“Perhaps you can’t! Don’t you stop rowing. If this boat wasn’t held steady, she’d—I don’t know what she wouldn’t do.”
“If you stick something through the eye you can turn it.”
“Yes. I’ll find something[.] Here’s the can-opener. [pg 193] Grand! There! It’s solid. Now I’ll do the other one the same way. Hurrah for the screw-eyes!”
“You thought of bringing them,” said Jonathan magnanimously.
“You thought of using them,” said I, not to be outdone.
* * * * *
And so again the imps were foiled. But they hung over us, they slapped us with spray, they tossed the whitecaps, jeering, at our heads, over our shoulders, into our laps. They put up the tides to tricks of eddies and back-currents, so that they hindered instead of helping, as by calculation they should have done. They laid invisible hands on our oars and dragged them down, or held them up as the wave raced by, so that we missed a stroke. Once, in the lee of an island, we paused to rest and unroll our chart and get our bearings, while the smooth rise and fall of the ground swell was all there was to remind us of the riot of water just outside. Then we were off again, and the imps had us. They were busy, those imps, all that long, windy, wave-tossed, wonderful day.
For it was wonderful, and the imps were indeed frustrate, wholly frustrate. We pulled toward the quiet harbor that evening with aching muscles, hair and clothes matted with salt water, but spirits undaunted. Hungry, too, for we had not been able to do more than munch a few ship’s biscuit while we rowed. Wind, tide, waves, all against us, boat leaking, oars disabled—and still—“Isn’t it great!” we said, “great—great!”
Dusk was closing in and lights began to blink along the western shore. We beached on a sandy point and asked our way,—where could we put up for the night? Children, barelegged, waded out around the boat, looking at us and our funny, laden craft, with curious eyes. Yes, they said, there was an inn, farther up the harbor, where we saw those lights—ten minutes’ row, perhaps. We pulled off again, stiffly.
“Tired?” said Jonathan. “I’ll take her in.”