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Page 17
"What is it, children? What has happened?" implored Miss Jones, with a
white, scared face. Lillian pointed ahead of her, but only the kitchen
stove was to be seen. Madge and Phil, who had followed close behind
their chaperon, were equally mystified.
But hark! What was the noise they heard all at once? A gentle
crackling, a roar, a burst of flame, and a puff of smoke up through the
long stove pipe! The pipe went through a hole cut in the side of the
wall. "A fire, a fire!" exclaimed Lillian joyously, wondering why the
others looked so startled.
There was really a fire burning in the stove of the houseboat kitchen!
And as a fire is a first sign to the pioneer that he is at last at
home, so the little company felt themselves to be the original girl
pioneers in houseboat adventures, and felt the same thrill of peace and
pleasure.
Madge seized the shining new tea-kettle and filled it with water from
the big bucket that rested on a shelf just outside the kitchen door.
"Madge, put the kettle on,
Madge, put the kettle on,
We'll all take tea,"
She sang in a sweet, high, rapturous voice.
Toot, toot, toot! a motor boat whistle sounded out on the water. The
four girls rushed on deck to call a greeting to the engineer who was to
tow their houseboat down the bay, until it found an anchorage in a cove
in the bay near a stream of clear water.
Four weary but happy girls sat out on deck on cushions as the engineer
made fast to their boat preparatory to starting. The chaperon was
installed in the solitary grandeur of their one steamer chair.
There was a heavy tug at the great rope that bound the houseboat to the
little motor tug. The motor boat moved out into the bay, and with
almost no perceptible motion and no noise, except the gentle ripple of
the water purling against the sides of the craft, the houseboat
followed it. The longed-for vacation on the water had begun.
CHAPTER VI
PLEASURE BAY
Just before twilight the boat reached a spot that seemed especially
created for the travelers. For two hours they had been silently
drinking in the beauty of the sun-lit bay and the green earth. They
were not in the main body of the great Chesapeake Bay, but in one of
the long arms of the bay that reaches into the Maryland coast.
"Look ahead of you, girls, to the left," called Phyllis Alden, as they
glided slowly along.
Miss Jones and the three girls looked. There, in a curve of the land,
was a low bank, with great clusters of purple iris growing along it,
among the slender, long, green stems of the "cat-tails." An elm tree
stood close to the edge of the water, spreading its branches out over
the miniature sea. It was so strong, so big and enduring that it gave
the home-seeking girls a sense of protection. The elm's branches could
shelter them from the sun by day, and at night their boat could be tied
to its trunk. Farther up the bank the girls could see a comfortable
old, gray, shingled farmhouse. The farm meant water, fresh eggs, milk
and butter.
Madge looked inquiringly at their chaperon, who nodded with an
expression of entire satisfaction. Next, Madge glanced about the
semi-circle of eager faces. "Shall we cast our anchor in Pleasure
Bay?" she asked, and thus the pleasant little inland sea was named.
Madge signaled to the motor boat ahead, and the engineer stopped. He
had several passengers on board his motor boat, but the men had been
inside the saloon most of the time, and no one on board the houseboat
had noticed them.
Before the houseboat anchored Madge and Phil ran up the hill to ask at
the farmhouse for the privilege of making a landing. They had learned
a lesson they were not likely to forget.
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