Page:Ballinger Price--The Happy Venture.djvu/33

Rh squeak of the halliards through the sheaves, and the scrape of the gaff going up.

"Go 'n lend 'em a hand, boy, since yer so gone on it," the jerseyed one recommended quite understandingly. So Ken went and hauled at a rope, and watched the great expanse of sodden gray canvas rise and shiver and straighten into a dark square against the sky. He imagined himself one of the crew of the Celestine, hoisting the foresail in a South American port.

The sail rose steadily to the unsung chorus. Ken was quite happy.

He walked all the way home—it was a long walk—with his head full of plans for a seafaring life, and his nostrils still filled with the strange, fascinating, composite smell of the docks.

Felicia met him at the gate. She looked quite done for, he thought, and she caught his sleeve.

"Where have you been?" she said, with a queer little excited hitch in her voice. "I've been almost wild, waiting for you. Mother's