"It's Cricket that does that," said Archie; "she always scares the wind into coming up immediately. There's a puff now. The very mention of Cricket's whistling does the business."
But the wind only freshened for a moment, then died down, and in ten minutes more they lay motionless on a glassy sea.
"Now here we'll stay," said Edna with a sigh, "until the sea-breeze springs up this afternoon at four or five. What time is it now? Two o'clock! Think of it!"
"The tide takes us along a little," said Mrs. Somers. "If we only had the other oar now!"
"Too much work," said Archie; but, nevertheless, he adjusted the oar at the stern, and sculled a little. The boat moved very slowly forward.
"If we go six feet in an hour, how long will it take us to go seven miles?" propounded Eunice.
"Those questions are too difficult to be answered off-hand," said Will, sculling in his turn. "Sounds like Alice in Wonderland. If two boys eat a turkey at Thanksgiving, how many girls will eat a plum-pudding at Christmas?"
"I know a better one than that," put in Archie. "Two men set out simultaneously, at different times, on a journey, both being unable to travel. For two hours they kept ahead of each other, and then a snow-storm came up, and they both lost their way. Query: Which got there first?"
"How silly!" said Edna. "How could they set out simultaneously, at different times, mamma?"
"That's the question for your deep brain, Miss Wiseacre," said Archie. "Perhaps you're equal to this. If three men work all day on a fertile farm, what is the logarithm?"
"The lager-in-'em?" echoed Cricket. "Depends on how much they drank."
Whereupon Mrs. Somers and the boys laughed themselves sore, and the girls clamoured to know the joke.
"Cricket's a born joke," said Will, resuming his sculling. "You'll be the death of me, young one."
"I always see jokes when there are any to see," Cricket answered, with dignity. "You know I do, Mr. Will. I'm not just as worse as Edna."
"Let's play some games, children," Mrs. Somers said, coming to the rescue. The children were all fond of games.
"What shall it be first, then?" went on Auntie Jean, adjusting the cushions behind her back and resting her umbrella against the rail.
"Don't you know? We play it lots. Somebody goes out--"