ABOARD THE BLOWELL
"NOW we know what the fog was for," exclaimed Cleo. "To show us how a good clear day can look, that's why a fog is a fog," she stated emphatically.
The day was perfect, and perhaps more conspicuously so by contrast with the long spell of damp just lifted. Activities that had been suppressed were now springing into life, like emotional mushrooms, and the True Treds were markedly busy, trying to fit all the good times into an over-crowded program.
Cleo and Grace were making a week's schedule. This had been altered so often, Grace proposed following Margaret's plan of "fun-by-the-day."
"No matter how carefully we arrange it," she protested to Cleo on the porch of the Log Cabin, "some of the girls insist on crowding in other things. Now, to-day we were to go canoeing, and here comes Julia, telephoning to every one of us to go sailing in a sail boat."
"I think that's lovely of Julia," said Cleo, "because Grazia dear, we can go canoeing any day, but only sailing when some one asks us. Who did?"
"Julia's cousins from Breakentake sailed down the bay early this morning—it must have been a very early start. They are going to stay over, and Julia says if the wind is right, we may all go out for the afternoon. Of course, it's a lovely prospect, but what's the use of making plans? Why not just grab them?"
Grace had ridden over on her bicycle, and the exercise furnished her a wonderful beautifier—had she real need of the process. Eyes shining, cheeks glowing, with almost dewy softness of color, even Cleo, ordinarily indifferent to temperamental changes, commented on her chum's appearance.
"I do believe, Grace," she remarked, "the dampness is good for the complexion. You're as downy as a peach."
"Dampness is a beautifier. Leonore says so. That's what makes Newport so popular. Ever see the hydrangeas grow there? But Cleo dear, you haven't been forgotten in the fog. You are rather peachy yourself."
"Nay, nay, false friend. Tempt me not—I shall not desert the ranks for movies," and Cleo struck one of her popular attitudes. "But about the sailing ship-ahoy! I'm ready. What time do we embark?"
"Julia will call us all up after lunch when she gets a line on the wind. I believe it has to be in 'on high' to get us up the bay. All right," and Grace mounted her wheel. "We will all be ready, and hereafter little Captain, count me out on the program cards. They do better when left to the inspirational, as our own Captain Clark would say."
To be able to learn, to be elastic to the point of flexibility, is surely the secret of all progress, and these girls of True Tred had little need of such a lesson.
The Blowell stood straining at its cable at Round River dock when the scouts, numbering a troop, scampered aboard. Julia's cousins, Mae and Eugenia Westbrook, prided themselves on their nautical skill, and nothing could possibly be more promising for a day's sport than a sail on the Blowell.
"Scouts! Scouts! Rah, rah, rah!"
"True-Treds! True-Treds—Sis-boom ma!"
They shouted the call till every last one had climbed into the "pit" of the graceful sailing vessel, and like a sturdy strong crew they appeared; the scouts in their reliable khaki, and the captain and mate in their shining white duck, with the regulation yachting cap, jauntily but securely set on their capable heads.
From the tips of the mast "Old Glory" floated to the stiff breeze, the ceremony of raising the colors having been complied with according to Girl Scout formality. Cleo, as acting captain, pulled the slender rope, while the girls stood at attention and in salute.
"You may float the boat flag now," said Captain Mae. "Be sure you adjust it right side up."
Grace leaned over the stern to affix the little marine emblem in its place, and soon the sail swung out on its halyard, and when the mate, Eugenia, cut loose from shore, the Blowell lost no time in demonstrating the power of its name.
"Oh, how delightful," gasped Margaret. "And we thought canoeing was fun."
"It's just glorious," exhaled Julia. "Now, aren't you glad I changed our plans?"
"Tickled to pieces," declared Cleo. "I think this is the only worthwhile sort of airship because it combines the beauty of air and water."
They were seated in the trunk cabin watching with deep interest Captain Mae as she set the sail, letting it out gradually as it took the wind, but being careful not to throw too much canvass in the face of the stiff breeze that seemed to sweep from the deep azure sky, as if glad of its own release after the long spell of hateful weather.
Mae was at the tiller guiding the steering gear to fix the vessel in its course, on the smooth, blue waters.
For some time the handling of the craft occupied the visitors' entire attention, but presently they undertook to move around.
"This is where the Blowell beats your Indian Queen canoe, Louise," said Cleo. "You can move here without upsetting."
"But we could really upset in this boat," Louise reminded them. "Although, I am not fearing any such catastrophe."
"Isn't it invigorating," Margaret added to the continuous praise song. "I like the life of this motion, yet it hasn't the least spilly effect."
Thus they enthused until shore points of interest broke in on the marine eulogy.
"Just see us leave Weasle Point behind," remarked Cleo, with a rather prolonged look at the green speck as it drifted away.
"Wonder if Kitty is over there?" said Grace.
"And Bentley," added Julia, not to deprive her chums of their usual joke that she never forgot Bentley.
"And my Uncle Pete," insisted Grace. "Do you know, girls, Captain Dave says he was seriously stunned by that storm?"
"Poor old man! And to think we can't even bring him a thermos of chicken broth," deplored Louise.
The sail boat was gliding over the water, proudly as the clouds themselves drifted overhead. The Westbrook girls were allowing their visitors full scope of the graceful craft, but objected definitely to Grace taking a ride in the little dory that raced behind. Grace thought such a feat would be a genuine lark, but Captain Mae reminded her that the Sandy Hook Bay was not the placid little Glimmer Lake she had been accustomed to sporting upon.
Down in the cabin a real tea was served at four o'clock, and if automobiling is conducive to real appetites, sailing leads to the port of hunger-pangs; and as an alleviative Orange Pekoe, cheese, cookies, lettuce sandwiches, with peanut butter and other conserves, can be heartily recommended, according to the Log of the Blowell, as inscribed that day by the True Treds.
"All hands on the deck," ordered Cleo, in mock severity, when cracker tins and tea cups were being worked to the point of refined cruelty.
"Aye, aye, sir," replied Grace, being first to reach deck.
"Shall we sing 'Starboard watch ahoy!' or 'Little Jack'?" Margaret asked.
"No, let's sing 'Sailing!'" suggested Julia.
"Who knows any of the words?" inquired Louise. "The title sounds appropriate, but it would take more words to fill out a tune!"
"Starboard watch ahoy! Starboard watch ahoy! And who can feel-e-e-eel, while on the blue the vessel ke-e-ell." This was Cleo's contribution done in all sharps, and as Louise warned them, the title wouldn't do for a girl-sized song.
"No, that's too old," objected Helen. "It's out of print. Try 'Sailing.'"
"Sailing, sailing over the stormy sea,"
"The second line is just the same and ought to end in B"
"Full many a stormy wind shall blow o-o-oh when"
"Jack comes home—again!"
Thus ended Helen, and as a song "Sailing" was considered a first-rate joke.
"Now," said Margaret, in a plain everyday speaking voice, "I'm not going to spoil my 'Little Jack,' with any such parody as that. I'm going to recite him."
"Hear! Hear!" ordered Captain Mae.
"I'm not sure I can recall all of it, but it's a pretty story—so—"
"Yes, Margy, a story is better than a song, tell it," begged Louise, settling down deeper in the leather cushions.
"But I may have to hum it, to get in rhyme," soliloquized the narrator.
"Yes, that's better still," cut in Cleo. "Give us the hum."
"Do be quiet, girls, or we will get neither song nor hum nor story," said Helen. "Go ahead, Margaret. Tell it your own way, as they say in court trials."
Again Margaret was directed to take up her Little Jack.
"It begins by calling the mates to come around-around-around——"
"The hearth," suggested Julia.
"Hearth on the sea!" cried Margaret in scorn.
"I'll fine the next girl who interrupts," announced Captain Mae. "Go on, Maggie."
"I'll skip the introduction, I have to," Margaret admitted, struggling with a laugh, "but I know these lines:
"It was on the Spanish Main——
"And in a night of rain—then I have to skip again, but you will understand the story," braved Margaret. "The sailors saw something, I just have to insert that clause," she contributed, "then it goes:
* * * * *
"So far from any coast, we thought it was a ghost,
And lowers a boat to see what it might be,
Where on its mother's breast a little one did rest,
The mother dead—the babe alive and well!"
* * * * *
"Oh, just like Kitty's story," interrupted Cleo in spite of orders.
"Certainly, that's the reason I'm suffering so to tell it," admitted Margaret.
"Does the song say what they did with the little one?" asked Julia, always intensely sympathetic.
"Yes, listen," again ordered Margaret. "The story tells:
"Now we're a rough old set, some are fathers, don't forget,"
"But—but I can't think of that line, I should have told you 'Our skipper seized the boy, and kisses him with joy——'"
This was almost the end for Margaret, if not the end of the song, for they all seized the girl and smothered her with kisses.
"But it was a lovely story, Margy, if bald in spots," commented Cleo. "What's the chorus?"
Again Margaret started, this time in tune:
* * * * *
"Singing eylie—heevie ho!
Eylie heevie ho!
Send the wheel around say we!
While gayly blows the breeze,
That takes us o'er the seas!
Singing eylie, heevie, eylie heevie ho!"
* * * * *
"Hurrah! Hurray! Hurroo!" called Louise. "That's all right for a sea story, Margaret, and we'll have to make a line of it in our Log. But poor little Kitty didn't fare so well. See it was a boy, 'they kissed him with joy,'" she explained. "Being a girl poor Kitty was just dumped."
"Oh, yes, one more line," persisted Margaret:
"Then we names him Little Jack, and kissing he don't lack!"
Needless to say what happened to Margaret at that!
Then, to give the Westbrook girls the full benefit of their information, the story of Kitty was told in detail, and even these young ladies confessed to a keen interest in the mystery of Luna Land.
"We must make a landing, and spend an hour in the woods before returning," suggested Eugenia as they skirted the shore.
"There's a beautiful rocky point, Mae. We can easily sail in the cove, and let the girls scamper around there."
And this was the plan immediately decided upon.