d to
change places with Dotty.

"Keep still, can't you, girls?" cried Johnny; "if you fuss round so the
boat'll be sure to upset."

Johnny looked as dignified as if he had navigated ships across the
Atlantic Ocean over and over again; but then, alas! his arms were so
little! I suppose his paddle had nearly as much effect as if it had been
an iron spoon; and he probably knew as much about boating as he did
about the dead languages. Solly and Freddy were several years older, and
considerably wiser; but the wisdom of all these five children, if it
had been compounded together, would not have amounted to the wisdom of
the three wise men of Gotham who went to sea in a bowl.

"O, dear!" screamed Dotty.

"O, dear! dear! _dear!_" cried Lina; "the water rolls in over the top!"

"Can't you steer for the shore, Solly Rosenbug?" said Dotty.

"You hadn't oughter made us come," sobbed Lina.

Johnny joined the mournful chorus.

"There goes my hat! You were in pretty business knocking it off my head,
Dot Dimple!"

"I never; and I didn't mean to," replied Dotty, too much subdued to
retort with her usual spirit.

"Fish it out with the paddle," remarked Solly, coolly.

This was intended as a joke, for the hat was already bounding far, far
away over the waste of waters. Dotty knew she should always be accused
of losing it, though in her secret soul she was sure the wind had blown
it off. But a new hat, as we all know, is a mere trifle when we have
gone to sea in a bowl! The first thing we think of is how to get home.

"Ahem!" ejaculated Solly, at last, "if you are really afraid, Lina, I
suppose we'd better go ashore!"

Lina clapped her hands. "O, do! do! do!"

"Yes, indeed," said Dotty; "and, Solly, don't you bump _too_ hard
against the shore, 'cause 'twould spill us out."

It was very easy to talk about touching the shore: all the difficulty
lay in being able to do it. Not that it was so very distant; indeed, it
was in full sight, "so near, and yet so far!" If the wind had only been
quiet, instead of "cracking its cheeks!" But, as it was, the boat rocked
fearfully, and seemed to be blowing directly away from the land.

Solly and the deaf and dumb boy looked at each other with eyes which
seemed to say,--

"The thing is coming to a pretty pass! Only you and I to manage this
craft, and we neither of us know what we are about! But we'll keep a
stiff upper lip, and make believe we do!"

"Why, Solly Rosenbug!" said Dotty,