Lucile smiled now as she recalled this bit of crude reasoning.
They had hurried on to the university with their little checking accounts. They had had—
But here again Lucile started and sprang half out of her berth. Came again that mysterious rat-tat-tat.
“What can it be?” she whispered. “Marian! Florence! Wake up. Someone is—”
These last words, uttered in a whisper, died on her lips. The other girls slept on. What was the use of waking them? Couldn’t be anything serious. And if it were, what could they do at this mad hour of night? Suppose they routed out old Timmie, keeper of the dry dock, what could he do? It was black as jet out there.
So she reasoned, and, having settled back between her blankets, began again the recalling of events.
They had arrived in the city by the lake to be completely disillusioned. All university rooms had been reserved for months ahead. So too had all outside rooms which might be had for a reasonable price. To pay the price demanded for such rooms as were available had been impossible. They faced the danger of being obliged to return to their homes, and this, to such girls as they were, was a calamity unthinkable.
Just at this critical moment, the O Moo had shown her masts above the horizon. She was a trim little pleasure yacht, thoroughly equipped for living on board. She belonged to a wealthy doctor named Holmes, a life-time friend of Lucile’s father.
“She’s in dry dock down about two miles from the university,” he had told the girls. “You’re welcome to live in her for the winter. Canvas over her now but you can prop that up here and there, I guess. Make a snug place to camp, I’d say. Cabin’s about ten by thirty and there’s everything you’d need, from an eggbeater to an electric range. There’s electric lights and everything; valve-in-the-head motor supplies ’em. Go on; live there if you want to; keep house and everything. Pretty stiff walk to the U. But there’s the lagoon in winter, with good skating a mile and a half of the way. What say—want to try it? Old Timmie, the keeper of the dry dock, will see that nobody bothers you. There’s some Chinamen living in a barge out there, some fishermen in a smack and a young chap in a gasoline schooner. Guess they are all peaceable folks, though. Might get another girl or two to go in with you. Plenty of room. We live on board her two months every summer, two families of us, six in all.”
If the girls had been captivated at once by this novel plan, once they had climbed aboard the yacht, they had been thrilled and delighted at the sight which met their eyes.