Harper's Young People, July 18, 1882 An Illustrated Weekly

Dare laughed and blushed as she jammed down the tiller of her little dory to let the larger boat, from which the remark had come, pass by.

"That ain't a boy," she heard a rude voice reply; "that's that Peters girl from Star Island."

Dare's laugh died out, and the flush turned into an angry red. The first speaker she did not know. It was a girl--a little younger than herself, Dare thought--with a frank, pleasant face and winning voice. But the other was a familiar foe, who had tormented Dare for ten years. Tom Suydam, she verily believed, was the most hateful boy that ever lived. Because he was a rich man's son, and boarded at the hotel every summer, while she was a fisherman's daughter who lived on the beach, he seemed to feel at liberty to tease and annoy her in every possible way. When she was a little girl he had amused himself by destroying her castles in the sand; and now that she was thirteen years old, and did not build sand castles, he would make uncomplimentary remarks loud enough for her to overhear. Dare almost hated Tom Suydam.

It was not surprising that she should be mistaken for a boy. Her short clustering hair, firm mouth, and ruddy complexion gave her face a boyish look, while the sailor hat, and blue flannel waist open sailorwise at the throat, added to the illusion. The costume was nothing more than a girl's bathing suit; but Dare found it convenient for boating, and not in the way when the boat capsized, as had once or twice happened, notwithstanding her good seamanship, and she had to swim. She could sail a boat, Captain Peters proudly declared, better than any boy around the Shoals, and there wasn't a trick of the wind she did not know. In this respect, at any rate, Dare felt a sense of superiority over Tom Suydam. He might be richer, and know more, but he couldn't manage even a row-boat. Dare wondered, as she looked back over her shoulder, and saw the little skiff driving ahead under the fresh southeasterly breeze, how the sweet-faced, gentle-voiced girl who was his companion would trust herself to his care, and how, indeed, she could go with him at all. Dare knew that Tom had no sisters. "She must be his cousin," the girl concluded, as she hauled over the sail on the other tack.

Dare was going back to the Island, having taken her father over to Portsmouth on his way to Boston. The wind was against her, and she had had to beat down the river, and was now going on a long tack to the north. It was not a steady wind, but a fitful gusty blow that warned Dare to keep her hand on the tiller and her eye on the sail. She knew precisely how much wind the boat would take, and she knew too that one's calculations might be upset by an unexpected puff. She looked up at the sky critically, and decided that the wind was shifting. There were clouds in the west indicating a thunder-storm. "It will blow me straight to the Shoals," Dare reflected, bringing the boat a little closer to the wind. The slight change of direction brought into view Tom Suydam's skiff, which, as she looked, seemed to have put about, and to be running on the same tack as herself. Tom had no doubt seen the clouds, and was making for home. It was now a race between the two boats, at a distance of perhaps half a mile apart.

Meanwhile, with every instant the sky darkened and the wind grew fresh. Dare took a reef in the sail, and kept the halyards free, so that she could drop it at the slightest warning. The other boat, however, kept on under a full head of canvas. Was Tom Suydam crazy? Dare wondered. She had hardly framed the thought before a gust struck his boat, and laid it so far over on its side that the mast seemed to touch the water. It righted, however, while Tom, evidently uncertain what to do, hauled the sail over, and attempted to run on the opposite tack. For an instant the sail napped in the wind; then it suddenly filled, and for a second time careened until Dare never expected to see it come up again.

"They'll surely be drowned!" she cried, letting out her own sail another point, while she steered the dory so as to intercept the other's course. The skiff had righted once more, but was lurching wildly, and threatening to capsize with every gust.

"Drop your sail!" she cried, excitedly; but at that instant the skiff lay over again, and Dare saw that this time it would not come up. Dare had already skillfully brought her boat up within a few yards of the skiff, and dropping her sail, she now steered it close enough to take in Tom and the girl, who, though, in the water, had succeeded in clinging to the wreck.

"Well!" she exclaimed, when the two were safely on board, "Tom Suydam, I should think you had lost all the little sense you ever had."

For once Tom was humbled.

"Oh, I say, Dare," he cried, "don't hit a fellow when he's down. Just look after my cousin Mollie, won't you? She's all broke up. I'll sail the boat for you," he added.

Dare gave him a warning look. "You go sit in the bow," she said. "When I ask you to sail a boat for me, I guess you'll know it. There's nothing to be afraid of now," she said, re-assuringly, turning to Tom's cousin, who was shivering with fear and cold. "Only I wonder you ever went out with him. He doesn't even know how to row. Take my coat," she said, producing a heavy jacket from a locker underneath the seat. "I sha'n't need it, and you're just soaked through."

The impulsive little stranger threw her arms around Dare's neck and kissed her.

"You're a dear," she said. "I thought so the minute I laid eyes on you--only I supposed you were a boy."

Dare laughed.

"I heard what you said," she replied, softly. "Now if you will sit here with me at the stern, it will trim the boat, and we can make for home."

But the wind, with the uncertainty of a thunder-storm, had shifted further to the north, and it was apparent even to Mollie that they were being driven far away from the Shoals.

"Why don't you hoist your sail," cried Tom, from his seat in the bow, "and steer for the Island? You'll go to Boston if you keep on this way."

Just then a fresh squall drove the boat ahead with such force that the water broke over the bow, and Tom was for the time suppressed. Fortunately the dory was stanch and seaworthy. It rode the waves lightly, and so long as Dare could keep it before the wind she had no fears of its capsizing. But every breath of wind carried them further away from home. Presently the rain began to fall; and then Mollie, that Dare might not be wet, insisted upon covering her shoulders with the jacket also.

"But I never take cold," Dare protested. "I'm wet through half the time when I'm out in the dory, and don't know what it is to be sick."

"But I sha'n't feel right unless you take part of it," the other declared. "I'll sit close to you, dear, like this, and there'll be enough for both of us."

So Dare did not resist. It was a new experience for her to be affectionately treated, and she did not need the jacket to make her feel warm. As Mollie's arm crept round her waist, and the girl's little head rested on her shoulder, she felt that something had come to her which all her life had lacked. Leaning over, she kissed the upturned forehead.

"You're not frightened, dear?" she asked.

Just then a sharp flash of lightning forked across the sky, followed almost immediately by a deafening peal of thunder. Mollie hid her face in Dare's dress.

"Oh yes, I am," she cried; "I'm awfully frightened. Do you think the boat can stand it, Dare? Do you think we will ever get home?"

Dare looked out toward the horizon. The rain was falling even more heavily; the wind was blowing steadily from the north, and the darkness was shutting down. It was an angry-looking night, and Dare had to fight hard to shake off a thrill of terror from herself.

"There's no danger, dear," she said, bravely. "I've been out in a heavier blow than this, and so long as we can keep her before the wind we're all right. Only I'm afraid, Mollie, we'll have to spend the night out here. But you needn't mind that. You needn't even be hungry, for I've got some biscuit and a can of water in the locker; and in the morning we'll run in somewhere down the coast, or, if the wind has changed, come straight home. I wouldn't dare put up the sail until after the storm is over," she added.

They ate the biscuits and drank the water; and then, as the night grew darker and darker, and finally shut out all surrounding objects, Dare insisted that Tom and Mollie should go to sleep. Tom could lie down in the bow, using one of the seat cushions for a pillow, and Mollie in the stern, resting her head in Dare's lap. Dare would watch, she said. Tom, who was quite used up by exposure and fear, at once accepted the suggestion; and Mollie, after some persuasion, also consented to it, though she insisted that Dare should keep the jacket for herself. Before she lay down she hesitated a moment.

"May I say my prayers?" she asked, softly.

Dare bent over her and took the little folded hands in her own.

"Say them for me too," she whispered.

So Mollie said her prayers; and then, while the wind roared and the boat rocked and the rain fell, she went peacefully to sleep, covered by the jacket which, without her knowing it, Dare had taken off and transferred to Mollie's thinly clad shoulders. For a long time Dare watched the quiet little form, resting one hand protectingly on the child's wavy hair, while with the other she held the tiller and kept the boat still before the wind. By-and-by, however, the clouds broke and the wind veered. The water gradually calmed, the boat rocked less and less, and Dare too had fallen asleep.