o get the best depth of water would be to go to
the lower side of the wide, shallow creek-mouth, and then to enter the
stream in that affectionate style of navigation called "hugging the
shore."

And that is the way we did it. But with all the affection that could be
put into the matter, we could not find along that shore any such water
as the chart indicated; and Gadabout was beginning to need it sorely.
So, we sent the sailor out to see where it had gone to. He found it
over on the other side of the creek. Our confidence in the chart had
been betrayed. Depending upon it, we had been hugging the wrong shore.

At first, we thought little of the matter; for, our side of the stream
having played us false, we felt no hesitancy in transferring our
affections to the other side. But we found that poor Gadabout took
things much more seriously. She could not so lightly "off with the old
love and on with the new." For her the affair had already gone too far;
already, for the side she was now on, she had formed a serious, a
hopeless, a lasting attachment.

Our craft aground, our prospects of attending church next day vanished.
Slowly the tide went down; slowly the moon came up; and Nautica made
some candy. By the time it was ready to be put out on the guard to
cool, even what little we had found of Powell's Creek had
disappeared--all about us was just moonlight and mud. And ahead of us
and behind us (sticking down a little way in the mud, but sticking up
more in the moonlight) were the two anchors that we had put out to hold
us in position when the tide should rise in the night. They looked like
great crabs sitting there and watching us.

Of course, sometime in the darkness, Gadabout rose on the flood tide,
and perhaps was even ready to cross to the other side of the creek and
proceed to church. But nobody else was ready then; and so, finding all
asleep, she slowly settled down once more, and we found her in the
morning again hard aground. The good minister of Merchants' Hope Church
must surely have reached "Seventhly, my brethren," before our houseboat
was afloat.

Now, we moved her out in deeper water (for it would not do that she
should be aground next day when we ought to be starting for Eppes
Creek); and it was gratifying this time when we cast our anchors, to
see them go plumping out of sight as anchors should, instead of looking
so distressingly unnautical with flukes sticking up in the air.

But mooring a boat (sec