“Jing!” exclaimed Dan, in amazement at such a festive scene. “Is this Killykinick?”
“No,” was Dud Fielding’s surly answer. “I wish it was. But I mean to cut over here to the Fosters whenever I can. This is Beach Cliff, where we have to take a sailboat to Killykinick. And,” Dud went on, with deepening disgust, “I bet it’s that old tub that is signalling to us now.”
Dan’s eyes, following Dud’s sullen gaze, saw, among the gaily painted pleasure craft moored at the wharfs, a clumsy little boat with rusty sides and dingy sail. An old man stood in the stern waving a tattered flag that, caught out by the breeze, showed in large faded letters—Killykinick.
X.—On the “Sary Ann.”
“It’s the sign,” said Brother Bart gratefully, as he caught sight of the fluttering pennant. “He was to wave the flag to us so we would know the boat. Keep together now, boys,” continued their anxious guardian, who was a little bewildered by a rush and struggle to which he was not accustomed. “Ah, God help them that have to push their way in a world like this! Hold to my hand, laddie, or ye’ll be tramped down. Straight behind me now, the rest of ye, so ye won’t be lost.”
And, marshalling his boyish force, Brother Bart pressed on through the hurrying throngs that surged over gangway (for it was the height of the holiday season) until he reached the shabby little boat whose occupant was a very old man with a face brown and wrinkled as tanned leather. A long scar across his cheek had twisted his mouth into a crooked smile. He spat a large quid of tobacco into the water, and greeted his passengers with an old sea dog’s growl:
“Been waitin’ more than an hour for ye, but that consarned boat ain’t never on time! Hit some pretty rough weather, I reckon, out at sea?”
“We did,” answered Brother Bart, with feeling. “It’s the mercy of God we’re alive to tell the tale. In with ye, boys, and sit steady. Take the middle of the boat, laddie, and hold to Dan. Give me a hand to help me in; for I’m weak and shaking yet. The Lord’s will be done, but I never thought to be sailing the seas in a cockleshell like this,” added the good man, as the boat rocked under his sturdy weight when he sank heavily into his place.
“I say so, too. Let’s hire something better,” replied Dud Fielding, eagerly.
“Thar ain’t nothing better or safer than this here ‘Sary Ann’ along the shore,” said the boat’s master, grimly. “I sot every timber in her myself. She ain’t got a crack or a creak in her. I keeled her and calked her, and I’ll lay her agin any of them painted and gilded play-toys to weather the toughest gale on this here coast. You’re as safe in the ‘Sary Ann,’ Padre, as if you were in church saying your prayers.”