“Now what’s the matter?” asked Mollie, frowning.
“Search me,” returned the Little Captain, cheerfully. “I beg your indulgence, ladies, till I find what’s up.”
But she could not find “what was up,” and neither, for that matter, could any of the other girls. The only fact that they knew positively was that for some mysterious reason and in some mysterious way the engine of the little boat had “lain down”—gone suddenly and irrevocably “dead.”
“Well, I’ll say this is our unlucky day,” said Mollie, disgustedly, straightening up from her work on the engine to face the Little Captain. “Beginning with engine trouble, then tramps and now more engine trouble——”
“Well, there’s one comfort,” spoke up Amy, trying to be optimistic. “We’ve had about all the trouble we can have. Things can’t be any worse.”
“Oh, yes, they can,” contradicted Grace, in a voice of patient resignation. “Has any one happened to notice that it’s raining?”
“Raining!” they gasped, and with one accord, turned startled faces to the sky. What they saw there did little to cheer them up.
Mollie groaned.
“This was all we needed,” said she, “to make it a perfect day.”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake, cheer up,” commanded the Little Captain. “Anybody would think from the way you talk that you’d never been rained on before. Didn’t we buy these suits especially for knockabout wear? A drop or two of rain can’t hurt them.”