What Happened at Quasi: The Story of a Carolina Cruise. Eggleston George Cary
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.”
“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