“When they all had come aboard and were assembled on the hurricane deck the Captain made them a speech, while the Mate went and told the cook to ‘look alive with lunch, to have it ready when the “Old Man” gets through with the powwow!’
“This is the Captain’s speech: ‘I suppose you wonder why I called you together? Perhaps you noticed a big mar on the Jane Ellen’s bows, where the good new paint is scraped off?’ All the other captains nodded. ‘That happened last night,’ said our Captain. ‘We ran on Porpoise Rock; and my quartermaster, Nelson, said he ran a-foul of it because he didn’t make enough allowance for the stars moving. I’ve got as good quartermasters as any ship afloat, but I know—you all know—that kind of thing happens to all of us.’ The captains nodded again. ‘The trouble isn’t with the man at the wheel, it’s just here,’—and the Captain struck the palm of one hand with the forefinger of the other several times, and they all looked at it to see what it was,—‘He hasn’t the right kind of stars to steer by!’ The captains all looked up at the sky, and blinked, because it was just noon and the sun was very bright, and then looked at one another, and one of them said, ‘What kind of stars could we have? We’ve got all there are.’
“‘Oh, these stars are all right, but they move about so! Night after night they go ’round and around! A man is almost too old to take his trick at the wheel before he learns to make allowance for it. Now, we’ve been fair and honest, and we’ve steered by these stars—and sworn by them—as long as there have been ships and sailors, and the Star People ought to do something to help us out. So I propose to send some one to put it to them fairly, and see if they can’t keep one star always in the same place. Then we could start from that, and know where we were.’
“‘How are you going to get up there?’ asked the same captain who had spoken before.
“‘We’ll show you after lunch,’ said the Captain of the Jane Ellen. ‘That is, if you all agree?’
“The other captain asked, ‘Do you all agree?’ and they all nodded.
“Then the other captain said, ‘Three cheers for the Skipper!’ and fifty-one captains shouted, ‘Hurrah!’ three times. So that was settled, and they went down to the cabin for lunch.”
“What did they have?” asked the Kitten.
“Plum duff,—full of raisins,” said the Princess.
“Did they like it?” asked Pat.