James Otis - A Runaway Brig - or, An Accidental Cruise

"I'm going down to the beach to find Jim Libby. If you'll come along we'll have a prime sail; and most likely this is the last chance we shall have to go out with him, for his vessel leaves in the morning."

"How can I go when I've got to mind this young one all the forenoon just 'cause the nurse must go an' have a sick headache? I don't believe she feels half as bad as I do!" And Walter Morse looked mournfully out over the blue waters with but little care for his baby sister, who was already toddling dangerously near the long flight of steps leading from the veranda of the large summer hotel.

"Can't you coax off for a couple of hours?" the first speaker, Harry Vandyne, asked.

"It's no use. Mother has gone to ride, and said I was to stay here until she came back."

Harry started toward the beach, determined not to lose a single hour of pleasure because of his friend's engagements; but before he had taken half a dozen steps a sudden, and what seemed like a very happy thought, occurred to him.

"I'll tell you how it can be fixed. Hire one of the other nurses to take care of your sister till we get back. Any of them will do it for a quarter, an' we'll be home before your mother comes."

The boys were spending the summer at the Isle of Shoals, off the New England coast. Harry's father was Robert Vandyne, the well-known ship-owner of New York, and Walter's was equally prominent in the wholesale dry-goods business on Broadway. During their stay at this summer resort they had made the acquaintance of Jim Libby, "cook's assistant and everybody's mate" on the fishing-schooner Mary Walker, a craft which visited the Shoals once each week to supply the hotels with fresh fish.

Jim was at liberty to follow the dictates of his own fancy several hours each day while in port, and the boys found him ever ready to take them out sailing in the square-bowed, leaky tender belonging to the schooner. As Harry had said, this was Jim's last day on the island until the end of another cruise, and Walter was so eager to blister his hands and wet his feet once more by rowing the Sally Walker – the tender was dignified with a name – around the shore that he really did not stop to consider all Harry's advice implied.

He wanted to go on the water; Bessie would have even better care from one of the nurses than he could give her; and it was not difficult to convince himself that, under all the circumstances, he would be warranted in disobeying the positive commands of his mother.

"She didn't know Jim was going away in the morning, or I'm sure she'd 'a' fixed it so's I could take one more trip in the Sally."

"Of course she won't care," Harry said in such a decided tone that Walter, who was more than willing to be convinced by the most flimsy argument, made his decision at once.

"Come on; there's Mrs. Harvey's maid, and we'll ask her."

The bribe of twenty-five cents was sufficient to enlist the good-natured girl's sympathies, and five minutes later the two boys were running at full speed toward the shore, while Bessie, apparently well content with the change of nurses, looked so happy that Walter really began to believe he had done the child such a very great favor that his mother could not but be pleased.

The unwieldy-looking Sally Walker was drawn up in a little cove which, owing to a line of rocks just outside, made a most convenient landing-place, and on the bow sat Master Jim, his face striped with dirt but beaming with good-nature, and his clothes as ragged as they were redolent of fish.

"I'd jes' begun to think you couldn't come, an' was goin' back," he cried as his neatly-dressed acquaintances came into view. "If we wanter do any sailin' it's time to be off, 'cause this wind's dyin' out mighty fast."

"It's better late than never, Jim," Harry cried cheerily as he commenced to push at the bow of the boat. "Let's get the old craft afloat, and do our talking afterward."

To launch the Sally into deep water was quite a hard task owing to her breadth of beam; but after that had been done the labor was ended for a time, save such as might be necessary with the bailing-dish.

Jim stepped the short mast with its well-worn leg-of-mutton sail, got one of the oars aft as a rudder, and the full-bowed clipper began to move through the water slowly, but with a splashing and a wake sufficient for a craft ten times her size.

"We can't run along the coast very well 'cause the wind's blowin' straight out to sea, an' she don't stand up to it like a narrower boat would," the skipper said as he settled himself back comfortably in the stern-sheets while he pulled the fragment of a straw hat down over his eyes.

"Let's sail before the wind two or three miles and then row back," Walter suggested. "I'd like to get to the hotel before mother comes."

"It'll be a tough pull," Jim replied as he glanced at the clumsy oars. "I'd rather row the Sally one mile than two."

"Harry and I will do that part of the work."

"Then let her go," and as Jim eased off on the sheet the old craft came around slowly, for she was by no means prompt in answering the helm.

"See that ship over there? How far away is she?" Harry asked as he pointed seaward, when the Sally was well under way.

"That ain't a ship," Jim replied with a slight tone of contempt because his companions were so ignorant. "She's a brigantine, an' hard on to three miles from here."

"Let's run over to where she is. We can row back by dinner-time easily enough."

Since his crew were to do all the work on the return trip Jim would have been perfectly willing had the distance been twice as far, and he gave assent by nodding his head in what he intended should be a truly nautical manner.

The brig, which was now the objective point of the trip, appeared to be a craft of about three hundred tons, and moving through the water slowly, under the influence of the rapidly-decreasing wind, on a course at right-angles with the one the Sally was pursuing. She was running with yards square, under her upper and lower topsails, foresail, jib and foretop-mast stay-sail, and the head-sheets were flowing.

"She ain't goin' so fast but what we can come up with her before the breeze dies away, I reckon, an' if she's becalmed they won't say anything agin our goin' aboard," Jim said after a few moments of silence, during which all hands gazed intently at the stranger.

The idea of visiting a vessel at sea was very enticing to the city boys, and they were now as eager for a calm as they had previously been to have the wind freshen. The Sally took in so much water between her half-calked seams that it was necessary to keep the bailing-dish in constant use, consequently there was little time for speculation as to where the brig was bound until, when they had sailed not more than a mile and a half, Jim said in a tone of mild disappointment:

"It's no use, fellers, we can't get there. It's dead calm, an' we ain't makin' a foot an hour."

"What's to prevent our rowing?" Harry asked. "You take down the sail and keep the bailing dish going while Walter and I show you how to make the Sally walk."

"I'm willin' if you are," and Jim unshipped the stumpy mast. "My vessel won't get under way before mornin', an' it makes no difference if I ain't back till sunrise."

To make the Sally "walk" required a great deal of hard work; but since it was under the guise of play Harry and Walter went at it with a will, while Jim wondered what sport boys could find in pulling a heavy boat, for this was the one portion of a fisherman's life at which he rebelled.

Slowly but surely the little craft gained upon the larger one, which swung to and fro on the lazy swell, and when they were about a quarter of a mile apart Jim said, in a tone of disapprobation: