“Better wait a while,” said her father, with a laugh. “I don’t believe there are any fishes in this part of the Delaware River, so close to Philadelphia. As for you going to the engine room, Bunny, you must wait until I can go with you.”
“All right,” agreed the little boy and girl. There was plenty to see and do in other places on the Beacon, they thought.
Going up on deck after they had donned clothes more suitable for play than those they had worn on the journey, Bunny and Sue saw many busy scenes. Men were loading boxes and barrels into the holds of the ship. Other men were coming on board, hurrying off, and then coming back on again. Captain Ward was upon the bridge, as it is called, a high, narrow place near the front, or bow, of the ship, from which the vessel is steered.
There was so much going on that the time passed very quickly for Bunny and Sue, and in what seemed about half an hour since they had come on board they heard shouts of:
“All ashore that’s going ashore!”
“What does he mean?” asked Bunny of his father, pointing to a sailor who was thus calling.
“He means the ship is going to start soon,” explained Mr. Brown, “and that those who aren’t sailing on her will have to go on shore or they will be carried away.”
“Then, in a little while, we’ll be on the rolling ocean—the rolling ocean!” cried Bunny, and he walked about the deck with that funny, heaving motion of his shoulders. “That’s how it will be when we get on the rolling ocean,” he explained to his sister.
“Shall I have to walk like that?” she asked.
“Yes,” answered Bunny.