Boat Club; or, The Bunkers of Rippleton

by Oliver Optic

  CHAPTER XVI

  THE GEOGRAPHY OF WOOD LAKE

  Captain Sedley reached the depot just in time to take the two-o'clocktrain; and the club returned to Centre Island, where another hour wasspent very pleasantly in listening to the music of the band, and insuch amusements as the ingenuity of boys can devise.

  But at last they grew tired of the land. The beautiful Zephyr, restingso lightly and gracefully on the water, seemed to invite them to morecongenial sports.

  "Mother, won't you let us row you round the lake?" asked Frank. "Wewant to go on an exploring voyage."

  "With pleasure; but the band is engaged for all the afternoon."

  "Can't we take them in the boat?"

  "I'm afraid it is not large enough; there are thirteen musicians."

  "That would be first-rate--music on the water!" exclaimed CharlesHardy.

  "What do you think, Uncle Ben?" asked Mrs. Sedley.

  "I don't think it would be safe, marm."

  "I am afraid not."

  "Oh, yes, it would!" cried Charles, disappointed at the thought ofresigning the plan.

  "There is not room enough in the Zephyr for them. But there's a littlebreeze springing up, and I'll take them in the sailboat."

  "That will do just as well," replied Mrs. Sedley.

  "But you can't keep up with us, Uncle Ben," said Charles.

  "Then you must go slower."

  "Zephyrs, ahoy!" cried Frank.

  The club hastened to the boat, and seated themselves. The musiciansfound ample room in the large sailboat.

  "Stop a minute, mother, till we go about and bring the stern in shore,"said Frank, as he gave the word to elevate the oars.

  Uncle Ben and his party had already got under way, and the bandcommenced playing "Wood Up," as the sailboat slowly gathered headway.

  The Zephyr backed in, and Mrs. Sedley and Mary Weston were assisted totheir seats by the gallant young coxswain.

  "Give way!" said Frank; and the club boat shot out from the land.

  "How fine the music sounds on the water!" said Mary.

  "Beautiful," replied Mrs. Sedley. "I am sorry your mother is not withus, Mary."

  "She could not come before dinner."

  "Would she join us now, do you think?"

  "I guess she would."

  "We can go and see, at any rate," said Frank. "Uncle Ben is steeringthat way."

  "Do, Frank; I have something I wish to say to her."

  "Bunkers!" exclaimed Fred Harper.

  "Where?"

  "Coming up from Rippleton."

  "I hope they will keep away from us," added Frank, whose forenoonexperience was still remembered.

  "They will want to hear the music."

  "You must keep near Uncle Ben, Frank."

  The Zephyr was rapidly approaching the Sylph, as the sailboat wascalled.

  "I wish they would play 'Old Folks at Home,'" said Charles.

  "We can ask them to do so."

  Suddenly Frank stood up in his place.

  "Way enough!" said he with a smile.

  "What are you going to do?" asked his mother.

  "I am going to execute a manoeuvre; and, boys, I want you to beprompt in your movements."

  "Ay, ay!" shouted the club.

  "Now, then, give way!"

  Frank swayed his body for a few moments with great rapidity, and ofcourse the stroke of the rowers corresponded to his motions. The Zephyrdarted forward with a speed which surprised Mrs. Sedley.

  "Way enough!" cried Frank, when the boat came within a few rods of theSylph.

  "Be careful, my son; you will run against her," interposed Mrs. Sedley,as she involuntarily grasped the gunwale of the boat.

  The dripping oars were all extended at the same height from the water,at the command of the coxswain.

  "Up oars!" continued he.

  "You will certainly run against them, Frank," repeated Mrs. Sedley."Pray don't be careless."

  "There is nothing to fear, mother."

  Indeed, the Zephyr was approaching fearfully near the Sylph, and evenUncle Ben began to feel a little uneasy.

  "Port your helm, Frank!" shouted the veteran.

  "Keep her steady, Uncle Ben."

  Frank, looking through the two rows of perpendicular oars, steered theZephyr alongside her companion, and passed within a very few inches ofher.

  "Play 'Old Folks at Home,' if you please," said he, as the boat dartedby the sluggish Sylph.

  "That was a little too close, my son," said Mrs. Sedley.

  "We are perfectly safe, mother, are we not?"

  "We are; but, Frank, you should never expose yourself, and especiallynot others, to needless peril."

  "We were in no danger."

  "I think you were."

  "The Zephyr is under perfect control; she feels the slightest turn ofthe rudder."

  "Suppose Uncle Ben's boat had swerved a little from her course?"

  "There was no fear of that."

  "You do not know. If it had, we might have been drowned, many of us atleast."

  Frank looked serious.

  "Ask Uncle Ben what he thinks about it."

  "Let fall," said Frank.

  The boys began to pull again, and the coxswain steered so as to bringthe Zephyr in a circle round the Sylph.

  "Now we will keep alongside, but at a safe distance," said he, as helaid her course parallel with that of his companion.

  The band was preparing to play the tune which Frank had requested. TheSylph was making very good progress through the water, and the rowerskept pulling with a very slow stroke.

  "You were careless, Frank," said Uncle Ben, when the band stoppedplaying.

  "Do you think so, Uncle Ben?"

  "Very careless; in the navy they would have put you in irons for it.There arn't no need of risking the lives of your crew in that way. Ifit had been to save the life of a feller-creter, or anything of thatsort, there would have been some sense in it."

  "I didn't think there was any danger," returned Frank, not a littletroubled by the veteran's censure.

  "I'm sailin' right afore the wind, you see, and the boat swings foreand aft, like a French dancing-master. If she had a swayed only aleetle grain, we might all have gone to the bottom."

  "I never will be so careless again."

  "You were all-fired careless, Frank," said Charles Hardy.

  Fred Harper could not help turning round and looking the speaker fullin the face to reprove him for his interference.

  Frank felt the rebuke of his friend, and was not a little hurt by thereproach, coming as it did from one whom he had used with so muchlenity--for whom he had so strenuously interceded with his father.

  "Hush up! Charley," said Fred in a low tone. "Don't you know any betterthan that?"

  The band now struck up "Old Folks at Home."

  "Let us sing," said Frank.

  "So I say," replied Tony.

  "Wait till they come to the chorus," added Fred.

  At the right moment the boys commenced the chorus, and the effect wasvery pleasing. Mrs. Sedley and Mary's voices were heard with theothers, and all were delighted.

  "Here's the cove," said Frank, when the band ceased playing. "We weregoing on a voyage of discovery this afternoon, to name the bays andpoints of land. What shall we call this cove?"

  "Weston Bay," suggested Fred.

  "Agreed!" answered a dozen members.

  "And that mud-bank over there, where we got aground this morning, wewill call Bunker's Shoal," continued Fred.

  "I think not," said Mrs. Sedley. "That would be casting a reflectionupon those boys."

  "What shall we call it?"

  "Black Shoal," replied Tony. "The mud on it, I know from personalexperience, is very black."

  "Black Shoal it is," replied Frank, directing the boat into the littlebay.

  The invitation of Mrs. Sedley was quite sufficient to induce Mrs.Weston to join the "exploring expedition;" and the committee that hadbeen deputed to wait upon
her soon returned, escorting her to the boat.

  "Dear me! won't it tip over?" exclaimed the poor woman, when she hadplaced one foot in the boat.

  "She is perfectly safe," replied Frank, assisting her to a seat.

  The boat pushed off again, and joined the Sylph. The band commencedplaying a popular march; and all the party, with the exception of Mrs.Weston, who had her suspicions as to the stability of the beautifulZephyr, were in the highest state of enjoyment.

  Farther up the lake there was a projecting headland, at the end ofwhich, separated from the shore by a narrow passage of water, not morethan ten feet in width, was a small, rocky island. This island and itsvicinity were the next points of interest deserving the attention ofthe voyagers, and thither Frank steered the boat.

  "Boys, you all study geography, do you not?" asked Mrs. Sedley.

  "All of us, mother," replied Frank.

  "Did it ever occur to you that all the natural divisions of water, on asmall scale, could be seen in Wood Lake?"

  "Can they?" asked Charles. "I would not have believed it."

  "I never thought of it before," added Frank.

  "Years ago, before I was married, I used to teach school," continuedMrs. Sedley; "and my scholars always found it difficult to remember thedefinitions of the natural divisions of the earth. What do you thinkthe reason was?"

  "I suppose they did not half learn them," replied Fred.

  "They did not understand them. When we spoke of a gulf, for example,they thought of something a great way off--as far as the Gulf of Mexicoor the Gulf of St. Lawrence."

  "I am sure I never thought of them as anything that I had ever seen, orwas ever likely to see," added Charles, who always had something tosay, and who tried to get the good will of others by appearing to behumble and teachable.

  The other boys were equally tractable, but from another motive. Mrs.Sedley's geography lesson was full of interest to them; and as theypulled slowly, they gave all their attention to what she said.

  "I took them out one day to a pond near the school-house, where Ipointed out almost all the divisions of water, and then on a hill, toshow them the divisions of land."

  "But you could not find them all."

  "All but one or two; there was no volcano."

  "Was there a desert?"

  "A small one."

  "Hurrah! we can find them all," cried Charles. "I missed just such aquestion last week in school."

  "I made a volcano on the Fourth of July," said Fred Harper.

  "Indeed! how?"

  "I took a handful of powder, wet it, and then placed it on a board.Then I covered it over with a coat of wet clay, leaving a little holeat the top, with some dry powder on it."

  "That was the crater," added Charles.

  "Yes; and then I touched it off. It was in the evening, and it lookedjust like Mount Vesuvius in the panorama."

  "Now, boys," continued Mrs. Sedley, "who can tell me what an ocean is?"

  "The largest body of water," replied several.

  "What shall represent the ocean here?"

  "The lake."

  "Very well; what is a sea?"

  "A portion of water smaller than an ocean, and nearly surrounded byland."

  "We are in one now," said Frank.

  He had steered the Zephyr into a corner of the lake which was partlyenclosed by the projecting headland and island and the main shore.

  "What sea shall we call it?" said Fred.

  The boys looked around them for some object that would suggest a name.