The next morning our young friends prepared for a three days' trip on their little sloop. For a week they had discussed it and had carefully considered when it was best to go.
"I want to wait till the moon fulls," Frank had said, "for then the weather will be better, and as our friend Manson is in a romantic frame of mind, he will enjoy it all the more."
Everything likely to be needed was put on board their boat; provisions, water, extra clothing, guns, fishing gear, and also, it must be said, a bottle of good old whiskey, for on such a trip it might be even more needful than food.
"We will take along the banjo," Obed said, for he was quite an expert with that cheerful instrument, "and evenings we can have some darkey songs."
"What is the program?" asked Manson, when everything was stowed, the sails set, and with Frank at the helm they were gliding out of the little island harbor. "Where are we going?"
"Well," replied Frank, "I think we will run to Big Spoon Island first and try for mackerel. There is a nice little harbor there if it comes on to blow, and two miles out are some good cod grounds. I suppose you would like to visit Pocket Island?"
"I would like to just call there," said Manson, "for you have excited my curiosity. I have a weakness for ghost hunting, you told me once, and now you must gratify it, you see."
There is, perhaps, no pleasanter way for three or four young men to spend a day or two than to have a tidy little yacht all to themselves, and sail her away off among the Maine coast islands, with a summer day breeze and clear skies to cheer them.
To feel themselves just lifted over the broad ground swells, ruffled by a light wind that smells sweet and crisp; to watch some distant green island gradually coming nearer, or the seagulls lighting on the water just ahead, or the white clouds in the blue sky, and with no sense of danger, but only the care-free buoyancy of youth and good spirits, is to many the very acme of enjoyment. At least, it was to Manson, to whom such an experience was entirely new. When they reached Spoon Island he went into raptures over it, for it was a rarity, even among the many beautiful ones he had visited. As its name implied, it was shaped like a spoon, about five hundreds rods long and formed of white sand, with a growth of green sedge grass all over it. On the broadest part was a cluster of spruce forming a little thicket and beside this, and entered by a narrow inlet the tiniest bit of a harbor, just large enough to shelter a small sloop. The seagulls had also discovered its beauty, for thousands hovered about it, and the small harbor was alive with them. The island was a favorite nesting-place for them as well, and their shrill cries at being disturbed almost obliterated the voice of the ocean.
"We will anchor under the lee," said Frank, as they drew near, "and try for mackerel, and then run into the harbor, make everything snug, and stay here to-night, or"—with a droll look at Manson—"perhaps you would prefer to go to Pocket Island and have ghosts for company!"