“Nothin’,” answered Captain Anderson. “The stick floated in, and the sail ain’t anything but a scrap.”
“Could you afford to sell her for $4.75?”
“I could,” answered the captain, “but it wouldn’t be fair. A boat like that won’t last over five years, and this one is over two years old. She’s two-fifths gone. Take her for three-fifths of $4.75.”
When the boy had figured that it was $2.85, his frown suddenly changed to a smile.
“Captain,” he exclaimed, “I almost bit. You’re kiddin’ me. I’d rather take it as a gift than offer you $2.85 for a boat like that. No,” and his troubled look returned. “Nothin’ doin’ in the boat line, either.”
Captain Anderson made no answer to the boy’s statement other than to smile again and to throw open the door of the boathouse. Within, and occupying a space about twenty by thirty feet, was a combined reading and man’s living room, carpenter and machine shop, and general repository of all sorts of delightful odds and ends. To Andy the big room was redolent with a variety of fascinating odors—from fresh oak and pine shavings, oakum, pitch, and tar—new reminders of boats and the sea.
In one corner stood a desk, a bookcase jammed with volumes of many sizes, a cot, and a stove.
“My rainy day corner,” suggested the boy’s guide.
On the opposite side stood two workbenches and a foot-power lathe, while, on the benches and above them on the wall, were tools of all kinds.