第7章

Ralph was not a romanticist.He was a born leader,excelling at organized games,exercising over boys the sort of fascination that comes from doing everything better and more easily than others.It was only during the progress of such enterprises as this affair of the Petrel that I succeeded in winning their allegiance;bit by bit,as Tom's had been won,fanning their enthusiasm by impersonating at once Achilles and Homer,recruiting while relating the Odyssey of the expedition in glowing colours.Ralph always scoffed,and when I had no scheme on foot they went back to him.Having surveyed the boat and predicted calamity,he departed,leaving a circle of quaint and youthful figures around the Petrel in the shed:Gene Hollister,romantically inclined,yet somewhat hampered by a strict parental supervision;Ralph's cousin Ham Durrett,who was even then a rather fat boy,good-natured but selfish;Don and Harry Ewan,my second cousins;Mac and Nancy Willett and Sam and Sophy McAlery.Nancy was a tomboy,not to be denied,and Sophy her shadow.We held a council,the all-important question of which was how to get the Petrel to the water,and what water to get her to.The river was not to be thought of,and Blackstone Lake some six miles from town.Finally,Logan's mill-pond was decided on,--a muddy sheet on the outskirts of the city.But how to get her to Logan's mill-pond?Cephas was at length consulted.It turned out that he had a coloured friend who went by the impressive name of Thomas Jefferson Taliaferro (pronounced Tolliver),who was in the express business;and who,after surveying the boat with some misgivings,--for she was ten feet long,--finally consented to transport her to "tide-water"for the sum of two dollars.But it proved that our combined resources only amounted to a dollar and seventy-five cents.Ham Durrett never contributed to anything.On this sum Thomas Jefferson compromised.

Saturday dawned clear,with a stiff March wind catching up the dust into eddies and whirling it down the street.No sooner was my father safely on his way to his office than Thomas Jefferson was reported to be in the alley,where we assembled,surveying with some misgivings Thomas Jefferson's steed,whose ability to haul the Petrel two miles seemed somewhat doubtful.Other difficulties developed;the door in the back of the shed proved to be too narrow for our ship's beam.But men embarked on a desperate enterprise are not to be stopped by such trifles,and the problem was solved by sawing out two adjoining boards.These were afterwards replaced with skill by the ship's carpenter,Able Seaman Grits Jarvis.Then the Petrel by heroic efforts was got into the wagon,the seat of which had been removed,old Thomas Jefferson perched himself precariously in the bow and protestingly gathered up his rope-patched reins.

"Folks'll 'low I'se plum crazy,drivin'dis yere boat,"he declared,observing with concern that some four feet of the stern projected over the tail-board."Ef she topples,I'll git to heaven quicker'n a bullet."When one is shanghaied,however,--in the hands of buccaneers,--it is too late to withdraw.Six shoulders upheld the rear end of the Petrel,others shoved,and Thomas Jefferson's rickety horse began to move forward in spite of himself.An expression of sheer terror might have been observed on the old negro's crinkled face,but his voice was drowned,and we swept out of the alley.Scarcely had we travelled a block before we began to be joined by all the boys along the line of march;marbles,tops,and even incipient baseball games were abandoned that Saturday morning;people ran out of their houses,teamsters halted their carts.

The breathless excitement,the exaltation I had felt on leaving the alley were now tinged with other feelings,unanticipated,but not wholly lacking in delectable quality,--concern and awe at these unforeseen forces I had raised,at this ever growing and enthusiastic body of volunteers springing up like dragon's teeth in our path.After all,was not I the hero of this triumphal procession?The thought was consoling,exhilarating.And here was Nancy marching at my side,a little subdued,perhaps,but unquestionably admiring and realizing that it was I who had created all this.Nancy,who was the aptest of pupils,the most loyal of followers,though I did not yet value her devotion at its real worth,because she was a girl.Her imagination kindled at my touch.And on this eventful occasion she carried in her arms a parcel,the contents of which were unknown to all but ourselves.At length we reached the muddy shores of Logan's pond,where two score eager hands volunteered to assist the Petrel into her native element.

Alas!that the reality never attains to the vision.I had beheld,in my dreams,the Petrel about to take the water,and Nancy Willett standing very straight making a little speech and crashing a bottle of wine across the bows.This was the content of the mysterious parcel;she had stolen it from her father's cellar.But the number of uninvited spectators,which had not been foreseen,considerably modified the programme,--as the newspapers would have said.They pushed and crowded around the ship,and made frank and even brutal remarks as to her seaworthiness;even Nancy,inured though she was to the masculine sex,had fled to the heights,and it looked at this supreme moment as though we should have to fight for the Petrel.An attempt to muster her doughty buccaneers failed;the gunner too had fled,--Gene Hollister;Ham Durrett and the Ewanses were nowhere to be seen,and a muster revealed only Tom,the fidus Achates,and Grits Jarvis.