"She didn't know Jim was going away in the morning, or I'm sure she'd 'a' fixed it so's I could take one more trip in the Sally."
"Of course she won't care," Harry said in such a decided tone that Walter, who was more than willing to be convinced by the most flimsy argument, made his decision at once.
"Come on; there's Mrs. Harvey's maid, and we'll ask her."
The bribe of twenty-five cents was sufficient to enlist the good-natured girl's sympathies, and five minutes later the two boys were running at full speed toward the shore, while Bessie, apparently well content with the change of nurses, looked so happy that Walter really began to believe he had done the child such a very great favor that his mother could not but be pleased.
The unwieldy-looking Sally Walker was drawn up in a little cove which, owing to a line of rocks just outside, made a most convenient landing-place, and on the bow sat Master Jim, his face striped with dirt but beaming with good-nature, and his clothes as ragged as they were redolent of fish.
"I'd jes' begun to think you couldn't come, an' was goin' back," he cried as his neatly-dressed acquaintances came into view. "If we wanter do any sailin' it's time to be off, 'cause this wind's dyin' out mighty fast."
"It's better late than never, Jim," Harry cried cheerily as he commenced to push at the bow of the boat. "Let's get the old craft afloat, and do our talking afterward."
To launch the Sally into deep water was quite a hard task owing to her breadth of beam; but after that had been done the labor was ended for a time, save such as might be necessary with the bailing-dish.
Jim stepped the short mast with its well-worn leg-of-mutton sail, got one of the oars aft as a rudder, and the full-bowed clipper began to move through the water slowly, but with a splashing and a wake sufficient for a craft ten times her size.
"We can't run along the coast very well 'cause the wind's blowin' straight out to sea, an' she don't stand up to it like a narrower boat would," the skipper said as he settled himself back comfortably in the stern-sheets while he pulled the fragment of a straw hat down over his eyes.