Page:Stanwood Pier--Crashaw brothers.djvu/102

84 understand the fascination of the rowing-machine, and after watching Edward working on it a while and hearing Charles’s comments,  such as, “Don’t rush your slide! Don’t swing crooked! Don’t hang at the full reach!” she would be apt to say, “Dear me, but you’re two  ridiculous boys!”

Yet they liked to have her around to say that, and they were delighted one day when  she asked to be allowed to row on the machine  herself; they whooped with joy at her efforts  to pull the oar and slide at the same time.

Another day their father came up, and he too expressed a desire to show what sort of  an oarsman he was; he took off his coat and  shoved himself back and forth, and pulled so  hard that the perspiration came on his forehead.

“I guess you might have been something of an athlete if only you’d gone to boarding-school when you were young,” was Charles’s  condescending comment.

“You get some power into your stroke, but you have n’t any form,” added Edward.