“I’d like to be out of this storm,” went on Mrs. Martin. “It is getting much worse.”
“Yes,” agreed her husband, “it is. I think I can turn back, though, with safety if I use care.”
“But if we have the movie man’s things that he puts on his face to make him look different in pictures, how can he act?” asked Ted.
“I guess he can easily get another make-up box,” replied his father. “But it is impossible for us to get other Cardwell albums, and the pictures of the twins, now dead, and the young boy lost at sea. We simply must get back the right box. So I’ll go up and turn the boat around. Better hold fast, everybody, for it will be rougher going the other way.”
“I’ll come up on deck and help you steer,” offered Ted.
“No, Son, you’d better stay below with your mother, and help straighten up the cabin,” suggested his father. “Pick up the valises and wrap up that wrong box. Mr. Portnay will want it back, I think.”
The Curlytops helped their mother set things to rights, and then, indeed, they had to hold on, for the Pine Tree pitched and tossed in the storm, much as might her namesake in a forest with a big wind blowing.
Once it almost seemed that the boat was going to turn over, so far did she tilt to one side. It began to rain, too, and Mr. Martin, up on deck, had to put on his rubber coat. But he was a good sailor, and knew how to manage the boat.
In the afternoon, following a hasty meal on cold victuals, for Mrs. Martin did not want to light the stove in the storm, the boat seemed to ride easier.
“I guess it’s going to clear off,” said Janet.