“It won’t matter the first day, Polly, because that’s for the largest boats. They are to sail on a fifteen-mile course, Dorothy says, out to sea, then zigzag back to Tarker’s Light, and along shore home. The second day is for thirty-footers and forty-footers, and they take the north shore run for eight miles and back. The third day is ours, the twenty-footers and under, and we are to sail right here in Eagle Bay, from the club to the Point, and across the bay to the mouth of the Inlet, then back on the two-mile stretch to Fair Havens.”
“It’s more than two miles from the Inlet to Fair Havens,” protested Crullers.
“No, it isn’t,” said Polly. “Nancy and I have sailed it often. It’s a longer stretch from the club house to the Point by a mile, than it is from Fair Havens to the Inlet, because the Sickle runs away out into the sea, don’t you know.”
“How many of us are going to enter for the Junior Cup?” Kate asked.
Polly looked around her at the assembled group. Isabel and Crullers preserved a dignified silence. Ruth hesitated, pondering many things. Only Sue and Ted and Kate said positively that they would enter the race for twenty-footers and under; Sue with the Patsy D., Ted with the Hurricane, and Kate with her skip-jack, the Witch Cat.
“Nancy’s going to enter the Pirate,” Polly said. “And I will sail the Tidy Jane! How about you, Ruth?”
“Polly, I don’t honestly think I had better go into the race. I can’t manage the Iris well enough to race her, and I’ll be sure to get into somebody’s way if they don’t succeed in getting into mine first.”
“No, you won’t, Grandma. Stop your fussing,” laughed Polly. “You can sail a boat as well as any of us, and it’s lots of fun. Dorothy says we will be the only outsiders in that class, the rest are Juniors from the Orienta.”
“Boys?” Ruth’s tone was ominous.
“I don’t know whether they will be boys or pollywogs,” said Polly, her eyes full of mischief. “Who’s afraid, anyway? I’d just as soon race against boys as girls.”