Harper's Round Table, March 16, 1897

A BOAT AND A BOY.

BY JOHN HABBERTON.

Some boys, like some men, have greatness thrust upon them. Bruce Marvel became one of these boys one day to his own great surprise.

Bruce was a good shot with either rifle or shot-gun; he could pitch, catch, or strike a ball as well as any other boy of his age, and he could handle a horse better than some men who travel with circuses. Still, he had spent most of his life in an inland village where the largest body of water was a brook about six feet wide. It stands to reason, therefore, as boys are very like men in longing most for what is farthest from their reach, that Bruce's consuming desire, in the line of sport, was for a sail-boat and for water in which to sail it. He studied pictures of sailing-craft, which he found in a pictorial dictionary, until he could redraw any of them from memory; he learned the names of all the sails of a full-rigged ship, and he delighted in sea stories of all kinds, while he longed for the day in which he could see broad water and such boats as were moved by wind, and when he could sit in a boat and manage the sails and rudder.

Fortune finally seemed to favor him, for in his fifteenth year he was invited to spend a month at the sea-shore with an aunt of his mother's. As the aunt's family contained no men, it had no boats, so Bruce was sadly disappointed. But he was not of the kind that gives up when disappointment comes; he spent most of his waking hours in walking the beach of the little bay about which the town was built, looking at the boats, and scraping acquaintance with boys whose fathers owned boats; he kept up his spirits by hoping that in the course of time some one would invite him out sailing, and perhaps to take part in the management of a craft of some sort, Bruce cared not what, so that it had sails.

But sailing was anything but sport to the boys whom Bruce came to know, for most of these boys were fishermen's sons, to whom sailing meant hard, every-day work, of which they did not care to do more than was absolutely necessary for business purposes.

Yet Bruce learned some things about sailing, thanks to sharp eyes. He observed the fishing-boats and other small craft until he learned that almost anything that sailed would "go over" very far without capsizing. He thought he learned a lot about steering, too, although it puzzled him greatly that different vessels would sail in different directions while the wind blew from but one point of the compass. He determined to clear this mystery for himself, for nothing comes harder to a spirited boy than the displaying of ignorance by asking questions about matters which every one else seems to understand.

One day he climbed into a fishing-boat which a receding tide had left lying upon the sand. The little three-cornered sail in front of the mast, which Bruce knew was called a jib, had been left loosely flapping, as if to dry, while the owner sought refreshment and company near by. As many another man has done before him, the owner remained longer than he had intended; meanwhile the tide came up until it floated the vessel, so Bruce had rare fun at "trimming in" the jib-sheets, first on one side and then on the other, and in seeing the boat strain at her anchor, which was a big stone with a long rope attached.

Suddenly the wind began to come from the shore in hard puffs. Bruce trimmed in the jib very close, upon which the boat tugged furiously at her anchor; but she did the same when the sail was hauled close on the other side, so the make-believe sailor eased the sheet until the wind was directly abaft. Still the boat continued to strain; the anchor rope was old, so finally the friction caused by rubbing against the rail made the strands part suddenly; then the boat started for sea "on the wings of the wind," as Bruce afterward said.

The boy sprang to the rudder. At last he was really sailing! It was through no fault of his, either, as he carefully explained to himself, for how could he have known of the rottenness of that rope? He had some misgivings, for he was sure that he did not know how to turn the boat and sail back again against the wind; still, he was resolved to have a little fun before asking assistance from some passing boat. He had been in the village and along the shore long enough to know that the offing was usually alive with fisher-craft coming in or going out, and he had frequently seen boats towed by others; so he had no doubt that he would be helped back safely to the beach again.

Within a few moments he learned several facts about sailing; one was that by "easing" sheets freely while sailing under a jib alone, the sail will dispose itself at almost a right angle to the wind, so there need be but little work at the rudder. As to the larger sail, he did not trouble his mind about it, for not only was he in doubt as to how to use it, but his craft was going quite fast enough with such canvas as she was already carrying.

The farther he got from shore the stronger the wind seemed to blow--a condition which did not impress him favorably, for he was soon out of the bay and upon the ocean, and although the water was not rough, the sea appeared to be very large, and the few boats in sight were far from him; and when he tried to steer toward some of them, his own boat behaved quite provokingly, as any boat will when asked to change her course much while the only sail she carries is a jib.

Still, the experience as a whole was great fun, and whenever Bruce felt a little scare creeping through him, he rallied himself by singing a selection from "A Life on the Ocean Wave," beginning,

We shoot through the ocean foam Like an ocean bird set free.

But the wind continued to increase in strength, and to come in hard puffs, which Bruce had heard were dangerous. How was the boy to get back to shore? He began to recall some sea stories, which did not now seem as interesting as when he first read them--stories of boys who had drifted out to sea and never been heard of afterward. It does not require many such memories to make a wind-driven boy fearful of what is to come; a man would feel quite as uncomfortable in similar circumstances--being driven out to sea, in the latter part of the afternoon, with no sign of rescue in sight, and he in a boat which he did not know how to manage.

After some hard sailing Bruce determined to let down the jib if it would consent to fall, turn the boat's head toward shore with an oar that lay in the bottom, and then paddle back to the bay; fortunately he had learned paddling on the brook in his native village. Whether he could force the boat against such a wind he did not know, but he had strong arms; besides, the tide certainly would help him, for it was setting shoreward, otherwise it would not have lifted the boat from the beach an hour or two before. He succeeded in getting down the jib, although it hung loosely and caught much wind. He found paddling, in the circumstances, much harder than propelling a narrow raft on the still water of a brook; although the sea was not exactly rough, the deck was a very unsteady platform for his feet, and the wind caused the craft to wildly change direction from time to time; once the rail bore so heavily upon the oar that Bruce had to choose between letting go or going overboard, so of course he let go, and a moment later the boat was again hurrying seaward.

"This," said Bruce, as he went gloomily aft and took the tiller, "must be what the stories mean when they tell about scudding under bare poles. There can't be any doubt about it, although I greatly wish there could."

Up to this time the wind had been freshening Bruce's appetite, but now the boy would have promised to fast a week for the certainty of getting ashore. The sun was steadily declining; not a sail was in sight on the course over which he was drifting. Steamers and other vessels occasionally went up and down the shore, in plain sight of the bay, but what chance was there of his sighting one of them before dark; and what pitiful stories he had read of shipwrecked men whose signals had been unseen or disregarded.

Suddenly he saw, a mile or two out to sea, and in the course he was sailing, something which appeared to be a row-boat containing men who were waving hats and handkerchiefs.

"Hurrah!" shouted Bruce. "They want to get back without rowing. Perhaps some of them will know how to manage this contrary craft. I hope they will have sense enough to row towards me, for if I steer a bit wrong nothing can keep me from running out to sea and missing them."

He quickly got the jib up, so as to sail faster; he knew he could get it down again should he find himself in danger of passing the other boat. Under canvas, Bruce got over the water rapidly, but to his surprise and consternation the men did not attempt to row toward him. Suddenly he exclaimed.

"That isn't a row-boat! It is bigger, and of a different shape. It's a sail-boat, and on its side, and the men are sitting on the edge of the hull.' They're wrecked! I wonder why their boat doesn't go over entirely? Oh, I see!--the mast and sail are lying on the water, and keeping it on its edge. Oh, if I were a good sailor! See the poor fellows signalling to me! I suppose they're wild with excitement and fear, although they can't be more so than I."

In the next few moments Bruce steered very carefully; he also did some earnest thinking. How should he stop his own boat entirely when he came abreast of the wreck? He knew of no way but that of letting down the jib, which had not worked very successfully when already tried, for the mast and hull had caught the wind with alarming success. Should he shout to the men, explain his ignorance, and ask what he should do? If one of the men would swim out to him when he neared them, and take charge of his boat, Bruce did not doubt that all would go well; so he assured himself that no false pride should prevent him confessing that he knew nothing about sailing, should he fail to lay his craft alongside of the wreck.

Meanwhile his boat kept exactly the proper course. The shipwrecked men began to shout, but the wind was against them, so Bruce could not distinguish a word. He hoped that they were hailing him as their deliverer; he also hoped that they would be able to deliver him from the worst trouble in which he had ever found himself. The shouting continued, but Bruce was now too near to pay attention to anything but the tiller, which had seemed to become a thing of life and intelligence. When he got within about a hundred feet of the wreck he heard:

"Isn't it time to drop your jib? And throw us a line, if you please."

Bruce quickly let go the jib-halyard, but in his excitement he forgot to ease the sheet, so the sail declined to fall; the wind kept it in place. A few seconds later the young amateur was thrown from his feet by the shock of his boat striking and breaking the mast of the capsized boat. The force of the collision tumbled the three shipwrecked men into the water; but they quickly scrambled out, and one of them shouted,