her. She was a bone of contention that
each feared to gnaw. While the poor little craft lay on the beach, or
in the gutter above the sea-wall, the mice ate holes into her old sail
and her gear was distributed half-way over Under Town.

Granfer, however, had in his cottage an old dinghy sail that fits the
_Moondaisy_. Her yard and boom were in his linhay, the sheet and
downhaul in Tony's. One oar, the tholepins, and the ballast bags have
not yet been found. I bent on the sail, spliced the sheet to the boom;
borrowed tholepins from Uncle Jake,[7] ballast bags and a mackerel line
with a very rusty hook from Tony, an oar from John--and, at last, put
to sea.

[7] Granfer's brother, Tony's uncle.

The wind--westerly, off land--was too puffy for making the sheet fast.
I held it with one hand and tried to fish with the other. In order not
to stop the way of the boat and risk losing the lead on the sea-bottom,
I wore her round to lew'ard, instead of tacking to wind'ard. A squall
came down, the sail gybed quickly, and the boom slewed over with a
jerk, just grazing the top of my head. Had that boom been a couple of
inches lower, or my head an inch or two higher.... I should have been
prevented from sailing the _Moondaisy_ home, pending recovery from
a bashed skull. Everything aboard that was loose, myself included,
scuttled down to lew'ard with a horrid rattle. A malicious little gush
of clear green water, just flecked with foam, spurted in over the gun'l
amidships. I wondered whether I could have swum far with a cracked
skull: the _Moondaisy_'s iron drop-keel would have sunk her, of
course. Why I was fool enough to wear the boat round so carelessly, I
don't know.

Anyhow, I wound up the mackerel line; my catch, nil. Such an occurrence
makes one very respectful towards the fisherman who singlehanded can
sail his boat and manage five mackerel lines at once--one on the thwart
to lew'ard and one to wind'ard; a bobber on the mizzen halyard and two
bobbers on poles projecting from the boat. He must keep his hands on
five lines, the tiller and the sheet; his eyes on the boat's course,
the sea, the weather and the luff of the sail. Probably I know rather
more of the theory of sailing than he does; but, when a squall blackens
the sea to wind'ard, whilst I am thinking whether to run into the wind
or ease off the sheet; whilst by doing neither or both, I very nearly
capsize, or else stop the boat's way and lose my mackerel leads