“Shin up aloft and put a two-reef in the maintops’l,” the skipper barked, endeavoring to imitate the deep tones of Cap’n Crumbie.
Deserting his post for a moment, George ran to the mast stump, and clung to it like a bear hugging a pole.
“Belay, there!” shouted Jack, laughingly. “Get back on to your job, or—”
The skipper never completed his sentence. Slipping quickly back to the nose of the boat, George arrived there at the precise moment when the Sea-Lark ran upon one of the numerous shallows which threatened to impede her progress all along the route. The sloop came to a standstill with a jerk, and George, his hands outstretched to grasp his pole once more, took a graceful dive straight over the side. He could swim like a young otter, but there was no need for that, as the water came up only to his chest, and he soon climbed back on board, there to withstand the playful taunts of his father and of the captain, who condemned him to twenty years’ imprisonment in the chain-locker and ordered him to be deprived of his wages for life, for absenting himself from the ship without leave.
Together the lads managed to push the sloop off again, and the journey was resumed, but soon they reached the bend bringing them into Cow Creek, and there the dory’s sail again became useless, so it was lowered and Tony and George rowed the rest of the distance, the exercise preventing the boy from suffering any ill effects from his ducking. George was nevertheless thankful by the time they approached his father’s boat-yard, for the sloop hung behind like a load of lead, the wind, which was now against her, adding to the work. She was gently eased up on to the bank of the stream, there to lie until her various minor ailments had been attended to and until she was declared fit for a new career of adventure.
CHAPTER IV
THE TRIAL TRIP
Immediately after school on the following Monday afternoon Jack and his chum hastened to what they were pleased to call their “dry-dock.” Although Tony Santo had calked the worst of the cracks between the planks under the sloop’s water-line before he actually launched her, she had taken in a good deal of water during her journey along the Sangus River and up Cow Creek. It was obvious, therefore, that several afternoons would be taken up with the task of filling the numerous small crevices along her hull, although the boat-builder assured them that the swelling of the wood after she had been afloat a few days would to some extent remedy this trouble.
The boys went about their task in a thoroughly businesslike manner. With coats off and shirt-sleeves rolled up, and wearing the oldest trousers they could find, they applied themselves diligently and intelligently to their work. Tony, who took a genuine interest in the affair, devoted an hour or two to them on the first day, teaching the boys how to use the calking-iron and mallet, how to lay the thin strip of oakum along the defective seam, and how to ram it into the cavity without injuring the boat itself. Also, they learned to distinguish between a seam which needed calking and one which did not.
After putting them through their short apprenticeship, the boat-builder sat on an upturned box, lighted his pipe with deliberation, and for a while watched his pupils at work.