Part 5 (2/2)
replied f.a.n.n.y, with energy, as she drew the skiff up to the steps, ready for her more timid companion to embark. ”Now, get in, and don't waste another instant in talking about nothing.”
”You are keeping everything to yourself. If you don't tell me what Mr.
Long wanted of you, I won't get into the boat. Was it about the money you _found_?” asked Kate.
”No; he didn't say a word about that. He only asked me why I was not at school.”
”What did you tell him?”
”I told him the teacher sent us down to get some green branches to put over the clock, for we were to have visitors at school this afternoon.”
”Did he believe you?”
Kate laughed; she appreciated what she regarded as the joke of a clever deception; the wickedness of the act did not disturb her.
”Of course he believed me--why shouldn't he? He has gone up to ask Mrs.
Green if I went to school.”
”But he will find out all about it.”
”No, he won't; besides, if he does, we shall be a mile off when he gets back here again.”
”Didn't he say a word about the money you found?”
”Not a word, Kate. Now, jump in, or we shall certainly get caught. We shall have time enough to talk about these things when we get away from the pier.”
Kate was satisfied, and stepped into the skiff. All her fears related to the money in the possession of her friend, which, she was almost certain, had been stolen. She was moralist enough to understand that even if the money had been found on the floor, as f.a.n.n.y represented, it was just as much stolen as though it had been taken from Mr. Grant's pocket-book. Kate had not engaged in this theft, and she was not willing to bear any of the blame on account of it. If the crime had already been discovered, she did not wish to expose herself to the peril of helping to spend the money. According to f.a.n.n.y's statement, nothing had been found out, and she got into the skiff.
f.a.n.n.y had been among the boats a great deal during her residence at Woodville, and rowing and sailing were suited to her masculine taste.
She was a girl of quick parts; her faculty of imitation was highly developed, and generally what she had seen done she could do herself.
She could row cross-handed very well, and she had no difficulty in pulling the skiff out to the Greyhound's moorings. Kate stepped on board of the sail-boat, and f.a.n.n.y, fastening the painter of the skiff at the stern, began to bustle around with as much confidence as though she had been a skipper ever since she left her cradle.
She had often sailed in the Greyhound with Ben and others, and she knew precisely what was to be done in order to get the boat under way. She understood how to move the tiller in order to make the craft go in a given direction, and had an indistinct idea of beating and tacking; but she was very far from being competent to manage a sailboat.
The stops were removed from the sails, under the direction of the adventurous f.a.n.n.y, and the foresail hoisted. It was a more difficult matter to cast off the moorings, but their united strength accomplished the feat, and the Greyhound, released from the bonds which held her, immediately drifted to the sh.o.r.e, for her unskilful skipper had not trimmed the foresail so that it would draw.
”I thought you knew how to manage a boat,” said Kate, contemptuously.
”So I do,” replied f.a.n.n.y, as she gathered up the fore-sheet, and trimmed the sail.
”What are you doing in here, then?”
”I only came in here to get a fair start,” added the skipper, not at all disconcerted by the mishap.
”Folks don't generally run the boat ash.o.r.e before they start,” sneered Kate, who certainly had no confidence in the seamans.h.i.+p of the feminine skipper.
”That's the way they do it!” exclaimed f.a.n.n.y, triumphantly, as the sail began to draw, and the boat moved off from the sh.o.r.e. ”Now, we are all right. That's just the way I meant to make her go.”
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