Keeping His Course

by Ralph Henry Barbour

So Toby crossed the road, passed around the further side of the big shed, from which came the tap-tap of hammers and the buzz of the bandsaw, climbed down a slippery ladder and dropped into the launch.

Toby had made most of that boat himself. It wasn’t as grand as the Frolic and it boasted little bright work and no gilt. But, in spite of its name, it was at once safe, roomy and fast. Its name—you had to look on the stern to find it—was Turnover. In lowering the engine into it the summer before Toby’s assistant had lost control of the rope, with the result that the engine, at that instant poised over the gunwale, had descended very hurriedly. The boat, probably resenting the indignity, had promptly turned its keel to the sky and dumped the engine to the bottom of the slip in six feet of water. The boat hadn’t actually turned over, for having got rid of the engine and shipped a good deal of water it had righted itself very nicely, but Toby had dubbed it Turnover there and then.

The Turnover was sixteen feet long, with a four-and-a-half-foot beam, had a two-cylinder engine—purchased second-hand but really as good as new—capable of sending the launch through the water at a good twelve-mile gait, and was painted a rather depressing shade of gray. Toby favored that color not so much for its attractiveness as because it didn’t show dirt, and it must be owned that the Turnover was seldom immaculate, inside or out. But she suited Toby down to the ground—or perhaps I should say down to the water—and I doubt if any one else could have made her go as he did. The Turnover had her own eccentricities and it was necessary to humor her.

Toby began operations by pushing his duck hat to the back of his head and reflectively scratching the front of it, a trick caught from his father. Then, having decided on a plan of action, he set to work. Before he had discovered the trouble and remedied it, with the aid of an odd bit of insulated copper wire pulled from a locker, Phebe was swinging her feet from the edge of the wharf and watching. Experience had taught her the advisability of keeping out of the way until the work was done. At last, wiping a perspiring face in a bunch of greasy waste, Toby threw the switch on and turned the fly-wheel over.

A heartening chug-chug rewarded him, and, tossing the tools back in the locker, he unscrewed the cap of the gasoline tank, plunged a stick into it, examined the result, did some mental calculation, and at last declared himself ready to start. Phebe lowered herself nimbly down the ladder and seated herself at the wheel while Toby cast off the lines from the bow and stern. The Turnover backed out of the little slip rather noisily, swung her pert nose toward the harbor mouth, and presently was sliding past the moored craft at a fine clip. Once around the point the breeze met them and the Turnover began to nod to the quartering waves. Toby slathered oil here and there, gave her more gas, and seated himself across from his sister.

“She’s going fine,” he said. “I guess we could make Robins Island if we wanted to.”

“That’s too far, Toby. I’d rather go to Shinnecock.”

“All right. It’s going to be dandy after we get around the Head. There’s a peach of a swell, isn’t there?”