II.
THE START
Other good byes had been said; the huge ocean steamer had drawn out ofher pier and, with Mollie and Whistlebinkie on board, together withFlaxilocks and the rest of the family, made her way down the bay,through the Narrows, past Sandy Hook and out to sea. The long low lyingshores of New Jersey, with their white sands and endless lines of villasand summer hotels had gradually sunk below the horizon and the littlemaid was for the first time in her life out of sight of land.
"Isn't it glorious!" cried Mollie, as she breathed in the crisp freshair, and tasted just a tiny bit of the salt spray of the ocean on herlip.
"I guesso," whistled Whistlebinkie, with a little shiver."Think-ide-like-it-better-'fwe-had-alittle-land-in-sight."
"O no, Whistlebinkie," returned Mollie, "it's a great deal safer thisway. There are rocks near the shore but outside here the water is everso deep--more'n six feet I guess. I'd be perfectly happy if theUnwiseman was only with us."
Just then up through one of the big yawning ventilators, that look solike sea-serpents with their big flaming mouths stretched wide open asif to swallow the passengers on deck, came a cracked little voicesinging the following song to a tune that seemed to be made up as itwent along:
"Yo-ho! Yo-ho-- O a sailor's life for me! I love to nail The blithering gale, As I sail the bounding sea. For I'm a glorious stowaway, I've thrown my rake and hoe away, On the briny deep to go away, Yeave-ho--Yeave-ho--Yo-hee!"
"Where have I heard that voice before!" cried Mollie clutchingWhistlebinkie by the hand so hard that he squeaked.
"It's-sizz!" whistled Whistlebinkie excitedly.
"It's what?" cried Mollie.
"It's-his!" repeated Whistlebinkie more correctly.
"Whose--the Unwiseman's?" Mollie whispered with delight.
"Thass-swat-I-think," said Whistlebinkie.
And then the song began again drawing nearer each moment.
"Yeave-ho, Yo-ho, O I love the life so brave. I love to swish Like the porpoise fish Over the foamy wave. So let the salt wind blow-away, All care and trouble throw-away, And lead the life of a Stowaway Yeave-ho--Yeave-ho--Yo-hee!"
"It is he as sure as you're born, Whistlebinkie!" cried Mollie in anecstacy of delight. "I wonder how he came to come."
"I 'dno," said Whistlebinkie. "I guess he's just went and gone."
As Whistlebinkie spoke sure enough, the Unwiseman himself clambered outof the ventilator and leaped lightly on the deck alongside of them stillsinging:
"Yeave-ho, Yo-ho, I love the At-lan-tic. The water's wet And you can bet The motion makes me sick. But let the wavelets flow away You cannot drive the glow away From the heart of the happy Stowaway. Yeave-ho--Yeave-ho--Yo-hee!"
Dear me, what a strange looking figure he was as he jumped down andgreeted Mollie and Whistlebinkie! In place of his old beaver hat he worea broad and shiny tarpaulin. His trousers which were of white duckstiffly starched were neatly creased down the sides, ironed as flat asthey could be got, nearly two feet wide and as spick and span as asnow-flake. On his feet he wore a huge pair of goloshes, and thrownjauntily around his left shoulder and thence down over his right arm tohis waist was what appeared to be a great round life preserver, filledwith air, and heavy enough to support ten persons of his size.
"Shiver my timbers if it ain't Mollie!" he roared as he caught sight ofher. "And Whistlebinkie too--Ahoy there, Fizzledinkie. What's the goodword?"
"Where on earth did you come from?" asked Mollie overjoyed.
"I weighed anchor in the home port at seven bells last night; set mecourse nor-E by sou-sou-west, made for the deep channel running past thered, white and blue buoy on the starboard tack, reefed my galyards inthe teeth o' the blithering gale and sneaked aboard while Captain Binksof the good ship _Nancy B._ was trollin' for oysters off the fishin'banks after windin' up the Port watch," replied the Unwiseman. "It's agreat life, ain't it," he added gazing admiringly about him at thewonderful ship and then over the rail at the still more wonderful ocean.
"But how did you come to come?" asked Mollie.
"Well--ye see after you'd said good-bye to me the other day, I was sortof upset and for the first time in my life I got my newspaper right sideup and began to read it that way," the old gentleman explained. "And Ifell on a story of the briny deep in which a young gentleman named BillyThe Rover Bold sailed from the Spanish main to Kennebunkport in a dory,capturing seventeen brigs, fourteen galleons and a pirate band on theway. It didn't say fourteen galleons of what, but thinkin' it might besoda water, it made my mouth water to think of it, so I decided to rentmy house and come along. About when do you think we'll capture anyBrigs?"
"You rented your house?" asked Mollie in amazement.
"Yes--to a Burgular," said the Unwiseman. "I thought that was the bestway out of it. If the burgular has your house, thinks I, he won't breakinto it, spoiling your locks, or smashing your windows and doors. Whathe's got likewise moreover he won't steal, so the best thing to do is toturn everything over to him right in the beginning and so save yourproperty. So I advertised. Here it is, see?" And the Unwiseman producedthe following copy of his advertisement.
FOR TO BE LET ONE FIRST CLASS PREMISSES ALL MODDERN INCONVENIENCES HOT AND COAL GAS SIXTEEN MILES FROM POLICE STATION POSESSION RIGHT AWAY OFF ONLY BURGULARS NEED APPLY.
Address, The Unwiseman, At Home.
"One of 'em called the next night and he's taken the house for sixmonths," the Unwiseman went on. "He's promised to keep the house clean,to smoke my pipe, look after my Qs and commas, eat my meals regularly,and exercise the umbrella on wet days. It was a very good arrangementall around. He was a very nice polite burgular and as it happened had alot of business he wanted to attend to right in our neighborhood. Hesaid he'd keep an eye on your house too, and I told him about how to getin the back way where the cellar window won't lock. He promised for surehe'd look into it."
"Very kind of him I'm sure," said Mollie dubiously.
"You'd have liked him very much--nicest burgular I ever met. Had realtaking ways," said the Unwiseman.
"Howd-ulike-being-outer-sighter-land?" asked Whistlebinkie.
"Who, me?" asked the Unwiseman. "I wouldn't like it at all. I tookprecious good care that I shouldn't be neither."
"Nonsense," said Mollie. "How can you help yourself?"
"This way," said the Unwiseman with a proud smile of superiority, takinga bottle from his pocket. "See that?" he added.
"Yes," said Mollie. "What is it?"
"It's land, of course," replied the Unwiseman, holding the bottle up inthe light. "Real land off my place at home. Just before I left the houseit occurred to me that it would be pleasant to have some along and Itook a shovel and went out and got a bottle full of it. It makes me feelsafer to have the land in sight all the way over and then it will keepme from being homesick when I'm chasing those Alps down in Swazoozalum."
"Swizz-izzerland!" corrected Whistlebinkie.
"Swit-zer-land!" said Mollie for the instruction of both. "It's notSwazoozalum, or Swizziz-zerland, but Switzerland."
"O I see--rhymes with Hits-yer-land--when the Alp he hits your land,then you think of Switzerland--that it?" asked the Unwiseman.
"Well that's near enough," laughed Mollie. "But how does that bottlekeep you from being homesick?"
"Why--when I begin to pine for my native land, all I've got to do is toopen the bottle and take out a spoonful of it. 'This is my own, mynative land,' the Poet said, and when I look at this bottle so say I.Right out of my own yard, too," said the Unwiseman, hugging the bottletightly to his breast. "It's queer isn't it how I should find out how totravel so comfortably without having to ask anybody."
"I guess you're a genius," suggested Whistlebinkie.
"Maybe I am," agreed the Unwiseman, "but anyhow you know I just knewwhat to do
as soon as I made up my mind to come along."
Mollie looked at him admiringly.
"Take these goloshes for instance. I'm the only person on board thisboat that's got goloshes on," continued the old gentleman, "and yet ifthe boat went down, how on earth could they keep their feet dry? It'sall so simple. Same way with this life preserver--it's nothing but anold bicycle tire I found in your barn, but just think what it would meanto me if I should fall overboard some day."
"Smitey-fine!" whistled Whistlebinkie.
"It is that. All I'll have to do is to sit inside of it and float tillthey lower a boat after me," said the Unwiseman.
"What have you done about getting sea-sick?" asked Mollie.
"Ah--that's the thing that bothered me as much as anything," ejaculatedthe Unwiseman, "but all of a sudden it came to me like a flash. I wasgetting my fishing tackle ready for the trip and when I came to thesinkers, there was the idea as plain as the nose on your face. Six daysout, says I, means thirty-seven meals."
"Thirty-seven?" asked Mollie.
"Yes--three meals a day for six days is--," began the Unwiseman.
"Only eighteen," said Mollie, who for a child of her size was very quickat multiplication.
"So it is," said the Unwiseman, his face growing very red. "So it is. Imust have forgotten to set down five and carry three."
"Looks that way," said Whistlebinkie, with a mirthful squeak through thetop of his hat. "What you did was to set down three and carry seven."
"That's it," said the Unwiseman. "Three and seven makethirty-seven--don't it?"
"Looked at sideways," said Mollie, with a chuckle.
"I know I got it somehow," observed the Unwiseman, his smile returning."So I prepared myself for thirty-seven meals. I brought a lead sinkeralong for each one of them. I'm going to tie one sinker to each meal tokeep it down, and of course I won't be sea-sick at all. There was onlyone other way out of it that I could think of; that was to eatpound-cake all the time, but I was afraid maybe they wouldn't have anyon board, so I brought the sinkers instead."
"It sounds like a pretty good plan," said Whistlebinkie. "Where's yourState-room?"
"I haven't got one," said the Unwiseman. "I really don't need it,because I don't think I'll go to bed all the way across. I want to situp and see the scenery. When you've only got a short time on the waterand aren't likely to make a habit of crossing the ocean it's too bad tomiss any of it, so I didn't take a room."
"I don't think there's much scenery to be seen on the ocean," suggestedMollie. "It's just plain water all the way over."
"O I don't think so," replied the Unwiseman. "I imagine from that storyabout Billy the Rover there's a lot of it. There's the Spanish main forinstance. I want to keep a sharp look out for that and see how itdiffers from Bangor, Maine. Then once in a while you run across alatitude and a longitude. I've never seen either of those and I'm sortof interested to see what they look like. All I know about 'em is thatone of 'em goes up and down and the other goes over and back--I don'texactly know how, but that's the way it is and I'm here to learn. Ishould feel very badly if we happened to pass either of 'em while I wasasleep."
"Naturally," said Mollie.
"Then somewhere out here they've got a thing they call a horrizon, or ahorizon, or something like that," continued the Unwiseman. "I've askedone of the sailors to point it out to me when we come to it, and he saidhe would. Funny thing about it though--he said he'd sailed the ocean forforty-seven years and had never got close enough to it to touch it.'Must be quite a sight close to,' I said, and he said that all thehorrizons he ever saw was from ten to forty miles off. There's a placeout here too where the waves are ninety feet high; and then there's theFishin' Banks--do you know I never knew banks ever went fishin', didyou? Must be a funny sight to see a lot o' banks out fishin'. WhatState-room are you in, Mollie?"
"We've got sixty-nine," said Mollie.
"Sixty-nine," demanded the Unwiseman. "What's that mean?"
"Why it's the number of my room," explained Mollie.
"O," said the Unwiseman scratching his head in a puzzled sort of way."Then you haven't got a State-room?"
"Yes," said Mollie. "It's a State-room."
"I don't quite see," said the Unwiseman, gazing up into the air. "Ifit's a State-room why don't they call it New Jersey, or Kansas, orMitchigan, or some other State? Seems to me a State-room ought to be aState-room."
"I guess maybe there's more rooms on board than there are States,"suggested Whistlebinkie. "There ain't more than sixty States, are there,Mollie?"
"There's only forty-six," said Mollie.
"Ah--then that accounts for number sixty-nine," observed the Unwiseman."They're just keeping a lot of rooms numbered until there's enoughStates to go around."
"I hope we get over all right," put in Whistlebinkie, who wasn't verybrave.
"O I guess we will," said the Unwiseman, cheerfully. "I was speaking tothat sailor on that very point this morning, and he said the chanceswere that we'd go through all right unless we lost one of the screws."
"Screws?" inquired Whistlebinkie.
"Yes--it don't sound possible, but this ship is pushed through the waterby a couple of screws fastened in back there at the stern. It's thescrews sterning that makes the boat go," the Unwiseman remarked with allthe pride of one who really knows what he is talking about. "Of courseif one of 'em came unfastened and fell off we wouldn't go so fast and ifboth of 'em fell off we wouldn't go at all, until we got the sails upand the wind came along and blew us into port."
"Well I never!" said Whistlebinkie.
"O I knew that before I came aboard," said the Unwiseman, sagely. "So Ibrought a half dozen screws along with me. There they are."
And the old gentleman plunged his hand into his pocket and produced sixbright new shining screws.
"You see I'm ready for anything," he observed. "I think every passengerwho takes one of these screwpeller boats--that's what they call 'em,screwpellers--ought to come prepared to furnish any number of screws incase anything happens. I'm not going to tell anybody I've got 'emthough. I'm just holding these back until the Captain tells us thescrews are gone, and then I'll offer mine."
"And suppose yours are lost too, and there ain't any wind for thesails?" demanded Whistlebinkie.
"I've got a pair o' bellows down in my box," said the Unwisemangleefully. "We can sit right behind the sails and blow the wholebusiness right in the teeth of a dead clam."
"Dead what?" roared Mollie.
"A dead clam," said the Unwiseman. "I haven't found out why they call ita dead clam--unless it's because it's so still--but that's the way wesailors refer to a time at sea when there isn't a handful o' wind insight and the ocean is so smooth that even the billows are afraid toroll in it for fear they'd roll off."
"We sailors!" ejaculated Whistlebinkie, scornfully under his breath."Hoh!"
"Well you certainly are pretty well prepared for whatever happens,aren't you, Mr. Unwiseman," said Mollie admiringly.
"I like to think so," said the old gentleman. "There's only one thingI've overlooked," he added.
"Wass-that?" asked Whistlebinkie.
"I have most unaccountably forgotten to bring my skates along, and I'msure I don't know what would happen to me without 'em if by somemischance we ran into an iceberg and I was left aboard of it when thesteamer backed away," the Unwiseman remarked.
Here the deck steward came along with a trayful of steaming cups ofchicken broth.
"Broth, ma'am," he said politely to Mollie.
"Thank you," said Mollie. "I think I will."
Whistlebinkie and the Unwiseman also helped themselves, and a fewminutes later the Unwiseman disappeared bearing his cup in his hand. Itwas three hours after this that Mollie again encountered him, sittingdown near the stern of the vessel, a doleful look upon his face, and thecup of chicken broth untasted and cold in his hands.
"What's the matter, dearie?" the little girl asked.
"O--nothing," he said, "only I-
-I've been trying for the past threehours to find out how to tie a sinker to this soup and it regularlystumps me. I can tie it to the cup, but whether it's the motion of theship or something else, I don't know what, I can't think of swallowing_that_ without feeling queer here."
And the poor old gentleman rubbed his stomach and looked forlornly outto sea.