Henry, the boatkeeper at Lakeview Hall, was not as weatherwise as he should have been. He had allowed a number of boats to be taken out that afternoon without warning the girls to beware of squalls.
Not that such warning would have been taken seriously by many of the girls, for a fairer day in the seeming had not appeared on the calendar. Nan and Bess decided to go out in one of the double canoes.
The chums from Tillbury did not own a boat. Several of the older girls did, and Bess had already written home for a motor boat.
“I’ll tease dad for a motor boat first,” she confided to Nan. “Of course he won’t hear to that. So I’ll try to get a sailboat—what do they call ’em?—a cat, with an auxiliary engine. And he won’t listen to that, either.”
“Why ask for something you know you can’t have?” asked the wondering Nan.
“Goodness! don’t you see?” exclaimed Bess, exasperated at such lack of understanding. “Why, if I ask for something big, dad will compromise in the end, and probably give me just what I originally expected to have. ‘Aim high’ is my motto. Oh, we’ll get a nice canoe, at the least, or a cedar boat with a portable engine and propeller.”
This way of getting what one wished rather shocked Nan, who always asked pointblank for what she wanted, but was usually wise enough not to think too much about what she knew she could not have.
“That’s an awfully roundabout way of getting what you desire,” she suggested to Bess.
“Oh! you don’t know my father. Mother has to do the same. He has plenty of money, but sometimes he hates to give it up. I can tease almost anything out of him.”
“Hush, Bess! Suppose anybody else should hear you?” Nan suggested.