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Discovering Diverse Content Through
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foot or two of line very gingerly, trying to coax the trout into deep
water, and the ruse succeeded. With a rush the fish darted from
concealment and sped upstream. But Chub brought him up with a
turn that made the line sing. Then he began to reel in. The trout
fought valiantly and made a good deal of trouble considering his
size, and there were one or two anxious moments for Chub. But in
the end the victory was his, and back among the stones lay the
speckled beauty. It was a good ten inches long and Chub beamed
with delight. Now he could go home!
When he had secured his prize on a forked branch he released the
other grasshopper from the pocket of his fly-book.
“You’ve had a narrow escape,” he said, as the hopper flounced
bewildered away, “and considering the chase you led me I ought to
feed you to the fishes, too. But I won’t. Go on home, and don’t bat
your silly brains out against the rocks like that.”
At five o’clock Roy and Dick, who were beginning to get anxious
about Chub, beheld that young gentleman approaching camp. He
had his rod in hand, but no fish were in sight.
“Thunder!” said Dick. “I’ll wager he’s mad!”
“Had any dinner?” shouted Roy.
“Sure.”
“Where’d you get it?”
“Caught it and cooked it, of course. Say, he was a dandy! He was
as long—”
“Never mind about that,” laughed Roy. “You wash the dishes just
the same. You were to bring the fish home, you know.”
“Well, but I had to have something to eat, didn’t I?” asked Chub,
with a grin.
“That wasn’t in the bargain,” answered Dick. “You’re dish-washer
to-night.” Chub stepped aboard, reached under his coat, and laid his
trout on the railing.
 “Is that so, Dickums?” he asked quickly. The others stared a
moment. Then,
“Great Scott!” murmured Dick.
“You win,” sighed Roy.
 CHAPTER XIV
THE CREW ENTERS SOCIETY

“W hat day of the month is this?” demanded Roy.

“Fourteenth,” hazarded Chub.
“Fifteenth,” answered Dick, doubtfully.
“We need a calendar,” said Roy, looking vaguely about the cabin.
“But whether it’s the fourteenth or fifteenth, fellows, we ought to
write to Harry. She’s going home the twentieth and we promised to
be there in three weeks. That would be the twenty-first.”
“That’s so,” said Chub. “We’ve only got seven more days. You
write, Roy, like a good chap.”
“What shall I say?”
“Just tell her we’ll be along the twenty-first. Of course, we don’t
have to start right off after we get there. I think it would be fun to
stay there a while, don’t you?”
“Yes.” Roy left the window-seat on which he had been stretched
and went over to the table to write. “Let me take your fountain-pen,
Dick, will you? Mine’s dry.”
“You can take it if you can find it,” answered Dick, looking up from
his book. “I haven’t seen it since I loaned it to Chub yesterday.”
“Dickums, I gave it back to you,” responded Chub, gravely. “I
remember the circumstances perfectly; the whole thing comes back
to me as though it were but yesterday.”
“It was but yesterday,” said Dick. “Look in your pocket.”
 “Merely as a matter of form,” murmured Chub. “Why, here it is!
How strange! Some one must have put it there. Catch, Roy.”
Roy caught, opened the pen, and then gazed disgustedly from his
fingers to Dick.
“I should think you’d have a decent pen, Dick. This is the limit!”
“Never look a gift pen in the nib,” laughed Chub. “It is a pretty bad
one, though, and that’s a fact. Let’s serve notice on Dick that unless
he buys a good one we won’t borrow it any more.”
It was the second day after Chub’s success with the grasshopper
bait, and the second day of rain. Yesterday, it had merely showered
at intervals, and the three had half a day of good fishing, but since
about dawn it had been pouring torrents and they had been forced
to remain indoors save when, at about eleven, they had gone in
bathing. That had been good fun; there is a certain excitement
about bathing in a heavy downpour of rain that is missing under
other conditions. Chub had pretended to be disgruntled. “What’s the
use of bathing,” he had asked, “when you’re sopping wet before you
get into the water?” But he had enjoyed it as much as any of them.
The Slow Poke stood the deluge well, all things considered. The
rain managed to get under the door of the after cabin until they
spread towels along the sill, and there was a small leak in the
bedroom. But Chub declared that he didn’t mind as long as it wasn’t
over the bed.
“I think,” remarked Dick a few minutes later, laying down his book
with a yawn and glancing disapprovingly out of the rain-streaked
windows, “that we’ve had enough of this place. Let’s go on. What do
you say, Roy?”
“Ask the captain,” said Roy, sealing his note to Harry.
“Sounds like mutiny to me,” said Chub.
“For goodness’ sake, Dick, let’s mutiny and stop his talking about
it!”
 “Yes, why don’t you?” asked Chub, eagerly. “I’ve been looking
forward all along for a mutiny. I wish to put some one in irons and
confine him in the lazaret.”
“Lazaret nothing!” protested Dick. “The lazaret is where they put
sick folks.”
“Dickums,” responded Chub, superiorly, “without wishing to hurt
your feelings I’d like to say that you show a lamentable ignorance
regarding things—er—nautical. Let me prescribe for you a short
course of Clark Russell, W. H. G. Kingston, and Marryat.”
“I’ve read as many of Marryat’s as you have,” replied Dick, in
injured tones. “And I know that a lazaret is a hospital.”
“On some ships maybe, Dickums,” answered Chub, amiably, “but
not on the Slow Poke. And speaking of that, fellows, we haven’t
changed her name yet. I thought we were going to get some paint
and fix it.”
“Well, you’re captain,” answered Roy.
“If I am not in error,” responded Chub, with dignity, “it is the able
seaman that does the painting, and not the captain.”
“The original question,” said Dick, “was, do we go on or do we
stay here?”
“We go on,” answered Chub. “If it stops raining before five o’clock
we’ll go on to-day. I, too, would visit new scenes. Besides, we must
get somewhere where we can post that note to Harry. Also, I shall
buy a newspaper and find out what the date is. Why, for all we
know, to-day may be yesterday or to-morrow. Think of eating
yesterday’s supper to-day!”
“I don’t want to kick,” said Dick, “but I think it would be jolly nice
to stop somewhere and get a good meal. It’s all right for you
fellows, because you don’t have to cook everything we have, but I’m
getting tired of eating my own cooking.”
 Chub bounded out of his chair and pointed dramatically at Dick.
“Mutiny!” he cried. “Mutiny at last! Put him in irons, Roy; put him in
irons! Happy I am that I’ve lived to see this day!”
“Who’ll cook supper?” asked Roy.
“Oh, we’ll let him go before it’s time to cook supper. Get the irons,
Roy.”
“Where are they?”
Chub struck his forehead in despair, and sank back into his seat.
“Lost! lost! all is lost! We forgot to bring any irons!”
“We might keel-haul him or hang him from the yardstick,”
suggested Roy, hopefully.
“You mean yardarm, of course,” said Dick. “But there isn’t any, and
I don’t believe we’ve got a keel that deserves the name. So you’ll
have to think of something else. Meanwhile, I’m going to get this
chap out of trouble.” And he took up his book again.
“If he only showed the least bit of remorse,” sighed Chub,
observing him sadly, “I might be merciful. But this—this shameless
effrontery pains me. I tell you what, Roy, we’ll sentence him to make
an omelet for supper.”
“We haven’t any eggs,” said Dick, without looking up from his
book. Chub cast his eyes to heaven and groaned tragically.
“No eggs! no irons! Ye gods! haven’t we any of the necessities of
life on this ship? What have we got, Dick?”
“Beans, bacon, potatoes, bread, condensed milk, coffee, tea,
butter, canned peas and tomatoes, stewed apricots—”
Chub groaned.
“No more, I beg of you! I’m going to look at the map, fellows, and
if there’s a place we can reach by seven o’clock where we can buy a
good meal, we’ll go there, rain or no rain! What my soul demands is
a course dinner, with clams, soup, fish, roast, game, salad—” The
rest was lost, for he had disappeared up the iron stairway to the
wheel-house. Dick laid down his book again.
“I think I could stand a few of those things myself,” he said
wistfully.
“So could I,” said Roy. “You’ve done mighty well, old chap, with
what you’ve had to cook, but there’s nothing like an occasional
change. It would be jolly if we could find a hotel, wouldn’t it? One of
those swell summer resort places where they have ten courses and
four kinds of dessert. What about it, Chub?”
“All aboard for The Overlook,” answered Chub gayly as he came
down the steps. “It’s only seven miles up on the other shore. Shall
we start now?”
“What is it, a hotel?” asked Dick.
“Yes, a big one, too. I’ve heard of it often. It’s where the swells go
in summer.”
“That’s the place for me, then,” replied Roy. “I don’t think it’s
raining as hard as it was. Let’s go out and have a look.”
Not only had the rain somewhat abated, but there were signs of
clearing. Twenty minutes later the Slow Poke was on her way again.
That evening the captain and crew of the Slow Poke “re-entered
society,” as Chub put it. They made a landing before six, finding a
convenient place a few hundred yards from a big hotel which stood
on a bluff almost overhanging the river, and at seven were seated at
a table in the great dining-room, fairly reveling in the feast. They
had dressed in their best clothes, and made a very presentable
appearance.
“This,” observed Chub, as he spread a yard-square napkin over his
knees and looked at the menu, “is about what the doctor ordered.
Shall we dally with a little of the caviar, Roy, or descend at once
upon the cherrystone clams. Let us bear in mind that we have all the
evening to do justice to this meal, and not be hasty. The French,
Dickums, draw a fine distinction between a gourmand and a
gourmet. The former is merely a glutton, while the latter is a
connoisseur, an epicure. For me, a few of the clams, a little of the
consommé—with radishes and cucumbers, some of the bluefish, a
wee portion of the boiled fowl, a slice of beef, some potatoes,
cauliflower, beets, and—yes, macaroni au gratin, a taste of the
raspberry sherbet, a bit of the salad—”
“Oh, let up, for goodness’ sake!” begged Roy. “You make me feel
as though I had already had a big dinner. Let’s cut the clams out and
get down to business; I’m hungry. I want soup and lots of it. Pass
the bread, Dick.”
“You talk like a gourmand,” said Chub sorrowfully. “I beg of you
not to spoil your appetite with bread. Just cast your eye over the list
of things to come, Roy, and hesitate.”
“Don’t you worry,” answered Roy, his mouth full of bread and
butter, “I won’t let much get by me!”
An hour later, they were sipping their after-dinner coffee and
dallying with cheese and crackers. Then Chub settled a little lower in
his chair with a sigh of blissful satisfaction, and gazed benevolently
about him.
 They had dressed in their best clothes

“I feel better,” he murmured, “much better.”

Dick took a long and careful breath.
“I’m not sure,” he said cautiously, “that I feel actually better, but
I’m sure I feel different. And I’d rather die of indigestion than
starvation any day!” Roy looked speculatively at the dining-room
door.
“If you think we can walk that far,” he suggested, “let’s get out of
here.”
On the broad piazza they ran into a group of college friends of Roy
and Chub’s, and the rest of the evening was hilarious enough. By ten
o’clock, at which time they went back to the Slow Poke, they had
enlarged their circle of acquaintances until it included most of the
young folks at the hotel. The next morning they had breakfast
aboard, but didn’t linger long over it, for all sorts of delightful things
had been arranged. In the first place, there was tennis on the
smooth clay courts, Roy and Chub engaging in doubles with a pair of
ambitious friends who rather prided themselves on their prowess
with racket and ball. After four sets, Roy and Chub had induced a
certain amount of modesty in their opponents, having won three out
of the four. Dick, meanwhile, went down in defeat before a curly-
haired sub-freshman. They had luncheon at the hotel and went
sailing afterward in some one’s sloop. (It was at no time apparent
whose boat it was, for out of the sixteen fellows who had crowded
aboard, only one hesitated to give orders, and that one only because
he became seasick as soon as the yacht left her moorings.) There
was more tennis after the cruise was completed, in which Dick found
a foe he could triumph over. Then they went back to the neglected
Slow Poke and “brushed up” for dinner.
“This social life is truly exciting,” observed Chub, strolling into the
forward cabin with a whisk broom in his hand. “Has anyone a nice
red tie to lend me?”
No one had, it seemed. Dick ventured the opinion that a red tie
was not a proper adjunct to a dinner costume, and that precipitated
a discussion that lasted until they were ready to climb the hill to the
hotel, Chub asserting that with a blue serge suit nothing was more
chaste and recherché than a nice bright red scarf.
“And, anyway, you wild Westerner,” he shouted from across the
passage, “it’s not for the likes of you to be setting up as an authority
on masculine attire. If you had your way you’d go to dinner in chaps
and a sombrero!” When they had reached the table, Chub glanced
over the menu with a disappointed expression, and shook his head.
“That’s the trouble with these hotels,” he said. “There’s no variety.
This bill’s just about the same as last night’s. The only difference is
that they’ve called the soups by different names and substituted
flounder—which they call sole—for bluefish.”
“The ice-cream’s different,” said Dick cheerfully. But Chub refused
to be placated.
“It has another name,” he said darkly, “but you wait until you try
it. It will taste the same as last night’s!”
 But he recovered his equanimity as the meal progressed. He
heroically denied himself a second helping of cream pie, recalling the
fact that there was to be a hop that evening. “It’s hard enough for
me to hop anyway,” he said, “and if I ate any more pie, I wouldn’t
be able to move out of my chair.” But thanks to his self-denial Chub
was able to do his full duty on the ball-room floor, and was ably
assisted by Roy. Dick, however, preferred to sit on the piazza and
swap yarns with the curly-haired sub-freshman, and it was not until
he had been forcibly assisted through a window onto the dancing
floor, that he consented to uphold the honor of the Slow Poke, as
Chub eloquently put it.
The next day, the second of their stay, they gave a luncheon on
board the house-boat. Dick cooked the viands and they were served
under the awning on the upper deck. The menu was neither varied
nor extensive, but each of the invited guests vowed that they had
never tasted anything better. And, of course, it was lots of fun. Even
when Dick spilled the chops all up and down the steps and had to
wipe them off before he could serve them no one grumbled. In fact
you’d have thought that the party preferred their chops that way!
After luncheon the Slow Poke was persuaded to sidle out into the
stream, and for an hour she waddled up or down the river. Every
one of the guests insisted on signing articles with Captain Chub at
once, and it required all of the latter’s tact and diplomacy to ward
them off.
“I wish you fellows could come along,” he said, “but you see how
it is. We’ve got to go on up to Ferry Hill and get Doctor Emery and
his daughter, so there won’t be much room.”
Whereupon one of the more enthusiastic fellows declared that
he’d ask nothing better than to sleep on deck, and the other seven
echoed him. It required a deal of argument to persuade them of the
impracticability of the plan. There was another jolly evening at the
big hotel, and then the three bade good-by to their old friends and
new, for the Slow Poke was to go on her way again in the morning.
But when morning came, they found that they were not to leave
unattended, for half a dozen of the fellows had gathered on the
landing to see them off and wish them good luck.
“See you in September,” they shouted as the Slow Poke ambled
away. “Don’t get arrested for exceeding the speed limit.”
“Stop when you come back, fellows! Don’t forget!”
“I’m going to practise serving, Somes! I’ll beat you this Fall!” (This
from the curly-haired sub-freshman.)
Chub tooted the whistle frenziedly, there was much waving of
caps, and the landing fell away astern.
The Slow Poke made good time that day. They stopped above
Poughkeepsie for dinner and in the afternoon went on up against a
stiff tide as far as Kingston. It was a day of alternate sun and cloud
and the scenery on both sides of the broad stream merited all the
attention they gave it. For the most part, when not busy with
navigation, they sat under the awning and were beautifully lazy. Just
before sunset, they tied up to the bank and prepared supper. Their
three days of hotel living had quite restored their appetite for the
plainer fare which Dick provided, and they went at their meals with
keen appreciation. They went early to bed, for it was the evening of
the eighteenth and they were due at Ferry Hill on the twenty-first,
and there remained a full forty miles to be covered. There was an
early start the next morning, and that day and the next the Slow
Poke attended strictly to business, and climbed the river slowly but
surely. The only incident of moment occurred on the twentieth
when, having stopped for dinner at a little village and moored to the
side of a ferry slip, the sign on a neighboring building caught Roy’s
eye.
“Paint, Varnish, Wall Paper,” announced the sign. He pointed it out
to the others, and after dinner they delayed the voyage for the
better part of an hour while the name on the bow of the boat was
changed from Jolly Roger to Slow Poke. Dick did the new lettering,
and if it wasn’t exactly perfect it, at least, answered its purpose. In
the course of the afternoon they were forced to stop and take on
gasolene, and Dick improved the opportunity to lay in a new store of
cylinder oil. For the rest of that day, whenever he disappeared they
had only to peek in at the door of the engine-room to find him
spattering oil lovingly and enthusiastically over the engine and
adjacent territory.
“It isn’t that I mind the expense so much,” muttered Chub, “but I
hate to think what would happen if any one carelessly dropped a
match in this part of the boat. She’s so saturated with that smelly oil
that she’d simply go up in a burst of flame.”
“No engine will run smoothly without plenty of oil,” grumbled Dick.
“I don’t expect it to, Dickums, but there’s such a thing as being
overkind. Some morning you’ll wake up and find that poor engine
floating lifelessly on a sea of cylinder oil. You’re simply drowning it!”
The morning of the twenty-first found them still some twenty
miles below Ferry Hill and the Slow Poke was put at her best pace in
the hope of reaching her destination by luncheon-time. And she
responded nobly to the demand, nosing her way up to the boat-
house landing at Ferry Hill shortly before one o’clock.
 CHAPTER XV
HARRY GOES TO SEA

“B ack to the old home,” murmured Chub, as he leaned over the

railing of the upper deck and let his gaze travel over the scene
before him. Beside the landing at the right was the boat-house; to
the left, the little stretch of white beach; before him, the winding
path leading upward through a thick grove of rustling trees. Afar up
on the hill, the tower of School Hall showed above the tree-tops.
Roy, on the float, took a final hitch in the bow line, straightened
himself, and looked about.
“Things haven’t changed much, have they?” he asked.
“Can’t expect them to, in less than a year,” answered Chub.
“There’s Hammond over there,” muttered Roy, shading his eyes
and looking across the glittering river.
“Well, that’s just where we left it,” laughed Chub. “And Harry’s
Island is in the same place, too, strange as it may seem. And the
river still flows to the south, and—”
“Oh, yes,” said Roy. “But I don’t think much of the welcome
they’ve provided, do you?”
“I do not,” answered Chub, with emphasis. “I expected at least a
brass band and a collation.”
“Bother the brass band,” said Dick, appearing from the engine-
room wiping his oil-stained hands on a piece of waste. “But a
collation has a cheerful sound.”
“I thought surely that Harry would be here,” said Roy, with a trace
of disappointment. “I wonder if she’s back.” He looked up the path.
 “Maybe she didn’t get that letter,” suggested Dick. “If she didn’t
she wouldn’t know when to look for us. And here we have invited
ourselves to luncheon!”
“Let me see,” inquired Chub, “we posted that letter at the hotel,
didn’t we?”
“Of course,” answered Dick. “Roy wrote it that afternoon; don’t
you remember?”
“I remember his writing it,” said Chub, “but I never saw it
afterward. Did you mail it at the office, Roy?”
“Yes—er—I guess so. I put it in my pocket when we went to
dinner.”
“Ten to one, you didn’t mail it!” exclaimed Dick.
“Suppose you look in your pocket,” Chub suggested. Roy walked
into the forward cabin with a frown on his face. Chub and Dick
grinned across at each other. In a moment Roy returned with the
letter in his hand and looking very sheepish.
“It was in the pocket of my blue serge,” he announced. The others
looked disgusted.
“You’re a nice one!” exclaimed Chub. “Here we are with nothing
on board for luncheon and no one to invite us to the Cottage.”
“I’m awfully sorry,” muttered Roy. “I don’t know how I came to
forget it.”
“Well, there’s bacon and potatoes, isn’t there?” he added with an
attempt at cheerfulness.
“Bacon and potatoes!” growled Chub. “I’m sick of bacon and
potatoes!”
“And I’m sick of cooking ’em!” added Dick. “I thought we were
going to get a good luncheon at the Cottage.”
“Well, why not go up and call on the Doctor and Mrs. Emery?”
asked Chub. “They’ll be certain to ask us to lunch.”
 “It looks too cheeky,” said Roy.
“Think of your minding that!” murmured Chub. Then, “I know!” he
exclaimed. “We’ll blow the whistle and maybe some one will come!”
“Good idea!” Dick cried. He darted into the wheel-house and in a
moment the whistle was screeching loudly. “That ought to fetch
some one,” said he.
Toot-toot-! Toot-toot-toot! said the whistle. Dick kept up the racket
for a full minute, and then they awaited results. Several more
minutes passed.
“What time is it?” asked Dick. Chub looked at his watch.
“Almost a quarter past one,” he replied. “And they have luncheon
at one.”
Dick groaned.
“Listen!” exclaimed Roy. From up the hill came a faint shrill cry.
“It’s Harry!” Chub exclaimed. He scrambled down to the landing
just as a white-clad figure came into sight up the path.
“Ship ahoy!” she called, gleefully, using her hands as a
megaphone, and there was an answering shout of joy in chorus from
the boat. The next moment they were all shaking hands on the
landing, laughing and talking together in a babel of sound.
“I thought you weren’t coming!” cried Harry. “You promised to
write and you never did it!”
Harriet Emery, or Harry, as she preferred to be called, was the
daughter of Doctor Emery, the Principal of Ferry Hill School. She was
sixteen years of age, or would be very shortly, and a charming girl.
She had pronouncedly red hair of a very pretty shade, a pair of
sparkling blue eyes, a somewhat pert, little, uptilted nose, and a
complexion which, in spite of the coat of tan which was beginning to
overspread it was very attractive.
 “Well, you certainly have grown!” exclaimed Chub, backing off that
he might get the full effect of the graceful figure in its white dress.
“Skirts down and hair up,” he added with a shake of his head.
“Harry, you must come to Class Day next year. Will you?”
“Do you really think I’ve grown?” she asked, eagerly.
“Grown!” echoed Roy. “You look a whole foot taller!”
“That’s because she wears her hair that way,” said Dick.
“Dick Somes, it is not!” Harry turned upon him indignantly.
“Dick Somes, you ought to be ashamed of yourself!” mimicked
Chub. “Don’t you mind him, Harry. He never did have any manners
in spite of my careful training. We were beginning to think you
weren’t here, Harry.”
“I didn’t know when you were coming, silly! Why didn’t you write?
I’ve been awfully anxious.”
“Write? Oh, but we did write,” said Chub. “Didn’t you get Roy’s
letter?”
“Of course I didn’t,” replied Harry, suspiciously, glancing around
her at the preternaturally sober countenances. “I don’t believe you
wrote.”
 The next moment they were all shaking hands

“How passing strange!” murmured Chub. “Roy, hand the lady her
letter. She appears to doubt my word.”
Roy laughed, and fished the missive from his pocket.
“You didn’t send it!” Harry exclaimed. Chub shook his head.
“No, we feared it might alarm you. We thought it better to bring it
along with us. You will see that we agreed to be here the twenty-
first. It is now the twenty-first. And here we are, right on time.
Punctuality is one of our principal virtues. Tell her some of the
others, Dick.”
“The fact is,” owned Roy, “that I forgot to mail it, Harry. I’m
awfully sorry, really.”
“Well, it doesn’t matter now that you’re here, does it?” asked
Harry, beamingly. “And doesn’t the Jolly Roger look beautiful?”
“She is no longer the Jolly Roger,” corrected Chub. “We have
changed the name to Slow Poke. After you’ve been on her awhile
you’ll know why. But she does pretty well. I take very good care of
her. Of course, if I had a capable, intelligent crew, I might do much
better, but—”
“Chub, you’re just as silly as ever!” said Harry, severely. “I should
think that going to college would make you more sensible.”
“It will take more than a year to affect him that way,” said Dick.
“Oh, I’m so glad to see you all!” exclaimed Harry, beaming from
one to another of the trio. “But we must hurry back because
luncheon is on the table and I told mama I’d bring you right up.”
The boys gazed at each other and smiled covertly. Chub shook his
head regretfully.
“It’s very nice of you, Miss Emery, and we appreciate your
thoughtfulness, but the fact is that Dick had just announced dinner
when you appeared. So I think we had better decline your
invitation.”
“Now that’s perfectly horrid!” cried Harry in disappointment.
“Please come, Chub!”
Chub hesitated, frowning tensely. Dick and Roy grinned. At length
—
“Very well, if you put it that way,” acceded Chub. “I never could
refuse a lady. We will go, even against our inclinations. Dick, clear
the viands from the board.”
 Dick and Roy burst into laughter, while Harry looked perplexedly
from them to Chub’s grave countenance.
“There aren’t any viands,” blurted Dick. “We haven’t anything but
bacon and potatoes.”
“Oh!” said Harry. “Chub Eaton, you’re a dreadful fibber! It would
just serve you right if I—if I recalled my invitation.”
“Jehoshaphat!” shrieked Chub, leaping up the path. “I won’t give
you a chance! I’ll tell your mother you’ll be right up.” They heard him
scrambling up through the grove ahead of them. But when they
reached the gate in the hedge which divided the school grounds
from the woods Chub was awaiting them. “We will all go in
together,” he announced with dignity. “It will look much better.”
So they went across to the doctor’s residence, mounted the steps,
and found themselves in the little parlor shaking hands with Doctor
and Mrs. Emery and the latter’s sister, who was to remain at the
Cottage during the absence of Harry and her father.
Chub and Roy and Dick had been quite intimate with the doctor
and his wife during their school years, and the latter were
unmistakably glad to see them again. Luncheon was ready and they
all trooped into the dining-room. Of course, there was much to tell
and the doctor asked a good many questions of Chub and Roy
regarding their college experience. Afterward the conversation
worked around to the cruise, and Chub recounted their adventures
up to date, winning more than one hearty laugh from his audience.
Mrs. Emery wanted them to bring their luggage ashore and occupy
beds in one of the dormitories during their stay at Ferry Hill, but
they declined the invitation, electing to stand by their ship. It was
agreed that the Slow Poke was to remain at Ferry Hill two days.
Then the Doctor and Harry were to go aboard, and the cruise was to
continue up the river. There was only one dissenting voice, and that
was Dick’s.
“Seems to me,” he said, “we ought to turn around and go down
stream a while. The Slow Poke’s been tussling with the current ever
since we started. We ought to give her a rest and let her float with
the tide for a while.”
“Oh, shucks,” Chub objected, “put some more oil on the engine,
Dickums. What’s the good of going over the same ground—I mean
the same water—twice? Let’s discover new worlds.”
So the majority had its way, as it usually does, and the Slow Poke
was slated for a fortnight’s trip up the river and back again.
After dinner every one went down to the landing and inspected
the house-boat, Roy murmuring excuses for the untidiness of the
rooms. Mrs. Emery, however, declared that everything looked very
neat, and that she rather wished she were going, too. Whereupon
Chub gallantly offered to sleep on deck.
“What a dear little room!” Harry exclaimed when her room on the
boat was shown her. “It’s perfectly lovely!” Her father’s room
adjoined it and he, too, was delighted. The three boys “bunked”
together in the rear room.
Roy hurried in to summon Dick to his duties as engineer, as the
ladies wanted to go for a sail. The Slow Poke meandered up the river
for a couple of miles and the guests sat on the upper deck and said
all sorts of nice things about her and her crew. Harry was allowed to
take the wheel for a while, under Chub’s tutelage, and was highly
pleased.
The boys remained at the school two days, during which time they
went to all their old haunts, played a good deal of tennis, and had a
thoroughly enjoyable time of it. They spent an afternoon on Harry’s
Island, which lay in the river just above the school, and talked over
the fun they had had the summer before while camping out there.
The island had been a birthday present to Harry from her father, and
she was very proud of it.
“When I get through college,” she declared, “I’m going to build a
house here and live in it all my days. Won’t that be jolly?”
 “Pshaw,” said Dick, “you’ll get married and maybe live a thousand
miles from here.”
“I shan’t,” answered Harry, seriously. “I’ve decided not to be
married, ever. I told Aunt Harriet so the other day and she said I was
very sensible.”
They visited Harry’s menagerie in the barn and renewed
acquaintances with Methuselah, the parrot, several Angora cats and
kittens, squirrels, guinea-pigs, rabbits, white mice and pigeons.
[Snip, Harry’s fox-terrier had long since welcomed them.]
Methuselah looked not a whit different from what he did when they
had last seen him, and, although it is doubtful if he remembered
even Dick, he acted quite cordially and nipped Roy’s finger in quite
an intimate manner.
“Do you think,” asked Harry, anxiously, “that Snip would be in the
way on the boat?”
“Of course not,” answered Chub. “We’re going to take him along,
aren’t we, Snip?” And Snip wagged his stump of a tail in enthusiastic
affirmation.
They were to leave in the morning, and Harry spent most of that
afternoon in the kitchen making pies and doughnuts, Mrs. Emery
assisting. Chub, being missed from the tennis court, was discovered
sitting on the kitchen doorsteps sampling the baking.
“How many has he had, Mrs. Emery?” Roy demanded.
“Only one or two, haven’t I, Mrs. Emery?” cried Chub.
“Well, not very many,” responded that lady smilingly.
“Chub Eaton, you’ve had four to my certain knowledge!” exclaimed
Harry, who, with a blue-checked apron tied under her chin and very
flushed cheeks, was superintending the frying of a new batch of
doughnuts.
“Then you’ve had quite enough,” said Roy firmly. “And it’s back to
tennis court for you, Chub.”
 However, they postponed the carrying out of the verdict long
enough to do some sampling themselves. “They’re perfect,” was
Dick’s verdict, “but I miss the almond flavor, Harry.” Whereupon
Harry grew very much redder and it was discovered that her mother
had never learned of her experiment in adding almond extract to the
doughnut recipe the summer before. So Chub told about it and
Harry declared that he was too mean for words and shouldn’t have
another bite of anything.
The next morning after breakfast the luggage was taken aboard,
the doctor’s being largely composed of books and papers, and at ten
o’clock all hands were at the landing, Snip being so excited that he
was obliged to bark every instant. Doctor Emery pretended that the
voyage was to last for months at least and was very solicitous as to
the state of the larder. Mrs. Emery, her sister, and John, the
gardener and general factotum, were on hand to witness the
departure and to wave good-by as the Slow Poke nosed her way free
of the landing and started off on the second stage of her voyage.
“Good-by, mama!” called Harry from the upper deck, waving a
wisp of a handkerchief frantically.
“Good-by!” called Mrs. Emery. “Don’t fall overboard!”
“I won’t,” promised Harry, earnestly.
And then caps and handkerchiefs waved busily until the Slow Poke
passed around the end of Harry’s Island and the landing disappeared
from view.
“And now,” cried Harry, ecstatically, “we’re really at sea!”
 CHAPTER XVI
UNDER THE AWNING

T hree idyllic days followed during which the Slow Poke, her white
paint freshly gleaming in the sunlight, bobbed and courtesied her
way up the long reaches of the river. It was wonderful weather for
July, pleasantly cool in the mornings and evenings and languorously
hot in the middle of the day. Chub still remained nominally master of
the ship, but to all intents and purposes the management of affairs
had passed into the small, sun-browned hands of Miss Harriet
Emery. It was Harry who ordered the lines cast off as soon as
breakfast was finished in the morning and who refused to allow
them to remain at anchor for more than the barest two hours at
dinner-time. Chub predicted sunstrokes for the whole party, but
Harry was without mercy. She was on a cruise and her idea of
cruising was to keep going. On the second evening she even insisted
that they should leave a very comfortable berth and put in two hours
of sailing by moonlight. It proved a very pleasant experience, and
every one enjoyed it until it became necessary to find a place to
spend the night. Then, as the shore was in deep shadow, they had
their own troubles with jutting rocks and submerged tree-trunks.
Doctor Emery spent most of his time on the upper deck, reading
in the numerous books he had brought; writing on square sheets of
paper, and, sometimes, sitting idly in his chair and watching the
shore slip by. But he always had a ready smile for whoever
happened by, and, on the whole, was quite the cheeriest and most
contented of any. The upper deck was a mighty comfortable place in
the middle of the day when, moored or anchored by the river bank,
they ate dinner and indulged afterward in what they called a
“siesta.” The table was set up there, and, while it was somewhat of a
trouble to bring the things up the stairs, it made a fine dining-room.
The striped awning fluttered in the breeze, the geraniums were
masses of scarlet bloom and the gaily-hued rugs added their quota
of color. There were wicker chairs for all, although Dick preferred to
lie stretched out on the deck with a cushion under his head.
Sometimes during siesta the Doctor fell frankly asleep and snored
gently, and the others talked in whispers for fear of awaking him.
But Harry was impatient of idleness, and as soon as the two hours
were up she insisted on weighing anchor.
Snip would scamper ashore whenever they touched the bank and
he had the most wonderfully exciting times of his life. He explored
every foot of the ground, pursued real and imaginary scents, and
treed mythical bears. Those three days were jolly ones, even if
nothing really happened. There was so much to talk about, so many
things to relate, that the conversation never languished for a minute.
Harry learned to steer after a fashion, learned to tell time by the
ship’s clock in the wheel-house, and helped Dick prepare the meals.
She made the beds, too, and went religiously around the rooms with
a dustcloth every morning in a vain endeavor to find dust.
But on the fourth day Harry’s mania for progress palled. It was a
gray morning, foggy and damp. Oddly enough it was the Doctor who
first voiced a desire for change.
“I wonder,” he remarked, looking at the unbroken margin of forest
which stretched along the shore, “if there is any fishing to be found
about here?”
“I think we could catch something from the tender, sir,” replied
Roy.
“I was thinking of trout,” murmured the Doctor. Chub went into
the wheel-house and consulted his map.
“There’s a good-sized stream about a mile up,” he announced.
“Let’s go and try it.”
“Oh, let’s!” cried Harry. “I never caught a trout.”
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