Joan and Peter: The story of an education

by H. G. Wells

“Don’t let any one steal it,” said the man with the ample face, with an unreal geniality. “And I’ll give you a tanner.”

Peter arose and came to the steps. The lady and the gentleman stood for a time on the top of the bank, disputing fiercely—she wanted to go one way and he another—and finally disappeared, still disputing, in the lady’s direction. Or rather, the lady made off in the direction of Cookham and the gentleman followed protesting. “Any way it’s miles,” she said....

Slowly the afternoon quiet healed again. Peter was left in solitude with the boat, the silvery river, the overhanging woods, the distant swan.

At first he just sat and looked at the boat.

It had crimson cushions in it, and the lady had left a Japanese sunshade. The name of the boat was the Princess May. The lining wood of the boat was pale and the outer wood and the wood of the rowlocks darker with just one exquisite gold line. The oars were very wonderful, but the boat-hook with its paddle was much more wonderful. It would be lovely to touch that boat-hook. It was a thing you could paddle with or you could catch hold with the hook or poke with the spike.

In a minute or so the call of the boat-hook had become irresistible, and Peter had got it out of the boat. He held it up like a spear, he waved it about. He poked the boat out with it and tried to paddle with it in the water between the boat and the bank, but the boat swung back too soon.

Presently he got into the boat very carefully so as to paddle with the boat-hook in the water beyond the boat. In wielding the paddle he almost knocked off his hat, so he took it off and laid it in the bottom of the boat. Then he became deeply interested in his paddling.

When he paddled in a certain way the whole boat, he found, began to swing out and round, and when he stopped paddling it went back against the bank. But it could not go completely round because of the tight way in which the ample-faced man had tied it to the rail of the steps. If the rope were tied quite at its end the boat could be paddled completely round. It would be beautiful to paddle it completely round with the waggling rudder up-stream instead of down.

That thought did not lead to immediate action. But within two minutes Peter was untying the boat and retying it in accordance with his ambitions.

In those days the Boy Scout movement was already in existence, but it had still to disseminate sound views about knot-tying among the rising generation. Peter’s knot was not so much a knot as a knot-like gesture. How bad it was he only discovered when he was back in the boat and had paddled it nearly half-way round. Then he saw that the end of the rope was slipping off the rail to which he had tied it as a weary snake might slink off into the grass. The stem of the boat was perhaps a yard from shore.