a practical knowledge of craft in general Ralph
was not slow to point out the defects of ours. Tom and I defended her
passionately.

Ralph was not a romanticist. He was a born leader, excelling at
organized games, exercising over boys the sort of fascination that comes
from doing everything better and more easily than others. It was only
during the progress of such enterprises as this affair of the Petrel
that I succeeded in winning their allegiance; bit by bit, as Tom's had
been won, fanning their enthusiasm by impersonating at once Achilles
and Homer, recruiting while relating the Odyssey of the expedition in
glowing colours. Ralph always scoffed, and when I had no scheme on foot
they went back to him. Having surveyed the boat and predicted calamity,
he departed, leaving a circle of quaint and youthful figures around the
Petrel in the shed: Gene Hollister, romantically inclined, yet somewhat
hampered by a strict parental supervision; Ralph's cousin Ham Durrett,
who was even then a rather fat boy, good-natured but selfish; Don and
Harry Ewan, my second cousins; Mac and Nancy Willett and Sam and Sophy
McAlery. Nancy was a tomboy, not to be denied, and Sophy her shadow. We
held a council, the all-important question of which was how to get the
Petrel to the water, and what water to get her to. The river was not to
be thought of, and Blackstone Lake some six miles from town. Finally,
Logan's mill-pond was decided on,--a muddy sheet on the outskirts of
the city. But how to get her to Logan's mill-pond? Cephas was at length
consulted. It turned out that he had a coloured friend who went by the
impressive name of Thomas Jefferson Taliaferro (pronounced Tolliver),
who was in the express business; and who, after surveying the boat
with some misgivings,--for she was ten feet long,--finally consented to
transport her to "tide-water" for the sum of two dollars. But it proved
that our combined resources only amounted to a dollar and seventy-five
cents. Ham Durrett never contributed to anything. On this sum Thomas
Jefferson compromised.

Saturday dawned clear, with a stiff March wind catching up the dust into
eddies and whirling it down the street. No sooner was my father safely
on his way to his office than Thomas Jefferson was reported to be in
the alley, where we assembled, surveying with some misgivings Thomas
Jefferson's steed, whose ability to haul the Petrel two miles seemed
somewhat doubtful. Other difficulties developed;