"That"s the yacht," yelled Burnett, "that white one with the black smoke coming out and the sail up."
"What are they getting up steam for?" asked Clover. "The time to get up steam is when you get down sails generally."
"They aren"t getting up steam," said Mitch.e.l.l, "they"re getting up dinner.
It looks like a lot of smoke because of the shadow on the sail. And, speaking of getting up dinner, reminds me that the topic before us now is, how in thunder are we to get up Aunt Mary?"
"Put a rope around her and board her as if she was a cavalry horse,"
suggested Burnett.
"I scorn the suggestion," said their host; "if the worst comes to the worst I can give her a back up, but I trust that Aunt Mary will rise to the heights of the sail and the situation all at once and not make me do any vertebratical stunts so early in the day."
They were running alongside of "Lady Belle" as he spoke, and the first thing Aunt Mary knew she and her party were attached to the former by some mysterious and not altogether solid connection.
"What do we do now?" she asked uneasily.
"I"ll show you," laughed Burnett, and seizing two flapping ropes he went skipping up a sort of stepladder and sprang upon the deck above.
Aunt Mary started to emulate his prowess and stood up at once. But the next second she sat down extremely hard without knowing why she had done so.
"Hold on, Miss Watkins," Mitch.e.l.l cried hastily; "just you hold on until I give you something to hold on to, and when you"ve got something to hold on to, please keep holding on to it, until I tell you that the hour has come in which to let go again."
"I didn"t quite catch that," said Aunt Mary, "but I"m ready to do anythin"
you say if you only-" and again she sprang up and again was thrown down as hard as before.
"Look out," cried Jack, springing to her side; and he got hold of his valuable relative and held her fast while Mitch.e.l.l grasped the ladder and a sailor strove to keep the launch still.
"Now, Aunt Mary," cried the nephew, "hang on to me and hang on to those ropes and remember I"m right back of you-"
"My Lord alive," cried Aunt Mary, turning her gaze upwards, "am I expected to go alone all that way to the top?"
"It"ll pay you to keep on to the top," screamed Clover; "you"ll have, comparatively speaking, very little fun if you hang on to the ladder all day-and you"ll get so wet too."
"There"s more room at the top," cried Mitch.e.l.l, "there"s always room at the top, Miss Watkins. Put yourself in the place of any young man entering a profession and struggle bravely upwards, bearing ever in-"
"Oh, I never can," said Aunt Mary, recoiling abruptly; "I never could climb trees when I was little-I never had no grip in my legs-and I just know I can"t. It"s too high. An" it looks slippery. An" I don"t want to, anyhow."
"What rot!" yelled Jack, "the very idea! Why, Aunt Mary, you know you can skin up there just like a cat if you only make up your mind to it. Here, Mitch.e.l.l, give her a boost and I"ll plant her feet firmly. Now-have you got hold of the ropes, Aunt Mary?"
"Oh, mercy-on-me!" wailed Aunt Mary, "the yacht is turnin" a-round an" the harder I pull the faster it turns."
"Catch her from above, Burr," Clover called excitedly; "hook her with anything if you can"t reach her with your hand."
"Oh, my cap!" shrieked poor Aunt Mary, and the cap went off and she went on up and was landed safe above.
"How on the chart do you suppose we"ll ever unload her?" Jack asked, wide-eyed, as he swung himself quickly after her.
"What man hath done man can do," quoted Mitch.e.l.l sententiously, following his lead.
"But no man ever unloaded Aunt Mary," Clover reminded him, as they brought up the rear.
Then they were all on deck, a chair was brought for the honored guest, and Mitch.e.l.l introduced his sailing-master who had been drawn to gaze upon the rather novel manner in which she had been brought aboard.
"I want Miss Watkins to have the sail of her life, Renfew," said Mitch.e.l.l.
"We aren"t coming back until night."
"We"ll have sail enough sure, sir," said Renfew, touching his cap, and then he walked away and the work of starting off began. A tug had been engaged to tow them out into the breeze and Jack thought it would be nice to show Aunt Mary around while they were being meandered through coal barges, etc. They went below and Aunt Mary saw everything with a most flattering interest.
"I d"n know but what I"d enjoy a little yacht of my own," she said to Mitch.e.l.l. "I think it"s so amusin" the way everythin" turns over into suthin" else. I suppose Joshua could learn to sail me-I wouldn"t want to trust no new man, I know."
"Why, of course," said Jack, "and we could all come and visit you, Aunt Mary."
Aunt Mary smiled hospitably.
"I"d be glad to see you all any day," she said cordially; "and I shall have a hole in the bottom of the boat for people to go in and out of, and a nice staircase down to it, so you needn"t mind the notion of how you"ll get on and off."
They all laughed and continued the tour below and Aunt Mary grew more and more enthusiastic for quite a while. She liked the kitchen and she liked the dining-room. She thought the arrangement for keeping the table level most ingenious. Mitch.e.l.l took her into the main cabin and told her that that was hers for the day. On the dresser was a photograph of the "Lady Belle" framed in silver, which the young host presented to his guest as a souvenir of the "voyage."
Aunt Mary"s pleasure was at its height. Oh, the pity of Fate which makes the apex of everything so very limited as to standing room! Three minutes after the presentation and acceptation of the photograph Aunt Mary"s glance became suddenly vague, and then especially piercing.
"What makes this up and down feeling?" she asked Mitch.e.l.l.
"What up and down feeling?" he asked, secure in the good conscience and pure living of an oatmeal breakfast. "I don"t feel up and down."
"I do," said Aunt Mary abruptly; "I want to be somewhere else."
"You want to be on deck," said Burnett, suddenly emerging from somewhere; "I know the symptoms. I always have "em. Come on. And when we get up there, I"ll collar Jack for urging those six last griddle cakes on me this morning."
"I ain"t sure I want to be on deck," said Aunt Mary; "dear me-I feel as if I wasn"t sure of anythin"."
"What did I tell you?" said Burnett to Mitch.e.l.l; "it"s blowing fresh and neither she nor I ought to have come. You know me when it blows."
"Shut up," said Mitch.e.l.l, hurrying Aunt Mary up the companion-way and shoving her into one chair and her feet into another; "there, Miss Watkins, you"re all right now, aren"t you?"
"What"s the matter?" said Jack, coming from somewhere aloft or astern.
"Heaven bless me, what ails you, Aunt Mary?"
"I don"t wonder I"m pale," said Aunt Mary faintly, "oh-oh-"
"We must put our heads together," said Burnett, taking a drink from a flask that he took out of his pocket; "I must soon put my head on something, and your aunt looks to me to feel the same way. Mitch.e.l.l, why did you let me forget that vow I made last time to never come again?"
"Your vows to never do things again are about as stable as your present hold on an upright position," said Clover, laying a steadying hand upon his friend"s waveringness. "Sit down, little boy, sit down."
Burnett sat down, Mitch.e.l.l smiled, Jack laughed, and Aunt Mary groaned.
The boat was rising and falling rapidly now, and as she ran further and further out into the ever freshening wind she kept on rising and falling yet more rapidly. The more motion there was the more Aunt Mary seemed to sift down in her two chairs.
"We"d better put back," said Jack; "this won"t do, you know. How do you feel now, Aunt Mary?" he added, leaning over her.