“Ginger ale in this cold wind!” exclaimed Martha. “You’d better have it heated.”
Nancy laughed. “An old Frenchman up in Canada told us that if we’d drink ginger ale on shipboard, we’d never be seasick; and we’re going to try it out.”
“I’ll go down with you, Martha,” said Miss Ashton, getting up and throwing her rug over Nancy and Jeanette, who were shivering in spite of their own heavy ones. “I’m a good sailor; so nothing bothers me.”
The wind increased, and the ocean got choppy as soon as it grew dark; so the girls had their chairs moved into the enclosed deck, but near the door so they had plenty of ocean air.
“How do you feel, Nan?” asked Jeanette a bit anxiously, after they had finished their simple lunch.
“Mighty dizzy if I sit up; but deliciously comfortable as long as I lie back quietly. I feel as if I could stay here for hours.”
“That is the way with me, too.”
Some time later Miss Ashton came out on deck, and she was alone.
“Martha has succumbed,” she said, in reply to the girls’ questions. “The motion is much more noticeable in the dining room, and that, combined with the odor of food, about finished her. I put her to bed, and left her in the care of our stewardess. She’ll be all right soon, and will probably go to sleep.”
“Poor old Mart!” commented Nancy. “If she’d only stayed out of the dining room. But if she had,” she added, “then we would have been certain that she was already sick. Mart likes to eat even more than I do.”