a -quivering of the long lashes that rested on the marble cheek. - -Mabel began to sob. - -"Let me take your place, Mabel, please," suggested Jane. - -"Never!" cried Mabel. "I'm just sobbing because I'm so happy. She's -trying to breathe." - -"She's going to live," Jane whispered to Breck. - -"I've always wanted to bring somebody back ever since the time it was -Miss Min's riding skirt and not Miss Min that got drowned," continued -Mabel, still pressing gently but firmly on Lorna's lungs and then -releasing the pressure. - -"I believe, little sister, you tried to take in the whole ocean," said -Breck, kneeling by Lorna's side and taking her hand in his after it -was all over and she had come back to consciousness. - -"Oh, Allen! And we have found you at last. We have been searching up -and down the coast for days and days," she whispered faintly. "Father -didn't know I understood what he was doing, but he couldn't fool me. -He has been as restless as a caged lion. He was sure he would find you -at Nantucket Town and when you weren't there he sailed away, but only -went around the island and put in again this morning." - -This was in such a low tone that nobody except Breck heard it, but -Jane noticed that there were tears in his eyes when he got to his feet -and again grasped the hand of his father. - -"Father, I want you to know my friends. This is Mr. Wing. I shipped as -common seaman on his yacht, the 'Boojum,' but, by a stroke of good -fortune, I am now--er--eating at the captain's table." - -Breck went down the line introducing his friends, but with an unwonted -shyness saved Jane until the last. Jane stood by looking on and -blushing in spite of herself. Her bathing cap that the waves had -spared had been lost in the scuffle with the crowd and the importunate -friends and her wealth of blue-black hair had fallen about her -shoulders, making her look very handsome. Mr. Breckenridge looked at -the girl keenly as his son at last turned to her. He took her brown -hand in both of his and said: - -"Somehow I don't need to be introduced to this young lady. I know her -already, all but her name. I know she risked her life for a perfect -stranger and I know she has more grit than any man on the beach, as -much grit as any man I have ever known." - -He leant over and kissed her hand. "I can never repay you, my dear, -whatever your name is. There is no way to repay you." - -"Yes there is, sir," said Jane blushing furiously but smiling bravely. -"You can give your son and me your blessing, because we are thinking -about getting married." - -It was a good thing the crowd had dispersed and gone back to the safer -beach, because crowd or no crowd Breck put his arm around his dear -Jane and kissed her again and again. - -Then Charlie felt he should kiss Mabel because she had done such good -work in resuscitating the drowned. And Mr. Breckenridge thanked her -all over again for her wonderful skill. - -"Where did you learn how to do it?" he asked. - -"Part of being a Camp Fire Girl," declared Mabel. "Camp Fire Girls are -just hanging around longing for emergencies to occur so they can get -more beads. You needn't be grateful to me for resuscitating your -daughter. I have been praying for such a chance for ever so long." - -Everybody laughed at Mabel, who usually put her foot in it and never -could get out a long word without mixing it up. - -"And you are a Camp Fire Girl too?" Mr. Breckenridge asked Jane. - -"Oh yes, and it was being one that made me able to save Lorna. You see -we practice saving people. Mabel doesn't mean we want things to happen -but that we want to be near by and able to help if things do happen." - -"I see," he smiled. - -"Well, I'm mighty hungry," put in the irrepressible Mabel. - -"Here are the eats," whispered Charlie. "Hot-dog sandwiches and long -green pickles and ginger ale, but you have to drink out of the -bottles." - -Jane and Mabel could not help being amused to see the elegant persons -who had been so superior not half an hour before and too refined even -to bathe in the ocean with the common herd actually sitting down on -the beach with them, whom they had so ignored, and sharing the crude -luncheon with ill-concealed gusto. - -"Excitement always makes me hungry," sighed Mabel to one of the -chinless youths who was daintily munching a long dill pickle. - -As for Lorna's flattering friends, they watched to see what she would -do and then did likewise even to the extent of a vulgar hot-dog -sandwich. - -"I don't know whether it is good for anyone who has been so near -drowning to eat such food, but I guess you can try it, little Sister," -laughed Breck. - -The warm sun quickly dried the wet suits. Color came back into the wan -faces and laughter was on the lips that had so recently uttered only -moans. It was a merry party. No one could be stiff and elegant very -long with the Boojummers headed by the amusing and altogether natural -Mabel. - -Breck watched with pleasure his sister's interest in Jane. His -father's eyes were never off his son's fiancee and in them it was -plain to read supreme satisfaction and approval. - -And is this not a very good place to leave our Camp Fire Girls? They -have had a wonderful summer trying to live up to the principles taught -by their organization. Some of the beads they have won will not show -on their strings but will be what Mabel called "character beads." - -Mr. Breckenridge saw to it that the two young women who saved his -daughter's life should have something more tangible than just -"character beads." When they got back to New York, they had hardly -reached their hotel, when each received a package by special -messenger. Each box contained a priceless string of pearls, with Mr. -Breckenridge's card, on which was written. - - Some Camp Fire Beads - For - A Brave Girl - -"Have you told your father about Hurricane Island yet?" Jane asked -Breck. - -"Yes, and he merely wanted to know if you approved and was mighty -disappointed to hear most of the stock was bid for already. I guess -we'll have to let the Governor in on it for a little." And Jane smiled -a happy assent. - - THE END - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Camp Fire Girls on a Yacht, by -Margaret Love Sanderson - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CAMP FIRE GIRLS ON A YACHT *** - -***** This file should be named 42548.txt or 42548.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/2/5/4/42548/ - -Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Matthew Wheaton and the -Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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