Charlie and His Puppy Bingo

by Helen Hill; Violet Maxwell

Well, Charlie and his Auntie took the boat and went to the barn, where the farmer was mending his mowing machine.

And his Auntie asked the farmer if he knew where they could get a strip of lead to nail to the keel of Charlie’s boat.

The farmer said, “Right here I have all the lead that you can use.” And he cut off a strip of lead just the size of the keel. Then the farmer also gave Charlie some interesting-looking nails that he said could be just the thing to nail the lead to the keel. They were crooked nails that folded over and looked just like tiny croquet hoops.

Then Charlie’s Auntie took the mast and sails off, and she hammered the nails over the lead so that it was fastened to the keel of the boat. Then she put the masts and sails back. Don’t you think that she was a clever Auntie? Yes, indeed, she was.

So they went back to the pool again, where Charlie’s Mother was waiting to see if the boat would sail right this time.

The boat sailed beautifully

And what do you think? It did! Yes, the boat sailed beautifully, it sailed right away to the other side of the brook, and when Charlie turned the rudder to the right the boat turned in the opposite direction and sailed right back again!

Yes, that boat could do everything that a real boat does, and when the wind blew hard it keeled over to one side but it did not capsize. No, nothing could make that boat capsize. Even when Bingo stood upon his hind legs and tried to catch it when it went sailing past, he fell splash into the pool and made a great ENORMOUS wave, just like the waves in the middle of the ocean—still that boat did not capsize.

Well, every day after that Charlie sailed his boat in the pool. He made a dock for it, with stones, and he put grass and pebbles on the deck for the cargo, which he loaded and unloaded at the dock, and the boat sailed from side to side of the pool. When the boat got to the other side Charlie would jump across the brook where it was narrow and turn the rudder so that the boat would turn right round and sail back again to the dock.