More Jonathan Papers Part 23

Perhaps you cant! Dont you stop rowing. If this boat wasnt held steady, shedI dont know what she wouldnt do.

If you stick something through the eye you can turn it.

Yes. Ill find something. Heres the can-opener. Grand! There! Its solid. Now Ill do the other one the same way. Hurrah for the screw-eyes!

You thought of bringing them, said Jonathan magnanimously.

You thought of using them, said I, not to be outdone.

And so again the imps were foiled. But they hung over us, they slapped us with spray, they tossed the whitecaps, jeering, at our heads, over our shoulders, into our laps. They put up the tides to tricks of eddies and back-currents, so that they hindered instead of helping, as by calculation they should have done. They laid invisible hands on our oars and dragged them down, or held them up as the wave raced by, so that we missed a stroke. Once, in the lee of an island, we paused to rest and unroll our chart and get our bearings, while the smooth rise and fall of the ground swell was all there was to remind us of the riot of water just outside.

Then we were off again, and the imps had us. They were busy, those imps, all that long, windy, wave-tossed, wonderful day.

For it was wonderful, and the imps were indeed frustrate, wholly frustrate. We pulled toward the quiet harbor that evening with aching muscles, hair and clothes matted with salt water, but spirits undaunted.

Hungry, too, for we had not been able to do more than munch a few s.h.i.+ps biscuit while we rowed. Wind, tide, waves, all against us, boat leaking, oars disabledand stillIsnt it great! we said, greatgreat!

Dusk was closing in and lights began to blink along the western sh.o.r.e. We beached on a sandy point and asked our way,where could we put up for the night? Children, barelegged, waded out around the boat, looking at us and our funny, laden craft, with curious eyes. Yes, they said, there was an inn, farther up the harbor, where we saw those lightsten minutes row, perhaps. We pulled off again, stiffly.

Tired? said Jonathan. Ill take her in.

Indeed you wont! Of course Im tired, but Ive got to do something to keep warm. And I want to get in. I want supper. Theyll all be in bed if we dont hurry.

Our tired muscles lent themselves mechanically to their work and the boat slid across the quiet waters of the moonlit harbor. The town lights grew bigger, wharves loomed above us, and soon we were gliding along under their shadow. The eddies from our oars went _lap-lap-lapping_ off among the great dark spiles and stirred up the keen smell of salt-soaked timbers and seaweed. Blindly groping, we found a rickety ladder, tied our boat and climbed stiffly up, and there we were on our feet again, feeling rather queer and stretchy after seven hours in our cramped quarters.

Half an hour later we were sitting in the warm, clean kitchen of the old inn, and a kindly but mystified hostess was mothering us with eggs and ham and tea and pie and doughnuts and other things that a New England kitchen always contains. While we ate she sat and rocked energetically, questioning us with friendly curiosity and watching us with keen though benevolent eyes.

Rowed, did you? Jim! calling back over her shoulder through a half-open door, did you hear that? These folks have rowed all the way across the bay this afternoonyesrowed. What say? Yes, _she_ rowed, too. They say theyre goin on to-morrow, round Judith.

Say, now, she finally appealed to us in frank perplexity, whatre you doin it for?

We like it, said Jonathan peacefully.

Like it, do you? Well, now, if that dont beat all! Sayyou know? I wouldnt do that, what youre doin, not if you paid me. Have another cup o tea, do.

The next morning she bade us good-bye with the air of entrusting us to that Providence which is known to have a special care for children and fools.

In fact, through all the varying experiences of our cruise, one thing never varied. That was, the expression on the faces of the people we met.

Wind and water and coast and birds all greeted us differently with each new day, but no matter how many new faces we met, we found in them always the same looka look at once friendly and quizzical, the look one casts upon nice children for whose antics one is not responsible, the look one casts upon very small dogs. Why? Is it so odd a thing to like to row a little boat? If it had been a yacht, now, or even a motor-boat, the expression would have been different. Apparently the oars were what did it.

On that particular morning, word of our doings must have got abroad, for as we stepped out on the brick sidewalk of the shady main street a little crowd was waiting for us. It was a funny procession:Jonathan first, with the guns and the water-jug, then a boy with a wheelbarrow, on which were piled the two dunnage bags, the metal box, the lantern, the axe, the chart tube, and a few other things. An old man and some boys followed curiously, then I came, with two big baking-powder cans, very gorgeous because the red paper was not yet off them, full of provisions pressed on us by our friendly hostess. Tagging behind me, came an old woman, a big girl, and a half-dozen children. It was the kind of escort that usually attends the hand-organ and monkey on their infrequent visits.

We loaded up the boat and pulled off, a little stiff but fairly fit after all. The group waved us off and then stood obviously talking us over. One of the men called after us, with a sudden inspiration, Pity ye hevnt got a _motor_ in there!

Though we didnt want to be a motor-boat, we were not above receiving courtesies from one, and when the Providence tacitly invoked by our hostess sent one chugging along up to us, with the proposal to take us in tow, we accepted with great contentment. The morning was not half over when we made our next landing, and looked up the captain who was to tow us around Judith.

For in the matter of Point Judith our friends and advisers had been unanimously firm. There should be a limit, they said, even to the foolishness of a holiday plan. With a light boat, we might have braved their disapproval, but loaded as we were, we decided to be prudent.

Id hate to lose the guns, said Jonathan.

Yes, and the camera, I added.

So we accepted the offer of a good friends knockabout, and sailed around the dreaded Point with our little boat tailing behind at the end of her rope. We saw no water that we could not have met in her, but, as our friends did not fail to point out, that proved nothing whatever.

At Stonington we were left once more to our little boat and our four oars, and there we pulled her up and caulked her.

Strange, how we are always trying to avoid mishaps, and yet when they come we are so often glad of them! A leaky boat had not been in our plans, but if we could change that first wild row across the big bay, if we could cut out that leakiness, that puddling bottom, the difficult s.h.i.+fts of baling and rowing, would we? We would not. Again, as we look back over the days of our cruise, we could ill spare those hours of labor on the hot stretch of sunny beach between the wharves, where we bent half-blinded over the dazzling white boat, our spirits irritated, our fingers aching as they worked at the _push-push-push_ of the cotton waste between the strakes. We said hard words of the man who thought he had put our boat in order for us, and yetif we could cut out those hours of grumbling toil, would we?

We would not. For one thing, we should perhaps have missed the precious word of advice given us by a man who sat and watched us. He recommended us to put a little motor in the stern. He pointed out to us that rowing was pretty hard work. We said we liked it. His face wore the expression I have already described.

We launched her again at dusk. Next morning Jonathan was a moment ahead of me on the wharf.

Any water in her? I called, following hard.

Dry as a bone, he shouted back, exultant; but as I came up he added, with his usual conservatism, of course we cant tell what she may do when shes loaded.

But our work held. For the rest of the trip we had a dry boat, except for what came in over the sides.

Now that we were in the home State, we got out our guns and hugged the sh.o.r.e closely, on the lookout for plover. We drifted sometimes, while we studied our maps for the location of the salt marshes. If we were lucky, we had broiled birds for luncheon or supper; if we were not, we had tinned stuff, which is distinctly inferior. When we spent the night at an inn, we breakfasted there, but most of our meals were eaten along the sh.o.r.e, or, best of all, on some island.

Can we find an island for lunch to-day, do you suppose? I usually asked, as we dipped our oars in the morning.

Do you have to have an island for lunch?

I love an island! choosing to ignore the jest. Thats one of the best things about a boatthat it takes you to islands.

Now, why an island?

You know as well as I do. An island meansoh, it means remoteness, it means quietpossession; while youre on it, its yoursyou dont have every pa.s.ser-by looking over your shoulderyou have a little world all to yourself.

I could feel Jonathans indulgent smile through the back of his head as he rowed.

Well, you know yourself, I argued. Even a tiny bit of stone and earth, with moss on it, and a flower, out in the middle of a brook, looks different, somehow, from the same things on the bank. It _is_ different.i.ts an island.

And so we sought islandssometimes little ones, all rocks, too little even to have collected driftwood for a fire, too little to have grown anything but wisps of beach-gra.s.s, low enough to be covered, perhaps, by the highest tides. Sometimes it was a larger island, big enough to have bushes on it, and beaches round its edges. One of these we remember as best of all. It lay a mile off sh.o.r.e, a long island, rocky at its ocean end and at its land end running out to a long slim line of curving beach. In the middle it rose to a plateau, thick-set with gra.s.s and goldenrod and bay bushes, from which floated the gay, sweet voices of song sparrows. Ah!

There was an island for you! And we made a fire of driftwood, and cooked our luncheon, and lay back on the sand and drowsed, while the sea-gulls, millions of them, circled curiously over our heads, mewing and screaming as they dived and swooped, and behind us the notes of the song sparrows rose sweet.

If we had had water enough in our jug, we should have camped there. We rowed away at last, slowly, loving it, and in our thoughts we still possess it. As it dropped astern I pulled in my oars and stood up to take its pictureno easy task, with the boat mounting and plunging among the swells. But I have my picture, its horizon line at a noticeable slant, reminiscent of my unsteady balance. It means little to other people, but to us it means the sweetness of suns.h.i.+ne and wind and water, the sweetness of gra.s.s and bird-notes, all breathed over by the spirit of solitude.

Then it melted awayour islandinto the waste of waters, and we turned to look toward the misty headlands beyond our bow. Where the marshlands were, we followed them closely, but where the sh.o.r.e was rocky, or, worse still, built up with summer cottages, we often made a straight course from headland to headland, keeping well out, often a mile or two, to avoid tide eddies. We liked the feeling of being far out, the sh.o.r.e a dark blue, the cottages little dots. But we liked it, too, when the headland before us grew large, its rocks and bushes stood out, and we could see the white rip off its pointa rip to be taken with some caution if we hoped to keep our cargo dry. And then, the rip pa.s.sed, if the bay beyond curved in quiet and uninhabited, how we loved to turn and pull along close to sh.o.r.e, watching its beaches and sand-cliffs draw smoothly away beside our stern, or, best of all, pulling about and running in till our bow grated and we jumped to the wet beach and ran up the cliff to look about. Such moments bring in a peculiar way the thrill of discovery. It is one thing to go along a coast by land, and learn its ways so. It is a good thing. But it is quite another to fare over its waters and turn in upon it from without, surprising its secrets as from another world.

But to do this, your boat must be a little one. As soon as you have a real keel, the case is altered. For a keel demands a special landing-placea wharfand a wharf means human habitation, and thenwhere is your thrill of discovery? Ah, no!a little boat! And you can land anywhere, among rocks or in sandy shallows; you can explore the tide creeks and marshes and the little rivers; you can beach wherever you like, wherever the rippling waves themselves can go. A little boat for romance!

A little boat, but a long cruise, as long as may be. To be sure, a boat and a bit of water anywhere is good. Even an errand across the pond and back may be a joy. But if you can, now and then, free yourself from the there-and-back habit, the reward is great. The joy of pilgrimageof going, not there and back, but on, and on, and yet onis a joy by itself. The thought that each night brings sleep in a new and unforeseen spot, with a new journey on the morrow, gives special flavor to the journeying.

Not the least among the pleasures of the cruise were the night-camps. When the sh.o.r.e looked inviting, and harborage at an inn seemed doubtful, we pulled our boat above tide-water, turned her over and tilted her up on her side for a wind-break, and there we spent the night. The half-emptied dunnage bags were our pillows, the sand was our bed. Sand, to sleep on, is harder than one might suppose, but it is better than earth in being easily scooped out to suit ones needs. Indeed, even on a pneumatic mattress, I should hardly have slept much that first night. It was a new experience.

The great world of waters was so close that it seemed, all night long, like a wonderful but ever importunate presence. The wind blew that night, too, and there was a low-scudding rack, and a half-smothered moon. As we rolled ourselves up in our blankets and rubber sheets and settled down, I looked out over the restless water.

The bay seems very full to-nightbr.i.m.m.i.n.g, I said.