"I declare it does seem as if all hands were bent on drivin' me outer business. I've allers been able to putter 'round with nobody to help, an' it comes a little odd not to be allowed to so much as raise a finger."
"Your part is to do hard work, bossin' the rest of us, Uncle Ben," Mr. Rowe said cheerily. "There ain't so much to be done but that the boys an' me can get through it without half tryin', an' it's time you did a little loafin' so's to see how it seems."
During the afternoon Uncle Ben's family fully expected Captain Doak would return with a steamer to pull the "Sally D." from her resting place in the sand, and when night came without any sign from the owner of the schooner, Mr. Rowe said, with an air of concern:
"I declare I ain't hankerin' for a sight of Eliakim; but I do wish he'd show up with a tug, for the longer the schooner lays here the more it will cost to get her off. Give her one week, with a southerly wind blowin', as is likely at this season of the year, an' she'll be smothered in sand."
"It's goin' to be a big job at the best to get her off, seein's she took the ground at chock high water," Uncle Ben added, as if talking to himself; "but it'll cost more'n she's worth, if the work ain't begun mighty soon."
"How much do you allow she's worth?" Tom asked, and one might have thought he had it in his mind to buy her, so serious and businesslike was his air.
"Wa'al, I allow she'd fetch seven or eight hundred dollars afloat, an' not half that where she lays," Uncle Ben replied as he looked at the stranded schooner critically. "She must be fifteen or sixteen years old, which ain't much if she'd had proper care; but Eliakim has allowed her to run down terribly these last two seasons. Look at her! Oakum hangin' out of her seams like yarn in a frayed stockin', an' you never could tell by the hull what color she was painted last."
"If Eliakim wanted to sell her as she lays, I'm allowin' he couldn't get four hundred cash, an' yet it wouldn't take so many dollars to put her in good fair trim. I'd like to own her, high an' dry as she is," Mr. Rowe said thoughtfully.
"But how would you get her into the water?" Tom asked curiously.
"I'd leave her where she is till I'd got her lookin' somethin' like a vessel, shorin' her up so's she wouldn't really bury herself, an' then I'd risk the launchin' part of it. She must be nigh full of water by this time, for she leaks a good bit around the stern-post."