Mabel advised her friends to stay below until the “Boojum” was well under way. There was always a great deal of excitement on deck whenever they left a harbor and it might be just as well for all concerned if they kept out of the way until they got the hang of things nautical.
Ellen borrowed “The Hunting of the Snark” from Charlie and announced that she was going to curl up on the transom in the saloon and become familiar enough with it by supper to beat the others at their own game.
“She starts, she moves, she seems to feel
The thrill of life along her keel,”
sang Frances, “and I’ve just simply got to go up on deck and see what it looks like when we are going. Is it all right for me to go up now, Mabel?”
Just then Mr. Wing and Jack settled the question by sticking their heads down the hatch and demanding the presence of the girls on deck. Charlie was at the wheel and Breck was mopping up the slime that the anchor chain had made on deck.
“Mabel, will you take the wheel?” asked Charlie in coaxing tones. “I want to catch a smoke and it’s against the rules for the man at the wheel to smoke.”
“Give that buoy a good berth, daughter,” advised her father.
Mabel smiled her assent, for she knew the little harbor as well as her father, and though she had piloted the “Boojum” out some dozen times she always got exactly the same warning about the bobbing red buoy.