What Happened at Quasi: The Story of a Carolina Cruise

  III

  A PROGRAMME—SUBJECT TO CIRCUMSTANCES

  THE _Hunkydory_ was an unusually large boat for a craft of that kind.She was about twenty-five feet long, very wide amidships—as doriesalways are—and capable of carrying a heavy load without much increasein her draught of water. She was built of white cedar with a stoutoak frame, fastened with copper bolts and rivets, and fitted withcapacious, water-tight lockers at bow and stern, with narrower lockersrunning along her sides at the bilge, for use in carrying tools and thelike.

  She carried a broad mainsail and a large jib, and had rowlocks for fourpairs of oars. Sitting on the forward or after rowing thwart, whereshe was narrow enough for sculls, one person could row her at a fairrate of speed, so little resistance did her peculiar shape offer to thewater. With two pairs of oars, or better still, with all the rowlocksin use, she seemed to offer no resistance at all.

  It was the plan of the boys to depend upon the sails whenever there waswind enough to make any progress at all, and ply the oars only when acalm compelled them to do so.

  “We’re in no sort of hurry,” explained Larry, “and it really makes nodifference whether we run one mile an hour or ten. There aren’t anytrains to catch down where we are going.”

  “Just where are we going, Larry,” asked Dick. “We’ve never talked thatover, except in the vaguest way.”

  “Show the boys, Cal,” said Larry, turning to his brother. “You’rebetter at coast geography than I am.”

  “Hydrography would be the more accurate word in this case,” slowlyanswered Cal, “but it makes no difference.”

  With that he lighted three or four more gas burners, and spread a largemap of the coast upon the table.

  “Now let me invoke your earnest attention, young gentlemen,” he began.“That’s the way the lecturers always introduce their talks, isn’tit? You see before you a somewhat detailed map of the coast and itswaterways from Charleston, south to Brunswick, Georgia. It is grosslyinaccurate in some particulars and slightly but annoyingly so inothers! Fortunately your lecturer is possessed of a large and entirelytrustworthy fund of information, the garnerings, as it were, ofprolonged and repeated personal observation. He will be able to correctthe errors of the cartographer as he proceeds.

  “We will take the Rutledge boathouse on the Ashley River near the footof Spring Street as our point of departure, if you please. _Enteuthenexelauni_—pardon the lapse into Xenophontic Greek—I mean thence weshall sail across the Ashley to the mouth of Wappoo Creek which, as yousee by the map, extends from Charleston Harbor to Stono Inlet or river,separating James Island from the main. Thence we shall proceed upStono River, past John’s Island, and having thus disposed of James andJohn—familiar characters in that well-remembered work of fiction, theFirst Reader—we shall enter the so called North Edisto River, whichis, in fact, an inlet or estuary, and sail up until we reach the pointwhere the real Edisto River empties itself. Thence we shall proceeddown the inlet known as South Edisto River round Edisto Island, and,by a little detour into the outside sea, pass into St. Helena Sound.From that point on we shall have a tangled network of big and littlewaterways to choose among, and we’ll run up and down as many of themas tempt us with the promise of sport or adventure. We shall pass ournights ashore, and most of our days also, for that matter. Wherever wecamp we will remain as long as we like. That is the programme. Likethe prices in a grocer’s catalogue and the schedules of a railway, itis ‘subject to change without notice.’ That is to say, accident andunforeseen circumstances may interfere with it at any time.”

  “Yes, and we may ourselves change it,” said Larry. “Indeed, I proposeone change in it to start with.”

  “What is it?” asked the others in chorus.

  “Simply that we sail down the harbor first to give Dick and Tom aglimpse of the points of interest there. We’ll load the boat first andthen, when we’ve made the circuit of the bay, we needn’t come back tothe boat house, but can go on down Wappoo cut.”

  The plan commended itself and was adopted, and as soon as the_Hunkydory’s_ seams were sufficiently soaked the boat was put inreadiness. There was not much cargo to be carried, as the boys intendedto depend mainly upon their guns and fishing tackle for food supplies.A side of bacon, a water-tight firkin of rice, a box of salt, anotherof coffee, a tin coffee-pot, and a few other cooking utensils wereabout all. The tools and lanterns were snuggled into the placesprepared for them, an abundance of rope was bestowed, and the guns,ammunition and fishing tackle completed the outfit. Each member of thelittle company carried a large, well-stocked, damp-proof box of matchesin his pocket, and each had a large clasp knife. There were no forks orplates, but the boat herself was well supplied with agate iron drinkingcups.

  It was well after dark when the loading was finished and the boat inreadiness to begin her voyage. It was planned to set sail at sunrise,and so the crew went early to the joggling boards for a night’s rest inthe breezy veranda.

  “We’ll start if there’s a wind,” said Cal.

  “We’ll start anyhow, wind or no wind,” answered Larry.

  “Of course we will,” said Cal. “But you used the term ‘set sail.’ Iobject to it as an attempt to describe or characterize the process ofmaking a start with the oars.”

  “Be quiet, Cal, will you?” interjected Dick. “I was just falling into adoze when you punched me in the ribs with that criticism.”