"You had better go in the naphtha launch," I heard him say to Annie. "It is ever so much safer, and you can't swim."
"Well, let me go wherever the rest think best. I don't want to take any one else's place," said Annie, anxious as usual to efface herself.
She need have had no fear of being allowed to take any one else's place with Mabel Binks the self-elected chief cook and bottle washer of the occasion. That young woman was looking extremely handsome in a white linen tailored suit with a red parasol, Panama hat of the latest cut, red tie, red belt and red silk stockings. The seashore was a very becoming place for Mabel, as sunburn brought out her good points, giving an added glow to her rather lurid beauty. She looked really magnificent on that morning of the sailing party and her grown-up, stylish clothes made all of us feel rather childish in our middy blouses and khaki shirts and hats.
Miss Cox was dressed very much as we were except that she tucked in her middy, and Mabel's effulgence seemed to take all the colour from our beloved chaperone, who had been seeming to us almost beautiful lately because of the love-light in her eyes. Mabel's brilliancy outshone even love-light. I became very conscious of the many new freckles on my nose and Dee said afterwards hers seemed so huge to her that they actually hurt her eyes. Dee and I always got freckled noses and it was a source of some distress to both of us. As for Mary, the freckles had met long ago on her turkey-egg countenance, while Dum had long streamers of peelings hanging from her nose. She did not freckle but declared she grew fifteen brand new skins every summer.
Annie was a great comfort to me as I took a quick inventory of my friends, who on that day compared so unfavourably with the glowing beauty. Annie looked as lovely as ever. She had that very fair skin that neither tans nor freckles, and her ripe wheat hair was curling in little tendrils around her white neck and calm forehead.
"Thank goodness my hair curls, too," I thought, "and the dampness won't make me look too stringy," and then I took myself to task for thinking about such foolish things, as though it made any difference what we, a lot of kids, looked like, anyhow.
Zebedee was carrying Mabel's parasol and they seemed to be having a most intimate conversation, certainly a very spirited one into which she constantly drew Mr. Gordon; and as Miss Cox had hooked her arm in Mary's and everyone else was coupled off, Mr. Gordon soon fell into step with the gay pair.
"Disgusting!" I heard Dum mutter, but I hoped she would not let anyone see how furious she was. I noticed she closed her eyes and I saw her lips move and knew she was praying, "Don't let me biff Mabel Binks, don't let me biff her," just as she had at the football match at Hill Top the fall before. We reached the landing where the boats were anchored and as Dum had not biffed Mabel, I suppose her prayer was answered.
"Oh, there are the boats! What a darling little launch! Dum and Dee and I bid to go in that. Mr. Gordon, will you please arrange those cushions in the stern for me? Be sure and don't lose me, Mr. Tucker, and I will finish that delicious yarn I was in the midst of. Stephen, you will run the launch, I know, as that will give you such a good chance to be near Dee, and, Mr. Hart, here is a nice seat for you right by Dum."
Her words were so exactly what Mary had said they would be, that we who had heard Mary's prophetic imitation could hardly contain our merriment; and strange to say, the twins, in a measure hypnotised by her determination to carry out her schemes, stepped with unaccustomed docility into the pretty launch; but the polite Mr. Gordon arranged the cushions and then got out determined not to be separated from his inamorata for the sail. Wink and Jim naturally complied with the arrangement as far as being near the Tuckers was concerned, but Wink said: