Mr. Wing had been watching a fast little schooner ahead of them. “Hey you, Charlie!” he called to the man at the wheel. “You stop talking to Mabel, and watch what you are about. We are pointing lots higher than that white schooner. Mabel, you come up here and play with these kids and Charlie and I will see if we can’t overhaul that boat on our next tack.”
Obediently Mabel slid and skidded along the slippery, slanting deck, and sat down with one arm around the mast.
“Daddy is so funny,” she said. “We would have got there just as quickly if we had gone on as we were. We are a little off our course now, but Daddy likes to use every puff of wind.”
“And I am going to as long as I sail a yacht. If I ever get to running a steamboat or a ferry to Jersey, I might change, but as long as I run the ‘Boojum’ she sails.”
“Well hush your fuss and run along now. You can sail backward if you want to,” giggled Mabel, who always had the attitude that her father was her kid brother.
“Honestly, Mabel, this is the most wonderful day of all, but then it seems that every day is better than the last,” said Jane.
“And won’t it be fun to see old Betty Wyndham? We ought to have some kind of Camp Fire party. The only thing that I have against the ‘Boojum’ is that we can’t have a camp fire on her.”
“But s’pose Betty has got too grown-up to like that sort of thing,” ventured Frances.
Jane shook her head at this. “I had a letter from her just before we left and she told me that she had just been to a clambake with some of the players, and, if she likes that, I know she will like to have a regular old-timer with us.”
“She will be surprised to see us. Can’t you just see her eyes widening behind those big bone glasses?” Mabel stretched her own eyes wide. “And look, I can just see the monument to the Pilgrim Fathers now. We will be there soon.”