“I was just thinking that if you are going to get seasick at all, you’ll get that way tonight,” grinned Don, as he put out the lamp.
“Thanks for your cheerful thoughts,” grumbled Terry, as Jim snickered.
Terry was the first to awake in the morning, and he lay for a moment looking around the interior of the Lassie. The storm had evidently not subsided, for the floor continued to heave and sink, and the continual clinking and bumping went on. The portholes were still wet and a faint trickle of water ran out from the bottom of the engine. Outside, he could hear the whistle of the wind and the slap of the waves, and now and then a particularly big one ran across the deck. The brothers were still asleep.
At seven-thirty they woke up together and the three boys got dressed. Getting breakfast was no easy job, and Jim was hard put to it, especially in the matter of making coffee. Don, clad in oilskins, went on deck and examined the anchor cable, which he found to be bearing the strain very well. It was decided that they would cruise along with the storm during the morning and see what they thought best to do later in the day.
On the side of the centerboard casing, which came up from the floor of the cabin, dividing it somewhat, a board on hinges served as a table. This board, when raised, made a good substitute for a regular table, and on this Jim placed the eggs, bacon and coffee. The meal was a gay one because the food slipped back and forth with the rolling of the sloop. On one occasion, just as Terry was about to spear a piece of egg, his plate slipped downhill to the other side of the board, where Don was eating.
“Would you mind giving me back my plate?” Terry asked.
A particularly violent roll dumped the remaining egg from his plate and spread it dismally all over the board. Don pushed the plate back to him gravely.
“How about my breakfast, too?” Terry asked.
“Oh, do you want that too? You only asked for your plate, you know.”
All three boys pitched into the job of washing plates and then they pulled in the anchor and continued the cruise. Terry, outfitted in a coat of oilskins, enjoyed the rough sailing much more than the smooth. The little ship dipped joyously down into the troughs, plunging its nose beneath the waves and flinging them right and left in a smother of foam. Then, riding magnificently up the side of a gray green monster, it rushed with speed down the watery hill, to bury its nose in another small mountain. Quantities of water rushed across the deck, soaking them in spite of their oilskins, but as the weather was warm, the boys did not mind it. At times Terry was allowed to hold on to the tiller, a job that amounted to something, and he found it vastly different from the easy job it had been on the day before, when the water had been smooth.