“That other thing in the bow is a anchor. You don’t use that unless you want to stay hitched somewhere. Understand?”
“He must think we are very poor sailors,” said Jessie.
“I feel like making a face at him—as Henrietta does,” declared Amy. “I never saw such a cantankerous old man.”
Nell braced her feet and set to work. She was an athletic girl and she loved exercise of all kind. But rowing, she admitted, was more to her taste than sweeping and scrubbing.
Amy steered. At least, she lounged in the stern with the lines across her lap. Jessie had taken her place in the bow, to balance the boat. They moved out from shore at a fine pace, and even Amy soon forgot the grouchy old fisherman.
There were not many boats on the bay that afternoon—not small boats, at least. The steamer that plied between the port and the hotel landing at the north of the island at regular hours passed in the distance. A catboat swooped near the girls after a time, and a flaxen-haired boy in it—a boy of about Darry Drew’s age—shouted something to them.
“I suppose it is something saucy,” declared Amy. “But I didn’t hear what he said and sha’n’t reply. I don’t feel just like fighting with strange boys to-day.”
Jessie was the first to see the voluminous clouds rising from the horizon; but she thought little of them. The descending sun began to wallow in them, and first the girls were in a patch of shadow, and then in the sunlight.
“Don’t you want me to row some, Nell?” Jessie asked.
“I’m doing fine,” declared the clergyman’s daughter. “But—but I guess I am getting a blister. These old oars are heavy.”