"You ought to have gaffed it, you know," remarked Jimmy.
Captain Bannister climbed on board.
"Come on, boys," he said, "we want to get under way while this breeze holds. It don't amount to much now. Sam, you take Clarence ashore, and get back as quick as you can. Jimmy, you can help me on the sail, an' Ed—you stow all these things below. I've got to have standin' room."
When I got back from shore Ed had put the clothes, and most of the food into the cabin, and the sail was going up.
"Now, the anchor," the Captain sang out; "all of yer better take hold … one of yer coil up that rope … now! all together! … now! … now!"
And with the usual and very necessary grunts and groans from the Captain the anchor slowly came out of the water. We were already moving down river.
"Swash it round, and get that mud off,—I don't want any of it on the deck. … That's right. Now, shove these jugs under the seats, … that's better. What's that striking?"
He was at the wheel, listening to the North Church clock.
"Four, five, six. Fust rate, fust rate,—I like to get away on time."
All the clouds had disappeared, and it was a fine, clear morning. We were sailing almost into the sun. Perhaps you think that I have forgotten to tell you where we were going, but one of the best things about the beginning of that voyage was that we didn't know exactly where we WERE going. All we had to do was to keep on down the river, turn into Sandy Island River, and pretty soon we would come out in Broad Bay. And in Broad Bay there were any number of islands,—some people said three hundred and sixty-five, one for every day of the year. Some of these islands had people living on them, but a great many of them were uninhabited. We could sail about for a week, call at half a dozen different islands every day, and still have a lot of them left over.