What Happened at Quasi: The Story of a Carolina Cruise

“By the way, Cal, you were just beginning to say something else when Larry interrupted you to ask about the Latin name of garlic. You said you were ‘just revolving.’ As you paused without any downward inflection, and as you certainly were not turning around, I suppose you meant you were just revolving something or other in your mind.”

“Your sagacity was not at fault, Tom, but my memory is. I was revolving something in my mind, some nonsense I suppose, but what it was, I am wholly unable to remember. Never mind; I’ll think of a hundred other equally foolish things to say between now and midnight, and by that time we’ll all be asleep, I suppose.”

It was entirely dark now, and Dick Wentworth lighted a lantern and hoisted it as an anchor light.

“What’s the use, Dick, away out here?” asked one of the others.

“There may be no use in it,” replied Dick, “but a good seaman never asks himself that question. He just does what the rules of navigation require, and carries a clear conscience. If a ship has to stop in mid ocean to repair her machinery even on the calmest and brightest of days when the whole horizon is clear, the captain orders the three discs set that mean ‘ship not under control.’ So we’ll let our anchor light do its duty whether there is need of it or not.”

“That’s right in principle,” said Larry, “and after all it makes no difference as that lantern hasn’t more than a spoonful of oil in it. But most accidents, as they are called – ”

Larry was not permitted to say what happened to “most accidents,” for as he spoke Tom called out:

“Hello! it’s raining!”

“Yes – sprinkling,” answered Larry, holding out his hand to feel the drops, “but it’ll be pouring in five minutes. We must hurry into our oilskins. There! the anchor light has burned out and we must fumble in the dark.”

With that he opened a receptacle and hurriedly dragged the yellow, oil-stiffened garments out, saying as he did so:

“It’s too dark to see which is whose, but we’re all about of a size and they don’t cut slickers to a very nice fit. So help yourselves and put ’em on as quickly as you can, for it’s beginning to pour down.”

The boys felt about in the dark until presently Cal called out:

“I say, fellows, I want to do some trading. I’ve got hold of three pairs of trousers and two squams, but no coat. Who wants to swap a coat for two pairs of trousers and a sou’wester?”

The exchanges were soon made and the waterproof garments donned, but not before everybody had got pretty wet, for the rain was coming down in torrents now, such as are never seen except in tropical or subtropical regions.

The hurried performance served to divert the boys’ minds and cheer their spirits for a while, but when the “slickers” were on and closely fastened up, there was nothing to do but sit down again in the dismal night and wait for the time to wear away.

“Now this is just what we needed,” said Cal, as soon as the others began to grow silent and moody.

“What, the rain?”

“Yes. It helps to occupy the mind. It gives us something to think about. It is a thing of interest. By adding to our wretchedness, it teaches us the lesson that – ”

“Oh, we don’t want any lessons, Cal; school’s out,” said Dick. “What I want to know is whether you ever saw so heavy a rain before. I never did. Why, there are no longer any drops – nothing but steady streams. Did you ever see anything like it?”

“Often, and worse,” Larry answered. “This is only an ordinary summer rain for this coast.”

“Well now, I understand – ”

“Permit me to interrupt,” broke in Cal, “long enough to suggest that the water in this boat is now half way between my ankles and my knees, and I doubt the propriety of suffering it to rise any higher. Suppose you pass the pump, Dick.”

Dick handed the pump to his companion, who was not long in clearing the boat of the water. Then Tom took it and fitfully renewed the pumping from time to time, by way of keeping her clear. After, perhaps, an hour, the rain slackened to a drizzle far more depressing to the spirits than the heavy downpour had been. The worst of the matter was that the night was an intensely warm one, and the oilskin clothing in which the boys were closely encased, was oppressive almost beyond endurance. Presently Dick began unbuttoning his.

“What are you doing, Dick? “Tom asked as he heard the rustle.

“Opening the cerements that encase my person,” Dick answered.

“But what for?”

“Why, to keep from getting too wet. In these things the sweat that flows through my skin is distinctly more dampening than the drizzling rain.”

“I’d smile at that,” said Cal, “if it were worth while, as it isn’t. We’re in the situation Charles Lamb pityingly imagined all mankind to have been during the ages before candles were invented. If we crack a joke after nightfall we must feel of our neighbor’s cheek to see if he is smiling.”

The desire for sleep was strong upon all the company, and one by one they settled themselves in the least uncomfortable positions possible under the circumstances, and became silent in the hope of catching at least a cat nap now and then. There was very little to be done in that way, for the moment one part of the body was adjusted so that nothing hurt it, a thwart or a rib, or the edge of the rail, or something else would begin “digging holes,” as Larry said, in some other part.

Cal was the first to give up the attempt to sleep. After suffering as much torture as he thought he was called upon to endure he undoubled himself and sat upright. The rest soon followed his example, and Cal thought it best to set conversation going again.

“After all,” he said meditatively, “this is precisely what we came to seek.”

“What? The wretchedness of this night? I confess I am unable to take that view of it,” answered Larry almost irritatedly.

“That is simply because your sunny temper is enshrouded in the murky gloom of the night, and your customary ardor dampened by the drizzle. You are not philosophical. You shouldn’t suffer external things to disturb your spiritual calm. It does you much harm and no manner of good. Besides, it is obvious that you judged and condemned my thought without analyzing it.”

“How is that, Cal? Tell us about it,” said Dick. “Your prosing may put us to sleep in spite of the angularity and intrusive impertinence of everything we try to rest ourselves upon. Do your own analyzing and let us have the benefit of it.”

“Oh, it’s simple enough. I indulged in the reflection that this sort of thing is precisely what we set out on this expedition to find, and it is so, if you’ll only think of it. We came in search of two things – adventure and game. Surely this mud-bank experience is an adventure, and I’m doing my best to persuade you fellows to be ‘game’ in its endurance.”

“That finishes us,” said Dick. “A pun is discouraging at all times; a poor, weak-kneed, anæmic pun like that is simply disheartening, and coming at a time of despondency like this, it reduces every fibre of character to a pulp. I feel that under its influence my back bone has been converted into guava jelly.”

“Your speech betrayeth you, Dick. I never heard you sling English more vigorously than now. And you have regained your cheerfulness too, and your capacity to take interest. Upon my word, I’ll think up another pun and hurl it at you if it is to have any such effect as that.”

“While you’re doing it,” said Larry, “I’m going to get myself out of the sweatbox I’ve been in all night. You may or may not have observed it, but the rain has ceased, and the tide has turned and if I may be permitted to quote Shakespeare, ‘The glow-worm shows the matin to be near.’ In modern phrase, day is breaking, and within about two hours the Hunkydory will be afloat again.”

With the relief of doffing the oppressive oilskins, and the rapidly coming daylight, the spirits of the little company revived, and it was almost a jolly mood in which they made their second meal on hard ship biscuit and still harder smoked bolognas.

VI

A LITTLE SPORT BY THE WAY

The day had just asserted itself when Larry, looking out upon the broad waters of a sound that lay between the dory and the point at which the dory would have been if she had not gone aground, rather gleefully said:

“We’ll be out of our trouble sooner than we hoped. The Hunkydory will float well before the full flood.”

“Why do you think so, Larry?” asked Tom, who had not yet recovered from his depression and was still blaming himself for the mishap and doubting the possibility of an escape that morning.

“I don’t think it; I know,” answered Larry, beginning to shift ballast in a way that would make backing off the mud bank easier.

“But how do you know?”

“Because there’s a high wind outside and it’s blowing on shore. Look at the white caps out there where the water is open to the sea. We’re in a sort of pocket here, and feel nothing more than a stiff breeze, but it’s blowing great guns outside, and when that happens on an incoming tide the water rises a good deal higher than usual. We’ll float before the tide is at the full.”

“In my judgment we’re afloat now,” said Dick, who had been scrutinizing the water just around them. “We’re resting on the marsh grass, that’s all.”

“So we are,” said Cal, after scanning things a bit. “Let’s get to the oars!”

“Better wait for five or ten minutes,” objected Dick. “We might foul the rudder in backing off. Then we’d be in worse trouble than we were before.”

“That’s so, Dick,” answered Cal, restraining his impatience and falling at once into his peculiarly deliberate utterance. “That is certainly so, and I have been pleased to observe, Dick, that many things you say are so.”

“Thank you for the compliment, Cal, and for what it implies to the contrary.”

“Pray don’t mention it. Take a look over the bow instead and see how she lies now.”

In spite of their banter, that last ten minutes of waiting seemed tediously long, especially to Tom, who wanted to feel the boat gliding through the water again before forgiving himself for having run her aground. At last the bow caught the force of the incoming flood, and without help from anybody the dory lifted herself out of the grass and drifted clear of the mud bank.

The centre board was quickly lowered, the sails hoisted, the burgee run up to the masthead, and, as the Hunkydory heeled over and began plowing through the water with a swish, her crew set up a shout of glee that told of young hearts glad again.

A kindly, gentle thought occurred to Dick Wentworth at that moment. It was that by way of reassuring Tom and showing him that their confidence in him was in no way shaken, they should call him to the helm at once. Dick signalled his suggestion to Larry, by nodding and pointing to Tom, whose eyes were turned away. Larry was quick to understand.

“I say, Tom,” he called out, “come to the tiller and finish your job. It’s still your turn to navigate the craft.”

Tom hesitated for a second, but only for a second. Perhaps he understood the kindly, generous meaning of the summons. However that might be, he promptly responded, and taking the helm from Larry’s hand, said, “Thank you, Larry – and all of you.”

That was all he said; indeed, it was all that he could say just then.

Suspecting something of the sort and dreading every manifestation of emotion, as boys so often do, Larry quickly diverted all minds by calling out:

“See there! Look! There’s a school of skipjacks breaking water dead ahead. Let’s have some fun trolling for them. We haven’t any appointed hours and we’re in no hurry, and trolling for skipjacks is prime sport.”

“What are they, anyhow?” asked Dick, who had become a good deal interested in the strange varieties of fish he had seen for the first time on the southern coast.

“Why, fish, of course. Did you think they were humming birds?”

“Well, I don’t know that I should have been greatly astonished if I had found them to be something of that kind. Since you introduced me to flying fish the other day, I’m prepared for anything. But what I wanted to know was what sort of fish the skipjacks are.”

“Oh, that was it? Well, they’re what you call bluefish up north, I believe. They are variously named along the coast – bluefish, jack mackerel, horse mackerel, skipfish, skipjacks, and by some other names, I believe, and they’re about as good fish to eat as any that swims in salt water, by whatever name you call them.”

“Yes, I’ve eaten them as bluefish,” answered Dick. “They’re considered a great dainty in Boston and up north generally.”

“They’re all that,” answered Larry, “and catching them is great sport besides, as you’ll agree after you’ve had an hour or so of it. We must have some bait first. Tom, run her in toward the mouth of the slough you see on her starboard bow about a mile away. See it? There, where the palmetto trees stand. That’s it. She’s heading straight at the point I mean. Run her in there and bring her head into the wind. Then we’ll find a good place and beach her, and I’ll go ashore with the cast net and get a supply of shrimps.”

“Is it a wallflower or a widow you’re talking about, Larry?” languidly asked Cal, while his brother was getting the cast net out and arranging it for use.

“What do you mean, Cal? Some pestilent nonsense, I’ll be bound.”

“Not at all,” drawled Cal. “I was chivalrously concerned for the unattached and unattended female of whom you’ve been speaking. You’ve mentioned her six times, and always without an escort.”

“Oh, I see,” answered Larry, who was always quick to catch Cal’s rather obscure jests. “Well, by the pronouns ‘she’ and ‘her,’ I meant the good ship Hunkydory. She is now nearing the shore and if you don’t busy yourself arranging trolling lines and have them ready by the time I get back on board of her with a supply of shrimps, I’ll see to it that you’re in no fit condition to get off another feeble-minded joke like that for hours to come. There, Tom, give her just a capful of wind and run her gently up that little scrap of sandy beach. No, no, don’t haul your sheet so far – ease it off a bit, or she’ll run too far up the shore. There! That’s better. The moment her nose touches let the sheet run free. Good! Dick himself couldn’t have done that better.”

With that he sprang ashore, and with the heavily leaded cast net over his arm and a galvanized iron bait pail in his hand, hurried along the bank to the mouth of the slough, where he knew there would be multitudes of shrimps gathered for purposes of feeding. After three or four casts of the net he spread it, folded, over the top of his bait bucket to keep the shrimps he had caught from jumping out. Within fifteen minutes after leaping ashore he was back on board again with a bucket full of the bait he wanted.

“Now, then,” he said to Dick and Tom, “Cal will show you how to do the thing. I’ll sail the boat back and forth through the schools, spilling wind so as to keep speed down. Oh, it’s great sport.”

“Well, you shall have your share of it then,” said Dick, carefully coiling his line. “After I’ve tried it a little, and seen what sort of sailing it needs, I’ll relieve you at the tiller and you shall take my line.”

“You’ll do nothing of the kind,” said Cal with a slower drawl than usual by way of giving emphasis to his words. “Not if I see you first. After Larry has run us through the school two or three times, missing it more than half the time, I’ll take the tiller myself and give you a real chance to hook a fish or two.”

Dick knew Cal well enough to understand that he was in earnest and that there would be no use in protesting or arguing the matter. Besides that, he hooked a big fish just at that moment, and was jerked nearly off his feet. The strength of the pull astonished him for a moment. He had never encountered a fish of any kind that could tug like that, and for the moment he forgot that the dory was doing most of the pulling. In the meanwhile he had lost his fish by holding his line too firmly and dragging the hook out of its mouth.

“That’s your first lesson,” said Cal, as deliberately as if there had been no exciting sport on hand, and with like deliberation letting his own line slip slowly through his tightened fingers. “You must do it as I am doing it now,” he continued. “You see, I have a fish at the other end of my line and I want to bring him aboard. So instead of holding as hard as a check post, I yield a little to the exigencies of the situation, letting the line slip with difficulty through my fingers at first and long enough to transmit the momentum of the boat to the fish. Then, having got his finny excellency well started in the way he should go, I encourage persistency in well doing on his part by drawing in line. Never mind your own line now. We’ve run through the school and Larry is heaving-to to let Tom and me land our fish. You observe that Tom has so far profited by his close study of my performance that – yes, he has landed the first fish, and here comes mine into the boat. You can set her going again, Larry; I won’t drag a line this time, but devote all my abilities to the instruction of Dick.”

On the next dash and the next no fish were hooked. Then, as the boat sailed through the school again, Dick landed two beauties, and Tom one.

“That ends it for to-day,” said Larry, laying the boat’s course toward the heavily wooded mainland at the point where Cal had suggested a stay of several days for shooting.

“But why not make one more try?” eagerly asked Tom, whose enthusiasm in the sport was thoroughly aroused; “haven’t we time enough?”

“Yes,” said Larry, “but we have fish enough also. The catch will last us as long as we can keep the fish fresh, which isn’t very long in this climate, and we never catch more fish or kill more game than we can dispose of. It is unsportsmanlike to do that, and it is wanton cruelty besides.”

“That’s sound, and sensible, and sportsmanlike,” said Dick, approvingly. “And besides, we really haven’t any time to spare if we’re going to stop on the island yonder for dinner, as we agreed, and – ”

“And as at least one appetite aboard the Hunkydory insists that we shall,” interrupted Cal. “It’s after three o’clock now.”

“So say we all of us,” sang Tom to the familiar after-dinner tune, and Larry shifted the course so as to head for an island nearly a mile away.

There a hasty dinner was cooked and eaten, but hasty as it was, it occupied more time in preparation than had been reckoned upon, so that it was fully five o’clock when the dory was again cast off.

In the meanwhile the wind had sunk to a mere zephyr, scarcely sufficient to give the heavy boat steerage way, and, late in the day, as it was, the sun shone with a sweltering fervor that caused the boys to look forward with dread to the prospect of having to resort to the oars.

That time came quickly, and the sails, now useless in the hot, still air, were reluctantly lowered.

A stretch of water, more than half a dozen miles in width, lay before them, and the tide was strong against them. But they pluckily plied the oars and the heavy boat slowly but surely overcame the distance.

They had found no fresh water on the island, and there was very little in the water kegs when they left it for their far-away destination. The hard work of rowing against the tide in a hot atmosphere, made them all thirsty, so that long before they reached their chosen landing place, the last drop of the water was gone, with at least two more hours of rowing in prospect.

“There’s a spring where I propose to land,” said Cal, by way of reassuring his companions. “As I remember it, the water’s a bit brackish, but it is drinkable at any rate.”

“Are you sure you can find the spot in the dark, Cal?” asked Larry, with some anxiety in his voice. “For it’ll be pitch dark before we get there.”

“Oh, yes, I can find it,” his brother answered.

“There’s a deep indentation in the coast there – an inlet, in fact, which runs several miles up through the woods. We’ll run in toward the shore presently and skirt along till we come to the mouth of the creek. I’ll find it easily enough.”

But in spite of his assurances, the boys, now severely suffering with thirst, had doubts, and to make sure, they approached the shore and insisted that Cal should place himself on the bow, where he could see the land as the boat skirted it.

This left three of them to handle four oars. One of them used a pair, in the stern rowlocks, where the width of the boat was not too great for sculls, while the other two plied each an oar amidships.

In their impatience, and tortured by thirst as they were, the three oarsmen put their backs into the rowing and maintained a stroke that sent the boat along at a greater speed than she had ever before made with the oars alone. Still it seemed to them that their progress was insufferably slow.

Presently Cal called to them: “Port – more to port – steady! there! we’re in the creek and have only to round one bend of it. Starboard! Steady! Way enough.”

A moment later the dory slid easily up a little sloping beach and rested there.

“Where’s your spring, Cal?” the whole company cried in chorus, leaping ashore.

“This way – here it is.”

The spring was a small pool, badly choked, but the boys threw themselves down and drank of it greedily. It was not until their thirst was considerably quenched that they began to observe how brackish the water was. When the matter was mentioned at last, Cal dismissed it with one of his profound discourses.

“I’ve drunk better water than that, I’ll admit; but I never drank any water that I enjoyed more.” Then he added:

“You fellows are ungrateful, illogical, unfair, altogether unreasonable. That water is so good that you never found out its badness till after it had done you a better service than any other water in the world ever did. Yet now you ungratefully revile its lately discovered badness, while omitting to remember its previously enjoyed and surpassing goodness. I am so ashamed of you that I’m going to start a fire and get supper going. I for one want some coffee, and it is going to be made of water from that spring, too. Those who object to brackish coffee will simply have to go without.”

VII

AN ENEMY IN CAMP

No sooner was the camp fire started than Cal went to the boat and brought away a piece of tarpaulin, used to protect things against rain. With this and a lighted lantern he started off through the thicket toward the mouth of the little estuary, leaving Dick to make coffee and fry fish, while Larry mixed a paste of corn meal, water and a little salt, which he meant presently to spread into thin sheets and bake in the hot embers, as soon as the fire should burn down sufficiently to make a bed of coals.

As Cal was setting out, Tom, who had no particular duty to do at the moment, asked:

“Where are you off to, Cal?”

“Come along with me and see,” Cal responded without answering the direct question. “I may need your help. Suppose you bring the big bait bucket with you. Empty the shrimps somewhere. They’re all too dead to eat, but we may need ’em for bait.”

Tom accepted the invitation and the two were quickly beyond the bend in the creek and well out of sight of the camp. As they neared the open water, Cal stopped, held the lantern high above his head, and looked about him as if in search of something. Presently he lowered the lantern, cried out, “Ah, there it is,” and strode on rapidly through the dense undergrowth.

Tom had no time to ask questions. He had enough to do to follow his long-legged companion.

After a brief struggle with vines and undergrowths of every kind, the pair came out upon a little sandy beach with a large oyster bank behind it, and Tom had no further need to ask questions, for Cal spread the tarpaulin out flat upon the sands, and both boys began gathering oysters, not from the solid bank where thousands of them had their shells tightly welded together, but from the water’s edge, and even from the water itself wherever it did not exceed a foot or so in depth. Cal explained that these submerged oysters, being nearly all the time under salt water, and growing singly, or nearly so, were far fatter and better than those in the bank or near its foot.

It did not take long to gather quite as many of the fat bivalves as the two could conveniently carry in the tarpaulin and the bait pail, and as Cal was tying up the corners of the cloth Tom began scrutinizing the sandy beach at a point which the ordinary tides did not reach. As he did so he observed a queer depression in the sand and asked Cal to come and see what it meant.