“Polly, don’t do that,” exclaimed Ruth. “They’ll see you.”
“I hope they do,” responded Polly, delightedly. “I wasn’t waving at the boat, goosie. There,” as one figure in the dory lifted an oar in salute to her, and waved his cap. “I’ve made one friend, anyway, on this foreign coast of Barbaree.”
The breakfast gong struck. It was one other thing in the daily life aboard the Hippocampus that pleased the girls. At each meal the steward would strike a musical Chinese gong with two muffled sticks, and the sweet, vibrating chimes would sound clearly through the cabin.
“When we get settled in our club house,” Polly said, as they started for the dining-room, “we’ll have one of those gongs if I have to make it myself.”
“Polly, do you realize,” said Isabel, regretfully, “that after all this splendor we are going bang on a desert isle?”
“‘Quoth the Raven, Nevermore,’” Polly said in a deep, mournful tone that matched Isabel’s exactly, and made them all laugh.
“Not that I mind it,” added Isabel, hastily. “I expect Polly’ll have us all in sou’westers and oilskins before we get through, patrolling the beach with the life-guard. I wish I could swim. Is it hard learning, Senator Yates?”
“Not very.” The Senator’s face wore a reminiscent smile. “I was about seven when I learned. Tad Newell was my chum those days. He was my cousin, and about twelve years old, and he could swim like a tommycod. So he undertook to teach me. We went down to the old swimming hole on Tad’s place, and I took off my clothes, while Tad tied a rope around my waist. ‘Now, all you need do, Charlie, is to let yourself go,’ he told me, ‘and I’ll hang on to the rope till you learn to swim.’ So I jumped from a rock into the water, and let myself go, but that rope parted. Tad yelled to me to strike out and tread water. I did as I was told, and the first thing I knew I was swimming around the old pond all right. ‘Golly Ann,’ Tad called out, ‘I’ll bet a cookie if that old rope hadn’t given way, you’d have been trailing around here on the end of it for an hour.’”
“We’ll remember that story, and provide good, strong ropes,” Polly said, laughing. “Crullers declares she will put on a life preserver, but I like the water wings the best. I do hope we may be able to see the island to-day, and the bungalow, or club-house, or shack, whichever it is. Ruth brought a flag along to raise as soon as we land, and our own yacht club pennant, golden sun on a sea of blue.”
By six the girls were through their breakfast, and ready to go ashore. Marbury stayed with his mother, but the Senator went with them as far as the hotel landing. Another trip brought their camp kit and suitcases, and finally, about nine, they all stood on the broad veranda of the shore hotel, waving handkerchiefs in farewell to the Yates family, as the Hippocampus left the little bay and steamed out beyond the point of the Sickle, on her way up to Nova Scotia and Prince Edward’s Island.