enough for them to move out. He shot the rusty bolt holding the doors and pushed it open.
In rushed the wind and out swept angry swallows which had been scolding and chittering at the newcomers from their mud-pocket nests.
“Come on, Let, just don’t stand there dreaming,” her brother ordered. “Pick out a pair of oars that are the right size and then help us shove out this dory, will you?”
Lettie answered doubtfully, “Do you think we should? Mary Pete didn’t say we could.”
“Why else would she tell us where the key was if she didn’t intend us to use her boats? This isn’t a museum. We can both row and swim.”
“Me, too,” said Jo.
“What are we waiting for then? Let’s get going.” Already Will was straining to move the dory. Jo tugged on the opposite side and Lettie, still a bit uncertain, pushed from the stern.
It took a great deal of pushing to get the boat outside but once they had it on the ways sloping down to the water, Will was exuberant. “From here on the going’s easy. It’ll be a cinch.”
They all ran at the dory and gave a shove that should have been powerful enough to carry it to the water. It moved only a short distance; it took a great deal more shoving and pushing before the stubborn orange bow hit the surface of the harbor. Then Will leaped aboard and capered a moment in his joy. “Come on, you fellows, climb aboard!” he ordered. “Jo, into the bow, Let, the stern.”
“Look who’s captain,” was her retort, but she didn’t really mind being bossed today. It was fine to be on the bright water. “Isn’t Mary Pete’s house just beautiful from here? It’s so white and sort of smiling with the sun on its face. And there’s a widow’s walk on top. I bet we could see all the way to Canada if we went up there.”
“Where we bound for, Captain?” asked Jo. “Are we going to roll, roll down to Rio?”
“Tomorrow we will,” answered his cousin. “Today we’ll investigate something near. See those white birds that aren’t terns nor gulls nor anything else I know?” Will jerked his head toward the bay where on its current-streaked surface there were scores of white birds. They hovered in a ragged garland or whirled about like weather vanes.
“Yes,” said Lettie, “there’s millions.”
“Well, we’re going over and study them and discover what they are. I thought we’d be farther on our way there than this. Even with these long oars a dory is harder to row than I thought. I wish we had another pair so two could row.”
Will rowed for a time in silence then he added, “And I wish you two would get lower down; it would help. You aren’t exactly streamlined when you stick up so.”
Obligingly his passengers plumped themselves down on the floor boards.
“O-oh, the boat’s leaking. I’ve sat down in a lot of water,” wailed Lettie, “cold water, too.”
“Golly Moses, the water is coming in for sure. Look, Will, see these little waterfalls all along this one crack in the side,” exclaimed Jo.
Will jerked his head to look, and somehow his abrupt movement released an oar. It slid out from between the two wooden thole pins that held it in place. He leaned out at once to retrieve it but his arm wasn’t long enough. The dory was too high sided for him to reach that oar and cling to the other between its thole pins.
“Grab it, Jo, grab it before it gets past you!” Will shouted.
Jo leaned out over the water as far as he dared but the oar slid past his outstretched fingers as if it had a mind of its own. On and on it sped, bobbing and turning upon itself, toward the whirling, darting sea birds.
Will groaned. “Why, oh, why can that oar travel so fast on its own and we can scarcely move? It’s you lumps of passengers just sitting there, that’s the trouble.”
“What else can we do?” asked Lettie calmly. She was used to Will’s angry spells and wanted to show Jo how to deal with them.
Will said nothing. He began to paddle furiously with the remaining oar. It thumped against the sides as he shifted it and picked up orange paint. Soon Lettie was complaining of being wet from the water he scooped onto her in the process of shifting. As for the runaway oar, it increased the distance between them all the time.
It’s like the White Rabbit hurrying to an appointment, Lettie thought. She didn’t say so; the scowling Will was in no mood for frivolity.
Finally Will said, “No soap. We aren’t moving. I’m going to try skulling. That might work better than this paddling. Move your carcass, there, Lettie, and we’ll switch places.”
The exchange was made. Will laid the shaft of the oar in a semicircular notch that had been cut in the stern’s narrow transom. Then he wiggled the oar blade back and forth in the water.
“Maybe this will work,” Will said. “I’ve read about how you do it, but I’ve never tried it.”
By this time the lost oar had completely disappeared and the dory was making little headway.
Suddenly Jo shouted from the bow, “Turn the boat around, Will! Turn it while you can! There’s a whirlpool beyond us where all those birds are.”
“Whirlpool?” asked Will.
“Yes, sir. I mean it. That’s what made the oar skedaddle so fast. It got caught in the current and pulled along. Don’t you see the whirlpool now?” Jo asked as he pointed.
All three stood cautiously to look across the water. Now the others could see the whirlpool, dark streaks of current winding into a common center. Here was a glassy funnel of sea water, a terrifying version of what happened in the bathtub when the plug was pulled and water rushed down the drain.
“Turn around, Will, turn the dory ’round!” Jo shouted.
Will returned to his skulling and tried to head the bow toward home. The only result was that the dory traveled sideways instead of bow first.
Lettie was down on the floor boards once more. As she shivered and crouched, she envied the strange sea birds. They could fly over this dangerous spot and leave it at will. She hugged her knees and tried not to think about a story she had once read of people sucked into a maelstrom of circling water.
“If only we had a bailing can we could at least get rid of some of the water in the dory,” Jo said, although he knew they had none.
The whirlpool drew all their attention. They never thought of looking away from the vortex that was nearer all the time. So absorbed were they that a small boat with a powerful outboard motor surprised them as it planed up to them. It circled the dory and set it rocking in its wake.
“Why, it’s Black Bart, I bet you anything,” Lettie shouted.
“Sh-sh, he’ll hear you,” Will said. The boat was coming close.
It was Bart Simes, he said so himself, as he came alongside. Then he called, “Got a line aboard there, you kids? Throw it to me if you do and I’ll tow you in.”
Will longed to accept this offer but he answered, “Maybe we can make it by ourselves.”
“Thank you all the same,” said Lettie, making her voice as icy as her wet feet because she spoke to their common enemy.
“Don’t be such goons. Of course you can’t make it in. Been watching you for the last half-hour through my binoculars. I would have come sooner only I thought you needed a lesson. Now if you’ve got a line there, throw it. What about that line roved through your bow. Is that any better than a spiderweb?”
Jo picked up the bow line. It was weathered gray and very soft