Read Ebook: Harper's Young People September 14 1880 An Illustrated Weekly by Various

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Ebook has 185 lines and 21605 words, and 4 pages

"Ef dey hasn't h'isted de sail! Yah! yah! Gwine to sail dat yot ob mine right across de sand-bank!"

There was hardly wind enough for that; but it would be some time before the tide would rise high enough to float the boat, and the club were not in a state of mind to wait.

"Tell you what, boys, we'll have a cruise," said Bob Fogg. "She's a beauty. Let's have a 'lection of officers before we start."

They were all agreed on that, but Joe McGinnis insisted that the grown-up yacht clubs never had any elections.

"They just draw cuts, boys, and they give the longest straw to the man that owns the club, to begin with."

"That's the best way," said Tommy Conners; "but the General's gone home."

"I'll take his cut for him," shouted Bob Fogg. "I'll choose to be Bo's'n, 'cause I know how to steer."

Nobody objected, although every member of the club said he knew how to steer, and Sty Rankin had a lot of straws ready in half a minute.

Tommy Conners drew the longest straw, and said he would be Captain; but when Gus Martin came next, and decided to be a Commodore, Tommy muttered, ruefully, "I'd forgot about that."

Stuyvesant Rankin's memory was still better, for he had hardly compared his straw with the others before he shouted, "I'll be Admiral of this club."

Put Varick was so stunned by that that he only said, "I'm Cook; there won't be any work for me this trip."

"What am I, then?" asked Joe McGinnis, with the shortest straw in his hand.

"You?" said Bob Fogg; "why, you're the Crew. Take hold of that larboard oar, and pull it out of the mud. There's those three landlubbers up on the bank. They'd pelt us if they dared."

The three landlubbers were there, and they were making loud remarks about the club, but the yacht was almost ready to float now, and no attention could be paid to them.

Just beyond the little creek where General George Washington kept his boat spread the busy waters of the Harlem River, with the great city of New York on both sides, but not very close to the edge of it. It was a very busy sheet of water indeed. There were small steamboats carrying passengers here and there; little tug-boats tugged and puffed and coughed at the sides of big schooners loaded with lumber from Maine; long race-boats, with gayly dressed oarsmen, darted swiftly over the water, like great wooden pickerel, they were so long and sharp and narrow. There were fishing-boats, pleasure-boats, steam-launches, even canoes that were driven by one man and a paddle. But among them all there was no other craft like General George Washington's "yot."

"Boys," exclaimed Captain Conners, "we've forgotten."

"What?" said Admiral Rankin.

"To name the boat."

"Admiral," shouted Boatswain Bob Fogg, "she's beginning to float. You get away forward there, beyond the mast. Captain, you and the Commodore get in the middle. Now, Cook, you and the Crew pull hard a minute, and we'll be out of the mud."

"If there ain't those three landlubbers," exclaimed Boatswain Fogg, "out on the pier head. And they've got a lot of half-bricks to spatter us with."

There they were; but at that moment the wind came up with a sudden puff, and filled the sail which the genius of the General had added to the motive power of that "yot." It was just at the wrong moment, for Captain Tommy Conners and Commodore Gus Martin were having an argument over an extra oar they had found in the bottom of the boat, and they were rocking it badly. The Cook was rowing his best, but the tip of the boat sent his oar deep under water, and the Crew suddenly found his oar lifted out into the air.

"Joe McGinnis, you've caught a crab," exclaimed Boatswain Fogg. But before he could say anything to the Captain and the Commodore, the three landlubbers were at work.

"Oh dear!" said Admiral Stuyvesant Rankin to himself, in the bows. "If the yacht upsets, I'm the only member of the club that's got a new coat on."

"Don't she go! Don't she jest slip fru de watah! She does moah sailin' to de squar' foot dan any odder yot on de ribber."

So she did, if he meant that it took her longer to travel that foot, or any other.

"Tell you what, boys," he said, "it's 'cause she hasn't any keel on her. I have to keep steering all the while. There's no saying where she won't go to."

"Keep along shore," shouted the Admiral from the bows. "You're heading out into the river."

"Now, Sty, if you think you can steer this yacht better than I can, just you come aft and try."

"Hey, there, you young pirates! Where are you heading for?"

"Lookout! Oh--"

Thump. "I declare!"

The first exclamation was from the tall, slim gentleman in the "out-riggered" wherry, who had been racing with the big-armed young man, and had not been looking out well enough.

He tried to turn to the left, but it was very late to try, and the suddenness of it helped him "catch a crab" with his starboard oar. When he said "Oh," he was just going over into the water.

"The river swarms with boys to-day. I'm not sorry that other one got a ducking. I've had to get out of his way twice."

"Don't you know how to steer, you fellows? Don't you know that sailing vessels have the right of way? You ought to have blown your whistle sooner."

"I declare!" again exclaimed the old gentleman. "The child is perfectly right."

"Bo's'n," asked the Commodore, "can't we tack and keep along shore again?"

The slim man managed to get back into his "shell," but he had lost his race with the big-armed man.

"Bo's'n," remarked the Commodore, as they sailed along, "you needn't run us into the mud."

"I guess not," said Bob Fogg; "but if I can steer her close enough to land, I'm going up as far as the bridge."

"Look a-heah, boys, I didn't say you mought cross de 'Lantic Ocean. I wants dat yot to go for some bass."

OLD TIMES IN THE COLONIES.

BY CHARLES CARLETON COFFIN.

HOW THE SETTLERS OF WALPOLE DEFENDED THEMSELVES.

Beautiful the green meadows, the surrounding hills, and the distant mountains forming the landscape in Walpole, New Hampshire, which Colonel Benjamin Bellows and John Kilburn gazed upon on the banks of the Connecticut River in 1749. They had built their log-houses with loop-holes in the walls through which they could fire upon the Indians in case they were attacked. Though peace had been agreed upon between France and England, the people who lived along the frontier felt no security, for the French in Canada were continually urging the Indians to commit depredations on the English. It was a short and easy journey from Crown Point, on Lake Champlain, to the valley of the Connecticut, and the Indians who sold their furs to the French were frequent visitors to the settlements along the Connecticut.

One of the Indians who visited John Kilburn was called Captain Philip. He had been baptized and christened by the Jesuit priests at the Indian village of St. Francis, on the banks of the St. Lawrence, half way from Montreal to Quebec. The St. Francis tribe were called Christian Indians. There were rumors that war would break out again between England and France. Before war was declared hostilities began.

It was in the spring of 1755 that Captain Philip made a visit to John Kilburn's house with some beaver-skins for sale. He wanted powder, bullets, and flints for pay. While he was trading, Captain Philip was running his eyes over the house, looking at the thick timbers, the loop-holes in the walls. When he had finished his trade he visited the other houses in the settlement. He was kindly treated. The settlers never mistrusted that he was taking observations for future use.

August came. The settlers heard that war had begun, and knew that the French and Indians might be upon them at any moment. They strengthened their block-houses. No one went into the field to work alone. They always carried their guns with them. They had some faithful watch-dogs which always growled when Indians were about. There were nearly forty men in the settlement. They were stout-hearted, and were determined not to be driven out by the French and Indians. They appointed Colonel Bellows to be their leader. He had a suspicion that Indians were about.

"We must have a supply of meal, so that in case we are attacked we shall have something to eat," he said.

The settlers filled each a bag with corn, shouldered them, and then, in single file, each man carrying his gun, they marched to the grist-mill which they had erected, ground the corn into meal, shouldered the sacks once more, and started homeward, their faithful watch-dogs trotting in advance, paying no attention to squirrels or partridges, or game of that sort.

Suddenly the dogs came back, growling, the hair on their backs in a ruff.

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