“No engine will run smoothly without plenty of oil,” grumbled Dick.
“I don’t expect it to, Dickums, but there’s such a thing as being overkind. Some morning you’ll wake up and find that poor engine floating lifelessly on a sea of cylinder oil. You’re simply drowning it!”
The morning of the twenty-first found them still some twenty miles below Ferry Hill and the Slow Poke was put at her best pace in the hope of reaching her destination by luncheon-time. And she responded nobly to the demand, nosing her way up to the boat-house landing at Ferry Hill shortly before one o’clock.
[CHAPTER XV]
HARRY GOES TO SEA
“Back to the old home,” murmured Chub, as he leaned over the railing of the upper deck and let his gaze travel over the scene before him. Beside the landing at the right was the boat-house; to the left, the little stretch of white beach; before him, the winding path leading upward through a thick grove of rustling trees. Afar up on the hill, the tower of School Hall showed above the tree-tops. Roy, on the float, took a final hitch in the bow line, straightened himself, and looked about.
“Things haven’t changed much, have they?” he asked.
“Can’t expect them to, in less than a year,” answered Chub.
“There’s Hammond over there,” muttered Roy, shading his eyes and looking across the glittering river.