“There’ll be time enough after supper,” interrupted Larry, “to discuss everything like that, and we must be prompt at supper, too, for you know father is to leave for the North to-night to meet mother on Cape Cod and his ship sails at midnight. So get hold of the boat, every fellow of you, and let’s shove her in.”
The launching was done within a minute or two, and after that the dory rocked herself to sleep—that’s what Cal said.
“She’s certainly a beauty,” said Dick Wentworth. “And of course she’s better finished and finer every way than any dory I ever saw. You know, Tom, dories up north are rough fishing boats. This one is finished like a yacht, and—”
“Oh, she’s hunky dory,” answered Tom, lapsing into slang.
“That’s what we’ll name her, then,” drawled Cal. “She’s certainly ‘hunky’ and she’s a dory, and if that doesn’t make her the Hunkydory, I’d very much like to know what s-o-x spells.”
There was a little laugh all round. As the incoming water floated the bottom boards, the name of the boat was unanimously adopted, and after another admiring look at her, the four hurried away to supper. On the way Dick explained to Tom that a dory is built for sailing or rowing in rough seas, and running ashore through the surf on shelving beaches.
“That accounts for the peculiar shape of her narrow, flat bottom, her heavy overhang at bow and stern, her widely sloping sides, and for the still odder shape and set of her centre board and rudder. She can come head-on to a beach, and as she glides up the sloping sand it shuts up her centre board and lifts her rudder out of its sockets without the least danger of injuring either. In the water a dory is as nervous as a schoolgirl in a thunder storm. The least wind pressure on her sails or the least shifting of her passengers or cargo, sends her heeling over almost to her beam ends, but she is very hard to capsize, because her gunwales are so built out that they act as bilge keels.”
“I’d understand all that a good deal better,” answered Tom, laughing, “if I had the smallest notion what the words mean. I have a vague idea that I know what a rudder is, but when you talk of centre boards, overhangs, gunwales, and bilge keels, you tow me out beyond my depth.”
“Never mind,” said Cal. “Wait till we get you out on the water, you land lubber, and then Dick can give you a rudimentary course of instruction in nautical nomenclature. Just now there is neither time nor occasion to think about anything but the broiled spring chickens and plates full of rice that we’re to have for supper, with a casual reflection upon the okra, the green peas and the sliced tomatoes that will escort them into our presence.”
In an aside to Dick Wentworth—but spoken so that all could hear—Tom said: