Two weeks before the founding of the Triangle Club, referred to in the last chapter, Ship’s Company Number 1, of the Sea Scouting Branch of Northbridge Boy Scouts, were holding their last meeting in their regular assembly room before the beginning of the summer cruises.
The B. S. S. Bright Wing was to sail from the Boston Navy Yard in just two weeks, and some of the younger boys were already beginning to feel that they must get their sea legs on so as to “be prepared.”
Dick Gray showed keen interest and great enthusiasm for this new venture in scouting; and because he was a good swimmer and loved the water, he hoped to prevail upon his father to apply for a berth on the Bright Wing during her first cruise of the season. He was a painstaking boy, and had always been useful about the house since he was “knee-high to a grasshopper.” His mother, though not an invalid, was very far from being robust; and, as Mr. Gray could not afford many servants, her household duties might often have been too much for her if Dick had not been there to take hold and lend a hand. Though not tall for his age, he was strongly built, and, if it had not been for occasional dark and gloomy moods, he would have been almost indispensable both in the house and on the farm. Naturally, every one was glad when they heard that there was a chance for Dick to go on a real cruise, for they knew that the boy’s personal interests—however willing he always was to keep them in the background—all lay in the direction of seafaring.
“I do hope,” said old Robert, the farm hand, to Mr. Gray, “that boy will get his chance at the sea, this year! He does deserve it, if ever a boy did.”
“Yes,” replied Mr. Gray, much pleased with Robert’s approval of his son, “I think it will do him good. He’s a good home-body, we know, but we don’t know how he’ll turn out as a sailor among a lot of other boys; I can’t be sure how he’ll behave away from home when one of his ‘moods’ comes over him.”
While Mr. Gray liked Dick’s enthusiasm, he felt that he ought to find out as much as possible about the conditions of the life on board before making a decision, and that is what had brought him this evening to one of the regular Sea Scout meetings, to learn for himself, as much as he could, what the idea and the spirit of the undertaking really were. After he had been greeted by the scout master in charge—Mr. Howard Miller—while the boys all stood at attention—one of the older scouts, Jack Perkins, was detailed to stand by and give him all the information he possibly could.
Jack had been a boatswain’s mate for two summers running, and there was nothing he enjoyed more than explaining the details of the work to a new acquaintance; so he placed two chairs for himself and Mr. Gray on the low platform at the rear of the hall, where they could command a full view of all the proceedings, and then began talking to him in a low voice:
“You see, sir, the room here is arranged so as to be as much like the deck of a ship as possible. This broad platform that we are sitting on, with the colors hoisted in the center, is the ‘quarter-deck’ where only senior officers are allowed, with the exception of Sea Scouts on watch and of any seaman whose duty brings him here. That door over there, by which we came in, stands for the vessel’s bow, because it is just opposite the quarter-deck; but this is only so in a general way to indicate the direction of bow and stern, or ‘fore and aft,’ because it is also used as the gangway by which every one passes over the ship’s side either to come aboard or leave the vessel.”
“I understand,” said Mr. Gray. “I must confess that I did not know that I was stepping over a ship’s side when I passed through the door a few minutes ago!”
“Why!” exclaimed Jack, “didn’t you hear the boatswain’s call as you entered the room, sir?”