Time passed quickly, each moment bringing something to attract their attention.
“Brick barges from Haverstraw,” announced Jack, presently, as a tug, moving at a snail’s pace, puffed laboriously along. A column of inky smoke swirled aloft, leaving a long trail to slowly dissipate itself in the clear atmosphere above, while jets of steam gleamed in the sunlight. Each of the clumsy barges was loaded high with bricks, and seemed reluctant to follow the valiant little tug.
As the morning advanced, the breeze slightly increased; the white clouds grew thicker, piling themselves up into great rounded masses, and the swift changes over the landscape, from glancing light to fleeting shadow, were pleasing to look upon.
“Cap’n Jack,” remarked Joe, suddenly, “are we going to stop for lunch, or eat it on the wide waste of water?”
“No stops till the Jersey shore is reached,” answered Jack Lyons, decidedly.
“Right you are,” said Fred. “Joe is always thinking of meal-time. But, please, Aleck, trot out the sardines and crackers, the cheese and home-made pickles, the pound cake and everything else we have.”
And Aleck did. So all but Jack sat on deck and talked and ate, and idly watched the water foaming and bubbling away from the stern, while Confuse-us, fully alive to the occasion, trotted from one to another, and, with plaintive wails, begged for his share of the good things.
Finally, an indignant voice came from Jack, at the tiller.
“Say, do you fellows intend to eat all that grub?” he demanded.
The others looked at each other rather guiltily and meekly said that they didn’t. But each waited for the other to get up, and not until Joe, Aleck and Tom were forcibly ousted from their position did Jack come in for his own.