That man persuaded me to go fishing with him. I knew that if I went home I’d have to meet all my sister’s friends and maybe drink tea and play tennis. So I decided to go fishing with Jake. I thought I’d be safer. I was a coward. I was afraid to go home and drink tea and play tennis. So I went up to the old house-boat where the governor had it tied up in the creek near home. The scene was dark and gloomy. It was early in the morning. Even the swamp grass wasn’t up; it was all trampled down. Not a sound could be heard—except the milkman rattling bottles up near the house.
I crept into the house-boat, took off my uniform, put it into a locker that I had the key of, and togged myself out in a set of old rags which I found there. Many were the times I had fished in those rags. I don’t know how long I stayed in the house-boat. Jake was to come through the creek in his motor boat and I was to meet him. But I was foiled—foiled by the Boy Scouts. I heard voices in the distance and pretty soon I recognized my father’s voice and the voice of Skeezeks Blakeley and the uproarious clamor and frantic utterances of Pee-wee Harris. I can hear it now, it haunts me night and day.
I didn’t wait to meet those unexpected guests. I didn’t know that the house-boat was to become theirs on an extended loan. I sneaked out and beat it through the marsh grass for all I was worth.
I love, I love, I love my home,
But, oh, you yellow perch!
So now you know of my miraculous escape from the boy scouts and the awful peril I averted of drinking tea and playing tennis. I am now approaching the darkest scenes of that frightful adventure.
After my escape from the boy scouts and my honored parent, I went fishing off the bleak and barren coast of Coney Island. I was swept by ocean breezes and the smoke from Jake Holden’s pipe. In the distance we beheld the wild and rugged scenery of Luna Park. I caught some perch, some bass, a couple of crabs, an eel, two blue fish and a bad cold. We landed at the iron pier and sold our catch to a man who keeps a restaurant and serves shore dinners.
Then we went forth again. The wind was starting to blow a gale and the smoke from Jake Holden’s pipe enveloped me like a fog. The sky grew dark. Jake wanted to lift anchor and go ashore, but I said, “No, let’s stay out, because the fish are biting.”
What happened next was my fault, not his. We stayed out there fishing in a blinding gale, the sea coming in in great rollers. Pretty soon the Luna Park tower was ’way around the corner. Either they had moved it or else our anchor was dragging.
“Jake,” I said, “we’re tearing the bottom of the ocean all to pieces; it’s a shame. We’ll be off Rockaway in about ten minutes, if this keeps up.”