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What a stretch of imagination is necessary to conceive of the great volume of traffic of the present time, passing Detroit in little schooners not much larger than catboats that skim around the lakes!
The low range was severed by a gorge blasted out by human hands. It was a mountain valley in the making. High up on its sides were dirt and rock trains, dozens of compressed-air drills, their spars resembling the masts of a fleet of catboats at anchor behind these, grimy, powerful steam shovels which rooted and grunted quite like iron hogs.
Sure enough, out of the dark loomed the bulk of a small wharf, with catboats at anchor near it. Higher up, somewhere on the shore, were the lighted windows of a building. "By thunder, we're here!" exclaimed Sam, and drew a long breath. Issy shut off the power altogether, and the Lady May slid easily up to the wharf. Feverishly her skipper made her fast. "Yes, sir!" he cried exultantly.
Inshore was a fleet of small fry catboats, sloops, dories under sail, and a smart smack or two going around to Provincetown with cargoes from the fish pounds. "I shall like it," she murmured after a deeper breath. They came to the outlying dwellings of Cardhaven; then to the head of Main Street that descended gently to the wharves and beaches of the inner harbor.
'Why, a child could run it, says he. 'Look here, Cap'n: To start it you just do this. To stop it you do so and so. To make her go slow you haul back on this lever. To make her go faster you shove down this one. And as for steerin' well, a man that's handled the wheels of as many catboats as you have would simply have a picnic.
And here's where the South Shore Weather Bureau hands another swift jolt to your Uncle Sam." So, after breakfast, the catboats loaded up, the girls giggling and screaming, and the men boarders dressed in what they hoped was sea-togs. They sailed away 'round the lighthouse and headed up the shore, and the wind was sou'east sure and sartin, but the "clearing" part wasn't in sight yet.
And they went up the sandy incline, over the thick undergrowth, and the sun blazed down on the shining water, and half a dozen canvas-covered catboats near the little pier. Several people were sitting on it in bathing clothes, and some one was teaching a little girl to swim. The echo of her gurgling laughter and little cries came to them clearly.
At Claiborne Castle Cleggett has had a shallow lake constructed for him. There the Captain, still firm in the belief that he is a sailor, loves to potter about with catboats and rafts. Dr. Farnsworth enjoys a lucrative position as physician to the Cleggett family, and Kuroki is their butler.
The last of August come and the "Old Home House" was going to close up on the day after Labor Day. Peter was down again, and so was Ebenezer and Belle, and there was to be high jinks to celebrate the season's wind-up. There was to be a grand excursion and clambake at Setuckit Beach and all hands was going four catboats full.
We went, three catboats full of us, and Van and Mabel Seabury was in the same boat. We made the grove all right, and me and Jonadab had our hands full, baking clams and chasing spiders out of the milk, and doing all the chores that makes a picnic so joyfully miserable.
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