Keeping His Course

by Ralph Henry Barbour

They looked at three or four the next morning, but none was in good enough condition to please Arnold. “I want a tender,” he said, “but I don’t want it so tender it’ll fall to pieces!” In the end Mr. Tucker was commissioned to build one, a tiny cedar affair that would barely hold four persons without sinking. When it was finished, which was not until the middle of August, since Mr. Tucker was busy on another order, Arnold viewed it delightedly. “That’s fine,” he declared. “In the winter we can bring it into the house and put it on the mantel for an ornament!”

There were no more shipwrecks, now that the Aydee was prepared for them, and I think that her skipper was slightly disappointed. But the knockabout provided a lot of fun and by the time the summer was nearing its end Arnold had become quite a proficient navigator and had acquired a coat of tan that was the envy of his friends at the Head. Toby said it was more than a coat, it was a regular ulster! The Aydee sailed in two races in August, one a handicap affair in which her time allowance of a minute and forty seconds enabled her to almost but not quite win, and the other a contest for twenty-one-footers in which she was badly outdistanced. Perhaps the fact that Toby sailed the Aydee in the first race and that Arnold and Frank Lamson manned her in the second may have had something to do with the results. Once imbued with the racing mania, Arnold liked nothing better than putting out into the bay and trying conclusions with any sailing craft that hove in sight. He didn’t much care how big the opponent might be or how much sail she carried. He was always ready and eager for a brush. Usually he was outsailed or outmaneuvered, but now and then he came home victor and was extremely proud until some craft unkindly beat him the next day.

But life wasn’t all racing, for the Aydee was frequently put to more humdrum uses, as when, one fine day toward the last of the month, Arnold, Toby, Frank and Phebe embarked with many baskets and bundles and sailed away to a pleasant spot far down on the south shore of the bay and picnicked. Confidentially, both Toby and Frank favored using the Frolic for the expedition, but Arnold nowadays considered motorboating poor sport and wouldn’t listen to any such proposal. Fortunately, they had a good breeze all day and the Aydee performed beautifully. The boys took bathing suits along and as soon as the anchor was dropped they rowed ashore, converted a clump of bushes into a bath-house, and got ready for the water. Then they returned to the yacht and dived off the deck to their hearts’ content, while Phebe, more practical, placed the baskets in the tender and went ashore to “set the table.” They lunched on a grassy knoll between the bay and a winding inlet. Every one had provided a share of the provender and, while there was some duplication, the result included a marvelous variety of viands. Frank pretended to think picnics a great bore, but it was observed by the others that he did his full share of eating. On the whole, Frank was fairly good company that day, and Toby and Phebe liked him better than they ever had before. Possibly Arnold, whose guest he was, had cautioned him to make himself agreeable.

They tried bathing in the inlet after their repast, but voted the water too warm, and so went for a long walk up the shore, in the course of which Arnold managed to cut his foot rather deeply on a shell. Phebe applied first-aid by sacrificing a handkerchief and they returned to the scene of the luncheon, packed up and embarked once more. They sailed home with the sun slanting at them across the quiet water and reached harbor just as twilight was stealing down through the little village. They all voted the excursion a huge success and promised themselves another, but it didn’t take place that summer for the season was fast nearing its close and there were so many, many other things to be done.

About that time Toby balanced his books, so to speak, and found himself in possession of a sum of money slightly in excess of two hundred and seventy-five dollars, or, to be more exact, in possession of a bank book crediting him with that amount. He could reckon on another three weeks or so of ferrying, and that, he believed ought to add some forty-five dollars more to his fund, leaving him with a final grand total of three hundred and twenty dollars. He and Arnold had figured that three hundred and fifty would see him through the first year at Yardley Hall School, but Toby realized that an expenditure of something like forty dollars would be necessary for clothes. What he had was all well enough for Greenhaven, but not quite good enough for Yardley. A new suit of clothes would cost him twenty-five dollars, he supposed, leaving fifteen for other supplies. Consequently, he would be about seventy dollars shy of the required sum by the middle of September, and where to get that seventy dollars worried Toby considerably.

Of course it wasn’t absolutely settled that he was to go to Yardley, even if he found the necessary amount of money, but he was pretty sure that his father meant to consent finally, and as for his mother, why she had already promised her support, although that was still a secret between her and the boy. It was time, Toby told himself, to have the question settled, and so that evening he broached the matter again to his father, with the result that the next evening Arnold was on hand with the school catalogue and a large fund of enthusiasm, both of which doubtless influenced Mr. Tucker in his ultimate decision. The catalogue was gone through very thoroughly, Arnold explaining. The pictures were viewed, the study courses discussed, and the matter of expense gravely considered. Toby let his father and Arnold do the talking, maintaining for the most part a discreet and anxious silence.

“Well, I don’t know,” said Mr. Tucker at last. “I suppose if Toby wants to try it for a year there’s no harm done except the spending of a considerable amount of money. You say he’s got to go there three years anyway, and maybe four, to finish up, eh?”

“Probably four, sir,” answered Arnold. “He might get into the fourth class, but I guess it would be the third. Of course, some fellows do the four years in three, and maybe Toby could.”

“H’m. Well, Toby, one year will use all your money up. What’ll you do next year?”

“I’ll make more before that,” replied Toby with a fine assurance. “There’s the ferry, dad, you know. I ought to do better with that next summer, don’t you think?”