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"I'd shut him in the cabin with the old man a spell, till he'd copped off. Now then, son, first thing to do is to chop vents in this yere house." "Hold up we can do better than that," said Wilbur, restraining Kitchell's fury of impatience. "Slide the big skylight off it's loose already." A couple of the schooner's hands were ordered aboard the "Lady Letty," and the skylight removed.
Kitchell's class-room, while Elizabeth, with tardy step and disturbed mind, went to recite to Miss Brosius. The same evening Elizabeth accompanied her roommate to a special meeting of the Young Woman's Christian Association. It had become a custom of the school to hold such meetings before the tests began, but Elizabeth, not knowing this, was wholly ignorant of the object of the meeting.
Too muchee los' time; no can stop. The odd conclave assembled about Kitchell's table the club-man, the half-masculine girl in men's clothes, and the Chinaman. The conference was an angry one, Wilbur and Moran insisting that they be put aboard the steamship, Charlie refusing with calm obstinacy. "I have um chin-chin with China boys las' nigh'. China boy heap flaid, no can stop um steamship.
Their first concern now was to shape their course for Magdalena Bay. Moran and Wilbur looked over Kitchell's charts and log-book, but the girl flung them aside disdainfully. "He's been sailing by the dead reckoning, and his navigation is drivel. Why, a cabin-boy would know better; and, to end with, the chronometer is run down.
In spite of himself, Wilbur was excited. He even found occasion to observe that the life was not so bad, after all. This was as good fun as stalking deer. The dory moved forward by inches. Kitchell's whisper was as faint as a dying infant's: "Steady all, s-stead-ee, sh-stead "
During most of his watches Wilbur was engaged in painting the inside of the cabin, door panels, lintels, and the few scattered moldings; and toward the middle of the first week out, when the "Bertha Millner" was in the latitude of Point Conception, he and three Chinamen, under Kitchell's directions, ratlined down the forerigging and affixed the crow's nest upon the for'mast.
It was more than a change it was a revolution. What he made up his mind to do precisely what mental attitude he decided to adopt, just what new niche he elected wherein to set his feet, it is difficult to say. Only by results could the change be guessed at. He went down the forward hatch at the toe of Kitchell's boot silk-hatted, melton-overcoated, patent-booted, and gloved in suedes.
She was still wearing men's clothing part of Kitchell's outfit and was booted to the knee; but now she wore no hat, and her enormous mane of rye-colored hair was braided into long strands near to the thickness of a man's arm. The redness of her face gave a startling effect to her pale blue eyes and sandy, heavy eyebrows, that easily lowered to a frown.
Then we'll know where we're at. How's the kid?" "She's all right," answered Wilbur, before he could collect his thoughts. But the Captain thought he had reference to the "Bertha." "I mean the kid we found in the wheel-box. He doesn't count in our salvage. The bark's been abandoned as plain as paint. If I thought he stood in our way," and Kitchell's jaw grew salient.
The only point gained by the discussion was opening the eyes of a few to the fact that their point of view might not be the only one. Many felt as Elizabeth. The matter was dropped for the time. The examinations began early in the morning, running through several class periods. Elizabeth, provided with a motley array of examination paraphernalia, entered Dr. Kitchell's class-room.
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