Any further talk was cut short by the approach of Walter.
“A left-tenant never made a good sailor,” said Jawn, as he stepped on the yacht. “But here I am to serve as ordered and, if necessary, go down with the ship. Which is the saloon deck, and if this is it, where’s the bar?”
The old sail lifted creakingly, the jib fluttered and filled, and the Sago-ye-wat-ha moved off smoothly for its maiden trip on the waters of Lake Keuka.
Jawn was instructed in managing the starboard sidestays. It was made clear to him that when the mainsail was swung over on the port side the strain was enough to split the mast unless he fastened the sustaining rope, or “stay,” securely to the cleats before him. When she came about he was to loosen the “stay” on his side while Richard quickly secured the supporting port “stay.”
“So I’m to loosen her stays, am I?” queried Jawn.
“Yes; and tighten them up, too, when we give you the word, or that stick will snap off like a tree on the path of a cyclone.”
“And when you say the word,” he repeated the orders, “I’m to lace ’em up again, eh?”
“That’s not the technical phrase,” laughed Richard, “but it will do.”
“Another reason why a ship is called a she,” said Jawn. “I think the minstrel troupes of the country have missed that one.... It’s a strange thing, now,” he mused, “for a modest young man like me to be squatting here in the bodice of the ship—I hope I’m using the proper language—sitting here in the bodice of the ship with life and death in the balance. Still, if I survive you, I’ll put the thing in proper nautical language for the local papers: ‘Suddenly on Friday last the good ship What’s-her-name capsized in a sudden squall and was slowly strangled to death because no one was able to reach her in time to loosen her stays.’”
Walter was very well pleased with his boat. Out in the main body of water he tried her under all sorts of conditions and had little brushes with other yachts, one or two of which were “Class A scows,” and it seemed always that the Sago-ye-wat-ha could overhaul anything either on short tack or long reach.