“With sails!” echoed Sahwah, nearly falling off the pier in her excitement.
It was, indeed, a war canoe, a beautiful, dark-green body some twenty-five feet long and about three feet at the widest part through the center. The three sails were of the removable kind. Just now they were set and filled out tight with the 28 breeze. The sun glinted on the shining varnish of the cross seats and the paddles lying under them.
There was one great shout of “Oh-h!” from the girls and boys, and then a silence born of ecstasy.
“Here’s the man-of-war!” called Mr. Evans, enjoying to the utmost the pleasure caused by the arrival of the big canoe, “now, where’s the crew?”
“Here, here!” they all cried, tumbling over each other in their haste to get to the landing and into the boat.
“All aboard, my hearties,” cried Uncle Teddy, cutting the canoe loose from the launch and holding it steady against the pier.
“But dinner’s ready,” protested Aunt Clara. “Can’t you wait until afterwards for your ride?”
“Not one minute,” her husband solemnly assured her. “Not one of us will be able to eat a mouthful until we have had a ride on the new hobby horse. Dinners will keep, but new war canoes won’t.”
“You’re as bad as the boys and girls,” said Aunt Clara, shaking her finger at him knowingly. “I believe you want to go worse than any of them.”
“I surely do,” replied Uncle Teddy. “It was all I could do on the way over to keep from climbing over the back of the launch into the canoe and coming home in her.”