"How wonderful!" says Miss Hampton as she watches Vee juggle the ropes skillful. "I wish I could do that!"
"Do you?" says Mr. Robert eager. "Perhaps you'll let me teach you how to sail. Would you like to try the wheel? Here! Now this way puts her off, and the other brings her up. See?"
"N-n-not exactly," says Miss Hampton, grippin' the spokes gingerly.
It wa'n't any day, though, for a steerin' lesson. Most of the time the deck was on quite a slant, which seems to amuse Miss Hampton a lot.
"How odd!" says she. "We're sailing almost on edge, aren't we? Isn't it glorious!"
Mr. Robert don't seem to be so enthusiastic. He keeps watching the sails and the water and rollin' the wheel constant.
"I suppose we really ought to get some of this canvas off her," says he. "Ferdie, could you help tie in a reef?"
"I—I don't know, I'm sure," says Ferdie. "I think perhaps——"
"This wouldn't be a thinking job," says Mr. Robert. "Of course I might douse the mainsail altogether and run under jib and jigger; but—no, I guess she'll carry it. Ease off on that main sheet a trifle, Torchy."
We was makin' a straight run for it now, slap up the Sound—and believe me we was breezin' along some swift! Vee had come back with the rest of us, her hair all sparkled up with salt spray and her eyes shinin', and shows me how to coil up the slack of the sheet like a doormat. On and on we booms, with the land miles away on either side.