Four Afloat: Being the Adventures of the Big Four on the Water

“Honest, you what?” demanded Dan, letting up for an instant.

“Did!” squealed Tom. Then chaos reigned and blankets waved as Dan and Tom rolled about the narrow berth. “You’d bu-bu-bu-better lemme up!” panted Tom, “or I won’t cu-cu-cook you any bu-bu-bu-bu-bu-breakfast!”

“Apologize?” asked Dan.

But at that moment a terrific yelping drowned the question. Barry had left the foot of Bob’s berth and proceeded to investigate the visitors on the floor. The natural thing had happened, and Barry was jumping about with a pound and a half of lobster attached to one of his front paws. Hostilities between Dan and Tom were forgotten and everyone rushed to Barry’s rescue. It was Nelson who finally released the dog and tossed the two troublesome guests up into the cockpit. Barry’s paw was badly pinched, but not seriously damaged, and after he had licked it for five minutes steadily he was apparently willing to call the episode closed.

“What did you bring those things in here for,” demanded Nelson, “and where did you get them?”

Tom explained the manner of acquiring the prizes, and said that he was going to cook them.

“Cook them!” shrieked Dan. “Why, they aren’t fit to cook; they’re green as grass! They’re probably spoiled!”

This feezed Tom until Bob explained that live lobsters were always more or less green, and that it was boiling them that made them red. But Dan remained antagonistic to the plan of eating them.

“I wouldn’t touch one of them for a hundred dollars,” he declared. “I don’t believe they’re lobsters at all.”

Tom was hurt.

“They are, tu-tu-too!” he asserted indignantly. “I gu-gu-got ’em from a lobster fisher, and saw him pu-pu-pu-pull ’em up.”

“Oh, you get out! Who’s going to believe you, Tommy? You run along and get breakfast.”

“That’s so,” said Nelson. “You’re in disgrace, Tommy, and you’ll have to cook us something pretty nice if you expect to be forgiven.”

“Something nice!” growled Tom. “What do you expect? Spanish omelet and sirloin steak?”

“I don’t care what we have,” replied Dan, “but I want mine fried on both sides.”

“Me too,” added Nelson.

Tom left them to their dressing and took himself off to the corner of the engine room where the stove and sink and ice box were located, and which he had nautically dubbed the galley. Here he busied himself, chuckling now and then over the lobster episode, until Barry’s frantic barking took him to the door. He looked out and then called to the others. The lobsters, quite still now, as though wearied by their recent experiences, were lying side by side near the after locker. In front of them, a safe two feet away, stood Barry. His tail – there was only a bare two inches of it – wagged violently, the hair stood up along the middle of his back and neck, and he was daring the lobsters to mortal combat. Finding himself reinforced by the quartet of laughing boys at the door, he grew very brave and began a series of wild dashes at the enemy, barking hysterically.

“Anybody want to eat them?” asked Bob finally.

Nobody seemed enthusiastic, and Bob heaved them over the side. “There goes your fifty cents, Tommy,” he said. Tom glanced at Dan and grinned.

“It was worth it,” he said.

After a breakfast of fried eggs, bacon, toast, and coffee the four went on deck, feeling ready for anything. Nelson and Tom found seats on the edge of the cabin roof, Dan and Bob sat on the after seat, and the subject of destination was discussed. Bob advanced the merits of the Maine coast as a cruising ground, Dan was in favor of heading south toward New York and Long Island Sound, Tom was for staying where they were, and Nelson remained neutral. Thus matters stood when a launch of about the size of the Vagabond chugged around the point and picked up moorings some fifty feet distant. The discussion died away and the boys watched the new arrival with interest. Her name was the Amy, and she was very similar to the Vagabond in build, save that her cabin was much longer and her whole length perhaps two feet greater. She flew the flag of the Knickerbocker Yacht Club of New York, and trailed a tender behind her. She had a crew of five men, and as the tender was drawn alongside one of the number called across.

“Hello, there!” he called. “Are you entered for the race?”

“No,” answered Nelson. “What race do you mean?”

“To-morrow’s. Marblehead to College Point. Saw you had a tender along, and thought maybe you were in it.”

“No; are you?” replied Nelson.

“Yes.” They seemed to lose interest in the Vagabond after that, and piled into their tender and rowed across to the hotel landing.

“Going for breakfast, I guess,” mused Bob. “What race are they talking about, Nel?”

“I don’t know for sure, but seems to me I read something in the paper about a race for cruising launches from Marblehead to New York.”

“College Point, he said,” observed Tom.

“That’s near New York, on the Sound,” said Dan. “Let’s go into it!”

“We couldn’t now,” said Nelson. “It’s probably too late. Besides, it wouldn’t do for us to try it; it would be pretty risky.”

“I don’t see why,” spoke up Tom eagerly. “That boat isn’t any bigger than the Vagabond; at least, not much!”

“Hello!” said Bob. “Tommy must have got over his nervousness!”

“I tell you what we might do,” said Nelson. “We might go over and see the start. That would be fun, wouldn’t it?”

“Let’s do it!” cried Dan. “Then we can decide meanwhile where we’re going.”

The idea suited all hands, and it was agreed that they should spend the forenoon in cleaning up and run over to the scene of the race after luncheon. “And,” said Dan, “let’s find out about the race. It ought to be in the morning paper. If one of you fellows will put me ashore, I’ll go and buy one.”

So Bob rowed him to the landing, and when he returned the three got out the mops and metal polish and rags and set to work cleaning up the woodwork and polishing the brass. They hadn’t nearly finished by the time Dan hailed from the landing. Tom brought him aboard. He had found a paper and was full of the race. All hands stopped work while he read the account of it.

The race was a handicap affair for cruising launches, and there were twelve entries. The start was to be made the next afternoon, at six o’clock, from Marblehead, and the boats were to race to College Point, N.Y., a distance of about three hundred miles.

“But if it isn’t until to-morrow at six,” asked Tom, “what’s the use of going over there this afternoon?”

“That’s so,” said Bob. “We might as well wait until to-morrow morning.”

“But what shall we do this afternoon? Run up to Portland and back?” asked Nelson laughingly.

“Let’s cruise around here,” said Bob. “And you can show me how to run the engine. Some one ought to know, Nel, in case anything happened to you.”

“All right. We’ll finish cleaning up, and then take a run around the harbor if there’s time before lunch. If there isn’t, we’ll go afterwards. How’s that?”

All were agreeable and the work went on again. Nelson got into the tender and, armed with a hand mop and a canvas bucket of fresh water, cleaned the white paint-work of the hull. Tom scrubbed the deck, cockpit floor, and cabin roof, Dan cleaned up below, and Bob shined the bright-work. But, try as they might, there was no such thing as finishing before noon. And so they had an early lunch, and very hungry for it they were, too, and then weighed anchor and headed for the inner harbor on a sight-seeing cruise. They chugged in and out of the shipping, read the names on the dozens of fishing schooners which lined the wharves, and finally raced a tugboat out to the breakwater, winning easily.

There the wheel was given to Dan, and Nelson took Bob below and initiated him into the mysteries of the gas engine. Nelson started at the gasoline tank, and traced the flow of the fuel until it had passed through the cylinders and was discharged at the exhaust. Carburetor – or, in the present case, vaporizer – pump, oil cups, spark plug, and clutch were duly explained, and then Nelson took up the ignition, starting at the battery and following the wires to the engine. Finally, the motor was stopped, the gasoline shut off, and Bob was allowed to start things up again. Of course, he didn’t succeed the first time, nor the second, but in the end he did, and was as pleased as could be. For the rest of the afternoon he stayed in the engine room – while Dan and Tom had a beautiful time on deck running the boat to suit themselves – and by the time they reached their anchorage again Bob had qualified, to his own satisfaction at least, as a gas engineer.

“It’s simple enough when you understand it, isn’t it?” he asked earnestly.

“Yes,” laughed Nelson; “there’s nothing to it at all – until the engine stops and you can’t find out why!”

They had dinner at the Harborside again, and in the evening wrote home to their folks on the lovely stationery with the crossed flags. And at half-past nine, everyone having personally assisted at the lighting of the riding light, they turned in and slept like logs until morning.

CHAPTER VI – IN WHICH THEY FOLLOW A RACE

“Well!” exclaimed Bob. “Look at the boats!”