Then, following Captain Sam’s advice, they built a fire on the shore and melted a kettle full of pitch and tar. When they had gone over the entire planking of the boat, setting up the nails that had slackened with the straining it had undergone, and had driven many new ones in between, Harvey, equipped with an enormous brush, and having taken up the cabin flooring, smeared the inner part of the boat’s planking with the tar and pitch, filling all the seams with it.
Then they went over the entire hull on the exterior, tightening it up, scraping, sandpapering, and rubbing until their hands were blistered and their arms ached. Then came the painting of the cabin and outer hull, and the scraping and varnishing of the decks. The mast and ballast they had brought up from the Thoroughfare. The latter, cleansed of its rust and given a coating of hot coal-tar, was ready to be stowed aboard. The mast, scraped and varnished till it glistened once more, had been carefully stepped and fastened above and below. The yacht Surprise, with clean, shining spars, with polished, glistening decks, and with hull spotless white, was ready once more for the water. Long before they had tested their work with innumerable buckets of water thrown aboard, and had found her tight and not a leak remaining.
Jack Harvey eyed the yacht admiringly, as he paused, half-way up the bank from where she stood. His companions in the day’s work had gone on ahead.
“She’s a fine old boat,” he said, “and she’s just as good as new. I’ve had a lot of fun in her, too. I’ll never have any more fun in the Viking than I’ve had in her, though the Viking is bigger and handsomer. I’d be satisfied with the Surprise if I hadn’t got the other one.”
The moment seemed almost opportune for the offer that followed.
“That’s a fine craft there,” cried a voice so close in Harvey’s ear that it made him jump, for he had been so lost in the admiration of the Surprise that he had not heard the sound of any one approaching. He turned quickly, and there was Mr. Carleton.
“Doesn’t look much as though she had been under water all winter, does she?” asked Harvey.
“I should say not,” replied Mr. Carleton. “Looks as though she was just out of the shipyard. I don’t see what you need of the Viking when you’ve got such a boat as this. You’d better let me hire the Viking from you for the rest of the summer.”
“Sorry,” replied Harvey, “but I can’t do it. You see, I’ve promised to let the crew have this boat, and they have set their hearts on it. I wouldn’t disappoint them now for a hundred dollars.”
“How about two hundred dollars?” suggested Mr. Carleton.