“Let that skiff alone, drat you!” It was Sorensen’s, so of course I had to row back to land and tie the boat fast again, and he came down to the wharf and nearly scolded my head off,—he was so angry.
But I happened to get acquainted with his granddaughter Louisa, and then everything was as smooth as butter. It was that summer I was on the water almost every day.
The equal of Sorensen’s good old rowboat I’ve never seen in all my days, and I’ve seen plenty of rowboats, I can tell you. It was pretty old and water-soaked, but for all that, it was a remarkably comfortable boat, and easy to row.
Louisa wasn’t so bad, either. Bright red hair, freckled to the tips of her ears, and with white eyelashes—that’s the way she looked; but search Norway over and you wouldn’t find any one to match her at rowing and paddling and such things. She was lively and jolly, too, and full of all kinds of marvelous stories about mermaids and ghosts and many other queer things that had been seen on the sea. Louisa believed in these stories as if they were gospel truth.
Well, I attached myself to her that summer and fun enough we had every single day. I would take luncheon for both of us and Louisa would take the rowboat.
If her grandfather objected, we had only to promise to whittle some pitch-pine firelighters for him and he would let us have the boat at once.
We would stay on the water the whole afternoon rowing out to the islands or away off in Dams bay, fishing, catching crabs and mussels, talking, laughing, and having the jolliest kind of times.
But once something frightful happened to us, and that is what I shall tell you of now.
We seldom rowed out as far as Bird Island, for the open sea was right outside of that, and there was always a heavy swell there, even when the weather was not rough.
But one afternoon we were tired of splashing around near the land and we decided that we would row out to Bird Island and just make a flying visit. Louisa knew a woman who lived in the only house on the island and it would be great fun to see how everything was out there.