Tom, Dick and Harriet/Chapter 13

HEN Saturday came the four walked over to the Cove through a blinding snow-storm to view the ice-boat. Dick piloted them down to the edge of the river, where, in a little shed in Johnson’s Shipyard, were two timbers bolted and braced together in the shape of a cross which Dick declared was the ice-boat. The mast was ready but not yet stepped and the narrow oval at one end which Dick called a cockpit was still unfinished. Harry was distinctly disappointed.

“I’d be afraid to sail on that, Dick,” she confided earnestly. “I might tumble off.”

Roy and Chub, however, were enthusiastic over the craft. The tapering backbone of shining whitewood and the runner-plank of the same material looked very business-like. Stays of steel wire led from the runner-plank forward and back to the ends of the backbone, with turn-buckles to tighten them. The rigging also, Dick explained, was to be of wire. The sails were promised for the middle of the next week, and on the following Saturday the boat was to be launched. On the way back to school there was little opportunity for conversation, since it was necessary to fight against the wind and sleet at every step. But afterward, before a roaring fire in the study room, they discussed the matter of a name. Harry had written down eleven names and Roy and Chub had one or two to suggest besides. Harry’s suggestions, much to her disappointment, didn’t find favor. Such names as Ice Queen, Reindeer and Fleetwing were, Dick thought, rather too ladylike, as he expressed it.

“I’d thought of Storm King,” said Roy tentatively.

“Not bad, but it doesn’t suggest speed,” Dick said. “How would Tempest do?”

“Tempest sounds like rain,” Chub objected, “with thunder and lightning on the side.”

“That’s so. What’s your name for it, Chub?”

“Oh, I’ve got just the thing,” answered Chub modestly. “What do you say to Polar Bear?”

“Might as well call it Teddy Bear,” scoffed Roy. “Polar bears aren’t fast.”

“Aren’t they, though? Did you ever have one chase you?”

“No, did you?”

“Lots,” answered Chub. “They can run like sixty!”

“Besides,” said Harry, “polar bears aren’t green, and the boat’s going to be green.”

“Polar bears are green before they’re boiled,” said Chub flippantly. “And anyway the boat isn’t painted yet. It could just as well be white as green.”

“Why don’t you name it Dick?” asked Roy. “You’re about the fastest thing on the ice I know of.”

“Glacier?” queried Chub.

“Icy, but slow,” said Dick.

“I know!” cried Harry. “North Wind!”

“That’s not bad, is it?” asked Dick. “Only I suppose it’s been used dozens of times. I’ll put that down, anyway. Try again, Harry.”

Harry settled her chin in the palm of one hand and frowned intensely at the leaping flames.

“Blast!” exclaimed Chub. “You speak of an icy blast, don’t you know?”

“Yes, but you’d think right away of dynamite,” laughed Dick.

“I suppose you would if you had no more poetry or romance in your soul than you have, you wild Westerner!”

“Isn’t there a bird that lives on ice?” asked Harry suddenly.

“Never heard of one,” Roy laughed. “He’d get cramps.”

“I mean that lives where there’s nothing but ice, Smarty,” said Harry indignantly.

“Then he’d have to eat it, wouldn’t he?”

“Quit your fooling,” said Chub. “Estrella De Vere is in earnest. You are quite right, Harry. The little bird you are thinking of is the ice-pick. It makes its nest in refrigerators and lives on lemon ice-cream and pineapple sherbet.”

“I think you’re all horrid,” said Harry. “There is a bird, Dick, isn’t there?”

“There’s the eider-duck,” answered Dick.

“Which plucks the feathers from its own breast and makes them into eiderdown quilts,” added Chub. “We will call the boat the Eiderdown Quilt.”

“Oh, cut it out, Chub,” said Roy. “Talk sense, can’t you?”

“You ask the impossible,” murmured Chub.

“Well, so far we’ve got only one worth considering,” said Dick. “That’s North Wind. What do you think of it?”

“Sounds good to me,” said Chub.

“All right, I think,” Roy replied.

“Can’t think of anything better, any of you?”

Roy and Chub shook their heads.

“Well, we don’t have to decide on it yet,” said Dick. “And maybe we’ll think of something else before Saturday. I’m going up-stairs; any one coming?”

“Wait!” cried Harry. “I know!”

“Estrella De Vere has got an idea,” chanted Chub.

“I know the very thing,” went on Harry with sparkling eyes.

“Out with it,” said Roy.

“Boreas!”

The three boys looked at each other inquiringly.

“Boreas,” muttered Dick.

“Boreas,” echoed Roy.

“Boreas,” pondered Chub.

“That’s not half bad, is it?” asked Dick. “Boreas was—was—who was he?”

“He was the north wind,” said Chub. “He’s in mythology, you know.”

“I like it,” Roy declared. “It sounds sort of blustery and cold and—and—”

“Boreas it is!” said Dick with decision. Chub leaped up and seized Harry’s hand and shook it enthusiastically.

“I congratulate you,” he said earnestly. “You have won the prize and won’t have to risk your life on the boat!”

“But it’s a good name, isn’t it, Dick?” Harry asked eagerly.

“Fine,” Dick replied. “I had a feeling all along that you would be the one to find a name for us.”

“Well, what do you think of that?” asked Chub indignantly. “I could have suggested Boreas long ago, only I wanted to give Harry a chance to save her life.”

“Now we’ve got a name,” said Roy, “all that remains is to get the boat. I wish it was next Saturday now, Dick.”

“So do I,” Chub chimed in. “Three cheers for the Boreas!”

Just a week later the Boreas took the water—I should say ice. The launching was not a ceremonious affair, nor was it largely attended. There were present that Saturday morning Dick, Chub, the builder, four small boys and the builder’s assistant. I mention them in the order of their apparent importance. The Boreas, resplendent in new dark green paint, was awaiting the ceremony on the edge of the ice, varnished spars shining in the sunlight, creamy sails furled on the booms and the wire rigging gleaming like silver strands.

There may be some of my readers who have never met with a real live ice-boat, and for their benefit a few words about the craft in general may not be out of place. The plan of an ice-boat is practically a triangle, the stern being the apex and each angle terminating in a steel runner. The runner at the apex or stern is movable and does duty as a rudder. But what might be called the deck plan of an ice-boat shows an elongated lozenge enclosing a cross. The cross is formed by the fore-and-aft timber, called the backbone, and the transverse timber called the runner-plank. At the ends of the latter are attached the fixed runners, and from a point near-by wire braces run forward to the bow end of the backbone and aft to the stern, forming the outline of the lozenge. At the extreme end of the backbone is the steering-box, which corresponds to the cockpit of a water craft. This is usually shaped like a flattened oval, cushioned or carpeted and is large enough to hold two persons, one on each side of the backbone. The mast is set forward of the intersection of the two timbers.

There are two popular styles of rig: the jib and mainsail—like a sloop—and the lateen, a single sail triangular in shape. But whatever rig is used, the effort is made to have the center of weight as low as possible, and to this end the sails are made broad and low as compared with the sails on water boats. By lowering the center of weight the danger of capsizing is lessened.

The Boreas was rigged with jib and mainsail. Doubtless experienced ice-yachtsmen would have found much to criticize. Even Dick acknowledged that the mast was far too short and the sail area much less than it should have been. Also there were awkward points of construction resulting from lack of knowledge. But Dick was very well satisfied for all that, and Mr. Johnson viewed the result of his labor with pride. The ceremonies attending the launching—which was really no launching at all, since the boat was on the ice when the boys arrived at the scene—were short and simple. Dick handed a check to the builder—a rather good-sized check it was, too—and Chub, striking an attitude, cried: “I christen you Boreas!” As Chub said, there wasn’t any bow in sight and so it would have been idle to have brought even a bottle of root beer along with them.

Dick unlashed the sails and hoisted them one after the other. They looked very fine in the sunlight and he ran his eye over their expanse of creamy whiteness with admiration. Then he and the builder turned their attention to the mooring line, and Chub, curled up in the steering-box with his hand on the tiller, sang “Mister Johnson, turn me loose!” And a moment later they were gliding gently away from the shore with the runners singing softly as they slid over the hard ice. Dick took the tiller and the boat’s head turned up-stream. They waved a good-by to the figures on the shore, and none too soon, for the gleaming sails caught the wind fairly and the Boreas began to gain speed every moment.

“Say, can’t she go?” asked Chub, watching the shore go by with amazement.

“She seems all right, doesn’t she?” replied Dick. “But she isn’t really going now. The wind’s dead astern.”

“Well, it’s pretty good for a starter,” answered Chub. “A fellow feels a little bit uneasy just at first, eh?”

“Well, it’s sort of funny, and that’s a fact,” owned Dick. “And until I’ve learned a little more about the thing I’m not taking any chances. There are several tricks I want to try.”

“How fast do you suppose we’re going?” asked Chub. Dick shook his head.

“Blest if I know. I was never on one before. We’ll call it fifteen miles an hour.”

“Bet you it’s nearer thirty!” said Chub.

“When you go that fast you’ll know it,” Dick answered grimly. “Hold fast now; I’m going to tack her a bit.”

“Don’t you think we’re going fast enough as—” began Chub.

But the inquiry ended in an exclamation of alarm as one runner lifted itself off the ice and the boat heeled over.

“Is that safe?” asked Chub anxiously.

“Sure; two runners are enough any day,” Dick shouted back.

But he eased up on the helm and the boat settled back again, and Chub gave vent to a sigh of relief. Dick looked over and smiled.

“You see,” said Chub apologetically, “I kind of like to keep in touch with things.”

“Watch out for Thurston’s boat,” said Dick. “If we come across her we’ll sort of get a line on our sailing ability maybe.”

“Don’t see anything of her,” answered Chub, “but my eyes are watering so I can’t see much of anything. What’s that over there across the river?” Dick turned to look.

“Coleville,” he answered.

“What!” cried Chub. “Already? Why, we haven’t been going a minute! Talk about your automobiles!”

News of the ice-boat had got out days before, and when the Boreas drew near to the landing at Ferry Hill most of the school was on hand to welcome it. For a first attempt Dick’s handling of the craft as he swung it around and ran it nose into the wind beside the landing was very creditable. Dozens of eager hands aided to hold the boat and numerous voices were raised in petition.

“Let me go with you, Somes?”

“You promised me, Dick! Don’t forget!”

“I’m going, ain’t I, Dick? Just for a minute, eh?”

“Don’t bother him! He can’t take every one, can you, Dick? He’s going to take me this time and then the rest of you fellows will have your chance.”

“I’m not going to take any one this time,” answered Dick. “I’m going to get the hang of her and maybe I’ll turn her over. And I don’t want any fellow to get hurt. I’ll give every one a ride when I get around to it. Shove her bow off a bit, will you, Chub?”

Chub, who had disembarked not altogether unwillingly, obeyed and the Boreas darted away from the shore with Dick lying low in the steering-box. For the next half-hour he put the boat through her paces, while the group on shore watched. He had read everything he could find on the subject of ice-yachting and there were many things he wanted to settle to his own satisfaction. One of them was the fact that an ice-boat will go faster across the wind than with it. Dick was no sailor and at first the proposition had struck him as a bit startling. “Many persons,” said his authority, “fancy that a yacht goes faster before the wind than in any other direction, but this is not necessarily so. If the wind is blowing at a velocity of ten miles an hour, the yacht cannot possibly make more than that amount of speed. In other words, the boat can travel no faster than the wind itself. If it did the sails would be aback instead of drawing. It is on what yachtsmen call a ‘reach’—that is, with the wind on the quarter or the beam—that a yacht may sail faster than the wind is blowing.”

Dick proved this very speedily, for the Boreas, while she slid along very well with the wind behind, instantly increased her speed when she was sent on a tack. He also discovered among other things that it was extremely unwise to move the tiller abruptly when the boat was going fast. He tried it once and only saved himself from taking a flying leap across the ice by the veriest miracle. But it was vastly exhilarating, even in the little eight-mile breeze which was blowing up the river, and when the boat was on a leeward reach with the windward runner high off the ice and the runner-plank slanting up at a good angle, the sensation he received was as near like that of flying as anything could be, he thought.

He made up his mind that the next time he ventured out he would be more warmly dressed, for the wind drove right through his sweater, and his hands under his woolen gloves felt like pieces of ice. When, at last, he headed back down the river on a broad tack for the landing he was quite ready to exchange the steering-box of the Boreas for a place in front of the fireplace in the study-room. Willing hands helped him pull the boat up on the bank and furl the sails. Then, with Harry and Roy and Chub as immediate body-guard, he set off up the hill toward the dormitory and dinner. To the latter he brought a most appreciative appetite.

In the afternoon Roy had his first trip, and later, when he had been safely returned to the rink for the hockey game, Chub took his place. The Boreas spun up the river for some fifteen miles and by the time the cruise was over Chub had got over his nervousness and was as enthusiastic an ice-yachtsman as ever wept in the teeth of a gale.