"Yes, indeed," said Dotty; "and, Solly, don't you bump _too_ hard against the shore, 'cause 'twould spill us out." It was very easy to talk about touching the shore: all the difficulty lay in being able to do it. Not that it was so very distant; indeed, it was in full sight, "so near, and yet so far!" If the wind had only been quiet, instead of "cracking its cheeks!" But, as it was, the boat rocked fearfully, and seemed to be blowing directly away from the land. Solly and the deaf and dumb boy looked at each other with eyes which seemed to say,-- "The thing is coming to a pretty pass! Only you and I to manage this craft, and we neither of us know what we are about! But we'll keep a stiff upper lip, and make believe we do!" "Why, Solly Rosenbug!" said Dotty, catching her breath, "you're going just the other way!" "O, Solly Rosenberg," echoed Lina, "you're going the wrong way! There's the shore, off there!" "Well, well," said Solly, his "stiff upper lip" very white, "we're coming round to it after a while: you just sit still." "Yes," said Johnny, puffing very hard, and churning the foam with his paddle, as if he were whipping eggs with a beater, "yes, girls, _we_ shall row round to it after a while, _if_ you'll only keep still!" I dare say Johnny thought the most of this commotion was made by his paddle. He was quite as consequential, in his way, as the fly who sat on a wagon-wheel, and said to the wagon, as it rattled down hill, "What a noise we make!" "We wouldn't put for the shore at all," continued Johnny, "if it wasn't for you girls." At that moment a remarkably high wave leaped over the side of the boat, and wet Johnny to the skin. "Just enough wind to make it pleasant!" gasped the little fellow. "O, dear! O, dear!" sighed the girls, in despair. "Ugh! how my arms ache!" groaned Johnny, stopping to rub them. "Guess I wouldn't say much if I was nothing but a girl, and didn't have to paddle!" "O, you needn't fuss with that paddle any longer, Johnny Eastman," said Solly, who had hitherto paid no heed to the little boy's vigorous but useless struggles; "you just drop it; it doesn't amount to anything." "What! what!" cried Johnny, looking very much insulted. "How are you ever going to get ashore without ME, I'd like to know?" All this while the boys were growing crimson in the face from the gigantic efforts they made, and the girls very pale with fright. Solly kept repeating,-- "Don't you be afraid, girls!" but his voice faltered as he said it; and as for Freddy Jackson, the trembling of his mute lips was as eloquent as speech. The two boys might put on what blustering airs they pleased--it all amounted to nothing; there was more power in the wind than in the muscles of their small arms. The boat would not go near the shore: anywhere else but there. The sky grew more and more threatening, and the wind increased in force.