“I don’t know what to whistle, though.”
“Oh, anything light and breezy,” was the facetious retort. “You might whistle, ‘Where, oh where, is my little oar gone?’ Say, Arn, I’ve just thought!”
“What?”
“Why, how you happened to lose it. You were tired and thought that if you could get rid of it you wouldn’t have to row any more! Didn’t it look to you, sis, as if he sort of pushed it overboard?”
But Arnold was too sore to joke about it yet. The breeze puffed half-heartedly at the sails now and then and swirled the gray fog-wraiths about them, but Toby had little faith in it and soon rigged a lashing for his oar across the stern and tried sculling. It was a difficult and awkward task, for the deck was slippery to even rubber soles, and there wasn’t room to work in. Every time Toby pushed the handle of the oar Phebe, at the tiller, had to duck her head. Finally Toby was forced to give up.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “but that’s too much like work, and it isn’t doing any good, anyhow. You take this, Arn, and I’ll try the boat-hook.”
“If you do that you’ll swing the boat off her course,” warned Phebe. “We’ll just have to let the tide and what breeze there is look after us, Toby. I guess we’ll get in, finally.”
“That’s about the size of it,” agreed Toby, sitting down again with a grimace at the dampness of the seat. “We’re at the mercy of the elements, folks.”
“Well, I’m glad it isn’t a storm,” said Phebe philosophically. “A fog is horrid enough, but we’re not in any danger.”