Four Afloat Part 24

"Tu-tu-tu-tell you!" stammered Tom crossly. "I've bu-bu-bu-been tu-tu-telling you for half an hour!"

"Well, tell us again," said Bob soothingly. "Listen attentively, fellows; Tommy's got a great secret to unfold."

"I tu-tu-tell you the Su-su-su-su-su--!"

"It's all off!" exclaimed Dan despairingly. "Tommy's missing sparks again!"

"--Su-su-su-_Sue_ won the ru-ru-race!"

"Oh! What race is that, Tommy?" asked Nelson.

"Why, the ru-ru-race to New York."

"The launch race?" cried Nelson. "Is that so? The _Sue_ won, eh?"

"Good for her!" said Bob. "She was the smallest one of the lot, wasn't she, Nel?"

"Yes. Is it in the paper, Tommy? Read it out to us."

So Tom, appeased by the flattering if tardy interest, read the account.

The _Sue_ had finished last in thirty-nine hours and five minutes, averaging an actual speed of 8.25 miles an hour. With her handicap of thirteen hours and four minutes she won the race from her nearest compet.i.tor, the _Sizz_, by about an hour and three-quarters. The _Gnome_ had made the best actual speed, averaging just under ten miles an hour.

Of the twelve starters nine had finished the race. They had found good weather all the way save while in the neighborhood of Martha's Vineyard, when the sou'wester had met them.

"Say," asked Nelson when Tom had finished, "when was that race?"

"Why," answered Tom, "it was the day before yesterday, wasn't it?"

"Day before yesterday!" exclaimed Dan. "What are you talking about, Tommy?"

"It was!"

"Tommy's right," said Bob, "but--"

"Well, if it doesn't seem like two weeks ago I'll eat my hat!" said Nelson.

"I should say so!" agreed Dan. "Then we left Boston only four days ago?

That can't be right, fellows!"

"It is, though," answered Bob. "And to-morrow's Sunday. We haven't been cruising a week yet and enough has happened to fill a month."

"That's so," said Dan. "If the rest of the trip is like the last four days-!" He stopped and whistled expressively.

"It's been great fun," said Tom eagerly.

"It sure has," Dan agreed. "Why, if--"

But just then Barry, who had been curled up in the only upholstered chair in the writing room, jumped to the floor, yawning loudly.

"You're right, Barry," said Bob gravely. "It's time we went to bed.

Let's finish our letters, fellows, and get back to the boat."

The following morning the _Vagabond_, with the tender once more in place on the cabin roof, chugged past Long Point at twenty minutes past eight.

The weather was bright, but somewhat chill, with a bank of haze hiding the horizon toward the east and south. But the weather signals were fluttering a prediction of good weather. Off Race Point Dan, who was acting as navigator, turned the launch northeast and held her so until off the life-saving station. Then it was due east for some three miles, followed by a gradual turn southward along the gently curving coast. For some time almost the only objects of interest in sight, aside from the few vessels which they saw, were the life-saving stations which dotted the sandy coast at about four-mile intervals. Tom found their names on the chart and called them off; Race Point, Peaked Hill Bar, High Head, Highland, and so on. They pa.s.sed Highland Light at about ten o'clock, or, as Dan, who had at length mastered the science of telling time by the s.h.i.+p's clock, would have had it, four bells. Then came more life-saving stations, and Tom, who was lolling in one of the chairs in the c.o.c.kpit, with the chart spread out ont his knees, said:

"This is almost as bad along here for life-saving stations as the south coast of Long Island. Remember how many we counted there that day we went over to Fire Island, Nel?"

"Yes, twenty-three, weren't there?"

"No, that's your number," said Dan unkindly. "I remember perfectly that we counted twenty-nine."

"Well, if they don't look out," said Tom, as he cast his eye down the chart, "they're going to run out of names pretty quick. Then what'll they do?"

"Number them, probably," Bob suggested.

"Well, I'd take mighty good care not to get wrecked off Number Thirteen if I was a captain," said Dan.

"Huh! n.o.body would bother to rescue you, anyway," remarked Tom. "The lookout would come in to the station and say, 'There's a two-master going to pieces on the bar.' Then they'd get the telescope and look through it, and the-the captain would say, 'Oh, it's the _Mary Ann_, of Newark, Captain Dan Speede! Don't you know better than to wake me out of a sound sleep for nothing?' Then everybody would go back to bed."

When the laugh had subsided Dan said:

"They might name the stations the way the folks named the streets of the town out West."

"How's that?" Nelson asked.

"Well, it's a story dad used to tell. He said it happened in a place out in Illinois, I've forgotten the name of it."

"Huh!" grunted Tom.

"Some folks from the East went out there and settled," said Dan, "and after a while they decided that, as the town was growing fast, they'd plat it out."

"What's that?" asked Tom.

"Why, lay it out."

"Oh, was it dead? Thought you said it was growing?"

"Shut up, Tommy, and let's hear the worst," said Nelson.

"So they got the surveyors to work and pretty soon they had a nice map of the town with streets and avenues running all around into the prairies. Then the question of naming the streets came up and they decided they'd name them after the citizens of the place. So they started in and named the main street after the Mayor, Jones Street. And so on until they'd used all the names and hadn't begun to get through.

So they thought again and decided to use their wives' names. So they had Mary Street and Matilda Street and Jane Street, and still there were lots of streets left. So they started then on their children's names and used those all up. Then--"

"It sounds like a blamed old lie to me," said Tom in a loud aside.

"So," continued Dan, missing Tom's s.h.i.+n with his foot by half an inch, "after they'd got through with their Tommy Streets and their Susie Streets they didn't know what to do, because there were still a lot of streets away out that hadn't been named. So some one suggested that they might use the names of the dogs. So they did that. There was Hover Street and Tige Street and Towser Avenue--"

"Towser Avenue!" giggled Tom.

"And so on. And still there weren't enough names. So they began on the cats. Well, most every family had at least one cat and some had two or three and the cats pretty nearly finished things up; they would have finished things up only lots of the folks just called their cats 'Kittie.' But they had Tabby Street and Maltie Street and-and lots more."