All Taut; or, Rigging the boat

by Oliver Optic

It was the last week in August, and in two weeks the industrial school would be open again; but the students who went to their homes had not yet returned, and every thing was very quiet about the grounds and buildings. A few boys who had no homes, or had them in the immediate vicinity, spent a good deal of their time in the Sylph, the steam-yacht of the principal, Captain Gildrock.

Dory Dornwood had preferred to remain at home with his mother and sister, at the mansion of his uncle the captain. He made a call as often as it was decent for him to do so, at the cottage of Mr. Bristol on the bank of the creek. Miss Lily Bristol, the daughter of the engineer who lived there, was acknowledged everywhere to be a remarkably pretty girl, about Dory's own age.

Dory was a great character at the school, and he was now the captain of the Sylph when the institution was in session. He was by no means a fighting character, though he had been in some hard battles with students and others, and his prowess possibly had something to do with his popularity in school and out.

During the vacation, the Sylph was in service a great part of the time. As she went somewhere nearly every day except Sunday, Dory had frequent occasion to go to the cottage to give the engineer his orders for the next day. His message to the father was generally coupled with an invitation to Lily and her mother to join the party.

Besides, Lily had a brother who had won distinction among the students for certain battles he had fought with Major Billcord and his son Walk. Under Dory's direction, the students had moved the cottage in which the Bristols lived, from Sandy Point to its present location; and this event, in one way and another, had led to a very close intimacy between the young captain of the Sylph and Paul Bristol, Lily's brother.

Perhaps Dory wished to see his friend very often; at any rate, he went to the cottage about every day in the week. Some of the students, and even his sister Marian, were disposed to laugh at him for his frequent visits; but Dory never admitted, even to himself, that he went to see Lily. Being quite young, it is probable that he did not understand the matter very well, and was ignorant of what it was that attracted him to the cottage.

Tom Topover and his followers had been hearing all the talk in the town,—at school, at the taverns, and in the shops,—about the doings at the Industrial School. They had been inclined to imitate, in their own way, the operations of the students on the water. They had endeavored to get into various quarrels with them, sometimes for the simple fun of bothering and annoying them, and sometimes for the purpose of getting possession of their boats.

Twice they had stolen the long barges; and once, when they were assisted by the students of the Chesterfield Collegiate Institute, they had given the owners a great deal of trouble in recovering the property of the school. It is not strange that the frequent view of so many elegant boats on the river and lake inspired them to imitate their more fortunate neighbors in the sports of the water.

Tom and his companions believed that the students and their principal were especially mean and selfish, in keeping all these elegant boats exclusively for their own use. He had done his best in trying to be civil, and even polite, in making his request, for himself and his associates, for the use of some of the boats for an hour or two. He had always been refused; for they were not competent to manage such craft, in the first place, and the principal had no fancy for indulging bad boys.

Being unable to obtain the use even of the four-oar rowboats of the institution, though it was vacation, they had constructed a flat-bottomed affair, which they called a boat, but to which no one else would have had courtesy enough to apply the term. It had been constructed under the direction of Ash Burton, who was certainly a higher grade of boy than the original Topovers; but it may be doubted if his standard of morals was any more elevated. He had been well educated so far, and was now in the high school.