"It was naughty for _us_ to come," thought she, anxious to divide the sin with her companions; "_we_ ought to have minded our mothers."
If the sky had continued fair, it may be Dotty would not have felt so guilty, though you and I know the weather had nothing to do with the sin; disobedience is disobedience always, whether it rains or shines.
The little Jewess grew very pale, said she was dizzy, and wished to change places with Dotty.
"Keep still, can"t you, girls?" cried Johnny; "if you fuss round so the boat"ll be sure to upset."
Johnny looked as dignified as if he had navigated ships across the Atlantic Ocean over and over again; but then, alas! his arms were so little! I suppose his paddle had nearly as much effect as if it had been an iron spoon; and he probably knew as much about boating as he did about the dead languages. Solly and Freddy were several years older, and considerably wiser; but the wisdom of all these five children, if it had been compounded together, would not have amounted to the wisdom of the three wise men of Gotham who went to sea in a bowl.
"O, dear!" screamed Dotty.
"O, dear! dear! _dear!_" cried Lina; "the water rolls in over the top!"
"Can"t you steer for the sh.o.r.e, Solly Rosenbug?" said Dotty.
"You hadn"t oughter made us come," sobbed Lina.
Johnny joined the mournful chorus.
"There goes my hat! You were in pretty business knocking it off my head, Dot Dimple!"
"I never; and I didn"t mean to," replied Dotty, too much subdued to retort with her usual spirit.
"Fish it out with the paddle," remarked Solly, coolly.
This was intended as a joke, for the hat was already bounding far, far away over the waste of waters. Dotty knew she should always be accused of losing it, though in her secret soul she was sure the wind had blown it off. But a new hat, as we all know, is a mere trifle when we have gone to sea in a bowl! The first thing we think of is how to get home.
"Ahem!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Solly, at last, "if you are really afraid, Lina, I suppose we"d better go ash.o.r.e!"
Lina clapped her hands. "O, do! do! do!"
"Yes, indeed," said Dotty; "and, Solly, don"t you b.u.mp _too_ hard against the sh.o.r.e, "cause "twould spill us out."
It was very easy to talk about touching the sh.o.r.e: all the difficulty lay in being able to do it. Not that it was so very distant; indeed, it was in full sight, "so near, and yet so far!" If the wind had only been quiet, instead of "cracking its cheeks!" But, as it was, the boat rocked fearfully, and seemed to be blowing directly away from the land.
Solly and the deaf and dumb boy looked at each other with eyes which seemed to say,--
"The thing is coming to a pretty pa.s.s! Only you and I to manage this craft, and we neither of us know what we are about! But we"ll keep a stiff upper lip, and make believe we do!"
"Why, Solly Rosenbug!" said Dotty, catching her breath, "you"re going just the other way!"
"O, Solly Rosenberg," echoed Lina, "you"re going the wrong way! There"s the sh.o.r.e, off there!"
"Well, well," said Solly, his "stiff upper lip" very white, "we"re coming round to it after a while: you just sit still."
"Yes," said Johnny, puffing very hard, and churning the foam with his paddle, as if he were whipping eggs with a beater, "yes, girls, _we_ shall row round to it after a while, _if_ you"ll only keep still!"
I dare say Johnny thought the most of this commotion was made by his paddle. He was quite as consequential, in his way, as the fly who sat on a wagon-wheel, and said to the wagon, as it rattled down hill, "What a noise we make!"
"We wouldn"t put for the sh.o.r.e at all," continued Johnny, "if it wasn"t for you girls."
At that moment a remarkably high wave leaped over the side of the boat, and wet Johnny to the skin.
"Just enough wind to make it pleasant!" gasped the little fellow.
"O, dear! O, dear!" sighed the girls, in despair.
"Ugh! how my arms ache!" groaned Johnny, stopping to rub them. "Guess I wouldn"t say much if I was nothing but a girl, and didn"t have to paddle!"
"O, you needn"t fuss with that paddle any longer, Johnny Eastman," said Solly, who had hitherto paid no heed to the little boy"s vigorous but useless struggles; "you just drop it; it doesn"t amount to anything."
"What! what!" cried Johnny, looking very much insulted. "How are you ever going to get ash.o.r.e without ME, I"d like to know?"
All this while the boys were growing crimson in the face from the gigantic efforts they made, and the girls very pale with fright. Solly kept repeating,--
"Don"t you be afraid, girls!" but his voice faltered as he said it; and as for Freddy Jackson, the trembling of his mute lips was as eloquent as speech. The two boys might put on what bl.u.s.tering airs they pleased--it all amounted to nothing; there was more power in the wind than in the muscles of their small arms. The boat would not go near the sh.o.r.e: anywhere else but there. The sky grew more and more threatening, and the wind increased in force.
"We"re going to be drow--drow--drownded!" screamed Dotty; "and I told you so: I knew it before! O, if Susy was here with a shingle!"
"We"re going to be drownded!" cried Lina; "and, Solly Rosenberg, you hadn"t oughter made me come!"
"And you told an awful, wicked story," struck in Dotty, "for, Solly Rosenberg, you said you"s old enough to row, and you"re nowhere near old enough; and, O! O! O! you don"t know how. And I"ll tell my father!
And he"ll never know where I am! And my mother"s gone away to aunt Maria Clifford"s, and I"m going to be dead when she gets back! And you won"t _try_ to row! _Susy_ could row if she was here, and had a shingle. But Susy isn"t here, and hasn"t any shingle! O! O!"
All these sentences Dotty thrust out, one after another, having little idea what she said, only conscious of an overwhelming terror and an impulse to keep talking.
Suddenly poor Solly Rosenberg dropped his oar, exclaiming,--
"There, it"s of no use; my arms are giving out!"
Freddy Jackson held out a few moments longer, then dropped his oar also, with a look of utter hopelessness.
[Ill.u.s.tration: IN THE BOAT. Page 93.]
"Why don"t you keep a pullin", boys?" said Johnny, dipping in his useless little paddle.
The boat whirled about like an egg-sh.e.l.l, completely at the mercy of the waves. If your papa and mamma had seen it, they would have said there was the last of Dotty Dimple. But, on second thought, you may be sure it was not the last of her; for if she was going to be drowned in the sixth chapter, I should never have written this book.
It was a wonderful mercy that the five rash children _were_ spared; but life is full of just such mercies; and of course I knew all the while what was coming, or I could not have written so cheerfully.
_What_ was coming?
"I see something," shouted Dotty, "ever so far off! It isn"t a gull!"
"It"s a sail! a sail!" cried Solly, and took to his oars again.
"A sail! a sail!" thought Freddy Jackson, though he could not say it; and he steered once more, with courage renewed; though, as to that matter, it would have been just as well if they had kept still.