“No boys in the twenty-footer class,” called Kate.
“How do you know?”
“I asked Tom. The only boys’ yacht club around here is the Pautipaug Beach Club, about five miles east, and they never race, he says. All they do is fish, and camp out, and slosh around shore.”
“What’s that?” asked Polly.
“I don’t know. Tom called it that. He says they hoist a sail, and lash the tiller, and then go to sleep.”
“Well, that’s only one of Tom’s yarns, but just the same I think that is all most yacht clubs do, ‘slosh around shore.’” Polly’s tone was full of fine, ringing scorn.
“But, Polly, there are five or six girls from the Orienta Juniors, and we’ll have to race against them.”
“All the more fun,” responded the Commodore with true sportsmanlike generosity. “I do hope that grandfather will come north so he can see it.”
“And watch us win,” added Sue.
“Oh, you may laugh,” persisted Polly, happily, “but I can’t see why one of us shouldn’t win. We can sail our boats every bit as well as Dorothy and Bess, or any Orienta girl. Nancy is the only one who can beat us, and I’d just as soon she did, if it had to be somebody. It would be for the glory of our club anyway, if she did. Week after next, children, nine days, to be accurate, as Fraulein used to say, is the event, and we must clean up our old hulls, and get in line, and practise along the course. It means work, every single day, with our sleeves rolled up.”