New England -- Juvenile fiction; Sailing -- Juvenile fiction; Sea stories
"Did you fellows have any trouble finding this place yesterday?" asked
Cas as the departing guest dropped the oars in the locks.
"Trouble?" Perry looked blank. "What sort of trouble?"
"Why, the fog, you know. We had an awful time finding the harbour."
"Oh, that!" Perry shrugged. "Why, we went straight for the jetty and
didn't have any trouble at all finding it. But then we've got a
navigator on our boat. So long!"
Perry discovered that rowing was raising a blister on each palm and that
his arms were getting decidedly tired. The trouble with a dingey, he
decided, was that while it might do excellently as a bathtub, it was
certainly never meant for rowing. The oars were so short that the best
strokes he was capable of sent the boat ahead scarcely more than three
or four feet, and, being almost as broad as it was long, the tender
constantly showed a tendency to go any way but straight ahead. While he
had been aboard the _Follow Me_ the fog had again taken on its amber hue
and now was unmistakably thinning out. But it was still thick enough to
hide objects thirty feet away and Perry couldn't for the life of him be
certain that he was sending his craft toward the beach. To be sure he
had started out in the general direction of the shore, as indicated by
Cas, but there was always the possibility that he was rowing stronger
with one oar than the other. He strove to curb that tendency and fancied
he was succeeding, but when, after being afloat a good quarter of an
hour, he still failed to see land or hear the break of waves on the
beach he was both puzzled and annoyed. The sun pierced the mist hotly
and he was soon panting and perspiring. He heartily wished that he had
never agreed to accompany Han on the search for eggs. Presently he
rested on his oars, and as he did so he heard voices quite close. He
called.
"Hello, there! Where's the beach?"
"Here," was the answer.
He rowed on and in another minute land came abruptly out of the fog. Two
blurred forms resolved themselves into men as Perry beached the dingey
and tiredly dropped the oars. The men came toward him and proved, on
nearer acquaintance, to be middle-aged and apparently natives. "Quite a
fog," drawled one of them. "What boat you from, sir?"
"The _Adventurer_." Perry viewed the immediate foreground with
misgiving. The beach looked more abrupt than he recalled it. "What
beach is this?" he inquired.
"Well, I don't know as it's got any name exactly. What beach was you
lookin' for?"
"The beach between Vineyard Haven and--and some other place."
"Oh, West Chop? Why, that's across the harbour, son. This is Eastville,
this side."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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