When the canoes were overturned, the girls and boys were able to right them, bail them out, and scramble aboard again. They could all swim and dive like ducks–save Bessie and Tubby. But Bessie was improving every day, and Tubby never could really sink, they all declared, unless he swallowed so much of the lake for ballast that he would be able to wade ashore from the middle.
It was now the height of the camping season and the Busters and Go-Aheads, with their friends, were not the only parties along the shores of Lake Honotonka. The Jarleys were doing a good business, almost all their craft being in use most of the time. A battalion of Boy Scouts went into camp about ten miles to the west of Gannet Island and Dave and his mates had some friends among them.
Several small steamboats plied the waters of the lake with excursion parties. The people at Braisely Park often came down to Gannet Island and the neighborhood of Green Knoll in their boats. Altogether there was considerable intimacy among the campers and between them and the residents of Braisely Park.
This pleasant condition of affairs brought about the idea of the regatta, or boating sports. Some of the wealthy men at the west end of the lake arranged the events, put up the prizes for certain classes of boat trials and other aquatic sports, had the necessary printing and advertising done, and
HONOTONKA REGATTA DAY
became emblazoned on the billboards along the neighboring highways and railroad lines.
The events were entirely amateur and were confined to those actually camping on, or living on, the shores of the lake. Arrangements went ahead with a rush, the date being set so close that most of the parents and friends who had come up with Mr. Lavine from Denton were encouraged to stay over.
Some of the Busters were going to enter for the canoeing events, and there was a girls’ contest, too, that interested our friends. Bessie Lavine could paddle a canoe as well as anybody, and she was eager to take part in one or two of the races. So she got out early one morning, with Wyn and Grace, and Mr. Lavine for referee, and they did some good work.
They chanced to get well over toward the Jarley boat landing and suddenly Wyn set up a shout:
“Polly! Polly Jolly! I never knew you had a canoe. Come on over here!”