"That's pluck; now! And wet as a muskrat!" exclaimed Skipper Zeb, laughing heartily, and quite as though it were an ordinary occurrence, and they had not, a few minutes before, been in peril of their lives. Turning to Charley, he asked: "And how be you, lad?"
"I'm all right now, thank you," said Charley shivering still with the cold. "But I never was so wet and cold in my life, and I'm sure I'd have frozen stiff if you hadn't made a fire in a hurry. It's lucky you had some matches in a bottle, for that's all that kept them dry."
"No, no, 'twaren't luck!" objected Skipper Zeb. "'Twere just sense! I never goes cruisin' without dry matches corked tight in a bottle handy in my pocket, and I never uses un unless my other matches gets wet. There's times when it's the only way to get a fire, and without un to-day I'm not doubtin' some of us would have perished."
"I always carries un too," said Toby.
"Aye, a man that cruises in this land must always be ready to put a fire on," commended Skipper Zeb.
"I'll remember that," said Charley.
"'Twere a narrow shave we has," remarked Toby, "but you always gets out of fixes, Dad. When I looks through the snow and sees the white water rollin' over the reef right handy ahead, and the wind drivin' us on to un, I thinks, now here's a fix! 'Tis a wonderful bad fix! Dad can't be gettin' us out of this fix, whatever! I'll be just watchin' now, and see! Dad can't get us out of this un! And then you gets the oar and pulls us up into the wind, and we has room to pass fine, and then I says, Dad's doin' it! Dad's gettin' us out of the fix! Then the oar breaks, and I says that's the end of us! But you gets out of un, whatever! You're wonderful fine at gettin' out of fixes, Dad!"
"'Tweren't me," objected Skipper Zeb, "'twere the Lard. We does the best we can, and when the Lard sees we does our best, He steps in and helps. He says, 'These folk does the best they can to get out of this fix, and I'll just step in and do what they can't do, and help un out of it,' and that's what He does, and here we be, safe and sound."
"Is the boat wrecked?" asked Mrs. Twig. "Can't you fix un and use un any more?"
"Well now, I'm not knowin' rightly yet, but I'm fearin' her bottom's knocked out of she," answered Skipper Zeb. "If 'tis, 'twill be the end of she, but we'll be makin' out as fine as can be without she."