What Happened at Quasi: The Story of a Carolina Cruise

“By the way, the shooting ought to be good at Quasi – the place has run wild for so long and is so inaccessible to casual sportsmen. If the rest of you agree, we’ll make our way down there with no long stops as we go. Then we can take our time coming back.”

The others agreed, and after a little Dick Wentworth, who had remained silent for a time, turned to Larry, saying:

“Why did you say it wasn’t much of a story, Larry?”

III

A PROGRAMME – SUBJECT TO CIRCUMSTANCES

The Hunkydory was an unusually large boat for a craft of that kind. She was about twenty-five feet long, very wide amidships – as dories always are – and capable of carrying a heavy load without much increase in her draught of water. She was built of white cedar with a stout oak frame, fastened with copper bolts and rivets, and fitted with capacious, water-tight lockers at bow and stern, with narrower lockers running along her sides at the bilge, for use in carrying tools and the like.

She carried a broad mainsail and a large jib, and had rowlocks for four pairs of oars. Sitting on the forward or after rowing thwart, where she was narrow enough for sculls, one person could row her at a fair rate of speed, so little resistance did her peculiar shape offer to the water. With two pairs of oars, or better still, with all the rowlocks in use, she seemed to offer no resistance at all.

It was the plan of the boys to depend upon the sails whenever there was wind enough to make any progress at all, and ply the oars only when a calm compelled them to do so.

“We’re in no sort of hurry,” explained Larry, “and it really makes no difference whether we run one mile an hour or ten. There aren’t any trains to catch down where we are going.”

“Just where are we going, Larry,” asked Dick. “We’ve never talked that over, except in the vaguest way.”

“Show the boys, Cal,” said Larry, turning to his brother. “You’re better at coast geography than I am.”

“Hydrography would be the more accurate word in this case,” slowly answered Cal, “but it makes no difference.”

With that he lighted three or four more gas burners, and spread a large map of the coast upon the table.

“Now let me invoke your earnest attention, young gentlemen,” he began. “That’s the way the lecturers always introduce their talks, isn’t it? You see before you a somewhat detailed map of the coast and its waterways from Charleston, south to Brunswick, Georgia. It is grossly inaccurate in some particulars and slightly but annoyingly so in others! Fortunately your lecturer is possessed of a large and entirely trustworthy fund of information, the garnerings, as it were, of prolonged and repeated personal observation. He will be able to correct the errors of the cartographer as he proceeds.

“We will take the Rutledge boathouse on the Ashley River near the foot of Spring Street as our point of departure, if you please. Enteuthen exelauni– pardon the lapse into Xenophontic Greek – I mean thence we shall sail across the Ashley to the mouth of Wappoo Creek which, as you see by the map, extends from Charleston Harbor to Stono Inlet or river, separating James Island from the main. Thence we shall proceed up Stono River, past John’s Island, and having thus disposed of James and John – familiar characters in that well-remembered work of fiction, the First Reader – we shall enter the so called North Edisto River, which is, in fact, an inlet or estuary, and sail up until we reach the point where the real Edisto River empties itself. Thence we shall proceed down the inlet known as South Edisto River round Edisto Island, and, by a little detour into the outside sea, pass into St. Helena Sound. From that point on we shall have a tangled network of big and little waterways to choose among, and we’ll run up and down as many of them as tempt us with the promise of sport or adventure. We shall pass our nights ashore, and most of our days also, for that matter. Wherever we camp we will remain as long as we like. That is the programme. Like the prices in a grocer’s catalogue and the schedules of a railway, it is ‘subject to change without notice.’ That is to say, accident and unforeseen circumstances may interfere with it at any time.”

“Yes, and we may ourselves change it,” said Larry. “Indeed, I propose one change in it to start with.”

“What is it?” asked the others in chorus.

“Simply that we sail down the harbor first to give Dick and Tom a glimpse of the points of interest there. We’ll load the boat first and then, when we’ve made the circuit of the bay, we needn’t come back to the boat house, but can go on down Wappoo cut.”

The plan commended itself and was adopted, and as soon as the Hunkydory’s seams were sufficiently soaked the boat was put in readiness. There was not much cargo to be carried, as the boys intended to depend mainly upon their guns and fishing tackle for food supplies. A side of bacon, a water-tight firkin of rice, a box of salt, another of coffee, a tin coffee-pot, and a few other cooking utensils were about all. The tools and lanterns were snuggled into the places prepared for them, an abundance of rope was bestowed, and the guns, ammunition and fishing tackle completed the outfit. Each member of the little company carried a large, well-stocked, damp-proof box of matches in his pocket, and each had a large clasp knife. There were no forks or plates, but the boat herself was well supplied with agate iron drinking cups.

It was well after dark when the loading was finished and the boat in readiness to begin her voyage. It was planned to set sail at sunrise, and so the crew went early to the joggling boards for a night’s rest in the breezy veranda.

“We’ll start if there’s a wind,” said Cal.

“We’ll start anyhow, wind or no wind,” answered Larry.

“Of course we will,” said Cal. “But you used the term ‘set sail.’ I object to it as an attempt to describe or characterize the process of making a start with the oars.”

“Be quiet, Cal, will you?” interjected Dick. “I was just falling into a doze when you punched me in the ribs with that criticism.”

IV

TOM FIGHTS IT OUT

Fortunately there was a breeze, rather light but sufficient, when the sun rose next morning. The Hunkydory was cast off and, with Cal at the tiller, her sails filled, she heeled over and “slid on her side,” as Tom described it, out of the Ashley River and on down the harbor where the wind was so much fresher that all the ship’s company had to brace themselves up against the windward gunwale, making live ballast of themselves.

The course was a frequently changing one, because the Rutledge boys wanted their guests to pass near all the points of interest, and also because they wanted Dick Wentworth, who was the most expert sailor in the company, to study the boat’s sailing peculiarities. To that end Dick went to the helm as soon as the wind freshened, and while following in a general way the sight-seeing course suggested by the Rutledges, he made many brief departures from it in order to test this or that peculiarity of the boat, for, as Larry explained to Tom, “Every sailing craft has ways of her own, and you want to know what they are.”

After an hour of experiment, Dick said:

“We’ll have to get some sand bags somewhere. We need more ballast, especially around the mast. As she is, she shakes her head too much and is inclined to slew off to leeward.”

“Let me take the tiller, then, and we’ll get what we need,” answered Larry, going to the helm.

“Where?”

“At Fort Sumter. I know the officer in command there – in fact, he’s an intimate friend of our family, – and he’ll provide us with what we need. How much do you think?”

“About three hundred pounds – in fifty pound bags for distribution. Two hundred might do, but three hundred won’t be too much, I think, and if it is we can empty out the surplus.”

“How on earth can you tell a thing like that by mere guess work, Dick?” queried Tom in astonishment.

“It isn’t mere guess work,” said Dick. “In fact, it isn’t guess work at all.”

“What is it, then?”

“Experience and observation. You see, I’ve sailed many dories, Tom, and I’ve studied the behavior of boats under mighty good sea schoolmasters – the Gloucester fishermen – and so with a little feeling of a boat in a wind I can judge pretty accurately what she needs in the way of ballast, just as anybody who has sailed a boat much, can judge how much wind to take and how much to spill.”

“I’d like to learn something about sailing if I could,” said Tom.

“You can and you shall,” broke in Cal. “Dick will teach you on this trip, and Larry and I will act as his subordinate instructors, so that before we get back from our wanderings you shall know how to handle a boat as well as we do; that is to say, if you don’t manage to send us all to Davy Jones during your apprenticeship. There’s a chance of that, but we’ll take the risk.”

“Yes, and there’s no better time to begin than right now,” said Dick. “That’s a ticklish landing Larry is about to make at Fort Sumter. Watch it closely and see just how he does it. Making a landing is the most difficult and dangerous thing one has to do in sailing.”

“Yes,” said Cal; “it’s like leaving off when you find you’re talking too much. It’s hard to do.”

The little company tarried at the fort only long enough for the soldiers to make and fill six canvas sand bags. When they were afloat again and Dick had tested the bestowal of the ballast, he suggested that Tom should take his first lesson at the tiller. Sitting close beside him, the more expert youth directed him minutely until, after perhaps an hour of instruction, during which Dick so chose his courses as to give the novice both windward work and running to do, Tom could really make a fair showing in handling the sails and the rudder. He was still a trifle clumsy at the work and often somewhat unready and uncertain in his movements, but Dick pronounced him an apt scholar, and predicted his quick success in learning the art.

They were nearing the mouth of the harbor when Dick deemed it best to suspend the lesson and handle the boat himself. The wind had freshened still further, and a lumpy sea was coming in over the bar, so that while there was no danger to a boat properly handled, a little clumsiness might easily work mischief.

The boys were delighted with the behavior of the craft and were gleefully commenting on it when Larry observed that Tom, instead of bracing himself against the gunwale, was sitting limply on the bottom, with a face as white as the newly made sail.

“I say, boys, Tom’s seasick,” he called out. “We’d better put about and run in under the lee of Morris Island.”

“No, don’t,” answered Tom, feebly. “I’m not going to be a spoil-sport, and I’ll fight this thing out. If I could only throw up my boots, I’d be all right. I’m sure it’s my boots that sit so heavily on my stomach.”

“Good for you, Tom,” said Larry, “but we’ll run into stiller waters anyhow. We don’t want you to suffer. If you were rid of this, I’d – ”

He hesitated, and didn’t finish his sentence.

“What is it you’d do if I weren’t playing the baby this way?”

“Oh, it’s all right.”

“No, it isn’t,” protested Tom, feeling his seasickness less because of his determination to contest the point. “What is it you’d do? You shall do it anyhow. If you don’t, I’ll jump overboard. I tell you I’m no spoil-sport and I’m no whining baby to be coddled either. Tell me what you had in mind.”

“Oh, it was only a sudden thought, and probably a foolish one. I was seized with an insane desire to give the Hunkydory a fair chance to show what stuff she’s made of by running outside down the coast to the mouth of Stono Inlet, instead of going back and making our way through Wappoo creek.”

“Do it! Do it!” cried Tom, dragging himself up to his former posture. “If you don’t do it I’ll quit the expedition and go home to be put into pinafores again.”

“You’re a brick, Tom, and you shan’t be humiliated. We’ll make the outside trip. It won’t take very long, and maybe you’ll get over the worst of your sickness when we get outside.”

“If I don’t I’ll just grin and bear it,” answered Tom resolutely.

As the boat cleared the harbor and headed south, the sea grew much calmer, though the breeze continued as before. It was the choking of the channel that had made the water so “lumpy” at the harbor’s mouth. Tom was the first to observe the relief, and before the dory slipped into the calm waters of Stono Inlet he had only a trifling nausea to remind him of his suffering.

“This is the fulfillment of prophecy number one,” he said to Cal, while they were yet outside.

“What is?”

“Why this way of getting into Stono Inlet. You said our programme was likely to be ‘changed without notice,’ and this is the first change. You know it’s nearly always so. People very rarely carry out their plans exactly.”

“I suppose not,” interrupted Larry as the Stono entrance was made, “but I’ve a plan in mind that we’ll carry out just as I’ve made it, and that not very long hence, either.”

“What is it, Larry?”

“Why to pick out a fit place for landing, go ashore, build a fire, and have supper. Does it occur to you that we had breakfast at daylight and that we’ve not had a bite to eat since, though it is nearly sunset?”

As he spoke, a bend of the shore line cut off what little breeze there was, the sail flapped and the dory moved only with the tide.

“Lower away the sail,” he called to Cal and Dick, at the same time hauling the boom inboard. “We must use the oars in making a landing, and I see the place. We’ll camp for the night on the bluff just ahead.”

“Bluff?” asked Tom, scanning the shore. “I don’t see any bluff.”

“Why there – straight ahead, and not five hundred yards away.”

“Do you call that a bluff? Why, it isn’t three feet higher than the low-lying land all around it.”

“After you’ve been a month on this coast,” said Cal, pulling at an oar, “you’ll learn that after all, terms are purely relative as expressions of human thought. We call that a bluff because it fronts the water and is three feet higher than the general lay of the land. There aren’t many places down here that can boast so great a superiority to their surroundings. An elevation of ten feet we’d call high. It is all comparative.”

“Well, my appetite isn’t comparative, at any rate,” said Tom. “It’s both positive and superlative.”

“The usual sequel to an attack of seasickness, and I assure you – ”

Cal never finished his assurance, whatever it was, for at that moment the boat made her landing, and Larry, who acted as commander of the expedition, quickly had everybody at work. The boat was to be secured so that the rise and fall of the tide would do her no harm; wood was to be gathered, a fire built and coffee made.

“And I am going out to see if I can’t get a few squirrels for supper, while you fellows get some oysters and catch a few crabs if you can. Oh, no, that’s too slow work. Take the cast net, Cal, and get a gallon or so of shrimps, in case I don’t find any squirrels.”

“I can save you some trouble and disappointment on that score,” said Cal, “by telling you now that you’ll get no squirrels and no game of any other kind, unless perhaps you sprain your ankle or something and get a game leg.”

“But why not? How do you know?”

“We’re too close to Charleston. The pot-hunters haven’t left so much as a ground squirrel in these woods. I have been all over them and so I know. Better take the cartridges out of your gun and try for some fish. The tide’s right and you’ve an hour to do it in.”

Larry accepted the suggestion, and rowing the dory to a promising spot, secured a dozen whiting within half the time at disposal.

Supper was eaten with that keen enjoyment which only a camping meal ever gives, and with a crackling fire to stir enthusiasm, the boys sat for hours telling stories and listening to Dick’s account of his fishing trips along the northern shores, and his one summer’s camping in the Maine woods.

V

A RATHER BAD NIGHT

During the next two or three days the expedition worked its way through the tangled maze of big and little waterways, stopping only at night, in order that they might the sooner reach a point where game was plentiful.

At last Cal, who knew more about the matter than any one else in the party, pointed out a vast forest-covered region that lay ahead, with a broad stretch of water between.

“We’ll camp there for a day or two,” he said, “and get something besides sea food to eat. There are deer there and wild turkeys, and game birds, while squirrels and the like literally abound. I’ve hunted there for a week at a time. It’s only about six miles from here, and there’s a good breeze. We can easily make the run before night.”

Tom, who had by that time learned to handle the boat fairly well for a novice, was at the tiller, and the others, a trifle too confident of his skill perhaps, were paying scant attention to what he was doing. The stretch of water they had to cross was generally deep, as the chart showed, but there were a few shoals and mud banks to be avoided. While the boys were eagerly listening to Cal’s description of the hunting grounds ahead, the boat was speeding rapidly, with the sail trimmed nearly flat, when there came a sudden flaw in the wind and Tom, in his nervous anxiety to meet the difficulty managed to put the helm the wrong way. A second later the dory was pushing her way through mud and submerged marsh grass. Tom’s error had driven her, head on, upon one of the grass covered mud banks.

Dick was instantly at work. Without waiting to haul the boom inboard, he let go the throat and peak halyards, and the sails ran down while the outer end of the boom buried itself in the mud.

“Now haul in the boom,” he said.

“Why didn’t you wait and do that first?” asked Tom, who was half out of his wits with chagrin over his blunder.

“Because, with the centre board up, if we’d hauled it in against the wind the boat would have rolled over and we should all have been floundering.”

“But the centre board was down,” answered Tom.

“Look at it,” said Cal. “Doubtless it was down when we struck, but as we slid up into the grass it was shut up like a jackknife.”

“Stop talking,” commanded Larry, “and get to the oars. It’s now or never. If we don’t get clear of this within five minutes we’ll have to lie here all night. The tide is just past full flood and the depth will grow less every minute. Now then! All together and back her out of this!”

With all their might the four boys backed with the oars, but the boat refused to move. Dick shifted the ballast a little and they made another effort, with no result except that Tom, in his well-nigh insane eagerness to repair the damage done, managed to break an oar.

“It’s no use, fellows,” said Larry. “You might as well ship your oars. We’re stuck for all night and must make the best of the situation.”

“Can’t we get out and push her off?” asked Tom in desperation.

“No. We’ve no bottom to stand on. The mud is too soft.”

“That’s one disadvantage in a dory,” said Dick, settling himself on a thwart. “If we had a keel under us, we could have worked her free with the oars.”

“If, yes, and perhaps,” broke in Cal, who was disposed to be cheerfully philosophical under all circumstances. “What’s the use in iffing, yessing and perhapsing? We’re unfortunate in being stuck on a mud bank for the night, but stuck we are and there’s an end of that. We can’t make the matter better by wishing, or regretting, or bemoaning our fate, or making ourselves miserable in any other of the many ways that evil ingenuity has devised for the needless chastisement of the spirit. Let us ‘look forward not back, up and not down, out and not in,’ as Dr. Hale puts it. Instead of thinking how much happier we might be if we were spinning along over the water, let us think how much happier we shall be when we get out of this and set sail again. By the way, what have we on board that we can eat before the shades of night begin falling fast?”

“Well, if you will ‘look forward,’ as you’ve advised us all to do,” said Dick Wentworth, “by which I mean if you will explore the forward locker, you’ll find there a ten-pound can of sea biscuit, and half a dozen gnarled and twisted bologna sausages of the imported variety, warranted to keep in any climate and entirely capable of putting a strain upon the digestion of an ostrich accustomed to dine on tenpenny nails and the fragments of broken beer bottles.”

“Where on earth did they come from?” asked Larry. “I superintended the lading of the boat – ”

“Yes, I know you did, and I watched you. I observed that you had made no provision for shipwreck and so I surreptitiously purchased and bestowed these provisions myself. The old tars at Gloucester deeply impressed it upon my mind that it is never safe to venture upon salt water without a reserve supply of imperishable provisions to fall back upon in case of accidents like this.”

“This isn’t an accident,” said Tom, who had been silent for an unusual time; “it isn’t an accident; it’s the result of my stupidity and nothing else, and I can never – ”

“Now stop that, Tom!” commanded Cal; “stop it quick, or you’ll meet with the accident of being chucked overboard. This was a mishap that might occur to anyone, and if there was any fault in the case every one of us is as much to blame as you are. You don’t profess to be an expert sailor, and we know it. We ought some of us to have helped you by observing things. Now quit blaming yourself, quit worrying and get to work chewing bologna.”

“Thank you, Cal,” was all that Tom could say in reply, and all set to work on what Dick called their “frugal meal,” adding:

“That phrase used to fool me. I found it in Sunday School books, where some Scotch cotter and his interesting family sat down to eat scones or porridge, and I thought it suggestive of something particularly good to eat. Having the chronically unsatisfied appetite of a growing boy, the thing made me hungry.”

“This bologna isn’t a bit bad after you’ve chewed enough of the dry out of it to get the taste,” said Larry, cutting off several slices of the smoke-hardened sausage.

“No,” said Dick, “it isn’t bad; but I judge from results that the Dutchman who made it had rather an exalted opinion of garlic as a flavoring.”

“Yes,” Cal answered, speaking slowly after his habit, “the thing is thoroughly impregnated with the flavor and odor of the allium sativum, and I was just revolving – ”

“What’s that, Cal?” asked Larry, interrupting.

“What’s what?”

“Why, allium something or other – the thing you mentioned.”

“Oh, you mean allium sativum? Why, that is the botanical name of the cultivated garlic plant, you ignoramus.”

“Well, how did you come to know that? You never studied botany.”

“No, of course not. I’ll put myself to the trouble of explaining a matter which would be obvious enough to you if you gave it proper thought. I found the term in the dictionary a month or so ago when you and I had some discussion as to the relationship between the garlic and the onion. I may have been positive in such assertions as I found it necessary to make in maintaining my side of the argument; doubtless I was so; but I was not sufficiently confident of the soundness of my views to make an open appeal to the dictionary. I consulted it secretly, surreptitiously, meaning to fling it at your head if I found that it sustained my contentions. As I found that it was strongly prejudiced on your side, I refrained from dragging it into the discussion. But I learned from it that garlic is allium sativum, and I made up my mind to floor you with that morsel of erudition at the first opportunity. This is it.”

“This is what?”

“Why, the first opportunity, to be sure. I’m glad it came now instead of at some other time.”

“Why, Cal?”

“Why because we have about eleven hours of tedious waiting time before us and must get rid of it in the best way we can. I’ve managed to wear away several minutes of it by talking cheerful nonsense and spreading it out over as many words as I could. I’ve noticed that chatter helps mightily to pass away a tedious waiting time, and I’m profoundly convinced that the very worst thing one can do in a case like ours is to stretch the time out by grumbling and fretting. If ever I’m sentenced to be hanged, I shall pass my last night pouring forth drivelling idiocy, just by way of getting through what I suppose must be rather a trying time to a condemned man.”